“Hm.” I could see Simone considering the pros and cons of my idea. “And that was your dad’s plan, right? To find the spear and trade it in for your safety.”
“I think so.”
“We’d have to know where to look. We can’t leave without a plan.”
“We?” I hadn’t planned on Simone wanting to go with me.
“Well, yeah.” She smiled. “Someone has to watch your back. So any ideas on where to start?”
“I’m hoping there’s something in this notebook my dad gave me.” I pulled it out of my small messenger bag.
“How about Brother G—think he can help?”
“I don’t think he wants us to know too much. Plus, I don’t know how much I trust him. He said he used to be Hastati—what if he turns us over to them?” I flipped through the pages of the journal. Many of them had detailed drawings of paintings or buildings, while others had random names and dates. I immediately recognized the familiar, elegant handwriting of my father. “It’s written in Spanish,” I mumbled, turning over several pages that he had crossed out with a big X.
A dull ache formed in my chest as I thought of the countless times my father had insisted I practice my Spanish. Always telling me that if he could learn English after arriving in America on a raft from Cuba as a young man, then I should be able to learn Spanish from the comfort of whatever nice suburban home we were renting at the time.
“So?” Simone commented as I stared at the first page, lost in thought. “I thought you spoke English and Spanish.”
“I do, kinda.” I let out a sigh. “It’s just … my dad wrote this.”
“But that’s good!” She sat next to me on the bed. The springs underneath us squeaked from the added weight. “That means we’ll know what he was thinking. Didn’t Brother Gregorio say he was close to finding the spear? Go to the last page,” Simone suggested, peering over my shoulder. “See what his last words were.”
I knew she didn’t mean it was the last thing my father would ever write, but it felt ominous nonetheless. I flipped about two-thirds through the small journal and found his last entry. The only thing written was:
En la ciudad que se está muriendo, nadie recibe el secreto hasta que el hombre que nadie ve contesta la pregunta.
My father had circled the quote several times and drawn little question marks around it. Then, underneath, he had written CDB with a big exclamation mark.
“In the city that is dying, no one receives the secret until the man that no one sees answers the question,” I said out loud, translating the quote to English.
“Does that mean anything to you?” Simone asked me. “Is it some kind of riddle?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. Might be an old Cuban saying or something. I don’t know.”
“What about ‘CDB’? Somebody’s initials?”
“No clue,” I said and flipped back to the beginning of the journal. There were descriptions of paintings that I knew he had studied or lectured about in his classes, but I didn’t know what any of it meant. Some of it corresponded to places we’d lived, but most of it meant nothing to me. I saw Brother Gregorio’s name and address in one of the middle pages, and the next-to-last page had a list of items like he was planning to go on a trip.
“What was he doing?” I said to myself.
“What did you say?”
I looked up at Simone and saw her cell phone was in her hand. “Why do you have that out? I told you they might track us.”
“They probably know we’re here by now. Plus, didn’t the monk tell you that there was some kind of truce or magic force field with that ring where they can’t get us in here?” She stuffed the phone back into her jeans. “Doesn’t matter anyway. There’s no cell phone signal and the Wi-Fi is locked.” She walked back to me. “But we should try to look up the dying-city thing when we find a computer. They have to have one if they have secure Wi-Fi.”
“And I just thought of another problem.” I dumped everything from my bag. A lip gloss, the two fake passports, a few pens, a pack of gum, and my wallet scattered across the bed. “What do we do when we figure out where we want to go? You don’t have a purse, and all I have is about twenty euros. That won’t get us very far.”
“I can take care of that.” Simone cocked her head to the side. “Being Sarah Bimington’s daughter does have its perks, you know. I just need to make a couple of calls for things to happen.”
“Are you sure you want to do that? It’s still not too late to bail. I won’t be upset. It would probably make more sense if you did.”
“Don’t ask me that anymore. I’m not leaving … especially since I now know why I’m here.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, even if it’s not exactly what I’d imagined.” She gave me a wink. “Every hero needs a sidekick.”
A best friend. Everyone deserved one, but I never thought I’d get one. I’d spent most of my life moving from one American college town to another, meeting new groups of kids at every stop. At first I convinced myself that they were all my friends, but eventually I figured out that the moment I was gone, so was their memory of me. It was all just temporary, because I was only passing through. I’d decided that real friends were for other people, until I met Simone. We became inseparable from the day when Latchke railed on her for not having turned in an assignment, and I pointed out that I’d seen him drop several papers earlier in the hallway. Simone had jumped on that idea, saying he could’ve lost her assignment, and we turned the tables on him. Later, I came to find out that Simone had never done the assignment, but by then a friendship had been formed.
Now it was because of Simone that I felt like this was something I could handle.
“We should shower and change. Get the grime from the tunnel off of us before we keep going,” Simone suggested, holding one of the shirts my dad had packed for me.
“We do smell a little rancid.” I thought about the putrid water that had splashed all over the bottom of my jeans. Yes, feeling clean with new clothes might even help us come up with fresh ideas about what to do next. “Just grab whatever clothes you think might fit … although the pants will be short on you. I’ll go after you’re done.”
“Okay. I won’t take long,” Simone said, slipping into the bathroom. I got comfortable on the bed and turned on the TV, since I knew Simone would be a while. She always took forever to get ready.
I watched the news, hoping that there might be some information about the shooting or my dad, but there was nothing.
By the time the sports reporter finished giving the latest soccer scores, there was a knock at the door. I quickly shoved my father’s journal under the mattress.
“Cassie?” It was Asher. “Dinner will be ready in about half an hour.”
“Okay, sure,” I called out. “We’ll meet you down there.”
A few minutes later Simone came out of the bathroom, wearing my T-shirt and a pair of jeans that looked like capris. Her hair was wrapped in a towel.
“See, I didn’t take too long.” She pointed to the TV. “Anything about them shooting up my house?”
I had completely forgotten that an attack on Sarah Bimington’s house would be a much more newsworthy event than my dad’s shooting, but it hadn’t been covered, either. “No … nothing.” I looked at the small alarm clock on the night table. “And thirty-four minutes isn’t exactly fast.”
“It is for me.” She plopped down on the bed. “You should try taking a long shower. It helps you think.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I shrugged, feeling exhausted. “They want us downstairs for dinner in a little bit … although I can’t even think about food right now.” I hugged the pillow. “I just feel like curling up on this bed, going to sleep, and waking up tomorrow to find out that this was all some crazy nightmare.”
“Well, unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“I know,” I said and slid off the bed for my turn in the bathroom.
By the time I finished
, I had a renewed sense of energy. Simone had been right about the shower. It not only made me feel refreshed, but I felt more focused. It was obvious that we needed more information before we could set up a plan to get the spear, and that meant we needed to do some investigating into the dying city.
“Ready to get some answers?” I asked, combing through my wet hair as Simone shut off the hairdryer.
“Let’s go see what Mr. Junior Monk can tell us.”
Leaving the bedroom, Simone and I stepped into the breezeway, which was now lit by sconces with lightbulbs that mimicked flickering candles. The interior courtyard had grown dark with nightfall.
“This place is a little creepy,” I whispered to Simone as we approached the stairs.
The monastery was the type of place that might have a dungeon or a secret lab. I was about to make a joke about Asher being an improvement over Dr. Frankenstein’s Igor when I spotted him rounding the corner.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” he told us. “Zio wanted me to come up and get you.”
“Zio? As in uncle?” I asked. “You’re Brother Gregorio’s nephew?”
“Yeah, guess I should have mentioned that before.”
I exchanged a quick look with Simone. This answered one question. He wasn’t a monk-in-training; he was family.
We cut through the courtyard garden to get to the kitchen and dining rooms.
“So, have you lived here long?” I asked, initiating phase one of my plan—information gathering.
“About five years, since I was ten. Zio … Brother Gregorio … took me in after my parents passed away.”
“Oh.” I glanced at Simone, not knowing what else to say after that.
“Anyone else live here?” Simone asked.
Asher shook his head. “Nope. Just my uncle and me.”
“So do you go to school around here?” Simone asked, stopping to look at a marble bust propped on top of a stone pillar.
“No,” he answered.
“Isn’t that a little strange? Just staying here with your uncle all the time.” Simone was like a newspaper reporter digging for facts. “Don’t you want to go to school?”
“No. Yes.” He took a deep breath and started over. “I mean, it’s not strange, and I already go to school … online.” Asher’s jaw squared out a bit. “What’s with all the questions anyway?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged. “Just curious and trying to sort things out. Get to know where we are.”
Asher’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, I guess it is pretty overwhelming.”
“You said you study online,” Simone called out, her face only an inch away from the pillar, as she’d gotten closer to read the bronze plaque hidden in the shadows. “Can we use your computer?”
Asher reached for the handle of the door that led directly into the dining room. “I don’t know if you’re allowed to go online. I’ll have to ask my uncle.”
“Of course you do.” Simone rolled her eyes as she walked over to us. “Heaven forbid you just say yes.”
“You don’t get it.” Asher opened the door. “And you never will. This is bigger than you imagine.”
“Oh, I can imagine pretty big things.” Simone squeezed between the two of us. “Unlike boys who’ve been locked up in a monastery … I get out.”
“Hey,” Asher said. “You don’t know anything about me. I go out plenty like any normal guy.”
“Yeah, really normal.” Simone shook her head and walked into the dining room.
It was obvious that Asher wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He just stood there. I placed a hand on his arm. I wanted more information.
“Listen, she didn’t mean anything. She’s just stressed. You’re lucky to have Brother Gregorio; he seems very nice.” Asher stayed still, his muscles tensed while his eyes tracked Simone through the French doors as she walked from the dining room to the kitchen. “My mother passed away when I was little, so I understand how important it is to have someone,” I said.
“I know. You were just a baby.” He was still glaring at Simone, silent darts shooting from his eyes through the glass doors.
“Wait, what?” I pulled away from him. “You know about my mom?”
“Huh?” Asher snapped back into the present and looked at me, confused.
“You said you knew my mother had died. What else do you know about me?”
“Not much. Just that you and your dad moved to Rome a little while ago. That you have the birthmark, basic stuff like that.”
I stayed quiet. There was nothing basic about this information. He probably knew more about what was happening with me than I did.
Asher fidgeted with his hoodie’s zipper. “We should go in and have dinner. Zio doesn’t like the food to get cold.” He took a step toward the open door.
“Wait.” I stretched my arm across the doorway, blocking him. “Just tell me something.” I flashed him my ring. “Why do you have to wear one like this? Do you have a birthmark, too?”
“What did Zio tell you?” he replied.
“He didn’t say anything. That’s why I’m asking you.”
Asher looked unsure of what to do next. His eyes darted over to the dining room, then back to me. “I wear it because it’s my duty.”
“What does that mean?”
He unhooked my fingers from the doorframe. “My family has always been there to protect and serve. It’s what we do.”
“Protect and serve? Like a cop?”
“Something like that.” He pointed to Brother Gregorio walking back from the kitchen with Simone. “We should go in. He might have information about your father.”
If he was trying to distract me, it worked. At the mention of my father, all other questions faded to the background. I needed to know if he’d been found.
“This isn’t over,” I said, walking into the brightly lit dining room.
“It hasn’t even started,” Asher answered.
“Cassandra,” Brother Gregorio greeted me as I walked into the room. “I was just telling Simone that I prepared my famous pasta fagioli soup and some lamb chops for dinner.”
“Thank you,” I said, not terribly interested in the menu, “but were you able to find out anything about my father or Niurka?”
“The housekeeper is fine. She wasn’t even there when the shooting happened.”
I let out a sigh of relief. At least that was one person I hadn’t put in danger.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have news yet on your father, but I hope to hear something soon. I’ve made some calls.” He shuffled over to one of the rustic wooden chairs and pulled it out for Simone.
“Thank you,” Simone said, taking her seat.
I stayed standing. “But was he at the hospital? Why wouldn’t they give me information?” I asked, throwing away my plan to play it cool.
“I’m not sure. We’ll find out more shortly.” Brother Gregorio motioned for Asher to pull back my chair. “Have a seat.”
“I got it,” I said, pushing Asher’s hand out of the way and pulling out my own chair.
Brother Gregorio’s bushy gray eyebrows twitched as he glanced over at Asher, who shrugged in response.
“I’m afraid we don’t have much information on the journal that was left behind, either.” Brother Gregorio ladled some soup into a bowl and passed it to me. “Asher couldn’t find it when he went by a little while ago.”
“Hold on,” Simone interrupted. “He was inside my house?”
“Nice place,” Asher replied. “Like museum meets cheap world bazaar.”
“Was Niurka there? Maybe she has it,” I suggested, unable to hide my disappointment at having lost such a valuable clue.
Simone was still fixated on the fact that Asher had been inside her house. “I’ll have you know that everything I own is legit and expensive,” she retorted. “My mother sends back only the finest things from her trips.”
Asher had a look of satisfaction at having gotten under Simone’s skin. “If you say so.” He faced me. �
�And the housekeeper was there, but said she hadn’t seen it.”
“We made sure the police listed the entire thing as random vandalism so as not to bring any more attention to the matter.” Brother Gregorio stopped for a moment, silently praying over his food before he continued speaking. “Of course, I contacted your mother, Simone. I explained that your house had been attacked, but that you were safe at the monastery. However, she’d still like to speak with you. You can call her after dinner from the house phone.”
“Wasn’t she worried about me? I mean, freaked out or anything?”
“Of course she was concerned, but she considers you very self-reliant. She seemed reassured to hear that I was affiliated with your school and that I’d make sure your absence is excused.”
Simone’s shoulders dropped a little.
“You said you’re affiliated with our school. How?” I asked.
“Let’s just say I have some friends there,” said Brother Gregorio.
“And yet Asher doesn’t attend,” Simone mused. “Interesting.”
“This is where I need to be.” Asher made no eye contact with anyone, but instead focused on his soup.
“But why are you here, Asher? Who are you here to protect?” I asked, hoping that every small revelation would get me closer to the answers I needed.
Brother Gregorio wiped the edges of his beard, near the corners of his mouth, with a napkin before motioning toward Simone. “Cassandra, as I explained earlier, some matters are private and require—”
I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms. “Brother Gregorio, I appreciate all you’re doing for me, really I do, but Simone knows everything. There’s no need to keep secrets when I’ll just tell her later.”
Simone rolled her shoulders back, a victorious twinkle in her eye.
“Ridiculous,” Asher exclaimed, dropping his spoon in disgust. Just then, the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” he announced, thrusting his chair back and storming out toward the living room.
“My nephew is still learning to control his emotions,” Brother Gregorio commented after Asher left the room. “You’ll have to forgive him. But you do need to understand something. The Hastati value secrecy above all else. If anyone else learns of this, you are putting them and your father in danger. There can be no loose ends. Even the existence of the Hastati is shrouded in mystery.”
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