The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black
Page 28
Throughout the train, the sound of this lilting music filled the air and, as music does, it served to bring forth all the joy and sadness and triumph and defeat and pleasure each person on that train had ever felt, budding in each of them a strong, indistinct, but deeply personal blossom of emotion. The sound of Noah and Ariana flowed through the train, seeping into restless minds and pounding hearts.
That night, five young inventors were tucked into five warm, cozy beds. They were each kissed on the forehead by their parents. There had been moments of doubt and fear, not only about their safety, but also about their parents’ love. But there, in the close comfort of their cabins, they all did feel loved. Unquestionably loved.
Noah fell asleep to the sound of his mother’s voice. Faye rested comfortably as her parents fussed over her pillows and blankets.
And Lucy and Jasper went to bed wondering what the future held. Jasper felt under the pillow where Lucy always kept the journal. It wasn’t there.
“Where’s the journal?” asked Jasper.
“I gave it to Wallace to keep for now,” said Lucy.
Jasper was surprised. Lucy had always felt it was hers. “Why did you give it to Wallace?” he asked.
“Because I thought he should have it for now. For tonight,” said Lucy. “He needed it because he needed to know he was a hero.”
Jasper did not really follow the whole path of Lucy’s logic, but he understood the kindness his sister had shown Wallace. True, they were a team, but it was Wallace who had, in the end, saved the day—and saved Lucy. And he’d sacrificed the most important work of his life to do it.
Jasper reached his hand out to his sister. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “Whatever happens, we have each other.”
“I know,” Lucy said, reaching for Jasper with one hand and wiping her tears with the other. “But I’m afraid of Mummy and Daddy leaving us again.”
Jasper wanted to make her feel better, but he had no idea what tomorrow would bring.
As he lay on his bed, Wallace turned the last page on his last entry in the Young Inventors Guild journal. He smiled as he thought of Lucy’s funny gesture, offering for him to keep the journal. Lucy had an uncanny kind of honesty that held wisdom in its innocence. Wallace had decided to fill in the final notes from Sole Manner Farm, and when his work was complete, he placed in the book another page, a blank white page, waiting to be filled. What goes there? he wondered.
Smiling to himself, he tied the string around the book, placed the journal in his bag, and climbed down. Something came to him as he was pushing the journal under the bed. “Did mother sing to me, Father?” he asked.
He looked over at his father, who had fallen asleep still wearing his spectacles. Wallace got up and leaned over the edge of his father’s bed. He took off his father’s glasses and folded them, placing them on the bedside table.
Wallace yawned and felt the weight of sleep upon him. He was about to climb back into bed, but instead climbed in with his father. Cuddling close, he turned out the light.
Faye had a moment of uncertainty as she drew closer to slumber. She worried, just for a few moments, that maybe, just maybe, she had been prideful and wrong to believe it was the aeroplane that Komar Romak or Reginald Roderick Kattaning or whoever he was, wanted. In those twilight moments between awake and asleep, she considered that Reginald Roderick Kattaning had demanded the thing. “The thing,” he had said precisely, the “thing” and the “pieces.” Reginald Roderick Kattaning had indeed mentioned the aeroplane, of that she was sure, but did he actually ask for it?
That’s just silliness, she thought, yawning and feeling sleepily reassured. And as real sleep pressed its advances upon her, she smiled. What else could he possibly have wanted?
The last pair of eyes closed, and Miss Brett fell soundly into slumber. Deeply relaxed, she slept easily now that her charges were safely present. The green and gold train ambled on into the night. All aboard slept soundly, as the mysteries that were to come tomorrow lay just beyond the horizon.
— Book Two —
PROLOGUE
The following article appeared in The New York Times, fall, 1903 (actual date withheld).
The police came to the conclusion that the young man was Italian. This was because Italian coins were found in his jacket pocket, and because his rather worn clothes had tailoring marks in Italian. The trousers, it was noted, were made in Italia.
But in truth, these were not such terribly mysterious or important clues. In truth, the fact that the murdered man was Italian would matter little to the police of New York City. In truth, they would never know what had happened in that tunnel or why.
The article did, however, fail to mention three terribly mysterious and important clues. First, in the right hand of the victim was a corner of a map showing a sliver of the Apennines mountain range. Second, in the left hand of the victim was a fistful of black feathers. Third—and the absence of this clue from the article was in no way the fault of the journalist, his editors, the coroner, or the police investigators at the scene, because this terribly mysterious and important clue was gone by the time any of them found the body—hidden by a rock, down the tunnel, in the shadows, there was a crumpled envelope with a broken wax seal and a torn note inside that, when it was intact and legible, read simply, “They will be on the train.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Mom, Dad, Nate, Lu, Jeffrey, Jules, Lyric, Cyrus, and Jill
To the wonderful friends and readers from all over the world:
Alexander Carlsson
Alexandra Curtis Boyer
Andrea Spira
Andrew Ferguson
April Sugarman
Barbara Price
Bernie Schwartz
Chuchi Oka Zeh
Clare Fleishman
Cyrus Unger Bowditch
Jeff
Cliodhna Noonan
Danny Neville
David Bredin
Doris Bowman and her friends up in Scotland
Dr. Brandon Canfield
Dr. Dorothee Heisenberg
Dr. Gavin Rae
Dr. Trent Pomplun
Elizabeth Bredin
Ford Duvall
Gabriella Gensheimer
Innes Wyness
Jane Cowper
Jason Williford
Jennifer Fugate
Jorge Verlenden
Joseph and Rosie Pearce
Josh Dalsimer
Julius Unger Bowditch
Kate Bowditch
Laura Bradford
David
Lavanda Davis
Lisa Dalsimer
Lukas Hager
Lynn Towart
Lyric Unger Bowditch
Madeline Cowper
Dr. Marla Friend Hartzen
Mary Bauer
Maya Rinehart
Mia Dixler
Michele Carlsson
Mohini Kumar
Nate Unger Bowditch
Ned Oldham
Pascale Rozier
Patrick Ervin
Polly Thomas
Rachel Tunis
Randi Danforth
Sandy All en
Sebastian Bauer
Shireen Akram-Boshar
Sih Oka-Zeh
Sonali Edwards
Stephen Bredin
Steve Parke
Tracy Copes
Wendy Vissar
Michael
To the incomparable Harrison Demchick, who has an eye and an ear capable of knowing more than the rest of us. I wish you were not always right. It would have been so much easier. And to Bruce, who never wavers when he finds something he trusts—and then works unendingly to make it the best it can be.
To Jonathan Scott Fuqua, who has the brilliant habit of standing when all the world is sitting down and for speaking out when all the world doesn’t seem to bother. I can never thank you enough.
For my children, Julius, Lyric, and Cyrus, who showed me where “magic” falls short and t
hat real magic is something we can touch.
And to the love of my life, without whom I just wouldn’t be—Nate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eden Unger Bowditch has been writing since she was very small. She has been writing since she could use her brain to think of something to say. She wrote at the University of California, Berkeley, and she wrote songs as a member of the band enormous.
She has written stories and plays and shopping lists and screenplays and dreams and poems—and also books about her longtime Baltimore home. She has lived in Chicago and France and other places on the planet, and has been a journalist, as well as a welder, and an editor, and other things, too.
The Atomic Weight of Secrets is her first young adult novel, and she has been as excited writing it as she hopes you are reading it.
Presently, Eden lives with her family (husband and three children) in Cairo, Egypt. But that’s another story entirely...