Spirals

by Scott Bergin

  Excited, Alex raced down the spiral staircase. With the helmet showing the way, he entered the center of the two staircases. Thomas' body lay on the floor in front of him. For the first time, Alex could identify the object Thomas had impaled himself on. It was a pick axe. The handle lay on the floor beneath his back, and under one leg. Alex walked over to his fresh corpse. Prying loose Thomas' dead fingers, Alex managed to retrieve the page from the diary. On the first side, Alex saw the usual message. It was the reverse side that startled him. In the museum in Cameroon, he had only seen the front side. Ever since then, he only had the opportunity to look at the photograph, not the actual page. The other side of the page simplified the puzzle. It showed a drawing of four spiral staircases, intertwined. Alex shined the light onto a nearby stone. It showed the date of fifteen twenty eight. He realized what Da Vinci's plans were, and why they had changed. Leonardo Da Vinci had originally planned for Chambord to contain a much larger central staircase. One that consisted of four spiral staircases, all being wound around one another. Unfortunately, Da Vinci died before the staircase was ever constructed. The man who took over the project, scaled it back to two staircases. Francis I must have known what Da Vinci meant, when he mentioned the four in his note. Since, the alterations would not have come until after Da Vinci's death. Alex realized that there was still a reasonable chance that Francis I understood, and followed Da Vinci's last wish. There was also the chance that no one else had discovered the treasure yet.

  Alex shined the light back onto Thomas' body. He wondered why Thomas had bothered bringing a pick axe, and a miner's helmet with him. Then, he noticed something strange about the scene. There was no second spike visible on the pick axe. Alex grabbed hold of Thomas' collar, and pulled. His body slowly slid off the pick axe. The sound of crunching bone made Alex uneasy, and he let Thomas' mangled body fall to the ground. Alex looked back at where the body had landed. The other end of the pick axe was sunken into the floor. The floor appeared to be made of small thick red stones, but that was just an illusion. The stones were only twice as thick as tiles. He pulled the bloodied pick axe out of the floor. The axe left a two-inch diameter hole in the floor. Alex shined the light down into the hole, as best he could. All he could see, was broken stone, and dirt. He sat back, and thought for a moment. If four staircases were wrapped around one another, they would only meet in two places, at the top, and at the bottom. Alex shined the light toward the ceiling. It would be unlikely to hide something of value in a castle's ceiling. Underneath the floor would be a much better choice.

  After dragging Thomas' body out of the way, Alex began chopping away at the floor. He broke through in a couple of places, each time revealing hollow space below. He used the pick axe to pry up the stones, and within half an hour, he had removed most of the flooring. Alex scooped up huge handfuls of dirt, and threw them out of the hole he was now digging with his bare hands. Less than a foot down, Alex felt wood. He quickly swept the dirt off the wood, to reveal its size. It was a crate, only three feet long and one foot wide. Alex tried to pull the crate free, but it wouldn't budge. He thought about opening it without removing it, but decided against it. He continued to dig around the crate frantically, for ten minutes. Eventually, he was able to pull the crate free. Alex carried the crate out into the chateau's hallway, away from the rubble. The crate was three feet tall, so he had to lean it up against a wall while he returned for the pick axe. Alex carefully pried the wooden box open with the axe. His jaw fell wide in awe, as the crate fell open. Staring at him, from inside the crate was the Mona Lisa. He reached out his hand to touch the unframed duplicate of the famous portrait, and it fell forward. Alex caught the painting, and spotted several smaller items behind it. He carefully removed the picture from the crate. As he was turning it to face the wall, he noticed the painting on the backside of the Mona Lisa. It was almost a mirror image. Except, instead of a woman in the familiar pose, it was Leonardo Da Vinci himself. Alex looked back into the open crate. He picked up what he had seen before, several sketches and diagrams. As he examined them, Alex realized what they had been used for. They described how to take a picture and reverse it. That was how Leonardo Da Vinci had originally made the Mona Lisa. He had taken a self portrait, and reversed it. Then, he had simply toned down the features, and made it resemble a woman. Alex picked up the painting. He swung it back and forth, looking at each side for less than a second. Without a close examination, the two pictures appeared almost identical. Alex placed the painting, along with the sketches, back into the crate.

  As dawn began to lighten up the sky, more than the moon had, Alex carried the crate out the back of Chambord. He made his way quietly back to his black Mercedes. The crate fit nicely into the back seat. Alex got into the car, and casually drove away from the scene. As he drove, he started thinking about what he had, and what he was going to do now. He knew that the picture in the back seat was worth an unimaginable fortune. Not only was it worth the price of the Mona Lisa, but it was also the only portrait Leonardo Da Vinci painted of himself. When the two were added together, with the revelation of the woman's true identity, the value of the painting became inconceivable. Alex turned his thoughts of greed toward the real price. The painting had cost the lives of so many people, including Gabrielle. Alex decided that he would not be able to keep all of the profit he would make, once he smuggled the painting out of the country. He would give half of it to Gabrielle's family. She had paid with her life for searching for it, even if she had only been trying to catch Thomas. Alex didn't head for Nice. With the painting in the back of his car, he headed straight for England. There was no need to deal with any more French police than he absolutely had to. When he got out of the country with the painting, only then would he explain to the police what had happened. Of course, he would tell them that the gem did not really exist, and he would blame Thomas LaRue for digging through the floor of Chambord. Aside from those little white lies, he would tell the truth. After that, Alex would begin to search for his first lost love, Maria Douglas. He realized that her message had been correct after all. The spirals had continued, in the form of a staircase. Alex wondered what the connection was between him and Maria. All he knew for certain, was that something still existed. The real reason Alex decided to search for Maria, was what she had said to him on the plane to Mali. Her last words were, "Nothing is finished until you let it be."

  The End