Thank you…
She left the message on the inspector’s desk, exited the office, walked briskly down the hall and out the front door as if she had been sauntering out of police stations all her life.
Standing on the pavement out front, with a look of joy and relief, was Clooney. Faithful as ever.
Hannah had never been happier to see a pair of ridiculously ill-fitting sunglasses.
r
On the bus back to the Old City of Jerusalem, Hannah filled Clooney in on Andrepont and his actual friendship with Henri. It seemed that nothing was the way she first assumed. The treasure of King Solomon’s temple turned out to be a magical ring of wisdom. Henri’s friend from the university was actually his worst enemy. And the man Hannah feared most was now suddenly her ally. What else could possibly be turned on its head?
Well, the next illustration, of course…
Hannah opened the journal to the sixth illustration. Flipping it right side up, she studied it, trying to get a sense of where it might be. It appeared to be the upper part of a small arch. The arch was carved, and the area around it was adorned with candles and tapestries. Without clues to guide her, it was impossible to say exactly where it might be, so she removed her camera and switched on the power.
Hannah pressed the button to review the last photograph. It was the one Clooney took at the Dome of the Rock before her arrest.
In the picture, she saw the rock itself where Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, supposedly departed for heaven. Superimposed upon the rock, Hannah saw the ghostly image of a cross. But not just any cross. Each of the cross’s four arms were equal in size. And surrounding the cross were four more crosses, exactly the same, only smaller.
Clooney sighed. “I’m Muslim. You are Jewish. Too bad we don’t have a third person along, someone who actually knows something about Christianity and crosses.”
“Funny you should say that,” said Hannah, clutching the medallion around her neck and lifting it for him to see. “We would never have figured it out, if it were not for this.”
“It’s the same cross!” exclaimed Clooney. “Do you know what it means?”
“Henri said this cross is called the ‘Order of the Holy Sepulcher’. It was the symbol used by Jerusalem’s knights long ago. Their job was to protect the Holy Sepulcher itself.”
“The Holy Sepulcher? What’s that?”
“I will show you.”
“You mean you know where it is?”
“Of course. It is the most famous Christian church in the world. And it’s easy to find. We just follow the Via Dolorosa.”
Hannah and Clooney departed the bus, entering the Old City through Jaffa Gate. Once inside, they found themselves in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem and walking along a cobbled lane known at the Via Dolorosa, which meant, ‘Way of Suffering’. It was the supposed path Jesus had walked while carrying the cross. Along the Via they passed countless shops selling crosses, antiques, cheap souvenirs, T-shirts, framed images of Jesus, and many sellers of books. Instead of orthodox Jews with their black brimmed hats, or women in hijabs buying vegetables in the Arab market, the streets of the Christian Quarter were swarming with nuns in their blue habits and priests in long gowns. It was like another world entirely.
There were also many tour groups, with tour guides pointing out the various stations along the path that Jesus supposedly walked toward his crucifixion.
And all the tours led to the same place. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In the church’s outer court, tour groups congregated in a seething mass, waiting their turn for entry. According to Christians, this was the place Jesus was crucified on the cross. It also held the tomb where Jesus’ body was interred, or laid to rest.
As Hannah looked up at the imposing front wall, feeling the excitement of those people waiting to get in, she couldn’t help but see a pattern emerging.
Jesus was a direct descendant of King Solomon. For Christians, this church was their holiest site. Just like the Dome of the Rock for the Muslims. And the Western Wall for the Jews.
The map in Hannah’s backpack appeared to be taking her on a tour through the last three-thousand years of Israel’s major religions—from Judaism, to Islam, and lastly to Christianity—all of them locked together by a shared history in this solitary, enchanted city and a magical ring once worn by its wisest king.
Hannah and Clooney entered the church. The first thing they saw were several people crowded around a flat, rectangular stone on the floor. The people kneeled or crouched and rubbed the flat stone with black plastic bags. Hannah sensed this wasn’t what she was looking for, but couldn’t help wondering what was going on. She asked a nun beside her.
The nun was Filipino and answered in broken English that this was called the ‘the stone of anointing.’ It was believed to be the stone Jesus’ body was laid upon after his death. The black plastic bags, the nun explained with a smile, were filled with souvenirs and cheap trinkets people had purchased in the markets, which they hoped to bless by rubbing them against the stone.
The nun attached herself to Hannah and Clooney as their guide, clearly inspired to share what she felt were the most significant parts of this church.
Moving on, Hannah was shown room after room with high vaulted ceilings and wonderfully carved walls and colorful lanterns and candles and much goldwork on altars. It was a feast for the eyes. But it wasn’t until the nun led them into the rotunda that Hannah knew, with complete certainty, she had found what she sought.
The rotunda was a large chamber with a domed ceiling high above. In the center of the dome was a round opening that let in the sun, and it beamed down upon them, lighting the entirety of the chamber.
And there in the center of the chamber stood the crypt of Jesus.
The crypt was like a small stone temple in itself, situated in the center of the room. A long line of people wound around the crypt, waiting for their turn to enter and pray before
Jesus’ tomb.
But what interested Hannah was not the crypt, or the long queues of people, or the spectacular sunlight beaming down from above. It was the arch. The little arch leading into the tomb. It was identical to the sixth illustration in her journal.
Hannah thanked their guide and politely sent her away.
“That’s the place,” whispered Clooney, pointing to the decorative arch above the tomb’s doorway.
Hannah nodded, removing her camera from her backpack. She adjusted the camera settings so they matched the encoded exposure in the journal:
f.1.4 160 2600
She snapped the photo.
She pushed the button to review the picture.
“Whoa…” said Clooney. “Are those what I think they are?”
Hannah could only stare.
This image was not like the others.
r
The camera in Hannah’s hands displayed an image of the arch above Jesus’ tomb. The actual arch and the image were identical. But unlike the actual arch, the camera’s version included a second image on top of it. The second image looked like the phantom of a ruined wall, standing alone in the sea, completely surrounded by water. And below the wall were written a series of symbols:
“They look like hieroglyphs,” said Clooney.
“They are,” said Hannah. “They’re Egyptian.”
“How do you know for certain?”
“Because I can read them. Henri taught me.”
Clooney looked dumbstruck. Apparently most children here in Jerusalem weren’t taught Egyptian hieroglyphics along with their ABCs. But then, most children didn’t have Henri Dubuisson for a grandfather.
She quickly translated the glyphs into this:
A C R E
That was the easy part. It was the wall that stumped her. The strange ruined wall, surrounded by water. Who had ever heard of an ancient wall in the oc
ean? And how did it get there? It was magnificent and magical, but part of Hannah wondered if the wall really existed.
“Well,” she said. “I have no idea where the wall is. But I can read the glyphs. They spell ACRE.”
“What’s ACRE?” asked Clooney.
“I don’t know.”
“And why would Julien write in Egyptian?”
Hannah thought about it. “That part makes sense, actually. Israel was once part of Egypt. Right up until about 2000 BCE. Maybe he is directing us toward something very old.”
“What in Israel could be that old?”
Hannah didn’t know. She decided to give the Internet a shot. As she typed ACRE into the search bar, she wondered what Henri would think if he realized just how much of her ‘archaeological sleuthing’ had been accomplished by Google.
The Internet brought back over two-hundred-million pages related to the search word: ACRE.
Hannah quickly glanced through the first five hits. Each one described an acre as a British unit of measurement. A measurement of land. Somehow Hannah didn’t think this definition fit.
“Let’s sit down,” she said. “I need to think.”
“Sounds good to me. I need a coffee.”
They left the church of the Holy Sepulcher and took seats at an outdoor café in the Christian Quarter. Hannah ordered fresh squeezed orange juice and a falafel. Clooney had his coffee, and then another. They watched the people from every corner of the world, in every mode of dress, wandering the narrow lanes.
As Hannah observed a cat hunting scraps beneath the tables, her mind ran through possibilities, trying to figure out what acre meant. What was Julien trying to tell her with this clue? There was only one illustration left. She felt certain that once she understood the meaning of acre, she would reach the last point on the map and therefore the Seal of Solomon.
“Acre, acre, acre…” she whispered to herself, pronouncing it differently each time, hoping the sound itself might jolt some realization. “Acre, acre, acre…”
“Did you say Akko?” asked Clooney, looking at his reflection in the sheen of the granite table. He had spent the last few minutes searching for the first signs of a moustache.
Hannah looked at him. “No.”
He continued to turn his head this way and that to better view his top lip. “Oh. For a minute, I thought you said Akko.”
“I don’t even know what that is. What is Akko?”
“Just a place,” he said. “Some place my uncle took us one summer. A port town up north on the Haifa Bay.”
“Akko is a place?”
“That’s how we say it in Arabic, anyway. I don’t know what you would call it in French. Will you look at this for me? Right here… I think this might be a hair.”
Hannah ignored him, feeling the spark of an idea.
Out came the phone and good old Google. This time, instead of searching for acre, she did an Internet search for Akko.
Immediately, her phone filled with hit after hit, page after page, all of them about a famous UNESCO heritage city in the north. The city of Akko, the Internet said, was one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. So far, a perfect fit. They needed something old, and Akko was that.
She read on. About midway down the page she halted, her eyes glued to the phone.
“Clooney,” she said, barely able to contain her excitement. “Read what this says.”
She passed him the phone. He began scanning the article, his lips mumbling as he read. Then his eyes bugged out and he turned to her. “It says Akko is the new name for the city. The original name was Acre.”
“This is it!” she cried. “Acre is what Akko was called in Julien’s day. That’s where the wall in the sea is located!”
“And somewhere inside that wall,” said Clooney, “will be the Seal of Solomon…”
r
The sun was setting. All across the city, the domes and towers and ancient stone walls of Jerusalem took on a ruddy hue. In the mosques, loudspeakers crackled to life, and the haunting voices of the muezzin singers called Muslims to pray.
“We should take the train,” said Clooney. “There’s a night train that goes all the way to Akko. We will be there by morning.”
Hannah wanted to take a cab to the railway station, but her emergency fund was running low, and she had no idea how much two tickets to Akko would cost. So they walked.
It was a long walk, and the whole way, Hannah was on the look out for Cancellarii spies. She nearly jumped out of her skin each time a motorcycle sped by, or when someone’s eyes lingered overlong or turned to follow her passing. It was nighttime when they reached the railway station. It stood alone on the road, bathed in a halogen glow, the ticket booth and turnstiles out front.
“Two tickets to Akko,” said Hannah. She paid for their passage, and they squeezed through the turnstiles, awaiting the next train on the platform.
Waiting on the platform with them was a small group of backpackers. Teenagers sitting on huge rucksacks, texting on phones. There was also a family of orthodox Jews, three young Israeli soldiers in uniform, perhaps heading home on holiday, and a Palestinian woman with several children.
Hannah watched the children playing, the soldiers joking, the backpackers staring into the electronic glow of their phones.
“Can you believe we only met two days ago?” she said to Clooney. “It seems like so much has happened. A whole lifetime even.”
“I know. It is hard to believe. And you still haven’t even kissed me.”
She smirked. “And you keep saying I am sad and lonely. Even though I have never been happier.”
“Happy? Even with your grandfather missing?”
“I’m frightened for him, yes. Not a moment goes by I am not thinking of him or what I must do to get Henri back. But I’m more excited than I can ever remember. I guess I enjoy adventure and know Henri would understand.” She thought for a moment. “And though I cannot explain it, I have this feeling everything will turn out. It is almost like Julien Dubuisson is watching over our shoulder, smiling, because everything is going according to plan.”
“You think there is a plan?”
“His plan. Julien’s plan. After all, we are following in the footsteps of a sorcier.”
A loudspeaker announced the train’s arrival in two minutes and the backpackers stood and stretched and shouldered their rucksacks. The Palestinian woman rounded up her children.
The train cruised in to a smooth halt at the platform and the doors slid open. “Here we go,” said Hannah.
Their train car was nearly empty. Just the backpackers at the front end, Hannah and Clooney at the back. All the seats in the middle were empty. The doors slid shut, the train rolled out from the platform and they were off to Akko. The last point on the map. By this time tomorrow, Hannah might have the Seal of Solomon in her hand, ready to exchange it for Henri.
Hannah plugged her phone into the seat’s charger and looked out the window. The night whipped by in its blackness, dotted with city lights. The stars and the moon slowly drifted in the sky. Hannah knew she should sleep, but she was too excited. Life was crackling before her eyes, and she was on a treasure hunt, a genuine adventure, and it was all so much to take in. Her body refused to relax.
In the seat beside her, Clooney asked, “Have you ever wondered how your grandfather figured all this out? I mean, the encoded exposures? Deciphering the map?”
“Constantly.”
“Do you think it was just luck? Maybe he accidentally entered the right numbers into the camera and suddenly… poof! The enchanted image appears, and he’s cracked
the code!”
“No,” Hannah shook her head. “It couldn’t work like that. There are just too many possible combinations. Too many settings on the camera. Luck could not explain it. He did something else.”
She shook her head, still gazing out the window. “I would give just about anything to find out.”
r
They arrived in Akko at dawn. Hannah woke as the train shuddered to a halt at the platform. She yawned and looked out the window and saw the sun rising over the city. Clooney had slept with his sunglasses on, his blue Aeropostale T-shirt spotted with drool. “We are here,” she said.
“I know,” he said, popping awake, acting as though he hadn’t been snoring against her shoulder just moments before.
The train doors slid open. Hannah grabbed her backpack. She and Clooney stood to leave, and that’s when she saw the man. He was Israeli, inconspicuous, nothing too interesting about his appearance. He was seated about midway down the car. He must have gotten on the train after she had fallen asleep. He wore sunglasses and gazed out the window, giving no sign of alarm. In his right ear was a radio bud.
Clooney nudged her. “Cancellarii?” he asked.
“Actually, I think it’s police this time. Inspector Andrepont is probably keeping an eye on me, just to be safe.”
“Do you want to give him the slip?”
She nodded.
“All right,” said Clooney, rubbing his hands together. “Leave this one to me.”
He led Hannah toward the open doors of the train. The officer secretly glanced their way and shifted in his seat, prepared to give chase as soon they exited. But before getting off, Clooney grabbed Hannah’s arm.
“Wait,” he said, loud enough for the undercover officer to hear. “Your backpack is open.”
Hannah paused on the threshold, and Clooney pretended to fiddle with the zipper on her backpack. All the while, the seated officer grew anxious. He clearly wanted to keep track of them, but didn’t want to stand up yet and announce his intentions.
The train’s intercom chimed. A recorded message announced, “Please step back from the doors. The train is departing in ten seconds.”
Hannah and the Magic Eye Page 11