“Pleiades,” Sherlock said, interrupting. “Middle-aged hot stars in Taurus.”
“Show-off.”
“Always.”
“Seven squared is forty-nine. We live at 49 Louisberg Square in Beacon Hill. I came at the clue backward. Missed it entirely until the number forty-nine occurred to me. The square root of Beacon Hill? I mean, really! You could have thought up something better than that.”
“Not really. That was my best at the time.”
“And if I hadn’t showed?”
“I’d have been here tomorrow. I’m in no great hurry.” He uncoiled himself. The act struck me as snakelike, and gave me a shiver. He passed me on the stairs and I followed him. He had a key, a single key on rabbit’s foot keychain, which he pulled from his pocket. To my complete shock the key opened the observatory door and we went inside.
I felt small, like I’d been shrunk as part of a special effect. It was all the telescope’s fault. It was so big yet well proportioned that it put everything around it into a different perspective. We found a pair of chairs on rollers. We sat down. Lock passed me a red notecard.
“How did you get this?” I asked.
“Your brother is careless. He’ll have to work on that. First, he handed me the note while he was occupied with something else. I’d read it—without opening it, I might add—before I handed it back. More importantly, he keeps the notes in his desk drawer. Or, I should say the envelopes. He doesn’t bother to check if the envelopes contain anything. Currently, one does not. It’s the second clue. It was left in the chapel.”
“Did you know James had to clean up the—”
“Yes. I heard. And I smelled. He came back filthy. I can’t live in that room a day longer. At least not without the window open, which means your brother and I are constantly in our winter coats.”
“You didn’t let me finish my question,” I said.
“No need. I often know what a person is thinking before they do.”
“Really, Lock. You take things too far.”
“That’s not my name.”
“It’s what I call you so get used to it.”
He muttered to himself. I took that as a good sign; he wasn’t chewing me out, at least. The card’s message confused me.
Where what is seen is not
I forgot
Remembered then again and again
In the company of so many friends.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Ummm,” he groaned.
“The auditorium? Its stage? Some kind of performance?”
“No.”
“See something with friends. Remember your lines. Multiple performances—again and again. You sure?”
“I don’t need you to solve it!” He snorted derisively.
“Well, pardon me,” I said.
“Accepted.” He was serious!
“Well, you conceited, stuffy, pseudointellectual! You don’t need to be rude!”
“I need you to confirm my interpretation.”
“I’m flattered.” He hemmed and hawed a moment, his eyes wandering. “You wanted to see me!” I said, blushing at my discovery. “You wanted to impress me.”
“Ridiculous!” he said, though I noted he didn’t deny it.
“Then why?”
I knew immediately Sherlock was searching for an explanation himself. “He won’t listen to me. If he can’t figure it out, then the jig is up.”
“Why do you say such a thing?”
“Because this is about him: James. It’s not about any missing Bible. It’s a test and I want him to pass it. It has to be him. It must be him. I want you to leave it in his cubbyhole or mailbox, something like that. A note: I know what this means. He’ll wonder how it found its way out of his desk, of course. We don’t want to make trouble between you two, so you’ll say that it arrived in your mailbox by mistake. Its theft will fall onto me, but I’ll deny it. He hates me anyway.”
“You want me to tell him I found it in my cubbyhole and it had his name on it.”
“His name isn’t on it! Is it? No! So you tell him you thought because it looks exactly like the first clue, this might be intended for him.”
“What’s going on, Lock? Why so complicated?”
“I need someone to talk to him about the note. It can’t be me. I trust you. He trusts you.”
“He and I aren’t speaking. He was horrible to me.”
“I’m sorry, but you’ll be speaking about this. He needs to figure this out, not bury it in a drawer because he’s too ignorant.”
“That’s harsh.”
“If he thinks you stole it from him, that’s bad going forward. You see? If I try to talk to him about the puzzle, he won’t listen. I’m making this up as I go.”
“Why does it have to be him? You said that. What do you think is going on here at the school? Our family. All the legacy students. I was talking to . . . a friend,” I said, deciding not to name Latisha just yet, “and come to find out, her dad and our father . . . they both have these groups of men visit them late at night. Secret stuff like that. What do you think?”
“Interesting.”
“Why?”
“It might explain the attention James receives from Dr. Crudgeon, as well as the clues. The family’s connection to the school is obvious, but you’re right, a bigger, wider connection between graduates might suggest—”
I was quite aware he’d stopped himself. “What?”
“A cabal.”
“A what?”
“Originally, a secret political faction. I reference it more as a secret group with a common aim.”
“Like a clique.”
“Precisely! Very good!”
I wondered why Sherlock’s opinion of me mattered so much, but it did. I wanted him to like me as much as I liked him, and that was without knowing why I liked him in the first place. He was a stuffed shirt, an arrogant boy with an inflamed sense of his own importance. But he was also brilliant, quirky, and fun to be with. Worst of all, he had kind eyes.
“What’s this mean?” I said, indicating the clue.
“I’m counting on you to tell me.”
“Because you don’t know!” I shouted. My voice sounded amazing in the enormous structure: the voice of God!
“Exactly. Because I never know anything,” he said, thick with sarcasm.
I was hoping to shame him into telling me the riddle actually meant something. I couldn’t make any sense of it, even on my fifth reading. I stretched. I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t smart to try to outsmart or match wits with Sherlock. I would learn that soon enough.
“The stars!” I said excitedly. “‘In the company of so many friends.’ ‘Where what is seen is not.’ By the time we can view the light of a star, the star itself is often long dead. I’m right, aren’t I? No wonder you wanted to meet here.”
“Clever girl,” Sherlock said, causing me to swell with pride. “A nifty theory, actually.” Nifty? I wondered. “Completely and totally one hundred percent wrong, but nicely conceived. I’ll give you points for that.”
I could have struck him.
“Shall we take a peek?” he said, offering the telescope with a sweeping hand.
“I suppose you know how to work it?” The panel along the wall looked like the console for a nuclear power plant.
“No, but how hard can it be? Have you met any of the fellows from the astronomy club?” Fellows? “Not close to the temperature of tea water.”
“The expression is: Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Not the brightest bulb in the bunch. Tea water? Seriously?”
“Those are your expressions, not mine,” he said disdainfully. He worked the telescope’s controls like a man with four arms. A panel groaned open overhead. It was just dark enough that a few stars twinkled. I worked hard to keep from appearing impressed. It required great concentration. The telescope moved. “There we go. Saturn. Wrapped in rings, with its moons: Titan, Enceladus, Mimas. A thing of beauty.”
“So you actually figured out how to turn it on, and aim it?” I sounded incredulous, which was a mistake. It’s one thing to feed a controlled fire, quite another, a wildfire blaze.
“No more guesses?” he asked, as he tested his eye to a smaller telescope mounted like a toy to the giant. “Splendid!” he said, checking the larger device’s optical and then stepping back in a gentlemanly fashion and urging me to step up. That was the thing about Sherlock: he could seem forty years old at times. Most of the time, actually.
I put my eye to the big telescope. The closeness of one of Saturn’s moons hit me in the chest, literally stealing my breath. You don’t really see a person’s face in a crowd; you don’t see the stars in the sky, only flickers of light. The immediate presence of the thing filled me with a childish glee; I wanted to squeal. I contained myself. I didn’t like learning to act older.
“Have you figured it out yet?” he asked. “And do not tell me the telescope or I have distracted you and you’re not thinking, because if that’s the case I’m wasting a lot of valuable time.”
“Illusion,” I answered, for I had been thinking about the enigmatic poem in the second clue. “‘Where what is seen is not. I forgot.’ Like being inspired and thinking you have it right there in hand, only to have it slip away. ‘Remembered then again and again’ is the creative part of our mind catching on to that lost idea, like a hangnail hooking a sweater. Lost ideas. Lost friends.”
“I so enjoy the way your mind works, Moria. Where do you come up with these things? You and your thoughts are like spit and polish, salt and pepper, French fries and ketchup. Antithetic, but uniquely paired. Just one problem: you leave logic far behind, hungry, stubborn, and sometimes cruel. You must learn to tame your ambitions if you’re to get any good at this.”
“You’re suggesting I’m not—any good at this? Thanks a lot! You stuffed pepper.”
“Once more. Try once more.”
I didn’t like to be tested and teased for my answers, but I didn’t enjoy being excluded either, and Sherlock would most certainly exclude me if I failed him.
“‘Where what is seen is not,’” I quoted. Like the stars, I thought. You see one thing; it’s really something more, something different. A building suggests rooms, and reveals rooms; it wasn’t buildings. The night sky and stars qualified, but Sherlock would never give me such an easy clue. A school suggested learning and that’s what you got.
“A book,” I said. “It reveals little of what’s inside. You must open it to know it.”
“Go on.”
I took this as a good sign. He hadn’t mocked me. “‘I forgot . . . Remembered then again and again.’ If you forget something, you can consult a reference book and remember it again and again. I’m thinking a nonfiction book, but stories are pretty much the same. You can forget a story, or parts of it, and rereading helps you remember.”
“Interesting.”
“You don’t want me to succeed! I’ve just realized that.”
“Nonsense!”
“You want me to fail so you can show off how smart you are. I’m close, aren’t I? And you know it!”
“There is no close or far in matters such as these,” Sherlock said. “Truth is as sharp and pointed as a needle. It’s not blunt or fuzzy.”
“‘In the company of so many friends.’”
“I must compliment you on possessing a splendid memory. Memory is key to gifted intelligence. You show great promise, Moria.”
“You pompous, self-righteous, conceited boy!” I caught myself shouting. “How dare you talk down to me like that! Who on God’s green Earth do you think you are?”
“I know exactly who I am, what I aspire to, my basic strengths and weaknesses. You won’t see me battling for a spot on the football pitch, though I do enjoy a pickup game from time to time. Left midfield suits me. I’m not a striker and I’m too lightweight for defense.”
“It’s a library, if you must know,” I said calmly. “In a library there are books and many feel like your friends. Being in a library makes me feel surrounded by people I’ve known and liked.”
He clapped slowly, the sound reverberating through the observatory. He made sure it sounded pathetic.
“You’re so elitist!” I said.
“I am anything but! No inheritance, no family. I’m a commoner. For your information, my older brother, Mycroft, and I are the only family we have. I am attending Baskerville on full scholarship, emphasis on scholar, meaning I must rely solely upon my wits. No wits, no opportunity. It’s quite simple. If I display a certain amount of debonair charm, I can’t help it, it is the product of my British education prior to this, and nothing more.”
“Listen, charmless, your so-called charm is about as effective as a bug zapper.” I paused for dramatic effect. (I know a thing or two about drama.) “It’s a library. The clue is pointing my brother to the library. There, I expect, he’ll find another envelope, another clue, but it’s a very big library and my brother’s brilliance is not bookish. And he is brilliant, Lock, mark my word. Don’t underestimate him; never underestimate James Moriarty. He’ll conquer and control the world before he’ll allow someone to feel superior to him. Did I say ‘someone’? I meant anyone!”
“As to that, it’s a matter of gravitational force. In the sky, objects with the larger mass control objects of a lesser mass. The one and only binding law of dominance is mass and gravity. On earth, among humans, humans with higher intelligence control those of lesser intelligence. Intelligence is therefore gravity. I doubt very much James Moriarty possesses the requisite reasoning to control himself, much less the world, so I dismiss your threat—or was it a caution?—out of hand.”
“You are so strange,” I said.
“That’s a relative evaluation. What are your reference points for comparison?”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about!”
Confusion was not a look that lived happily on his narrow face. I wanted to like Sherlock Holmes, but just when I thought such a thing might be possible, he would say something so repulsive I was uncomfortable even being in a room with him.
“My expectation is another red envelope. The odds are astronomical,” he said, gesturing to the telescope, “it would be anything but. In a room of dark-colored book bindings and white paper, how long do you think it would require to spot the edge of a red envelope protruding from a volume?”
“You’ve already found it.”
“Goes without saying. But your brother has not. And he must. It’s time we get the game afoot!”
“It isn’t a game.”
“It is most definitely someone’s idea of one. The question remains: Whose idea? This leads logically to: Why or what for? Which in turn presents a panoply of possibilities still too vast at this point for us to begin to catalogue. As vast as the night sky.”
“Us,” I said, my breath catching.
“Oh, yes. Most definitely us.”
CHAPTER 17
BLOOD CONNECTION
SHERLOCK KNEW LITTLE OF JAMES AND ME AS brother and sister. His elaborate scheme to get me talking with James about the second clue was overwrought with problems, all of which could be overcome by a simple act.
I tapped lightly on the window to their Lower 3 dorm room. James was lying on his mattress, rolling a miniature football in his hands. He saw me and opened the window. I offered my hand and he pulled me through and inside.
“What’s up?” he asked. “You’re not allowed in here without Cantell’s approval.”
“So shut the door and we’ll talk softly,” I said.
He turned to close the door, his back to me. “Is it Father?”
“No. I wish. Nothing new.” I slipped open his desk drawer. I slipped the red clue into the drawer as I reached inside. “Have you got a pen I could borr— Hey! What’s this? Another clue?”
I pulled out the empty envelope and held it together with the notecard I was delivering. This was little sister putting her nose where it didn’t belon
g. This was the Moria my brother knew oh so well. This was so much easier than Sherlock’s convoluted strategy. I read the clue.
“Put that down!” he said, too loudly, and practically flying across the room.
But of course I didn’t. I turned my back to him and feigned reading. He reached around me. We wrestled, and he came away with it.
“That’s mine!”
“It’s another clue! Why didn’t you tell me?” I snatched at it, because that’s what little sisters do. There was no way I was getting it without him handing it to me.
“None of your business.”
“How do you know? I’m a Moriarty too! Maybe it is my business!” I eyed him up and down. “You don’t look well, brother.” He sat down at his desk gazing out the window, a slump to his shoulders. He tapped his fingers to accompany his slow, shallow breathing.
“If you’re choosing sides, Mo, I’d rather it be with me.”
“Excuse me? If you mean Sherlock, I would never, ever choose him over you. I barely know him, Jamie. You and I . . . we’re the team, right?”
“Was it him in the chapel?”
“What are you talking about?” My heart was about to explode. I did not want to lie to my brother. Not ever. Best not to answer, I decided. “Why were you so mean to me in the auditorium? I was being nice to you! That was so cruel, so mean and unfair.”
“That’s . . . ridiculous.”
“You won’t own up to how you treated me? Since when, Jamie?” He didn’t fight me over use of the nickname with only the two of us present.
“OK. I’m sorry. OK?”
“No, it’s not OK because I can hear you don’t mean it. All we have here is each other. That’s all we have for certain.”
“It was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“It was. It was horrible.” I didn’t know how far I could push things. “You’re different. You’re changing.”
“I’m growing up, Mo. It’s something you could use a little of.”
“You have no idea what girls go through! The looks boys give us. The way we’re treated like inferior underlings. We grow up a lot faster than you because of that. We go through stuff you could never handle. Not in a million years! We actually talk. We don’t just kick balls and swing bats. We hurt. We change. We ache. We grow up light-years ahead of you cavemen!”
The Initiation Page 10