Nykara

by Katie Holland

  Ben came running over. “What did you find?”

  Alix pointed at the ground. “It looks like a coin of some sort, although it’s nothing I’ve seen before. I didn’t touch it yet and I don’t think we should. I’m going to take a few pictures then get it into a bag.”

  Alix got her camera out and took several pictures of the unusual coin and the area that they found it in. Ben got out the map and did his best to mark the exact spot where they were. After she felt she had enough pictures Alix went back in her backpack and got out a sandwich bag. She opened it, turned it inside out with her hand, picked up the coin and closed the bag properly. Now they could get a better look at it. The coin was definitely the most unique coin she had ever laid her eyes on. It was about the size of a fifty-cent piece and made up of three rings, each of a different color. The inner circle was copper in color, the middle circle was silver, and the outer one was gold. On the one side, each ring also appeared to have some type of writing on it, but Alix had no clue what language or languages it was written in. The other side had a picture of what she best described as a tiny map with three points that stood out to her. She didn’t know what to make of the coin. As they were examining it Alix’s stomach growled and Ben laughed.

  “Sounds like you’re ready for lunch,” Ben said smiling. “Let’s take that with us and find a good place to eat, lunch is in my backpack.”

  They started back on the trail toward Old Faithful. Leaving the coin in the plastic bag Alix slipped it into her pocket as they walked. She wanted to look at it some more, but she was afraid she would trip if she didn’t watch where she was walking. Eventually, they found a bench that looked over one of the parks many breathtaking natural hot springs. Alix looked at her watch when they sat down, it was almost one o’clock, no wonder she was hungry. The day had sure gone faster than she realized.

  Ben started pulling things out of his backpack. She laughed to herself, it reminded her of Hermione’s endless purse from Harry Potter.

  “I didn’t know what you would want so I packed a bunch of different things. We have cheese, crackers, and meat; peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; ham and cheese sandwiches, BBQ chips and plain chips; two kinds of granola bars; apple juice and orange juice, and of course, multi-chip cookies and brownies. Take what you want,” he said with a flourish of his hand.

  “Um … wow … that’s a lot of food there, good thing I’m hungry,” Alix decided on a ham and cheese sandwich, BBQ chips and apple juice. She practically devoured her sandwich in three bites. She was a little embarrassed, but she looked over and saw that Ben had done the same thing. They laughed at each other.

  “Good thing you brought all this food. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I started eating. I think I’ll try one of your PB&J sandwiches, they look pretty tasty.”

  “I know, I’m in the same boat,” Ben said, as he started eating some of the cheese and crackers.

  They finished off more than half the food and then they started in on the cookies and brownies.

  Alix looked at the cookies and understood why he had called them multi-chip cookies. They had dark, milk and white chocolate chips in them. “These cookies are really good, Shay would love them,” she told him.

  “Wait until you try the brownies,” he said handing her one.

  She took it and bit into it. The brownie itself was fabulous but the extra kick was that the chocolate chips in it were actually mint chocolate.

  “Mmm, these should be illegal they’re so good.”

  “My mom loves to bake; dad and I love to eat her baking. It’s perfect. We came up with this brownie idea a few years ago. It’s one of my favorites.”

  They finished eating, packed everything up and headed back to see Ranger Dixon. They had decided to wait and look at the coin later at Alix’s house and they both agreed to keep the coin a secret. Alix didn’t know why but she thought it was best that no one else knew about it yet. It was around two o’clock when they got back to the Visitor Center. They bypassed the lady at the desk and went straight to the ranger’s office.

  His door was open, so Ben poked his head in. “Ranger Dixon, we’re back and are going to leave now. Just wanted to let you know we’re safe.”

  “Good, did you have a productive day?”

  “Yes, thanks again for helping us out, our teacher will be grateful.”

  “Here’s my number if you need anything else. Have a good day, drive safe.”

  “We will,” Ben told him.

  They were leaving the Visitor Center when Alix noticed that the Old Faithful eruption sign said the next eruption would be in about twenty minutes.

  “Hey look,” she pointed out the sign to Ben. “We have enough time and you have to see it since you’ve never been here before. It amazes me every time I see it. Come on.”

  Since the park wasn’t that busy there wasn’t a huge crowd and they were able to get seats on a bench to watch. Alix got her camera out, she couldn’t resist taking some pictures. They chatted for a few minutes before Alix noticed the steam building on Old Faithful.

  “See the steam getting bigger, that means it’s starting. I love this,” she grinned.

  Ben smiled at her excitement. He then sat back and watched nature at its best. The eruption of steam and water was fascinating. He had never seen anything like it. He couldn’t believe how high the water went. After it was over he understood her excitement better now. It was an amazing thing and he didn’t think he could ever get tired of seeing sites like that. Now that he lived so close he would be able to come to the park often. They went to the car and headed back to Sunset Creek.

  Ben dropped her off at home at about four thirty. “See you later,” he said.

  “Thanks for driving. See you at dinner.”

  Chapter 11

  Alix went into the house, left her hiking boots in the front closet and went to find her mom. As expected, she was in the kitchen.

  “Hey, mom.”

  “Hi, honey. Did you have a good day?”

  “Yep, you know how much I love Yellowstone and Ben had never seen it before, so it was fun to watch him see it for the first time. What are we having for dinner?”

  “Well, you’re just in time to help me make lasagna.”

  “Okay. I’ll just take my stuff to my room and I’ll be right back.”

  Alix took her backpack to her room. She took the coin out of her pocket and put it in her jewelry box. She wanted to look at it but would wait until Ben was there.

  She helped her mom make the lasagna then went and got ready for dinner. After she set the table everything was ready.

  When doorbell rang she ran to get the door. She opened it and there, of course, was the Travers family looking like a picture-perfect postcard.

  “Hi there, come on in,” Alix said to them.

  “It smells great in here,” Rick said as Alix showed them to the kitchen.

  “It sure does,” Ben agreed.

  “Dinner is ready so please have a seat,” Heather said, as she took the lasagna out of the oven. “Alix, can you please go get your father.”

  “Sure mom.”

  Alix introduced her dad to everyone and they all sat down, ready to eat. Everyone talked through dinner, it was easy and comfortable, just like the first time she met them. Alix and Ben cleared the plates and got the pies out that Natalie had brought for dessert. Ben asked their parents what kind of pie they wanted, and Alix dished it out. Alix couldn’t decide so she cut herself a small slice of each and went back to the table.

  Alix was the last one to sit down and the first to finish her pie.

  “Good thing we brought two or Alix might have eaten it all,” Ben said, as he laughed at Alix. “I don’t think I have ever seen anyone eat pie so fast.”

  “I couldn’t help it, it was really good. Quit making fun of me,” Alix teased, but she was laughing at herself too. “You’d better be nice to me or I’ll eat all your pie too.”

  Ben pretended to cover his pie and gi
ve her a dirty look. It made her laugh more. She noticed the rest of the table had gone silent, so she looked away from Ben to see why. Both her parents and his were looking at each other with a strange look. Her best guess was that it was a cross between amusement and apprehensiveness. Hmm, weird she thought.

  “Natalie,” Alix said, to break the tension that seemed to be there now, “That pie was some of the best I’ve ever had.” She heard Ben snicker next to her. “I love baking and would like it if you had time one day to show me how to make that fabulous pie crust.”

  “I’d love to,” Natalie responded with a genuine smile.

  Alix started to clear the dishes when her mom said, “I’ll do that honey. Why don’t you show Ben your photography collection?”

  “Okay, mom.” Alix left the kitchen with Ben right behind her.

  “It’s not much and a little small, not like yours …” she said, a little embarrassed as they walked into her room.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” Ben assured her. “We’ve lived a lot of places and all of our houses have been like this one. I never expected to live in a house like we have now. To be honest, I kinda find it strange to live in such a huge house. I don’t know what to do with so much space. Now about this photography collection?”

  His statement made her feel better. “Um, yeah, I like to take pictures and I keep the ones I think are best in a special photo album.”

  “Cool. I’d like to see it, but I think we should take a closer look at that coin you found.”

  Alix went to her jewelry box and got the coin. They took turns looking at it but left it in the plastic bag.

  “Do you have a magnifying glass or something? I’d like to take a better look at it,” he asked her.

  “No, nothing like that, but … maybe this will work.”

  Alix went to her backpack and got her camera out. She took the coin and put it on a white piece of paper and smoothed the bag out. She changed a setting on her camera and took several pictures. She turned it over and took a few more. Then she plugged her camera into her laptop and downloaded the pictures from the day.

  “There,” Alix said. “Now we can make the pictures as big as we want. I set the camera on a special setting for the ones I just took so we can see lots of detail.”

  They took her laptop and sat on the floor next to her bed, so they could both look at the pictures together. Alix went straight to the ones she had just taken, the close-ups of the coin. They started with the outer ring. They rotated the picture and blew it up trying to get a better look at the writing, or at least they assumed it was writing. The ‘letters’ were not anything like they knew. It’s not like they knew any other languages, but they could recognize some and neither one was able to recognize this. They even went online to compare what they were looking at in other languages. It wasn’t Greek, or Arabic or any of the many Asian languages. They tried Turkish, Indian and several African writings. The even tried hieroglyphics and runes, and still came up with nothing.

  “Hmm. This is so strange. It doesn’t appear to be any form of language we can find,” Alix said.

  “Maybe it’s not writing, maybe it’s decorative,” Ben said.

  “I don’t think so. I can’t explain it, but I feel like this is something extra special. Something is up, look at these.” Alix went to the pictures she took of the coin when she found it before they picked it up. “There’s no dust or dirt on it, no sign that it had been sitting out there for months. That’s just plain weird.”

  “So, do you think that someone just left it there recently?”

  “I don’t know. I think that it’s related to the disappearances, but nothing makes any sense. This is so frustrating. We keep coming up with a million questions but no answers.”

  “Can you print out some of the pictures? I’d like to take a look with a magnifying glass if we can and maybe draw on them, you know like connect the dots.”

  “Sure.” Alix plugged in her printer and made several copies of each side of the coin. “We didn’t even really look at the other side yet.”

  “How about this. We forget about this for the rest of the night and you come over tomorrow and we focus on the other side of the coin. Tonight, we can watch a movie or something.”

  “Okay, deal. Our parents are in the living room, but we can watch a movie on my laptop. What do you want to see?”

  “Surprise me.”

  “Not fair,” Alix mumbled, as she went to get a movie from the living room. She didn’t want to pick one out, what if he didn’t like it. She’d just have to get a selection and make him pick the movie. She was around the corner from the living room when she heard her name mentioned.

  “Are you sure it’s Alix?” her mom said.

  “Yes, we’re almost positive,” Ben’s dad answered.

  “But she’s so young. What are we going to do?” her dad said this time.

  Alix wanted to know what they were talking about but didn’t want to get caught listening, so she just walked around the corner like she hadn’t heard anything.

  “Hey everyone. Just getting a movie for us to watch,” she said in kind of a high awkward voice. She went to the bookshelf that served as their movie case. She was so distracted by what she heard that she just picked a few random movies off the shelves.

  On her way back to her room she decided not to say anything to Ben. She wanted to talk to Shay first.

  “So, what are we going to watch?” Ben asked as she walked in.

  “I’m not sure actually. I just randomly picked a few movies and decided to make you pick.”

  “Okay, I’ll play along, give them here.”

  She handed the movies to Ben and he looked through the movies she grabbed, and he flipped through them.

  He laughed, “This is quite a selection. The second Hobbit movie, The Hunger Games, Captain Philips, Aladdin, and Iron Man. When you said random you weren’t kidding.”

  “No, I wasn’t, I just grabbed some off the shelf. So, what are you going to pick?”

  “This might surprise you, but I love Disney movies and I haven’t seen Aladdin in a long time so that’s what I’m picking.”

  Alix got some pillows off her bed and set up her laptop on the floor. They got comfortable and watched the movie. At first Alix had a hard time concentrating lying next to Ben but eventually the movie had her full attention. They both enjoyed it. After it was over Ben and his parents said their thanks and goodbyes.

  Alix went back to her room to text Shay.

  Alix: U still up?

  She had to wait a few minutes, but she heard back.

  Shay: Yep. I’m calling, want to hear about your day.

  Alix’s phone rang a few seconds later. “Hey, Shay.”

  “So, tell me everything. What was it like spending the day with Ben? Did you find anything at Yellowstone? How was dinner? What did you do after?”

  “Hang on, hang on, I’ll get to all of it.”

  Alix told Shay everything about finding the coin, lunch, the ranger, watching Ben see Old Faithful for the first time, then finally dinner, examining the coin, and the movie.

  “Okay, wow, you’ve had an interesting day. So, you really think that the coin you found is connected to the disappearances?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know why, but I do. You should see it. I’m supposed to go over to Ben’s tomorrow and we’re going to look at it again. I’ll stop by on the way there to show you. Better yet, maybe you could come over too. Another set of eyes might help. Are you busy tomorrow?

  “Not sure, but I don’t think so. Let me know when you’re heading over.”

  “Oh hey, I almost forgot, after dinner Ben and I went to my room to look at the coin and we got frustrated. That’s when we decided to watch a movie. I went into the living room to get a few movies and I overheard both of our parents talking about me. My mom asked if they were sure it was me and his dad said yes, pretty sure. It has me totally freaked out Shay. What could they possibly be talking about?”
r />   “And you’re sure they were talking about you?”

  “Yes, my mom used my name. I haven’t said anything to anyone but you. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I think we should think about this overnight and see if anything comes to us.”

  “Okay,” Alix yawned loudly.

  “Sounds like you need to go to bed.”

  “Yeah, I think so. I had a rough sleep and was up early and I haven’t hiked in a while. It was a long day. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “You bet, bye.”

  Alix changed and crawled into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 12

  Alix woke up feeling very refreshed. She looked at the clock, it was 9:30, she had over ten hours of uninterrupted sleep, no wonder she felt good. She got up and made her way to the bathroom. She showered, got dressed, and went to the kitchen. She found her dad at the table eating toast.

  “Morning dad.”

  “Good morning sleepy head.”

  Alix smiled. “I was tired, I had a busy day yesterday. Did mom have to work today?”

  “Yes, but it’s only an eight-hour fill-in shift, so she should be home by six. What are you up to today?”

  “Laundry. And I think I’ll go see Shay for a while and Ben and I planned on getting together to work on our English project at some point.”

  “Okay, just let me know when you leave.”

  “Will do dad.”

  Alix turned the coffee maker on and went back to her room to get her laundry started. After she got the washer going she made her coffee and toasted a cinnamon raisin bagel for breakfast. Since she wasn’t sure what time she was going to Ben’s she decided to do her homework from Friday because she was positive she didn’t want to do it that night. But before she started her homework she needed to add to her list of strangeness. A lot of stuff happened the day before.

  - Ben’s “meditation technique” or whatever that was, seemed to work