The Falcon's Feather

by Trudi Trueit

  “So much for reorganizing the closet,” said Emmett flatly. Apparently, that had been his surprise. His roommate looked at him through frames that were churning storm clouds. “Nebula?”

  “I guess Mr. Rook told them about Mom’s journal and the cipher.”

  Emmett gasped. “You didn’t…?”

  One hand went to his chest, the other to his pocket. Just to be sure. “I’ve got them.

  But I did leave…” Cruz’s gaze swung to his nightstand. It was gone! He dived into the tangle of sheets at the foot of his bed. “Oh no! No!”

  “What’s wrong?” cried Emmett

  “My holo-video,” he called from inside his comforter.

  “The one that had the first piece of the cipher hidden inside?”

  “Yes, Lani sent it, along with the cipher. I put it on my nightstand when I unpacked yesterday. They must have thought it was the journal. I should never have left it out!”

  “Maybe it just got knocked off.” Cruz could hear Emmett rummaging through stuff. “It’s silver, right?”

  “Yes, with a round top and a flat bottom.” Cruz fought his way out of the sheet. He peered under the bed. Frantic, he checked behind the nightstand, which was bolted to the floor. Nothing. Out of breath, Cruz started pawing through a pile of clothes. It had to be here. It just had to. He’d never forgive himself if he lost it. Neither would Aunt Marisol.

  “Got it!” Emmett’s arm rose from beneath a mound of clothes, the dome in his palm.

  Cruz rushed to scoop the holo-projector from Emmett. “Thank you, thank you!” He gently placed the dome on his starry-night granite desk. Cruz was glad it hadn’t been stolen, but he knew he wasn’t out of the woods. Could the video have survived Lani’s surgery, a cross-country mail-drone flight, and an intruder’s attack? It hardly seemed possible.

  Emmett was beside him. Cruz reached out. Reluctantly. He wanted to know, yet he didn’t. He felt cool metal under his fingertips. Cruz waited. For a moment—a very long moment—time stopped. Nothing happened. His head fell. It was broken.

  “There!” cried Emmett.

  Cruz saw a flutter, and his mother’s face appeared. The image flickered for a few seconds before stabilizing. Cruz watched the scene at the beach he’d viewed a thousand times unfold before him: his toddler-age self digging his own island in the sand, then calling for his mother to rescue him, which she happily did. Only when the video finished and went to black did Cruz let himself exhale. It hadn’t been damaged. Everything was all right.

  “Nice memory,” Emmett said softly.

  Overcome with joy and relief, Cruz could only nod.

  One crisis over, they turned their attention to the next.

  “It had to be somebody from maintenance or housekeeping, don’t you think?” Emmett stepped through the wreckage. “Someone who wouldn’t raise suspicions from security.”

  “Or even someone on the security team.”

  “We can’t trust anyone.”

  “That’s what I told Aunt Marisol.”

  “You did? When?”

  “When she said I should put the journal and cipher in the ship’s safe. I told her I could look after them myself, but now”—he reached for his overturned desk chair—“I’m not so sure.”

  “I could check the security logs and footage from the passage,” said Emmett. “Although I have a feeling that whoever did this knew how to cover their tracks.”

  “Agreed.” Cruz saw a split in one of the legs of his chair that hadn’t been there before, and the realization hit. This was more than someone looking for something—the intruder could have done that without them ever knowing he or she had been in the room. No. This was a message from Nebula. And the message was: We can get to you anytime we want.

  Emmett gently took the chair from Cruz’s hands. “Let’s put the room back together before somebody sees.”

  Fortunately, Cruz’s other keepsakes from his mother weren’t damaged. Someone had opened the aqua box and flung its contents on the floor; however, everything was next to his bed: a jewelry box key, an Aztec crown charm, a photo of Cruz with the code scribbled on the back, a pair of washers (one ridged and one smooth), a pad of cat-shaped sticky notes, a box of bandages, pens and pencils, and even a bag of almonds. Nothing was opened, damaged, or missing. Cruz carefully put all the items back in the box and replaced the top. He started to put it back on his nightstand but instead slid it under his bed.

  At a quarter to nine, there was a knock at the door.

  Emmett’s head popped up from the side of his bed. He’d been tucking in his comforter. “Too early for Sailor.”

  Cruz hung up his hide-and-seek jacket on a hook inside the closet door, then surveyed the room. Not bad. No one would have ever guessed that an hour ago cabin 202 was in total shambles. He went to answer the door.

  “The vac!” hissed Emmett a second before Cruz would have tripped over it.

  Cruz dived for Aunt Marisol’s handheld mini vacuum. With a silent prayer of thanks that she’d insisted he bring it, Cruz tossed the appliance to Emmett, who pitched it into the closet.

  Another knock. “Hey! You guys there?” It was Sailor. Cruz opened up, and she flew past. “We’re in a time crunch, so let’s get cracking.”

  “We have to wait for Lani,” said Cruz firmly. He stifled a yawn, which probably caused Emmett to yawn, which then triggered a full yawn from Cruz. Yawns really were contagious!

  Sailor glanced from one roommate to the other. “You two look knackered.”

  “If ‘knackered’ means ‘tired,’ you nailed it.” Emmett flopped onto one of the overstuffed chairs. He put his feet up on the little round table, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes.

  “Maybe I should let you guys go to sleep. We can do this another time.”

  “No!” burst Cruz. He wasn’t about to postpone something this important. He lightly smacked Emmett’s foot to get him to open his eyes. “We’ve been cleaning, that’s all.”

  “And cleaning and cleaning…” groaned Emmett, his eyes still shut.

  She made a face. “We’ve only been on the ship two days. How dirty could your room have gotten?”

  “Somebody…broke in,” confessed Cruz.

  “Nebula,” added Emmett. “They trashed the place.”

  Sailor’s head swiveled. “Did they get the—”

  “The journal and cipher are safe,” said Cruz.

  “Nothing’s safe.” Emmett opened his eyes, sat up straight, and planted both feet on the floor. “We should know that by now. And I should have done it first thing yesterday.”

  Cruz turned his desk chair around so he could join them. “Done what?”

  “Set up some security in here.”

  “You mean, like a camera?” asked Sailor. “You could use Mell.”

  “That’s a start, but I was thinking bigger, you know, motion detectors, thermal sensors, infrared beams—the works.” Emmett’s glasses had morphed into bright turquoise teardrops.

  If Emmett could secure their cabin, then it meant Cruz could keep the journal and cipher close and safe. It was worth a try. “Okay,” said Cruz. “Do whatever you have to do.”

  At 9 p.m. on the dot, Cruz’s tablet chimed. Lani appeared. He turned the screen so everyone could say hello to her.

  “You cut your hair,” squealed Sailor.

  Lani shook her angled, chin-length bob. “Do you like it?”

  “Love it!”

  Cruz pretended to look confused. “What’s with the white skunk stripe?”

  Tucking the lock of silvery white hair at her temple behind one ear, she lifted her chin. “The color is called Moondust. It’ll wash out. Now, the tattoo I got is another story—”

  “What?” He spun the tablet.

  Her lips turned up at the corners. She was kidding. He should have known better. La
ni wasn’t about to let him get away with that skunk remark. He knew only one way to top her! Cruz slipped his mother’s paper journal out of Lani’s protective sleeve and placed it on his desk. Seconds later, the page emitted its orange beam. Cruz stayed still while the ray scanned him. Once it had identified him, the journal began its origami-like transformation from rectangular pancake to pointed orb. This being Lani’s first time witnessing the transformation, Cruz kept his eyes on her eyebrows as they inched upward and her mouth formed a perfect O. Once the conversion was complete, one of the orb points projected an opaque image of Cruz’s mother. Only then did he shift his gaze away from Lani. “Hi, Mom,” Cruz said to the blond woman hovering before them.

  “Hi, Cruzer.”

  “Mom, can you repeat the clue to the second piece of the cipher?”

  “Travel north to the land of skrei and heather, Odin and Thor. Seek the smallest speck, for it nurtures Earth’s greatest hope.” The outline of what looked to be a jagged arrowhead appeared next to her. “If you run into trouble, go to Freyja Skloke. Good luck, son!” Pixel by pixel, her image dissolved. Then the orb began deconstructing itself, returning to its flattened rectangle within seconds.

  “Whoa!” said Lani. “Impressive.”

  “Odin and Thor are Norse gods, so she must mean a Nordic country, but that’s as far as I got,” Cruz said to his friends. “I need to know which country she meant so I can tell Captain Iskandar where to sail Orion. Do we go to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, or Iceland?”

  “Don’t forget Greenland,” clipped Emmett.

  “Or the Faroe Islands,” added Sailor.

  “There’s also the Åland Islands, in the Baltic.” Emmett had pulled up a map of the North Atlantic on his tablet.

  Glancing over his roommate’s shoulder, Cruz rubbed his chin. “That’s quite a list.”

  “Maybe we can rule some out,” said Sailor. “Is Greenland truly Nordic? I know it was settled by Erik the Red, but geographically, it’s considered part of North America.”

  “It’s Nordic,” replied Emmett. “It’s a self-governing country under the authority of Denmark. Its major languages are Danish and Greenlandic. Its currency is the Danish krone.”

  “Okay, okay,” Sailor surrendered. “It’s Nordic, but it’s also eighty percent ice.”

  Emmett frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Do you really think Cruz’s mother would hide a chunk of the cipher in Greenland?”

  “Why not? She’s got to make it tough to find.”

  “But it’s his mom.”

  “So?”

  “Your mother never wants you to do anything too dangerous.”

  “I don’t think she had much choice,” sighed Emmett. “This is Nebula we’re talking about.”

  “Still…” Sailor raised her hand. “I vote we rule out Greenland.”

  “And I vote we don’t.” Emmett shot her a glare. “Cruz?”

  Two heads looked to him to cast the deciding vote. Cruz didn’t know what to say.

  “Skrei!” It was Lani.

  Cruz had almost forgotten she was here. He glanced at his tablet. “Huh?”

  “Sorry it took me so long. The spelling threw off my search. It’s pronounced ‘skray,’ but spelled s-k-r-e-i. It’s a type of codfish caught between January and April as it migrates from the Barents Sea to its traditional spawning grounds along the Norwegian coast.”

  A three-way cry went up from cabin 202. “Norway!”

  “Let’s keep going,” said Cruz, his pulse picking up speed. “So we’re supposed to go to Norway to seek the smallest speck that nurtures Earth’s greatest hope. The smallest speck. What is a speck? It’s a crumb…a dot…a grain of sand or dirt—”

  “Dirt.” Sailor snapped her fingers. “As in, archaeology. The jagged arrowhead-looking thing in the clue could be a Viking artifact.”

  “It could have been something important to their culture,” continued Lani, “like a tool or a piece of technology that advanced their civilization.”

  “Locate it and we’ll find the next piece of the cipher,” concluded Emmett.

  Everyone cheered, except Cruz. He was already a step ahead of them. The first time he’d seen the squiggled outline in his mother’s journal, he’d suspected the shape might be an artifact. He’d shown his drawing to Aunt Marisol before they sailed. After all, she was one of the top archaeologists in the world. If she couldn’t identify it…

  Hunching over his tablet, his aunt had carefully studied every detail with her loop. “Do you know what it’s made of?”

  “No.”

  She’d moved the magnifying glass. “By the rough edges and the deep cuts, I’d say it’s wood. See, it has some serious deterioration here that you’re not likely to see on metals. Do you know the time period? Nordic Stone Age? Viking Age?”

  “No. Sorry. It is an arrowhead, isn’t it?”

  “Could be. It could also be an ax head, a cooking utensil, a piece of jewelry, a hair comb—”

  Cruz had stopped her with a groan. “So it could be anything.”

  “Afraid so.” She’d bent over the drawing again, her dark hair blanketing his tablet. “Shape alone doesn’t give us much to go on. Only the Archive has the technology to make a match, and even then, it’d be a long shot…”

  “Archive? You mean, the database at the Society’s headquarters?”

  Her head had shot up. “Did I say Archive? No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.” He’d chuckled. “I heard you.”

  “You have to forget that I said it and you heard it.”

  “Why?”

  She’d winced and said weakly, “Because I said so?”

  “Aunt Marisol!”

  “Someday I’ll explain it to you. For now, you have to trust me. Don’t write it. Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. Do you understand?” He had been able to tell by her glare that she was deadly serious.

  “I do,” he’d said, but of course he didn’t. How could he? His brain wasn’t one of those old-fashioned whiteboards. He couldn’t simply erase it at will. The Archive. Could it be some kind of secret library?

  Sailor, Emmett, and Lani had finished celebrating and were staring at him.

  Cruz swallowed hard. “Uh…sorry…where were we?”

  “Trying to figure out where the artifact is,” said Emmett. “And what it is.”

  “Right. Aunt Marisol is checking into it, but she says it’s going to be tough to ID by shape alone. I’ll email you all my drawings, and we can start researching.” He clicked on a folder in his tablet marked Hawaii Photos. It held photos of his dad, their surf shop, and their hikes and adventures. Scrolling down, he found the file marked Surfing and opened it—a good hiding place, he thought, for a secret drawing. “Emmett, how about if you search the Society’s museum database? Sailor, you connect with the Academy’s main library. And, Lani, you search Viking museums in Scandinavia. I’ll check Orion’s library. If anybody finds anything, get in touch, okay?”

  “Sounds good,” said Lani.

  Sailor and Emmett were nodding, too.

  Suddenly, Sailor popped out of her chair. “Oh, gosh, I gotta scram. It’s nine twenty-six. Four minutes to lights-out.” She bolted for the door. “Good night, C and E. Good afternoon, L.”

  “Bye!” called Lani.

  Emmett was already heading into the bathroom to brush his teeth. The cabin lights flickered twice—Taryn’s signal that they had a few minutes to get in bed before the lights went out for the night. Cruz picked up his tablet. “Lani? You still there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Sorry I teased you about your hair. It really does look nice. Even the Moonrocks color.”

  She giggled. “Moondust. And thanks, ’cause I lied. It won’t wash out.”

  Cruz glanced at his headboard,
where his pillow should have been. What remained of it was now wrapped in a sheet under his bed, waiting to be thrown out. He wondered if he should tell Lani about the break-in. No. It would only scare her.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” said Lani. “I’m sending you a care package. Grandma made your favorite.”

  “Liliko‘i jelly?”

  “Yep.”

  Closing his eyes, Cruz sighed. He loved passion fruit. It had been a long time since he’d sliced open one of the yellow melons and scooped out its sweet, tangy pulp. He missed the taste. He missed everything about home—the trade winds feathering the palm trees, the citrusy fragrance of white ginger growing wild along the road, the warm grains of white sand sifting through his toes. And the surf. Cruz could almost hear it lapping against the shore, its rhythm easy and soothing. The sound could calm him like nothing else could. The waves against the ship at night were nice, but they weren’t the same as home. Nothing was.

  “Aloha po, hoaaloha.” Lani was saying “good night, my friend” in Hawaiian.

  “Aloha po, hoaaloha,” he returned.

  It felt good to hear the words. And to say them. Like a favorite old song you come back to again and again. Cruz held on to the image of Hanalei for as long as he could.

  When at last he opened his eyes, the cabin was dark.

  FLINGING open the door to his aunt’s office on the third deck, Cruz cried, “Norway!”

  Aunt Marisol, who was bending over a box, jumped. She smacked her elbow on her desk. “Ow!”

  “Sorry, sorry.” He flew to rub her arm, as if his touch could magically heal the injury.

  “What about Norway?” she asked, wincing.

  “That’s where we have to go. We figured out the first part of Mom’s clue.”