by Sophia Sharp
I started by picking through the papers on the desk. There were literally hundreds of sheets there. Going through each of them one by one would be overwhelming. But there was nothing else to do. I picked up a handful of papers and leafed through them. There was nothing of interest there. They were just reports of the geology department’s finances, updates on what other professors were doing in their research, some memos about grading, and other such things that were completely meaningless to me. Putting those papers aside, I began working through the next stack.
For a good twenty minutes, we worked in silence, searching for something in the room that might grant us a clue. What type of clue, I couldn’t say. But, I suspected we would know when we saw it. I heard intermittent groans of frustration from some of the girls as we worked, but for the most part I kept my head down and kept searching. I was less than a fifth through the papers on the desk when Madison gave a startled cry.
“What is it?” I demanded, spinning around. I saw her standing by one of the shelves, staring at something in her hands.
“Look at this!” she exclaimed. “Come, quick!”
I ran to her, as did the other girls. Madison held in her hand a long, rolled up piece of paper that looked like a wall poster. Except that it was yellow with age.
“Check it out!” she said excitedly, unrolling the paper slightly. “Don’t these look familiar?”
There were a bunch of odd, twisting lines visible in the space Madison opened up. I frowned. I didn’t understand what the commotion about. At least, not until Liz snatched the parchment from Madison and brought it close to her face.
“This is something,” she murmured under her breath. I looked around at the other girls. Ashley gave a frown and Eve just shrugged. None of us were sure what was going on.
Before I knew it, Liz collapsed to her knees and cleared a space on the floor. “Tracy, hold that end,” she said, unrolling the parchment and handing me an edge. I did, and she unfurled it the rest of the way. Ashley took hold of that side without being asked. The rest of the paper was just like the small part I’d seen before, all unfamiliar lines and symbols. There were precise triangles and squares imposed over the lines in a very light color. I heard Eve gasp beside me.
“What is it—” I began. But then I saw it. The lines weren’t unfamiliar at all. They were copies of the runes that Liz had shown me in the caves. Precise copies of the runes that were engraved into that deep underground wall.
“How is this possible?” Ashley asked. She sounded awe-struck. “Liz, you were the only one who knew about this. Right?”
“That’s what I thought. But, obviously, somebody else did. Madison, where did you find this?”
“It was wedged in a hiding spot underneath the shelf,” she explained. “If I hadn’t dropped the book I was looking at, I would have never found it.”
“So Chris’s dad thought it valuable enough to hide,” Liz said thoughtfully. “But not valuable enough to take with him. Why?”
“You guys are the only ones who knew about the cave entrance?” I asked. “Nobody else did?”
“No,” Ashley answered. “Liz showed us, but that’s it.”
“And you were the ones to string the lights up? Right?”
“That’s right,” Liz said. “The four of us did it together a few years ago.”
“How did you find the caves, Liz?” I asked.
“Like I said, I was just exploring the island that day,” she explained. “And as I walked by… I felt a sort of pull from there. I stumbled across the entrance, and couldn’t help but go inside.”
“And that’s where you found the crystals, and all this?” I asked, motioning over the spread parchment on the floor.
Liz nodded in confirmation. “Yes. As far as I know, nobody else was ever there. At least, not after I found it.”
“Wait a minute,” Eve interrupted. She had been unusually focused on the large paper. “I… don’t think this is just a copy.”
“What do you mean?” Ashley asked.
“I mean, this looks more like a design,” Eve said. “A blueprint.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, and Ashley and Liz and Madison looked equally confounded.
“…What makes you say that?” Liz asked.
“Look at how perfect the curves of the lines are. Look at the faint etchings of supporting shapes around the main markings. This looks like somebody designed it, not copied it from something they saw.” I frowned again. None of the other girls seemed to understand her explanation any better than I. “My dad’s an architect,” she added after a pause. “Some of the blueprints I’ve seen him make have a similar feel.”
“So what you’re saying,” I said slowly, “is that somebody thought up this design, and then went down there and carved it into the stone?”
“That’s what it looks like to me,” Eve answered.
“Why?” Liz said. “The markings there are old, Eve. Like, centuries old. We all saw them.”
“Somebody could have taken great care to make them look that way,” Eve said.
“We’re just going deeper in the rabbit hole,” Madison said with a sigh. “The more we learn, the less we understand.”
Liz shook her head. “Nonsense. We just haven’t had time to process everything yet. I’m sure there’s a pattern here. Eve, if you’re certain…” Liz waited, but Eve didn’t hesitate in nodding, “…then we’ll have to go look at the wall again.”
“If somebody carved these down there based on this,” I said, “then they meant for someone to find it. Why? The markings are what led you to the crystals, Liz.”
“Maybe somebody wanted us to find them,” Ashley said. She shivered conspicuously. “I don’t like thinking of that.”
“No,” Eve said. “Not us. This paper’s too old. It would have taken years for it to yellow like this. Decades, probably.”
“Alright, well, let’s keep looking,” I suggested. “We can take that with us when we go. Along with anything else we might find.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Madison exclaimed. I hadn’t noticed, but while the rest of us were talking, she had slinked back to look under the shelf again. “There’s something else wedged in here that I didn’t see before! Way at the back.” She put her arm in and wiggled it around. “Ugh. I can’t reach it.”
“Let me try,” Ashley said, coming over beside her. She bent down, looking inside the hiding space. “Does anybody have a light?”
“You can use my cell phone,” Liz said, handing it to her after turning the camera LED on.
Ashley shone it into the space and nodded. “I see it,” she said to Madison. “I think I can reach.” I didn’t notice before, but the raven-haired girl had probably the most slender arms I’d ever seen. I looked at mine and felt a tiny stab of jealousy. She was blessed with very graceful arms while mine were thicker and wider. Not abnormally so by any stretch, but not as nice as hers. After a minute of prodding beneath the shelf, Ashley pulled her arm out clutching a crumbled piece of paper.
“Nice one!” Madison said, and Ashley smiled proudly. She gave the sheet to Liz, who straightened it against her thigh. I watched her eyes run left to right as she read whatever was on it. By the third line, her eyebrows had reached the very top of her head.
“What is it?” I asked. The rest of the girls were all leaning in intently. Liz held a finger up to me, continued reading, and then exhaled heavily and put the paper down.
“If you thought the drawings were something,” she said, “just wait until you see this.” She put the smaller piece of paper on top of the other one, and turned it around so the rest of us could read.
At first glance, it looked like the front page of a research report. A large title followed by a paragraph summary. There was a rip in the top left corner where it looked like a staple had once been. I read the title, and found my own eyebrows crawling up: A Theoretical Exposition of Potential Physical Phenomena Derived from the Valency of Vitreous Silica Formations.
�
��Vitreous Silica,” I said under my breath. “Does that mean…?”
“Crystals,” Liz confirmed.
“This is a paper about the power of the crystals!” Madison exclaimed.
“That’s right,” Liz said. “But, this is just the paper abstract. And it doesn’t say much.”
I scanned the paragraph below the title. None of it made sense. There was mention of the “physical valency of quartz objects” and reference to “undefined phenomena associated with lechatelierite and tridymite” and a promise to “expound upon the abstract values of atomic energies,” but it was written in complete scientific jargon and was way over my head.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Eve asked. “Madison, is there anything else under the shelf?”
“Just that,” the diminutive girl confirmed.
“It’s not dated, is it?” Ashley asked.
“No,” Liz answered. “But look at the bottom right corner.”
My eyes went there. I immediately found what Liz was referring to. There, written in tiny letters as a footnote, almost an afterthought, were the words “With thanks to Arthur Eliot, Research Assistant.”
“A name!” I exclaimed.
“Our first lead,” Liz nodded. “The name of the paper’s author isn’t there, but this is nearly as good.”
“Who is he?” Madison asked.
“Somebody who knows about the crystals,” Eve answered. “Somebody who might be able to give us answers.”
“How do we find him?” I wondered aloud.
“Like this,” Ashley said, and held out her phone so we could see the screen. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but she had become deeply engrossed in it. I twisted my head to look. Her mobile browser was open to a Google search for Arthur Eliot. I read the snippet of bold text under the first one. Professor Arthur Eliot, Harvard University.
“You think that’s the same person?” Liz asked.
“That’s the only result that matches,” Ashley said.
“Harvard,” Madison said wonderingly. “Tracy, is he someone your dad might know?”
“I doubt it,” I answered. “But I can ask.” It was funny thinking of my parents. Ever since the attack, the only thing on my mind had been the crystals and my – and the girls’ – safety.
“Madison, this is great,” Liz said. “Thanks to you, I think we found way more than we expected.” Madison smiled shyly at the praise. “I don’t think we need to stick around in this office much longer. I say we take the papers and go.”
“Wait a minute!” Eve said. “What’s this?” She had flipped over the old blueprint and was examining the back. We looked where she was pointing. There, in one corner, was a washed-out stamp of red ink. Despite the age and wear, though, the three letters that ran across its middle were unmistakable: C.I.A.
I felt the blood rush from my head. A spell of dizziness came over me. Dealing with the attacker was one thing. Finding out that Chris and his dad were in on it was scary, but manageable. Yet now, discovering that the Central Intelligence Agency knew about the crystals in some way, well… it was beyond frightening. Beyond imaginable. Just how far did all this go? It felt like stumbling into a giant spider web, and finding yourself hopelessly caught in the middle.
“Tracy? Tracy? You okay?” I blinked, and found Ashley gripping my shoulders. A look of concern was painted on her face.
“Yeah, fine,” I said softly, “just… spooked a little. We shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re right,” Liz said. “Something about this just doesn’t feel right. Let’s get out of here.”
I nodded my agreement. Ashley rolled the larger paper up, while Madison helped me stand up. Liz took the smaller piece of paper and put it in her pocket. Eve went to the door and stuck her head out. After a moment, she turned back. “The coast is clear.”
Chapter Six – The Man in the Caves
The cold air that slammed into my face as I stepped out of the building was the most welcome change I could expect. My heart, however, wouldn’t stop pounding until we were a good four blocks away from the geology building.
“Now what?” I asked tentatively.
“I want to go find out more about Arthur Eliot,” Ashley said. “Who is he? When did he author the paper? How does he know about the crystals?”
“And whether he’s a friend or an enemy,” Eve added astutely.
“We might not find out until we meet him,” Liz said.
“Meet him?” I exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“This is just an idea,” Liz said slowly, “so bear with me. But I think it’s fairly certain the island… it’s not safe. There are other people who know about the crystals. And some of those people would go to great lengths to harm us—to harm you, particularly, Tracy. We know that for sure.”
“Okay…” I said unsurely.
“Madison was the first to point it out. As long as we stay here, we’re just sitting ducks for whoever will come next. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be others who come next.”
“What makes you so certain?” Eve challenged.
“When the man who attacked Tracy doesn’t return,” Liz said, “Chris and his dad are going to realize that something bad happened. If they were crazy enough to send one man after her, they wouldn’t hesitate to send another to finish the job.”
I felt my hackles rise at the suggestion. More attackers? As if one hadn’t been enough. But Liz was right. The threat was there, and it was prominent. The more we found out, it seemed, the deeper ensnared we all became.
“Anyway, I don’t mean to frighten you, Tracy,” Liz continued, “but that’s the truth. And it’s not just you. All of us are likely in the same danger. All of us are in the same danger. It won’t do any good if we stick our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not there. Somebody else knows about the crystals, and somebody else knows about us. But… there are people who know about the crystals, people we don’t know about, who don’t know of us either. That’s the truth. I don’t think this Arthur Eliot – this professor – knows about us. For one, he was just a research assistant when he coauthored the paper. And two, he’s at Harvard. That’s like, a world-renowned school. He’s a public figure. I say we go to him. We don’t tell him who we are, but we ask him about the paper. About the crystals. We can say we’re local high school students doing a project and we found his work. That’s not far from the truth. There’s no way he’ll know who we are – he’s never seen us before. And if somebody out there does make the connection between the crystals and a group of girls from Traven Island, well, we’ll be far away by then. I say we go find Arthur Eliot on a weekend or something, and see what he has to say.”
“Alright,” Ashley said. “So, say we decide to do that. There’s still the little problem of us being stuck on an island!”
“And as far as I know,” Madison added, “no one’s ever left during the school year.”
Liz exhaled and rubbed her temples. “I know, I know,” she said. “I haven’t thought that far yet. Like I said, it’s just an idea—”
“Leave that to me,” Eve said suddenly. There was such fierce determination in her voice that I wondered if she hadn’t tried leaving before. “If we need to go, I can get us off. I… know some people.” She looked at me, and gave a tiny wink. I blinked in response. It was difficult to get a read on the girl.
“But we can’t just run away from school!” Madison exclaimed. “What happens when our parents find out? What happens when our teachers find out?”
“I think we’ve got bigger problems to deal with than what our teachers think,” Eve said drily. Madison flinched.
“I’m not saying we run away,” Liz said. “Only, that we go talk to the professor. Harvard’s in Boston, and that’s not far from here, once we get on the mainland. There’s a long weekend coming up. We can do it then. That way, none of our teachers will even notice we’ve left.”
“But until then, we remain, as you so eloquently put it, sitting ducks,” Eve said, shakin
g her head. “No, that won’t do. If we’re going to do it, we need to do it right away.”
“Hold on,” I said, suddenly remembering the prisoner. “What about the man in the caves? He might have something to tell us.” I’d come to grips with the fact that we’d need to talk to him. In fact, in a strange way, I had started looking forward to it now. “Before we decide to do anything, we should see what he knows.” Rob was still down there, and had been all day. I wanted to see how he was doing. I’d bet anything that events of last night were just as traumatic for him as they were for me, even if he didn’t quite show it.
“I’ll go down there with you,” Eve said.
“Okay,” I nodded. “Anyone else?”
“I want to find out more about Arthur Eliot,” Ashley said, thoughtfully.
“Me too,” Liz said. “The more we know about him the better.”
“What about you, Madison?” I asked.
“I think I’ll go with them,” she said, looking at Ashley and Liz. “I spent a lot of time in the caves last night, and I’m not too eager to go down there again.”
“Alright,” I said. I glanced at my phone, and saw that it was nearly 3:00 p.m. That meant that the streets would be crowded with students coming from class soon. It also meant that there were only a few hours of daylight left. “Eve and I will go down there, and see what the man has to say. We’ll call you when we’re done.”
“Sounds good,” Liz agreed.
We quickly said our goodbyes, and split into two groups. Eve and I headed east, angling toward the cave entrance that was just north of the dorms. Liz and the others went the other way, heading to the library in the main yard.
While I had a general idea of where the cave entrance was, I had never actually been there. Eve took the lead. As we walked, she explained that there were different entrances to the caves all throughout the forest that occupied the upper half of the island, if you knew where to look. If you didn’t, you could walk all the way to the island’s northern tip and not find any.
Time passed quickly as we walked. Before I knew it, we were picking our way through the forest. Clouds rolled in overhead threatening rain. The whole woods quickly shifted to a dreary, gloomy gray. I thought it was a fitting atmosphere for what we were about to do.
