“So you don’t mind if I borrow these blueprints for awhile?” I ask.
“Sure honey, whatever you need,” he says as he turns back to his work.
I roll them up and skip up to my room. Mom pops her head out of her room as I pass by.
“Want to come talk to me while I pack?”
I set the blueprints outside her door, then go in and hop up on her big puffy bed.
“You’re doing okay here, aren’t you?” she asks as she folds clothes into her red suitcase.
“Sure. I mean, I miss Justine a lot, but I’m doing okay.” I run my fingernail fast across the outside fabric so it makes a satisfying zeet zeet sound.
“That code you made up was so creative; maybe this solo time is expanding your mind.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I don’t want to get into the boarding school conversation again, so I change the subject. “What are you going to get for me in Switzerland?”
“What would you like?”
“A new sketchbook would be great.” I turn over on my side and lean on my elbow. “And if they have a Gap, can you get me some jeans that are NOT capri length? I need the longest jeans ever made in the history of the world.”
“No problem.”
“Oh, and Mr. Papers desperately needs a new outfit. He’s like a doll-size medium. Try to get something boyish. The circus look isn’t really working for him anymore.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “You and that monkey …”
“Hey, it’s not my fault I’m an only child.”
“Oh Caity,” she says as she takes my face in her two hands and kisses me on the forehead. “I will miss you.”
When she finishes packing I pick up the blueprints and go to my room. I gather my sketchbook, a ruler, and pencil before hopping up on the bed to spread them out and work.
I find my bedroom on the plan of the East Wing. In between my bedroom and the tower is a long skinny rectangle with an X through it, which must be my secret room. I draw it all in the sketchbook for when I have to return the plans.
When I’m finished drawing I realize that something is really off. In the plans, the room with an X through it runs the whole length of my bedroom, but I know it’s smaller than that.
Or maybe the chamber is bigger than I think.
I spend all afternoon recreating the blueprints in my sketchbook; it may come in handy to have a plan of the whole castle sometime. Everything looks to be pretty straightforward from the blueprints; there isn’t even one other small room with an X in it.
A car door slamming reminds me that Alex is coming for dinner. I brush my teeth, carefully apply defrizzer to every strand of hair, and glide on some lip gloss. I have to walk a fine line between looking cute and not looking so dressed up that my parents tease me about being in love with Alex. Then I grab my favorite accessory, Mr. Papers.
I decide to wait for the intercom; I don’t want it to seem like I’ve just been sitting around for Alex to arrive. So I pace. I roll the blueprints back up and set them by the door. I pace. I rearrange the items on my desk. I pace. Finally Mom announces dinner on the intercom.
Mrs. Findlay is waiting for me outside of the dining room, where she removes Mr. Papers from my shoulder. “Inspector Schlacter mustn’t see him anywhere near the food,” she whispers.
“Stupid cherub,” I mutter to myself as I hand over Mr. Papers.
Dad is at the head of the table, Alex is sitting on one side of him, and Barend Schlacter on the other. Alex’s mom is sitting next to Barend and then my mom is at the end, which leaves one open place right next to Alex.
As I approach the table, Alex’s mom stands up and offers me her hand. I can see where Alex gets his good looks. She’s stunning—one of those women with black hair and very pale skin who actually look glamorous instead of ghostly.
“So nice to meet you Caity,” she says. Her shiny chin-length hair is so silky that it almost looks liquid.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs.—” I look at Alex. “I guess I don’t even know your last name. I’m sorry.”
“It’s Cameron. Ainsley Cameron.” She stares at my eyebrows and says, “My, you do have the Mac Fireland arches!”
Dad laughs. “She looks a lot like the paintings hung all over the castle, doesn’t she.”
I’m dying here. This is just what I need, all eyes to be on me as I walk to the table. Alex gets up and pulls out my chair for me.
“Wow, thanks,” I say.
“So, Caity, how have you taken to living in Scotland?” Mrs. Cameron asks.
“It’s been good so far.” I am unable to come up with anything remotely interesting to say.
“It’s tough with no one her age,” Mom says. “Which is why it’s nice that Alex will be around next week when all the guests come. At least she’ll have someone to talk to.”
“And when school starts you’ll meet more of the local kids,” Mrs. Cameron says.
I look at my parents. “I’m not really sure we’re staying through the school year,” I say. “This was supposed to just be for the summer.”
“Oh, well, that’s too bad. We’d love to have you year-round,” she replies.
We make small talk as we eat each course of the Old Folks Test Dinner that Mrs. Findlay serves us. The dining room has been transformed; this morning it was dusty and cold and the table seemed enormous. Mrs. Findlay must have spent hours polishing the wood paneling because it now glows, and the big silver tea service on the buffet table looks like pirate’s booty. With all the china and crystal and a fire in the fireplace—and our beautiful guests—it feels like a real castle dining room.
During dessert the hotel inspector, Barend Schlacter, starts quizzing my parents about their whole life story. He won’t let up. I can tell Mom and Dad are only being nice about it because they want as many stars as they can get.
I keep staring at Alex’s hands—the only part of him I can look at without being conspicuous. I’m absolutely mesmerized by the aqua blue veins running under his tan skin.
I try to think of something to talk about so I can look at more than just his hands. “So did you spend a lot of time here at the castle when you were younger?” I ask him.
“Aye, I used to come here with my dad whenever he had to repair the electrical.”
It occurs to me that he might know the layout of the castle better than anyone. “Do you happen to know if there is a way to the tower from inside the castle?” I ask.
“Nae. Don’t think there’s really anything in there. This castle was never used for defense, so I’m not really sure why there’s a tower here in the first place.”
“Thomas said that Fergus, my super-great-grandfather who built the castle, put in the foundation to the tower all by himself, in secret.”
“Aye, that’s part of island lore,” he says. “Hard to believe isn’t it?”
“I guess he had help from one other guy, some friend he brought to Scotland from China.”
“Oh, right. Forgot his name, I think there’s an X in it? It’s inscribed on the tower.”
“What’s inscribed?” I ask.
“The man’s name. Fergus Mac Fireland and some Chinese name I can’t remember are both carved in the cornerstone.”
“Really?”
Alex takes a big swig of milk. I like watching his Adam’s apple move as he drinks. “Yep, I’ll show you sometime. I think it’s covered with ivy now, but I know where to look for it.”
“I’d love to see that.”
Thomas walks in and says, “Sorry to disturb, Mrs. Mac Fireland, but we must leave in ten minutes to make the ferry and the train.”
Mom looks at her watch. “Oh, thank god someone is keeping track of me!”
Alex and his mom leave at the same time as Thomas and my parents. Mrs. Findlay is staying overnight in the old servants’ quarters off the kitchen so Dad can go out with Thomas after Mom gets on the ferry. Thomas goes to the pub every night and says that as the Laird, Dad has to get out and mingle; since they’ll be
in Brayne dropping Mom off it’s the perfect opportunity for Thomas and Dad to have a guy’s night out. They even invited Barend Schlacter but he said he cannot fraternize with Inn staff and said he was going to turn in very early anyway.
I haven’t needed a babysitter in years, but the thought of being in the East wing alone for a few hours at night freaked me out, so I bit my tongue when Mom told me she was having Mrs. Findlay stay.
Once everyone is gone and Mrs. Findlay in the kitchen, I sneak off to the library. I take a blank CD and make a copy of Dad’s decoding program. Happy to finally have what I need to decode all of the spirals by myself, I burst out of the library. I don’t see Barend Schlacter standing behind the door and I almost knock him over as I run to the staircase. “Sorry, sir,” I yell back as I bound up the stairs.
I install the program on my computer, pick up the page of symbols marked as number one, and try to remember Dad’s sequence. Scan the page, separate each symbol so each one is an independent piece of data, make sure the decoding begins with the innermost symbol, hit start.
I can’t stand the tension of watching each word pop up one by one, so I leave to put on my pajamas and go to the bathroom. That’s when I notice the huge piece of mushroom in my teeth. My God, mushroom soup was the first course!
I close my eyes, letting the cringe work its way up and down my body.
After what seems like half an hour of teeth brushing, I go back to check on the code. It’s already done. Man, have I got a smart dad! Between the fact that he called his program “littlegenius.exe” and my newfound respect for his brainpower, I start to feel guilty. I’m sure he’ll be really proud of “littlegenius” if he finds any of this out.
I sit down to read the text, breaking it up and punctuating it as best I can:
With will and labor I built the great tower
To sit atop this place of power
Know this though, ’tis less for defense and more to
conceal
What once was lore until I found ’twas real
I knew the key to this was under the tower! Whatever is under there must be so weird that Fergus couldn’t believe it until he saw it himself. The fact that this is a place of power is pretty intriguing. I wonder what that means. Just as I’m closing the document, I get an email from Justine.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: RE: SOS
Hey CMF, Just got off the phone with Gramps. I said what’s up with Dr. Tenzo from Princeton booking a room at the Mac Fireland’s Inn? You won’t believe this—Gramps said Tenzo left suddenly for a sabbatical! He said he’s supposed to be studying some ancient language in China for a year. He has no idea why he is going to Scotland instead and said that it seemed “untoward.” Then he got all upset because he said he may have mentioned where you lived when he forwarded your last email on to Dr. Tenzo. Maybe that’s how he found out who/where you were? He tried to call Tenzo but got his answering machine that said he would be out of the country for a while. Sorry I don’t have more info for you. I’m sure the guy is harmless. I mean, you’re way taller than he is. You could take him in a fight! Ok, off to David’s for a chem tutoring session. We have so much chemistry! ha ha ha ha. XO, Justine
This does nothing to ease my mind!
Another email message pops up; this one is from Uncle Li. It’s to my parents but he copied me on it, telling us he’d be in Brayne by 12:30 tomorrow. I am so relieved that he’s coming—maybe I can talk him into staying the whole time that Tenzo is here.
I want to be able to recognize Tenzo, so I search the Princeton University site for him. Sure enough, there is a faculty picture: Tadashi Tenzo, Ph.D., Ancient and Extinct Languages. Justine was right; he does look creepy. Big glasses, huge red lips, acne scars on his face. If Hollywood were casting for a villain, he could walk in and steal the part. I shudder and finally feel like it might be time to tell my parents about all of this.
Dying to decode another set of symbols, I look for spiral number two. After going through all the tedious steps to input it, I then let it run in the background while surfing the web.
When my computer stops churning, I click over to the program to see the result:
You know of the hares and their unity knot
Now find what the Flower of Life sits atop
These symbols hold wisdom from tribes of the Earth
Knowledge essential for new world rebirth
These are starting to sound like fortune cookie messages. The Flower of Life? Huh?
I immediately search the Internet and find millions of results—guess maybe I should have heard of it. It’s some weird geometric pattern found in ancient sites all over the world. No one knows its origin and it’s a mystery as to why it shows up in all different cultures. I print out an example and then trace it in my sketchbook; it is way too complicated to draw from scratch.
Just as I’m about to hop in to bed, I hear a knock at my door. Assuming it’s Mrs. Findlay or Dad home early, I say, “Come on in.”
To my surprise, it’s the hotel inspector and resident cherub, Barend Schlacter.
“Oh, hi Mr. Schlacter. Sorry about running into you earlier.”
“I need to check on one thing in here,” he says as he closes the door and walks directly toward me.
“Well, um, this is my private room—no guests will ever be staying in this wing,” I say as politely as I can, worried I might cause my parents to lose a star by being rude.
I start to get nervous and ask him to please come back in the morning, but he doesn’t stop until he’s only about a foot away. Then he looks right into my eyes and says, “You’d better be careful, fräulein, I’ve seen you sneaking around. Some secrets are better left untouched.” His breath smells horrible, like mothballs in vinegar.
“What?” I say as I walk backwards away from him. I hit my ankle on my bedpost but the pain doesn’t even register.
“Your father did such a good job of hiding that we lost track of the American line. But alas, we knew we’d find you when your uncle died. No one leaves a castle unclaimed.”
“Look, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. I’m trying to be forceful, but my voice, shaky and weak, is giving me away.
He lunges and grabs my wrist. I try to pull it away and he holds it even tighter, so tight that the tendons in his fat wrist bulge, causing the clasp on his metal wristwatch to pop open. As it dangles on his arm, I see a tattoo on the inside of his wrist. While still holding on to me, he reaches over with his other hand to snap it back together. “Let’s keep it that way, hear me, freund ?”
I nod and he finally lets go of me. As he adjusts his suit and pulls his shirt sleeves back down over his wrists, he says, “Good. I’d hate to see a girl your age orphaned …”
My horrified expression makes him smile. This is surreal; it is all so out of the blue that it’s taking too long to register and I’m speechless, drained of all response.
Then he says, “And don’t go crying to the old frau downstairs, either, or she might go the way of her son-in-law.”
Now I’m not breathing at all.
Instead of turning, he walks out sideways and backwards, like some evil crab, never breaking eye contact with me. As he closes the door he says, “We never spoke, verstehen?”
I nod again and hold back tears until the door is closed. Then I run over and fasten the big iron bolt on the door. Falling to the ground, I unleash the silent, heaving cry that I haven’t done for years. I cry until no tears are left, until I am cold and empty on the stone floor.
I don’t know how much time passes before I am able to pull myself together. I try to wrap my brain around all of this, but it’s not making sense. I can’t put together what it means that he would have “lost track” of my dad, how he would know about Mrs. Findlay’s son-in-law, and what he would think that I’m up to. Could this guy have found out what I’ve been decoding?
Remembering
the tattoo, I jump up to get my sketchbook to draw what I can of it before I forget the image. It was all black, a spider web made from lines over a spiral, and then the letters “FRO” dangling from a piece of the web.
Once I’ve captured it, I go to my computer to see if I can find anything about FRO. I search a bunch of different ways, but only when I combine FRO + spider web + secret, do I find one small reference about a group called Fraternitas Regni Occulti. Supposedly formed way back in the days of the Roman Empire, this mythological Fraternitas is supposed to be the secret society of all secret societies. Their whole goal is to place the world’s power in the hands of a few people who run banks, the government, and the military. Their symbol: a spider web divided into twelve segments.
It has to be the same group—it would be too much of a coincidence that their initials would be FRO and their symbol the spider web—but I can’t figure out what on earth a supposedly mythological secret society would have to do with me, this place, or my dad.
My brain is so scrambled I can’t think anymore, so I double-check the bolt on the door, lock all the shutters on my windows, and crawl up onto my bed. I fully expect not to sleep a wink, so I prop myself up with pillows and wait for Dad to get home.
Make me an orphan? What the hell?
I’m disoriented when I hear Mrs. Findlay on the intercom telling us to wake up already. It’s still pitch dark in my room because of the shuttered windows, but when I look at the clock I see it’s 9:30. It takes a moment to remember what happened last night, and when I do, I’m surprised I was even able to fall asleep.
I jump at a knock on my door. “Wake up sleepyhead,” Dad mumbles. “We both overslept.”
Excited to hear Dad’s voice, I bound out of bed, unbolt the door, and give him a huge bear hug. I have never been so happy to see him.
The Daykeeper's Grimoire Page 6
