Nightingale, Sing

by Karsten Knight

  Atlas couldn’t contain himself. “I figured you were going to tell me some cute story about a kiss beneath the bleachers at the football game. This sounds straight-up creepy.”

  “Well, to a thirteen-year-old, it seemed romantic. Chad knelt next to me and put a finger to his lips. Then he asked, ‘Do you like me?’ I nodded and suddenly we were kissing. He tasted like Cheetos and Mountain Dew and I nearly asphyxiated on his tongue, but I was an idiot with a crush, so it didn’t seem disgusting then. My heart was beating so fast by the time he left that I couldn’t fall back asleep.” I paused. “Which turned out to be a good thing, because I was still awake an hour later when I heard his voice whisper, ‘Do you like me?’—only this time it was to Tanya Lanigan on the other side of the room.”

  Atlas cringed and clasped his hands over his chest. “The preteen heartbreak is almost palpable.”

  I grinned slyly. “Well, that player double-timed the wrong girl. A few days later, I came back to school with a duffle bag full of ‘gentlemen’s magazines’ from the secret stash my Dad kept behind the paint cans in the garage. I broke into Chad’s locker and rigged a stack so they’d fall out the next time he opened the door. He got suspended for two days—then for another week when they found the ones I stuffed in his desk. His parents sent him to Jesus camp that summer.”

  “And so Sabra Tides’s life of retribution got a precocious start,” Atlas said.

  I flipped the playing card onto Atlas’s lap. “Your turn, Casanova. Let me guess: It was on a field trip to Gettysburg, and your studious knowledge of Confederate military strategy got her all hot and bothered.”

  “Actually, it was in a blueberry patch.”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “Before you go any further, is this story going to permanently ruin one of my favorite types of pancakes?”

  “It’s disappointingly less racy than you think,” he said. “Every summer, my family used to vacation on Chebeague Island, off the coast of Maine. I was good friends with one of our neighbors, Sophia, who lived in the cottage next door with her lobsterman father. She taught me how to clam for razors and steamers on the beach, and how to run across the sandbar to the little island when it was low tide. When we were fourteen, we both got jobs at the golf course.” Atlas stared distantly into the fireplace. “For my final night on the island that summer, she stole a bottle of champagne from the country club’s bar. We sat in this one blueberry patch that was ‘our spot,’ taking turns drinking from the bottle. And when the champagne was gone, and the drunken giggling had faded, the moment sort of clicked, and we both went in for the kiss at the same time.”

  I waited for Atlas to say more, but he offered nothing else. “Wow,” I said. “If you’re going to be a historian, you really have to learn to tell a better story, because that one royally sucked. Where was the passion? Where was the ending? Is Sophia back on the island, even now, pining for the day when you’ll return and put a ring on it?”

  Atlas shook his head. “When I returned the next summer, there was a new family living in Sophia’s cottage. It was a bad year for lobstering, so she and her father moved north to Bar Harbor. The year after that, my dad lost his job, and we sold the cottage.” I still looked disappointed. He let out an exasperated sigh. “Sometimes romance ends in a whimper instead of a bang. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t shape the trajectory of your life, even in a little way.”

  “I’m not sure I’m comfortable giving that much credit to all the frogs I’ve kissed,” I replied. “If that’s the case, I should be more discriminating about who ‘shapes my trajectory.’”

  “Did you know that kissing in wedding ceremonies started in ancient Rome?” Atlas asked. “A lot of people were illiterate and couldn’t read a contract, so the kiss became a way to legally seal the marriage.”

  The way Atlas popped out random historical facts like a gumball machine reminded me so much of Jack. I realized with a pang of sadness that given more time, the two of them could have become fast friends. “For what it’s worth,” I said, “I’m glad they stuck Jack with you as a roommate. The guy had offers to every Ivy League school from Harvard to Stanford, but it was as though fate conspired to send him to BU, so he could meet someone the same rare species of nerd that he was.”

  Atlas squinted at me funny, his expression indecipherable. “Say that again,” he said slowly.

  “Say what again? Don’t tell me you’re offended because I called you a nerd.”

  “Not offended.” His voice swelled with excitement. “Inspired.”

  Atlas hurdled over the couch and peeled back the carpet, revealing the eighth riddle. After a few moments of scrutiny, he opened his mouth and I watched clarity wash over his face, like a combination lock in his mind had clicked to the final number. “You clever son of a bitch,” he whispered.

  “You figured it out?” I asked hopefully.

  “The first part at least.” Atlas hurried over to the floor in front of the fireplace. I knelt beside him and we read through the riddle as the firelight played over the page.

  A clash of two dreadnoughts

  One ferric, one ice,

  A victor gloats coldly

  O’er the colossus’s grave.

  A thousand souls swallowed

  Down the dark, frigid maw.

  A library sinks

  With its scholar in tow.

  But he’ll study eternal

  In what looks just like home,

  While dreaming of black spots,

  Islands, and gold.

  “At first,” Atlas explained spiritedly, “I thought this riddle was referring to a myth or folktale about a battle between two monsters, one made of iron—ferric—and one made of ice. But after an hour or two, I realized that maybe I wasn’t taking this literally enough. A dreadnought is another name for a battleship. Tell me: How much do you know about the sinking of the RMS Titanic?”

  “Um, I saw the movie a few times, but all I remember is that it was a huge ocean liner that sank in the Atlantic. And that Leonardo DiCaprio is super adorable with bangs.”

  Atlas rolled his eyes. “A little over a century ago, in April of 1912, the Titanic set sail from Liverpool, England, and picked up passengers in France and Ireland on route to America. But in the dead of night, somewhere far off the coast of Newfoundland, the ship struck an iceberg, which tore into its watertight compartments and sunk the boat in a matter of hours.” He jabbed his finger at the page. “These opening lines—A clash of two dreadnoughts / One ferric, one ice—refer to the ship and the iceberg. The accident caused fifteen hundred people to freeze or drown in the cold ocean waters, hence the lines A thousand souls swallowed / Down the dark, frigid maw. The problem? If we’re to believe the map you found at Nox’s mansion, all of the journal pages so far have been hidden in New England, in places with historical relevance to Boston. But the destination of the Titanic’s maiden voyage was New York City.”

  “Maybe there’s a museum or a memorial somewhere around here,” I suggested.

  “That was my thought, too. Unfortunately, the only in-state museum I could find is way out in Western Massachusetts, and when I searched through the registry of artifacts, not a single object made sense of the rest of the poem.”

  “What about this part?” I underscored the seventh and eighth lines with my fingertip. A library sinks / With its scholar in tow. “If the Titanic was so luxurious, it must have had a library, and probably a librarian, too.”

  “Two libraries, in fact. One for the first class, one for the second class, and none for the lower class.” Atlas beamed. “But it wasn’t until you mentioned Harvard a few minutes ago that I realized the riddle is referring to a different library altogether.”

  He whipped out his cell phone, furiously typing something into the web browser. After a few strokes on the keypad, the condo’s television flickered and the synced image from his phone replaced Rosemary Clooney on the screen.

  I wandered closer to read the article that Atlas had pulled up. I
t featured a black-and-white portrait of a handsome young man with piercing eyes and his hair parted immaculately down the center. He might have looked overly serious in his dapper suit had it not been for the ghost of a smile on his lips. I read the caption aloud: “Harry Elkins Widener.”

  According to the article, Harry had been a graduate of Harvard College best known for his impressive collection of books. Shortly after his twenty-seventh birthday, the bibliophile and his parents had traveled to France to collect a rare text.

  For the return voyage, Harry had unfortunately purchased a ticket aboard the doomed Titanic. While he and his father had perished in the frigid Atlantic, his mother survived and donated two million dollars to Harvard to construct a library in his name.

  I felt an excited chill as my eyes landed on the article’s final picture. It showed a beautiful study, complete with a fireplace, a large antique desk, and tall bookcases recessed into oak walls. This, I knew instantly, was the place we’d find the ninth journal page. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “There’s a memorial in the middle of the library that’s a replica of Widener’s study?”

  Atlas laughed darkly, before reciting in a singsong voice, “But he’ll study eternal / In what looks just like home.”

  I’d always had mixed feelings about Cambridge, the sprawling city on the opposite bank of the Charles River. It was an eclectic blend of high-tech and old-fashioned, wealthy and impoverished, enlightened and uneducated—one great big patchwork quilt of a town. Hell, it was even divided into “squares.” Kendall Square, to the far east, was Boston’s answer to Silicon Valley, a hub of cutting-edge computer science and engineering that siphoned the brightest recruits from nearby MIT. Only a few blocks from Kendall’s modern expanse of steel and glass lay Central Square, a squat line of vegan restaurants and bars that fed on the wallets of grad students. No matter the time of day, Massachusetts Avenue teemed with throngs of belligerent locals.

  Then there was Harvard Square, the beating heart of Cambridge, where all these worlds collided. It was my favorite part of town. At least once a week, I biked across the river to pig out at a Sicilian pizza place tucked away in an alley.

  As Atlas and I stepped off the railcar and into the subway station, a musician with dreadlocks and a colorful hat strummed out a funky tune on his electric guitar. Beside him, his drummer smiled toothlessly at passersby while his drumsticks rat-a-tat-tatted over the tile floor. It was a shining example of why I loved Harvard Square so much:

  It was weird. Truly, deeply weird.

  We passed a peddler who was selling both jewelry and extension cords off a hemp rug, and Atlas whispered, “I call this place the Twilight Zone of Boston.”

  Aboveground, the two of us were swallowed by a deluge of tourists that had just spilled out of a bus. A horn blared as a taxi nearly mowed down a camera-wielding man who had wandered into traffic. I wondered what the life expectancy of tourists was around here.

  We shouldered our way through the milling crowd and under the wrought-iron gates to Harvard University. We hadn’t traveled a dozen paces onto campus before Atlas stopped to admire a red brick building with a sextet of chimney stacks. “This,” he said excitedly, “is Massachusetts Hall. During the Siege of Boston in 1775, an entire garrison of colonial troops stayed here while the British—”

  I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Focus. There’s plenty of history waiting for us at the library.”

  His focus only lasted another sixty seconds. As we crossed Harvard Yard, a sweeping quad with towering oaks, Atlas pointed to a bronze statue of a clergyman in colonial garb—John Harvard himself. A gaggle of tourists had formed a line and were rubbing the statue’s left foot, one by one. While the last two centuries had weathered the rest of the monument a dark, dull brown, the toe of his right boot gleamed, polished to its original bronze thanks to whatever weird daily tradition I was observing. “What the hell are they doing?” I asked.

  Atlas released a girlish giggle and leaned closer so that only I could hear him. “Each day, the tour guides tell the visitors that rubbing John Harvard’s left foot will bring them good luck. And each night, the students piss on it.”

  We both doubled over with laughter when the next tourist in line stood on his tiptoes to kiss the boot.

  A short walk later we arrived at Widener Library. Unlike Jack, I had never been the bookish type, but as I gazed up at the towering columns, I thought that this was the kind of place I could curl up with an issue of Vogue for a few hours.

  Which was for the best, since according to our plan, I’d be spending the better part of the evening inside.

  Atlas suddenly looked nervous. “I’m really starting to rethink letting you do this alone,” he said.

  I sighed. Even after I’d explained all the logical reasons why I needed to fly solo tonight, I knew he’d play the macho card at the last minute. “If I get caught by myself, at least you’ll be free to try again. But if they catch us both trespassing, there will be no one to finish this quest for Echo. Besides, even if we were to escape together, Detective Grimshaw will have access to the security footage, and if he identifies you then the Dollhouse is compromised.” I’d been hesitant to even let him ride the subway with me—there were cameras everywhere, these days—but I’d made that concession to get him off my back.

  Atlas slouched in defeat. “But we don’t even have a student ID for you to get into the library. We don’t know where in the memorial room the journal page is hidden, either. You’re going to need my help—”

  “—Which I’ll be able to get instantly by texting the History Dork Hotline, because you’ll be staring anxiously at your phone the entire time you’re working your concierge shift.”

  I spied a girl coming down the library stairs carrying a stack of books up to her chin. Laced in her fingers, dangling in front of her, was the lanyard attached to her student ID.

  I backed away from Atlas. “Just remember, you may be the book smarts of this operation …” I tapped my temple. “… But I’m the street smarts.”

  Then I turned and intentionally crashed into the student.

  The girl’s book tower toppled, scattering over the steps. “I am so sorry,” she apologized timidly, as though it were her fault.

  I bent down to help her wrangle the books. “Please, I’m the klutz.” I spotted her ID sticking out from beneath a copy of Camus’s The Stranger. While she was distracted, I deftly palmed the badge. Then I placed the last book on the towering pile the girl had once again collected in her arms. “On your next visit to the library,” I suggested, “consider bringing a wheel barrow.”

  The bookworm smiled and waddled off. As I jogged up the library steps, I triumphantly repeated “Street smarts!” over my shoulder to Atlas. I slipped between the pillars and swiped the stolen ID to gain access through the metal turnstiles. I was in.

  The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Room was at the top of the first flight of stairs, beneath a dazzling chandelier. Because it was in such a high-profile location, searching it during the daytime was out of the question. For now, I stood in front of the stanchions that corded off the room from visitors and reacquainted myself with its layout, while mentally cataloging all the places where the ninth riddle could be hiding.

  Tall bookcases lined the walls, crammed end to end with dusty texts. Widener’s handsome portrait hung over the ornate fireplace and a red Persian carpet spanned most of the floor. I’d pegged the desk as the riddle’s most likely location. I made a note to check its drawers for false bottoms.

  The room’s crown jewel was the display case containing a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the first book ever printed using movable type. Only twenty-one copies in the world had survived since the fifteenth century. I would look in that case only as a last resort. I wasn’t superstitious by any means, but tampering with a priceless religious text was asking for bad juju.

  After I had absorbed as much as I could, I ventured deeper into the library to find an isolated study carol, where I’
d carry out the most agonizing component of my plan: waiting.

  When I had explained the next phase to Atlas, he had replied, “So your master plan essentially boils down to how well you can play hide-and-seek?”

  He was absolutely right.

  When the P.A. system crackled on at last and a librarian announced closing time, I slipped into the women’s bathroom. I walled myself in one of the stalls until I heard the door swing open. I tucked my feet up onto the toilet seat.

  “All clear in here?” the security guard asked. Without waiting for a response, he disappeared off to finish his rounds.

  It was close to eleven when I cautiously emerged from the restroom, listening for any signs of movement—late-night librarians, security patrols, cleaning crews. But there was only a deep and pervasive silence.

  On my way up to the Memorial Room, I worried I’d trip hidden motion detectors, setting off blaring alarms and flashing red lights, but the university probably didn’t expect anyone to “Trojan Horse” their way into some place as boring as the library.

  The memorial had gone dark except for its dim auxiliary lighting, so I unclipped an LED flashlight from my belt as I stepped over the stanchion. A vase containing flowers glinted under the light. I had read in my research that they’d put a fresh bouquet on the desk every week for the last hundred years, a stipulation made by Harry Widener’s mother.

  In comparing the last two riddles, I had deciphered a pattern: each poem was structured to move from general to specific, like a funnel. With the most recent riddle, the opening lines introduced the idea of the Titanic’s victims, then narrowed the location down to Widener Library, then the Memorial Room—which meant that the final stanza should tell me exactly where in the memorial to look. I had memorized the last few lines so if I got caught, they wouldn’t find the journal page on me: