Invisible City

by M. G. Harris

  I have to find that Mayan manuscript—if it’s still in Oxford. And there’s only one place left to search.

  I drop by Dad’s Oxford college. The porters there know me. They let me by with a respectful little nod, just enough for me to know they’re still in mourning for Dad. I’ve been dragged along to enough college events to know that Dad was a popular guy here. As I make my way around the immaculate edges of the central lawn in the main quad, I almost bump into one of Dad’s colleagues, Dr. Naomi Turnbull—she’s always sweet to me. I tell her that I’ve come to start clearing out Dad’s office.

  “Oh,” she says, with a sympathetic frown. “So your mom doesn’t have to? You’re a good guy, Josh.”

  Like everyone else, Naomi wants the latest update. Dad’s death is making me feel like a news reporter.

  “Yeah, he’s definitely dead … turns out he was murdered … nope, they don’t know yet who did it, they’re working on some leads …”

  I hate myself for censoring the rest. But not everyone is going to have my faith in Dad. For Mom, this is the worst thing of all. She’s gone from the sympathetic widow to the wronged wife. Not an ideal move.

  Naomi seems to be in a hurry anyway. “I have to be going, Josh,” she says. “We had some trouble here this morning and I need to talk to the police.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Oh, just some stupid break-in. Or attempted break-in, actually, in the staircase where your father had his office. They tripped the alarm and ran off. Pretty crazy place to try and burglarize, though, don’t you think?”

  I freeze, and try to look casual. “Yeah. Weird.”

  Naomi gives me a sympathetic squeeze before she leaves. I hurry to Dad’s office. Inside, a wave of sadness hits me. It’s so strong that I have to sit down for a few minutes. Tears form at the corner of my eyes. I can hardly look around the room without sensing Dad’s presence. His books, his papers on his desk. My photo, taken when I was eight years old, grinning, all gap-toothed. Eventually I get a grip and start hunting for a hiding place. Where would he stash a secret Mayan manuscript?

  I gaze around the room, taking in all the objects. And suddenly it’s obvious. My eyes land on a framed illustration of a Mayan ruin by Frederick Catherwood.

  My dad loved Catherwood’s illustrations. He used to say that Catherwood’s drawings of some of the Mayan inscriptions were the best work anyone ever did. As good as photographs.

  I lift the frame off its hook. There’s nothing behind it on the wall. I run my fingers over the back of the picture. There’s the slightest bulge in the middle.

  I use my fingernails to scratch the brown paper that seals the back of the picture. A layer comes away in my hand. And underneath, something’s hidden.

  It’s wrapped in several layers of tissue paper, folded, about the size of a piece of letter paper. I unwrap it carefully. A piece of very old-looking bark paper. I’ve seen this kind of paper before—in museums. It’s the kind the Mayans used in their books. Three edges of the bark paper are smooth, but the right-hand edge looks rough, as though it has been torn across the middle, vertically. The paper is coated in a white, chalky substance and covered with fading Mayan hieroglyphs.

  Whatever it is, it’s incomplete. The section of writing to the right of the tear is missing.

  Is this the Calakmul letter? As I wrap it back into the tissue paper, I notice that the final layer is covered with some writing. In ballpoint pen, just these words:

  Josh, Eleanor, if I don’t make it back from Mexico, BURN THIS. I’m serious. Don’t make a copy. Destroy it.

  Love you both, Andres.

  It’s the lamest farewell note I can imagine. What about saying his good-byes, telling us how much he loved us and all that? If it’s so dangerous, why didn’t Dad destroy the letter himself? Or was his note just an insurance policy—against a danger he never really believed he would face?

  Is that all we were to him—just someone to burn evidence for him and leave it at that?

  I decide not to tell Mom about the Calakmul letter—if it really is that. Dad’s note doesn’t paint the most encouraging picture of a devoted husband. Even I have to admit that.

  And there’s another reason. Mom might try to talk me into following Dad’s instructions and burning the manuscript. But there’s no way. There’s just too much at stake.

  I peel off the rest of the false back of the Catherwood picture. That’s when I see that something else is hidden there.

  It’s so shocking that I simply stare at it for a long time. A small, square black-and-white photograph, printed on Kodak paper with the processing date—August 1964. The image? I recognize him immediately—it’s the man from my dream. The man who with his dying breath whispers: “Summon the Bakabix.”

  Chapter 9

  I start boxing up papers, making good on my promise to start clearing Dad’s office. I can’t resist taking one of the photos, too; there’s a great one of Dad on top of Mont Blanc. I grab the Dictionary of Mayan Hieroglyphs and books on how to read the glyphs. I drop by my house with the two boxes of papers, journals, and books that I’ve cleared out. The back windows are boarded up now, until someone comes to replace the glass. I take a few of the books, go back to Summertown Library, and start deciphering the inscription on the Mayan manuscript.

  I begin by cross-referencing the place-names mentioned in Dad’s e-mails with any glyph I can easily make out on the Mayan inscription. Some place-names I’ve heard of, probably even been to at some point. The way it works is this: if they know the original Mayan name for a ruin, they use it. Like Uxmal, Chichén Itzá, Calakmul. But sometimes the Mayan name has been forgotten. Like with Palenque—a ruin named for the Spanish-built town nearby.

  With a list of known place-names in one hand, I recognize glyphs for Calakmul and Cancuén in the inscription. The symbols for che (knot), chan (snake), and naab (water) are easy to find too, clumped together to make one glyph. I’ve already researched the cities on the Web, but I haven’t found anything about Chechan Naab. That is pretty unusual in itself. Most Mayan cities have been written about somewhere.

  Could Chechan Naab be a lost city of the Maya? As for the other city mentioned in Dad’s e-mails—Ek Naab—there’s no sign of those glyphs on the inscription.

  That’s the easy part of the decipherment. As I stare at those columns of glyphs, it strikes me that I don’t have the faintest clue how to read them. Left to right? Top to bottom? I don’t even know where to begin. So I put the Calakmul letter safely out of view, tucked away in a paperback copy of The Subtle Knife. And I settle down to read a book called How to Read Mayan Hieroglyphs.

  As I work, I can’t help noticing out of the corner of my eye that a girl sitting diagonally opposite keeps glancing in my direction. For a while I’m not sure if she intends to look at me at all—there’s probably some cute college student directly behind me. I lift my book to shield my face, then sneak a long look at the girl over the pages.

  She’s gorgeous.

  She’s wearing a blue and white cotton dress. Butter blond hair ripples across her shoulders. I swing around, survey the room behind me. There are plenty of students around, but they’re all trolls. Certainly no one worthy of the total goddess sitting opposite. When I turn back around, she’s staring openly at me, with this sort of bemused grin.

  I redden, but manage to mouth, “Who, me?” in what I hope is a comic fashion. She nods. I push my chair back, walk over as slowly as possible, trying desperately to think of something cool to say.

  In the end I go with, “Hey, stranger.”

  The girl grins. “Hey yourself … Josh.”

  I just stare.

  “The boy with the blog,” she continues. “You know who I am?”

  It seems too incredible. But could it really be …?

  “TopShopPrincess …?”

  “Olivia,” she says. “Olivia Dotrice. You can call me Ollie—everyone does.”

  “But you are TopShopPrincess?”


  “Of course. How else would I know where to find you?”

  “Um. About that … I thought we were both joking.”

  “Well, yeah, until you went and deleted your blog … So, can you guess why I’m here?”

  I stick my hands deep into my pockets. “Um … nope. I really can’t.”

  She frowns. “I wanted to apologize, Josh. When I saw that you’d deleted your blog, I guessed that my comment upset you. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  I shrug. “It’s okay.”

  “Were you upset?”

  “I was annoyed, yeah. You didn’t even know my dad.”

  “I know. It was stupid, thoughtless. I guess I felt for your mom. I just thought that’s where your priorities should be. But it was a hasty judgment. Also …” She stops, glances around, lowers her voice. “I was getting worried about how much you were giving away on that blog. Didn’t you think that the people who burglarized your house might know about your blog? You even wrote about where you were. You should be more careful!”

  “Actually, yeah. That’s why I deleted it. Not because you upset me or anything.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” she says, smiling.

  We’re getting major shushing from the librarian, so we step outside into the garden and find a bench near one of the many sculptures dotted around. It’s a fabulous summery day, sizzling hot. The garden is practically empty.

  “I’ve been thinking about your mystery,” Ollie begins. “Hope you don’t mind. I don’t mean to be nosy, but you’ve got me intrigued now, with the whole UFO thing and all. You really think it’s a coincidence that your dad was murdered around the same time that a massive UFO sighting happened?”

  I haven’t dared to go on about it, what with Mom in the state she’s in. Ollie’s right, though—I never thought it was a coincidence. I just haven’t got any idea how UFOs tie in with drug barons in search of a lost relic.

  Ollie continues. “Seeing that UFO really changed me. Something like that, it makes you question everything you ever read, ever heard.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, like the links between the Maya and UFOs, for one thing.”

  If I’m honest, growing up, the part of archaeology that did excite me was the whole connection between UFOs and ancient history. That stuff is amazing. But of course, the subject was practically banned in our house. Dad worked hard to keep me from being interested in the more bizarro theories about the Maya that you find on the Internet.

  “What, the whole ancient-Mayas-came-from-the-lost-city-of-Atlantis thing? Ancient astronauts and all that? My dad always laughed at that.”

  “I’ll bet he wasn’t laughing when he was abducted.”

  “If he was abducted.”

  “You don’t think there’s a connection?”

  I sigh.

  Ollie presses her point. “Wouldn’t you like to be the one to find proof that UFOs have something to do with the Mayan civilization? It’s like—one of the major secrets of history!”

  “Well … my dad was pretty down on all that new-age stuff. Plus, things have moved on since you last read my blog. I know now why my dad was killed.”

  “I think I do too.”

  We stare at each other for a few seconds.

  “What did you say?”

  “Think about it,” she whispers, tugging at my arm. “What if your dad found some link between the ancient Maya and UFOs? I mean, real evidence? What if the codex actually proves that the Maya had contact with extraterrestrials? Wouldn’t that be worth something?”

  I’m confused. “To who?”

  “Well, lots of people. Art collectors. Those new-age religion gurus, they’d love that.”

  “Yeah … but they’re hardly going to kill anyone—”

  “The CIA.”

  “What?”

  “The CIA,” she repeats. “NASA, ‘Majestic,’ or whatever their latest name is. The government agency that does all the UFO cover-ups. The Area 51 people. You know what, Josh? I think you haven’t been thinking big enough. This could be really, really huge!”

  I thought I was getting paranoid, thinking about government conspiracies. But it’s beginning to make sense. There’s a long history of UFO sightings in Mexico. Mom, of course, goes along with the old chestnut “Mexican people are a fanciful bunch.” And hadn’t Montoyo written to Dad, Web searches and e-mails are routinely monitored by organizations whose interest in the I* Code* might surprise you?

  The CIA!

  “They could track e-mails,” I say, almost to myself.

  “They could.”

  “Maybe they read my e-mail to Montoyo?”

  “Who’s Montoyo?”

  I look at Ollie for a few seconds, wondering. She’s looking at me, her expression eager. Should I tell her? I can feel it all bubbling up inside me. It feels so good to actually talk to someone about this. Now that I’ve started, I don’t want to stop.

  So, I fill Ollie in on the e-mails I found between my dad, Carlos Montoyo, and that Peabody Museum guy, Martineau. I tell her all about the hunt for the Ix Codex and finish off with my discovery of the Calakmul letter in Dad’s college room. I carry it with me at all times now, still wrapped in its tissue paper. When she sees the manuscript fragment, her eyes widen; she’s impressed.

  “That is so cool.”

  “I know.”

  “But it’s torn.” Suddenly she looks disappointed.

  “Yeah. The right-hand side of the message is missing. But Mayan writing goes up and down, in columns. So I’ll be able to decipher the first part of the letter at least.”

  “Where do you think the rest is?”

  I frown. “I don’t know … I sort of assumed that this is all that Dad found.”

  “Hmm,” she says thoughtfully. “Do you think it is part of the Ix Codex?”

  Dad’s e-mails to Montoyo and Martineau don’t suggest that. But then, I wouldn’t know what a real Mayan codex looks like.

  “Not sure,” I tell her. “Maybe it’s about the codex. Where to find it, perhaps.”

  She asks, “What’s Montoyo’s story?”

  “He seemed to know all about this Ix Codex,” I say. “Told Dad that people had disappeared looking for it. Funny really, because I’ve read lots of stuff about Mayan archaeology since this thing started. And I’ve never heard a single mention of the Ix Codex.”

  “That is weird. So how did Montoyo hear about it?”

  I pause, thinking. “No idea. And he asked to meet my dad. I e-mailed Montoyo to ask if he ever actually did.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Never replied.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that he might be the one who really killed your father?”

  “Of course,” I lie. Okay, maybe I’d had a background-level suspicion. Ollie’s questioning is crystallizing all sorts of ideas I’d put out to dry.

  She warms to her theory. “He knew your dad was onto the codex. So he pretends to help him. Then he meets up with your dad and gets rid of him.”

  “And this guy they’ve framed for murdering my dad?”

  “That’s a bit more tricky,” she agrees eventually. “The CIA could frame a person for murder. And they could have your house burglarized.”

  “So you really think it’s the CIA, then?”

  “I don’t know, Josh. I’m just trying out some theories here. Isn’t that what detectives do?”

  I haven’t thought of it that way. The main thing, for me, is to prove to Mom that Dad wasn’t murdered for messing around with another woman. And to prove it to myself.

  The codex thing has me intrigued, definitely. My father was looking for it. Now I seem to be picking up on the trail. There’s a connection with his disappearance—I just know it. And something else, something weird I can’t quite put my finger on. It feels pretty thrilling to be following in my father’s footsteps. Thrilling—and a little dangerous.

  “You know what you have to do?” says Ollie. “Deci
pher that inscription. Maybe even find the codex. I could help you. You up for that? We’ll be like Mulder and Scully.”

  I grin. “If you’re Scully and I’m Mulder, then shouldn’t you be the skeptical one?”

  “What’s the difference? In the end they were both believers.”

  Ollie’s theories spark one of my own. Maybe the woman in Chetumal has something to do with Dad’s search for the codex. It would explain why Dad had spent so much time with her. She might know something about the codex. Maybe framing her husband was their way of keeping her quiet.

  No two ways about it; we have to talk to Chetumal Lady.

  I ask, “Are you a university student?”

  Ollie laughs. “Not yet! I’m a sophomore at St. Margaret’s.”

  I know the school. Some of those girls have modeling contracts. It isn’t, after all, so surprising that Ollie seems so glamorous. I’m used to a more everyday type of girl.

  “So you really think we should try to find this codex, then? Assuming it’s still out there.”

  Ollie’s smile is a thing to behold. “It’d be amazing.”

  “Seriously, though. It sounds dangerous.”

  “Aren’t you even a little curious?”

  “Me? Sure, but I’ve been warned off.”

  “Don’t you want to get back at the people who killed your dad?”

  “By finding the codex?”

  “Yes,” she says. “By beating them at their own game.”

  Ollie’s blue eyes shine with excitement.

  I don’t know how much of what Ollie has said I actually believe, but her offer is tempting. All I know is that if this codex is still out there, other people will want it. And the codex will buy all sorts of things. Including the answer to the question Who killed my dad?

  If I had the codex, they’d have to negotiate with me.

  “Well, to be honest,” I say, “I could use the help.”

  That’s how we team up. All because of Ollie’s powers of deduction.

  I’ve never met anyone like her. She. Is. Amazing.