The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers Book 5: Trust No One

by Linda Sue Park

  “Ian, it’s Amy. I’m here with Dan. And Jake and Atticus.”

  A brief silence. Then, “Hello.”

  Never had that word sounded less welcoming. Amy sighed — he wasn’t going to make this easy. And she had the added pressure of making this call with an audience: The phone was on speaker, so the four boys with her could hear everything.

  “Evan found out — Sinead is the mole.” She could almost hear the click of a door closing on her emotions, blocking out the pain that went with those words. Focus, she told herself firmly.

  No response from Ian.

  “Ian, I’m sorry.”

  Still no response.

  “Look, I know we screwed up big-time.”

  Finally: “That would seem to be an understatement of laughable proportions,” he said.

  Followed by silence again.

  Amy gritted her teeth. “Ian, come on. I’ll say it again: I’m really, really sorry. What do you want me to do, beg?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” Ian said.

  Jake bristled. “Hey, where do you get off?”

  Amy scowled at him. “I don’t need your help, and besides, you’re just going to make him madder.”

  “You don’t even know him,” Evan protested to Jake. “He’s okay, he’s just pissed off right now. Amy, if you want, I can try —”

  Amy glared at the two of them. “Would you both please shut up? Ian —” She paused, trying to figure out a way to break through to him. Maybe if I ask a question . . . “Is there any way I can make this right?”

  Ian cleared his throat. “I would have thought you would have given me the benefit of the doubt,” he said, his accent more clipped than she had ever heard before. “After all, we do have a considerable history together.”

  Amy felt her face go pink. A couple of years ago, she had had a crush on Ian, which, it turned out, had been mutual. Was that what he was referring to? I hope not — I’m already all mixed up when it comes to boys!

  The pain of Sinead’s betrayal came back in full force. Like most girls and women, Amy confided in her female friends, and just yesterday she had drafted an e-mail to Sinead about kissing Jake. She hadn’t had a chance to send it, and now she never would.

  Amy forced herself to concentrate. “I know that. But think about it, Ian — the recent history with you has been — well, worrying. You left Attleboro without telling anyone where you were going, and no one could get in touch with you. Then when you got back, you wouldn’t tell Evan where you’d been. We didn’t want to think the worst, but can you see how it looked?”

  Another silence, but somehow this one seemed less frosty.

  “I see your point,” he said. “But the phrase benefit of the doubt means that one holds off doubting and gives the subject time to explain. Or whatever.”

  “You’re right,” she said, “and I’m sorry. Really I am. If you’re willing to explain now, I’m ready. Late to the party is better than — than missing the boat entirely, right?”

  A pause. Then, “I shall plan a party on the Force.”

  “The Force — you mean, your yacht?” Amy was startled by the sudden change in subject.

  He snorted. “Yes, and you can arrive late, thus rescuing you from that appalling mixed metaphor.”

  Amy laughed, partly at his joke and partly from relief; her approach seemed to be working. And now for a little ego stroking . . .

  “Okay, can we talk about what you’ve been up to? The rest of you, listen up. Whatever Ian has to say, I’m sure it’s important.”

  “Amy. Please. I’m going to explain everything whether or not you flatter me, so you needn’t bother.”

  Amy blushed again. “Okay, you got me. But I meant it, too. Go ahead.”

  Ian’s explanation was concise and efficient. He told them that his mother Isabel’s charity, AWW, was highly suspect. She appeared to be using it as a cover, traveling all over the world.

  “She’s been to Alaska, Istanbul, Quito in Ecuador —”

  “Wait. Ian, this is Dan. You said she’s using the charity as a cover — for what?”

  “Ah. That I have not yet been able to deduce. The locations seem quite random. If there is anything connecting them, I do not know what it is. Other than poor people, which gives AWW a reason to be there.” Pause. “It seems there are poor people everywhere.”

  Amy noticed that there was no disdain in his voice, as there might have been a couple of years ago.

  “Ian, would you send me the list of where she’s been, and copy it to Attleboro? Maybe if all of us work on it, we can figure something out.”

  “What is it you Americans say — ‘Hey okay’?”

  Atticus giggled. “‘A-okay,’” he said.

  “Yes. Well. You knew what I meant.” Ian seemed back to his usual self now, unflappable and confident-borderline-arrogant.

  Amy discussed with him the next step: working with Evan to find the hostages. Ian agreed readily. As they ended the call, Amy felt a little better. That, at least, had gone fairly well.

  Evan stood up. “Guess I better get going,” he said reluctantly. He fist-bumped Dan and nodded at Jake and Atticus. Then he turned to Amy.

  The look in his eyes — equal parts anxious and hopeful — made her feel terrible again. She hugged him quickly, knowing that Jake was right there watching.

  The exterior of the Beinecke resembled a pane of giant postage stamps made of marble, its lines clean and modern. It did not look like a building that held rare books. It looked more like a futuristic art museum, or perhaps an experimental cloning facility.

  As the four teens entered through the glass doors, they could see a uniformed security guard at the front desk. Clearly this was no ordinary library.

  Amy approached the desk first and introduced the group as homeschoolers on a field trip. “We’re studying the Renaissance,” she said brightly. She found it a little scary to consider how practiced she had become at lying to strangers. “And we know that the Beinecke has a lot of medieval manuscripts, so we were wondering —”

  “The Voynich!” Atticus came in right on cue, bouncing a little in excitement. “Amy, ask about the Voynich!”

  “Okay, okay!” she said, laughing a little, and turned back to the guard. “He’s pretty excited — we’ve been learning a lot about it.”

  Not lying there.

  The guard didn’t smile, but his face was kind. “The Voynich is kept in secure storage,” he said. “It’s not on display for the general public.”

  Amy’s face fell. (That, too, was genuine.) “They don’t bring it out, not ever?”

  “Requests have to be submitted in advance, in writing,” he said. “And even if you do that, I should warn you that very few requests are approved.”

  Now Dan stepped forward. “We’ve come a really long way to see it,” he said. Also not a lie . . . yesterday we were in Africa, for heaven’s sake.

  Jake’s turn. “We didn’t know about asking in advance — can we talk to someone else about it?”

  The guard looked them over. Amy did her best to appear earnest, eager, and innocent. She made sure not to look at the others, afraid she might break out of character if she did.

  The guard reached for the phone in front of him. “I’ll make a call,” he said. “But I’m warning you, you probably won’t be allowed to see it. This might take a while, so” — he nodded toward a clear acrylic display stand on the desk — “in the meantime I suggest you look around. There’s some interesting stuff upstairs.”

  It was just as well, Atticus thought as they climbed the wide staircase to the mezzanine. This will give us a chance to check out the building. Plus, it reinforces our cover story.

  The Beinecke was really a building inside a building: In the center was a multistory glass tower. On every floor of the tower were shelves full of books visible through the glass walls.

  Old books.

  Really old books.

  “Incunabula,” Atticus said, his eyes glowing with exci
tement.

  “In what?” Dan asked.

  “Incunabula,” Atticus repeated. “It actually means ‘in the cradle.’ It’s the word used to describe the earliest books ever made.”

  He tilted his head back to look at the top of the tower, then gazed at the marble walls, turning slowly in a full circle. Now that they were inside, he could see that the white marble slabs were veined with trans-lucent streaks.

  “It’s so smart!” he said. “See how the marble has those streaks in it? Only a little light can get through — direct light is really bad for old books, it fades them. They’re protected from the sun, but you can see them through the glass.”

  Amy was right there with him. “And they’re so beautiful,” she said.

  Row upon row of books, most of them bound in leather, reached to the ceiling several stories over their heads, illuminated by the faint glow of autumn sunlight through the marble. It was truly striking.

  Amy and Atticus paired up for a gushing session as they walked around the mezzanine.

  “The brochure says this exhibit is about how a book gets made. That could be interesting. It’s D’Aulaires’ Greek Myths —”

  “I LOVE that book! Look, they’ve got the original drafts —”

  “And the preliminary sketches for the artwork! It’s showing every step of how the book was made — how cool is that?”

  “Not that cool,” Dan muttered. He and Jake trailed behind, keeping the book-geekery at a safe distance.

  Amy gasped. “Atticus, do you see what I see?” She pointed at a display case in one corner of the mezzanine.

  In the dim light, Atticus could not make out any details, but he could see that the book in the case was positively enormous.

  “Audubon?” he whispered, barely daring to hope.

  “It’s gotta be,” she said, and they raced over.

  It was indeed John James Audubon’s Birds of America, first published in the 1840s. The gigantic book was open to the page for the chickadee, although the caption called it the “Black-Capt Titmouse.”

  “The original double-elephant folio edition,” Atticus said reverently.

  “I never thought I’d see one in real life!” Amy said. “Look at the detail — it’s absolutely exquisite!”

  “I don’t see any elephants,” Dan complained, “just birds.”

  Atticus looked at him with pity. “It’s the size,” he explained. “Elephant folio is big, and after that is ‘atlas’ — you’ve probably seen some huge atlases — and then double-elephant, which is the biggest there is.”

  He furrowed his brow. “I can’t think of another book this size, can you?” he asked Amy, who shook her head.

  “Whales are bigger than elephants,” Jake said. “Why didn’t they call it the blue-whale folio?”

  “Good one,” Dan said and held out his fist toward Jake, who bumped it obligingly.

  Amy rolled her eyes at Atticus. “Just ignore them,” she said.

  It was a wise strategy, because their geekery reached even greater heights at the next case.

  “Oh. My. God.” Amy put one hand over her heart and clutched Atticus’s arm with the other.

  “A Gutenberg Bible,” Atticus said, and clutched her back for all he was worth.

  On the other side of the case, Dan and Jake shook their heads at the same time.

  “I’ll bite,” Dan said with a sigh. “I’ve heard of it, but what’s so special about it?”

  “There’s something like forty-seven or forty-eight copies left in the whole world,” Atticus said. “This book right here? It’s worth millions.”

  “Wow, really?” Jake said. “Okay, I’m impressed.”

  “The Chinese were the first in the world to produce books using movable type and printing presses,” Amy said, “but the Gutenberg Bible was the first book made that way in the Western world.”

  “And then the demand for glasses — I mean, eyeglasses, not drinking glasses” — the words tumbled out of Atticus, he was so excited — “it exploded! Before, books had to be written out by hand, so they were really expensive, so hardly anyone could afford them. After the printing press, there were tons more books around, so a lot more people wanted to read them, and it made them realize that they couldn’t see clearly and that they needed glasses!”

  Amy seemed entranced, and even Dan and Jake were smiling. Atticus beamed back at them. Not for the first time, he felt grateful for his friendship with Dan, and now Amy. They know I’m a total nerd, but they actually like that about me.

  It reminded him of the way his mother used to treat him. A nice change from being seen as a freak.

  He walked slowly around the case with Amy, examining and admiring the book from all sides.

  But Dan had moved toward the railing of the mezzanine and was staring at the glass tower.

  “Hey,” he called softly to the others. “The Voynich — do you think it’s somewhere in there?”

  Dan’s question abruptly altered the mood. Jake, Atticus, and Amy joined him by the railing.

  “That’s the first thing, isn’t it?” Amy said. “Find out where it is.”

  “Actually, we might not need to,” Dan said. “If they bring it out for us, we can snatch it then.”

  “Yeah, that would be ideal,” she said. “But I still think we need to find out where they store it, just in case.”

  They descended the stairs and stopped at the desk again. The guard recognized them.

  “Hold on a second,” he said, and lifted the phone. “Dr. James? Those kids I was telling you about, they’re here now.”

  A few moments later, a woman stepped out from a door behind the desk. She was slender and pale, with dark eyes and chin-length auburn hair. The name badge on a lanyard around her neck read: KATHRYN JAMES, CURATOR MODERN BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m Kathryn James.”

  Amy went into her act again: homeschoolers on a field trip, studying the medieval period in general and the Voynich in particular. This time Jake and Dan chipped in.

  “I’ve been interested in the Voynich for years,” Jake said. “I can’t believe I’m finally in the same building with it!”

  Dr. James smiled. “I’m afraid we can’t show it to you,” she said. “As I’m sure you know, the manuscript is very fragile. We have to keep it under restricted access to preserve it.”

  The four teens exchanged glances of disappointment.

  Dr. James went on, “I’m sorry about that, but I can take you downstairs to the reading room, and you can have a look at the catalog. We have lots of Voynich resources that might interest you.”

  “That would be great,” Amy said politely.

  Jake guessed what she was thinking: that any chance to see more of the building could be useful. They followed Dr. James around a corner, where she asked them to leave their bags and backpacks in the lockers that lined the wall. Then they went down some stairs and past another guard into the reading area.

  They stopped at the desk and signed in. Dr. James then led them to the computers and sat down in front of one. A few clicks later, she had pulled up a page listing the Voynich-related material held by the Beinecke.

  Jake ran his eyes down the list, then gasped. “The Marci Letter is kept here, too? Cool!” He turned to the others. “It’s from the seventeenth century,” he said, “supposedly the earliest surviving written evidence of the manuscript’s history.”

  Dr. James looked surprised first, then impressed. “You do know your Voynich,” she said.

  “Mostly because of my mom,” Jake said. Struck by sudden inspiration, he said, “Maybe you knew her — Astrid Rosenbloom?”

  Now Dr. James looked really surprised. “Astrid? She’s your mom?”

  “Yes, did you ever meet her?” Atticus asked eagerly.

  Somewhat belatedly, Jake said, “I’m Jake Rosenbloom, and this is my brother, Atticus.”

  “I should have guessed — you look like her.” Dr. James smiled at Atticus. Then she g
rew solemn and her voice dropped a little. “I was so sorry to hear about her passing.”

  An uncomfortable silence.

  Jake wondered how long it took before you could talk about someone who had died with comfortable silences.

  “And yes, I did meet her. We e-mailed each other a lot, and she came here once to view the manuscript.”

  “She did? When?” Jake asked, a little indignant that Astrid hadn’t invited him to go along.

  “Summer,” Dr. James said. “Not this past one, of course — the summer before. In June, maybe?”

  That would have been just before she got sick, Jake thought. Probably while I was away. He had spent that summer working as a junior counselor at an eco-camp.

  “She came here with . . .” Dr. James paused and gave Jake a quick look he couldn’t interpret. “Do you know Dr. Siffright?” she asked.

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh. Well.” For the first time, Dr. James seemed to fumble for the right words. “They viewed the manuscript together. Dr. Siffright is — um, very intense about the Voynich.”

  “You mean she’s one of the angels-and-aliens crowd?” Jake asked in surprise. He knew that Astrid had always found those theories ludicrous.

  “Oh, no, nothing like that!” Dr. James said hastily. “Dr. Siffright is a reputable scholar! But most academics have several subjects that interest them. Dr. Siffright is — how should I put it — very single-minded.”

  “I get it,” Jake said. Since both his parents were academics, he knew the kind of people Dr. James was talking about. A little batty, but often entertaining when they weren’t boring you to death.

  “Anyway, I’m glad I got to meet Astrid,” Dr. James said. “I enjoyed our exchanges — we had some great discussions.”

  She looked from Jake to Atticus and back again. Then she clicked through to the home screen on the computer and stood up.

  “I’m going to make an exception to the rules,” she said, “in memory of Astrid. Let’s go to my office.”

  Dr. James led them through a corridor behind the reading room. At the back of the group, Dan gave Atticus a subtle thumbs-up. So far, the plan — if you could call it that — was working.