“Why don’t you take the car and wait for me back at the house?” he said.
Thomas couldn’t leave his grandfather. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” he offered.
“The interview is in ten minutes, and I can’t keep the gates open forever,” the gargoyle blurted. “Are you in or out? Should I cancel?”
The mansion itself didn’t look scary, just big. More like a castle than a house, and its grounds completely out of proportion for the neighborhood, but if Grandpa, who’d lived in Carlsbad forever, didn’t think it was strange, then how could he sabotage this chance? Making up his mind, Thomas disregarded the ominous feeling growing in his belly. He exchanged a look with his grandfather before accepting to go in.
“In,” Morgan told the gargoyle. He turned toward Thomas and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “it’s just like a little adventure.” He smiled then drove through the gates.
The gates closed immediately behind them. If Thomas or Grandpa had seen how the Gargoyles followed their movements as they parked, they would have run away.
An Ancient Puzzle
A tall, grey-haired butler opened the main door. He was dressed in a customary, impeccable black outfit Thomas had seen in movies and T.V. shows, and he spoke with a slight British accent. “Welcome to Pervagus Mansion, gentlemen.” He nodded politely. “My name is Bolswaithe. I’m the mansion’s head butler.”
“Nice to meet you, Bolswaithe. I’m Morgan Byrne and this is my grandson, Thomas. I’m here for a job interview.”
“I know, sir. Please, follow me.”
The interior of the mansion was very ornate. Marble statues and precious wood abounded inside. The waning light filtered through the stained-glass window, and the two circles of intricate symbols and ancient letters surrounding the Egyptian eye seemed to dance.
A double staircase ran from the foyer to the second floor. In the middle of the room sat a marble sculpture of a man chained to a rock and an eagle biting into his stomach. Morgan and Thomas stopped in front of it, marveling at the precision and beauty of the sculpture.
“Prometheus Bound,” Bolswaithe offered.
“Beautiful work,” Morgan said. “Who’s the artist?”
“Michelangelo,” the butler said. After a few moments, Bolswaithe walked down the hallway, Morgan and Thomas trailing closely behind.
From outside, the mansion seemed large, but from the inside it proved to be huge. The ceiling in the foyer was at least forty feet high and it was supported by white marble columns that looked cut from a single stone.
Long hallways opened on each side of the foyer. The right hallway had a lot of traffic – people bustled out one door and into another, traveling along the corridor and disappearing. Colored tags dangled from their necks and a couple of workers wore colored jumpsuits.
The butler led them through the left hallway. The corridor was lined with doors and large mirrors. Large crystal chandeliers lit up the corridor, and the ceiling was painted with scenes from ancient history and mythology.
One of the paintings was the pyramids of Giza as they were being built by humans and what looked to be jackals and camels walking on two legs and dressed in flowing robes. One of the camels was talking with what appeared to be the pharaoh as they overlooked the construction.
It was followed by the painting of a Chinese armada being sunk by a group of elongated dragons. On top of one of the dragons rode a man in full samurai armor, his sword catching a lightning bolt.
All scenes depicted humans and magical creatures, either working together or fighting side by side against a common enemy. There was one of General Ulysses S. Grant receiving a bag of papers and maps from a humanlike fox wearing a simple blue stripe across his torso.
The scenes would have been fit for a children’s book had they not been spectacular in form and color. Thomas paused recognizing one of the scenes. He pulled out from his wallet the two dollar bill his father had given him for luck. He unfolded the bill and checked it against the scene on the ceiling. It was the Declaration of Independence, with three additions that were not in the bill. Instead of the drum and flags hanging on the wall in the back of the room, there was a four-winged blue and white bird, its wings extended. On the right side where the bill showed only a tablecloth was a row of smaller chairs with animals sitting on them. A fox, an otter, and what looked like a beaver, sat with their legs crossed. A young man, dressed in long robes, stood beside a gentleman on the far right. His hair was long and un-coifed and reached almost to his waist.
Thomas stopped looking for differences and picked up the pace seeing that the butler continued walking without him.
Halfway down the hallway, the butler opened a door on the left. “You can wait in this room, young sir,” he told Thomas. “Would you care for refreshment?”
“No thanks,” Thomas answered stepping into the room.
“Very well.” Bolswaithe turned to Morgan. “This way, sir.”
Grandpa squeezed Thomas’s shoulder and winked. Then he followed the butler out of the room.
Thomas stood in the room, afraid to move. The room was spacious but it didn’t have any windows. Old furniture was arranged around a T.V. set encased in wood, old portraits hung from the walls, and a roman-style bust sat in each corner.
The anxiety he had felt in the mansion was slowly being replaced by curiosity. In Fullton, he’d been to rooms that looked just like this one. His grandpa kept many things at home that he considered treasures. Grandma’s bell and little spoon collection, grandpa’s patches and uniforms from when he was in the Marine Corps. Even some of his dad’s toys and comic books from when he was a child, each one stirring a memory too precious to discard.
This room was like that, a room full of memories.
Who chose the plaid furniture? When were the portraits painted and who were the men depicted in the busts? What T.V shows were the owners’ favorites?
He zeroed-in on the old T.V. Maybe that could tell him something more about the mansion’s owners.
Thomas walked toward the T.V. and turned a knob. A little click sounded from the box, but the screen remained blank. He crouched and read the dials: one dial was the on/off switch and the other was a dial numbered from zero to two hundred.
He tried the switch again but nothing happened. So he tried the dial, which only clicked with every number he turned. After giving it a couple of turns, he gave up.
On top of the T.V. sat a small pedestal holding a black and gold cube that he hadn’t noticed before. It seemed to have just materialized when he was distracted with the dials.
The surface of the cube was painted with gold filigree and shapes that seemed out of order, jumbled, as if someone had mixed it all up. Lines crisscrossed the surfaces of the cube, as if scrawled by a two-year old.
But there was something there on the surface. The more he looked at it, the more he could discern shapes, lines that probably belonged to an eye, or a leg, or a tree.
“It’s an Atheliol.” Bolswaithe startled him from the edge of the door. “An ancient puzzle. You might want to try it while you wait, young sir. It might be a long interview.”
Thomas checked the cube and chuckled. It didn’t look that old. It seemed made out of metal. Apart from the golden filigree, it was completely smooth, not a blemish or scratch in its surface. A brand-new chromed car bumper would look old beside it.
Thomas looked back at the butler – like the mansion itself, he wasn’t scary. Just oddly perfect for his job, as if he had been born and trained forever to fill the stereotype of the English butler.
“Go ahead,” the butler encouraged him. “I’ll be back with water.”
When Thomas heard his footsteps grow fainter, he hesitantly picked up the cube. He half expected to receive a little static shock from it, like the one he had learned to avoid after walking on his grandpa’s carpet and touching the doorknob. But nothing happened.
The surface was warm to the touch and completely smooth. He couldn’t even feel the filigr
ee painted on the surface. It was as if the gold lines were embedded on the Atheliol. He had played with a Rubik’s cube before and he’d even learned to finish them after his mom had showed him the little tricks used to solve it.
His mother always finished the Rubik’s cube in less than a minute. Thomas watched in awe as his mother’s hands, lithe and delicate, fiddle with the cube, twisting and turning, until each side was the same color. And, as always, his mother would wink, then toss the cube into Thomas’s lap.
“Betcha an ice cream,” she always teased him, and Thomas had decided to learn and beat her at her game.
He had learned, first by himself, then by asking her for help.
But he had always lost the ice cream.
Thomas sighed. He missed his mother. It had been eight months since his parents disappeared. He held the Atheliol in his shaky hands. His mother would have loved it.
He touched and pressed the cube; not only did the pieces moved from side to side like the Rubik, but the whole cube changed shape with just a little pressure. He got scared for just a second as one of the corners flattened itself under his touch. He checked for Bolswaithe and pressed the corner back into shape. When the Atheliol returned to its cubed-shape without a crack or bend, he realized that it was designed to change shape.
He began to see a picture taking form as he moved and turned the pieces. An arm appeared, a horn, the tail of a horse. As he found the patterns on the filigree and pressed them closer to where they needed to be, the cube changed shape until it became an elongated diamond.
Bolswaithe entered the room and left a pitcher of water on the center table. He didn’t pause to talk and left immediately. Thomas didn’t seem to care; he was engrossed with the cube, as if he was in some sort of trance.
He realized that the larger pieces could be split anywhere he touched them, and he focused on trying to make larger pictures by finding the missing patterns in the filigree.
Where was Grandpa? It seemed that he had been in that room for a long time. Without the Atheliol, he would have been bored out of his mind
He’d never been as fast as his mother. Not even close. The last time she had timed him, he had spent more than seven minutes solving the cube.
He wasn’t tournament material, but how many people could claim to have solved a Rubik’s cube? He checked the Atheliol in his hand, the lower part was still a diamond, the upper had at least seven sides, and only some of the pictures were half complete – an armored warrior, a horse rider charging with a lance, the long wall of a fortress.
He assessed that he was less than halfway through and he thought for a second about leaving the thing alone, but stopped.
Maybe mom would have solved it already. She wouldn’t have been defeated by it.
He pressed on.
“A snack, young sir?” The butler stepped into the room again. This time he brought a sandwich and chips. Thomas felt his stomach growl and realized that he was a little hungry and he’d already drunk half the pitcher of water.
“Thank you,” Thomas said. “Do you know how much longer the interview’s going to be?” He felt as if he’d spent at least a couple of hours in that room.
The butler glanced at the Atheliol. “Not much longer I guess, but I can interrupt it if you want.”
“No, it’s okay. Thank you.”
“Very well,” Bolswaithe said stepping out from the room.
The butler was sneaky. He gave the impression of being concerned in his comfort but uninterested about his progress with the Atheliol. How had he known he was hungry? The sandwich looked great, as if pulled out from a commercial. He took a bite while pushing the filigree on the Atheliol with one thumb. The long diamond shape was gone and with it the pointy ends.
He marveled at the flavor of the sandwich. The butler could easily be a chef somewhere instead of a servant in the mansion.
Thomas left the Atheliol on the center table and he took another bite of the sandwich. He was sure the pictures were complete. They depicted a battle between ancient soldiers and mythological beasts. They looked like old Greek or Roman drawings he had seen in history class.
What really nagged him was that the whole thing didn’t look perfect; the angles broke the pictures’ flow. It looked better than when it was a cube, although it was no longer in the shape of a cube. Some of the sides poked out in different directions unevenly.
He pressed the Atheliol, twisted and turned at least seventeen sides, and it wobbled as he set it on top of the table. It wasn’t solved yet, but the pictures seemed to flow better into one another.
He finished the sandwich and wondered how much longer he needed to wait? Perhaps they’d asked his grandpa to do some medical tests. He was getting impatient. He began to dislike the room. It started to smell funny, like musty old basements. The feeling of curiosity and familiarity he felt before was being replaced with exasperation, like when he tried to remember a song or tune or the name of an actor and he couldn’t.
The Atheliol should be finished already. The pictures were complete. What more was there for him to do? He was done with it and with the room.
Except it wasn’t. The Atheliol seemed to be mocking him. There was more, a little detail he hadn’t figured out.
He picked up the Atheliol again and pressed the corners. He was sure that changing the shape would solve it. As the corners gave way under his hands the Atheliol turned into a sphere, and the feeling of exasperation disappeared completely. Thomas was relieved, the splinter off the finger, the little rock taken out from the shoe.
“Done!” he said. ”That was easy.” The pictures flowed perfectly into each other. He placed the sphere back on top of the pedestal with satisfaction.
With a soft hum, the Atheliol began to rotate and as it gained speed, the pictures began to tell a story, like flipping drawings on the pages of a notebook.
“The battle of Troy,” the sneaky butler offered from behind Thomas. “Good work, young sir.”
On the Atheliol, soldiers charged a wall protected by mythical beasts. A warrior jumped over the wall and fought with a Minotaur that held captive a young girl. Once the Minotaur had been vanquished, the girl handed out a parchment to the warrior and the Atheliol stopped spinning as it returned to its original form. Thomas pursed his lips. If he remembered correctly, there was a horse involved at the Battle of Troy. The Atheliol didn’t show a horse at all.
Bolswaithe mumbled as if he’d read his mind. “They forgot the horse.”
Before Thomas could respond, his grandfather walked through the door. “Ready?” he said holding a manila folder and sporting a big smile.
Once outside the gates, Thomas turned to his grandfather. “What took you so long?”
Morgan shrugged his shoulders. “I just filled out a questionnaire and talked with the head librarian. Strict lady, I think she’s Russian.”
“You talked with her for three hours?”
“Tom.” Morgan checked his watch. “It’s just 6:01. Half an hour. Is that too much for you?” He shook his head and got into the driver’s seat of the car.
As Thomas entered the car, he couldn’t believe it had been so little time. It had felt way longer.
Thomas looked at the mansion as they waited for the gates to open. Bolswaithe was sweeping the entrance but he turned and waved goodbye as if he knew Thomas was watching.
“Goodnight, Thomas.” the gargoyle intercom said as he passed underneath it, and Thomas closed the car window without answering.
A Doctor’s Visit
About an hour and a half later, the ringer buzzed followed by two loud knocks on the front door. “Please get that, and if they’re salesmen, turn them away” Morgan yelled from upstairs.
Thomas left the book he was reading and peeked through the side window. A man dressed in a long winter coat and a flashy paisley cravat on his neck was standing on the porch. He had a sparse pointy goatee and sported a narrow moustache — the long ends were pulled to the sides and pointed slightly upwar
d. He wore a black top hat, held a cane, and a golden monocle covered his right eye. The man leaned toward the window and Thomas retreated. He was not going to open the door for such a strange-looking man.
After a few moments, a business card was slipped under the door. The logo on the card displayed the same Egyptian eye that Thomas saw on the mansion’s stained-glass window.
“Who is it?” Morgan yelled from upstairs.
“A man called Franco?” Thomas answered. “I think he’s from the mansion. His card says ‘Guardians Inc.’”
Morgan was already wearing his pajama pants, so he only got halfway down the stairs. “Let him in Tom. He’s the boss of the company. The head librarian told me that he likes to make house calls sometimes. Offer him a glass of water. Tell him I’ll be right down.” Morgan climbed up the stairs again.
“He looks really weird, Gramps,” Thomas whispered.
Morgan leaned over the railing with clenched teeth. “Open the door,” he said.
“Okay,” Thomas answered adding a little “jeez” under his breath.
Thomas hesitantly unlocked the bolt and opened the front door, but he purposely left the screen door locked.
Doctor Franco was staring at the street. As he turned to face Thomas, fresh snow fell from his shoulders and top hat.
“You must be Thomas,” Doctor Franco said with a smile. “Is your grandfather home?”
Thomas unlocked the screen door. “Yes. Please come in.”
“Wonderful, I’m Doctor Franco,” he said as he reached for Thomas’s hand and shook it vigorously.
“Grandpa will be down here in a moment. Would you like some…”
The doctor took off his heavy coat and handed it to Thomas. The fabric was cold and powdery snow covered the crevices, and Thomas was sure that snow was hard to come by in the middle of summer in California. Weirder still was the fact that under the heavy winter coat the doctor was wearing a tuxedo.
“A glacier wedding,” the doctor said as he handed Thomas his cane. “Water is fine.” With a swift movement, he removed his hat and collapsed it into a neat little disk before placing it on top of the coat Thomas was holding. “You have a lovely house,” he said. “I’ll wait in the living room…” and he took off as if he knew his way around the house.
The Cypher Page 3
