He looked at Jasper, Lucy, and Faye. Faye wore her necklace. Jasper and Lucy had their bracelets. He thought back to Christmas Eve and how his coin had reacted to their tokens. Maybe it was something in the metal alloy, or perhaps there was some strange magnetic field around the orb. Maybe there was something else— something to do with this place. Could it be? Were these things used for this lock? His coin? Was it made for this?
Wallace stood tall, tried to feel brave, and stepped back over to the bars. He placed his coin in the round groove.
There was a loud click.
And the gate opened.
Miss Brett led the way through the gate. She now held Wallace’s electric torch, and Lucy clung to her ever more closely. The passageway was long, and there were many doors on either side. The doors were made of thick steel.
Miss Brett tried the first door. It was locked. Jasper tried Antonio’s orb. It jumped from his hand to the astragal, and there was a loud click. The door opened, but it led nowhere. On the other side was simply a stone wall. They tried this again on the other side. Again, nothing but a wall,
There were seventeen doors. When they reached the seventeenth, they found a tall door made of wood. Jasper ran his hand around the edge. There was nothing metallic that he could feel. He offered Antonio’s orb a chance to do its magic. But the door did not open with it. The orb, in fact, did nothing.
“Look.” Wallace pointed to the round impression on the wood of the door. He stepped up and placed his coin into that circular space. The door unlocked, but did not fly open. Faye reached out to pull it at the same time as Jasper. But both of them nervously stopped before actually touching the door.
“Why don’t I open it?” Miss Brett said. She reached over and pulled the handle. It opened.
Lifting the electric torches up to spread the light, they could see that the room was something of a storage space.
“There’s a lamp here,” Wallace said, placing his torch on the table. Miss Brett came over and picked up a tinderbox sitting next to the lamp. She struck the match and lit the lamp. Wallace flicked off his torch. They could now see the room all the better. There were wooden crates lined up on great wooden shelves. It seemed that the room went on and on, shelf after shelf, row after row. There were wooden crates but, upon investigation, those were full of papers and journals and notebooks. Some of the papers looked ancient. There were even some scrolls stacked neatly on the shelves farther back from the door
Then there was a click. Behind them, the door closed. Faye ran back to it and and reached for the handle, but there was no handle. She banged on the door but only made a quiet thud. It was thick and strong, and seemed barely to feel her fist.
“I can’t open the door!” she said anxiously.
“Don’t worry. Wallace’s coin must open it from this side, too,” Noah said. But there was no symbol for the coin inside the room.
“Well, we have to find a place for this box before we leave anyway,” Jasper said. “We can figure out how to get out once we find a place for it.”
“At least we’re safe in here,” Wallace said. “Aren’t we?”
“Of course we are,” Miss Brett said, nodding, though a bit too quickly. It was fine to think that, and likely, it was true. She went over to the shelves and picked up a few of the papers.
“We need more light,” Miss Brett said, shining the lamp along the walls. She found a candelabra against the far wall. She lit it and the three others she found at intervals and above small wooden desks.
Now they could see most of the room. Indeed, it was a big room, with materials piled high on shelves. Some of the piles were bound into notebooks, and some pages were loose. The notebooks were not bound like books, but more like leaves of paper tied with ribbons into a booklet, as if they went together in a collection. Miss Brett leafed through some pages and realized quickly that not only could she not understand the language (most of which seemed to be Latin, but with many notations in numerous other languages), but she could not understand the diagrams either.
She picked up some other pages, only to find still more languages and diagrams. Faye went over with her electric torch and looked at what Miss Brett had found.
“Amazing,” said Faye. She began to peruse the shelves, examining both loose papers and the bound booklets. Miss Brett observed that Faye was paying particular attention to the bound pages. She began to mumble to herself, as if she were adding numbers. She walked back and forth. Miss Brett knew the girl was figuring out something. She would occasionally exclaim, “It couldn’t be so!” or “What is this? How could it be?,” then return to her investigation.
In fact, all the children were reading through the pages and surely understanding the diagrams in ways Miss Brett never could. The room was silent, except for the sound of shuffling papers.
Suddenly, Faye looked up with a grin on her face.
“Look at this!” she said, holding up a page. “This is a fascinating design for an electrical . . . wait . . . it describes . . . a circuit that could extend through a wide area. And this, the next few pages . . . But—” Faye held the papers, and Miss Brett placed the lamp on a desk in the middle of the room. “But that’s impossible. Electricity hadn’t been discovered. These pages are from 1560, and . . . but it’s impossible. It says it’s William Gilbert’s De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure. But . . . but William Gilbert wrote that volume on electricity and magnetism in 1600! I know, I’ve read translations of it, we’ve read it, we’ve discussed it, we’ve argued about it. I have seen the original, and . . . this is a crude version of the diagrams in his magnum opus. This is the early work of William Gilbert, the man who defined and, essentially, discovered electricity!”
“And magnetism,” Wallace said.
“Fine. But this . . . what . . . how . . . what is it doing here? What is this doing here? It was written in 1560.”
“He was born in 1544,” Wallace noted. “That means—”
“He was sixteen when he wrote this,” Faye said, her mouth remaining open,
Wallace moved over to where Faye was standing. “That’s long before De Magnete was published.”
She handed the work to Wallace and picked up a bound collection of papers nearby. She looked at them for a few moments before she squealed—a very un-Faye-like thing to do. “Do you recognize these?!” she cried. “Look—designs for a telescope and notes on experiments with pendulums. The year is 1573, and . . . this is the work of a nine-year-old Galileo!” In the top corner, there was a notation, but it was not very clear. The only word Faye could read was “iuvenes,” which she knew to be Latin.
Lucy began to look at some papers on the lower shelves. It is there she came upon a bronze box. It was decorated with six wheels. She tried to open it but couldn’t. Then she saw that it was signed.
“Jasper!” she called. “Look! I found a Pascaline machine!”
“You mean Blaise Pascal’s adding machine?” Jasper came over and looked. This machine was signed by Pascal, and dated 1640.
“His adding machine wasn’t presented until 1645,” said Lucy. “He was a big old kid when he made this computer.”
Jasper saw that, next to the machine built by Pascal, there were notes and other writings, clearly by Pascal as well.
“Look at this!” Noah stuck his arm out from behind a shelf. He went up to Faye, holding a long, two-pronged fork. He tapped it on the shelf, then placed it against Faye’s cheek.
“Stop that . . . Wow!” Faye was amazed that it vibrated so deeply.
“It’s a prototype of John Shore’s tuning fork,” said Noah. “It’s engraved with his name and the year 1709.”
There were whole sections of unbound papers next to small, bound stacks. The papers were well tended, so none was greatly cracked, or even dusty or musty.
“It’s amazing to see so many inventions and look at papers from so many inventors we have never even heard of before,” marveled Faye.
“What’s p
ossibly even more amazing,” Wallace said, moving back to the older shelves, “is the number of famous inventors and scientists we do recognize. Some of them we’ve read and studied. These things were invented by them, but before they’re known to have invented them. Some were invented when they were so young—!”
“And look at this!” said Noah, holding another collection of papers and leafing through them with great excitement. “This one has diagrams of some kind of centrifuge—an invention to remove water from wetlands to allow for farming. And in these same notes, there are drawings that show some kind of submarine vehicle.” Noah looked around. “I wonder if our amphibious ship is in here somewhere.”
Jasper had walked over to Noah to see the work in his hands. “Look,” said Jasper, “there are other designs! There’s a giant crossbow, and some other weapons . . . I think . . . this . . . this can’t be!”
“But it must!” Noah said, excitedly. “Look! Look at the signature!”
He pointed to a scribble of a signature, but for anyone who knew it, it was clear: Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci. The year was 1464, two years before da Vinci was sent away to apprentice as an artist. A notebook was nearby, dated 1483, but there were no direct notes from da Vinci—only strange mentions of Edward and Richard, in the month of April, and something about the Tower of London,
“Fourteen eighty-three was a terrible year,” Noah said, looking through more papers. “The Spanish Inquisition established their general council. Lots of executions, tortures, murders, and myster-ies—all over Europe, in fact. Hey, I remember now—Edward and Richard in the Tower of London. That’s King Edward V and his little brother. Edward was twelve, then disappeared—most likely killed by his uncle, Richard III. We all know this story, yeah?”
“It’s a very sad story,” said Lucy. “And he was a very lumpy man, that bad uncle, and they used to put his name on walls.”
“Lucy is right, in her own way,” Jasper said, looking up from his investigations. “We used to see posters for the play in London. And he was described as a hunchback. Remember, Miss Brett? You read to us from Richard III.”
“This is some strange library,” Noah said.
“Is it a library?” Faye asked no one in particular. “Or some storage facility for precious papers? Or both?”
“This place must be why there are all those strange language dictionaries everywhere,” Jasper said. “Someone had to be able to translate all this, if need be. And no one could possibly know all these languages.”
“So much is in Latin,” Faye said, picking up another notebook, “but almost every notebook has notations in other languages, too. Some are clearly Arabic or Persian, and some . . . I have no idea. I did see some pages in Tamil and something that might have been Basque, but—”
“That’s it!” cried Lucy. “Camera di un migliaio di lingue! La stanza! From Antonio’s letter! And from Signora Fornaio! This must be the room of a thousand languages!” Lucy clapped her hands together.
Everyone looked around with even more depth of intent. This was to be the safe place for Antonio’s box.
“We need to find the special place,” Miss Brett said. “Antonio’s orb belongs somewhere here.”
“I’ve found some random notes,” said Jasper from up the row, pointing to a pile of papers. The year was 1840, and there were notes, in addition to diagrams and scientific equations, regarding a tragic affair on the island of Rhodes. One note said, “Comme 16eme siecle et Suleiman.” Jasper could tell what it meant: that something happened in 1840 that had previously happened in the sixteenth century.
“Is there nowhere we can hide this dratted orb?” Faye said from among a pile of blueprints.
“It’s hard because this place is so amazing,” Noah said, picking up the tuning fork once again. “Look! The death ray! I bet that’s Mr. Tesla’s death ray.”
Sure enough, the item leaning against the back wall near the shelf was exactly how Mr. Tesla had described it. Near it was a partial box someone had started building to house the strange weapon.
Though Miss Brett could not find a place for the orb, she did find a space for something else that was clearly special. As she wandered farther to the back of the room, the manuscripts seemed to get older. Miss Brett walked to the last shelf, near where Faye was looking. She placed her electric torch on that most distant shelf. It seemed to be slightly apart from the rest and was relatively empty. In the center, however, was a beautifully bound book. The cover was embossed leather, with gold leaf and silver beads pressed into the leather. In the middle was a faded flower, and there were black birds painted along the edges. The birds were so delicate and perfect they looked as if they could fly away.
For a moment, Miss Brett felt unsure she could touch the book. With great care, she opened it and found the pages covered in beautiful calligraphy and full of colorful illustrations. She recognized it: It was an older version of a book she had seen before. “Il-poeżiji ta ’Muhabi,” she said to herself. Then, she called, “Come look at this, children!”
The children came over.
“Oh, it’s lovely,” Lucy said with a gasp.
As the children perused the book, Miss Brett noticed an ornate box on the shelf below it. She hadn’t seen it at first, because a crevice was carved into the shelf that held the box. Like the book, the box was alone on its shelf. Inside were sketches and notes and a scroll tied with a golden string. There were also many pages that looked like written verse—poems, in a language that seemed to be Arabic or Persian.
This box was special. Miss Brett knew that it must be something important among all of these important things. She replaced the notes, closed the box, and ran her finger over the beautiful carvings on the front. Then she noticed the carving in the center. “It’s beautiful,” said Miss Brett. “This is such a lovely flower, like the one on the book.”
“And something like the faded carving on the box from Signora Fornaio,” said Jasper quietly suddenly looking more closely.
“It’s beautiful. I think it’s made of mother of pearl.” Miss Brett carefully untied the string on the scroll. She unrolled it gently and opened the parchment.
“It doesn’t seem like a flower to me,” said Lucy, still looking at the carving. “Flowers aren’t so flappish and feathery. It looks like a bird. Three wings of a bird, dancing in a circle.”
“What?” said both Jasper and Wallace, looking up
“What what?” asked Noah.
“What did you say, Lucy?” asked Faye, coming from around the corner.
“Look at this,” Miss Brett said, pointing to the parchment—or, rather, two pieces of parchment, for there were two rolled together in the box. Like the book, they were written in beautiful calligraphy. On both parchments were two stanzas. The first was in Arabic or Persian. The second, Miss Brett could read the letters and, though it was in another language, she was fairly sure the language was Latin. She had studied Latin in school, albeit a long time ago, She had a flutter in her stomach, because she knew the third word meant “bird” and she was fairly sure she knew the first two words. It began, “Inusitatus rotundum avis.”
“That’s Latin,” said Jasper, who was almost as sure as Miss Brett. But still he asked, “Lucy do you know what it means?”
Lucy looked at it, then her eyes lit up. “Strange round bird,” she said.
“Children, do you mind reciting that bird poem for me?” Miss Brett asked. She wanted to see if the words matched. Following with her finger, while trying to remember her Latin, she listened and read.
The children recited:
“Strange round bird with three flat wings,
Never ever stops when it shivers and sings,
Never to be touched even if you are bold,
Turns the world to dust and lead into gold.
Three are the wings, one is the key
One is the element that clings to the three.
Turns like a planet but it holds such power
Clings to itself
like the petals of a flower.”
“This is it—the poem your parents taught all of you,” Miss Brett said, looking up from the parchment.
“Of course it is,” said Lucy. “We just spoke it.”
“No,” Miss Brett said, excitedly. “It’s the poem on this parchment.”
“On the parchment?” Noah looked at the Latin verses.
“Do you think it has something to do with this engraving?” Jasper looked even closer at the odd symbol,
“It might,” said Noah.
“It must,” said Faye. “It must have something to do with the poem. Maybe the poem really is a clue.”
“A puzzle,” said Jasper, who had wondered about this before.
“Yes, like a puzzle,” said Faye. “But we don’t know what it means.”
Everything in the box was in a language none of them could read. Jasper considered: What were the three wings? The key? The element? Did they refer to something real?
“We can ask our friends,” said Lucy. They knew she meant the mysterious men in black,
“Fine,” Faye said. “You just do that, Lucy. Then we’ll be even more confused.”
“Let’s just find where that orb goes and figure out how to get out of here,” Noah said, picking up a notebook that lay on a shelf closer to where Jasper had found the reference to 1840. “I’m beginning to feel a strange tingle up my spine.”
“I know what you mean,” Jasper said with a shiver. It was as if the shelves themselves were telling a very strange story. Somehow, it was his story—and their story.
“Yes, I agree,” said Faye. “We could get lost in these works forever and still never understand.”
Lucy scurried over to Jasper and grabbed his hand. “I don’t want to get lost,” she said to her brother.
“I won’t lose you,” he said.
The Ravens of Solemano or The Order of the Mysterious Men in Black Page 34
