Cradle of Solitude

by Alex Archer

  “Key, keys, keyboard, key deer, key grip, keyhole, Key Largo, key lime, keynote, keystroke, Key West, keyword, keystone…”

  Annja mentally dismissed each one as she heard it, until Garin came to the last.

  Keystone, she thought, turning it over in her mind. Keystone.

  She knew the word usually referred to the wedge-shaped stone that formed the top of an arch, so she began looking around the cellar, examining the doorways leading into the adjacent rooms.

  There was no arch.

  Garin was still rattling off suggestions but stopped when he saw her expression.

  “What is it?” he asked, recognizing that particular look.

  “Not sure yet…”

  Annja walked over to the entrance to the wine cellar and called up the stairs.

  “Catherine, Mr. Boucher would like to know if there are any arches on the property.”

  The swiftness of the response showed her suspicions had been right; the Realtor had been hanging about, hoping to overhear something useful.

  “An arch? No, I don’t believe so. Why?”

  “No reason. Thank you.”

  Annja walked back to where Garin was standing, waiting for her.

  “An arch?” he asked.

  She explained how she thought Parker might have carved something into the surface of the keystone, providing the direction they needed to find the second clue.

  “No arch, no keystone,” she said. “Obviously I’m on the wrong track.”

  “Not necessarily,” he replied, turning to pace the floor in short, sharp strides that seemed to punctuate what he was saying. “That’s not the only definition of keystone, you know. It also refers to a central concept or idea, something that supports the whole by its very presence. So what would you consider to be central to the estate?”

  The answer came to her as soon as he finished speaking.

  “The cornerstone.”

  The first stone laid in a foundation, the one from which everything else extended. “The key to all the rest,” she whispered.

  They both knew she was right the moment she said it. Crossing the wine cellar, they climbed the stairs and found the Realtor standing nearby, debating the wisdom of going back down in the cellar to try and push for the sale.

  “Oh,” she said, startled by their sudden appearance. “Is everything all right?”

  “We’d like to see the cornerstone, if we may,” Annja said.

  “The cornerstone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  For a moment, Annja was flummoxed. She had no idea what to say. Why would anyone looking to purchase a house be interested in seeing the cornerstone?

  Then it came to her. “Mr. Boucher would like to see the date for himself.”

  The Realtor stared at her oddly for a moment and Annja thought she was going to press for a deeper explanation, which would be a problem since she didn’t have one, but apparently the woman chalked it up to eccentric behavior on the part of the wealthy client and shrugged it off.

  “This way, please.”

  She led them around to the opposite side of the house and pointed to a stone set firmly in the foundation. Carved into its surface was the year 1853.

  Next to that, someone had carved a crude compass.

  The stone was weathered, so it was hard to say which one had come first, but to Annja’s experienced eyes she thought the date looked older. It was deeper, for one thing, showing that whoever had done it had come prepared with the proper tools for the job. The compass, on the other hand, was more shallow, and the lines were thinner, too, making it seem like it was a rush job or that the creator had been forced to work with whatever tools had been on hand.

  There was also the simple fact that the compass was pointing in the wrong direction.

  The sun was setting off to Annja’s right, directly in line with one arm of the compass. What was unusual was the fact that the arm in question was labeled as north, rather than west. Even more intriguing, the line was also a good two inches longer than the others.

  That’s got to be what we’re looking for, Annja thought, and she could see by Garin’s expression that he thought the same thing.

  The trouble was, she wasn’t certain how to interpret it. Did they follow the direction of the compass arrow and go west? Or did they assume the compass was telling them the proper direction, despite its being out of alignment, and go north?

  Catherine, who had been quiet during their examination of the cornerstone, spoke up.

  “As you can see, the house was indeed built in 1853, and I can assure you that the date has been verified by several sources, including the company that originally built the structure.”

  Annja interrupted her. “Is there anything around here, Catherine, that might be described as being a place where two mouths meet?”

  The woman stared at her with such a strange expression that for a moment Annja feared she wouldn’t answer. It was an odd question, she had to admit, but apparently Catherine had already decided that her potential client was truly an odd duck, for after a moment she answered as if it were the type of question she received every day.

  “Well,” Catherine said, with the kind of professional smile that was designed to hide her true thoughts, whatever they might be. “I’d think that such a phrase would probably refer to the conjunction of the Broad and Savannah rivers.”

  Annja’s heart beat a little faster.

  “And which direction would that be from here?”

  The Realtor thought about it for a moment and then turned and pointed out across the hills toward the north.

  “That way, about twenty miles I’d guess.”

  She turned to face Garin and, with another smile, went back to her pitch. “Now perhaps Mr. Boucher…”

  That was as far as she got. Garin broke in with a long and unrelenting stream of French that grew louder and sounded more exasperated as it went on.

  Annja pretended to listen to it, a grave expression on her face, and then turned to the Realtor.

  “Thank you so much for your time, Catherine, but I’m afraid Mr. Boucher has decided to pass on the property. He’s an eccentric sort, as you can imagine—most people with his level of money are, I’ve found—and he’s just informed me that he can’t possibly live in a home that was built in an odd-numbered year. I’m sure you understand.”

  Garin kept up the act, alternating waving his hands in the air and letting loose a fresh burst of French. The fact that he seemed to be spouting off his grocery list was completely lost on the poor woman, who looked confused and even a bit unsettled by her would-be client’s sudden animation.

  Annja took advantage of her hesitation to offer their excuses, blaming it all on herself and suggesting that she get Mr. Boucher away from the property before his anxiety levels grew too high and he had a fit or, heaven forbid, a heart attack.

  As Catherine stood there and stared after them in stunned amazement, Annja dragged the ranting Garin back to the car and quickly drove away.

  21

  I bet they’re sleeping together, Catherine Daley thought as she watched Mr. Boucher and his agent drive off down the street. There just wasn’t any other explanation. After all, she’d given him the look more than once, and Lord knew that was all it usually took to reel them in like a catfish on a line. The fact that he’d basically ignored her in favor of that annoying woman was infuriating.

  Look what she’d been wearing, for heaven’s sake!

  And that crazy fit he threw. Whoever heard of such a thing? What difference did it make if the house was built in an even-numbered year or an odd one? Such nonsense!

  Yes, that would explain it. He had to be crazy. It certainly made much more sense to believe that he was nuts, than to entertain the thought that a man of Mr. Boucher’s obvious sophistication and financial status wouldn’t be interested in a woman of her caliber and breeding.

  Feeling better about herself now that she understood her worldview wasn�
��t so drastically challenged, Catherine turned her attention to closing down the property.

  As they were her last clients scheduled for the evening, she went through the house checking windows, turning off lights and locking up for the night. It took her some time and night had fully come by the time she was finished. She was walking out to her car when she saw the lights of a vehicle come down the road and pull into the drive.

  For a moment she was hopeful that Mr. Boucher had reconsidered, but then she saw that the vehicle was an SUV and knew she couldn’t be correct. Mr. Boucher had arrived in a Mercedes.

  Another potential client? she thought, then quickly changed her mind. Not the way her week was going. People looking to spend just shy of a million dollars didn’t just drop in off the street. It’s probably just some tourist who got lost and needed directions.

  She took a step toward the vehicle and then stopped as she saw the doors open and three men stepped out. She couldn’t see them clearly, as the headlights created a glare, but that was solved a moment later as they moved toward where she was standing at the base of the wide veranda.

  “Ms. Daley?” the lead man asked.

  His accent was French, much like that of Mr. Boucher. As he came closer she could see that he was dressed similarly, too, in a sharply cut European suit. He was shorter than Mr. Boucher, and cut a less imposing figure, but there was the same assured confidence and expectation that others would do as they were asked.

  He had money, that much was clear, and Catherine began to think her day might be looking up, after all.

  She took a few steps closer to the newcomers, the professional salesperson’s smile already plastered across her face.

  “Yes, I’m Catherine Daley. How can I help you? Have you come to see the plantation?”

  Blaine Michaels smiled. “Indeed, I have, Ms. Daley. I’m particularly interested in the wine cellar.”

  Catherine frowned as the first inklings that all might not be well began to filter into her consciousness. The man’s smile seemed off somehow, as if there was another expression lurking beneath it, one with decidedly less invitation. In fact, Catherine was starting to feel like a crippled deer in front of a hungry wolf and she wasn’t sure what to do.

  She caught a motion out of the corner of her eye and turned to find one of the other men standing close on her left. She started, taking a step away from him, only to bump into his companion, who had come out of the shadows on her right, effectively hemming her in between them.

  Alarms began to sound in the depths of her mind and she spun, intent on locking herself in one of the back bedrooms and calling the sheriff on her cell phone, but her efforts were too little and far too late.

  Almost languidly, the big man on her left reached out, sank his fingers into her carefully coiffed hair and yanked backward, pulling her off her feet.

  He let go as her feet flew out from under her and the back of her head hit the wooden surface of the veranda with a loud thunk. Dazed, she could only struggle feebly as the man who’d grabbed her by the hair took some kind of restraint out of his pocket and quickly secured her hands and feet.

  That was it. Just like that she was in their control and Catherine Daley trembled in fear as she considered what these three men would do to her.

  For the second time that evening, she simply didn’t understand the dynamics of the situation in which she found herself. The three men who’d come to see her had far more on their minds than that which she feared.

  As she stared up at them in horror, the leader of the group leaned in so that his face was only inches from hers.

  “My name is Blaine Michaels, Ms. Daley, and if you want to get out of this alive, I suggest you answer all of my questions as truthfully as possible. Do you understand?”

  Unable to find her voice due to the fear coursing through her body like a flood, she could only nod.

  Michaels smiled again and this time there was no mistaking the malevolence beneath that expression. “Good. Now tell me everything you know about the key without a lock.”

  Unable to answer his question due to the fact that she didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about, Catherine Daley finally understood the true depths of the trouble she was in.

  22

  Excited by their early success but exhausted from the long day’s travel, Garin and Annja decided to make the short drive back into the town of Washington to find a place to get some dinner and a hotel to stay for the night.

  Soon thereafter they were seated in a booth at Jenny’s Barbecue Palace with racks of ribs in front of them, discussing what to do next.

  “So what’s the next stanza of the riddle?” Garin asked.

  Annja recited it from memory. “‘There you’ll find the Lady, left alone and in distress. You must secure her when you’re able, and take Ewell’s Rifle from her crest.’”

  “Which means what?”

  Annja wasn’t sure. She shared her thoughts aloud as she worked through it. “Captain Parker was fairly circumspect with the first clue, sort of talking around what he wanted to say, so I’d guess he did the same thing here. Which means the lady in question isn’t really a lady, but something you might refer to in the feminine form.”

  “Like a boat,” Garin said. “Since we’re talking about the meeting place of two rivers, a boat’s the obvious answer, I’d think.”

  Annja agreed. “And since the word lady was capitalized, I’d guess that’s the name of the boat, or at least part of it. Lady something or other, maybe.”

  “Right,” Garin replied, taking another bite of barbecued ribs in the process. He carefully chewed, swallowed and then said, “Left alone and in distress might indicate that it was abandoned, damaged in some way.”

  It seemed like they were on the right track to Annja. “So we’re looking for a boat named Lady or with the word lady in the name that either ran aground or was damaged near the junction of the two rivers back in 1864.”

  “Right,” Garin said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. “You make it sound so easy, Annja.”

  “Nothing wrong with being confident.”

  “Okay, so what about the rest? Who’s this Ewell character and why is his rifle so special?”

  That one Annja could answer easily enough. “Confederate Major General Richard Ewell. Took over command of Second Corps after the death of Stonewall Jackson. Perhaps most famously known for failing to take the heights at Gettysburg, which contributed significantly to the Confederate defeat there.”

  As for the rifle, Annja didn’t know. “Perhaps the clue has been carved into the stock or hidden in the rifle barrel. We won’t really know until we find it, now will we?”

  They finished their meals and then made their way down the street to a family-owned hotel the owner of the restaurant had suggested. It turned out to be a decent, serviceable place and they got two rooms for the night, agreeing to meet for breakfast in the morning to continue their search.

  That night, Annja used the hotel’s internet connection to try and find any information on a Confederate-era boat or naval vessel that might have gone aground during the Civil War. She was able to log into the Atlanta public library and search through old issues of the Columbus Enquirer, The Augusta Chronicle and even The Atlanta Constitution, though that didn’t begin publication until Georgia rejoined the Union in 1868. Unfortunately, none of them contained anything that was helpful to her search.

  General searches through various publications and websites produced quite a few Confederate vessels that had run aground or been forced to do so in order to keep from sinking, including the CSS Atlanta and the CSS Chattahoochee, but none that were anywhere near the site of the two rivers.

  Knowing she had to get some sleep if she was going to be at all useful in the morning, Annja decided to leave a question on her favorite newsgroups, hoping some Civil War buff out there in cyberspace might have the information she needed. She logged onto alt.archaeology and alt.archaeology.esoterica and left the same mes
sage on each.

  I’m searching for information on a Confederate-era vessel that might have run aground near the junction of the Broad and Savannah rivers between 1863 and 1865. The ship’s name might include the word Lady in some fashion. Any information would be helpful.

  With that accomplished, she spent a few minutes looking into the issue of Ewell’s Rifle. By the time she was finished, it was after midnight. Knowing she had a long day ahead of her, Annja shut down the laptop and tried to get some sleep.

  Unfortunately, rest didn’t come easy, as her thoughts kept wandering to Bernard and whether or not he was being treated properly by those who’d taken him. She fervently hoped Garin was right, that they needed Bernard in good health in order to help them find the treasure, which of course put more pressure on her to figure out the puzzle before they did.

  Eventually, restless sleep finally came.

  THE NEXT MORNING, when checking her accounts online, Annja found a response from someone with the screen name SouthernRising in the alt.archaeology newsgroup.

  The Lady in question is most likely the CSS Marietta, a Confederate ironclad that was nicknamed the “Old Lady” on account of her being one of the Confederacy’s oldest vessels, built at Edwards Ferry, N.C., at the tail end of 1862. Ran aground at the junction of the Broad and Savannah rivers in 1864. The hulk was actually used as a temporary headquarters station during President Davis’s flight south after the fall of Richmond.

  I knew it! Annja thought.

  It wasn’t a big leap to think that Parker would have considered a grounded vessel as being in distress; he was a Navy man, after all. Depending upon how long the ship was used as a temporary headquarters, it also stood to reason that he would have set foot inside it at some point when the remains of the treasury were under his control, giving him the time he needed to leave a clue behind for those who were to come after him.