by Trudi Trueit
Cruz slid his GPS sunglasses down onto his nose and tapped the globe pin on his lapel. “Map of Petra, Jordan, please.” Instantly, an opaque diagram of the ancient city appeared in front of his eyes. It self-adjusted in the sunlight so that Cruz was able to easily see the virtual map, as well as the real trail in front of him.
Sailor and Emmett did the same. On the long trip in that morning, they had come up with a plan. Petra was a big place with dozens of landmarks, so they would start their search for the cipher with the most well-known sites: a tomb called the Treasury, the Nabataean amphitheater, the Byzantine church, and the Great Temple. If they didn’t find the stone piece in any of these spots, they would expand their quest.
Cruz studied the map in his glasses. To reach the main city of Petra, they would have to first walk about a half mile through the scrubland valley to the Siq, a narrow, rocky canyon. The Siq was about three-quarters of a mile long. Once they navigated the ravine, they would reach the main city of Petra, which was about a mile in length. There were also several sites located in the rocky cliffs above the Siq and the town’s ruins, if you were willing to hike up to reach them. Standing here, seeing Petra laid out in front of him, Cruz’s heart skipped. They had less than two hours before the place closed today and another six hours tomorrow to find the cipher piece.
Cruz motioned for his friends to huddle up. “We’ll stick to the plan. The Treasury is at the end of the Siq,” he said quietly. “If what we’re looking for isn’t there, we’ll go into the city. Most of the major sites are located there.”
“I didn’t realize there were so many places to search.” Sailor shook her head. “The Urn Tomb, the Palace Tomb, Winged Lions Temple, Ridge Church—”
Emmett picked up the list. “The Silk Tomb, the Corinthian Tomb—”
“Then I guess we’d better get started,” clipped Cruz.
They couldn’t afford to waste even a minute.
The explorers fell in step with the stream of tourists heading down a wide dirt road. As they wound their way through the valley, the low scrubland hills gave way to massive boulders and flat-topped stony outcrops. The peachy rock face had been sculpted into monolithic shapes and, in many places, bore the scars of holes—tombs. Hundreds of them. Cruz hoped his mom hadn’t hidden the cipher in some small, out-of-the-way tomb, because if she had, it would take him years to find it.
At the half-mile mark, they reached a stone dam. It had been built across the entrance to the Siq and, according to the signs, rebuilt over the years to keep flash floods from reaching the heart of Petra. The narrow gorge that was the Siq was paved with huge stone slabs. Slowly spinning on his heel to walk backward on the flagstone, Cruz gazed up at the mammoth, ruddy red walls of stone closing in around them. His GPS readout revealed that the Siq was a crack in the mountain formed by a natural geologic fault in the Earth and that, in some places, the gap was less than 10 feet wide.
“The walls are six hundred feet high in some spots!” cried Sailor, who was reading the same information in her own GPS glasses. She was craning her neck, too.
Cruz believed it. He could barely see a sliver of blue sky.
“A little claustrophobic,” said Emmett, his shoulder bumping stone.
Seeing the long shadows darkening their path, Cruz picked up the pace to a brisk walk. They wove between the snakelike channels the Nabataeans had cut into the sides of the Siq at ground level. These channels, along with underground tunnels and reservoirs, had once supplied Petra with freshwater. With its horizontal layers of pink and red rock, twisted stone arches, and wavy walls smoothed by humans, water, and time, the canyon was a work of art. Every turn brought something new to see: more tombs, carved animals, and baetyls—sacred stones that were contained in niches. The explorer in Cruz longed to stop for a closer look at these wonders, but he knew they couldn’t. Now and again, voices would echo through the crevasse to remind them that hikers were above, heading to points high in the cliffs.
Even though they were now mostly in the shade, there was little wind to cool them. Cruz’s feet were steaming. He hated having hot feet. It seemed as if they had been walking forever. Rounding yet another curve, Cruz reached for the bandanna in his back pants pocket to wipe the sweat from his brow. When he took the cloth away, he was facing a Greek-style temple carved into the side of a cliff. It was as tall as a skyscraper!
The Treasury!
“Al-Khazneh,” gushed Emmett.
As they gawked, a written description of the temple appeared in their sunglasses.
With its Corinthian columns, sculptures of gods and Amazons, and ornate carvings of eagles, griffins, vases, and rosettes, Al-Khazneh, or the Treasury, is one of Petra’s most elaborate human-made wonders. Although the 128-foot monument contains no inscription, archaeologists believe it was a royal tomb made, perhaps, for Aretas IV, a successful Nabataean king who ruled Petra from 9 B.C. to A.D. 40. The name Khazneh means “treasure,” because legend foretold that riches were hidden there. No such wealth was ever found.
“It’s a perfect hiding spot,” Sailor whispered to him. “It has to be here.”
Ever since he’d seen a photo of the tomb, Cruz had thought so, too. However, a row of chains attached to metal poles blocked the front steps. No one was allowed beyond that point.
“We can’t go in,” said Emmett. “It’s not open to the public.”
Sailor snorted. “We’re not going to let that stop us, are we?”
Cruz watched the tourists hovering around the steps to the tomb. A tall teen girl with long wheat blond hair in a red tee and jeans with a white jacket tied around her waist was taking a selfie with the Treasury behind her. There must have been at least 50 others in the gorge doing the same thing. Cruz turned. Directly across from the Treasury was a long open tent—a gift shop and a food stand. There were outdoor tables and even vending machines. “Oh, yeah, I’ll just slip in,” said Cruz. “No one will notice.”
“We need a diversion,” said Sailor, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
Cruz cocked an eyebrow. “Like?”
“Heatstroke,” Emmett said so quickly Cruz wasn’t sure he’d heard his friend correctly.
“Huh?”
“Heatstroke,” echoed Sailor. “Sweet as. Ready?”
Before Cruz could say he was definitely not ready, she’d put a hand to her forehead and collapsed onto the sand.
“Uh…help?” squeaked Emmett.
“Louder,” Sailor mumbled out of the side of her mouth.
“Help!”
“Oh, brother.” Cruz rolled his eyes. This was never going to work.
Except it was working. People were hurrying toward them. Emmett smacked Cruz on the arm with the back of his hand. Go!
Like a fish swimming upstream, Cruz ducked through the crowd and took off across the canyon floor. Pushing himself up onto the stone platform in front of the Treasury, he hopped over the chains. Cruz scrambled up the steps and through the middle of six columns protecting the massive rectangular opening. Once inside, Cruz swung right and flattened himself against a stone wall. It took a minute for his breath to slow and his heart to beat normally again.
Cruz flipped up his sunglasses, his eyes traveling over the vivid red, white, pink, and gold layers of rock. The colors swirled and blended together like streamers in a breeze. The tomb was much smaller than he’d expected: a square of less than 15 feet to the back wall and 15 feet from one side to the other. Each wall had a door-like opening and a couple of small steps leading up to it. Staying close to the wall, Cruz moved from one door to the next, peering inside. Every door led to a small inlet—burial crypts. Dead ends. His eyes darting across the floor, then up and over the ceiling, Cruz took one last good look around. It was nothing but stone. Stone and more stone.
No confetti. No mythical creature. No reward.
Cruz leaned to peer out the main entrance. The excitement over, tourists were strolling back toward the tomb. It was now or never. With one deep breath, Cruz d
ashed out of the tomb. A few people looked at him with disapproval as he hurdled the chains, but nobody said anything. He spotted his friends on the far wall of the canyon next to the gift shop. Sailor and Emmett were standing under an outcrop. Sailor was sipping water. A thin, dark-haired, bearded man in a white shirt and khakis was kneeling next to her. As Cruz approached, he heard her say, “Thank you. I’m feeling better now.”
“Be sure to keep drinking,” said the man, rising. “It’s easy to get dehydrated out here.”
“I will. Thanks again.”
When the man left, Sailor and Emmett bent toward Cruz. “Well?”
“It’s not there.”
Sailor blew out a big puff of air. “Dang!”
“One site down,” said Emmett. “A whole lot more to go.”
They continued through the canyon and, in another hundred yards or so, the rosy stone walls began to part. In Cruz’s glasses, his GPS indicated the path had a name: the Street of Facades. Sites began popping up in front of their eyes: the Tomb of Unayshu, the Nabataean Theater, the Palace Tomb, the Silk Tomb, public restrooms, Triclinium, Nymphaeum, the Great Temple, the Byzantine church…
“Whoa!” said Emmett. “I guess there wasn’t room on our display to show us everything when we first came in.”
“At least we can rule out the restrooms,” muttered Sailor.
There were so many sites! Cruz wondered if they should split up. They could cover more territory that way.
Emmett pointed ahead. “There’s the amphitheater, our second site on the list.”
To their left was a row of crumbling columns. Behind the pillars, a semicircle of hundreds of sculpted stone seats shadowed a stage. The explorers’ GPS glasses revealed that the theater was carved completely out of the cliff and could seat 8,500 people. Also, it had been badly damaged by repeated floods, as well as a major earthquake in the first century A.D.
Emmett was trotting toward the theater. Behind Cruz, however, Sailor had stopped. He turned. She put her hands on her hips.
“What’s wrong?” asked Cruz impatiently. His feet were roasting. He was thirsty. He was starting to get hungry, too.
“I don’t know.”
Cruz flipped up his sunglasses. “Do you want to split up?”
“No,” she sighed. “I was thinking…I mean, it seems to me—”
“Hey!” Emmett was returning. “Are you guys coming or what?”
Sailor took off her safari hat and wiped her damp forehead with the back of her hand. With his sunglasses off, Cruz noticed that her cheeks were red. Her neck was a splotchy red, too.
“I could use a break,” said Cruz. Glancing around, he pointed to yet another one of the many open-air gift shop/food stands they’d passed along their route. “There.”
Once under the flat cream canopy, they chose a table near a rack of postcards as far from the cashier as possible. There were no other tourists in the seating area. Cruz let his pack fall from his shoulders. Ahhhh. It felt great to be free of the weight. It was also a good 10 degrees cooler in the shade. Cruz took out a bottle of sunscreen, sprayed some on his arms, and handed it to Sailor. Reaching into his pack, Emmett brought out three oranges. He rolled one to Cruz across the table and handed the other to Sailor, who was beside him.
The girl in the red tee and jeans was walking past. She was wearing her white jacket now and carrying a paper map. She did not look their way.
Cruz started to peel his orange, his gaze absently drifting to the postcard rack behind Emmett’s shoulder. Its long, neat rows were stocked with color photographs of Petra’s various sites, like the Siq, the Treasury, and the Great Temple. Cruz tipped his head. One of the postcards had a photo of mosaic artwork. The way the tiles were done, in a twisted rope pattern…it kind of looked like…
He glanced at his wrist.
Nah! He was imagining it.
“Sorry I hung us up.” Sailor punctured the rind of her orange with her thumbnail. “I know you wanted to stick to the plan and everything, Cruz, but I just keep thinking your mom wouldn’t have hidden the cipher in a place where it could get buried or lost…”
“Like the amphitheater?” prompted Cruz.
She nodded. “Also, so far, it seems like your mom isn’t hiding the pieces just anywhere. I mean, she put the first piece of the cipher in the base of your holo-dome and the second one in a packet of seeds with a label that had her favorite song on it—both things that meant something personal to you.”
“I get it,” said Emmett. “You’re saying that somewhere in Petra is a spot that will link Cruz to his mother.”
“Exactly.” She glanced at Cruz. “A place that will make sense to you and only you.”
“The question is, where?” Emmett drummed the table with his fingertips.
Cruz put a slice of orange into his mouth, enjoying the burst of stringy tartness on his tongue. His eyes kept returning to the mosaic art on the postcard. Cruz squinted to read the caption: The Byzantine Church.
“I think we’re on the right track,” Sailor was saying. “I mean, I think your mom would pick one of the major sites, but maybe we can rule some out.”
“I agree,” said Emmett. “What if we pulled up close-up photos of the more protected places on our GPS? Cruz could study them and see if they trigger anything, like a favorite thing or a memory.”
“Good idea,” said Sailor. “That would keep us from running all over the place.”
Leaning over, Cruz reached past Emmett’s shoulder to pluck the postcard from its holder. Upon closer examination, he could see that stone walls surrounded the mosaic artwork—ah, it was a floor! Hundreds of tiny, dark glass tiles had been arranged in circles and squares. Inside each shape was a scene—animal, person, vase, plant—on a white-tile background. The entire grid was framed by black and white tiles set in a twisted rope design that looked similar to his birthmark. Placing the postcard on the table between the three of them, Cruz set his left forearm next to the photo, turning his wrist up. “Is this what you mean about finding something that makes sense to me?”
His friends glanced down at the postcard. Emmett and Sailor slowly removed their sunglasses, their eyes moving from the picture to Cruz’s wrist and back to the card again. The patterns weren’t identical. But they were close. Awfully close.
Cruz’s lips turned up. “Well?”
His friends were grinning, too.
“Maybe one of these animals is at home in the clouds and under the sea,” whispered Emmett.
Cruz bobbed his head. That was what he was thinking, too.
Sailor tipped her head. “Guys, is it me or do all those colorful tiles look a little like”—she hesitated, wincing the way you do when you aren’t sure you have the right answer to a question—“confetti?”
Cruz’s jaw fell. He had never thought of that, but now it was all he could think of. It was so obvious! The double-helix pattern. The mosaic animal tiles. They could lead to only one conclusion: The cipher was in the Byzantine church.
Cruz jumped up, nearly knocking over the table. “Let’s go!”
THROWING BACK their chairs, the three explorers grabbed their packs, tossed their orange rinds into the compost bin, and raced back to the main path. A few hundred feet beyond the amphitheater, the sandy road widened and the sun revealed Petra’s hilly scrubland and flat-topped boulders. They jogged past the crumbling foundations of ancient temples, tombs, and buildings. Following their GPS, they veered right off the main street and headed up a rocky trail to reach the Byzantine church at the top of the hill.
The roof of the structure was long gone, replaced by a white canvas tent supported by metal beams. The explorers darted through the ruins of the church’s outer stone atrium—Cruz first, then Emmett, then Sailor—under the tent and into the temple. Two rows of broken columns divided the church into three sections. The floor of the center aisle was made of smooth, flat stone, but the two outside aisles were composed of the mosaics they had seen on the postcard. Cruz’s GPS flashed that
the sanctuary was 85 feet long by 50 feet wide and each of the side aisles was paved with 753 square feet of mosaics—information Cruz appreciated but didn’t need to know at this moment. “GPS off,” he ordered.
Thankfully, the church wasn’t crowded—only a young couple carrying a baby and a small group of elderly tourists wearing pastel floral shirts and straw hats.
“I’ll take the right side,” huffed Cruz.
“We’ll go left,” said Emmett, grabbing Sailor’s hand.
Again, barriers had been set up to prevent anyone from walking on the delicate tiles. However, instead of chains or ropes, these barricades were made of wooden slats anchored to heavy posts. Cruz, Emmett, and Sailor had to lean over the wood fences to glimpse the artwork on the floor. On Cruz’s side, there were three rows running lengthwise, and each row had about 20 scenes. The spiral pattern that matched his birthmark framed the entire section. Cruz quickly scanned each of the illustrations. Unfortunately, some of the mosaics were missing many of their tiles, making it nearly impossible to tell what the original picture had been. Cruz ticked the animals off in his head as he hurried from one row to the next.
Donkey, bird, plant.
Horse, buffalo, woman carrying a fish.
Salamander, duck, eagle.
Cruz stopped.
He backtracked to the first row, located above the outer spiral mosaic frame. Cruz knelt next to a stump of a column and looked through the slats of the barrier. The salamander in the square frame had no legs. However, it did have a sleek body, fins, and a tail. Like a fish. It also had round eyes, a head crest, and a beak. Like a bird.
This had to be it!
“Emmett! Sailor!” he hissed.
