Jude Watson - A King's Ransom

“Of course we did!” Jake exclaimed. “You stole a priceless historical document!”

“And you went running right to security, didn’t you?” Amy said scornfully.

“You bet I did. Because it was the right thing to do!”

“Are you going to do it again, right now?” Amy asked furiously. “Or would you like another kick in the ribs?”

She adjusted her pack as though ready to strike. She wanted to. He deserved it.

“Look, the only reason I’m here is to protect my father. You’re using his name to get something. Steal something.” Suddenly, Jake reached out and grabbed her pack. “Is it in here?”

She went after him, grabbing at the pack. “Hey!”

Jake already had it open. Amy’s crumpled T-shirts fell out, along with her research materials. One sheet of paper drifted down and landed at Atticus’s feet.

The face of Jane Sperling at nineteen stared up at them. The photo had been pulled off the Internet, and it was grainy and dark. Laughing eyes, black hair to her shoulders, dressed in a belted gray coat, standing by a bare tree. The wind must have been blowing, because a filmy scarf almost obliterated her smile.

Atticus picked up the paper. He stared down at it, then up at them. “What are you doing with a picture of my great-grandmother?”

Nobody spoke as they walked down a narrow alley that opened into a small, empty square. Atticus clutched the picture against his chest.

“Why do you have this?” he asked again.

Instead of answering, Amy posed a question. “What do you know about your great-grandmother?”

“Not much,” Atticus said. “She lived in Maine. She was Jewish, but she married an African American soldier, back when you just didn’t do stuff like that.”

“Why do you have the photo?” Jake demanded. “We should be the ones asking questions, not you.”

“Before the war, Jane Sperling was a student in Germany,” Amy said.

Atticus nodded. “She was a medieval scholar.”

“She spent the war years in London. She was an American spy.”

Jake let out a surprised bark of a laugh. “Now I know you’re crazy. A spy?”

But Atticus looked interested. Amy saw the flash of curiosity in his eyes. “Why do you think that?”

“Never mind why. Her code name was Sparrow.”

“Sparrow!” Atticus gave a start. He looked down at the picture again. “Follow the sparrow to the Mad King …” he murmured.

“The Mad King?” Amy asked insistently. “Why did you say that?”

“It’s something my mother said … the night she died. She was trying to tell me something. She’d been unconscious for days, and then she came to and talked to me.”

“You never told us that.” Jake looked at his brother in surprise.

“She said that I had to follow the sparrow to the Mad King’s castle. I mean, what would you think?”

“I’d think she was delirious.”

Amy gripped the notebook deep in her pocket. “Did she say anything else?”

“Oh, crazy stuff,” Atticus said. “She kept talking about vespers and grace. She said she needed grace. Which is funny, because she wasn’t religious at all.”

“Grace?” Amy questioned sharply. “What if it was the name Grace? Like she was talking about a person?”

“She didn’t know anyone named Grace,” Jake broke in. “Atticus, why didn’t you tell me this, or tell Dad?”

“Because it didn’t make sense. And because …” Atticus hesitated. “Because I couldn’t talk about it somehow. It was like a dream. She talked about this story she told me when I was really little. A bedtime story. I can barely remember it. There was this brave family in it who protected a ring… . I don’t remember the name. Something to do with music. Or a poem.”

“Madrigal,” Amy said.

“Yes! That’s it! There was a ring, and the Madrigals had to protect it. There was a dragon named …” Atticus looked up as knowledge lit his face. “Vesper! The dragon was named Vesper. That’s all I can remember. She just kept saying ‘the ring, the ring.’”

Amy had to stop herself from touching her watch. She had trained herself not to keep checking it was there. The ring wasn’t a fantasy story. It was real, and resting against her skin.

“Would somebody please explain to me what’s going on?” Jake cried in frustration. “Because I feel like I’m in some sort of cracked fairy tale.”

Amy took out the notebook. “We found this in Neuschwanstein Castle, hidden in a drain. It belonged to Jane Sperling.” She handed the book to Atticus.

“In the castle? So maybe I was meant to find it!” He opened the flap reverently.

To G: dV528.112K

Stolen by Hummel

repatriated w V. Kepler

resting w/ teacher amp; victim

together with the spellbound wanderer will point the way

Atticus looked up at them. “What does it mean?”

“We think ‘dV’ refers to the de Virga world map,” Amy said. “We know for sure that Jane was interested in it.”

Jake frowned. “I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a medieval world map that went missing in 1932. Your great-grandmother was at the auction when it was stolen.” Amy quickly related their theory about what happened to the map. “Hummel stole it, and Jane got it back. Then she led us here.”

“I see!” Atticus exclaimed. “So the numbers are a library collection number. And of course ‘spellbound wanderer’ is a no-brainer.”

“Maybe to you,” Dan said. “I’m clueless.”

“Marco Polo,” Atticus explained. “It’s a quote from Il Milione. It’s how Marco Polo refers to himself.”

Amy groaned. “We should have guessed that!”

“But why do you want the map?” Jake asked. His eyebrows came down and he squinted at Amy suspiciously. She felt a flare of annoyance.

Atticus jumped in before she could answer. “But what’s this about teacher and victim?”

“We don’t know,” Dan said. “Something that happened in the war, maybe?”

“Not the war,” Jake said slowly, still looking at the notebook. “Hundred of years before that. Kepler worked for Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer. Brahe worked and died in Prague. There are theories that he was poisoned. His body was even exhumed recently – he died of mercury poisoning. Some people say that Kepler did it. So is there a Kepler manuscript here?”

Dan nodded. “We think Jane left a lead with it – or, we’re hoping, the map itself.”

“But why?” Jake asked, dark eyes on Amy’s. It was annoying that he kept asking the right questions.

He was still suspicious, but he was curious now. He was learning things about his extended family he’d never dreamed of. Welcome to the club.

“Maybe we’ll find out today,” Amy said. “If we find the map.”

“Okay, this all makes a weird kind of sense,” Jake said. “If you’re a totally illogical kind of person.” He looked at Amy when he said it.

“Or it doesn’t make any sense if you’re a total resistant blockhead,” Amy shot back.

He glowered at her. “You still aren’t answering my question. What does this have to do with you two?”

“We can’t tell you that,” Amy said. “It’s not just our secret. But we can tell you that lives are at stake. You just have to trust us.” She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “You know, sometimes the right thing isn’t the thing you think is right. It’s the wrong thing you’re afraid to think of.”

“When I figure out what that means, I’ll let you know.”