Tony Abbott - The Serpent’s Curse

Two breaths.

“… age.”

Rosemary took up the narrowest of the staffs, more of a dowel than anything else, with five equal sides. Pinching the top end of the ribbon against one of the sides, she gently spiraled it around the dowel like the stripe of a candy cane, making sure that the letters sat next to one another. The first line of the message read:

TGOSNOTSTPHID

Which, because of the peculiar wiring of his brain, Darrell said aloud before anyone could stop him. “‘To go snot stupid.’ No, wait. ‘Togo’s not stupid.’ Is that the dog from The Wizard of Oz ? Who’s Togo?”

“You are,” said Wade, glaring at his stepbrother. “And we’re not sure what language it’s in, remember that. Copernicus knew several. Either way, that’s obviously not the right staff. Can we try a bigger one, to spread out the letters—”

“Keep your pant … s on, young man,” Rosemary growled at Wade, who she suddenly seemed to like less than she liked Darrell. “I shall choo … se what we do next. And I choose … a bigger one, to spread out the letters more.” She returned the first dowel to the case, then selected a thicker one and carefully wrapped the ribbon around it. It produced the following sequence of letters:

TOSMNHTTHLDE

“That’s not a word,” said Lily. “Another one?”

The curator’s wobbly cheeks turned red, and Wade wondered if she would explode and what that might look like. He stepped back. Rose … mary waved a hand in front of her face as if to cool off, then pulled out a staff with ten sides and a diameter of about one and a half inches. Wrapping the ribbon around it produced the following first three lines in English:

TOTHELAND

OFENDLESS

SNOWTOBEG

“To the land of endless snow …” Becca gasped. “That’s it! Yay, we found it!”

Rosemary’s face was purple when she whirled it around to Becca’s. “ Who found it, dear? Did we … find it? Because I rather th … ink I found it.”

“You did, Rosemary,” said Julian. “As usual, you are being tremendously awesome. My friends here, as grateful as they are, are simply super anxious to know what the rest of the message says. Forgive them, please.”

“Dear … boy!” Rosemary said, pausing to pinch Julian’s cheeks a few times. “Here then … is the whole th … ing.”

TOTHELAND

OFENDLESS

SNOWTOBEG

THEATHOSG

REEKCONCE

ALTHEUNBO

UNDDOUBLE

EYEDBEAST

FROMDEMON

MASTERAVH

Wade drew out the notebook containing the major clues they’d discovered so far and, after much scribbling, broke down the text into individual words.

TO THE LAND OF ENDLESS SNOW TO BEG THE ATHOS GREEK CONCEAL THE UNBOUND DOUBLE EYED BEAST FROM DEMON MASTER AVH

And there it was, a riddle to the location of the second Guardian and the second relic.

“We’re all thinking it, right?” said Becca. “‘Demon Master AVH’?”

“Albrecht von Hohenzollern, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in the fifteen hundreds,” said Darrell. “I like that Copernicus finally called him what he was.”

Wade set his father’s college notebook on the table, closed his eyes, and tried to think. Land of endless snow, Athos Greek, conceal the unbound … double-eyed beast … double-eyed …

“If I close my eyes … for that long … people think I’m dead!” Rosemary cackled.

“No, no,” Wade said, opening his eyes. “It’s just that … double-eyed beast describes the object we’re looking for, and it’s based on a constellation.” From his backpack, he took out and unfolded the celestial map his uncle Henry had given him.

“Oh, there are several star charts in our collection,” Rosemary said, “but that’s a very nice one.”

“Thanks.” Carefully running his fingers over the constellations, Wade searched the chart’s colorful illustrations, hoping something would pop out at him. His mind flashed with the idea of the twelfth relic, but he waved it away. Right now there were at least a dozen candidates for double-eyed beast —constellations named for dogs, wolves, dragons, monsters—but not one of them suggested that it and it alone was the one Copernicus referred to on the ribbon. “If I study this long enough, I bet I can figure it out.”

“Then my work here is done,” Dr. Billingham said. She slid the ribbon from the staff, pressed it into Becca’s palm, replaced the staff in the display case, snapped the case shut, and locked it away. “For the further meaning of your message, I suggest you all trot off to Hell …”

“… Enistic archives,” Rosemary finished. “The phrase the Athos Greek undoubtedly points to Hellenistic culture. You should start with section five in the reading room. Good-bye.”

The curator brusquely shooed them from the room by flicking her fingers toward the door, and they headed back to the atrium.

“That took a week,” Lily said, blinking her eyes as if coming out of a cave.

“But we have the message,” said Becca. “Now we just need to know what it means.” The truth was, the instant Becca had heard the words reading room , her pulse had sped up. As always, she had the Copernicus diary in her bag and knew it was as precious as just about any rare book anywhere. But the Morgan’s collection was world famous for a reason. Gutenberg Bibles, Dickens manuscripts, diaries, biographies, histories, artwork, political documents. The Morgan had them all.

“The Athos Greek,” she said. “Land of endless snow. Those are awesomely definite clues to who the Guardian might be. Greece is in the south of Europe, but endless snow sounds like the north. I’m sure the diary will tell us even more.”

“And I can’t stop thinking about the double-eyed beast,” Wade added, looking back at her as he had so many times since San Francisco. What that was all about, Becca didn’t know. “If I keep studying the star map, I might be able to narrow it down.” Then he started chewing his lip, that little thing he did when he was thinking.

Before entering the Morgan’s upstairs reading room, they were asked to stow their belongings—except for notebooks and computers—in special lockers outside the room and, interestingly, to wash their hands.

“Because of the oils,” Darrell said, wiggling his fingers. “The oils in our skin can damage original materials. Mom knows stuff like that.”

“And now so do you,” said Lily.

After they explained the basic reason for their visit—“Greek monasteries and monks of the early sixteenth century”—the young man who’d let them in gave them a brief tour of the holdings, and they each decided to take on a different aspect of the research. Wade unfolded his celestial map and sat his notebook by its side. Julian pulled down from the shelves a large photographic book on Mediterranean monasteries as well as several maps of the world and Greece for the exact location of Athos. Lily gave herself the task of scanning the five Copernicus biographies loaded on the new tablet, while Darrell hunted down a handful of books on sixteenth-century Greek history.

As they got to work, Becca stood staring at the filled bookshelves and glass bookcases, at the dozens of reference stacks, and at the lone, lucky, lucky librarian behind the counter, and she wondered how in the world she could ever get his job.