The Secret Cipher Read online

  “Hello,” a woman said.

  I sighed. The voice didn’t belong to Juniper. Once again, total disappointment. I was ready to hang up, because that’s the best way to deal with a sales call, when the voice said, “I’m not sure if I have the right number, but there is an elderly woman in our care and we found this phone number written inside her bandana.”

  3

  Ethan

  FACT: The immune system is supposed to stand guard and protect against dangerous invaders, like the bird flu and the bubonic plague. But sometimes it overreacts to things that aren’t dangerous, like tree pollen and cat fur. The result—itchy eyes, sneezing, and inflamed sinuses, which is what always happens to me at the beginning of summer. I’m an immune system mess.

  Oh, and then there are the stress-induced nosebleeds. I’ve been getting those all my life. Jax never makes fun of me, but Tyler always does. He calls me an inferior life form.

  Me and my allergies waited by the pool while Jax answered the phone. It was probably a sales call. But what were the odds that it was our great-aunt? If I wanted to calculate the actual number, I’d have to ask Tyler, captain of the high school’s Math Olympiad team.

  “Ethan!” Jax frantically waved at me from the doorway, the phone cord stretched tight. Then she disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Uh-oh.

  Jax’s house had no air-conditioning, so the kitchen felt stuffy. Fruit flies fluttered around a pair of overripe bananas and a pile of dirty dishes filled the sink. Jax stood at the counter, the phone pressed to her ear. Water dripped off her shorts and pooled around her bare feet. I wiped my feet on the mat, leaving behind a bunch of grass blades. “What’s going on?”

  Jax pressed the phone’s speaker button. The voice on the other end was female. She was in the middle of an explanation. “The Sisters of Mercy treats elderly patients suffering from dementia and memory loss. This particular patient was found at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She couldn’t remember who she was or how she’d gotten to the museum. Massachusetts General Hospital treated her and diagnosed her with having suffered a cerebrovascular accident.”

  “A what?” Jax asked.

  “A stroke, which means that the blood supply to her brain was cut off for a short period of time, causing damage.” The woman cleared her throat. “She was brought to Sisters of Mercy a few days ago but we still don’t know who she is. She has no identification and no family member has claimed her. We’re calling her Jane Doe. As I said, your phone number was written inside her bandana.”

  Jax and I shared a look. The last time we saw Juniper, she’d been wearing a bandana.

  The woman continued. “She’s elderly, probably in her eighties. And she has long white hair. It was in a braid when they found her.”

  “Braids and a bandana?” I said. “That sounds like—”

  Jax grabbed my arm, silencing me with a squeeze. “Don’t say anything yet,” she whispered. “We don’t know what’s going on.”

  “So?” the woman asked. “Does she sound familiar?”

  Jax pursed her lips together and tapped her fingers on the counter. “I might know her,” she said cautiously. “She sounds like a lady who lived down the street.”

  Jax was protecting our great-aunt. For many years, Juniper had been hiding from the world. She’d had herself “erased” from the internet. She’d come to us only because she’d needed help. So until we knew the whole story, we’d continue to keep her secrets.

  “Can we talk to her?” Jax asked.

  “I’m afraid Jane Doe is not allowed to make calls right now. The police are here and . . .” She paused.

  “Why are the police there?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated. Will you come and see if you know her? It’s important that we contact her next of kin. We are the Sisters of Mercy Convalescent Center, in Boston.”

  “Okay.” Jax grabbed a pad of paper and pencil and wrote down the address. “Thank you. We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Then she hung up.

  “I hope Juniper’s okay,” I said, remembering our neighbor Mrs. Purcell, who’d suffered a massive stroke. It had left her paralyzed and unable to speak. One year had passed and Mrs. Purcell still couldn’t walk.

  “Juniper’s faking,” Jax said with total certainty. “I just know it. Something happened and she needed a place to hide. What better place than a hospital where no one knows you?” She hurried from the kitchen.

  “Uh . . . you can’t fake a stroke,” I pointed out. “They would have done a CAT scan on her brain. Where are you going?”

  “I’m gonna change into some dry clothes. We’ve got to figure out how to get to Boston.”

  A knot formed in my stomach. I was happy that we hadn’t heard from our great-aunt. It was nice not being chased by villains. It was nice not carrying around an urn that could suck hope from people’s souls. I’d been looking forward to a predictable summer without any more Greek god activity. But Jax wanted to jump right back in while I wanted to go back outside and rake grass.

  Fact: Each of us shares about 99.5 percent of our DNA with everyone else on the planet. And if you’re closely related, like a brother or a cousin, then you share even more.

  So why were Jax and I so different?

  I’m not an adventurous person. I’m happy to read and observe. I’ll probably go into some kind of research, like my dad. Test tubes don’t look at you weirdly when you try to say something appropriate but it comes out as a list of facts.

  I walked out of the kitchen, then stood at the bottom of the stairs. Jax’s bedroom was on the second floor. “I want to point out that we are forbidden to have anything to do with our great-aunt,” I hollered. “If our parents find out that we met her, we’re gonna get grounded or worse.”

  We weren’t supposed to know Great-Aunt Juniper because she’d been shunned by our parents. Before Jax was born, Aunt Lindsay had gone to visit Juniper, who’d been working in Washington, DC, for the International Society of Archaeologists. During the visit, Aunt Lindsay fell in love with a man who was working as Juniper’s intern. Aunt Lindsay got pregnant with Jax, and Lindsay and the man were going to get married but he disappeared. He didn’t leave a note or an address. Jax was raised not knowing anything about her father.

  But last month, when we met Juniper for the first time, she confessed that the man hadn’t been an intern. He was actually a professional thief and an expert on breaking codes. He’d been hired by the society to retrieve a stolen artifact. He’d gone into hiding and Juniper couldn’t reveal his whereabouts. Aunt Lindsay had felt betrayed. She’d said Juniper should have warned her not to get involved with this man. She’d told Juniper to never contact our family again.

  I think Aunt Lindsay was embarrassed that she’d fallen in love with a criminal. She’d trusted him and he’d abandoned her and her baby. She didn’t want Jax to know the truth, so it was easier to blame everything on Juniper. That’s why Jax grew up without a father and why we never knew about our great-aunt.

  “Jax?” I called. “Are you listening to me? Boston is almost two hundred and fifty miles away and neither of us is old enough to drive.”

  “I don’t care if Boston is a million miles away. We have to get there.” She raced down the stairs in new, dry clothes. Then she grabbed my cell phone. “I’m calling Tyler.” She bounced on her toes while the phone rang. Tyler’s voice boomed from the speaker.

  “If you’re calling the New Jersey Math Olympiad champion and the co-creator of the mind-blowing game Cyclopsville, then you’ve reached the right number. Unfortunately for you, I’m currently engaged in activities that your puny mind cannot comprehend, so leave a message, dude.” Beep.

  Jax groaned and hung up. “Where is he?”

  I checked my watch. “He’s at the comic-book store. There’s a tournament today.”

  Her mouth fell open. “He left the house? Really?”

  It wasn’t unusual for Tyler to stay in his bedroom all day during the summer, working on his c
omputer. Jax often joked about him being a vampire who couldn’t be exposed to daylight. But for the last month, he’d stayed in his room because he’d been too depressed to go anywhere. There’d been a whole week when he could barely get out of bed. Apparently that’s what happens when hope is sucked from your soul.

  I will never forget the scene. When Mr. and Mrs. Camel drew guns on us, there’d been only one way to disarm them. The plan was for Jax to open the urn. We’d be safe from the effects as long as we were touching the urn’s surface—it protects those who hold it. But Tyler had been standing on the other side of the memorial, with a gun to his back. In a moment of unbelievable courage, he ordered Jax to open the urn. He sacrificed himself so that the Camels could be caught. When the urn unleashed its tornado and sucked hope from Mr. and Mrs. Camel and an unlucky security guard, it also sucked hope from Tyler.

  After Jax corked the urn, we rushed to Tyler’s side. He lay like a limp noodle, his eyes wide open, staring at nothing. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t move. Mr. and Mrs. Camel and the security guard were in the same condition. I called 911. As ambulance sirens wailed, Juniper disappeared, taking the urn with her.

  By the time our parents arrived at the hospital in DC, the doctors had no idea what was wrong, so they said it was a viral infection. Viruses can spread fast, so it was possible that the Camels and the security guard had all come down with it. Of course they didn’t suspect a Greek urn had been the cause of everyone’s weird symptoms. Who would?

  Once they came out of their trances, Mr. and Mrs. Camel were shipped back to England, where they were wanted on forgery charges. The security guard went home with his family and Tyler spent the next four weeks recovering in his room. And he hadn’t left the house until today.

  “Let’s go,” Jax said, handing my phone back.

  “Uh . . .” I stalled. “We haven’t finished weeding. And I was thinking about sharpening the mower’s blades.”

  She folded her arms. “Ethan, you can come up with a million excuses but you’re not going to talk me out of this.”

  “It would be impossible for me to come up with a million excuses,” I told her.

  She smiled. “Impossible? Do you still believe things are impossible?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to sound certain. I would cling to denial as long as I could . . . like a germ clinging to the side of a public ketchup bottle.

  4

  Jax

  The heat wasn’t going to keep me from riding extra fast. I took the lead. Even if Ethan had wanted to be in front, he wouldn’t have been able to outpedal me. I was like a bullet.

  When we got to Merlin’s Comics, sweat coated the backs of my knees and Ethan could barely catch his breath. We locked our bikes in the rack, then went inside.

  I’d grown up in Chatham, but I’d only been inside this store a few times. Comic books weren’t my thing. The place was cluttered with displays of memorabilia and collectibles. Board games were stacked on shelves. T-shirts and costumes hung from racks. A table of comic-book bins sat in the center of the room. It was Geek Central.

  “Pee-ew,” I said, scrunching my face. It smelled just like Tyler’s bedroom. If someone bottled that stench it would be called Eau de Gamer.

  Ethan winced. He wasn’t anything like his older brother. Ethan was a full-fledged nerd, which is totally different from being a gamer. Ethan was socially awkward and liked to read all the time. But he also liked to take showers. And he wore deodorant and changed his socks. Tyler and his weirdo friends thought personal hygiene was a waste of time. They had scruffy beards, uncombed hair, and armpit stains. When Tyler complained about not having a girlfriend, Aunt Cathy told him that girls don’t like guys who stink and she threatened to run him through a car wash. Uncle Phil said that Tyler would one day meet a girl who would appreciate him, regardless of his body odor. I’m not so sure that’s true.

  “Do you see him?” I asked, standing on my tiptoes.

  “Over there.” Ethan pointed.

  I walked around a large inflatable dragon and headed toward the back room while Ethan stayed by the door. There were about forty people crammed into the small space. That’s not quite a crowd but it’s definitely a group. For Ethan, groups were worse than crowds because he couldn’t hide as easily. I spotted a couple of girls in the store, but they were as rare as the green clovers in a box of Lucky Charms.

  “Hey, Tyler,” I called, cupping my hands around my mouth.

  A huge guy stepped in front of me. “The gaming cave is currently off-limits, my lady.”

  My lady? I looked up. Whoa! He must have been seven feet tall. His nametag read Merlin, so I guessed he was the owner. “I need to talk to my cousin.”

  “Interruptions are prohibited during play.” His Batman T-shirt stretched over his enormous gut. He’d braided his long beard so he looked like he’d just stepped out of Lord of the Rings. “You’ll have to wait until the end of the round.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “As serious as Venser sacrificing his heart for Karn. This is a Magic tournament.”

  “You mean, tricks and stuff?”

  “Tricks and stuff? Not that kind of magic.” He started talking to me the way Tyler often did, as if I was a complete idiot and he was teaching me something I should already know. “Magic: The Gathering is a two-or-more-player game composed of trading cards. Each round is a battle between Planeswalkers, using spells, items, and creatures.”

  “Are you telling me it’s a stupid card game?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Merlin raised his unibrow. “Stupid card game?” Some of the players had turned and were staring me. “I’ll have you know that over twelve million people worldwide are Magic: The Gathering enthusiasts.”

  “So what? It’s still a card game.” Maybe I sounded a bit rude, but seriously, he was worried about a game and I was worried about my great-aunt and an urn that could turn people into zombies. When I tried to step around him, he blocked my path. Normally I would have complained to the manager, but this guy owned the place. I sighed. “Fine, I’ll wait. How long will it take?”

  “Until someone has won.” Merlin pointed to a couch by the cash register. “You’re welcome to sit, my lady.”

  “The name is Jax.” I stomped over and slumped onto the couch. Ethan joined me. “So this is the reason Tyler left his room? For a Magic game? I don’t get it.”

  Ethan pointed at a trophy that sat next to the cash register.

  “Oh. Right.” Nothing more needed to be said. My cousin Tyler went after trophies the way a shark goes after blood. His collection was on display in his family’s den, complete with custom-made shelving and special gallery-style lighting.

  I squirmed. Then squirmed some more. If I sat up real straight and craned my neck to the left, I could barely see Tyler. He hadn’t noticed us or maybe he was ignoring us. “I overload my Mizzium Mortars,” he announced to his opponent, who looked about ten years old.

  “Crud!” the kid cried, sliding a bunch of cards to the side. “My graveyard’s getting full.”

  “Guess all those expensive cards your parents bought you were a waste of money,” Tyler said with a snicker. “Your time would have been better spent sitting in your room waiting for puberty. I’m last year’s champion, in case you didn’t know. Prepare to be humiliated.”

  No doubt about it, Tyler was back to normal. A few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure he’d recover. I’d been sitting in his room and I’d asked him what it had been like to have hope sucked from his soul. He said it was the darkest feeling he’d ever had. He’d felt cold inside, like he was made of ice.

  For the last three years, a sign had been posted on Tyler’s bedroom door: Embrace the Zombie Apocalypse. He took it down after he got home from the hospital. He said it felt too real.

  A cheer arose from the game cave. I whispered in Ethan’s ear. “If you distract the Merlin dude, then I can sneak behind the dragon and get to Tyler.”

  “Distract him?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah. Pretend you’re having an allergy attack and you can’t breathe. Pretend you need an EpiPen.” I nudged his arm. “Please?”

  “But what if he has an EpiPen? I don’t want to get shot with one if I don’t need it.”

  “Good point.” Every gamer in the place probably had an EpiPen. I sank even lower. “This waiting is going to kill me. Juniper needs us.”

  Merlin look a sip from a Big Gulp, then leaned on the counter. “Hey, Ralph.” A skinny guy in a Thor T-shirt had entered the store. “Did you see the new comic by Zenith? It’s about Pandora.”

  I sat bolt upright. “Hello? Did you say Pandora?” I scrambled to my feet. “You mean like in Pandora’s box?”

  “You’re familiar with Greek mythology?” Merlin asked with a surprised smile. He held up the comic. “This is Zenith’s tenth book. In my humble opinion, it’s his opus.”

  According to legend, Pandora was the first woman on earth. She was famous because she opened a box and released evil into the world. But it was her daughter, Pyrrha, who most interested me, since she’d been the original owner of the urn.

  “Can I see that?” I grabbed the comic and flipped through the pages. The drawings were very detailed, all in black and white. Everyone was wearing tunics and sandals. The main character was beautiful, with long rippling hair. I showed it to Ethan. “I wonder if Pandora looked like this.”

  “I doubt it,” Ralph said, peering over my shoulder. His breath smelled like Fritos. “That armor she’s wearing is medieval. If Pandora had worn armor, I’m guessing it would have been pre-Mycenaean in design. Zenith takes liberties with historical detail.”

  “You make an excellent point,” Merlin said.

  Historical detail? I set the comic book on the counter and looked from Merlin to Ralph. “You guys are talking like this stuff is real.” Of course, Ethan and I knew the truth, but these guys hadn’t seen a tornado fly out of an urn.

  Merlin scratched his beard. “To quote one of the greatest twentieth-century minds, Mr. Spock, ‘Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’” He took another sip of his drink.