The Hidden Code Read online

I laugh, and we head off into the game room where I’ve hung the thing. We stop in the ballroom-turned-lab to pick up my sugar gliders, Castor and Pollux, who, now that it’s night, are awake and active. Castor sits on my left shoulder, tucked under one of my ponytails, and Pollux jumps to the top of my head, like it’s some sort of game.

  I show Lucas the painting, and he reaches his hand out, closing his eyes and holding his fingers inches away from the canvas, like somehow he can feel the image. Artists are strange.

  “So I guess you like it,” I say when he’s finally finished worshipping the painting.

  “Just a little,” Lucas says.

  “I was going to give it to you,” I say.

  Lucas’s eyes open wide. “There is no way you can—”

  I put up a hand to stop him. “Don’t worry. Uncle Randall says we have to give it to a museum.” It was the only way Uncle Randall allowed me to buy it.

  Relief seems to flow through Lucas. “Good. Because there is no way I could even afford the insurance on that thing. And you can’t be giving me stuff like that. It’s …”

  “… awesome?” I suggest.

  “Yeah, something like that. Oh, but speaking of presents, I got you one.”

  “I said no presents, remember?”

  “How about you buy me a print of the Georgia O’Keeffe, and we call it even?”

  “Deal.”

  He hands me a small box, maybe only five inches high by seven inches wide. It’s obvious that he wrapped it using whatever he could find around his house, which in this case happens to be the last Chemistry test that he took.

  “You got a C?”

  “I’m not you, Hannah. Remember? I wasn’t born with the Periodic Table implanted in my head.”

  “The Periodic Table is almost like a work of art,” I say. “You’d like it if you gave it a chance.”

  “It’s had its chance,” Lucas says. “And I’ve determined that it sucks.”

  “Don’t diss the Periodic Table,” I say.

  He puts up a hand. “No disrespect meant.”

  I tear the paper, ripping it in half so the subpar Chemistry test becomes nothing but a memory. Inside is a picture of an eye. But not just any eye. It’s my left eye, green with two dots of brown mixed in like freckles, one on the bottom and one on the left. There are eyelashes and even my eyebrow, complete with the scar running through it where I cut myself when I was three. It’s printed on metal and surrounded by a black metal frame.

  “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” I say.

  “It’s a digital painting,” Lucas says.

  “It is not!”

  “Would I lie?”

  I hold it closer, looking for anything that looks computer generated. “You did this on the computer? How is that even possible?”

  Lucas tries not to look proud, but he can’t hide his grin. “I’ve been going through a ton of tutorials. Traditional art is great, but I figured since you gave me the computer, I might as well expand my skills.”

  I brush my finger over the image. “I’d say you’re off to a good start.”

  “You should see some of the other stuff I’m working on,” Lucas says. “It’s unbelievable what you can do with a computer. Some of those software packages are crazy awesome.”

  I angle my head at him and wait.

  “I know,” Lucas says. “This is where you say ‘I told you so.’”

  “I told you so.” I’ve been nagging Lucas to get started with digital art since the beginning of high school. He used the “we can’t afford a computer” excuse so many times that I was sure if I heard it one more time, I would scream.

  Uncle Randall pops his head into the game room. “Did you find it?” He has a huge stack of papers tucked under his arm. Given that he’s a workaholic, my guess is that his plans for the rest of the evening involve work. But I swear that on top of the stack is the letter he got delivered during the lecture. The yellowed envelope is hard to miss.

  “Find what?” I ask, trying to act like I don’t want to run over and grab the envelope right now.

  “Your present, of course.”

  Present? It’s like he and Lucas teamed up to completely go against my wishes.

  “I thought we said—”

  Uncle Randall holds a hand up. “It’s something I’ve been waiting to give you. Something that’s rightfully yours. I left it in Egypt.” Without another word, he leaves the room.

  To anyone else, leaving a present in Egypt might sound like a ridiculous thing to do. For Uncle Randall, it’s just another day at Easton Estate.

  Egypt at Easton Estate is a room near the south-most corner, just off the ballroom, filled with archaeological treasures that would make the curator of the Field Museum in Chicago consider burglary. I shine my cell phone in front of us as Lucas and I walk into the room because there’s no switch on the wall like most of the other rooms in the estate. Instead there’s a chain attached to a giant chandelier that spans five feet across. I pull the chain, and the room comes to life.

  Ahead of us is a golden throne rumored to have belonged to the Pharaoh Thutmose II from the Eighteenth Dynasty. One of my ancestors had gone on a dig around the time of Napoleon and brought it back along with whatever else he could take when he excavated the tomb. It’s crazy to think about now, but back in the day, Egypt was like the Wild West as far as tomb robbery went.

  The walls of Egypt are painted with murals of detailed columns, palm trees, and the twisting Nile River, and the floor boards are stained black like onyx. On every shelf, niche, and pedestal sits some random Canopic jar or head bust. But the prize piece of the room is the sarcophagus rumored to have belonged to Pharaoh Ramesses VIII. The inscriptions on the sarcophagus suggest that the pharaoh had murdered his two older brothers in order to take the throne, and because of that, a curse had been placed on his mummy.

  Lucas steps close so he can whisper. He’s always been freaked out by the curse. “You and Uncle Randall really want to get rid of all this stuff, Hannah?”

  “It shouldn’t be here in the first place,” I say. We’ve been looking for the perfect museum for the last two years. If all goes according to plan, this entire room will be cleaned out and on display to the public within the year.

  “But it is here,” Lucas says.

  “That doesn’t make it right. It should be in a museum.” I’m not knocking my great-ancestor, but stripping a country of its archaeology is totally not cool.

  “You know Egyptian art—” Lucas starts.

  I place a hand over his mouth to stop him. Given the chance, Lucas will descend into a twenty minute long dissertation on art across the ages.

  Where the two arms of the sarcophagus meet is almost like a shelf. Sitting on top of it is a wrapped present with a small card attached. The card has a bunch of symbols scrolled all over it, which, to the untrained eye, might look like gibberish. I recognize them as my name in ancient Sumerian. Oh, the fun of having a linguistics professor as an uncle.

  Castor and Pollux both jump to the top of the sarcophagus and peer down at me, like they’re daring me to tell them to stop. I don’t think that, after all this time, two sugar gliders are going to do much damage. But then Castor jumps to a pedestal next to the wall with a Canopic jar sitting on top of it. He climbs to the top of the jar. Even though he hardly weighs a thing, it’s still enough to make the Canopic jar wobble.

  Lucas and I both jump forward as the jar starts to topple. It balances almost perfectly, at an angle, for half a second, then it tips over and falls straight to the wood floor, shattering into a million pieces.

  “Oh my god,” Lucas says. “Uncle Randall is going to kill you. That thing had to be worth millions.”

  This is my exact thought, too. Uncle Randall is going to completely freak out. Except then I notice the folded piece of paper that’s been hidden inside the Canopic jar. It’s now under a pile of shattered clay.

  “You see this?” I say, pulling it from the rubble.

&
nbsp; Castor jumps back to my shoulder and peers over as I stare at the paper. It’s rice paper, the kind used to make grave rubbings, and it’s folded in fourths. My breath catches as I see what’s written on the outside.

  Laura Hawkins, April 27, 2002

  My mom. She put this here the year before I was born. I don’t think it’s been touched since.

  “Dude, that’s your—” Lucas starts.

  “I know,” I say and unfold the paper, smoothing it out.

  It’s a rubbing of some kind of artifact covered in all sorts of symbols and letters. It only takes me a moment to realize how similar it is to the artifact Uncle Randall had shown earlier in the week at his linguistics lecture. The Deluge Segment. It looks about the same size, same shape. It could be the same piece, or one similar. Which is weird. Uncle Randall had said the Harvard piece got sold to a private collector back in the eighties. If it were the same piece, then how would Mom have been able to make a rubbing of it in 2002?

  “That’s really cool,” Lucas says. “What do you think it is?”

  I shake my head. “Not sure.” And I tell him about the lecture and the picture Uncle Randall had shown.

  “So maybe it’s similar to the Harvard piece but different,” Lucas says. “That wouldn’t be all that unusual. Look at all the tablets the Sumerians carved.”

  “True,” I say.

  “You should show your uncle.”

  I fold the paper back into fourths. I should show Uncle Randall, but I also don’t want to. Mom put this here, maybe for me to find. And it feels like my own mystery that I want to solve.

  “I will,” I say. “But not yet.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I MANAGE TO FIND A BROOM AND DUSTPAN, AND LUCAS AND I CLEAN up the shattered Canopic jar in Egypt. We collect the broken shards and hide them inside the sarcophagus. But what else are we going to do? Get my glue gun out and try to stick it all back together? It’s too far gone. Hopefully Uncle Randall won’t notice that it’s missing. Just to make sure, we pick out a different Canopic jar and place it on the pedestal instead. Then I grab the present from the sarcophagus, turn out the light, and we leave the room.

  Back in the game room, I open the present. It’s an old maroon leather photo album. I flip it open. Right there on the first page is a picture of two people with Harvard Yard in the background.

  “It’s my parents,” I say, pointing to the picture. They look so young, almost like teenagers. Dad has his arm around Mom, and they’re grinning like crazy.

  “You look so much like your mom,” Lucas says, leaning over my shoulder. “Except, my god, look at that hair. It’s huge!”

  He’s right. Mom’s hair is permed into spiral curls, and she has bangs as thick as a horse’s mane.

  “She was a lot prettier than I am,” I say.

  “Your opinion, Hannah,” Lucas says. “Not fact.”

  He always gets me with the fact thing.

  I almost turn to the next page, but out of nowhere, a huge lump forms in my throat. My parents. This photo album. My birthday. It’s all too much. Instead I flip it closed. I try not to think about my parents too much. I don’t allow the thoughts to creep into my mind. But when they get past my defenses, when something like this photo album ends up in my hands, I can’t stop them. Maybe that’s why Uncle Randall waited so long to give it to me.

  I wipe a tear from my eye with the edge of my sleeve, hoping Lucas doesn’t notice. I don’t want him to feel bad for me. My parents have been gone a long time. But it’s my sixteenth birthday. They should be here.

  “You can look at it later,” Lucas says, handing me a tissue.

  So much for subtlety.

  I wipe my eyes with the tissue and cast him a grateful smile. “Yeah, sounds like a good idea.”

  Then I walk him to the front door and head to bed.

  I sleep until ten on Sunday. When I stumble down to the kitchen for coffee, Uncle Randall is sitting at the island working on his computer.

  “You didn’t wake me,” I say as I pour beans into the coffee maker, adding an extra tablespoon so it’ll be stronger than normal. Even though I slept late, I’m still exhausted. I’d crawled in bed around midnight but hadn’t fallen asleep until after three because my mind tossed through every thought it possibly could. My parents. The rubbing hidden away by Mom. Uncle Randall’s letter. The photo album.

  “I didn’t want to disturb you.” He cuts a slice from a loaf of banana bread Chef Lilly must’ve made before I woke up.

  I laugh. “You wouldn’t have. I was awake most of the night.”

  He narrows his eyes. “The photo album?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I’d flipped through more of it this morning, but each picture was like ripping open a wound that would never heal. Part of me wishes that he’d never given it to me, and part of me can’t believe he waited this long.

  “They would have wanted you to have it,” Uncle Randall says.

  Of course they would have. That’s the thing.

  “Why’d you wait so long to give it to me? They’ve been dead for almost eleven years.” I’m trying to keep the anger out of my voice, but now that I’m more awake from the coffee, the frustration is setting in.

  “I didn’t want to upset you,” Uncle Randall says. “You’d adjusted so well. I’d adjusted so well.”

  “Who cares? You should have given it to me years ago.”

  “I realize that now,” Uncle Randall says. “I realized it every day. And yet I let so much time go by. It’s been eleven years since they disappeared—”

  “You mean since they died.”

  “Since they disappeared,” he says. Then he lifts his laptop. Under it is the envelope he got delivered during the lecture.

  My heart speeds up. “What is that? Who’s it from?”

  Uncle Randall smooths his fingers along the edge of the envelope, looking from it to me then back to it again. Then he takes a deep breath.

  “Hannah, there is nothing I want more in this world than for your mother to be alive.”

  I can’t respond. I nod slowly then take a sip of my coffee. I’m afraid if I speak, I’ll lose every bit of control I’ve mastered over the last eleven years. But on this, Uncle Randall and I are of the exact same mind.

  “I got this the other day,” he says.

  “During the lecture,” I manage.

  He nods.

  “Who’s it from?”

  Uncle Randall presses the envelope between his hands. “It’s from your mother.”

  My vision clouds. My heart pounds.

  “She’s alive? They’re alive?” My face warms and the rest of the world vanishes around me. If there is any chance …

  “I don’t know,” Uncle Randall says, and he slides the envelope over to me.

  There’s no return address and no mailing address. Only the name Randall Easton on the front, in cursive. Inside is a folded piece of paper with a date at the top. It’s from eleven years ago.

  “It must have been written before they went missing,” Uncle Randall says. “I don’t know why I got it only now.”

  I dare my eyes to drift beyond the date, to the words written there.

  Hey there Randall,

  I’m sure you’re wondering where we went, and I wish I could tell you. I honestly do. But I know you understand us not telling you because you were part of the decision to keep it secret. That decision was supposed to be final, but now, with what’s happened with Caden, the risk of it falling into the wrong hands is too great. If the Olivers bring it back, even for such a worthy cause, it will never be safe.

  Our hearts grieve for Caden and his family, but even one life can’t outweigh the threat of it being found. You know this. You understand. I know you do.

  They’re looking for it, and so we have to destroy it. There’s no other choice. If for some reason, we don’t make it back, please don’t come looking for us. Forget about it. Pretend it never existed. Go on with your life. Take care of Hannah.

  Please let
Hannah know how much we love her and miss her. Tell her that we’ll be home soon.

  I love you,

  Laura

  “What did they destroy?” I ask. My hands shake as I hold the letter. I want to keep reading it over and over again. Please let Hannah know how much we love her and miss her. Tell her that we’ll be home soon. Except they never came home. I never saw them again. And this letter never made it either, at least not until now.

  “I don’t know,” Uncle Randall says.

  I glare at him. “They say right here that you were part of the decision to keep it secret. What was it?”

  He fixes his eyes on me. “Nothing.”

  He’s lying. Even an idiot would know that.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  It’s almost like I can see the battle going on inside Uncle Randall’s head. He wants to tell me. I know he does. But he knows that he shouldn’t. And I think that maybe if I ask the right questions, I can get him to slip up and give more information away.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “How dangerous could whatever it is be?” I ask. “Seriously? Is it like some kind of nuclear bomb?”

  “It’s not a bomb,” Uncle Randall says. “But it’s dangerous enough that they were willing to give up everything they loved to destroy it.”

  Everything like me.

  No, I can’t focus on that right now. That’s not important. What is important is getting facts.

  “Who are the Olivers? Who is Caden?” I’ve never heard the names in my life.

  Uncle Randall reaches for the photo album I’ve brought down with me and opens it to the first photo, the one of my parents in front of Harvard Yard. Harvard is where they met. They started dating their first year as undergrads and got married just after graduating with their PhDs. Uncle Randall smiles at each photo as if seeing Mom brings back wonderful memories for him that maybe he’s hidden away, too.

  “Laura was so pretty,” he says. “But she never showed any interest in dating until she met your dad. I remember when she introduced me to him. It was the first time I’d seen her passionate about anything besides science. She was so much like you that way, driven by a need to understand the world around her. Wanting to change the world.”