The Secret Cipher (8 page)

“Uh . . . I'm Ethan.”

“Of course.” She nodded slowly. “Ethan and Tyler. Hello.”

“How do you feel?” Jax asked her.

“They tell me I had a stroke.” She spoke out of the right corner of her mouth. The left side didn't move.

“What?” Jax said, unclasping Juniper's hand. “You did? Really?”

I watched Juniper's face for a few moments. Then I noticed that her left arm lay limp. “Your left side is paralyzed, isn't it? That's a common symptom after a stroke. Just like my neighbor Mrs. Purcell.” I'd been correct about the stroke. But being right didn't make me happy. She looked really terrible.

“Makes it hard to talk,” Juniper said. Then she yawned with half her mouth. “How come I'm so tired?”

“The nurse gave you a pill to make you sleep,” Jax told her. “I can't believe you really had a stroke. Do you remember what happened?”

Juniper brushed a few strands of hair from her
eye. “Certain things are
fuzzy
.”

“Why were you at the Museum of Fine Arts?” Tyler asked. He sat on the windowsill. “The police think you were trying to steal something.”

Her left eyelid was droopier than the right. “I can't remember that part. I try and try. The police asked me what I was doing there. But I don't know. It's so foggy.”

This was serious. Along with the paralysis, she had an impaired memory. Jax looked at me, her brow furrowed with worry.

“We'd better tell her about the robbery,” Tyler said.

“What about Mr. Hofstedder?” I asked. “Should we talk about this in front of him?”

We all looked at the old man. His head had fallen to the side and he was snoring. Jax nodded at me. So I started talking. It was easy for me to remember all the details, like time of day, number of people who'd been attacked, and the amount of money stolen.

“The robber used the urn,” Jax said. “Do you know who he is? Do you remember how he got it?” Juniper half-yawned again. The sleeping pill was starting to kick in. “Great-Aunt Juniper? How did that man steal the urn from you?”

“He didn't steal it from me.”

“What?” Tyler slid off the windowsill. “Are you saying you
gave
it to him?”

“No.” She sighed. “It's a different urn.”

I felt prickly all over. My heart skipped a couple of beats. Had I heard her correctly?

“Wait a minute.” Tyler held up a hand. “Are you saying the bank robber has one of the
other
urns?”

“Yes.” She blinked, slow and heavy. “He has the urn of Faith.”

“Faith?” we all said.

Tyler looked frantically around the room. “Does that mean the urn of Hope is in this room? I told you, Jax, I don't want to see it!” My heart began to pound. I didn't want to see it either.

“It can't be that close,” Jax said. “I don't feel anything.”

“Well, I feel something!” Herman Hofstedder bellowed as he woke up. “I feel hungry. But I don't want no cruddy meat loaf again. It gave me terrible gas.” He pounded his fists on his wheelchair. “If you don't let me outta this room, I'm gonna—”

“Okay, fine,” Jax grumbled. She opened the door, looked into the hall to make sure no one was watching, then wheeled Mr. Hofstedder outside.

“Bye,” I told him with a wave. “Have a nice day.”

“So far it's been a real thrill ride,” he grumbled.

As soon as the door closed, Jax, Tyler, and I gathered around our great-aunt's bed. “Where is it?” Jax asked. “Where is the urn of Hope?”

“I can't remember. I can't . . . oh yes.” Juniper pointed a shaky finger at the window. “I gave it to someone.”

“Gave it to someone?”

Her hand fell back onto the bed and her eyes closed. “Don't worry. We can trust her. She came from the Realm of the Gods.”

“That's not possible,” I said. But even as I said it, I knew that phrase didn't have as much weight as it used to.

My nose started to tingle.

G
reat-Aunt Juniper's brain was all mixed up.

I'd felt like that before. Once, when I was little, I got so sick that I had a fever of 103. Mom said I started talking about unicorns—I thought one was standing in the middle of the living room! I remember how confused I'd felt, until my fever broke.

It was hard to see Juniper like this. I remembered all the photos in her apartment, of her adventures trekking across the globe in search of artifacts and treasures. She'd been strong and independent. Now she was lying in a bed with metal bars. I felt bad because I'd thought she was faking the stroke.

“Did you say the
Realm of the Gods
?” I asked.

“Yes.” Her eyelids fluttered.

“Cyclopsville takes place in the Realm of the Gods,” Tyler said. Then he shrugged. “I'm just pointing that out.”

Ethan stopped pinching his nose. “False alarm,” he explained.

“I don't understand,” I said to Juniper. I tried to keep my voice calm, so I wouldn't upset her. “Are you telling us that the urn of Hope was here with you, in this room?”

“Yes.” Her voice was beginning to drift. “Don't worry. I sealed it with wax. At least, I think I did.” She frowned, crease lines forming along her cheeks. “I told everyone that it contained my husband's ashes. I don't remember having a husband. Did I have a husband?”

“Search,” I said. We opened all the drawers. There were some clothes—a pair of khaki pants, a red bandana, some hiking boots, a leather bag that was empty. We looked under the bed, in the closet, but found no dreaded Greek urn. Tyler exhaled with relief but I didn't. I grabbed Juniper's hand to get her attention. “Great-Aunt Juniper? I know it's hard to remember but please try. Are you sure you gave the urn of Hope to someone?”

She nodded weakly.

“That means it's not here,” Tyler said. “Fine by me!”

Panic began to swirl in my stomach, like a cyclone. “But . . . why?”

“She said she'd take it home.” Juniper closed her eyes. “I'm getting so sleepy.”

“Please don't fall asleep,” I begged, shaking her arm. “You gave it to a girl? What did she look like? Where's home?”

“With the gods.”

“That's not possible,” Ethan said. “The Greek gods are gone. Long gone.”

“Maybe they are but maybe they aren't,” Tyler said with a glint in his eye. “Think about it. So much weirdness has happened, I wouldn't be surprised if Zeus climbed through the window and asked us for directions to the nearest ambrosia dealer.”

Juniper's words began to slur. “The gods exist in . . . another dimension.”

Huh?

“There are only three spatial dimensions,” Ethan said, trying to be logical, as usual. “Up and down, left and right, or forward and backward.”

“What about special relativity?” Tyler said.
“You can't forget that. Space-time can be thought of as a fourth dimension. And then there's superstring theory, which adds six more dimensions.”

My head was starting to spin. “Guys!” I blurted. “Can you please focus? Great-Aunt Juniper, how do we . . . ?” She'd drifted into a deep sleep. “Crud!”

Tyler, Ethan, and I stared at the woman who'd dragged us into this whole mess. Then I sank into a chair. I tried desperately to wrap my head around the situation. “Okay, let's figure this out. Juniper went to the Museum of Fine Arts and tried to tamper with the security system. We don't know why. But she had the urn of Hope with her, in her purse, and it ended up here, in this room. Then a girl came and took it. We don't know who she is or where she went. And some guy has the urn of Faith and used it to rob a bank.” I sank deeper into the chair. “What are we supposed to do now?”

As if on cue, the door opened and Louis, the male nurse, stepped in. “Hey, you kids aren't supposed to be in here.” He perched his hands on his hips. “This room is off-limits, didn't you read the sign?”

I jumped to my feet. “Sign?” I asked innocently.

He pulled a phone from his pocket. “Do you know Jane Doe? Did you come here to identify
her? 'Cause if you did I'm supposed to call the police so they can interview you.”

“We don't know her,” I said.

“And she doesn't know us,” Tyler added. Ethan pulled his baseball cap lower.

“Well, you'll have to leave.” Louis stepped aside and motioned toward the hallway. “I don't know how you kids keep getting in here. We need a better security system, that's for sure. I think that other kid climbed in through the window.”

“Other kid?” we all said.

“Yeah. I told her she had no business in this room.”

“What did she look like?” I asked.

Louis folded his arms. “Why do you want to know what she looks like?”

“Just curious,” I told him, because I couldn't think of anything else.

“Only thing I remember is her red hair. Lots of braids, you know.”

“Lots of braids?” I froze. No way. That would be weird. It couldn't be . . .
her
.

“She asked me how to get to some sort of comic-book festival. I told her I wasn't a tour guide. If she wanted to get downtown, she could take herself
outside and catch the bus.”

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“Just a few minutes ago. . . .”

I was out the door, running down the hallway, Ethan and Tyler at my heels.

“Hey,” Herman Hofstedder hollered from his wheelchair. “Don't leave me here. Take me with you!”

I darted around a couple more wheelchairs and a lady using a walker. I almost overturned a medication cart. “No running,” Sister Beatrice called as I raced by.

“Sorry,” I said, then I pushed open the front door. Red braids. Lots of them.

The sound of screeching brakes caught my attention. A city bus had pulled up to the curb, across the street.

“Hey, wait!” I called, waving my arms. “Hold that bus!” But the driver either didn't see me or didn't care, and he began to pull away.

That's when I saw a girl walking down the bus's aisle. She took a seat but she didn't look our way.

She didn't need to. Even through the windowpane, her hair sparkled.

FACT:
During a stroke, blood supply is cut off to a portion of the brain. Thus, that portion of the brain stops working correctly, which explains why Great-Aunt Juniper was having hallucinations. The girl hadn't come from the Realm of the Gods. No way.

“T
his is insane!” Jax sat in the front seat of Tyler's car as he drove away from Sisters of Mercy. We were following the bus.

I sneezed three times in a row. “Why'd you park under those trees? The car's covered with pollen. It's getting in through the vents.” I sneezed again.

“For your information, little brother, I don't choose parking spots based on your overactive immune system.”

“Go faster!” Jax ordered in her bossiest voice. “We're gonna lose her.”

“Not too fast,” I said. “I'd like to remind you of my previously mentioned fact about teenage driving.”

“I'd like to remind
both of you
that this is
my
car so
I
will make the driving decisions,” Tyler snapped.

A half block away, the bus stopped, its door opened, but the girl didn't get out. Jax wiggled on the seat.

“Is your butt on fire?” Tyler asked.

“No.”

“Then stop squirming so much. You're getting on my nerves.”

Jax ignored him and kept wiggling. “Go around that taxi,” she said as the bus pulled ahead. “Watch out for that bicycle.”

“
Don't
tell me how to drive,” Tyler grumbled. “Or I will pull over and you can walk.” He sounded like Mom. Leaving us at the side of the road was a common threat whenever Tyler and I started to argue in the car. Or whenever I pointed out a rule of the road that Mom was ignoring. Like forgetting her turn signal.
Or not coming to a
complete
stop at an intersection.

Jax turned around and stared at me over the seat back, wide-eyed. “Yesterday, that girl was in Chatham, having gelato with us. Why would she come here and take Juniper's urn?”

“We don't know for sure that she took it,” I said. “We saw her on a bus. We never saw her inside Sisters of Mercy.”

“Are you serious? The nurse said that a girl with lots of braids was in Juniper's room. And Juniper said she gave the urn to a girl. You think it's just a coincidence that our girl happened to be riding a bus past the Sisters of Mercy at the same time?”

“Okay, so that does sound far-fetched,” I said.

“It's obvious what's going on,” Tyler said. “She followed me. She's my stalker.”

Jax rolled her eyes. “Come on, Tyler. Seriously?”

“I'm a champion. It makes sense I'd have a stalker.” He ran a hand over his hair. “I'm smart. I'm charming. She's a superfan. When she sees me in my originally designed costume from Cyclopsville, she'll need a defibrillator.”

“Oh really?” Jax said. “And is that why she ran out of the Chatham Creamery? Because you were too much for her heart to handle?”

“Maybe.”

“The girl arrived at Sisters of Mercy before us, and she left before us,” I pointed out. “That doesn't sound like stalking to me. I think she was trying to avoid us.”

Jax whipped around and pointed. “Hurry, the bus is turning right!” Tyler veered into the next lane. If I hadn't been wearing a seat belt I would have been thrown against the door. “Why would she take the urn?” Jax asked, bracing herself as Tyler took a sharp turn. “Who is she?”

For a moment, no one said anything. Then Jax broke the silence. “Do you think she's working for the Camels?”