The Daykeeper's Grimoire (5 page)

“We have business!” she replies. “A small group of retired Berkeley alumni is coming next week to scout the place for a trip they might offer through the Alumni Association. Won’t that be a riot?”

“Not sure if ‘riot’ is the word I’d use,” I say. I’ve kind of enjoyed cruising around the castle without anyone around and I don’t know if I want to share it. At least it’s old people that are coming; they probably won’t get around much.

“And when it rains it pours. Uncle Li is coming, too,” Dad says.

“No way!” I scream. “That’s so great!”

Uncle Li is my parents’ Feng Shui Master, whom they’ve known forever. Years ago he’d tracked Mom down and had her crack an old Chinese safe for him and they’ve been good friends ever since. Even though he’s a million years old, I think he’s really cool. He has a way of explaining things that makes you just get it, and I never feel like he’s talking to me like I’m beneath him just because I’m not an adult. We hung out a lot back in San Francisco.

“He’s planning to stay awhile and help us get things arranged,” Mom says. “He’s done a couple castles in France and one in Spain, but he’s excited to do one in Scotland. He says islands produce a much different energy than the mainland does.”

Suddenly a guy I’ve never seen walks by the kitchen window. He looks like a business cherub; he’s got the round, babyish face with rosy cheeks and pink lips that cherubs have but he’s all business, packed into a black suit that’s too small for him.

“Who’s that?” I ask as I point to the window.

“Oh, that’s Barend Schlacter,” Mom says, “from the Scottish Tourist Board. They do mandatory inspections before you can open an Inn.”

“‘Barend Schlacter’ doesn’t sound very Scottish.”

“He’s Bavarian, actually. Seems very thorough. He’ll be poking around so be really, really nice to him.”

“Yep, the nicer you are, the more stars we get,” Dad adds.

“How do you get rated before you even open?” I ask.

“Who knows?” Mom says. “We just do what we’re told. We don’t want to be the rude Americans who push back on everything. All we know is that he has to spend twenty-four hours on site and we’re not supposed to bother him as he walks around inspecting the place.”

“So how many guests will be here in all?” I ask.

“Well, there are four from Berkeley, right?” Dad says. “Plus Li, so that’s five—”

“Oh, and don’t forget that other guy who just emailed this morning,” Mom says. “The professor from Princeton …”

“Did you advertise on that alumni website too?” I ask.

“No, not sure how he found us,” Mom says. She turns to Dad “Honey, did you ask Professor Tenzo how he found the Inn?”

Did you say Tenzo?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

Both my parents look at me. Dad says, “Yes, why? Have you heard of him?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. I think maybe I’ve heard Justine’s grandpa mention him.”

“That’s right, Middleford teaches at Princeton too,” Dad says. “Well, we’ve got a blueprint of the castle in the library and we’ll be figuring out where everyone will stay later today if you’d like to help.”

Dad’s mention of the library reminds me of what I was coming downstairs to do, so I excuse myself to go to the bathroom.

Walking quickly to the library, I try to piece this all together. My heart is pounding so hard I’m afraid they might just hear it. Why would Tenzo come all the way to the middle-of-nowhere Scotland if not to track down the rubbing? And why would he lie to Justine’s grandfather, saying that it was “of no significance” as he put it?

The library is dark except for the eerie blue glow from all the computer screens, like a snowy Tahoe street before the sun comes up. I search for the piece of paper that I gave Mom and Dad the day before yesterday, the one with the symbols on it. I need to swap it with the new one so when Dad rewrites his decoding program he will start decoding this new set of symbols instead of the first one.

I pull the sheet of symbols out of my pocket and make a copy for Mom. I then exchange the original for the one on Dad’s desk. Now they’ll assume that this spiral was the same one that they were already working on; since they have to re-scan it anyway they’ll never know the difference. I run up to Mom’s study and switch out that copy of the symbols as well.

I stop in my room to burn the first tracing and its copy, trying not to think about my deception as I watch the paper turn into tiny glowing flakes that float like stars up the chimney.

When I get back to the kitchen, Mom and Dad have already left. Mrs. Findlay is busy cleaning up and has put my breakfast on the big stove, this thing called an Aga. There are four ovens below and eight burners on top and the gas is always on so all you have to do is lift the covers off the burners and turn them up a little. Above it is a copper stove hood that is as big as a VW bug and when the fan is turned on it sounds just as loud. This would all seem strange in any normal kitchen, but this one is the size of our whole house in San Francisco. There are two fireplaces in the kitchen and a huge table in the center—bigger than a public library table—with two long benches on either side. The sink is the size of a small bathtub and every inch of the floors and walls is covered in pale green tile, which is so retro it’s hip again.

I pick up my breakfast, happy to see that the Aga has taken my eggs from gelatinous to over-easy and has dried out some of the greasy sausage.

“You ready for all the guests to arrive, Mrs. Findlay?” I ask as I sit to eat.

“Can hardly wait, dear. Have been planning the menus carefully,” she says, drying her hands on her apron. Mrs. Findlay has bright red hair and is even taller than I am. She’s not fat or anything but she definitely has a man’s build; her wrists are thick, her hands are huge, and she has really broad shoulders. She wears these striped dresses with buttons all the way down the front like a man’s shirt, and always has an apron on, like it’s a permanent fixture. She had worked here before, years ago, so she was the only cook comfortable with having Mr. Papers stay in the little wood cubby by the far fireplace.

Mr. Papers loves her. In fact, the first time she came over to meet us (after two other cooks declined the job because they couldn’t handle having a monkey living in a tiny tile cubby hole above the firewood in the far end of the kitchen) he hopped on her shoulders and started pushing on her bun like a kid with a jack-in-the-box.

“They’ll love whatever you cook, that’s for sure,” I say.

“Aw, thanks Caity,” she says. “You know, I’m going to ask your parents if they’d like to hire Alex to serve when your guests arrive.”

“Really?” I ask, almost before she even finishes her sentence.

“Aye. Would do you good to have a mate your age around the castle too, methinks.”

“People in this century still say ‘methinks’?” I joke, trying to hide my excitement at the thought of having Alex here every day.

“Well,
methinks
you spend too much time alone, or with that little scoundrel,” she replies as she points to Mr. Papers, tucked away in his cubby eating a big piece of honeydew. It looks like he has an enormous green smile.

“There you are!” Mom says, walking into the kitchen.

I’m hit with a brilliant idea. “Hey Mom, remember I agreed to do a private study with you or Dad? Maybe I should start that now, during the summer.”

“What’s this about private study?” Dad asks.

“Instead of being shipped off to boarding school, I told Mom that I’d do some kind of independent study with you guys. And this whole code-cracking thing seems interesting, so maybe you could show me how you went about decoding my symbols. You know, if it wouldn’t interfere too much with your work—”

“I love it! Let’s start this morning,” he says.

“You really think you could decode it today?” I ask, excited at the prospect. “Don’t you have to rewrite the whole program?” I’m twitching hard about Dr. Tenzo showing up here and the more I can find out before he arrives, the better.

“No problem,” Dad replies, cracking his knuckles. “I was
so
close last time. C’mon, let’s go.”

Back in the library, Dad doesn’t realize that the paper he holds is the one I just put there this morning. He scans in the symbols, separates them so each is a unique piece of data, and then launches into this spiel about writing code to decode. I’d say that I’m an above-average techie for my age, but this is beyond me. I get it only enough to know when to say
Really
? and
Wow!
and
Oh, I see.
Which makes for a long few hours.

After he starts the program, Dad gets up and stretches and says it could take minutes or hours, so if I have anything else I’d like to do I might as well go do it. I tell him I’m here to learn so I’ll stick it out. He leaves to shower and get dressed for the day.

Settling in, I open up solitaire on a separate computer and play a few games. After awhile, from the corner of my eye, I see some action on the screen next to me. A word appears, and then another and another. It’s like watching popcorn popping. Sometimes two will come at once, then there will be a lull and then another will pop up. Finally the cursor starts blinking like it’s finished. It pretty random and doesn’t say anything about me in it so I figure it’s okay for Dad to see. I print out a copy for me and slip it in my pocket just as he comes back.

“You did it Dad. It worked!” I say as I point to the screen.

“Wow—faster than I thought! God, I’m good.” He sits down, reads it, and says, “Oh nice, it’s in verse. Let me break it correctly.” Then he puts it in to four lines and reads it out loud.

Know chi is in everything, through and between

Yet despite its great power it remains quite unseen

Its quality transforms as we tread backwards ’round

To the great year’s ores we are fastened and bound

He looks at me with a big smile on his face. “This is so cool Caity, I like that you did this in rhyme. And I think I recognize what you’re referencing!”

“Really?” I say, both stunned and hopeful. “You recognize this?”

“Let me take it to Mom. I’ll bet she can place it. She really is smarter than me, you know,” he says with a wink as he prints out a copy. “But seriously, don’t ever tell her I told you that.”

I follow Dad, who is whistling the theme to
Doctor Who
, as he runs up to Mom’s study. Her feet are up on her desk and she’s reading
Safe and Vault Technician Monthly
, Barbie leg in hand.

“Fiona, take a look at this,” he says proudly as he holds up the printout. “I still got it! I rewrote the program, decoded the symbols, and almost have the content pinned down.”

Mom reads it and starts working the Barbie knee. “Well, the first part about chi is obviously about dark matter, the energy of the universe that remains unseen. Then this second part, ‘
Its quality transforms
as we tread backwards ’round, To the great year’s ores we are fastened and bound
’ refers to the concept that the rise and fall of these ages are caused by the Earth’s wobble backwards through the constellations, also known as the ‘Precession of the Equinoxes’ or, as Plato called it, The Great Year—and the seasons of The Great Year are represented by metals, or ‘ores’ as Caity so poetically put it.”

“That’s it! The Golden Age, Bronze Age, Silver Age, and all that,” Dad says.

I don’t understand a word Mom said but she looks mighty pleased with herself.

Dad whispers to me, “What did I tell you about your mother?”

“Yep, a certifiable genius,” I say, hoping they won’t ask me any questions right now.

Mom grabs my chin. “Look at you, studying Plato and astronomy!”

“So are we all finished with our first lesson?” I say, totally baffled by all of this.

Dad shakes my hand and says, “Yes, and you graduate with honors, my friend.”

“St. Godehard’s in Austria is still accepting prodigies for fall term,” Mom yells after me.

“Great,” I yell back. “Then I’m sure you’ll get in.”

I create a protected Word file (password: bigfatliar) and type both decoded spirals in it. I’m shocked that my parents recognized any of this, and now I have to find some info on this stuff in case they grill me on it. I search for “Plato” and “Golden Age” and find millions of mentions. In my sketchbook I jot down the interesting bits that make sense.

I need to see if I can find anything else in the secret room, but there’s no way I’m going in there alone. I need to get Mr. Papers. (I know he can’t protect me, but it’s just nice to have someone else there.) Before I go, I send an email to Justine, hoping she reads it right when she wakes up.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: SOS

Hi J! Something really weird happened—my parents told me that Dr. Tenzo from Princeton is coming to the Inn next week!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you know anything about this? I’m kinda freaking out, would your Grandpa really tell Tenzo where I live? I mean I know he was interested in those symbols and all, but then he supposedly agreed that they didn’t mean anything. This is borderline stalking. What do you think? XO, Caity

Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Findlay is sitting at the table writing out a menu. I pick up an apple and sit down with her, hoping I can ask about Alex’s father, her son-in-law.

“What do you reckon our guests from California would like to eat, Caity?” she asks.

“Old people love prime rib,” I say. “And they like more old-fashioned desserts, like tapioca. And fruit pies.”

She laughs and says, “Are you an expert on the elderly?”

“Remember, my mom doesn’t cook so I’ve been eating out all my life,” I say with a shrug. “Can’t help but observe.”

“Ah, I see,” she says. “Okay then, what else?”

“They like lamb. Plain, with mint jelly, not on kabobs or curried or anything. Old people are ‘meat and potatoes’ types. And speaking of potatoes, they love them scalloped.”

“Easy enough. That’s the food I like, too.”

“Oh, and soup. Old people
love
soup. They could have it before every meal. Given a choice of soup or salad, they almost always choose soup.”

She starts writing all this down, so I continue, “They need lots of fiber, too. Especially at breakfast.”

“Prunes and oatmeal along with the other breakfast items?” she asks.

“Yep. And speaking of breakfast, you know that Americans are totally freaked out by pork and beans at breakfast, right?”

“Really?” she says, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, it’s weird. Pork and beans are strictly for hot dog night or camping.”

“You’re quite a font of knowledge now, aren’t you?” she says, as if I’ve offended her.

“Well, you asked …”

“Aye, you’ve been quite helpful. I thank you,” she replies as she continues jotting down menu items.