Colton’s smile went tight. “Most people like to stay with the tour.”
The girl shrugged. “I’m more interested in the servants. They’re the ones who had to do all the work. These other people sat around playing cards and having cotillions. What is a cotillion, even?”
Colton said, “It’s a ball or a dance that—”
“That was a rhetorical question,” said the girl. “Also, I went up to the attic because I wanted to see ghosts and ghosts live in attics.”
“Well, since you’re so interested in the lives of the servants,” Colton said, “let’s all go to the top floor to see where they slept!”
Tess decided that she would wait until the group had reached the attic to sneak back down here to try to get a closer look at the gasoliers. She joined Theo and Jaime at the back of the line. By the time they reached the top floor of the house, everyone was winded.
“Can you imagine being a servant here and having to carry water and laundry and food up and down the steps every day, twelve or fourteen hours a day?” said Colton.
No fancy furniture up here. No crystal lamps or chandeliers. Just a couple of beds, a table, and a heating stove.
“We don’t know exactly what happened here in the Tredwell House,” said Colton, “but we do know that a lot of domestic servants in New York City homes were poor, uneducated girls, many of them immigrants. Unfortunately, some of these girls suffered all sorts of mistreatment from their employers.”
The Morningstarrs had employed servants, too, but Tess didn’t like to think about the Morningstarrs treating those people badly or paying them so little. But Grandpa Ben always warned that they couldn’t romanticize anyone from the past, even those who had done great things. “Remember,” Grandpa said, “history is filled with horrors as well as wonders. And so are people.”
Horrors and wonders. Wonders and horrors. Tess closed her eyes and imagined sleeping up in this attic room, which was probably boiling during the summer and freezing in the winter. Getting up in the gray light of dawn, going downstairs to light the kitchen fires, and then all the other fires in the house so that everyone else would be warm.
Lighting the fires.
Lighting all the fires.
Enlightening for all who need it.
Theresa Morningstarr had been making a pun. But she’d been serious, too. The servants were the ones who “enlightened” those that needed it. Without their servants, the Tredwells would have to sit in the cold and the dark. And so would all the other rich folks in New York City. Maybe even the Morningstarrs themselves.
So, would the clue be in the expensive lamps and fixtures on the main floors . . . or right here, in this room, where no one would think to look for anything—or anyone—valuable?
On the dressing table, there was one simple candlestick. When Colton turned to point out a rosary hanging from one of the bed frames, Tess quickly picked it up. Again, she found no markings. It didn’t twist or fold into a different shape, or telescope into a . . . telescope. There were no tiny scrolled messages curled in the spot where the candle was inserted. She put the stick down quickly before anyone noticed what she was doing.
Meeting a ghost might be easier than this.
Then her eyes fell on the little heating stove. She needed to look inside it, underneath it, but she couldn’t get near it because Colton was standing right there, jawing away about the Tredwells’ summer house in Rumson, New Jersey, where they went to escape outbreaks of cholera and yellow fever that regularly swept New York City in the hot months.
Nobody seemed to be listening. Poor Colton, stuck with a tour group full of ghost-obsessed Scouts, self-obsessed tourists, and Cipher-obsessed seventh graders, disrespectful all.
Finally, Colton declared it time to head downstairs to see the bedchambers of Mr. and Mrs. Tredwell, and the group dutifully followed. Tess bent and pretended her shoelaces had come untied. Theo and Jaime waited with her.
“What is it?” Jaime said as soon as everyone else had gone.
“Help me look in the stove. Hurry!”
He didn’t ask questions and neither did Theo. As Nine danced around them, they opened the door and checked inside. The interior was spotless, no levers or letters or code. They checked the top and the back and the sides, looking for anything that seemed unusual.
“Hello!” a voice called from the bottom of the stairs. “Where is the rest of my group?!”
“Coming!” Jaime said.
Tess lay on the floor and felt around the underside of the stove.
“Anything?” Theo whispered.
“Hold on.” Tess moved her fingers slowly over metal. Totally smooth, except . . . What was that? Some sort of serial number? No. Writing. Writing etched in one corner of the metal. Four lines. A maker’s mark? Or something else?
“Give me a piece of paper and a pencil!”
“He’s going to come up here in a second,” said Theo.
“Go down then,” Tess said. “Stall him.”
Theo didn’t move. Jaime handed her the paper and pencil. She could barely see what she was doing, but she placed the paper over the writing and quickly rubbed the pencil all over it.
“Hello!?” called Colton.
Footsteps marched up the stairs.
Tess thrust the paper and pencil at Jaime and leaped to her feet. He shoved the paper in his pocket just as Colton’s beige suit appeared at the top of the steps, grinning in that overly cheerful way that said he suspected them all of trying to ruin the Tredwell House forever.
“What are you guys doing?” he said.
“I thought I saw a ghost!” Tess blurted.
“What?” said Colton.
“Um, there was a guy. Standing in that mirror over there. Dressed in old clothes. He looked like the guy in one of the paintings down in the parlor.”
Colton gripped his tie, then released it. “You mean Seabury Tredwell?”
“Yes!” Tess said.
“I can’t believe it,” said Colton. “I’ve always . . . it’s just . . . no one has ever seen a ghost on one of my tours before!”
“Well, I did. And it kind of freaked me out.”
“Yeah,” Jaime said. “She almost fainted, like one of those nineteenth-century ladies. I was about to call for the smelling salts.”
“I bet!” said Colton, smile wide and genuine now. “Did the ghost, um, say anything to you?”
“He did,” Tess said, grinning right back. “The ghost said, ‘Everyone else is wrong.’”
CHAPTER NINE
Theo
Of all the possibilities that Grandpa Ben had considered—that there were dozens of clues in the Cipher, maybe hundreds, that the only treasure worth seeking was knowledge, and this was what the Cipher was trying to teach—he’d never mentioned the possibility that the Cipher could have another branch of clues. That the Cipher wasn’t one puzzle, it was two puzzles leading in two different directions. Were there even more branches? Three? Four? Ten? Did they ever converge? And where?