“It can’t be random,” Tess muttered, but nobody seemed to hear.
“I’ll take some photos anyway, just in case.” Uncle Edgar pressed a button the console. Jaime sketched furiously.
“How long do we have till the police or whoever figures out we’re up here?” said Theo.
“This airship is somewhat special. It’s invisible to radar, but not invisible to the eye, so we could get reported anytime now. I think we have enough pictures.”
He maneuvered the airship around and floated them gently back to the society’s building. Another press of the controls opened the courtyard, and Uncle Edgar lowered the solarship inside.
“You’re really good at this, Uncle Edgar,” Tess said.
“You should see your aunt Esther fly,” said Uncle Edgar. “Your grandfather invited her out here last year.”
“Aunt Esther is a pilot?” Tess said.
Theo said, “Why not? She’s done everything else.”
The gondola touched the ground and the balloon above shuddered. Uncle Edgar said, “Okay, let me just send these photos to the computer inside. Good. Everyone out!”
They left the hangar and went back inside the archives. Uncle Edgar sat at an antique rolltop desk with a decidedly not antique computer on top of it. They all huddled around the giant screen. Uncle Edgar typed some commands, and one of the pictures he’d taken popped up on a screen.
Theo tipped his shaggy head. “Could we put this picture on top of a picture of the city? Maybe the lights are referring to certain buildings or monuments?”
Edgar did as Theo asked. “We’ve got a few lights on some of the bridges,” he said, “and here’s one at the main branch of the library, but most of these”—he clicked more keys, checking—“are in or on buildings built after 1855.”
“What if you superimposed the map onto buildings built before 1855?” Jaime said.
“Good idea,” said Edgar. He called up a map of New York City in 1855 and layered the photograph of the lights on top of it.
“Looks like a lot of the lights are sitting on farmland or in the woods,” said Theo.
“Maybe there are clues buried on those spots,” said Jaime.
“There are buildings on top of them now. We’d never be able to get to them,” Tess said. Uncle Edgar glanced at her, his expression as kind as his voice had been earlier. Tess yanked at her braid hard enough to hurt. There had to be something else to this “map.” Or they had to read it in a different way.
“Maybe it’s not a map of the city or even things in the city,” said Tess.
“What does that mean?” said Theo. “What else could it be a map of?”
“I don’t know!” Tess said.
Edgar pushed back his chair. “Did you bring the original letter with you? And the copy of Penelope? Why don’t we look at those?”
Tess didn’t know what good it would do, but she pulled the letter and book out of her messenger bag and handed them over. Uncle Edgar read the Morningstarr letter, muttering, “Fascinating, just fascinating. So, you’d already gotten this when you came to see us?”
Tess’s ears went hot. “Yes. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. We weren’t sure we were on to something, and we thought that if the society got involved, Slant might figure it out.”
“‘Trust No One,’” Uncle Edgar said, pointing to the warning on the envelope. “I understand. I’d have done the same thing.” He set the letter aside and picked up the book. “Now, this is even more fascinating. We know so little about Ava Oneal. Records show that she worked as a nurse at a hospital for sick orphans—one of Eliza Hamilton’s projects, I believe—which was where Ava met Theresa Morningstarr. But we don’t know where she born or who her family was. People have speculated whether she was a runaway from a plantation and was living under an assumed name, but, again, we have no evidence of that. Apparently, she didn’t have a Southern accent.” He thumbed through the book. “By all accounts, she was as smart as she was beautiful, but I don’t think either condition made life any easier for her.”
“What do you mean?” said Jaime.
“Excuse me a moment.” He strode to one of the shelves and scanned it with a finger. He found what he was looking for, some sort of leather-bound journal, and brought it back to the desk.
Tess edged closer to look. “What is it?”
“Notes of a physician from the New York City Lunatic Asylum.”
“I think Ava Oneal was in that asylum!”
Edgar said, “Yes, she was. All sorts of scribbles here, some difficult to read. Here we have ‘Young man admitted. Caught stealing a pig. Claimed the pig was his brother, Charles.’ And a few pages after that, we have ‘Mrs. Roddington still claiming her husband had her locked up because he didn’t like her cooking.’ Unfortunately, more than a few people were locked up simply because they were nuisances and not because they were insane. And here’s something about a boy who had an unfortunate incident with a Roller; that’s a bit gruesome, so I won’t read that one. Ah! Here are the notes that are more interesting.”
He pointed to some notes dated April 1853. “‘A most interesting case. Ms. Ava Oneal. Servant to the Morningstarrs. Abused a would-be suitor for trying to kiss her.’”
“My grandmother did that,” said Jaime.
Uncle Edgar grinned. “I’ve met your grandmother, and that doesn’t surprise me a bit. About Ava, the doctor writes that she ‘seems in good physical condition. Incredibly strong for a woman.’”
“Yes, because women are weaklings,” said Tess, rolling her eyes.
“The people of that time were not known for their egalitarianism, Tess,” said Uncle Edgar.
“Tell me about it,” said Jaime.
Theo said, “What else does it say?”
“That she spoke a lot of nonsense. ‘Today she asked me if I remembered the old fable “The Man and the Lion,” where the lion asserted that he should not be so misrepresented when the lions wrote history. When I asked her who was the lion, she laughed and laughed and would not stop.’ And that she spent three days repeating these sentences: ‘“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” I’m afraid she’s desperately, irreversibly ill, and possibly dangerous. I recommend she be confined indefinitely.’ This doctor didn’t seem to realize that Ava was quoting the abolitionist Wendell Phillips and the writer and orator Frederick Douglass.”
“That’s actually pretty funny,” said Theo.
“If it wasn’t so horrible and sad,” Jaime said.
“Yes. And it turns out that this doctor, a Dr. Chauncey Welborn, quit the profession after it was discovered he had quite the problem with whiskey.”
He closed the volume, turned his attention back to the computer screen. The lights of the city really did look like a gentle shower of stars, Tess thought. But what could you read in a map made of stars? Real stars were never still, never fixed in place; they moved across the sky. Every time you looked at them, the stars would be different.