I was shocked my scribbling didn’t amount to anything. I was great at puzzles. Why couldn’t I solve this one? Frustrated, I tossed the pen aside. It skipped off the desk and landed in a nearby tin trashcan with a satisfying thunk. Exactly, I thought. Garbage. The pen is precisely where it belongs.
Being free of the pen suddenly freed my mind. Maybe that was my problem. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be using a pen at all.
Most of the historical secret messages my mother studied came from ancient wars. When scrambled communications were received on the battlefield, they were read immediately. Soldiers didn’t get to sit down and ponder the possibilities with a piece of paper. They usually had a custom contraption or tool to arrange the letters automatically for them.
I fell back into the squishy armchair, twisting the slippery ribbon nervously, sliding it between my fingers. Was my mother in a war? Considering what I knew about the Abbey and my recent encounter with demons, it seemed likely.
I glanced down at the ribbon, now looped across my fingers three times. Three of the letters lined up to make a word: MET. Nothing else around it could be read, and “met” wasn’t enough to go on, but it reminded me of how strips of letters were decoded: they were wrapped around something.
What was I supposed to wrap it around? I moved the ribbon around my fingers a couple different ways until I was satisfied that was not the answer. I tried my wrist. Nope. I had a flash of a soldier with a gold helmet holding a thick bar. That was it! On one of the many rainy Sunday evenings we spent snuggled up with popcorn and the History Channel, my mom and I had watched a documentary about how the Greek army used codes printed on long strips of leather. The recipients had a dowel—sometimes wooden, sometimes metal-covered—crafted with the specific diameter needed to make the letters line up correctly. What was it called? Something like “scale” or “style.” The word popped into my head: scytale.
My heart started racing like it always did right before I solved a puzzle. Now, I just had to actually solve it.
I needed a cylinder. I was fairly certain modern spies—like my mom?—didn’t walk around with decoder cylinders. No, they would use something easily found wherever they were. Cylinder. Cylinder. What kind of cylinder would anyone have access to? I thought about a drinking glass, but it would have to have the exact same diameter for the writer as for the receiver, and glasses, even those in hotels, came in all shapes and sizes. Whoever sent the message had to have the same cylinder at their disposal.
Disposal. My grandfather’s poop joke barged into my mind. Disgusting. I closed my eyes. Thinking about crap was not going to help me . . . or was it? I jumped up and ran into the bathroom.
I found it perched on top of the small, tin trashcan: the cylinder that every house in Scotland—every house in the Western world—had dozens of at all times. It had the same dimensions in every country, and had been the same for the last fifty years or more.
An empty toilet paper tube.
I went back to my room and shut the door behind me. I held the ribbon against the tube and wound. It only circled three times, but the letters lined up next to each other perfectly. The letters spelled out:
GET
ANT
IDO
TEF
ROM
MAG
NIF
ICA
T??
I didn’t even have to write them down. Reading them in order and stopping where each word ended, the message was revealed:
GET ANTIDOTE FROM MAGNIFICAT
I took a minute to let it all sink in. A secret message from my mom stared at me from a slip of ribbon. And I had decoded it! I was proud of myself, for a second, until I realized I had no idea what it meant. Antidote for what? And from where? A place called Magnificat? Yet another Latin word I couldn’t begin to translate.
The window next to me rattled. I saw a large man on the roof, inches away. I was so startled, I threw the toilet paper tube over my shoulder.
When I realized who it was, my heart lifted like a kite in the wind. But I didn’t want to let him know how thrilled I was to see him again so soon. I opened the window latch.
“Gavin! You scared me to death!”
He beamed. “You look alive.”
“Barely.” I self-consciously smoothed my hair behind my ear. Thank goodness I had put on a little makeup, but I was sure I still looked terrible. “You’re going to have to start using the front door,” I said, nervously glancing over my shoulder to make sure my bedroom door was still closed. “At least in the daytime.”
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s an emergency.” He searched my face with his beautiful blue eyes.
“What?”
“Have you talked to Jo?” he asked.
“No. I texted her, but she hasn’t answered back yet.
She must still be at the hospital with her grandmother.”
“She’s at the hospital,” he confirmed, “but not with her grandmother. She’s been admitted.”
“What? Why? What’s wrong with her?”
“The same thing that’s wrong with about thirty of the kids from the party at Campbell Hall last night,” he answered. “They’re all sick.”
“Sick? How sick? Like food poisoning?”
“Really sick. And I think it’s more like outright poisoning.”
“But Jo left the party right away,” I said. It made no sense. I’d been poisoned, and I was fine. She wasn’t even at Campbell Hall for an hour.
“I’m headed over there now to find out more. I thought you might like to come,” he answered.
“Yeah, of course. Um, meet me downstairs,” I said. “I’ll see if I can borrow my grandparents’ car.”
“No need,” he said. “I’ve got one.”
“What?” I was surprised. I’d never seen him drive. I kind of assumed he couldn’t. “Angels have cars?”
“We can get one when it’s needed.”
“And you know how to drive?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Yes,” he answered, smirking at my question. “Have to be able to get around same as you, and I can’t fly in front of people—well, most people.”
“So you drove over to my grandparents’ house?” I continued. He nodded, and his eyes sparkled. “Then why did you fly up to my window?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Too dangerous. Couldn’t have anyone see my wings, could I? I climbed up the drainpipe.”
He was definitely showing off, I concluded. A good sign that he really liked me. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how strong and romantic I thought he was, though.
“Well, you’d better climb back down quickly”—I shrugged—“because I’m leaving to go see Jo, with or without you.” I slammed the window on his surprised look, and turned my back so he couldn’t see me smile.
CHAPTER 20