Keyword Cypher Read online

  Carrie found him collapsed on her favorite garden bench in the early morning sunlight, staring at the harmless little piece of yellow paper his aunt had died for.

  “Nobody’s ever found the San Telmo,” Chris told her when she stuck her head out of his bedroom window and clambered down to sit next to him. “The amount of treasure they pulled from the other ships is insane, and there’s a lot of uncertainty about which wreck is actually which, but as far as researchers know the San Telmo has never been found. Some say that’s because it was faster and farther ahead when it went down.”

  “And some say it was cursed?” Carrie offered. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was red, but some of her prickliness had eased. Apparently crying her eyes out in the bathroom had been therapeutic.

  “Not that I know of,” Chris said. “Although, you know, this whole thing with Aunt Elsie might count.”

  Carrie groaned.

  “Sorry, that was tasteless,” Chris said. Carrie punched him in the shoulder.

  “I have had,” she said, “a terrible week. No, a terrible month. I’ve been grieving, Chris, and refusing to acknowledge it, and people have tried to kill us, and Mom and Dad are thinking of grounding me because apparently almost getting shot at is my fault, and to top it all off—has anyone told Professor Griffin what happened last night?”

  “Oh no.”

  “Do we even still have his keys?”

  “Maybe?” Chris offered. He went through his pockets while Carrie watched in horror, and luckily did find the professor’s keys. That they were slightly stuck to a peppermint was survivable.

  “I sort of want to kill you,” Carrie said while clutching her hands in her hair in horror. “More than I usually do, I mean. My brain isn’t making sense right now. And—oooh, I never called Maddison back either . . . she must be so confused, I know everything that’s happened and I can’t get any of it to make sense!”

  “None of this makes a lot of sense,” Chris pointed out, although he thought at least some of it did. He was now trying hard not to think about what conclusions Maddison might be drawing or what her father might be telling her. At the corner of the house a hummingbird investigated the feeder, and the dewdrops were fading off the grass. A beautiful early summer day was coming into its own, but Chris couldn’t concentrate on it at all. Next to him, Carrie was distractedly shredding the grass at her feet, and he just sat and watched her for a while, trying to calm his mind, and remembering only too late that his mom was going to be horrified by the bald patch Carrie was digging.

  “Things make more sense than they ever have before,” Carrie pointed out finally, having organized her thoughts and run out of grass within easy reach. “We know why Aunt Elsie sent you that letter. We know why she left me the locket. We even helped put the person who killed her behind bars. We’ve done all she asked of us and more, Chris, and if you want to . . . ” Carrie paused. “If you want to, we can stop right now.”

  “I know,” Chris said. He folded the letter together with the notes and stuffed the resulting wad of papers in his pocket.

  “But?” Carrie asked, and she did not sound surprised. Resigned and pained, yes, but not surprised.

  “But I can’t just leave it at this,” Chris admitted. “Aunt Elsie asked us to either use these notes or destroy them, and I can’t destroy her research. It mattered too much to her.”

  “I think that’s why she asked us to burn the notes if we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, find it,” Carrie said. “Because it mattered so much to her.”

  “I know,” Chris said. “But, well, why have you been going in and out through my bedroom window?”

  Carrie hugged herself. “Because I can’t settle,” she said carefully. “Everything in the world is off-kilter. I keep thinking that the person we really need for this is, well, Aunt Elsie.” Chris nodded. “And I know you’re about to give me a terribly motivating speech,” Carrie continued, “all about how it was her last request, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam, so I just want to check—you did catch the parts about danger and murder and heartbreak?”

  “But it’s for Aunt Elsie,” Chris said. “And the discovery that should have been hers, and we can’t just give up!”

  “And what if we fail?” Carrie asked. “What if we don’t give up, what if we go and try and we can’t find the ship and all we do is lead whoever is out there killing people for this treasure right to it?”

  “Then,” Chris said, “we’ll burn the notes and salt the ashes and spread them over a swift-moving stream?”

  Carrie froze in the middle of a retort to squint at him. “Did you borrow a book from Maddison?”

  “Maybe,” Chris admitted.

  “That doesn’t change my point,” Carrie said.

  “Or mine,” Chris said stubbornly. He wasn’t going to let this go. He didn’t care how much he had to give up or, well, avoid, to solve this mystery, he owed it to Aunt Elsie.

  “Danger, Chris,” Carrie said. “Danger and murder and heartbreak, and Maddison is a total wildcard, and . . . ”

  “Aunt Elsie left us one last great puzzle,” Chris said. “Can we really give up before we even try to solve it?”

  “Most of her puzzles weren’t likely to kill us,” Carrie said. “And that was a terrible speech, and we need to go look up that priest who wrote the first-hand account.” Chris opened his mouth to comment and she shushed him. “I’m not even going to pretend this is a good idea,” Carrie said. “But I’ll help.”

  “Yes! Help with what?”

  “Aunt Elsie told us that a treasure map exists,” Carrie said. “Now we need to find it.”