The remarkable thing about the room was that from about the height of three feet up, the walls were completely covered with books. Shelves of them circled up as high as the domed ceiling, and a sliding oak ladder was affixed to the wall to allow access. It was clear, though, that these weren’t ordinary books. With ornate spines and lustrous color, they were unlike anything I’d ever seen, even more spectacular than the manuscripts in the scriptorium. They bore names likeLiber Ignium, Book of Mercy, Mutus Liber,andMappae Clavicula.
I pulled out one calledAtalanta Fugiens,and opening it, I turned to a bizarre illustration that upon first viewing made me recoil. It showed a heavily pregnant woman nursing a child while next to her another infant suckled on a goat, and beside that, another two suckled on a wolf. As I studied the illustration more closely, though, I realized that these images were symbolic. The woman’s belly was the earth, so she most likely was Gaia, mother of the Titans. And the twins with the wolf must be Romulus and Remus, the founder of Rome and the brother he slew. I wasn’t sure about the goat, but I hoped it had an equally benign explanation. I slid the book back on the shelf.
I stood, hands on my hips, trying to understand just where exactly I was. I had no idea what this room could be, but it looked like a perfect place to hide a relic. Isabelle’s description had given me no sense of its size, but there was no reason to think it was large. My eyes fell on the desk.
I moved over to it and tried one of the ornate handles on the drawers, but it wouldn’t budge. When I tried the others, I found them all locked as well. I searched for a keyhole that might fit the key I had back in my cabana, but there was nothing. Turning my attention back to the books, I climbed up the ladder and made my way through the upper shelves, but found nothing. Eventually I climbed down from the ladder and looked back at the desk.
On the top of it, next to a writing pad, was a little wooden box affixed to the surface. It held thirteen rotating letter tiles. Tingles ran up and down my arms as the thrill of the hunt overtook me. This had to be it. Another puzzle. I needed to rotate the letters to release the lock and open the drawers.
Right from the beginning, nothing at Hildegard had made any sense. My unremarkable reality had been shifted askew, turned on its head. Was I part of some experiment? Some cult initiation? It stood to reason that the bounty yielded from the previous leg of this bizarre treasure hunt should provide the clue to solve the desk lock. That was how this worked, wasn’t it? Someone was leading me from clue to clue, wanting me to progress. So most likely I had all the information I needed to get into that desk.
I examined the lock more closely. Thirteen letters. I thought back to the botanical drawing. The words scrawled on the back had beenthe very deep did rot. I’d assumed this would provide the base letters for another anagram, but that phrase was seventeen letters, and there were only thirteen here. Still, it was worth a try. I entered those first thirteen letters:the very deep di, but as expected, that did nothing. Then I triedColeridge,but that was four letters too short. What wasI missing? I ran my palms over the smooth blue surface and tried to think.
Scanning the room, I searched for anything that might serve as a supplemental clue, but with the wealth of books and little else, there was both too much and too little in terms of options. No, I had to work with what I had. Returning to the desk, I sat down, tented my fingers under my nose, and exhaled deeply.Think, Robin. Think.
I tried a few more ineffective permutations of anagrams forthe very deep did rot, leaving off letters mostly at random, but I knew this wasn’t the path. The previous clue had reveled in the playful use of language. So Isabelle liked words. She liked poetry. Maybe she herself was a poet. I needed to refocus on the poet himself, on Coleridge. What did I know about him? I knew he was one of the Romantic poets along with Shelley and Keats and that lot. I knew he was a hopeless opium addict. I knew he claimed that his great poem, “Kubla Khan,” had been interrupted by aperson on business from Porlock,but that had too many letters as well. No. It needed to be simpler. I closed my eyes and counted letters.
Samuel Coleridge = 15 letters
Samuel T Coleridge = 16 letters
Sam T Coleridge = 13 letters
Bingo. I tried it, but still nothing, so I got to work looking for anagrams. I wrote outSam T Coleridgeand began rearranging the letters. The first few I came up with didn’t work:domestic regal, dogmatic leers,disco telegram—I quite liked that one.
And then there it was, sitting right on the page. It practically jumped out at me as if I’d seen it before. I hadn’t exactly seen it, but I had heard it:Latecomers dig.The words Jim had said to me at the shed.
I entered the letters, and when I slid the final one into place, a shifting sound issued from inside the desk, and the drawers unlatched and sprang open a centimeter or so. Carefully I pulled open the top drawer to find an ancient-looking book and a manila envelope. I opened the envelope and slid its contents onto the desk.
It was a single photo from the same series as the photo Dorian had shown me, that same glittering gathering of flattering candlelight and stylish cocktails. A pair of large male hands flashed in front of the camera, though, partially obscuring Lexi and Finn. I exhaled. I had been expecting something awful—dismembered limbs, a throne made of skulls—but this was just a photo of a group of friends.
Setting the photo down, I turned my attention to the book. I saw that it was calledThe Book of Widows,and when I opened it, I was elated to see the symbols that corresponded to the widows’ keys I’d found. So this was the text that explained those keys, laying them out like a chart with almost mathematical precision. The left side of each page showed a set of three of the symbols followed by an explanation. I ran my finger along the top line. Similar to a chart to help a diviner understand a selection of runes or even the hexagrams in theI Ching,this seemed to give an interpretation for a trio of tiles when pulled together. As I stared down at the images in the book, I could almost find meaning in them, but not quite.
Vibrant Earth, Desolate Moon, Stable Sea
From a mountaintop, he sees three new goats. A wolf attacks. It takes only meat. Thetoadlooks on.
Flipping the page, I selected another:
