Aida sighed. “I hope they don’t kill the bees.”
“Me too. I wish I could be there with you in London. But I couldn’t fathom any way to go without raising suspicion. It figures, just as you leave Rome, I get word that one of my uncles passed away.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I barely knew him. But after my father died, I became his next of kin, and it turns out that means I’m the owner of his apartment near the Spanish Steps.”
“Are you serious?” Aida could hardly contain her excitement at the thought. It seemed too good to be true. “I might see you in Roma?”
“If whatever you do in London doesn’t leave you without a place in Rome to return to.”
Aida’s stomach plummeted at the thought.
“I’ll be heading there after the holidays to see exactly what he left to me. We weren’t close. He and my father had a falling out before I was born. I don’t ever remember meeting him. I only knew he was some sort of city politician there.”
Yumi waved at Aida, ready to depart.
Aida held up a finger, indicating she wanted one more minute. “I wish you could be here to help. And god knows, or should I say, the gods know what we’ll do once we have all the meanders. If they are in London, after all.”
“If you really need me—and don’t care about suspicion—let me know, and I’ll be on a plane right away.”
Aida agreed and reluctantly ended the call with Luciano, her heart conflicted. If they found Pandora and released happiness back into the world, if that was even possible, what did it mean if she no longer had a home? Or a job? The thought left a dark spot inside her.
“How’s yourbelragazzo?” Yumi asked as she neared.
“The handsome lad is just tickety-boo,” Aida said, throwing on a smile and her best British accent.
“Come on! We have a treasure hunt to continue.”
Yumi headed toward the exit, and Aida followed. The sightseeing adventure had been fun so far, but after they found all the meanders and had the key, then what?
That afternoon, they had true confirmation that the database was in London. They found their first meander at the Victoria and Albert Museum. After their cab had dropped them at the exhibition entrance, they had wandered through much of the museum, eyeing every inch of the architecture, but it wasn’t until they stumbled across the Grand Entrance on the opposite end of the building that they were rewarded.
“Look at this!” Aida exclaimed as they emerged from an upper corridor and the large circular space appeared below. She looked up, stunned by the Rotunda’s beautiful glass-topped, dome-shaped ceiling. In the center of the dome hung a stunning blue-and-yellow-green glass Chihuly sculpture above a circular information desk.
“No, Aida, you need to look atthat.” Yumi pointed to the black-and-white floor. Along its border was a simple meander,a repeating motif that added an additional layer of visual interest to the space, complementing the overall design aesthetic of the Grand Entrance. She held up the lens to her eye.
“Oh my god, it glows! Come on!” She pulled Aida toward the marble staircase that led down to the entrance.
When she began to kneel in the center of the front entrance, lens in hand, Aida stopped her. “Way to be conspicuous.”
“Oh, sorry.” Yumi stood and backed off to a corner, then lifted the lens to her eye. She handed the lens to Aida.
Aida peered through the glass. The meander was glowing a bright blue all the way around the edge of the room. She gasped.
“Now what do we do?” she asked, returning the lens to Yumi.
“I guess we take a bunch of photos. I’ll have to figure out how this fits in with the other meanders later.”
“When we find them all.”
“Right,” Yumi agreed, turning her phone camera toward the floor.
20
December 2019
After finding the first meander, Yumi convinced Aida to make one more stop at the British Library, to pacify Mo and make sure their GPS showed them following up on his suggestions. “Let’s get it out of the way,” Yumi said as she nudged a foot-weary Aida into a black cab. Ultimately, Aida had to admit she was glad they did. She had long wanted to view the Magna Carta. There were also the Beowulf manuscript, fragments of da Vinci’s and Emily Brontë’s notebooks, manuscripts from Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, and even a Gutenberg Bible.
