My Brother's Crown (7 page)

I could tell he was sincere, and it struck me suddenly that he got it, the value of this pamphlet. Not just in a historical or monetary sense, but in a heart sense. Our eyes locked and held for a long moment, and though it probably shouldn't have mattered, it did. A lot.

“I guess as a man of faith myself,” he added, “I can relate to their struggle.”

A man of faith? My heart skipped a beat, pleased that my earlier suspicion had been confirmed.

With a smile, I gestured toward the pamphlet. “Guess we'd better get that thing back in the safe so you can get out of here.”

“Sounds good.”

I busied myself with pulling on the gloves while he unlatched the case.

“So what was that thing earlier, between you and Dr. Underwood?” he asked. “You sort of brushed it off, said it was a long story? Something about markings? Not to be nosy, of course.”

I rolled my eyes, but not at him. “It's a sore spot. Dr. Underwood was trying to tease me, but I didn't think it was funny. Never have, never will.”

Blake seemed intrigued, so I paused to explain, saying how there were some faint markings in the pamphlet, ones that everyone else said were random but that I thought were intentional and could be important somehow. “If I'm lucky, I just might be able to prove my theory very soon.”

“How?”

Leaning forward, I carefully pulled the pamphlet from the display. “By viewing this thing through an electron microscope with DIC, that's how.”

“DIC?”

“Differential Interference Contrast.”

His brow furrowed as he held open the case and I slid the pamphlet inside.

“You didn't use magnification tools during the authentication?”

“Oh, we did.” I took the case from him and clicked it shut. “But not at a microscopic level, and definitely not with the kind of depth that DIC can give.”

“Why? What's so special about it?”

He seemed genuinely curious, so as we moved from the room and headed for the study I attempted an explanation that wouldn't be completely over his head. “Basically, DIC uses the principle of interferometry to reveal surface irregularities that are invisible under normal magnification.” One glance at his perplexed expression and I took it down another notch. “Think 3D. With DIC, something that seems flat can actually be shown to have ridges and indentations because of optical density.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” he said. “Sort of. So do you have such a microscope at your disposal?”

I sighed. “Not here, but I'm going to check around and see if I can borrow one.”

We reached my grandfather's office, and I locked the pamphlet inside the safe. Once that was done, there was no reason for Blake to stick around, though a part of me was reluctant to see him go. I walked him to the door, where he paused and gave me a look of concern.

“You know you only have access to the pamphlet for another two days, right?”

I smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I know. But two days are better than none, right?”

Once he was gone, I returned to the study to make a few calls to people I knew personally at Talbot headquarters. In each case I got only voice mail, no actual humans, and I realized their workday must be over. Not wanting to leave my request in a message, I decided to try again in the morning.

Dinner wasn't for a while yet, so I used the time until then to unload the car and get unpacked. I didn't have all that much stuff, so it only took a single trip. Rolling my bag behind me, I moved around the garage, down the walkway beside the pool, and into the main door of the moderate-sized building.

Thanks to Nana's cleaning staff, the place was spotless, the scents
of pine and lemon wafting my way as soon as I went through the door. Except for the fact that it faced toward the Dark Woods, I loved the guesthouse. It had a small kitchen, living room, bathroom, and three bedrooms, one of which was big enough to hold four beds. Known as the “Cousins' Room,” that's where my three female first cousins—Danielle, Madeline, and Nicole—and I had stayed every year since we were little. Now that we were all in our twenties, it seemed kind of silly to keep sharing, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Once I was unpacked, I thought about taking a nap but was so tired I feared I might sleep right through dinner. I ended up going for a nice long swim instead, which was the right call. By the time Nana and I finally sat down to eat, I felt totally refreshed, not to mention hungry. And the meal did not disappoint.

I'd always liked eating in the solarium, where the table was more appropriate for two instead of thirty. The room's three walls of windows also afforded the best view of the sunset, which started just as we'd finished the main course and were served coffee and a dessert of pears poached in honey and cinnamon. The scene our view afforded was truly lovely, the sky slowly fading from blue to orange to purple.

Nana and I lingered there until the show was over and it was completely dark. Then we moved to the living room, where I helped her work out the little five-minute speech she would be giving near the end of Saturday's ceremony. It took longer than expected, but by the time we were finished, we were both pleased with it.

She seemed so tired I insisted she go on to bed, saying I was just going to copy the speech over onto some note cards and then I'd be turning in too. We said our goodnights and she headed upstairs. Working in the quiet of the living room, I was almost finished when I got a text. To my surprise, I saw that it was from Blake.

You still up?

I smiled, typing a simple
Yes
in response.

Good. Got something for you. Okay if I swing by now and drop it off?

I hesitated, trying to imagine what this was about.

Sure. Text when you get here and I'll come outside.

Will do.

Five minutes later, I heard a soft knock at the door. Peering through the keyhole I saw that it was Blake.

“I told you to text when you got here,” I scolded with a smile as I swung open the door. “My grandmother's asleep.”

“Sorry. This thing's heavy, and I knew I'd need to carry it in anyway.”

I realized he was holding a case about the size of a large microwave oven. Stepping aside, I invited him in and watched as he lugged it toward my grandfather's study.

“Probably best to put it in here,” he said.

Only then did it dawn on me what he'd brought. My heart began to pound.

“That's not a microscope by any chance, is it?” I whispered, stepping into the office behind him and closing the door.

“A Newson 40XG with Phase Contrast and DIC. Your wish is my command.”

I didn't ask where he had managed to come up with this thing out of the blue in such a short time. I was too busy removing it from its case, setting it up, adjusting the dials, and getting ready to take a 3D, microscopic-level look at the markings on the Persecution Pamphlet.

When the machine was all set, I slipped on the gloves, retrieved the pamphlet, and turned to the first marking. I smoothed the pages out carefully and then slid them into place under the lens. Fortunately, the flat area that held the slide, known as the stage, was wide enough to support the whole document safely.

Lowering myself to peer into the scope, I reached for the dials and worked in silence. It didn't take long to focus on the mark, and my heart began pounding in my chest as I peered down at what I saw.

Apparently, my theory was only partially correct. Yes, this first marking was part of something larger, something obviously intentional. But it had nothing to do with a note jotted beside the text, as I'd expected. It was instead the remnant of a
circle
around it—or, more specifically, around one letter. Though the rest of the circle's ink had faded away and only a fraction of it still showed to the naked eye, the entire
indentation
of the circle was still there, a clear sign of where quill or graphite had once been pressed down onto paper and dragged in a loop around one of the printed letters on the page.

I sat back and looked at Blake, my mind racing. Something about that sounded so familiar. A circle drawn around a letter…

“What is it?” he asked, trying to read my expression.

“Give me a minute,” I replied. Thinking hard, I pulled out the pamphlet, turned to the next marking, and slid it back in again. Spent a few minutes scanning and focusing.

Same thing. This marking was also part of a circle that had been drawn in around a letter.

A circle around a letter…

I was still staring down at it when it came to me, and it was all I could do not to shout. Sitting up straight, I flashed Blake an exhilarated grin.

“What is it?” he repeated. “Can I see?”

“Help yourself,” I said, rising and moving toward the bookshelves. “I have to find something.”

As fast as I could, I ran my eyes along Granddad's collection, knowing his copy had to be here somewhere. It didn't take long to find it, thanks to his handy organizational system. It was in the section labeled “Ancestry,” under
J
for
Journal of Catherine Gillet
, even though there was no spine to feature the title. It wasn't a book at all, in fact, but rather a stack of loose papers held together along one side with a pair of binder clips.

“Got it.” I pulled the packet of pages from the shelf and started back toward the desk. “Can you slide that out of the way for minute?”

Blake was still peering into the microscope, but he quickly stood and did as I asked, carefully pushing the device over to one side of the desk.

“Thanks.”

“I'm not sure what has you so excited,” he said as he returned to his seat, “but it looks to me as if the marking is part of a circle around a letter. Is that significant?”

“More than you can imagine.” I placed the packet of pages on the desk and settled into my chair. After removing the clips, I flipped through the stack and separated it into its two components—one written by hand, all in French, and the other printed out from a computer, in English.

I slid the stack of handwritten pages over to Blake as I explained. “That's a copy of a journal that was written by one of my ancestors back
in the sixteen hundreds, a woman named Catherine Gillet. Dr. Underwood secured a copy of it four years ago when he was doing research for the authentication. The original is in a museum in Europe.”

“Cool.” Blake peeked at the pages as I continued.

“The journal entries start when she's a little girl and end when she's eighteen. They're sporadic—some years have only one or two entries, while the last few months have a whole bunch—but either way they make for a fascinating read.”

“I can imagine.”

“Anyway, the Persecution Pamphlet was created in the family print shop, and Catherine mentions it in the journal. Which made it a great supporting document for the authentication.”

“I can imagine.”

“Of course, she wrote by hand in seventeenth-century French, so Dr. Underwood had to have it translated first.” Holding up the stack of pages, I added, “That's what this is. The translation of that.”

“Okay,” Blake said, setting down his own stack and looking to mine. “So where it talks about the pamphlet, does it say something about a circle written around a letter?”

“No such luck. But, well, you'll see…” My voice trailed off as I skimmed the first few journal entries. It didn't take long to find the one I was looking for.

“ ‘Twelve October, 1676,' ” I read aloud, and then I paused to do the math. “Depending on what month she was born, Catherine would've been about nine here. Oh, and she refers to a guy named Jules. That's her brother, who was a lot older.” I held up the page. “Anyway, here goes. ‘Jules came up with a new exercise today, one that's supposed to help with my reading and counting, only it's more like a game. It involves a secret code that he invented just for me. The way it works is that he hides a message within some discarded piece of printed matter from the shop, and then he gives it to me and I have to follow his counting rules to figure out what the message says. I found it quite fun and hope he does it again soon.' ”

“Help with reading and counting skills?” Blake asked as I paused in
my reading to find the next relevant entry. “That seems unusual for the era, considering she was a girl.”

I shook my head, explaining that Huguenots had been big on education back then, even for women. Continuing my search, I found what I wanted, a paragraph written when she was about ten.

“This one is from the following year. ‘Got in trouble for running in church yesterday with some of my friends. We were playing around before the service and forgot ourselves—until we were reprimanded and forced to sit separately for the entire thing. That was bad enough, but today I got a secret message from Jules, and as it turned out, all he did was reiterate the scolding. So much work searching for circled letters and counting them off—”