The Columbus Code (4 page)

Winters stayed in Maryland for a week dealing with his mother's estate. Ben was initially enthusiastic about helping, but after twenty-four hours he took a flight for Phoenix to return to whatever pressing matters awaited him. Winters still couldn't figure out what Ben actually did there and had an uneasy feeling he didn't want to know.

By Friday he had things pretty well wrapped up. Maria sent him an e-mail listing the things she wanted and those were now in a storage unit where she could pick them up when she got back from Barcelona. Winters would have the maple bed and dresser shipped to his place in San Francisco. The rest of his mother's belongings had been sold. All the paperwork was signed, the lawyer had the process in motion, and the only thing left to tackle was the attic.

Winters had put that off for two reasons. First, Ben's comment that Mom spent a lot of time up there frankly gave him the creeps. His mother was usually a stable woman, making sure everybody was fed, sending birthday cards with ten-dollar bills tucked inside, continually trying to build a bridge between him and Maria. But she did have—he guessed what people would call a “spiritual side.” Mom still carried on conversations with her long-deceased husband, Winters' father, and said she “knew” things about Anne's condition in the afterlife.
He was half-afraid he'd find some kind of ritual altar up there. If not worse.

The other thing that kept him out of the attic was Uncle David's pronouncement that it contained “proof” that they were direct descendants of Christopher Columbus. Where had
that
come from? He knew his mother kept photo albums that went back to the Civil War days when photography was first used and she would tell him the name of every fifteen-times-removed relative in those pictures until his eyes glazed over.

But she'd never mentioned a thing to him about Christopher Columbus. Uncle David was probably getting senile. Maybe that was what made Winters reluctant to go rooting around in trunks—the fact that it might not be true. But now that it had been suggested, it was actually intriguing. Curiosity—coupled with too much time on his hands after everything else was done—finally drove Winters to the third floor with a flashlight and a portable vacuum cleaner.

Winters was surprised to find it well lit—an upgrade he had known nothing about. An old velvet couch he remembered used to be in the tiny room off the kitchen Mom called her “parlor” was the only thing not packed away in the expected trunks. Five of them were lined up neatly under the dormer window. The rest of the space was empty.

Winters tossed the unneeded flashlight onto the couch and watched for a cloud of dust to puff up from the cushions, but there was none. That made the portable vacuum superfluous too. The tops of the trunks were dirt-free as well. Mom must have cleaned up there recently. Who dusted and vacuumed their attic?

Although the air wasn't at all chilly, Winters shivered. She'd saved him a lot of work, getting rid of all the detritus of their past lives he'd seen the last time he'd been there. Either she'd known she was going to die, or . . .

Since he couldn't come up with an alternative, Winters went to the first trunk, lifted the lid, and glanced down at the contents inside. Uncle David was wrong so far. She didn't have anything locked down like Fort Knox. In fact, there was an envelope on top of a stack of overstuffed photo albums. His name—
Johnny
—was written across it in Mom's precise handwriting.

He tested the stability of the couch and perched on its edge to read the letter inside the envelope.

Dear Son
,

If you're reading this, I'm probably gone. I hope I had a nice death. I always wanted to save you boys and Maria the kind of grief we had when your father passed away. I'm with him now, so be happy about that
.

Since I'm in Paradise where all things are clear to me, I know for sure what I've searched for years to prove—that we are the direct descendants of Christopher Columbus. I'm sure this will come as a surprise to you, the fact that I have been researching this for a long time. You remember my trip to Salt Lake City? That was all about genealogy. I didn't share this part of my journey with you because it just seemed that it should be between God and me. After all, that's where the idea came from—one of those rare times when God whispered into my thoughts, “Olivia, you must do this.” I heard it when your father proposed to me and when I took Maria for the summers after Anne died and you couldn't care for her, so I know I can trust it
.

So far I haven't found proof of the direct link and I haven't discovered the reason God is having me do this. I know only that it's your job now to continue the work. In this trunk you'll find all I've discovered so far. I'm trusting you to take care of
it. The other four trunks are all family photos and documents—baptismal certificates, marriage licenses, your baby teeth, and locks of Ben's hair, that kind of thing. Maria is the keeper of the keys on those items. She'll need a bigger apartment for them, I'm sure, but as well as she's doing, I have no doubt she can afford it. Be proud of her, Johnny. She is a wonderful combination of you and Anne
.

I can be content here in heaven knowing you'll pick up where I left off. Again, I don't know why it's important. I know only that it is, and that you are the man to do it. You won't be alone. I am always with you
.

Love,
Mom

Winters read it twice more before he returned it to the envelope and stared at the open trunk. She'd never shown any signs of dementia and the letter was certainly lucid—except for the parts about God talking to her. That had never been his experience. But the rest . . . the rest of it stirred him. He almost felt as if she were sitting beside him waiting to see if he'd do this thing for her.

He couldn't see himself poring over genealogical documents for hours on end. If he wasn't already nuts a little bit of that would put him there soon. She had probably hit a dead end or there would have been no need for the letter.

Still, looking at what she'd found was the least he could do and then he could pack the stuff away in good conscience.

But he sure wasn't going to look at it up here. The air in the attic was starting to feel heavy. Whether that was his imagination or not, he was taking the books downstairs.

Half an hour later Winters had it all transferred to the
bedroom—the only room in the house that was still furnished. He stacked the books on the dresser and propped up on the bed to peruse the first of what turned out to be memory albums with pages full of his mother's writing glued into them, along with documents and letters written by long-gone relatives. It actually made for interesting reading.

Port of entry documents from the Washington Avenue Immigration Station in Philadelphia. A quarantine order. A quarantine release, for three people listed as Esteban, Magdalena, and Antonio de Torme. Esteban and Magdalena were adults. Antonio was a minor. Apparently someone thought they had smallpox.

So Antonio became Winters' grandfather, his mother's father. That made Esteban and Magdelena his great-grandparents. If they truly had contracted smallpox, Winters probably wouldn't be here.

He flipped through a few pages of receipts for items they bought as they settled in the States, and a picture not attached to a page popped out. It was a photograph of a young boy and a man, both looking every bit the pitiful refugees. Winters looked on the back, where the words “Alba de Tormes, Spain” were scrawled. “This little boy is Antonio Torme,” his mother had written on the page. “The man standing next to him is Esteban Torme.”

The only thing Winters could think of was Mel Tormé singing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

“Okay,” he said to the empty room. “Just because our ancestors came from Spain doesn't mean we're related to Columbus.” Every American with a Spanish last name must claim that. And even if they were, what was the big deal?

Winters got up and went to the window where he'd stood hundreds of times growing up, watching for his dad to come up the driveway from work with a newspaper under his arm; trying to get
a glimpse of Heather O'Neal, who lived across the street and whose bedroom directly faced his; waiting for the mail carrier to deliver his acceptance to Georgetown.

The trees were bigger now and even with only a few pale early spring leaves they obliterated his view of Heather O'Neal's old room. His view of everything was different from what it had been back then. Only now it was blocked by old tragedy and fresh grief, neither of which he knew what to do with.

Maybe this Columbus thing was part of both. Or maybe he was just as unstable as Julia Archer said he was. She'd told him to stop sailing, stop biking, stop pursuing his pilot's license in case he had an “episode.” But what harm could he come to going through the dusted-off dreams of his overspiritual mother? Maybe he would just die in his sleep too.

He went downstairs to find a box in which to ship it all to San Francisco.

Emilio Tejada fixed his gaze out the narrow window onto the shining waters of the Mediterranean two blocks away. The tiny village of El Masnou, northeast of Barcelona, spilled sleepily away from the coast below. Its residents were unaware that an urgent meeting had been called in the stucco building known to the villagers as
la casa del extrano hombre de edad
—the house of the strange old man. Abaddon was a mysterious figure to the uneducated people of the village. No one knew where he came from or how long he had been there. The folks made guesses about him when they thought of him at all, and over time they appeared to think of him less and less. Tejada didn't see how that was possible, and yet it was a good thing.

“Emilio,” a ghostly voice said, “will you join us?”

Tejada turned away from the window and crossed the cool room. He approached the carved teakwood, high-backed chair and bent low, gently kissing the knotted hand of the man who sat in it. The old man's eyes were closed and a shock of his white hair, still streaked with the black of his youth, fell over his forehead. Tejada could feel the envy of the twelve men seated on Andalusian cushions behind him. They would never admit to coveting Abaddon's obvious favoritism, but Tejada knew, and he tried not to enjoy it. They were, after all, a brotherhood.

Tejada took his place on the one empty cushion to Abaddon's right. A spear of sunlight from the narrow window cut directly into his face. He didn't wince. All faces remained emotionless as Abaddon led them in the ritual.

“With the ancients who came before us,” they followed in unison, “and for the future of our own creation, we pledge our lives and our fortunes to the Master.”

Each of the thirteen, Tejada included, reached toward the small purple pad on the floor in front of him and picked up a ring, which each man slid onto the ring finger of his left hand. The customary silence fell—so quiet that even the warblers beyond the windows seemed to hush themselves until Abaddon spoke.

“We have a singular purpose here,” he said, voice thin. “One that has been unfolding for centuries . . .”

During the dramatic pause, one of many Tejada knew Abaddon would take, Tejada noted how weak his old Master's speech had become. The words were still strong, the force behind them invincible. But at times the voice itself became breathless, as if he, too, were fading off into the centuries.

“Now,” Abaddon continued as the thirteen leaned in to hear, “the dreams dreamed ages ago and the plans made by past generations will come to fruition. Now!”

He had managed to summon up a sonorous tone and several of the men jerked back in surprise. Tejada remained still. He'd learned to flow with Abaddon's fluctuations.

“You are privileged not only to see it but to participate in establishing it.” Abaddon's eyes, dimmed by age and the darkness in which he preferred to dwell, swept the circle. “Count it as the privilege of your lives.” He nodded at Tejada. “You have the orders I have asked you to pass down?”

“I do, Abaddon,” Tejada said.

“Please proceed.” Abaddon closed his eyes.

Tejada guessed speaking those few sentences had exhausted Abaddon. He hated to think that this abrupt move to put the plan into place was linked to Abaddon's fading energy. The man was of some indeterminable age above ninety and until recently had been as robust as Tejada himself. It was difficult to think of him any other way, or to think of him not there at all.

“Emilio?” Abaddon said, eyes still closed.

“Yes,” Tejada answered and turned to the twelve sitting before him—his brothers of
el Grupo de Barcelona
. If they resented this delegation of Abaddon's authority to him, they didn't show it. He met no resistance as he gave them their individual instructions.