Priest pointed at the random items. “All three of them were members of the Sons of Liberty and the Freemasons. John Hancock was a Grand Master. His signature showed up on lodge ledgers years before he signed the Declaration of Independence. Samuel Adams was Illuminati, too.”
Alara’s head shot up when he said the word Illuminati. “That’s a joke, right?”
Jared and Lukas looked at Priest, waiting for his answer.
“No, it’s true.” Priest’s eyes darted between Lukas, Jared, and Alara, who were all frowning at him. “Lay off. I didn’t vote for the guy.”
“Back up,” Elle said. “Does someone want to explain the difference between the Freemasons and the Illuminati for the regular kid in the class?”
Alara looked unamused.
“In 1776, the Illuminati surfaced in—” Priest began.
Elle held up her hand to stop him. “I just want the Cliff Notes.”
“My granddad used to say the devil is in the details. Along with the truth.” Priest gave her a sheepish smile. “But I’ll do my best. The Freemasons and the Illuminati are both secret societies that date back to the 1700’s, but they had different agendas. The Illuminati wanted to overthrow the existing governments and churches, so they could create a new world order.”
“So the Illuminati were the bad guys?” Elle asked.
“Definitely,” Lukas said. “And it was the Legion of the Black Dove’s job to stop them.”
“What about the Freemasons? Good or bad?”
Lukas grinned at her. “The Freemasons were stonemasons. They formed a group in the Middle Ages to protect their trade secrets and pass down their skills. So they were good guys.”
“Why would Samuel Adams be a member of both?” I had trouble believing the man who planned the Boston Tea Party was in the Illuminati.
“The Illuminati was a lot smaller, and they needed a place to hide from the Catholic Church and the Legion,” Priest explained. “They infiltrated Freemason lodges, and they’ve been hiding ever since.”
“Are you saying they’re still around?” I always thought of the Illuminati as a bunch of bearded Leonardo da Vinci types, who were long gone like the Knights of the Round Table.
“My granddad had a run-in with a couple of them when he was a student at Yale,” Priest said. “He was studying in the Beinecke Rare Book Library late one night, when two guys broke into one of the cases. He tried to stop them, and they beat him up pretty bad.”
“How did he know they were Illuminati?” I asked.
Priest held up his ring finger. “Their rings. Not the crap they sell online with pyramids and pentagrams all over them. These were the original design. The Eye of Providence surrounded by the Rays of Illumination. Between the rings and what they stole, it was obvious. At least to a Legion member.”
“What did they steal?” Lukas’ tone hardened.
“The Grimorium Verum.”
“One of the oldest and most dangerous grimories in history.” Alara shuddered. “A true book of black magic. It deals specifically with methods for harnessing the powers of demons.”
“Why would they want it?” Elle asked.
Alara shook her head. “No idea. All I know is that my grandmother didn’t trust the Illuminati. She called them ‘demons among men.’ ”
Elle walked over to the last case labeled Modern Patriots, looking more than a little spooked. “The Illuminati totally sounds like a Legion thing. I’ll stick with John Hancock and the patriots.” She peered into the case. “I don’t believe this junk is real. That shoelace could’ve belonged to anyone.”
“This is definitely a fake.” Jared grabbed me around the waist affectionately, and gestured at the case in front of us. Behind the glass, a framed poem attributed to Edgar Allan Poe hung prominently in the center. “I’m pretty sure Poe didn’t use a roller ball.”
We had studied the poem in English class the previous year, and my eidetic memory flashed on the mental images of the text. As I scanned the actual poem behind the glass, my mind tripped over the last few words.
“Alone”
Edgar Allan Poe
1829
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of an angel in my view—
“The last line is wrong. It should say, ‘Of a demon in my view.’ ”
Jared looked at his brother. “Think it’s a code?”
Lukas started writing on his hand. “I need some paper.”
Elle riffled around in her junk drawer of a purse until she found an old history test. “Here.”
Lukas flipped over the test and held it against the display case, copying the last line of the poem. Then he began systematically crossing out letters and scribbling words beneath them. After a few minutes, it seemed like he had exhausted the possibilities. “It’s not letter substitution.”
Priest studied the poem. “Try unscrambling it.”
Lukas tried different combinations, while the rest of us called out words with letters that weren’t even in the line of the poem.
“What if you use the right version—‘of a demon’ instead?” Alara asked.
I stood in front of the poem again. This time, I visualized the words as if they were images in a painting—focusing on the shapes of the individual letters, the shape of the poem as a whole, and the negative space around them. Nothing jumped out at me, but the label above the poem caught my eye: DONATED BY RAMONA KENNEDY.
It can’t be a coincidence.
Lukas crumpled up the paper and chucked it on the floor. “The person who forged it was probably an idiot and screwed up.”
Priest stared up at the ceiling. “Or we need the Shift to read the message. It’s probably sitting on some fire fighter’s mantle.”
“Then we’re screwed.” Jared slammed his palm against the display case.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the label. “My dad wrote the poem, or he had someone else do it for him.”
The script didn’t match the handwriting on the note he left for my mom twelve years ago, but the forger had obviously copied Poe’s style.
Jared interlaced his fingers with mine. “How can you tell?”
I pointed at the label. “I hated my name as a kid.
Whenever I complained about it, my mom said the same thing: Maybe I should’ve let your father choose.”
He wanted to name me Ramona after his favorite band. The Ramones.”
Mom was sipping coffee at the chipped, round table in our kitchen, while my dad stood in front of the stove, in his Jane’s Addiction T-shirt, flipping pancakes.
“Ramona is a solid name, and the Ramones were punk rock gods,” my dad said over the sizzle of bacon frying in the next pan.
Mom balled up her napkin and tossed it at him, smiling. “Be happy I let you pick Kennedy’s middle name.”
“From your list. Rose was your grandmother’s middle name.” My dad crunched on a piece of bacon, and winked at me. “Kennedy Ramona would’ve been my pick.”
I forced their voices out of my mind, as Alara marched past me. She returned moments later, carrying a taxidermy goat with a mermaid tail from the front of the store. She stepped in front of us and pulled her sleeve down to cover her hand. “Back up.”
Elle covered her ears. “What if someone hears the glass break?”
Alara turned the goat so its horns faced the glass. “Like Lukas said, this place is closed, and it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
Jared reached for the mer-goat. “Why don’t you let me—”
Alara swung the goat by its mermaid tail, releasing it just as the horns hit the case. A crack zigzagged down the middle of the case, from the spot where the tail was still sticking out of the glass.
“Nice.” Jared shook his head at Alara. “I could be blind right now.”
“Except you’re not.” She walked over and kicked the rest of the glass out from below what was left of the mer-goat. The poem fell off the wall and crashed to the floor, along with the animal.
“Feeling a little aggressive today?” Lukas elbowed Alara and picked up the broken frame. He handed it to me, trying to keep it from falling apart.
Without the glass to hold it in place, the page slid out. Another piece of paper was folded in thirds behind the poem.
“What is it?” Elle asked, as I unfolded it.
Black ink covered the crinkled white sheet of paper, with a symbol in the bottom corner indicating it had been made from recycled materials. Roads twisted through stick-figure trees and hand-drawn houses that reminded me of scavenger hunts at summer camp.