The Initiation (10 page)

R
ECEIVING A NOTE FROM A BOY WAS SOMETHING
new to me, and not at all unwanted. The hand that had penned my name onto the school envelope was strong, precise, and the writing therefore closer to calligraphy than cursive. I opened it with trepidation, Natalie and Jamala watching me the whole time. Determined to keep the contents private, I swiveled from time to time to prevent either of them looking over my shoulder. Natalie had shed the horse barn smell thanks to wearing her school uniform. When Jamala craned to see what I was reading I was forewarned by the tinkle
of ceramic beads woven into her hair that turned her into a wind chime.

I assumed the note was from a boy and not a proctor by the simple fact it was addressed with my first name, Moria, not Miss Moriarty. Never mind my woman's intuition; I was still growing into it, along with everything else about womanhood. It not only informed me of the fact, but suggested the identity of the boy as well: Lock.

For one thing, I could imagine Sherlock sending me such a note. For another, it was written in a wide, flowing ink that I was pretty sure belonged to a fountain pen. Sherlock and the headmaster were the only two persons on campus I could imagine using such an instrument. For yet another, neither I nor my roommates had seen it delivered. Mystery surrounded Sherlock like his bizarre wool cape. I found that mystery stimulating, like I imagined a cup of coffee (a beverage I had no desire to try despite its availability in the dining hall). Pulse-elevating. Capable of flushing me with warmth and a kind of giddiness new to me. Considering my high degree of intellect—and all who met me did, as far as I was concerned—such physical and emotional responses rarely visited me. I spent a good deal of my time in my head and only now and then remembered it attached to my often uncoordinated
and awkward body, one I didn't understand or particularly even want to understand.

So, as I slipped the stout card from the envelope, sheltering it from view with cupped (trembling) hands, I read it with heated interest.

Observe the darkness as it is caught.

The extraordinary when it is fraught,

alight in random symmetry

and spend some time with me.

I uncupped my hands and placed the note onto my well-organized desktop. (My roommates kept their space about as organized as a rat's nest.) Natalie and Jamala heaved me aside to get a look at it.

“Huh?” Jamala gasped ignorantly, which, being exactly what I'd expected, was the reason I'd allowed them both to see it.

“It's a poem!” gasped Natalie. “How incredibly romantic!”

“It's not,” I said.

“Of course it is. Incredibly romantic.”

“What's it mean?”

“Who knows?” I said, trying to sound oblivious, which was not easy for me. I was rarely if ever
oblivious. Foolish. Childish. Girly. But oblivious? Please!

“It's an invitation. There's no doubt about that whatsoever!” Jamala was the smarter of the two, Natalie the endless romantic.

“I promised Susan I'd help her with her geography maps. When I come back, I want a full explanation.” Jamala grabbed her books and was off, leaving me alone with Natalie.

“You know, even if you figure it out, you can't go alone. You can't meet a boy in some secret location all alone. I won't allow it.”

“That's a hideous thought,” I said. “No boy in this school would hurt me or any girl, and you know it.”

“You remember what they said in orientation.” Natalie, something of a pseudo-know-it-all, wasn't asking. “We girls practice the buddy rule. The poem's not signed, which is both intriguing and mysterious. Who doesn't sign an invitation like that? Right there it smells of trouble.”

“You're right,” I said, thinking that by agreeing with her I could shut her up.

“That's better.” Natalie handled the note to read it. Her touching it annoyed me. I wanted it all to myself. “It's a pretty poem, but in a weird way. Don't you think?”

“Very weird.”

“But not exactly mental maniac weird, unless that's a ploy to lure you.”

“You watch too many horror movies,” I said. “Not all boys who write notes are serial killers.”

“But we agree it's from a boy?” Natalie asked.

“Could be a clever girl, I guess. But, yes, I think it's a boy.”

“Do you know who?”

“I might.”

“Tell me!”

“No way! At the moment it's a meaningless poem, so what's it matter?”

“It is, isn't it? I can't make it out.”

This was a test I was giving her, though she remained blissfully unaware of it. She passed the test by failing it. She had no clue of the meaning while I'd already pieced together some of it.

The word “symmetry” told me to see the poem as a reflection of itself. Therefore “meet with me” referred back to “darkness as it is caught.” Darkness was caught at night. The square root clue had me puzzled. I climbed up onto my top bunk and lay down with my head on the pillow and my eyes on the ceiling. Thinking. Reading. Rereading. Memorizing.

A girl in a previous year had attached those glowing plastic stars to the ceiling. Maintenance,
or some other girl, had removed them but they left behind a brighter paint color where they'd once covered. I had the stars without the phosphorescence, an impression of the sky without the annoying illumination keeping me awake. I allowed my eyes to roam the eleven stars and the curving moon, interrupting my vision by slipping the card between my eyes and the hideously textured surface and reading the lines over and over. I was pretty sure she'd not stuck them up there randomly. Their shadow selves looked familiar to me—some constellation I didn't know the name of. The term “Seven Sisters” came to mind, though I didn't think that sounded constellational. I'd learned a number of the clusters from Father when standing barefoot in the sand by the edge of the water, Nantucket Sound lapping at our feet, or lying down on towels to save our necks from getting tight. He'd rattled them off like they were the names of neighbors. I sensed he'd made friends of them, which had opened up more than the sky to me. I had left the time of having dolls as friends and was still too shy or overly protected to have the real kind. I had James. I had memories of Mother I wasn't sure I wanted. I had this deep ache in me that cried out to fill it, a place where knowledge was stored and a sense that if I didn't fill it quickly I'd run out of time to do so; that I'd forget before I had the
chance to remember. So, where my father filled his place with names of constellations, I filled mine with books. He opened that world, giving me permission to use the library in our Boston home, the one in our summer home and, by far most important to me, the library in his office—so long as he was in the office at the time of my selection.

This was like being given an award. Or maybe a family sword dating back centuries. The offer represented hope and trust; the hope of discovering worlds as yet unknown, the trust of a man I admired very much. Maybe he'd planned the trip to the beach in the dark to coincide with the offer. Maybe it had just slipped out of him. Maybe he'd identified something in me that told him it was time. I'm not an adult, so I have no idea what triggered the invitation. But it changed me. Stars and constellations will forever fill me with a sense of awe and expectation, of another's belief in me, of a kind of timelessness that only the blindness crafted by a night beach, the salt smell, and the sound of licking waves can create.

Observe the darkness as it is caught . . .

My choice of a place to observe the darkness would have been a beach on Cape Cod, a bit too
far away at a hundred miles or more. Where would a boy like Lock catch the night, watch the stars? I wondered. Was it even Lock who'd left me the note? And then it hit me.
Observe
the darkness . . . The school observatory! The telescope would allow me to see the “extraordinary when it is fraught, alight in random symmetry.” A lush and gorgeous description of the stars. I'd never been to the school observatory but had a vague understanding it was poised atop the hill opposite ours, with the hockey rink, another place I hadn't visited, in the valley between the two. The story I'd heard was that the observatory was attached to what had once been the grandest estate house between Hartford and Boston, one that had burned down a generation earlier, leaving only its celestial observatory unscathed. At some point the entire estate had been acquired by Baskerville Academy—or quite possibly, the other way around—and the observatory restored and updated.

I jumped out of bed with far too much enthusiasm and, if I must say, far more gracefulness than usual, landing like a gymnast and hurrying to throw up the window blinds before I thought to consider my actions.

“What?” called Natalie, who was busy writing a paper she'd put off for days. “Is something out
there?” She jumped out of her chair. “Should I call Mistress Grace?” Our hall mistress was as close to a fairy godmother as anyone I'd met. Smart. Unflappable. Fluent in three languages. But she wasn't my first go-to in a panic, which was clearly Natalie's current state.

“No. I'm just hot is all,” I said, hoisting the large window up and throwing it open. One thing the dorms had not been so far was hot. We practically froze each night, in the middle of September, for heaven's sake. Opening the window was tantamount to insanity by any definition. I had committed a roommate atrocity and worse, I knew all this before I ever did it, making it all the more insane. The blinds clattered behind what the proctors called “the night breeze” but the Weather Channel would have assigned a number to. The room went from cool to chilly to icy in less time than I had to realize my mistake and pull the window shut again.

“You . . . opened . . . the . . . window!”

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry!”

“I think my nose just froze off!”

“I'm really sorry. Really! It's just—” I had a choice to make; I decided to include her, though only slightly. “‘Observe the darkness . . . alight.' The sky! He, if it is a he, is talking about the night
sky. He's telling me to observe the night sky!” I tried to temper my excitement, but found myself overly carried away once again.

“Oh my gosh! You're right. You're absolutely right! OK, I forgive you.” She pulled open the window herself, oblivious to the chill. If anything, we relished it.

Our hair blew back as we leaned out the window, craning our necks upward where ghostly clouds raced like Death Eaters. The unseen moon fought a gauzy haze that burnished its edges, bent and twisted like smoke in flight. In between it all, stars sparkled in a nocturnal brilliance. Such sights could only be seen from isolated, lightless places like Baskerville Academy. Or from the beach at our family compound, a place that called so close to my memory I could actually mistake the wind for the faint cough of waves uncurling at my feet.

It came to me around 2 a.m. I might have been dreaming or maybe not. The square root of Beacon Hill! What a dunce! I suddenly couldn't wait for tomorrow to be almost yesterday. I would have to slip away halfway through school dinner in order to find out who had left the poem, and why. One of the longest days of my life.

“H
OW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO FIGURE OUT?”
Sherlock sat beneath a beautiful curving spiral staircase that coiled around the outside of the round observatory. I stopped, walked back down a few steps, and peered through the metalwork. The sun had set behind the ridge a few minutes earlier, bringing a quick and early dusk.

“Is that you, Lock? What are you doing curled up in a ball in shadow? Other than hiding, I mean.”

“Staying warm. You're late.”

“It's ten minutes past seven. I'm quite proud of
myself, actually. A girl has a right to be a few minutes late, after all. It must be two miles over to here. I had estimated one and a half. Besides, it's a steep climb past the hockey rink. It slowed me down.”

“How difficult?”

“I didn't know it was from you, if that's what you mean. I struggled a bit. It took some missing stars on my ceiling—those glow-in-the-dark kind—to remind me of the Seven Sisters—”

“Pleiades,” Sherlock said, interrupting. “Middle-aged hot stars in Taurus.”

“Show-off.”

“Always.”

“Seven squared is forty-nine. We live at 49 Louisberg Square in Beacon Hill. I came at the clue backward. Missed it entirely until the number forty-nine occurred to me. The square root of Beacon Hill? I mean,
really
! You could have thought up something better than that.”

“Not really. That was my best at the time.”

“And if I hadn't showed?”

“I'd have been here tomorrow. I'm in no great hurry.” He uncoiled himself. The act struck me as snakelike, and gave me a shiver. He passed me on the stairs and I followed him. He had a key, a single key on rabbit's foot keychain, which he pulled from his pocket. To my complete shock the key opened
the observatory door and we went inside.

I felt small, like I'd been shrunk as part of a special effect. It was all the telescope's fault. It was so big yet well proportioned that it put everything around it into a different perspective. We found a pair of chairs on rollers. We sat down. Lock passed me a red notecard.

“How did you get this?” I asked.

“Your brother is careless. He'll have to work on that. First, he handed me the note while he was occupied with something else. I'd read it—without opening it, I might add—before I handed it back. More importantly, he keeps the notes in his desk drawer. Or, I should say the envelopes. He doesn't bother to check if the envelopes contain anything. Currently, one does not. It's the second clue. It was left in the chapel.”

“Did you know James had to clean up the—”

“Yes. I heard. And I smelled. He came back filthy. I can't live in that room a day longer. At least not without the window open, which means your brother and I are constantly in our winter coats.”

“You didn't let me finish my question,” I said.

“No need. I often know what a person is thinking before they do.”

“Really, Lock. You take things too far.”

“That's not my name.”

“It's what I call you so get used to it.”

He muttered to himself. I took that as a good sign; he wasn't chewing me out, at least. The card's message confused me.

Where what is seen is not

I forgot

Remembered then again and again

In the company of so many friends.

“That's it?” I asked.

“Ummm,” he groaned.

“The auditorium? Its stage? Some kind of performance?”

“No.”

“See something with friends. Remember your lines. Multiple performances—again and again. You sure?”

“I don't need you to
solve it
!” He snorted derisively.

“Well, pardon me,” I said.

“Accepted.” He was serious!

“Well, you conceited, stuffy, pseudointellectual! You don't need to be rude!”

“I need you to confirm my interpretation.”

“I'm flattered.” He hemmed and hawed a moment, his eyes wandering. “You wanted to see
me!” I said, blushing at my discovery. “You wanted to impress me.”

“Ridiculous!” he said, though I noted he didn't deny it.

“Then why?”

I knew immediately Sherlock was searching for an explanation himself. “He won't listen to me. If he can't figure it out, then the jig is up.”

“Why do you say such a thing?”

“Because this is about him: James. It's not about any missing Bible. It's a test and I want him to pass it. It has to be him. It
must
be him. I want you to leave it in his cubbyhole or mailbox, something like that. A note: I know what this means. He'll wonder how it found its way out of his desk, of course. We don't want to make trouble between you two, so you'll say that it arrived in your mailbox by mistake. Its theft will fall onto me, but I'll deny it. He hates me anyway.”

“You want me to tell him I found it in my cubbyhole and it had his name on it.”

“His name isn't on it! Is it? No! So you tell him you thought because it looks exactly like the first clue, this might be intended for him.”

“What's going on, Lock? Why so complicated?”

“I need someone to talk to him about the note. It can't be me. I trust you. He trusts you.”

“He and I aren't speaking. He was horrible to me.”

“I'm sorry, but you'll be speaking about this. He needs to figure this out, not bury it in a drawer because he's too ignorant.”

“That's harsh.”

“If he thinks you stole it from him, that's bad going forward. You see? If I try to talk to him about the puzzle, he won't listen. I'm making this up as I go.”

“Why does it have to be him? You said that. What do you think is going on here at the school? Our family. All the legacy students. I was talking to . . . a friend,” I said, deciding not to name Latisha just yet, “and come to find out, her dad and our father . . . they both have these groups of men visit them late at night. Secret stuff like that. What do you think?”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

“It might explain the attention James receives from Dr. Crudgeon, as well as the clues. The family's connection to the school is obvious, but you're right, a bigger, wider connection between graduates might suggest—”

I was quite aware he'd stopped himself. “What?”

“A cabal.”

“A what?”

“Originally, a secret political faction. I reference it more as a secret group with a common aim.”

“Like a clique.”

“Precisely! Very good!”

I wondered why Sherlock's opinion of me mattered so much, but it did. I wanted him to like me as much as I liked him, and that was without knowing why I liked him in the first place. He was a stuffed shirt, an arrogant boy with an inflamed sense of his own importance. But he was also brilliant, quirky, and fun to be with. Worst of all, he had kind eyes.

“What's this mean?” I said, indicating the clue.

“I'm counting on you to tell me.”

“Because you don't know!” I shouted. My voice sounded amazing in the enormous structure: the voice of God!

“Exactly. Because I never know anything,” he said, thick with sarcasm.

I was hoping to shame him into telling me the riddle actually meant something. I couldn't make any sense of it, even on my fifth reading. I stretched. I shouldn't have. It wasn't smart to try to outsmart or match wits with Sherlock. I would learn that soon enough.

“The stars!” I said excitedly. “‘In the company
of so many friends.' ‘Where what is seen is not.' By the time we can view the light of a star, the star itself is often long dead. I'm right, aren't I? No wonder you wanted to meet here.”

“Clever girl,” Sherlock said, causing me to swell with pride. “A nifty theory, actually.” Nifty? I wondered. “Completely and totally one hundred percent wrong, but nicely conceived. I'll give you points for that.”

I could have struck him.

“Shall we take a peek?” he said, offering the telescope with a sweeping hand.

“I suppose you know how to work it?” The panel along the wall looked like the console for a nuclear power plant.

“No, but how hard can it be? Have you met any of the fellows from the astronomy club?” Fellows? “Not close to the temperature of tea water.”

“The expression is: Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Not the brightest bulb in the bunch. Tea water? Seriously?”

“Those are your expressions, not mine,” he said disdainfully. He worked the telescope's controls like a man with four arms. A panel groaned open overhead. It was just dark enough that a few stars twinkled. I worked hard to keep from appearing impressed. It required great concentration. The
telescope moved. “There we go. Saturn. Wrapped in rings, with its moons: Titan, Enceladus, Mimas. A thing of beauty.”

“So you actually figured out how to turn it on, and aim it?” I sounded incredulous, which was a mistake. It's one thing to feed a controlled fire, quite another, a wildfire blaze.

“No more guesses?” he asked, as he tested his eye to a smaller telescope mounted like a toy to the giant. “Splendid!” he said, checking the larger device's optical and then stepping back in a gentlemanly fashion and urging me to step up. That was the thing about Sherlock: he could seem forty years old at times. Most of the time, actually.

I put my eye to the big telescope. The closeness of one of Saturn's moons hit me in the chest, literally stealing my breath. You don't really see a person's face in a crowd; you don't see the stars in the sky, only flickers of light. The immediate presence of the thing filled me with a childish glee; I wanted to squeal. I contained myself. I didn't like learning to act older.

“Have you figured it out yet?” he asked. “And do not tell me the telescope or I have distracted you and you're not thinking, because if that's the case I'm wasting a lot of valuable time.”

“Illusion,” I answered, for I had been
thinking about the enigmatic poem in the second clue. “‘Where what is seen is not. I forgot.' Like being inspired and thinking you have it right there in hand, only to have it slip away. ‘Remembered then again and again' is the creative part of our mind catching on to that lost idea, like a hangnail hooking a sweater. Lost ideas. Lost friends.”

“I so enjoy the way your mind works, Moria. Where do you come up with these things? You and your thoughts are like spit and polish, salt and pepper, French fries and ketchup. Antithetic, but uniquely paired. Just one problem: you leave logic far behind, hungry, stubborn, and sometimes cruel. You must learn to tame your ambitions if you're to get any good at this.”

“You're suggesting I'm not—any good at this? Thanks a lot! You stuffed pepper.”

“Once more. Try once more.”

I didn't like to be tested and teased for my answers, but I didn't enjoy being excluded either, and Sherlock would most certainly exclude me if I failed him.

“‘Where what is seen is not,'” I quoted. Like the stars, I thought. You see one thing; it's really something more, something different. A building suggests rooms, and reveals rooms; it wasn't buildings. The night sky and stars qualified, but
Sherlock would never give me such an easy clue. A school suggested learning and that's what you got.

“A book,” I said. “It reveals little of what's inside. You must open it to know it.”

“Go on.”

I took this as a good sign. He hadn't mocked me. “‘I forgot . . . Remembered then again and again.'
If you forget something, you can consult a reference book and remember it again and again. I'm thinking a nonfiction book, but stories are pretty much the same. You can forget a story, or parts of it, and rereading helps you remember.”

“Interesting.”

“You don't want me to succeed! I've just realized that.”

“Nonsense!”

“You want me to fail so you can show off how smart you are. I'm close, aren't I? And you know it!”

“There is no close or far in matters such as these,” Sherlock said. “Truth is as sharp and pointed as a needle. It's not blunt or fuzzy.”

“‘In the company of so many friends.'”

“I must compliment you on possessing a splendid memory. Memory is key to gifted intelligence. You show great promise, Moria.”

“You pompous, self-righteous, conceited boy!”
I caught myself shouting. “How dare you talk down to me like that! Who on God's green Earth do you think you are?”

“I know exactly who I am, what I aspire to, my basic strengths and weaknesses. You won't see me battling for a spot on the football pitch, though I do enjoy a pickup game from time to time. Left midfield suits me. I'm not a striker and I'm too lightweight for defense.”

“It's a library, if you must know,” I said calmly. “In a library there are books and many feel like your friends. Being in a library makes me feel surrounded by people I've known and liked.”