As I was going up Pippen Hill,
Pippen Hill was steep.
And there I found the truth of it,
All the secrets I would keep.
After Wren woke up the next morning, she stayed in bed for a long time. Her sleep had been plagued by strange dreams, ones where the whole world was black and white and a chorus of voices kept chasing after her. Wren pushed the images from her mind and pulled out the bag she kept in her nightstand drawer. The sky map on her bedroom ceiling was nearly finished, tiny glow-in-the-dark stars marking out the patterns of the Northern Hemisphere. The other walls waited to be transformed into snippets of the Equatorial and Southern Hemispheres.
Wren’s dad had gotten her a student pass to the college observatory, and since they lived in the faculty housing on campus, it didn’t take much to sweet-talk him into taking her there on clear nights. Wren liked to mark out the constellations she had actually seen with blue stars. Just last week she had finally gotten a good glimpse of Leo.
But replacing Leo’s old stars with new blue ones didn’t distract her for long. Wren reached under her pillow and pulled out the folded shimmering papers again, as if staring at them would uncover their meaning. Dinner had ended too soon for Wren and Simon to talk more, but they had agreed to meet this morning at a nearby coffee shop.
When Wren arrived in the kitchen, her mom was about to leave for work. “I’m so proud of you, sweetie,” her mom said as she poured her tea into a travel mug. “Getting up this morning and taking initiative.”
Wren didn’t bother to correct her. If her mom thought interrogating Simon about his packet of papers counted as her social interaction, Wren wasn’t going to argue.
The sky was surprisingly clear and sunny for early spring, and after biking to the coffee shop, Wren was hot and thirsty. Simon had beaten her there and was sitting at an outdoor table, two bottles of pop in front of him.
Wren parked her bike and grabbed the packet of papers from the white wicker basket.
“Root beer is the best option here,” Simon said, sliding one of the bottles toward Wren without looking up from the notebook he was flipping through. “No caffeine. Best value for the price. And”—he smiled in Wren’s direction—“it tastes good.”
“Can’t argue with that logic,” Wren said, slipping into the chair across from him. “Did you bring your poems?”
They traded, and Wren sipped her root beer while she read. Simon’s back page had a different rhyme about a canary, but the rest were the same. And so was the shimmering dust.
“There’s no Pippen Hill anywhere in town.” Simon opened a fat folder full of maps he’d printed off the internet. “How can we be expected at Pippen Hill today if there is no such thing?”
Wren stared at the wrinkled edges of one of the maps. Simon must have stayed up all night doing research. “What about similar names?” she said, making it sound as though she’d done more than just think about the poems. “What if there’s a location that used to be called Pippen Hill?”
Simon pulled another file out of his backpack. “Historical maps, all the way back to the town’s founding in 1851. There’s never been a Pippen Hill anywhere around here.” He tossed the stack in front of her. “There are, however, plenty of hills that have had apple orchards on them.”
“Apples?” Wren echoed. “What do apples have to do with anything?”
“Pippins are a type of apple,” Simon said in a lecturing tone. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, Wren.”
Wren ignored the barb. Why would he think she was some kind of apple expert? “Okay. But maybe the apples are a coincidence.” Wren flipped through the neatly cataloged maps. “What about the town’s historical society—”
“Already called them,” Simon said. “They’ve never heard of a Pippen Hill or any kind of fiddling guild.” He hunched forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. “I bet it’s some kind of a test.”
“A test?” Wren handed the files back to Simon. “For what? To see if we can read nonsense poems?”
“Not a test about the poems.” Simon looked in her direction. “A test for the fiddler people. Maybe they want to see if we’re clever enough to find Pippen Hill by ourselves.”
Wren was used to seeing Simon’s profile while their parents talked to each other, but now she found it odd that he rarely maintained eye contact, even when speaking directly to her, which made him appear a little shifty.
“I’m sure of it,” he continued. “This invitation is a riddle.”
“Why would they—”
“Why would they do anything?” Simon interrupted. “Why invite us with nursery rhymes? Why the shimmering dust? Why use a falcon to deliver the papers?”
“You saw the bird?”
“Falcon,” Simon said, rummaging around in his backpack. “Long wings. Swift flight. And did you see those talons? Birds of prey are fascinating animals.”
“You saw the falcon.” Wren didn’t care what he called it.
“Of course I saw the falcon.” Simon sounded annoyed and started skimming through his notebook again. “Who didn’t see the falcon?”
“Um . . . everyone else? I thought I was the only one, or that I was imagining the whole thing, or that the bird was someone’s science project or—”
“No live animals are allowed to roam free in the main exhibition hall,” he said with a disapproving frown, as though Wren was suggesting they break conference rules.
“Maybe you were too busy scratch-scratch-scratching with your pencil,” Wren said, leaning in so Simon would look at her and actually hear what she was saying, “but no one else saw the bird.” She told him how everything seemed like it had been paused for a moment. And then it hit her. “Except for your pencil. You weren’t on pause either. You did see it!”
“How else do you think you managed to tie me for the win? With all the commotion, I kept losing my place in the trivia questions. I was lucky to finish the first problem before time was up.” He pulled out a pencil and scribbled something in the margin of his notebook. “I must be missing something.”
“I managed to tie with you?” Wren said to the top of his head. “I don’t think so. If it hadn’t been for the stupid bird, I’d have— Wait, how many years have I won the trivia challenge?” Wren put her finger on her chin as though she had to think hard. “That’s right, four. So I’d have a fifth medal. You should thank your lucky stars that bird showed up when it did. I ought to—”
Wren caught her breath as something clicked. “That’s it! The stars!” She grabbed her packet of papers and rustled through it, sending aqua sparks ricocheting around their tabletop, until she found the page with the invitation. “Astris means ‘stars.’” Wren might not have spent the whole night Googling the topography of the town, but she had looked up the Latin phrase. She pointed to it. “Sapiens dominabitur astris: ‘A wise man can rule the stars.’ That’s the clue.”
“Clue to what?”
“Your riddle!” Wren folded the papers back up. “I know where Pippen Hill is.”
Simon had walked to the coffee shop, so Wren wheeled her bike alongside as they made their way across the university campus. “The observatory is surrounded by apple trees,” she said, following the familiar path. “My dad told me the whole campus used to be an orchard.” She mimicked his teacherish tone from earlier. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, Simon.”
But Wren soon forgot to be snarky with him. As they approached the observatory, she noticed something she had never seen before. Something she was certain had never been there before. Situated in a clump of apple trees some distance from the observatory building was a cottage that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale, complete with misshapen bricks, thatched roof, and a tottering second story dotted with chimneys.
Wren propped her bike against a tree, and they picked their way along the uneven stone pathway that led to the front porch. “How could I have never seen this before?”
“You’ve never seen this house before, and here it is.” Simon took the porch steps two at a time. “No one else saw the falcon, yet both you and I saw it. And no one else saw the dust but you and me. Somehow everything is related.”
“How do you know no one else saw the dust?”
“My dad didn’t.” Simon shrugged. “I accidentally dropped my packet in the living room, and he never said a word, even though the carpet was covered with the stuff.”
Wren thought of how the papers had stained her pocket. If her mom had noticed that half of Wren’s hoodie was covered with ashes, she would have had plenty to say about it.
“Every problem has a logical explanation.” Simon rubbed his forehead vigorously, like he could find the answer by sheer willpower. “If we had more data, we could come up with a better hypothesis.”
“Well, then, what are we waiting for?” Wren straightened her sweatshirt and knocked on the weathered door.
When it opened, Wren knew that they had indeed found Pippen Hill. Standing in front of them was the mysterious woman who had disappeared at the trivia challenge, and perched on her shoulder was her sleek white falcon.
“I’m Mary,” the woman said, giving them a conspiratorial smile. Mary’s dreadlocked hair was twisted into a fat knot on the back of her head, and thick strings of beads were looped around her neck. “You are Wren and Simon, the brand-new Fiddler apprentices”—she pulled a small silver hourglass from her skirt pocket and peered at it—“who are right on time. Come in.”