ETHAN MEETS US AT THE AIRPORT THE NEXT MORNING. INSTEAD OF THE WORN work boots he’s had on every other time I’ve seen him, today he has on gym shoes. I almost comment on it, but stop myself. I don’t want him to think that I’m studying his appearance.
“You guys own a plane?” he asks once we meet up and Uncle Randall gets Devin to take us to the private terminal.
“We lease it,” I say quickly. For some weird reason, I don’t want Ethan thinking I’m some spoiled brat that jet sets around the world anytime I want to.
“Same thing,” he says.
It’s completely not the same thing. But I’m sure no matter what I say, it won’t change his impression of me.
“Leasing is much more cost-effective,” Uncle Randall says, and I kind of want to hug him.
Ethan shrugs. “Yeah, well, still, it must be nice to go anywhere you want anytime you want.”
I will not react to his comments and start this trip off on the wrong foot. “Yeah, it is.” I don’t say another word. Maybe he gets the hint. Maybe he doesn’t.
In the private terminal, Uncle Randall makes a detour for the coffee shop and returns five minutes later carrying three cups of coffee, a sight that pleases me beyond imagination.
“What did you tell your parents about the trip?” Uncle Randall asks Ethan as he hands him a coffee.
It’s good to know that he’s still suspicious of Ethan.
“That I was excited to build libraries,” Ethan says, then hesitates for a second. “But I did set up a scheduled email for my parents. If I’m not back in a month, they’ll get it. Otherwise, I’ll cancel it once I get home.”
Uncle Randall seems to consider this. “That’s fine. They are your parents. If something does happen to us, they have a right to know.”
What does Uncle Randall think will happen? Like the three of us will die?
Wait … he must think that’s a possibility. But no way am I going to believe that. We are going to find my parents and the Code of Enoch and keep it safe. That’s how this whole adventure will end.
“Nothing is going to happen,” I say. “Ethan should cancel the email.”
“It’s a month away,” Ethan says.
“What if that’s not long enough?” I say.
“It’ll be fine, Hannah,” Uncle Randall says. “Just let it go.”
I wish Lucas was a hacker instead of an artist. Then he’d be able to break into Ethan’s email and cancel it.
“Just make sure you remember to cancel it,” I say to Ethan.
“Don’t worry so much, Hannah,” he says.
I wouldn’t worry so much if he weren’t along, but I bite my tongue and keep that thought to myself. Still, having him here sets my nerves on end.
We pass through private security and head to our gate. The coffee warms me and also helps give my hands something to do. I am beyond excited. I am going to find my parents. Bring them home. Reunite our family. But as we’re walking, Ethan keeps looking back, almost like he’s expecting to see someone.
“What are you looking for?” I ask after the third time he’s done this. It’s more than obvious.
“What do you mean?” he says.
“You keep looking over your shoulder, like this,” I say, mimicking the motion. “Why?”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“If I am,” he says, “then maybe it’s because I’m worried that you dropped something. Seriously, can’t you do the buckle on your bag?”
The flap on my messenger bag bounces back and forth with each step I take.
“The buckle is a pain,” I say. “And nothing’s falling out.”
“I don’t need you losing the map,” Ethan says.
“Uncle Randall has it,” I say.
Lucas had printed the only copy and Uncle Randall insisted on being the one to hold it. Even Ethan agreed this would be okay. Then we’d deleted the file from my computer. As for the rubbing I’d found, I’d given it to Lucas who promised he would keep it with him at all times. Uncle Randall and I had talked about it and decided that we couldn’t destroy it yet.
“Well, you might lose something else,” Ethan says. “Like your passport. Or do rich people not need passports?”
“Everyone needs a passport,” I snap. “And can we stop with the rich comments?”
“Enough,” Uncle Randall says. “Look, I know this isn’t the most ideal thing ever, but you two have to stop the squabbling. I feel like I’m with two small school children. Like he dumped his pears into your spaghetti, and now you’re trying to steal his ice cream.”
I stop walking. “Are you kidding? He’s totally been the one who’s instigated everything.”
“I have not,” Ethan says.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Uncle Randall says. “This bickering can’t go on. We have a ten hour flight ahead of us, and if you two can’t get along, it will drive me crazy.”
“But—” I start.
Uncle Randall puts up his hand.
It’s infuriating how wrong he is. But I decide to ignore Ethan and see how that goes.
How that goes is unsuccessful. No sooner do we buckle in, Ethan turns to me and says, “I can’t sleep on flights.” He’s sitting across the aisle from me. Uncle Randall is in back, working at a built-in desk.
“Sure you can,” I say because I specifically didn’t get a lot of sleep last night since I knew I had this flight today.
He shakes his head. “Nope. Never been able to.”
“You could try again,” I say. “Because this is a long flight. I’m going to be sleeping.”
“Lucky you,” Ethan says. And he starts in on a Sudoku puzzle.
I close my eyes, but he keeps tapping the end of his pencil on the table in front of him.
“Could you stop that?” I say after fifteen minutes, opening one eye.
He looks over at me. “Stop what?”
“Tapping your pencil. You haven’t stopped since we took off.”
Ethan looks at the pencil, like he’s surprised to see it in his hand. “Oh, was I tapping it?”
“Yeah, you were.”
He sets the pencil down. “How about we talk?”
“I’m tired.” I close my eyes.
Next thing I know, I hear him unbuckling and coming over to sit next to me.
He taps me on the arm. “Hey.”
I try to ignore him.
“Hey, Hannah,” he says.
I pop one eye open. “What?”
He holds up his phone. “What’s your favorite game?”
“I don’t play games. They’re a waste of time.” I close my eye again.
He taps my arm. “Sure you do. I saw you playing something yesterday on your phone.”
I open the eye again. “That wasn’t a game.”
“It looked like a game. What was it?”
“It was an evolution challenge,” I say. “You pick which two species to breed to get specific DNA results. The closer you get and the fewer number of matings you need to make, the higher your score.”
“So it is a game,” Ethan says.
“It’s not a game.”
“Sounds like a game to me,” he says. “What’s it called?”
“Evolution,” I say. “You can download it.”
He finds the app and downloads it. “I bet I can get a higher score than you.”
I close my eyes again, happy he’s now occupied, but Evolution must not be his thing because no sooner are we out over the Atlantic, he’s pestering me again.
“How about twenty questions?” he says.
“What about it?” My eyes are closed, but sleep has yet to come.
“We can play it,” Ethan says.
“You’re kidding?”
“I’ll go first,” he says. Apparently he’s not kidding.
I let out a deep sigh, and give up the wonderful pipe dream I had about actually sleeping. “Fine,” I say. “Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?”
Twenty questions turns out to be way more fun than I would have thought. I guess his choice of school bus and manage to stump him on armadillo.
“Armadillos are weird anyway,” Ethan says. “I’m not entirely sure that they really exist. They seem more like a myth, like the Chupacabra or something.”
“Of course they exist,” I say. “They’re descendants of the giant sloth.”
He scratches his head. “Yeah, those giant sloths are a bit sketchy, too. And how could something so little be descended from something so big anyway?”
“Haven’t you studied genetics?” I ask.
“Not much,” Ethan says. “Languages were more my thing.”
“But your parents … they’re geneticists like mine. I’m sure you guys talk about it at home.”
Ethan finishes the last of his Sprite (I insisted he not drink a Coke on the remote chance that he actually does fall asleep), and like magic, the flight attendant brings him a new one. From the way she hovers around him, I’m beginning to think that she has a crush on him. Maybe it’s his eyes. Or his smile. That’s probably it. His smile is pretty sweet, and he’s been flashing it at her every time she’s come over.
“Yeah, I’m not all that close to my parents,” Ethan says. “I mean I’m close to my mom. We talk sometimes. But my dad … we don’t talk much. Actually not like ever.”
“Why not?” I ask, and memories of the conversation I’d overheard with his dad come back to me. I don’t know Ethan very well, but he seemed like a different person while talking to his dad.
“He’s always so disappointed in me,” Ethan says. “It’s like no matter what I do, it’s never good enough. I think that’s what turned me off to genetics in the first place. I’d try to act like I was interested in it, but all it would do is make my dad angry. I always figured he would have preferred if Caden had lived and I was the one who got sick.”
My heart breaks a tiny bit in that moment as I picture Ethan as a young boy, growing up thinking that his dad wished he was dead.
“That can’t possibly be true.”
Ethan gives a small shrug. “It sure feels that way sometimes. But enough about that. I thought we were talking about giant sloths.”
“Right,” I say, not wanting to push him. I think the only reason he’s being so talkative is because he’s sleep deprived. “I can show you how they’re all related sometime. There’s a beautiful pattern that forms when you study animals and link them all together. It’s a work of art that makes you believe in a master plan while still being able to believe in evolution.”
“So you believe in evolution?” Ethan says.
“Of course,” I say.
“But what about this Code of Enoch?” Ethan says, whispering the name. “Don’t you believe in it?”
It’s my turn to pause. “I don’t know. It seems a little farfetched that the DNA code for the entire world is stored on some clay tablet. But my parents actually believed in it, and they’re scientists. Your parents believed in it, too. They believed so much that it changed all of their lives. And I’ll admit that I don’t know what we’re going to find when we get wherever we’re going. I have no clue. But I can’t let that stop me from trying.”
Ethan doesn’t say anything, and I think that maybe I’ve rambled on too much.
“Do you believe in it?” I ask.
“Maybe,” Ethan says. “Maybe not. But I do believe that if I look for it—if there’s a chance that I find it—my dad will never think I’m a loser again.”
“He doesn’t think you’re a loser,” I say.
“Yeah, he does,” Ethan says. “But it’s okay. I’ll show him that I’m not.”
I hate the dividing line this places between me and Ethan. I hate that I can never let him bring back the Code of Enoch if it does exist. But there’s nothing I can say right now that will change his mind, so I don’t say anything at all.
Ethan pulls a notebook from his backpack and begins to write letters. Symbols. The kind of thing Uncle Randall would do. I recognize some of them. Greek. Aramaic. Russian. Others look familiar, but I can’t quite place them. But I don’t interrupt Ethan to ask because based on the way he’s not talking, I’m guessing that our conversation is over. So instead, after watching him for another five minutes, I close my eyes and finally drift off to sleep.
I wake with my head on Ethan’s shoulder. God, I hope I wasn’t drooling. I sit up the second I realize what I’m doing.
“Sorry,” I say.
“For?”
“For falling asleep on you.”
“What about for the snoring? Are you sorry for that?” Ethan asks.
I roll my eyes. “I don’t snore.”
“How would you know? You’re the one sleeping.”
“Did you sleep at all?” I ask, hoping that he’s lying about the snoring. He’s gotten through half the blank pages in the journal and still seems to be going strong. In addition, there are a bunch of papers in front of him that I’m sure Uncle Randall gave him. Symbols and words that make my head hurt.
“No,” Ethan says. “But your uncle gave me some stuff to study. It’s actually really cool. Like all the symbols on the Deluge Segment are so close to others that I already know and yet different. It’s got to be the most amazing archaeological find ever.”
Genetics may not be his thing, but linguistics certainly is. I bet he and Uncle Randall could talk endlessly for days about it. Maybe he should have sat next to Uncle Randall during the flight.
The flight attendant is going around opening window screens, letting in the light. We’ve flown through the evening and into a brand new day.
Once we’re off the plane and through customs, Uncle Randall hires a driver named Mert, and though Mert speaks English about as well as Sonic, my hedgehog, does, Uncle Randall speaks fifteen different languages fluently and has no problem communicating with him. They spend about ten minutes in an animated discussion while Ethan and I stand there looking stupid. What I really want is a cup of coffee, and like magic, the airport has a Starbucks.
Ethan takes his credit card out to pay for his coffee, but I pull his hand back. “Won’t your parents know where you are if you charge something?”
He continues to hand it over to the barista. “It’s not like they’re going to check my charges.”
I pull his hand back again. “I don’t care. You can’t use it.”
“I’m not letting you pay for everything for me,” Ethan says.
“Yeah, you are.” I attempt to confiscate the credit card, but Ethan pulls it out of my reach.
“Fine. I won’t use it.” He shoves it back in his wallet. “But my parents aren’t going to be checking up on me. I told my mom I’d call if I could but that cell service might suck.”
“You have to let me know if you call home,” I say.
“Why?”
Okay, fine. I’m not his babysitter. But still …
“Knowing will just make me feel better,” I say.
“No promises,” Ethan says.
I don’t push it.
By the time we get back from coffee, Uncle Randall and the driver, Mert, have come to some kind of agreement. I’m guessing much cash was passed to Mert because he has a giant smile on his face and nods incessantly. He grabs all three of our duffle bags and leads us outside and to a black van where he throws our bags into the back and opens the door. Once we’re all set, Mert pulls out onto the streets of downtown Istanbul.