11
Carefully Corey pushed open the door to his grandfather’s bedroom. A classic Papou smell wafted out, sweet and musty. Corey realized the room hadn’t been aired for a long time. Against the far wall was a single bed with a down blanket. The walls were lined with books. Near the front window was a rolltop desk with a stack of newspapers.
He didn’t know the room well. Never had. It was always Papou’s private place. On top of the desk was an empty silver frame. The photo had somehow slipped out of the bottom of the frame and slid onto a pile of papers. Corey flipped it over. What he saw made him grin. In it, Papou was young and dark haired, with a thick mustache and a Greek fisherman’s cap. He was on a sailboat, bare chested and tan, with his arm around a gorgeous young woman with a freckled nose. They both looked as if the photographer had caught them in the middle of a joke.
Corey flipped the photo over and read the blue fountain pen scrawl across the back:
Gus + Maria HONEYMOON
@ LOS CABOS, MEXICO!!!
He’d never seen a photo of his grandmother so young. He tried to slip it back into the slot out of which it had fallen, but the halves of the silver frame separated and fell apart. Something metallic slipped out, tumbling onto the floor.
A key.
Corey scooped it up and put it on the desk. It wasn’t going to do him much good. Papou had given him numbers for a combination lock.
Through the door, he could hear his mom talking on the phone in the kitchen. She didn’t know he was in here, and he didn’t want to have to explain. Quietly, quickly Corey checked around the room for the safe. He had forgotten to ask Papou what it looked like, how big it was. Under the bed he found only slippers and dust bunnies. The dresser drawers contained nothing but clothing. He searched through the papers on the desk and in a file cabinet, then checked behind every piece of framed artwork on the walls. No safe.
Eyeballing the floor for any signs of secret trapdoors, he moved slowly to Papou’s closet. The knob would not move. He yanked on the door anyway, but it was locked tight.
Under the knob was an old-fashioned keyhole.
“Corey!” his mom called from the kitchen. “Can you be ready in fifteen?”
Corey edged to the door, slipped it open, and peeked into the hallway. “Sure, Mom!”
He ducked back in and shut the door. Turning back to the desk, he grabbed the key and shoved it into the closet door keyhole.
It turned easily. With a soft click, the door opened. An automatic light went on inside. The closet was deep, with racks full of hanging clothes on the left and right. On the back wall was a huge framed map of the New York City subway system.
Corey pushed the map to the left. It swung on its hook, revealing a small rectangular door with a combination lock and a handle.
Perfect.
The combination is your birthday and Zenobia’s, Papou had said. 7-25-2-6.
Spinning the dial, he stopped carefully at each number, then pushed down the handle. With a deep click, the door swung open to reveal a small cube padded with gray carpeting. It contained a plastic bag, a small manila envelope, and a spiral notebook.
Corey removed it all and stuffed it into his backpack. He slammed the safe door shut and scooted back to his own room. There, he pulled out the plastic bag and held it up to the lamplight. Inside was a gold-colored coin the size of a quarter but not as heavy. The letters NYC were stamped on it. He took it out, felt it grow warm in his hand, then placed it gently on the desk.
He shivered.
This was his artifact. His portal. The token that would take him to a place no one in his right mind would want to be.
Next he looked at the spiral notebook. On the front, in Papou’s handwriting, were the words MARIA HARVOULAKIS FLETCHER, 9/11/01. His grandmother’s name. Papou’s notes. His attempts at rescue. The pages were graph paper, every inch crammed with handwritten comments and cutout newspaper articles.
Quickly Corey phoned Papou. “So, I have the token. Also your notebook. There’s a manila envelope, too, but I haven’t opened it.”
“Manila envelope?” Papou said. “I’ve forgotten what’s inside that.”
Corey opened it and pulled out a small, worn-out blue booklet. “Looks like a passport,” he said, flipping to the first page. “Dated 1917. Some guy named . . . something Greeky. I can’t pronounce it.”
“Ah, yes—that would be Evanthis Harvoulakis,” Papou said. “He’s your great-great-grandfather, on your grandmother’s side.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Evanthis—like the name Yvonne, and the first part of the word thesis. Rhymes with fleece.”
“Yvonne Theece,” Corey said. “Evanthis.”
“Your grandmother adored him. She loved to take me to Ellis Island, where he came in as an immigrant. We would go to the address where he grew up, the downtown corner where he ran a fruit stand. Both places are gone now, but she has old photos. We would take them with us and try to match them to the location. Funny, I’m the time traveler, but your grandmother—she really felt a connection to the past.” Papou sighed. “Anyway, paithaki, read my notes if you can. I know you never met her, but sometimes a fresh eye is good. At least you’ll get a sense of what she was like. If you can gain any clues to where she went that morning, bravo to you. I wrote out her usual schedule, but I’m not sure it will help.”
“So she wasn’t in your apartment that morning?” Corey asked. “You two were . . . ?”
“We were fighting, Corey,” Papou said. “I can’t even remember why. She was no longer living there with me. I don’t know where she was that morning. Probably with some friend—but she had hundreds of friends. Don’t stay up too late with the notes. Leave the house around six fifteen. The trains will be empty. Take the C to Fulton. Don’t forget the token.”
“What do I do when I get there?” Corey asked. “Just squeeze the token and think of nine-eleven?”
Papou sighed. “It’s not an exact science. But it helps to know where you want to go. In the spiral notebook I think there’s a photo of your grandmother near one of the towers. Take that, too. If you can, go to the same spot as the photo. Block out everything else. Don’t be nervous. It doesn’t work if you’re too nervous. And clutch tightly to that token. Do you need me to come with you? I can, you know. But I won’t be much good. Unfortunately, this will work best if you do it alone.”
“Yeah,” said Corey uncertainly. “Okay.”
“If you don’t get it right, come home. Be sure you have some change in your pocket from now. Metal! Coins! You can always try again another time.”
“I’ll be all right.” Corey smiled. “Hey. I bet she’s awesome.”
“The fig doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Papou said.
“You mean apple,” Corey corrected him.
“I mean fig. There are no apples in Greece.” Papou chuckled. When he spoke again, his voice was thicker and softer. “I love you, Corey. I will be praying. Stay safe.”
Corey’s eyes blinked open at 4:15 a.m.
It was too quiet. He needed the rumble of traffic on Ninety-Fifth Street. The world felt fake without it.
Sliding out of bed, he went to the desk and turned on his lamp. Papou’s notebook stood open. He flipped through the pages and tried to make sense of it.
Most of it was lists: INTERESTS, HOBBIES, FAVORITE RESTAURANTS, CONTACTS, MEMBERSHIPS. There were lots of photos of her, from her childhood all the way up to 2001. Pictures of their honeymoon in Mexico. A photo of her doing a crazy exaggerated ballet pose in front of one of the World Trade Towers.
That last one was the photo Papou wanted him to take. As Corey set it aside, he smiled at the image. She looked taller than Papou. Her hair was thick, dark, and tightly pulled back. In other images, when she let her hair down, it exploded outward like a storm cloud. She had an intense, no-nonsense look but also a huge grin. The last photo was dated August 2001. Her hair was half-gray. She and Papou were with friends in a restaurant, and neither of them looked happy.
That was the last one. After the photos was a section marked DOWNLOADS, where Papou had pasted some printouts from websites. Corey unfolded the first one and read the header:
|
SAINT NICHOLAS 155 Cedar Street, New York, NY (original address) Erected 1832, consecrated as a church 1922, destroyed 2001 in World Trade Tower collapse, rebuilt as a National Shrine. LIST OF ORIGINAL FOUNDERS |
Corey scanned the founders list, which was full of unpronounceable Greek names. But Papou had circled one:
E. HARVOULAKIS, 127 LIBERTY STREET
So old Evanthis—his grandmother’s grandfather—had been one of the people who established the church. That was cool. Your grandmother adored him, Papou had said. We would go to the address where he grew up, the downtown corner where he ran a fruit stand.
At this hour, Papou was asleep. Also, his phone was most likely off. But Corey sent him a text anyway:
was her papou still alive in 2001? would she have gone to his place? or the spot where he lived?
you said she liked to remember him. was there anything special about that day that had anything to do with him? a bday or something? it might be a clue to where she went . . . just saying . . .
He sent the message and glanced at the printout again. Across the bottom of the page was a footer:
JOIN OUR CONGREGATION!
SUNDAY WORSHIP • SUNDAY SCHOOL BAPTISM • NAME DAY • FUNERAL SERVICES
Corey sat bolt upright. He thought about all the great parties he’d had as a kid—parties that made Leila and his other friends jealous. For the Greeks, name days were more important than birthdays. Like February 10, which was the big celebration for anyone with the name Charalambos—which was Corey’s official Greek first name.
What about Evanthis?
Corey quickly did a search on “Evanthis Name Day.” Right away he found a list of Greek Name Days that was enormous, over multiple pages. He clicked on “E” and scrolled down.
When he found what he needed, he had to take a deep, deep breath.
EVANTHIS...................SEPTEMBER 11