ANDROMEDA

38

TO SAY THE KEY TEXT revealed everything did not do justice to what occurred.

Once it was in his hand, Benjy did not take long to decipher the code. Using key passages in the book, he found matches in the printed cipher and uncovered a pattern that unraveled the entire thing. In fact, by the time Hetty visited her friends, informed them that Emily was found, and returned to Juniper Street, Benjy and Emily had written out the cipher’s hidden message. It gave them everything they needed to know about the buried treasure along with the most important bit of all: its location.

With Emily balanced precariously on the back of Benjy’s bicycle, they rode to the outskirts of town, the paved streets giving way to packed dirt, and eventually no road at all.

While the treasure was within a bicycle ride, it was far enough away that Benjy first said he would go alone, fearing Hetty would injure herself again.

But she would not consider that for a moment. She wasn’t about to miss the big finale.

Moonlight gave them enough light to ride by, although they didn’t need it. Hetty had brought their lantern with them and had it propped up on her basket to light the road ahead.

As for knowing where to go, Benjy had taken their old compass and charmed it with a spell to point to the coordinates of their destination. A tricky but very convenient bit of spellwork that kept them from having to check a map as they traveled. Although by the time they had gotten deep into the countryside, there was little need for the compass. Hetty could guide the way using the stars.

The cipher mentioned a few markers that would identify the spot. However, as Hetty surveyed the moon-drenched ground, those markers were lost to time. They could be out here until dawn if they weren’t careful.

“Is there anything else in the cipher?” Hetty asked as Benjy took the shovel from Emily. “Something else that could keep us from digging holes everywhere?”

“There isn’t. But there are other ways to search for these things.” Benjy swung the shovel up onto his shoulder. “Just set up some boundary spells, things that can be moved if needed.”

“He doesn’t know where it is, does he?” Emily whispered to Hetty.

“I think he has a glimmer of an idea.” Hetty picked up the lantern from the basket on her bicycle. She tapped her fingers along it, drawing up familiar star sigils, to guard and protect from the ghouls that lived in this neck of the woods. Her spells flew up around them as they headed for the trees, glimmers of starlight as they passed.

“What sort of magic is this?” Emily asked.

“A warning spell. It lets us know if the boundary is breached.”

“What about spells that come from inside?” Emily asked.

Hetty tilted her head in Emily’s direction. The lantern revealed only part of the girl’s expression, which looked like worry, and not because Benjy’s method of searching was going to keep them out here until dawn.

“What do you mean?”

“Well”—Emily tapped her foot against the ground—“my mother told me stories about this. She said there might be magic left behind to stop people from digging the treasure up. A spell to keep you lost.”

“Such a spell might have faded in time,” Hetty said. “Magic fades with the caster’s death, no matter what type. Everyone involved in that night is dead.”

“But there was a charm involved,” Emily protested.

Across from them, Benjy walked in a tight circle, stopping every few steps to tap the shovel against the ground. Instead of digging, he picked the shovel up, walked away, shook his head, and then walked back to the same spot. He repeated this several times.

“What sort of charm?” Hetty asked.

“A stone carved with a spell that was dropped in the treasure chest when Clarke wasn’t looking. My grandfather never wanted Clarke to find the treasure. At least, that was in the story my mother told me.”

“Such stories tend to be true,” Hetty replied. “What else did she tell you?”

“That this was a gift from Grandfather.” Emily pulled out a necklace with a smooth stone, which gleamed in the night. Perhaps it was the light of the lantern, but Hetty suspected something else at play. There was a simple line cut into the stone that looked like it could be Canis Minor.

Could this necklace be the reason why Sarah was pursued all those years ago? For a necklace that negated the magic that still protected the chest? Charmed to work only for the wielder? Did Eudora know about it?

“Let’s take a walk, shall we?” Hetty suggested. “Keep an eye on that necklace.”

With Emily at her side, Hetty walked right to the spot where Benjy had left and returned to several times already. They hadn’t stood at the spot for more than a moment before the little glimmer of light on the necklace brightened to rival the lantern in Hetty’s hand.

“I suppose you’re right,” Hetty called cheerfully to Benjy, who had swung back around by then. “There are other ways to search for these things. But they’re hard to do when magic is making things tricky.”

“What’s this? A charm made by Alvin Jacobs?” Benjy grunted. He strode back next to them, but instead of looking at the necklace, tapped the shovel against the ground.

He hit the ground a few more times, then dragged the tip of the shovel across it.

“You need to start digging before it’s too late,” Hetty remarked.

Benjy tapped the ground again. “Do you want to help?”

Hetty had no plans to dig even the tiniest of shovelfuls, and was ready to say so in great detail when Emily spoke up:

“I’ll help. You won’t be able to find it without me.”

“That seems to be the direction of things,” Benjy said. “We’ll trade off.”

Hetty supposed Benjy could have taken the necklace from the girl and dug the whole thing up himself. But Emily clearly wanted to help—and they wouldn’t have found it as easily without her. So they switched off, Benjy handing the shovel over to Emily every so often, although by Hetty’s count, he did most of the work anyway.

As they worked, Hetty maintained the spells that cloaked them from the notice of any troublemaker who might be around at this time of night. When Emily was resting on the ground after finishing her turn of digging, Hetty asked for a fuller account of the girl’s travels to Philadelphia and why Emily sought them out in the first place.

“I can’t believe you remembered us,” Hetty said. “You were a little girl. I didn’t think you would.”

“How could I not remember? You swooped in on an air balloon and brought me to my mother. I thought I would never see her again. I’ll always remember that. She died last winter.” Emily paused as if expecting Hetty to offer a token apology.

When Hetty said nothing, Emily continued. “She got sick, and there was nothing the healer could do about it. I wanted to go to school to study medicine, but that costs money. If I didn’t have to take care of my sister I would have done it, but because I have to look after Lizzie, I got a job cleaning houses. The sapphires would have gotten us out of the boardinghouse. It’s the only reason I responded to Mr. Duval’s letter. Is that selfish?”

“No, it’s yours, in a way,” Hetty said. “Your inheritance.”

“How?”

She was genuinely curious, and for once Hetty didn’t have the words to explain.

“Your mother could have given up the information to the people who’d caused her so much trouble.” Benjy stood in the hole, leaning against the shovel as he paused his digging. “Instead, she kept that secret and passed it on to you. It’s yours. We only ever wanted to find it because it’s a puzzle. If you hadn’t shown up, we were going to donate the treasure.”

Hetty coughed, choking back her less than charitable reply.

Benjy tapped the shovel against the ground and something hollow rang in the air. “I think this is it!”

It took a few more jabs of the shovel and a mighty tug, but Benjy wrenched a wooden chest out of the ground. He lifted it out of the hole and dropped it at Hetty’s feet. Slightly rounded and the size of a traveling suitcase, it reminded her of a tale of a pirate who kept a heart hidden inside along with other precious things.

“Hold this.” Hetty handed the lantern to Emily.

Hetty knelt down to the chest. It smelled strongly of the earth that remained packed along the grooves on the sides of the box.

She traced her fingers along them, expecting a stir of magic to rise up. But if there ever was magic, it was long gone.

“Bring the light closer,” Hetty directed Emily. “Keep it overhead.”

As the lantern swung closer, Hetty spotted the lock.

She twisted it, but it didn’t budge.

“Can you break the lock on this?” Hetty called to her husband.

Benjy pulled himself out of the hole and knelt down to look at it. “That would only risk ruining the chest.”

He lifted up the lock and then let it fall without touching it more. “Emily, your mother didn’t happen to give you a key, did she?”

“No, and I don’t think this necklace turns into one, either,” Emily replied cheekily.

“Now don’t be rude,” Benjy remarked absently as he continued to study the chest. “I’m just checking to make sure no curses will jump out at us.”

“It won’t.” Hetty tapped her choker, and the magic in her stitches spooled into her palm like spun gold. “I won’t let it.”

Benjy chuckled as he reached for her. Hetty smelled the earth as his hand caressed her cheek. “No, you wouldn’t.”

He plucked from her hair one of her pins, managing to find one she didn’t care about. He bent it and used it to pick the lock, twisting it around until there was a click.

When Benjy opened the lid, nothing happened. No smoke, no light, not even dust drifted up.

Hetty lowered her hand, letting some of her protective spells fade as Benjy reached inside.

Still standing above them, Emily lowered the lantern even more without being asked.

Lantern light revealed the small bulging bag in his hand. The bag’s contents clicked together when he tipped it over, and sapphires of many different sizes spilled out into his palm.

The treasure that had engrossed the city, that caused the deaths of several people and disrupted so many other lives, was real.

And it was in their hands.

“Stars,” Emily whispered. “What are we going to do now?”

Hetty looked up at the girl and then back down at the piles of gemstones in Benjy’s hand, Eudora Mason’s threats loud in her ears.

“I think,” Hetty said, “I have a few ideas . . .”