“So do I apologize first? Or explain first? Or grovel?” As Rachel opened the door, Brewster bounded up, tongue out, to greet her and Joon. Despite how nervous she felt, she laughed at Brewster’s enthusiasm as she petted his neck. “Or do I feed the dog first?”
Clearly Brewster liked that idea. And so did Joon. “Snacks before we’re both grounded forever?” he asked hopefully.
She got out the pretzels for Joon and a handful of biscuits for Brewster. At the sight of the biscuits, Brewster wagged his tail so hard that he thwapped the cabinet like it was a drum. Joon, she thought, would have wagged his tail for food too, if he’d had one. She poured lemonade for herself and Joon and, after a second’s thought, a glass for Dave.
“Where’s Dave?” Joon asked as he stuffed pretzels in his mouth.
Rachel checked out the window over the sink. Dave was outside on the back patio, with a giant bag of seed next to him. “Filling up the bird feeders again. He loves birds. And burgers. And my mom.” She had until his task was done to figure out what she was going to say.
“You’re really okay with them getting married?” Joon asked.
“Yeah,” Rachel said, watching him shoo away a squirrel. Most of the birdseed always got eaten by the squirrels, despite how many squirrel-proof feeders Dave tried. Mom said that with each bird feeder, he was just training the squirrels to be smarter. He said if they got smart enough, he’d start a squirrel circus. “I mean, I hate that they didn’t tell me about it when they got engaged. It makes me feel like they don’t think it’s going to affect me, and it will. I’m getting a real stepdad. That’s a big change, even if things won’t really change.”
Joon gazed at his lemonade glumly. “I hate change.”
Rachel hesitated. Her mom marrying Dave was a good change. Joon moving far away when he didn’t want to . . . wasn’t. She wanted to say something to make him feel better, but she didn’t know how.
The screen door squeaked as it swung open. “Rachel! Joon! Back from your epic adventure?” He dropped the bag of birdseed on the floor next to the fridge, and Brewster trotted over to him. “Aw, boy, did no one give you treats?” He grabbed a handful of biscuits and gave them to Brewster, who acted as if he was starving.
“Dave, uh . . .” Rachel felt her voice squeak. “Want some lemonade? I poured you some.” She gestured at the glass as if it were a masterpiece.
His eyebrows squished together as he frowned. “Sure? Thanks?”
“So . . . How are the birds?”
Joon rolled his eyes. “Rachel. Just ask him. Or tell him. Or both.”
Dave sat at the kitchen table and took his glass of lemonade. “Ask or tell me what?”
Rachel shot Joon a look. She’d been warming up to it. She didn’t want to ruin everything by blurting it out the wrong way.
On the other hand, maybe if she said it fast, then he’d just skip over the bad parts.
In a single breath, Rachel said, “We became spies because we wanted to know what was going on with our lives, and we accidentally but actually on purpose overheard you planning to give me a family ring that you said belonged to Anna Smith Strong. And we got excited because, hey, maybe she left a clue to a treasure hunt. And we followed the clues and found a bullet and a key, and then we went to a museum, which made us think that we should ask you if any of your relatives have the family Bible that belonged to Nancy’s family and, if so, could they turn to the Corinthians—”
“Colossians,” Joon corrected.
“Colossians, and check if there’s a message in invisible ink?” She sucked in a breath and then exhaled. She’d pretty much covered all of it there.
He blinked at them.
“Also, I’m really sorry, and would you please help us?” She widened her eyes and hoped like she looked like an innocent, adorable cartoon character that no one could say no to.
Dave folded his hands together and leaned forward. “I think you two better tell me what’s going on. Slowly this time.”
Mom entered the kitchen. “And tell me as well.” She fixed Joon with a look. “Your parents called. Apparently you didn’t respond to your texts?” She switched her glare to Rachel. “You know that’s a condition of going off on your bike rides. You both need to answer texts from your parents the second you see them. We need to be able to reach you and know you’re okay.”
Rachel looked at Joon. He nodded.
She took a deep breath.
And she told them both everything, from start to finish.
When Rachel finished, Mom held out her hand. “I’d like your future present back, please.”
Rachel dug into her pocket and pulled out the velvet box. She dropped it into Mom’s hand and tried to read in her face what she was thinking and feeling.
Opening the box, Mom examined the ring. “I can’t decide whether I’m angry or impressed.”
At least impressed was an option. “I’m sorry for taking it without asking.”
Mom turned to Dave. “Did you encourage them with this?”
“No,” Dave said. “But learning about an important piece of history, that’s honestly pretty great. Not many people know about the Culpers and what they did for our country.”
“Because they were spies,” Joon said. “They were supposed to be secretive.”
“Exactly,” Dave said. “But what the Culper Spy Ring did mattered.”
Rachel spoke up. “And what we’re doing matters too. Maybe we aren’t saving a fleet or starting a nation, but it matters to me.” Somewhere along the way, finishing Nancy’s puzzle had become important—she needed to do it, not just for Joon or for herself, but for Nancy.
Mom sighed. “Rachel . . .”
Rachel sank lower in her chair. “I know, but—”
“She was doing it for me,” Joon said. “At first, because I wanted a distraction. But then . . . it became more. It became real.”
Sitting up straighter, Rachel nodded. That was exactly it. She hadn’t known that Joon felt the same way, but when she thought of the pile of books he’d slogged through and the texts he’d ignored to keep looking for clues, she realized that of course he did. She smiled at him, then turned to her stepdad-to-be. “Please, Dave, we can’t solve this without you.”
Dave glanced at Mom like a hopeful puppy. He clearly wanted to help, and Rachel liked him all the better for that. But he was also letting Mom have the final say—and she liked him for that too.
Looking from face to face, Mom gave a tiny nod.
“What do you need me to do?” Dave asked.
It took multiple phone calls before Dave was able to track down the family member who had inherited the Strong family Bible. It was owned by one of his aunts, who got so excited when Dave explained that she nearly started to cry—she loved Nancy’s story too.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so afraid to tell people what we were really doing, Rachel thought. “I first heard Nancy’s story directly from Kate Wheeler Strong, her great-great granddaughter,” Aunt Rose said, loud enough for Rachel to hear through the phone from across the kitchen. “She liked to tell stories about local history to the neighborhood kids. She’d serve strawberry shortcake and tell us about how George Washington visited Roe Tavern in Setauket to thank the Culpers, after the war. Nancy’s husband, Selah, was the one who led Washington’s carriage to Roe Tavern. It was supposed to have been Austin Roe himself, but he was so excited to meet George Washington that he fell off his horse and broke his leg.”
Rachel and Joon exchanged glances and then both laughed. It was so easy to picture that happening. Rachel thought of the time Joon had fallen out of the crab apple tree.
“You have to tell the stories, Kate always said. It’s important to tell the stories, especially the stories of the unsung heroes.”
“Did you find the Bible?” Dave asked her.
“Yes, I’m getting it out now,” Aunt Rose said. “Patience.”
Dave gave them all a thumbs-up, and Rachel and Joon cheered.
“Can you go to Colossians one sixteen?” he asked.
“Patience, patience.”
While he’d been chasing down the family heirloom, Rachel, Joon, and Mom had been researching invisible ink, using multiple laptops and more than a few library books spread across the kitchen table. Mom had made a special trip for the books while Dave was on the phone with a series of cousins.
“They called it a ‘sympathetic stain,’” Rachel said, pointing to the phrase in one of the books.
Joon googled on Mom’s laptop while Mom checked in the index of a library book. “Lots of people call it that, not just the Culpers,” Joon informed them. “And there are all kind of invisible inks. You can use lemon juice or honey or vinegar—and then you can see it by heating up the page.”
“But George Washington didn’t think that was good enough,” Mom said as she read. “Everyone knew about those kinds of invisible inks and how to expose them—”
“I didn’t know,” Rachel said.
“It was well-known then,” Mom said, “at least by certain people.”
“With some inks, you can also use ultraviolet light, like a black light,” Joon threw in. He’d looked up invisible ink and was hopping from website to website.
Rachel said, “I don’t think Anna Smith Strong would have had access to UV light.”
Mom continued to read. “James Jay, the brother of John Jay—”
“Who’s John Jay?” Joon asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Rachel said. “He wasn’t a Culper.”
Dave put his hand over the phone and said to them, “He was the coauthor of the Federalist Papers, along with Alexander Hamilton, and also the first judge of the US Supreme Court.” Then he uncovered the phone. “Yes, Colossians one sixteen.”
“James Jay,” Mom said as she skimmed a paragraph, “was an amateur chemist who invented a new kind of invisible ink that required a second chemical, rather than heat, in order to be read. Washington wanted to make sure no one could read the Culper letters.”
Rachel thought of the Culper letter they’d seen in the Long Island Museum and what it had said. “But they didn’t have much of the chemical. So they had to conserve it.”
Mom looked up from the book. “How do you know that?”
“Learned it on the hunt for treasure,” Rachel said with a grin. She described what they’d read in the Culper letter. She typed “James Jay” and “invisible ink” into Google on her laptop. Reading his Wikipedia entry, she said, “He never wrote down his recipe.”
Joon peered over her shoulder. “So how do we read Nancy’s note?”
“We don’t know that she used their special ink,” Rachel said. “She wasn’t writing any letters to Washington herself, so there wouldn’t be any reason for her to have a supply. But she could have known that Woodhull used invisible ink.”
Joon nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, she could have done it the simpler, old-fashioned way. Lemon or lime juice. Or baking soda and water.”
“Citrus doesn’t grow on Long Island.” Mom borrowed her laptop back, typed, and then skim-read. “Baking soda wasn’t discovered until 1790 and wasn’t produced until the 1860s . . .”
“Honey and water?” Joon suggested.
Dave chimed in. “People used honey at least as far back as ancient Egypt. They’ve found it inside tombs.” Then he said into the phone, “Sorry. Go on.”
Mom typed again. “He’s right. It says here that the first record of beekeeping was in ancient Egypt, circa thirty-five hundred BCE. And limes would have been imported, to prevent scurvy. So I take back what I said before—even though citrus doesn’t grow here, she could have used either.”
Rachel searched on her computer for how to reveal invisible ink. “Limes or honey—it would be revealed by heat.” To Dave, she said, “Tell Aunt Rose to heat up the page.”
He held up one finger. “Yes, yes, that’s it!”
A pause.
“Aunt Rose, what we need you to do is heat the page.”
Another pause. Rachel thought she heard Aunt Rose shriek that she wasn’t going to set a Bible on fire, and what was he thinking suggesting that she cook a family heirloom?
“Just . . .” He put his hand over the phone. “Anything on how she heats it up safely? It is a family heirloom, and none of us are archivists.”
Over Rachel’s shoulder, Joon read out loud, “‘Don’t use a lighter or open flame. You’ll risk setting it on fire. Instead wave the paper over a hot stove. Or use an iron or a hair dryer.’”
Dave relayed these instructions. He reported back, “She’s not going near the stove with it, and her iron spits out water. But she does have a hair dryer. She’s getting it.”
This should work, Rachel thought. If we’re right.
He listened again and then smiled. “She wants me to know that if this works, I’ll be her favorite nephew.”
Joon twisted in his chair to see Dave. “Is she using the hair dryer yet? Is it working?”
He nodded. “She’s plugging it in. It’ll probably take a few minutes to heat up. . . .”
The wait was the hardest part. Rachel listened to the clock over the sink tick, the refrigerator hum, and Brewster lap at the water in his dish. She glanced over at Mom, who had helped them with researching, even though she had to be unhappy that Rachel had taken the ring without permission. She tried to think of something to say that would help make that okay. “You know, Brewster could be your ring bearer. I could help him walk down the aisle, if you wanted.”
Mom’s eyes widened a bit, and Rachel wondered what she’d said that was so surprising. She thought it was a nice idea. Lots of people probably had pets in their weddings. “Rachel, are you interested in helping with wedding planning?”
Not really, especially when it came to deciding the color of napkins and the number of spoons, but . . . Rachel gazed at the books and snacks and laptops strewn across the table. She didn’t know exactly how to say what she wanted to say. “I just . . . Thank you. For this. For helping. Just . . . thank you.” She glanced at her mother.
Mom smiled and reached across the table to squeeze her nearest hand. “It matters to you, so it matters to me.”
Rachel smiled and squeezed Mom’s hand back, her eyes suddenly moist. She looked down at the table, then lifted her eyes to her mother’s face again. Taking a depth breath, she said, “If what matters to me matters to you, why did you wait three days to tell me you were getting married?”
Startled, Mom blinked at her. “We didn’t . . . Oh. We did. We just . . . I wanted to tell you on the weekend, over dinner, when we were all together. Things were busy, and I thought . . . It’s paperwork and a party. I didn’t realize you’d want . . .” She shook her head and squeezed Rachel’s hand again. “Never mind the excuses. Sweetie, I’m sorry. You’re right. We should have told you immediately.”
“It’s more than paperwork and a party,” Rachel said.
“Yes, of course. I know it is.” Mom lowered her voice so it wouldn’t carry across the kitchen to Dave. “Are you . . . are you all right with this? You and Dave always seem to get along so well, plus he lives here already, so I thought . . . But I should have asked instead of assuming everything was fine. We should have talked about it more.”
“Absolutely okay. I just want to be part of it . . . not an afterthought.” Mom winced at the last word, and Rachel added quickly, “I don’t need to be part of choosing the napkins. I don’t care if they’re pink or white or purple polka dot or whatever.”
Mom smiled. “Me neither. But, Rachel, I’m really sorry for not telling you sooner.”
“It’s okay.” And it was. Mom understood. She’d listened.
“I’ll do better, and I hope you’ll do the same—no more withholding information when something important comes along. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Rachel added, “I’m sorry too.”
Mom’s smile widened. “You know, if you want to be involved in any non-napkin planning, we’d love that. You can be involved as much or as little as you want.”
“Um, that’s—”
Dave held up his hand. “Yes,” he said into the phone.
All of them stared at him. Rachel held her breath.
“Yes?”
Joon reached over and grabbed Rachel’s other hand. Rachel squeezed back. If this didn’t work . . . She didn’t have another idea. It had to work. The verse had said the word “invisible,” and it indicated a particular verse. The clue made sense.
“Thank you, Aunt Rose,” Dave said. “Thank you very much. Yes, absolutely. We’ll tell you what we find. . . . And we can serve strawberry shortcake at the wedding.” He glanced at Mom, who shrugged. He then hung up the phone.
Rachel expelled her breath in a huff. “Well?”
“It said ‘Find me on high.’”