“But there had to be a power source,” Sinead insisted in Amy’s ear. “Can you find an outlet anywhere?”
Dan and Amy shined their penlights on the walls close to the floor. Suddenly, Dan caught sight of something. He knelt on the floor. “Whoa. This would be so easy to miss. Did they have USB ports in the Middle Ages?”
“Try it!” Sinead said quickly.
Dan fished in his pack for a cable and hooked up his computer to the USB port. He scanned the drive. Nothing came up. “It’s been wiped.”
“I’m going to hand the phone to Evan – he’ll talk you through it. You might be able to scrape something off it.”
Dan settled with his back against the wall, computer in his lap. As Evan read out a list of codes, he typed them into his computer. The USB icon flashed.
“I think something’s coming through … it’s a file.” Dan clicked on it. “Some kind of report. But it’s only a few sentences.”
“Save it to your hard drive and then e-mail it here.”
Dan read the document as he pressed SAVE. “It won’t save,” he said. “Or send. It’s encrypted somehow. And parts of it are blacked out.”
V-1 report
infiltrated family w/two children. Left MA w/mission complete. Information successfully destroyed. No suspicion from G. Coverup successful. Mother deceased. Children are
“It’s disappearing,” Dan said. “The words are disappearing!”
“It’s an automatic wipe!” Sinead cried. “There could be an alert attached to it. You’d better get out of there.”
Dan flipped over onto his knees to quickly stuff the computer in his backpack. He held his penlight in his mouth. As he zipped the pack, the light wavered on the old stones. He stopped. Someone had carved their initials into the wall.
Amy stood at the door. “Come on, Dan!”
He ran his fingers over the carving.
“Let’s go!”
Dan wrenched himself away.
As he followed Amy’s wavering shadow down the passageway, it seemed to flicker and then fade. And the shadow behind him seemed to grow.
infiltrated family
two children
MA
information successfully destroyed
Mother deceased
no suspicion from G
And the initials seemed to flame and burn inside his brain.
A.J.T.
At the end of a passageway was another door, small with a pointed arch. There was only a sliding iron lock. Amy pushed it back and opened the door. Gray light flooded the passageway. They stepped out into a soft rain and picked their way through the graves.
“Amy,” Dan said, stopping. The smell released by the rain was of dead leaves and cold stone, and he could taste it in his mouth. “Amy …”
His sister turned impatiently. “We have to make the bus… .”
“Amy.” He spoke her name for the third time. Wasn’t that the charm in every fable? Say a name three times? And the parent turns into a witch, a wolf, a beast.
“I saw initials carved there… . A.J.T… . and the report … it proves it.”
“Proves what?
Dan wheeled to face her, anguish twisting his features. “That our father was a Vesper.”
Amy stumbled against the cold stone. She sat down and rested her forehead against the cemetery marker. It was like Dan was hurling stones instead of words.
“There were his initials, right there,” Dan said. “And the date – he was eighteen. In some sort of weird, spooky Vesper hideout!”
“It’s three letters in a certain combination,” Amy said. “A.J.T. It could be Albert John Toboggan. It could be Adam Jeffrey Turquoise. It could be anything!”
“What about the document? Infiltrating a family in Massachusetts? Two children? Information destroyed? What information?”
Amy shook her head violently. “I don’t believe any of this. You shouldn’t, either. We’ve been through this before, Dan! We’ve already been afraid that our parents were the bad guys. We know they weren’t!”
“And what about no suspicion from G? It’s Grace!”
“There’s a G in Jane’s notebook, too.”
“That could be Grace as well. What if Jane was a Vesper?”
“She wasn’t a Vesper!” Amy barked this furiously. She had grown fond of Jane. She refused to believe she could have been part of such a despicable organization.
And her father couldn’t have been, either.
“What if he’s not dead?” Dan asked in a hushed tone. “What if he’s still a Vesper?”
Amy shook her head as the enormous weight of Dan’s words hit her. She swallowed, feeling sick. “No.”
“The fire … he was concealing the evidence!”
“Isabel Kabra set that fire! We know that! And we buried him. They found his body, okay?” Amy was yelling now. “Don’t you think Grace would have checked?”
“Checked what? Fingerprints? He died in a fire. Except maybe he didn’t. Somebody did. How are we supposed to know who it was?”