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Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ashley
Two days after we realized Efrica's diary might contain text written in invisible ink, we decide to move in together—at Errol's house, since my rental has virtually no furniture. My boyfriend suggests I can "make the place girlie" if I want. Well, I do love pastel colors. Errol might regret giving me free rein to redecorate his home. But I will not go overboard.
Painting every wall pink isn't going overboard, right?
No, I won't really do that. But my first act as Errol's live-in girlfriend is to buy some pretty vases and some pretty flowers to put inside those vases. When Errol tells me he likes what I've done, I can tell he means it.
We haven't given up on Efrica's diary. Errol has tried various non-destructive methods to bring out any text hidden in the paper, but we haven't found anything yet. Trying to bring out hidden text proves to be a painstaking process that takes hours per page, for the simple reason that Errol refuses to give up until he has studied every millimeter of each page. After watching him toil over eight of the ten blank pages, I suggest maybe we should give up on the diary. Maybe there are no invisible messages hidden on its pages.
"No, I can find it," he insists. "I still have two pages to go. Why don't you go shopping with Ma while I work on this?"
"I'm not leaving you to suffer alone."
"Aye, it's much better that we suffer together."
"That's what being a couple means. We do everything together, even going cross-eyed over medieval books."
I lean my head against his shoulder and gaze down at the antique diary on the desk. We've been studying the diary in his cousin Rory's office, where we can get good light and a flat surface to rest the book on. I've wondered since the first time I saw this diary why Efrica would leave so many blank pages. Since she and her sisters lived in an abandoned castle, they must not have had much money. Wasting paper on blank pages doesn't seem like something they would do.
"What if there is no invisible ink?" I say. "Maybe the blank sheets are there to hide something, like one page that does contain an important message."
"We'll find out soon enough. One page to go."
Errol uses all his techniques for bringing out invisible ink, but he still gets nothing. He sighs and sinks back in his chair.
I'm sitting right beside him in my own chair, so I clasp his hand. "No luck, huh?"
"None at all. If it's not invisible ink, I have no idea what sort of encryption it could be."
"You'll figure it out. Is it possible the encryption isn't on the diary page, but hidden somewhere else?" It's my turn to sink into my chair and sigh. "That's dumb, though. If it's not in the diary, we can't find it."
Errol goes perfectly still. His gaze rolls downward, fixating on the final blank page. "You might be on to something."
"Really? I don't remember saying anything brilliant."
"But you might have done." He picks up the diary and carefully holds the final blank page away from the spine so he can see only the front and back of that sheet. Then he swivels his chair toward the windows on the other side of the room. The sunshine beams into the office—and onto the page. "Do you see unusual patterns in the paper?"
I lean forward to study the page. "Yeah, there does seem to be a faded pattern. Could it be a natural effect of the paper-making process? We did find out the diary is made with medieval linen paper, not parchment."
"No, I doubt it's an artifact of paper production." He walks over to the windows to hold the sheet up to the brighter sunlight. "It's definitely a specific pattern. I'm wondering if the page is one half of an encryption code."
"Did medieval people do stuff like that?"
He gives me a sly smile. "Of course they did, love. Medieval people were just as naughty as we are today."
"So, how do we find the other half of the code?"
Errol stares out the window, his lips compressed and his gaze distant. After a moment, he shuts the book and turns toward me. "Kieran's grave."
"What about that?"
"It's empty. Why would anyone go to the trouble and expense of digging a grave and placing a coffin inside it when no one was buried there?"
"To hide something?"
"Exactly." Errol holds the diary to his chest. "We need to visit Kieran's grave."
