The Falcon's Feather Read online

  “Now for your reward.” Taryn reached for her yarn basket. “Team Cousteau, please step forward and hold out your hands.”

  Standing between Emmett and Bryndis, Cruz cupped one hand in the other. His imagination was already considering the prize possibilities. Maybe they’d get bones from a newly discovered dinosaur or a talking plant from the Amazon rain forest or rocks from Mars! As Taryn came down the row, his heart began to thump faster.

  “What is it? What did you get?” the explorers behind them kept asking.

  Cruz felt something fall into his palm. As Taryn stepped away, he glanced down. He was holding a purple capsule, like the oblong gel caps that contain cold medicine. This pill was twice as big as a normal capsule. Cruz hoped he wasn’t supposed to swallow it. He’d never get this down his throat!

  “Well?” pressed Ali from behind them.

  “It’s a spherocylinder,” announced Emmett.

  “Huh?”

  “A capsule.” Emmett held it up between his thumb and index finger.

  Ali’s smile faded. He wasn’t the only one. Cruz rolled the sphere around his palm with a fingertip. Of all of the incredible things he’d pictured they might get, this was not among, oh, the top million.

  “It looks like my allergy medicine.” Dugan was poking at his.

  “Don’t eat it,” warned Taryn. “That’s not what it’s for. Each of you holds a time capsule, a computerized device that can hold a memory—literally. It’s easy to use. Place it in your palm and make a tight fist. When you feel the capsule shake, think of something, someone, or someplace you want to remember. The capsule captures the recollection so that you, or anyone you choose to give it to, can relive your moment in time.”

  Twenty-three explorers stared at her in awe. Cruz glanced at his capsule. Taryn had to be joking. It hardly seemed possible that something so ordinary could do something so extraordinary. Cruz could tell Emmett was skeptical, too. He’d raised his arm so his nose was up against his wrist and was studying the oblong device from every angle.

  Taryn smiled. “Not a bad prize, huh?”

  Once they realized she wasn’t kidding, an excited buzz swept through the cabin.

  “Right now, as you hold it, the capsule is syncing up with your own personal bioelectromagnetic signatures,” explained Taryn. “Let me show you how it works.” Picking up a capsule, she closed her hand around it. Taryn shut her eyes. Thirty seconds later, she opened her eyes and her palm. The purple spherocylinder was glowing!

  Everyone gasped.

  Taryn took Cruz’s right hand, put the capsule in it, and wrapped his fingers around it. “Close your eyes.”

  Cruz did as she instructed. In his mind, he saw a flash of white, like one of those starburst firecrackers that explodes on the Fourth of July. As the flare vanished, he saw himself coming through the front door of the Academy. He was with Aunt Marisol and Sailor. He had his suitcase. So did Sailor. It was his first day! The scene was familiar yet also different. He was watching everything from a distance. Cruz saw himself roll his suitcase through the lobby and get in line to check in. It was strange, not to mention a bit creepy, until Cruz remembered, this was Taryn’s memory, not his. It was how she saw him from behind the front desk on that day back in September.

  “Where are you?” Taryn whispered into his ear.

  “Back at school in D.C.” Everything unfolded as he remembered it, though from a new perspective. “It’s my first day. I’m waiting in line to check in…Oh, there’s Dugan…Oh, yeah, he’s bragging about winning the North Star award…Now it’s my turn to check in. I’m petting Hubbard, and now I’m talking to you. I look scared!”

  He heard laughter.

  “Open your eyes.”

  Cruz’s eyelids fluttered. The other explorers were looking at him, transfixed. They were waiting for him to say something. “It wasn’t like a dream,” he struggled to try to explain the experience. “It felt real, like I was living it all over again.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Taryn. She turned to the rest of Team Cousteau. “Questions?”

  “Can we only use them once?” asked Bryndis.

  “You may use your time capsule as often as you like, but it will only hold one memory at a time. Also, other people can view it, but only you can change it. It should last…well, as long as you do.”

  “Thanks, Taryn.” Cruz held his fist against his heart. “This is the best prize I’ve ever won.”

  The rest of the team agreed.

  “You’re most welcome.” Clasping her hands in front of her, Taryn bowed. “And now I pronounce Funday officially complete. If you’ll all scoot, I’d like to finish my knitting in peace. Besides, I’m sure you have homework.”

  While he waited for the cabin to clear, Cruz knelt to pet Hubbard. He couldn’t wait to call Lani and show her his time capsule. Like Emmett, she was always tinkering with technology. She would love this! On second thought, maybe he shouldn’t. After her reaction to his news about learning to pilot Ridley, it would be one more thing he got that she didn’t. Still, if he didn’t tell her, she’d be upset when she found out, and he couldn’t keep something like this a secret. Could he?

  Things with his best friend were getting…challenging. Next to his dad and Aunt Marisol, Lani was the most important person in his life, but she was there, in Hawaii, and he was here, on Orion. The distance between them was growing, and it involved more than miles. When Cruz had left for the Academy, he’d known his life was going to change, but he’d had no idea how much. Or how fast. Cruz didn’t want to lose Lani, but he also didn’t want to hurt her. There had to be a way to include his best friend without making her feel like she was missing out. He just had no clue how.

  Emmett was bumping his fist lightly against Cruz’s shoulder. “Library?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They needed to see if they could determine if the image from his mom’s journal was, in fact, a place. Cruz gave Hubbard one last scratch before leaving Taryn’s cabin. Now, with nothing at stake, the pair could take their time going up three decks. Fortunately, when they walked into the ship’s library, the place was practically deserted. There was only one other person there besides Dr. Holland: Chef Kristos, reading in the corner. Upon second glance, Cruz realized that, behind his book, Chef’s eyes were closed.

  As they headed to the same map table they’d used during Taryn’s scavenger hunt, Cruz whispered to Emmett, “Shouldn’t he be fixing dinner?”

  “Must be his day off. If it isn’t, it looks like we’ll be making our own PB and Js.”

  At the map table, Cruz tapped his tablet screen to bring up the file of his drawing. Emmett scrolled the map to the southernmost point of Norway.

  “I’ll take the east side of the country. You take the west. We’ll work our way north.” Cruz placed his tablet between them, and the pair began their search.

  An hour later, they were still looking.

  “Norway must have a million islands.” Cruz rubbed his screen-weary eyes.

  Emmett took off his glasses to do the same. “And an endless coastline.”

  “Second longest in the world,” added a new voice.

  Cruz jumped. “Uh…hi, Bryndis.”

  “Only Canada has more kilometers of coast than Norway,” explained Bryndis. “What are you guys doing? Did I miss a geography assignment?”

  “Nope.” Cruz began walking his fingers across the map toward his tablet. The drawing was in plain sight. All Bryndis had to do was lean over a bit and look down. “Um…we heard a rumor that we might be sailing to Norway, so we thought we’d take a look first…”

  She sighed. “Norway’s beautiful. Oslo has a great Viking ship museum.”

  Cruz casually rested his hand on his tablet screen. “Can’t say for sure.”

  “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. Bless.” She turned away.

&n
bsp; Bless was Icelandic for “goodbye.”

  Whew! That was close. Cruz drew the back of his hand across his forehead to signal as much to Emmett. His roommate’s eyebrows bounced a few times behind dark purple, oval frames.

  “I don’t mean to intrude, but”—Bryndis twirled back—“if you’re looking for Spitsbergen, you’re not going to find it there.”

  Cruz slapped his palm back onto his tablet. “Huh?”

  “Spitsbergen.” Her lips slid up one cheek. “That is what you’re hiding, isn’t it?”

  “Hide? Us?” Emmett tried to toss off a light laugh. It didn’t work.

  Caught, Cruz took his hand away. He was trying to figure out a way to tell her without telling her, when she said, “Ohhh, I get it.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s another puzzle map, right?”

  “Uh…yeah,” sputtered Cruz. “Taryn gave it to us. What did you say it was?”

  “Spitsbergen.” She hurried around the table. Emmett scooted closer to Cruz to give her room. Bryndis scrolled the map well north of Norway to a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean. She zoomed in. “It’s the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago. See?”

  The moment Bryndis straightened, Cruz’s heart nearly stopped. By now, he knew every corner, curve, and cranny of the image from his mom’s journal. There was no doubt in his mind that this island was what they had been looking for!

  Bryndis bent over Cruz’s tablet. “It was these two inlets, Van Mijenfjorden and Van Keulenfjorden, that helped me identify it. When I see them together, they always remind me of an alligator’s open jaws.”

  “So you’ve been there?” wondered Cruz.

  “Já. A couple of years ago, I went with my family during the summer. We flew to Longyearbyen.” She pointed to the map. “We took a boat tour around the island and saw a pod of orcas. It was pretty great. My brother wanted to take a tour of the seed vault, but they won’t let you go inside unless you have a deposit. It’s like a real bank…Well, I guess it is a real bank, except instead of being full of money it’s full of seeds.”

  “That’s right.” Emmett’s eyes widened. “The Svalbard Global Seed Vault.”

  “It’s nicknamed the Doomsday Vault,” said Bryndis. “Norway built it so we’d have a backup supply of seeds in case a disaster ever wipes out our food supply. Countries from all over the world send samples of their seeds there for safekeeping. Of course, it’s not the only seed vault in the world. There are many others, but I think this one is pretty cool.”

  “Seeds.” Emmett gulped. “Did you hear that, Cruz?”

  “I think I remember seeing something about it on the news,” said Cruz. “Didn’t some countries in the Middle East make withdrawals?”

  Bryndis nodded. “That’s right. Syria was the first, I think. A research center stored grain seeds there during their drought and civil war.”

  “Seeds, Cruz, seeds,” hissed Emmett.

  Cruz gave his friend a puzzled look. Why did Emmett keep saying that?

  “The vault is built into the side of a mountain, at the site of an old coal mine,” said Bryndis. “A Norwegian artist created artwork for the entrance with reflective triangles and lights. At night, the vault glows. To me, it looks like they captured a thousand stars and put them in a box made of turquoise glass. You can see it for kilometers…”

  Emmett was poking Cruz in the side. “Seeds.”

  “I know!” He was starting to get annoyed.

  “Don’t you get it?”

  “What?”

  “Seeds are the smallest specks.”

  Cruz snapped his head around so fast his neck popped. It was the clue from his mother’s journal: “Seek the smallest speck, for it nurtures Earth’s greatest hope.” Seeds! That was the answer. She was telling him to go to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. That’s where she’d hidden the second piece of the cipher!

  “…but if Taryn gave you that map, it has to be true,” Bryndis was saying. “We must be going to Svalbard.”

  With a knowing glance to Emmett, Cruz gave her a nod. His heart was racing. “Must be.”

  “Some people say it’s too cold and rugged, you know, too wild, but that’s why I like it,” said Bryndis. “The mountains and glaciers and tundra—and all the animals: the orcas, arctic foxes, and polar bears. It’s nature, pure and beautiful.” She smiled, her palest of pale blue eyes meeting Cruz’s. “I think you’d like it, too.”

  He already did.

  THE GLARE of the early morning sun off the water was giving Thorne Prescott a headache. He was alone on Hastings Pier but for a few noisy seagulls circling. Walking across the planks of the football-field-size boardwalk, he readjusted his phone’s earpiece. “Zebra, what do you mean there’s no journal?”

  “We’ve searched everywhere. It’s not here.”

  Prescott turned from the lapis blue waters of the English Channel. “What about Jaguar?”

  He had a feeling they would get their most reliable intel from their youngest spy.

  “Working on it, but nothing so far.”

  Prescott raked a hand through his hair. The journal wasn’t at the aunt’s house or the Academy. Nebula’s spies had searched the school.

  “It is possible there never was any journal,” said Zebra.

  Prescott was starting to wonder the same thing.

  “Meerkat lied to us,” added Zebra. “Or stole it himself.”

  Prescott glanced up at the stark white hotel at the head of the pier, its blue-and-white-striped awnings billowing in the sea breeze. “There’s only one way to know for sure.”

  “I could have Mongoose take care of the kid. If he’s hidden the journal, it’ll stay hidden.”

  “No!” Hezekiah Brume had said no loose ends, and right now there were far too many of them. A young couple was coming toward him. Moving to the rail, Prescott held up his cell phone and pretended to be a tourist. He took photos until they were out of earshot. “Zebra, confirm, once and for all, if the journal exists,” he growled into the phone, his temper starting to simmer. “If it does, destroy it. Once that’s taken care of, then you can finish the job.” Prescott hung up, his head pounding. It should not be this difficult to outwit a 12-year-old. He walked briskly back toward the shore, tapping his screen.

  “Hello, Cobra.” A husky female voice, polished with an English accent, tickled his ear.

  “Swan, I need access to room five-two-seven of the Conqueror Lodge in two minutes.”

  “Certainly,” said the woman, who sounded an awful lot like Oona, Brume’s assistant.

  Carefully slipping his phone into his coat pocket, Prescott crossed right in front of the hotel. He trotted up the steps, scuffing his unspoiled cowboy boots on the mat. To avoid camera surveillance, he zigzagged through the hallways of the seaside resort. Taking the stairs up to the fifth floor, he pressed his thumb on the pad that read “five-two-seven” and waited for the green light. Easing the door ajar, he put one hand on the weapon in his chest pocket. Prescott moved slowly at first, his eye behind the gun barrel, then charged into the room. “Freeze, Rook!” You’ve got five seconds to—”

  Luckily, the made bed was empty. The white comforter was yanked taut under four plump pillows. A tray of mints lie on top, indicating no one had slept there last night. Prescott tip-toed silently over to the bathroom and kicked open the door. Also empty. If Rook had been there at all, he left hours ago. Prescott sat on the narrow edge of the bed. Dropping his head, he slid his index finger down the ridge of his forehead, trying to push away the permanent ache. He could always take care of Rook later. After all, Prescott was never truly convinced the librarian had the journal anyway. He gripped the end of his pistol and tucked it safely in his pocket. With everything he knew about Cruz, there was only one other place he really could think to look. Prescott reached for his phone.

  “Hello, Cob
ra.”

  “Swan, I need a plane ticket to Kauai.”

  “A first-class ticket from London to Kauai will be waiting for you at Gatwick Airport. Departure is at two thirty p.m. today.” Funny. It was almost as if she had known what he was going to request. “Have a good flight.” Swan hung up.

  Before leaving room 527 of the Conqueror Lodge, Prescott made one last call.

  “What now?” hissed the voice on the other end. Prescott heard a series of beeps in the background, as if someone was backing up a forklift. “I can’t talk.”

  “Everything I said earlier about the journal? Forget it.”

  “You mean…?”

  “Get rid of the kid.”

  “YOU DID IT!” cried Lani. “You solved the mystery!”

  “We solved the mystery,” corrected Cruz, holding up his tablet so its built-in camera could include his roommate in the shot. “I may have zeroed in on the map, but Bryndis clued us in about Svalbard, and then Emmett made the link between Mom’s clue and the seed vault.”

  Emmett looked up from the Lumagine calculations on his desktop computer and waved. “Team Cousteau rules!”

  “Wait!” Lani frowned. “You mean, Bryndis knows…?”

  “Not about the cipher,” Cruz assured her. “She helped us find the island, that’s all. She has no idea why we need to go there. I can’t talk long, but I had to tell you.”

  “I’m glad you did. What’s up? Are you going on an expedition?”

  “I wish. I have a boatload of homework.”

  “Ha! I got that. Orion? Boatload?”

  Cruz laughed. He hadn’t intended the pun. He was being honest. It was Sunday night, and he had a ton to do for school: an assignment on alternative energies for conservation class (due Wednesday), a profile of a modern-day explorer for journalism (due Tuesday), and a quiz on the history of archaeological dating methods in Aunt Marisol’s class (tomorrow!).

  “Did you tell your dad?” Lani was asking.

  “Called him just before I called you.”