The Fire (36 page)

‘You
invented all those puzzles for Mother,’ I said.

It wasn’t a question. It was the only possible answer to what had been bugging me all along. If it hadn’t been Nim – and I knew now that it hadn’t been – who’d encrypted those puzzles for Mother to communicate with me, who else could have done it but Key? And had there been any doubt in my mind, her recent fax would have erased it.

What a dolt I’d been, even from square one! But at last it started making sense. Everything was starting to fall into place, just like the patterns in a chess game.

Speaking of which –

‘Where did you get the idea to set up that game that you stashed inside the piano?’ I asked her.

‘Apparently, it was Lily’s idea to use that specific game,’ said Key. ‘She knew it would grab your attention big time. But it was Vartan who provided your mother with the map of exactly
how
we needed to set up the pieces. He seemed to know just where the critical turning point in that last game took place – at least, from your point of view.’

Vartan, too? That bastard.

I was sick at heart. I wanted to cry again, but what was the point? And why had they done all this? Why rope me in at such an emotional level by invoking my father’s death
if Mother really wanted me to remain just an ‘innocent bystander’? It made absolutely no sense.

‘We had no choice,’ said Key, anticipating my question again. ‘We all agreed that we had to do it that way – leaving phone messages, planting puzzles and clues of the sort that would mean something specifically to
you
. We even pretended the car broke down so you’d have to give them a ride. Talk about complexity theory! But if we hadn’t gone to such ridiculous lengths, you never would have come, you never would have stayed, you never would have agreed to meet with him – now would you?’

Him.

Of course I knew exactly who she meant. And of course, I knew they’d been completely right.

As it was, despite all their chicanery to get me there, I’d still been prepared to bolt from the room the very moment I’d seen Vartan Azov enter the premises, hadn’t I? And why not? For ten years, until we’d actually had the chance to speak at length in Colorado, I’d held both him and that bloody game accountable for my father’s death.

I had to give some credit to my mother, though, for understanding me better than I understood myself. Both she and Lily Rad must have anticipated exactly what my reaction would be to any suggestion that I meet with Vartan under any pretext they’d invented whatsoever.

But though I now understood their need for manipulation, the obvious question was still hanging in the air.

‘If you all wanted to orchestrate a meeting between me and Vartan,’ I said, ‘why go to such lengths – not to mention such
distances
– to trick me? What could Vartan Azov possibly have told me that had to be told in the wilds of Colorado instead of New York or even D.C.? And why invite all those others to some kind of trumped-up birthday party? What were they there for? Just camouflage?’

‘I’ll explain it all in lavish detail, just as soon as we’ve dropped off this airport rental car,’ Key said. ‘We’ll be there any minute.’

‘But we passed National Airport miles back,’ I told her.

‘You know,’ said Key, ‘that I
never
fly commercial.’ She rolled her eyes.

‘You flew here yourself?’ I said. ‘But where are we headed, then? Down in this direction there are just military air bases like Fort Belvoir and Quantico. The closest private airstrip in Virginia must be all the way to Manassas.’

‘There are three of them just across the river from here, in Maryland,’ she informed me coolly. ‘I dropped off the plane over there.’

‘But you’ve passed the last bridge, too!’ I objected. We were almost at Mount Vernon, for God’s sakes. ‘How do you expect to get this car across the river and into Maryland?’

Key let out a tremendous sigh, like the sound of a balloon deflating.

‘I thought I
told
you. We’re being
fol-
lowed
,’
she explained, as if speaking to a three-year-old child. When I said nothing she added, with a bit more restraint, ‘So, clearly, I’d planned to ditch the car.’

We pulled into a parking spot at the Mount Vernon ferry landing, between two giant SUVs so tall they looked like they were raised on hoists.

‘The better
not
to see us, my dear,’ Key commented.

She’d twisted her long hair into a loop, tied it with a scrunchy, and stuffed the twist down the back of her safari vest. Then she pulled a canvas bag from the backseat, yanked out two nylon bicycle pullovers, a couple of pairs of dark glasses, and two baseball caps, and she handed one set of everything to me.

Once we’d gussied ourselves up in these disguises, we got
out of the car, Key locked up everything carefully, and we went down to the boat.

‘Departure in less than five minutes,’ she told me. ‘Better not to tip one’s hand too early.’

We went down the dock and Key handed the ticket guy some prepurchased boarding passes that she pulled from her vest. I noticed she also slipped him the car keys. He wordlessly nodded his acknowledgment, and we went over the gangplank and stepped onto the rocking boat. There were only a few other passengers, and none within earshot.

‘You seem to know an awful lot of people,’ I mentioned to Key. ‘You trust this ferry caddy to return that expensive car?’

‘And that’s not all,’ she said. ‘For a few more favors, Bub here gets fourteen free flight training hours as a pourboire.’

I confess, angry and frustrated as I’d been with her just ten minutes ago, as a born chess player I’d always loved the way Key executed her moves. She’d clearly mapped out this scenario far better than any chess game Lily Rad had ever played, and had anticipated every move and countermove.

That’s why Nokomis Key had been my best friend and boon companion ever since grammar school. It was Key who’d taught me early on that I would never have to be afraid as long as I could see far ahead, as long as I knew the lay of the land.

Braves know how to go through the woods alone, even at night, she would tell me. They plan their path, but they don’t rehearse their fears.

They’d untied the rope lashing the ferry to the pier and pulled up the gangplank. We were well out onto the river, when I saw a guy with mirrored glasses come briskly down the boardwalk and say something to the attendant. He looked more than familiar.

The attendant shook his head and pointed upstream across
the river, toward Washington, D.C. The man with the shades reached in his jacket and pulled out a phone.

I had that sinking feeling. We were out here in the middle of the river on an open boat, like a crate of eggplants awaiting delivery.

‘Secret Service,’ I mentioned to Key. ‘We’re previously acquainted. I think we should expect a greeting committee on the opposite shore – they must know where this boat is headed. Unless you’d planned for us to get off at midstream and swim?’

‘Unnecessary,’ said Key, ‘oh, ye of little faith. Just as we go round the point at Piscataway, when we’re out of eyesight from either shore, this boat will be making a brief, unscheduled stop to let off two passengers.’

‘On Piscataway Point?’ It was just a preservation wilderness area and wetlands where geese and other waterfowl were under state and federal protection. There weren’t even any roads, just foot trails, on the map. ‘But there’s nothing there!’ I said.

‘There will be something there today,’ Key assured me. ‘I think you’ll find it rather interesting. It’s the former lands and sacred burial grounds of the Piscataway Indians, the first inhabitants of what’s now Washington, D.C. The tribes don’t actually live there, now that it’s federal property, but they’ll be there today – and looking forward to our arrival.’

God gives His Instructions to every creature, according to His plan for the world.

– Mathew King,
Noble Red Man

…we are responsible for following our original instructions – those given by the Creator.

Every component of the universe, in an indigenous conception, has a set of original instructions to follow so that a balanced order can be kept… The people lived in accordance with their original instructions, tempered and ordered by the natural world around them.

– Gabrielle Tayac, daughter of Red Flame Tayac, ‘Keeping the Original Instructions,’
Native Universe

This was definitely the ‘scenic route,’ as Key had promised. Or had she threatened?

Piscataway was breathtakingly beautiful, even from this distance. Wildfowl of all kinds floated on the current while eagles soared overhead and a few swans sailed in for a watery touchdown. Along the banks, ancient trees clawed the waters
with their gnarled roots and thickets of cattails hugged the shoreline.

As we rounded the point, our pilot cut in close to shore, then cut his engine and drifted closer still. A few passengers on deck glanced toward the pilot’s cabin with expressions of mild surprise.

Along the shore, I noticed two fishermen wearing battered, tackle-studded hats, sitting on a fallen tree trunk that jutted out from the rocky bank. Their fishing lines trailed out into the water. One of them got to his feet as our boat drifted nearer and started reeling in his line.

Over the megaphone, the pilot said, ‘Folks, river’s pretty calm today, so we’re able to drop off a few naturalists here at the wildlife refuge. Only take a minute.’

A teenage boy came portside and took up the coil of hawser.

‘Now if you peer in the opposite direction,’ the pilot went on, ‘just upstream, due north, you’ll have a rare view of Jones Point people don’t often get to see from this vantage. Right there’s where the first, the southernmost stone marker was laid by surveyor Andrew Ellicott and the African American astronomer, Benjamin Banneker, April 15, 1791, the day they began marking out the original Capital City – now Washington, D.C. Those of you interested in Freemasons’ history in our nation’s capital will want to share with your friends that this stone was set with full Masonic ritual – square, plumb, and level, and sprinkled with corn, oil, and wine – in keeping with their tradition…’

He was doing such a great job of pointing the passengers’ rapt attention away from their backsides that I’d have been surprised if
anyone
would remember – or had even noticed – the unauthorized passengers he’d landed on Piscataway. I figured Key must have pledged a case of Chivas Regal along with those flight miles.

The waiting fishermen reeled us in with the hawser and helped us clamber onto the giant log; then they tossed the hawser free and the four of us made tracks across the rocky shore for the dense sheltering brush of the shoreline.

‘Names are perhaps best left unspoken,’ said the older of the two fishermen, as he took my hand to help me over the rocks. ‘You may simply call me Red Cedar – it’s my native moniker given me by our moon goddess here – and my assistant, Mr Tobacco Pouch.’

He motioned to the stocky younger fellow, who gave me a crinkly-eyed smile. They both looked sturdy enough to tangle with whatever we might encounter. Key really
did
seem to have a lot of contacts in these parts. But as we followed them into the dense undergrowth, I hadn’t a
clue
what was going on.

There was no path that I could see. The forest was so thick with vines and brush and saplings, it seemed impossible that the four of us could beat our way through it, even with machetes. It was like a labyrinth, but one to which Red Cedar seemed to hold the key: The growth seemed miraculously to melt away before him – he didn’t even have to touch it – and it closed up again the moment we’d passed through behind him.

Eventually the woods thinned a bit. We found ourselves on a dirt trail with a view of the river in the distance through sun-dappled trees that were just unfurling their spring chartreuse. Here Red Cedar was able to drop back from his lead position. We could all walk side by side on the trail and speak to one another for the first time.

‘Piscataway is both a place and a people
,’
Red Cedar told me. ‘The word means “Where the Living Waters Blend” – the confluence of many rivers of both water and life. Our people descend from the oldest indigenous peoples, the Lenni Lenape, the grandfathers, going back for more than twelve
thousand years. The Anacostan and other local tribes were paying tribute to our first chief, the Tayac, long before the first Europeans arrived.’

I must have seemed a bit mystified by the reason for this impromptu, nature-trail anthropology lesson, for he added, ‘Miss Luna said that you are her friend, that you are in some kind of danger, and that it was therefore of special importance I must tell you something before we reach Moyaone.’

‘Moyaone?’ I said.

‘The ossuary fields,’ he said. Then he added, with a wink and a whisper,
‘Where all the bones are buried!’

At this, he and Tobacco Pouch cackled mightily.

Did he mean a graveyard? Or what exactly was so uproarious about a pile of bones? I glanced toward Key, who was smiling that private smile.

‘All the bones and all the
secrets,’
she said. Then to Red Cedar, she suggested, ‘Before we get there, why don’t you tell my friend about the Green Corn Ceremony, the two virgins, and the Feast of the Dead?’

Holy Moly. I knew Key was a bit on the esoteric side, but this was descending deeper into weird-dom by the moment – shades of pagan ritual and virgin sacrifice along the Potomac – or what was that all about?

As I moved through the dappled woods and peered about me, I tried to remind myself that the Secret Service was still hunting us up and down the river, that I had no ID on me, and that no one had a clue where I had gone. Though I knew we were only miles from our nation’s capital, it was a strange feeling. Oddly, this mysterious spot felt removed, both in time and space, from everything I knew.

And things were about to get stranger still.

‘It has to do with the Original Instructions,’ Red Cloud was saying. ‘Everything comes into being along with its own instructions – like a blueprint or a pattern or a set of plans.
Water always becomes round, fire is a triangle, many rocks are crystalline, spiders make webs, birds make nests, the analemma of the sun’s movement forms a figure eight—’

Key touched him on the arm to move a bit faster, either along the path or along with his tale – or perhaps both.

‘So the story of the virgins starts about four hundred years ago,’ Red Cloud said, ‘when the English colonists arrived and they set up a place called “Jamestown,” named after their new king. But even before that, in the 1500s they’d already nabbed a big swath of the land thereabouts, and they’d named it “Virginia” after James’s predecessor, their virgin queen, Elizabeth.’

‘I’m familiar with the story,’ I said, trying not to sound too impatient. Where was this headed?

‘But you don’t know the
whole
story,’ Red Cedar told me. ‘About thirty years after those Jamestown colonists, the English had another king, Charles, likely a closet Catholic. He let Lord Baltimore send two boatloads of Catholic settlers and Jesuit priests in ships called the
Ark
and the
Dove.

‘Now, these British had been battling it out for ages over which of the “true faiths” owned the cross with all of its powers. In a few more years they’d be in a civil war over it, and King Charles himself would be dead. But one thing that all Europeans agreed on, and still do, was the law of discovery: If you discover a place and plant your flag there, then you own it! If there are natives already living there, and you call them barbarians, so much the better. You can convert them by force or you can enslave them by Church edict.’

I was familiar with
this
story, too. The land grabs, the broken treaties, the massacred Indian babies, the reservations, the genocide, the Trail of Tears – no love ever lost between indigenous peoples and the crusading conquerors, I thought.

And yet, it was I who was in for a surprise.

‘So in short, the Piscataway became converted Catholics,’ Red Cedar told me, ‘because the Original Instructions were met by the Feast of the Assumption and the Feast of the Dead.’

‘Pardon me?’ I said, staring across at Key.

‘You know,’ Red Cedar explained, ‘the Feast of the Dead, when we honor the ancestors in November, is at the same time as in the Catholic calendar when the dead are honored for All Hallows’ Eve and All Souls’ and All Saints’ days. But most important is August fifteenth, the date in the Church calendar when the feast is held that honors the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven – that’s the date of our ancient Green Corn Ceremony, for the “first harvest,” which marks the beginning of our new year.’

‘I gather,’ I said, ‘that you’re saying the Piscataway converted to the Catholic faith because they could continue to maintain their own beliefs and rituals while paying lip service to the official Church regimen?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Key. ‘You’ll see when we get to the burial grounds. But what Red Cedar’s saying – the reason why you needed to meet him and Tobacco Pouch without interference from the troops – is because of the Original Instructions. The Buck Stops Here, as they say – I mean, right here in this very spot.’

‘Then
let’s
stop here,’ I said, exasperated.

I was getting pretty frustated with the direction this ‘road trip’ of ours was taking. But I’d also halted because we were at the beginning of a long wooden bridge that crossed the vast marshlands we were about to enter just ahead. I hoped it would keep our feet dry, since I only had the one pair of shoes.

I addressed myself to Key. ‘I don’t get it. How does all this religious-ritual-and-ancestor stuff your pal is running off
about bear any relation to the immediate problem that you and I are involved in?’ I asked her. ‘What’s so important about virgins and corn and dining among the dead?’

Red Cedar clarified: ‘The Jesuits dubbed the place where they landed “St Mary,”’ he told me, ‘and they later named the whole area on this side of the river Mary Land – supposedly after the wife of King Charles, but really after the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. So we now had two virgins facing off across the river from each other – one Protestant and one Catholic! Two virgin islands of Christianity, you might say, afloat in a sea of indigenous peoples—’

Two Virgin Islands. Why did that strike a chime?

Tobacco Pouch had tried on the bridge for size, and it seemed to be high and dry, so we went on, passing over single file again, through the waving sea of high cattails.

But Key, who had something to add, caught up with me. ‘It was the Potomac tribes in these parts, like the Piscataway, who first launched the “Two Virgins Theory”: that one kernel is not enough. They figured out that if you plant
two
kernels together along the row, it’s easier for the corn to pollinate. All part of the Original Instructions. They’ve been doing it that way since ancient times.’

Though Leda the Lesbian would surely go for this philosophy – the idea that two virgin females might equal yin and yang – I was still confused.

But that chime in my head was clanging louder.

And then I knew.

‘
You
made up the code for that message Mother left me on the piano,’ I mentioned softly. ‘So what
about
those “Virgin Isles”?’

Key smiled approvingly and nodded.

‘That’s it,’ she told me. ‘That’s why we dropped by here, first thing, before anyplace else. “Virgin Isles” is native code for Washington, D.C. And this spot, right here in Piscataway,
is where the Original Instructions were written for our nation’s capital.’

‘I thought that George Washington provided the original instructions for the capital city,’ I pointed out. ‘After all, he’s the one who bought the land, who hired the folks who laid out the square, with all those moronic-Masonic trappings we’ve just heard about from your pal, the ferry pilot—’

‘Where do you think he
got
those instructions?’ Key asked me.

When I said nothing, she pointed across the marshes, out over the river. There, in the far distance, seated high on its green bluff in the brilliant morning sun, lay Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home.

‘The land for the city was never selected or secured through accident,’ Red Cedar told me over his shoulder. ‘It took much secrecy and skilled maneuvering on the president’s part. But he knew from the first that this place where we are, Piscataway, was the key to it all. The tradition comes from native belief, but from the Bible, too: They call it the City on the Hill, the High Place. The New Jerusalem. It’s all in the Apocalypse – the Book of Revelation of Saint John. The place chosen for the sacred site must be a spot at the confluence of many rivers in order for the power to be invoked.’

‘What power?’ I asked, though I was beginning to get the message.

We left the marsh and had now come out into an open meadow where dandelions and wildflowers were already perking up for spring and birds and insects were chirping, buzzing, humming all around us.

‘It’s the power we’ve come here to see,’ said Key, pointing her arm across the grassland. ‘That’s Moyaone.’

As we traversed the meadow, I saw one enormous evergreen tree that dominated the center of the field. If I wasn’t mistaken, and I wasn’t, the tree was –

‘The red cedar,’ said Key. ‘A sacred tree. The pith and sap of the trunk are red, like human blood. This one was planted by the last Piscataway chief, Turkey Tayac, whose grave site is also here.’

We crossed the meadow and went up to the grave, where a small picture of the Tayac himself, a handsome, bronzed fellow in full feathered regalia, was set into a wooden trail marker plaque. It said that he was buried here, through an Act of Congress, in 1979.