Page 18 of Shattered Jewel

It’s when I turn back to Maverick’s bed, one side shoved up against the wall, that I see…

There—almost hidden in the everyday—is something odd. A pattern on the wallpaper that doesn’t quite belong.

Farrow Manor came to my mother in its original state when she inherited it from her parents, including the ancient, yellowed wallpaper in almost all the rooms. Renovation was prohibited in both the wills and testaments of my ancestors and historical home laws unless necessary. Mavvy and I tried to get around living like 15th-century children by asking for modern items, but the clashing of state-of-the-art furniture against the traditional furnishings upset my mother so much that we took down our posters, matched our sheets to the wallpaper, and chose wooden bed sets.

Maverick’s room has arabesque wallpaper, and I only know that because it creeped me out so much, I had to reverse-image search it on the internet. It’s a mixture of flowers, foliage, fruit, and animals, coming together in intricate lines, almost appearing like lace from far away. The complicated pattern causes the eye to skim over small details until I catch the pen marks.

“Look at this,” I murmur to Sasha as I crawl on to the bed, my fingertips brushing over my brother’s … drawings?

A series of dots and dashes, so small you’d miss them unless you knew where to look.

“Whoa.” Sasha leans in beside me, squinting at the deliberate marks. “Was Maverick known to doodle on his wallpaper before drifting off to sleep?”

“Definitely not.” I angle my phone to illuminate it better. “Do you think he’s trying to tell me something? Maverick knew how much I hated this wallpaper, which meant I had to learn everything about it to make sure it wasn’t haunted. He laughed at me while I did it, but … maybe he figured I’d notice the difference one day if something happened to him.”

Because the Maverick of my memories is no longer the brother I thought he was. Maverick got himself involved in something evil, a situation requiring coded messages and secret enclaves and death.

I swallow.

“Do you think we can look it up?” I ask Sasha, leaning away to give her space.

Sasha whips out her phone, the screen flooding the dim room with bluish light. She snaps a picture, taps furiously, and waits. Whatever app she chose churns, grinding through possibilities until?—

“Got something,” Sasha exclaims. She holds the phone out to me, and I lean in to see the screen. “It’s Morse code.”

Sasha’s app translated the code and spat out numbers and degrees.

“Coordinates,” I murmur. “Latitude and longitude.”

“Yep.” Sasha bites her lip as her thumbs fly across her screen. “Whoa. Look where it leads.”

I read the screen when she flips it my way. My chin jerks back in surprise. “Gram’s house?”

A headache blooms, my brain cramping with the possibilities. We played at Wraithwood Manor all the time, hide-and-seek being one of my favorites. And Maverick held parties to impress girls there whenever he could get away with it. We were both incredibly familiar with the layout, the best rooms to hide in, the places that?—

“Oh shit,” I whisper.

“What?”

“I found a hidden room a few weeks ago. An old office. Like old old. From the 1700s. I figured I was the first person to find it in decades, hundreds of years even, but maybe Maverick found it first.” My heart speeds up. “That would be the perfect place to hide important, evil things.”

Sasha slowly lowers her phone to her lap. “You Wraithwoods are a weird-ass family, you know that? Lovable but … weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So I take it we’re breaking in there next?”

I nod. “I won’t be able to sleep until we do.”

Sasha slips off Maverick’s bed. “Onward, Agent.”

We perfect Maverick’s room, ensuring nothing is out of place or will disturb my mother when she visits next, until I open Maverick’s door, the coordinates burning a hole in my head.

“Ready?” Sasha says.

I nod, tucking my phone into my back pocket. But before we can move, a creak echoes down the hallway like a warning shot. Instinctively, we stiffen, our eyes locking.

Another step makes the wooden floorboards groan, closer, louder.

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