Image (Insight #3)(3)

“Any luck?” I asked them.

Landen looked up at me, then back down. “No. It’s all symbols and letters, a combination of four languages...it doesn’t make any sense,” he answered, feeling frustrated as he continued to study it.

I took a deep breath and walked closer. This scroll was with our birth charts, the charts that we’d left here for our family over four million years ago. As I let my fingertips run across the edge of the scroll, a familiar rush of déjà vu came over me, haunting me.

My eyes searched over the scroll with Landen and August. I didn’t recognize the script or symbols, which were of every shape, mocking man and animal, water and fire. I did notice, though, that surrounding one of the larger circles were what Iooked like numbers. At the top was a one, to the right and left there was a one, and at the bottom there was a nine: 1119.

“Do you know what these numbers mean?” I asked.

Landen and August leaned in close enough to see the tiny numbers, and August then ran his fingers around the circle. Inside it, there was an illustration of a flower. The flower was not detailed; just a series of dots. Time had faded them, and some were darker than others. I imagined if someone didn’t have an eye for art, they would easily be dismissed as random marks.

“What’s today?” August asked

“Eleventh month, sixteenth day,” Landen answered.

I took in a deep breath and stepped back; I’d been so lost in everything, I hadn’t remembered that my birthday was just days away - that I’d be nineteen. It seemed impossible that the year had slipped by so quickly, without warning.

“My birthday is November nineteenth: 1.1.1.9,” I whispered into the room.

As Landen and August both looked at me, then down to the scroll again, I felt the tension rise and a heavy anxiety growing. I stared at August; he was the one who was full of dread.

“What is it, August?” Landen asked, knowing that it had to be more than my birthday that had him so concerned.

“This circle is Venus. There are nineteen petals on the flower, nineteen stems, and nineteen dots marking the ground they’re growing in. It’s your birthday; that’s when we’ll have to deal with Venus,” August declared.

Landen and I leaned forward and let our eyes rush over the flowers, finding the number nineteen over and over again. August then ran the magnifying glass over the other planets.

“Each of these planets has an image, a coded number, designed within them - and I’d guarantee you that I’d find the twelve-hour difference in the image of Mercury,” August said.

“What are you saying? You just found a map of everything we’re going to face?” Landen asked.

“Not what - when,” August corrected. “This is remarkable. I mean, I have a lot I’m going to have to decode, but this may be a way to navigate away from war,” he said as he filled with hope.

Landen and I couldn’t share his joy; we were more focused on the fact that I’d be nineteen in three days – and that something was going to test us. Landen walked around the table to where I stood and wrapped his arms around me; I hid my face in his chest, trying to hide my fear. Someone always seemed to get hurt when my heart was tested. I hadn’t had time to overcome my last experience with Drake; I still struggled with the vision of his eyes full of pain and his argument that I’d been taken from him.

It didn’t take August long to notice that we weren’t celebrating with him. His emotion then returned to dread, and he cleared his throat. “I want to take these to Perodine; if anyone can help me understand the codes locked in this scroll, she’d be able to,” he said to us.

As I felt Libby and Preston’s excitement, I looked up from Landen’s chest to the doorway. I heard a loud knock and suddenly felt concern coming from Ashten, then my father. August walked to the door, but Preston opened it before he could reach it. His blue eyes shined in the dark room full of bookcases.

“Are you ready?” he asked us all.

“Ready?” Landen questioned.

“Wait just one minute,” Ashten said, reaching to hold Preston back. “I’ve already told you not tonight,” he huffed, trying to catch his breath. I imagined that he’d chased Preston all the way there.

“What’s going on?” I asked, knowing that Preston and Libby had the intent of getting us to Esterious right then and there.

“Preston is convinced that you and Landen need to see Perodine,” my father answered.

“It's important,” Libby said, stepping forward and pleading with her eyes. I knew that she believed every word she said.

Landen let his arms fall from around me, then reached for the scrolls and began to roll them gently.

“You’re not going anywhere tonight,” Ashten said to us.

Landen slid the scrolls into a long tube, then turned and looked at his father. “We only have three days,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to the door.

“What do you mean? We have longer than that,” Ashten said, following us out onto the front steps.

“We were wrong about the orbit. Every time is mapped out on here; she will help us,” Landen answered. “Where is she?” he asked Preston.

“In Delen; in the palace,” Preston answered.

“Are you sure? We were just there,” I said.