'Yeah,' she said wryly. 'Like that cute tennis racket charm that you probably noticed on Ms. Livingston's bracelet. "In one ear and out the other," as we always say. Wonder whose ear was picking up on that little chat.'

Sage's diamond tennis bracelet. Oh Lord, this just went on and on.

'Don't worry about this car, though,' said Key. 'I had the boys, my usual flight mechanic crew, sweep the car and put a shield on it the moment they'd picked it up for me at the airport. Everything's clean as a whistle; they can't access our innermost thoughts or our talk.'

Where had I heard that before? But I couldn't spend hours like this, either, locked in a car on the highway without finding out what had really been going on.

'As for your pal Kitty,' Key informed me, 'there's never a cloud without a silver lining. It's an ill wind that blows n.o.body good, as they say.'

'Meaning?' I prompted.

'Meaning she had a problem, and she figured I was the only one who could help resolve it. So she drew up a guest list, and I herded and corralled the cattle. She wanted to make sure, though, that you would remain just an innocent bystander.'

'They're the ones who usually get shot first,' I pointed out.

'You did great, though,' said Key, undaunted. 'You solved all those puzzles in record time; I clocked you. You got into the house less than an hour after you drove out of the Cortez airport in your rental car just in time for Lily Rad's phone call, informing you that she was lost. We all felt sure that you would phone me to bring her home, since the airport where I work is so much closer. We stopped to eat and gave you some extra time to discover the rest. By the time we'd arrived you'd apparently solved the puzzle that your mother and I had left atop the piano, since everything inside the piano had been removed, and the billiard ball was back in its place in the rack. Even I didn't know about that hidden chessboard drawing, though-'

'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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

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, antic.i.p.ating 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 pa.s.sed 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 Mana.s.sas.'

'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 pa.s.sed the last bridge, too!' I objected. We were almost at Mount Vernon, for G.o.d'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 gla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sengers, 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 rehea.r.s.e 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 gla.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e, this boat will be making a brief, unscheduled stop to let off two pa.s.sengers.'

'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 a.s.sured 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.'

The Original Instructions.

G.o.d gives His Instructions to every creature, according to His plan for the world.

Mathew King, n.o.ble 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 sh.o.r.eline.

As we rounded the point, our pilot cut in close to sh.o.r.e, then cut his engine and drifted closer still. A few pa.s.sengers on deck glanced toward the pilot's cabin with expressions of mild surprise.

Along the sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sengers' rapt attention away from their backsides that I'd have been surprised if anyone would remember or had even noticed the unauthorized pa.s.sengers 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 sh.o.r.e for the dense sheltering brush of the sh.o.r.eline.

'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 G.o.ddess here and my a.s.sistant, Mr Tobacco Pouch.'

He motioned to the stocky younger fellow, who gave me a crinkly-eyed smile. They both looked st.u.r.dy 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 a.n.a.lemma 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 ma.s.sacred 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 a.s.sumption 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 a.s.sumption 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, pa.s.sing 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.'