Chapter 8: Revealing

When we got to the hotel in London, we got cleaned up, and got the soonest flight possible back home. We were on the plane by 10pm (London time) that night, and made it back to D.C. by 1am our time. We grabbed a hotel for the night, planning on heading back to Mr. Patrick's house when we woke up. But considering the jet lag, and the tiredness from the events in London, that wasn't until the afternoon!

At around noon, we got up and headed to Mr. Patrick's house. Riley had gotten the picture from the traffic cam in London on his computer, and was going to see if Mr. Patrick knew what language it was. Upon arrival, and after Mr. Patrick thinking that Ben and Abigail were together again, we sat down in the living room while Mr. Patrick studied the picture of the plank.

"I can't read the whole thing," Mr. Patrick began, "but I can tell you that these are definitely pre-colonial Native American markings."

"Easily five hundred years old," Ben commented.

"Easily," Mr. Patrick confirmed. He zoomed into the picture, then said, "I can identify one symbol." He turned to Ben, "Look at this. Do you know what that is?"

"Sacred calendrical? I don't know," Ben replied.

"That symbol," Mr. Patrick said, "is Cibola."

Ben closed his eyes in thought, then said, "The City of Gold." We all looked up him astonished. We were searching for the City of Gold. Ben went to look for encyclopedias and books about it. He found one, and began to read.

"'In 1527," Ben began, "a Spanish ship wrecked on the Florida coast. There were only four survivors. One was a slave named Estebán who saved a local tribe's dying chief. As a reward, he was taken to their sacred city, a city built from solid gold. Later, when Estebán tried to find the city again, he never could. But the legend grew, and every explorer came to the New World in search of it. When General Custer's search for gold ended with his last stand at Little Bighorn, it became clear none would ever find it.'"

"Ben," Mr. Patrick said, "can you imagine if the Confederates got their hands on the City of Gold? My God."

"I'm going to go talk to her," Ben replied. "And you're coming with me."

"No!" Mr. Patrick replied. He began to walk away, but Ben confronted him.

"Hey. No one else can translate it," Ben said.

"There are others," Mr. Patrick said. "There are several others."

"For ancient Native American? There's no one better."

"Who?" Riley asked. Abigail and I looked at each other and giggled, while Riley and Hannah still gave confused looks.

"Look, Ben," Mr. Patrick said, "I can't go with you. It's been what? Twenty-five years."

"Thirty-two," Ben corrected.

"That long?" Mr. Patrick asked himself aloud. Then he turned back to Ben, "There's a reason why we haven't spoken in 32 years. We have nothing in common."

"Me?" Ben said pointing to himself.

"Yes, of course," Mr. Patrick realized. "And I'm sure she's just as proud of you as I am."

"Who?" Riley and Hannah asked in unison.

"His mom," Abigail and I answered in unison. Ben asked Riley to print out the picture from his computer, then we hopped in my car and headed for the University of Maryland, since Ben's mom was a professor there. Upon arrival, we headed to the building that Ben's mom was in. We bustled through the swarms of students, as Ben asked for directions and Mr. Patrick talked about how him being there was a bad idea. We finally made it to her room, as a girl runs out of the room yelling, "I hate her!"

"We're in the right place," Mr. Patrick confirmed.

"I'm going to go ahead and take myself out of the line of fire for this one, guys," Riley said sitting in the chair outside. I looked back at him before entering, and he just shrugged his shoulders and mouthed, "What?" I shook my head and walked inside.

"Hi, Mom," Ben said walking over to his mom and hugging her.

"Benjamin!" she said excitedly while returning the hug to her son. She looked over at Abigail and said, "Abigail! What a surprise!" She hugged Abigail, and then looked at Hannah and me. "Who are these two?" she asked. "Surely you would have told me if you had children!"

"Oh, no!" Ben said. "These are the two girls I met when we found the Templar treasure. This is Aviana," Ben said pointing at me.

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Appleton," I said shaking her hand (I noticed her name on the door to her room).

"Oh please, call me Emily!" Ms. Emily replied.

"And she's married to my best friend," Ben said putting his hand on my shoulder.

"That boy that will never come and meet me?" Ms. Emily asked.

"That wouldn't surprise me," I said shaking my head.

"And this is Hannah," Ben said pointing to Hannah. "She's Aviana's best friend."

"Nice to meet you," Hannah said shaking Ms. Emily's hand. Ms. Emily began to reply, when she looked over Hannah's shoulder and noticed Mr. Patrick.

"Oh," was her blunt response.

"You see?" Mr. Patrick said. "One syllable, a knife in the heart."

"Oh no," Ben said.

"She can do that," Mr. Patrick said.

"Yes," Ms. Emily remarked, "and I can also track the whereabouts of my toothbrush."

"I was not the one that left the toothbrushes in Marrakech!" Mr. Patrick argued. "I stowed them both in the travel case, as instructed!"

"Yes," Ms. Emily agreed, "and you also insisted on loading the luggage into the taxi."

"Didn't insist. I loaded the luggage."

"Yes, but not the travel case."

"The travel case is not luggage. The travel case goes into the luggage. Who was in charge of packing the luggage?"

"I couldn't get the case into the luggage because was full with that stupid rug you bought."

"Mom," Ben said to try to end the argument in vain.

"You thought it had secret stitching," Ms. Emily continued. "How stupid was that?"

"Mom," Ben said again.

"It did have secret stitching!" Mr. Patrick corrected. They both continued to argue to the point that I could no longer even understand them.

"Mom!" Ben finally shouted. Ms. Emily finally turned to face her son, ending the argument. "I need you to take a look at this," Ben said handing Ms. Emily the picture.

"What is that a picture of?" Ms. Emily asked.

"It's very interesting," Ben said. "We think it might be Olmec."

"It is," Ms. Emily said studying the picture. "Yes, yes, definitely proto-Zoquean."

"We were hoping you could translate it," Mr. Patrick said.

"Of course you were," Ms. Emily said while giving Mr. Patrick an angered look while putting on her glasses. Then she froze, and looked at Ben and asked, "This doesn't involve another treasure hunt, does it?"

"Mom," Ben replied, "this is actually really important."

"Alright," Ms. Emily said, "what do we have here." She studied the picture. "'Find the noble bird'," she began to translate, "'let him take you by the hand and give you passage to the sacred temple.'" She laughed, then said, "You think this is a treasure map for Cibola, don't you?"

"Well that's exactly what it is," Mr. Patrick stated.

"No," Ms. Emily contrasted, "this glyph doesn't mean 'Cibola'. It means 'the center of the world'."

"You know," Mr. Patrick began, "you used to like it. She fell in love with me on a treasure hunt."

"That was not love," Ms. Emily corrected. "That was

excitement, adrenaline and tequila."

"Mom," Ben said to try and stop the argument from progressing.

"Here we go again," Hannah sighed.

"I was trying to get course credit," Ms. Emily finished.

"Treasure hunting paid off," Mr. Patrick said, "in case you haven't read the papers."

"That had nothing to do with you," Ms. Emily stated. "That was Ben. Ben found the treasure. You did nothing."

"Patrick, Emily, please," Abigail interrupted. "Can we just figure out what's on the page?"

"Well that's it I'm afraid," Ms. Emily replied. "These glyphs are only partials. So you only have half a treasure map. I'm sorry." She leaned over to Ben, "Not that I'm surprised," she said while glaring up at Mr. Patrick.

"Well thank you, Mom," Ben said as we said our good byes. We headed out, picked up Riley, and then walked out of the building.