Dusk had long since passed over the land; twilight reigned supreme, and Morpheus rode his mighty chariot through the skies, unleashing waves of darkness and drowsiness over the people below. He certainly affected the people aboard a certain plane, soaring lazily through the air as it winged toward the nation's capital. Nearly all of the passengers aboard were asleep -- all except a few. One, a blonde, was seated next to another girl with rich walnut locks. The former was still wide-awake; the latter, asleep. The blonde shifted restlessly, wrenching her eyes away from her Game Boy Advance SP to peer across the aisle toward a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl who, also quite awake, was quite engrossed in staring at the back of a dollar bill. What was terribly fascinating about that? she wondered with a small shrug. "Pssst, Kim!" she hissed across the aisle. "What're you doing?"
Distractedly, the bespectacled student glanced toward her friend with a slightly bemused expression. "Hmm? I, uh -- nothing." She winced a little as the person seated next to her released a particularly loud snore and fidgeted in his sleep, and quickly lowered her voice. "Why d'you ask?"
Natalie fixed her best you-can't-fool-me look onto her with a determined expression. "It's not nothing. You were staring at the back of a dollar bill. It must be pretty fascinating. Did it move or something?"
Kimberly stifled a chuckle with difficulty, and merely sighed exasperatedly. "Nat, you know just as well as I do that dollar bills do not move. No, I was uh, studying the Latin words on the back. Y'know, trying to translate them out of boredom and all that."
Perhaps Nat accepted the feigned words as reason; at any rate, she rolled her eyes, muttered under her breath, "You and your Latin-obsession, " and promptly returned to staring out into the night sky.
Unlike her friend, Kim did not stare unfocusedly into the distance, nor did she speedily fall asleep. Her fingers, instead, ran slowly, thoughtfully, over the edges of the dollar bill still clutched by her right-hand. There were going to be answers, she felt sure, in Washington D.C. Dropping the paper soundlessly into her lap, her right-hand slipped into the deep pocket of her dark brown jacket, feeling around blindly, momentarily, until it hit a sheaf of parchment. Gently, her thumb and forefinger closed over it, and she pulled it forth, exposing it to the barely-lit exterior of the plane's cabin. The paper was yellowed with age, and had been painstakingly scribed upon some hundreds of years past. Thick lines of black etched into the grainy parchment unmistakably spelled out the word Charlotte. Tuning out the now-quieter snores of the tall man next to her, Kimberly's mind drifted back to the events of several months earlier.
It had been an ordinary spring day, much like any another that came through Florida. The orange blossoms and oak trees were in full bloom, causing much grief for allergy-sufferers everywhere. Kimberly, sneezing like crazy, had made her way, cursing, out to the mailbox. Tossing the generic bills onto the kitchen table as she re-entered the mobile home, she spared neither Verizon nor TECO a cursory glance. No, her attention had, instead, been caught by the plain white envelope that remained in her hands -- addressed to her. Suspiciously, she slowly slit the envelope open, cautiously peering inside before withdrawing a half-folded sheet of crisp, white stationary. "Dear Miss Brewer, " she read, "It is with regret that we inform you of the death of Miss Deborah Huntington, an heiress who contributed many ancient Colonial pieces to the Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. She has named you as the recipient of a piece of her property in her will. You will find it enclosed here. Sincerely, H&H Law Firm, Inc." That had been all. There was nothing more to read. Disappointed, and a trifle disgusted, she shoved the paper back into the plain envelope in which it came, frowning slightly as she suddenly noticed the small scrap of parchment that fluttered out of the folded-letter. She must have missed it when she originally opened the notice. The parchment had only a single word imprinted upon it: Charlotte
Three months of seemingly endless research later, she found herself writing to two professors of archaeology who were studying a recently-unearthed ghost-ship found in the northern regions of the continent, explaining her story and her search for the ship the Charlotte, which, she had learned, once carried a large group of people to North America from Europe. Would it be possible for them to let her know of their findings before they were released to the scientific and historic community? She soon received an e-mail back from them, in which both professors refused to share the details of their findings, for fear of immediate media exposure, but they would send her a picture of something they had found completely useless to their research -- perhaps it'd help her? Her eyes had widened as she had watched the image of the old, ivory pipe load on her computer screen, at first in awe, and then incredulity. This didn't seem to pertain to anything at all regarding the Charlotte. But on second thought, after magnifying the picture, a large carving of an eye was visible right in the middle of the ivory portion, and the symbol of the Freemasons was clearly visible. Excitedly, Kim wrote back, thanking them for the picture, and inquiring if she could perhaps obtain the item. The response was an unchallengeable no. Frustrated, she was about to delete the message, when she noticed a postscript at the bottom: "P.S. Due to your interest, we are manufacturing a cheap duplicate for your perusal. The original will soon be on display in the Museum of History."
Four weeks later, a small UPS truck trundled down Brightwood Drive, and came to a grinding halt in front of the girl's home. Quickly scrawling a loopy signature onto the proffered clipboard after reassuring the driver that yes, she was indeed old enough to sign for herself, Kim snatched the package from the startled man's hands and ran inside excitedly. Yes, there it was, she had thought triumphantly, ripping the paper away eagerly. The duplicate, just as promised. As she turned it around slowly in her hands, she noticed that the barrel portion rotated. Now, that was rather peculiar. There were even strange, runic-like symbols inscribed everywhere around the symbol of the Freemasons. Frowning a little, she quickly obtained a bottle of iodine from the medicine cabinet, and without hesitation, poured it onto the barrel. As the dark stains spread into each tiny cavity and hollow, it became increasingly apparent that the symbols were really some sort of pattern. A secret message, perhaps? Ten minutes later, she had rolled it firmly onto a small piece of paper, and stared at the words with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity: "Charlotte has revealed the path, led by the words scribed in black. The words of Silence will provide the key to the map, from words of iron, written on the back. The Eye, All-Seeing, guides the way, to the grounds where nothing sees the light of day."
She thought it was an odd coincidence that during the next few weeks of school, a trip to Washington D.C. had been announced by the Social Studies department. The first few students who signed up would receive a scholarship from the school that would pay for the entire program, and Kimberly had been determined to get her name on the first few lines of the sign-up sheet. Not so surprisingly, she did so, right along with Natalie and Jessica. They were on the brink of something great. She could feel it in her bones.
Drawn out of her reverie by another grunting snore from the man seated to her right, the girl disgustedly muttered under her breath as she placed both parchment and dollar back into her pocket, eventually drifting into an uneasy sleep.