Calvin snorted. “You thought you were going to the loo—too many pints.”
She unfolded the Leatherman tool and said proudly, “It’s the Limited Edition Damascus Wave. I’ve already used it to dismantle a radio and whittle a panpipe.” She flipped through the different devices on the tool. “Maybe there’s a catch in one of the grooves in the panel. We should try this one.” Natalie unfolded a slim blade and gingerly slid it along the edge of the door. “I don’t feel anything,” she said.
“We need more light,” her brother suggested, and pulled an object from his shirt pocket that looked like a fancy fountain pen. “This helps with my zoology research. It’s more powerful than most penlights, so I can pick up details that I’d miss otherwise.” He scanned the door’s surface with the light. “These carvings are really quite beautiful,” he noted.
In the middle of the panel was a wide, branching tree with fruit hanging from its limbs. “Look how detailed the leaves are!” Natalie marveled. “You can even see tiny veins in them.”
Calvin wiped his glasses on his t-shirt and crouched closer to the carved door. “There’s a snake winding its way up the tree. At first I thought it was part of the roots, but you can see his forked tongue and crafty eyes.”
Next to the tree was a naked woman peering up into the branches. The snake seemed to be coming towards her. “This must be the Tree of Knowledge,” said Natalie. “There’s Eve and the serpent.”
“It’s a very beautiful and intricate carving for a door nobody sees,” mused Calvin. “I wish we could open it!”
Natalie took the light and shined it once again at the tree. “There must be a lock somewhere. I just know this is a secret compartment! Uncle said the house is full of secrets if you look hard enough.”
“I found a hidden door inside my wardrobe once,” Calvin said. “Inside was a bunch of dried flowers. I bet they’re still there. I used to hide umm … other stuff in it, when we were still living here.”
“I don’t want to know,” Natalie murmured. She was still peering intently at the carving, her face now inches from the door. “Hold on! There’s a small hole in the tree trunk. It looks like part of the knots in the bark, but it’s too regular to be an accident. It looks like a hexagon or something. She pulled out her Leatherman again. “I have just the thing. I know there’s a small hex tool on this.” She unfolded it and inserted it carefully into the knot of the tree-trunk. “It fits! she cried, pressing ever so slightly. They heard a faint click. “Something happened,” she said.
“Try turning it,” suggested Calvin.
Gingerly she twisted the tool towards the right, and suddenly the whole knot of the tree spun around as well, while sinking deeper into the trunk.
“Now push on the door,” said Calvin.
“Have you done this before?” she asked him archly.
“No, but it just seems the logical thing to do.”
She pushed on the carving gently at first, afraid she might crack the tiny figures. But it didn’t move, so she pushed harder. Suddenly the whole carving creaked back into the shelf and sank down into the wall.
They looked at each other solemnly. Calvin was holding his breath. “This feels important,” he whispered.
Natalie nodded. “I know. I feel it too. I’m afraid to look in there. I have this feeling it’s going to change our lives.”
“Let’s look inside. Uncle Richard wanted us to find this. That’s why he was so specific about us removing all of these books! We’ve always known that we could trust him, and he’d never lead us astray, so we shouldn’t be afraid.” For some reason he couldn’t comprehend, Calvin was also afraid to look inside.
“Hold your light up,” Natalie said resolutely. “There could be spiders in here.” She reached into the space behind the carving, a relatively small enclosure with metal walls. “There’s some air flow in here,” she observed. The only thing inside was a leather portfolio about the size of a school binder. She pulled it slowly from the safe.
“Are your hands clean?” asked Calvin. “That looks really old.”
“I think there are some cotton gloves around here. Uncle Richard always wore them when he handled rare books and manuscripts. I think we’d better as well.” She got up off the floor and searched through drawers by the work table. “Here they are. Bring the portfolio over to the table.”
Calvin laid it down reverently and they both donned the gloves. “Keep the lamp down low,” he urged. “Light can be damaging to old documents as well.”
They looked at the cover of the portfolio. The leather was tooled, depicting a beautiful picture of a garden with a stream running through it. It looked like an exotic, almost tropical place.
“Do you think this is the Garden of Eden?” asked Natalie. “It might relate to the carving on the door.”
“It could be. That would make sense.” Calvin scratched his head. “I don’t see any people that could be Adam or Eve though, or the tree that was on the panel. It was very distinctive looking.”
“But the flowers are in the same style,” she noted.
“They’re very strange looking,” Calvin added.
“Maybe they’re those space flowers you read about,” she joked. “I certainly don’t recognize any of them.” Thoughtfully, she said, “They could be pictures of extinct species. If that was the case, whoever made this portfolio had to have access to some very old documents.” She shrugged. “But then again, maybe they’re just stylized flower motifs, dreamed up by the artist who made this portfolio. I can just imagine an old monk, toiling away in a monastery somewhere.”
“Thank God for those monks,” Calvin said with feeling. “Some spent their entire lives copying precious manuscripts. If they didn’t do that, much of our ancient history and literature would have been forever lost to us.”
Calvin adjusted his glasses, and Natalie recognized the same gleam in his eyes that he always had when he was expounding on an idea that interested him. “During the Dark Ages,” he continued, “barbarians swept across Europe, burning and pillaging everything in their path, including libraries. Most folks back then were too busy rebuilding their lives to worry about a bunch of old books. The monks took this as their sacred task. “
“Well, our sacred task is to open this portfolio and try to make sense of it all,” Natalie interrupted.
He unlaced the leather ties on the portfolio and laid it open. They both stared wordlessly at what lay inside. “Is this what it looks like?” asked Natalie finally.
“It’s looks to be at least 300 years old, or else it’s a very clever reproduction.” He bent down closer and examined it minutely. “Made from parchment, which is good news, because it’s tougher than paper.”
“I can’t believe it!” Natalie said breathlessly. “If this turns out to be authentic, we have just found one of the earliest copies of Paradise Lost! And written by hand, no less!”
“This could even be the original copy,” said Calvin with mounting excitement. “John Milton dictated the poem to his daughters, I think, but I don’t see evidence of that here. This book looks like his own hand-writing.”
“How on earth do you know that?” Natalie asked.
“I just dusted his biography–right before I found the cupboard!” He ran back to the hidden compartment and searched the nearby shelves until he found the book. “There