The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black (47 page)

That’s just silliness,
she thought, yawning and feeling sleepily reassured. And as real sleep pressed its advances upon her, she smiled.
What else could he possibly have wanted?

The last pair of eyes closed, and Miss Brett fell soundly into slumber. Deeply relaxed, she slept easily now that her charges were safely present. The green and gold train ambled on into the night. All aboard slept soundly, as the mysteries that were to come tomorrow lay just beyond the horizon.

PROLOGUE

The following article appeared in
The New York Times,
fall, 1903 (actual date withheld).

The police came to the conclusion that the young man was Italian. This was because Italian coins were found in his jacket pocket, and because his rather worn clothes had tailoring marks in Italian. The trousers, it was noted, were made in
Italia.

But in truth, these were not such terribly mysterious or important clues. In truth, the fact that the murdered man was Italian would matter little to the police of New York City. In truth, they would never know what had happened in that tunnel or why.

The article did, however, fail to mention three terribly mysterious and important clues. First, in the right hand of the victim was a corner of a map showing a sliver of the Apennines mountain range. Second, in the left hand of the victim was a fistful of black feathers. Third—and the absence of this clue from the article was in no way the fault of the journalist, his editors, the coroner, or the police investigators at the scene, because this terribly mysterious and important clue was gone by the time any of them found the body—hidden by a rock, down the tunnel, in the shadows, there was a crumpled envelope with a broken wax seal and a torn note inside that, when it was intact and legible, read simply, “They will be on the train.”

Mom, Dad, Nate, Lu, Jeffrey, Jules, Lyric, Cyrus, and Jill

To the wonderful friends and readers from all over the world:

Alexander Carlsson

Alexandra Curtis Boyer

Andrea Spira

Andrew Ferguson

April Sugarman

Barbara Price

Bernie Schwartz

Chuchi Oka Zeh

Clare Fleishman

Cyrus Unger Bowditch

Jeff

Cliodhna Noonan

Danny Neville

David Bredin

Doris Bowman and her friends up in Scotland

Dr. Brandon Canfield

Dr. Dorothee Heisenberg

Dr. Gavin Rae

Dr. Trent Pomplun

Elizabeth Bredin

Ford Duvall

Gabriella Gensheimer

Innes Wyness

Jane Cowper

Jason Williford

Jennifer Fugate

Jorge Verlenden

Joseph and Rosie Pearce

Josh Dalsimer

Julius Unger Bowditch

Kate Bowditch

Laura Bradford

David

Lavanda Davis

Lisa Dalsimer

Lukas Hager

Lynn Towart

Lyric Unger Bowditch

Madeline Cowper

Dr. Marla Friend Hartzen

Mary Bauer

Maya Rinehart

Mia Dixler

Michele Carlsson

Mohini Kumar

Nate Unger Bowditch

Ned Oldham

Pascale Rozier

Patrick Ervin

Polly Thomas

Rachel Tunis

Randi Danforth

Sandy All en

Sebastian Bauer

Shireen Akram-Boshar

Sih Oka-Zeh

Sonali Edwards

Stephen Bredin

Steve Parke

Tracy Copes

Wendy Vissar

Michael

To the incomparable Harrison Demchick, who has an eye and an ear capable of knowing more than the rest of us. I wish you were not always right. It would have been so much easier. And to Bruce, who never wavers when he finds something he trusts—and then works unendingly to make it the best it can be.

To Jonathan Scott Fuqua, who has the brilliant habit of standing when all the world is sitting down and for speaking out when all the world doesn’t seem to bother. I can never thank you enough.

For my children, Julius, Lyric, and Cyrus, who showed me where “magic” falls short and that real magic is something we can touch.

And to the love of my life, without whom I just wouldn’t be—Nate.

Eden Unger Bowditch has been writing since she was very small. She has been writing since she could use her brain to think of something to say. She wrote at the University of California, Berkeley, and she wrote songs as a member of the band enormous.

She has written stories and plays and shopping lists and screenplays and dreams and poems—and also books about her longtime Baltimore home. She has lived in Chicago and France and other places on the planet, and has been a journalist, as well as a welder, and an editor, and other things, too.

The
Atomic Weight of Secrets
is her first young adult novel, and she has been as excited writing it as she hopes you are reading it.

Presently, Eden lives with her family (husband and three children) in Cairo, Egypt. But that’s another story entirely...