II

Robbie put his head in his hands and sat there for a long moment while 'Bella's smile slowly faded away. Finally, he spoke. "The Voynich Manuscript? The Voynich Manuscript that has baffled the world's top code breakers for hundreds of years and continues to do so? The Voynich Manuscript that appears to be written in a type of code never before seen and decades - no, centuries - ahead of its time? That Voynich Manuscript?

"No, not that one," Infernobella shook her head enthusiastically. "The other one. You know, the one the rest of the world doesn't know about and is just waiting for somebody like you to crack it. The one that contains knowledge that will change the world, and directions to hidden treasure, and - and - and. . . " She trailed off. "Or maybe it's the one you were talking about, yeah."

Robbie sighed. Her faith in him was great for the ego, for sure, but she was asking for the impossible. If she wanted him to give her a handful of stars or maybe moonlight in a box it would be simpler. Some of the sharpest minds through the centuries had tried and failed to gain so much as a toehold into it. Some of the craziest have claimed to see an answer in it. He'd have to research what had been done, but he was pretty sure that the word patterns, handwriting, and symbol distribution were close enough to actual language for it to be considered a valid document and not an elaborate hoax The five hundred year old parchment and ink provided a bit of credibility, too. The key hovered just out of reach - a bit like the Holy Grail, he thought bitterly. And speaking of the Holy Grail, as soon as he was eighteen he was applying for a passport and going back to Rome to fetch it. He still couldn't believe that they had left it there, after it had quite literally been within their grasp.

Infernobella shuffled through the papers. On many of the first ones there were drawings of plants, one to a page, and lines upon lines of that elegant though confusing script. It made her head hurt and her eyes go all funny looking at it for long. Instead, she shifted her gaze to the flowers. "Robbie, I have an idea!" she exclaimed. "We find out what these plants were called, and that would probably be the top words on each page! I mean, if it's a book about flowers, it's gonna name them, right?"

It sounded plausible. In fact, it sounded so plausible as to be reasonable. So reasonable it might be common sense, and she had come up with it so quickly he doubted somebody else hadn't already tried it. They paged through, looking for familiar blossoms. The farther he went, the more dismayed he got. Not like Robbie was an aspiring botanist, but there was not one he recognized. 'Bella, likewise, saw nothing she could name. As Robbie stood, gathering the papers, 'Bella popped another cookie into her mouth. "Come on, 'Bella, lets go to my house and start some Google-research."

The pair headed to Robbie's house at a quicker pace than he usually used to come home from his favorite hangout. 'Bella chatted happily about the treasure they would find (nothing about the manuscript even hinted at treasure, but once an idea stuck in her head, that was that) the exotic places they would go (South America? Honestly, 'Bella, too many adventure movies, he thought) and the deadly booby traps they would face to get it. Robbie let her ramble in English and in Italian, mm-hmming and nodding in all the right places. He'd gotten this down to an art form through the years. He enjoyed listening to her talk, and she enjoyed talking to him. He wasn't even surprised when things like this happened because she hardly spoke to anyone else and certainly not like this. With Infernobella words stacked up inside of her until they exploded in a long stream at whoever was within earshot. Times like this it was nice, although many times it landed her in heaps of trouble. Today she was gesturing expansively with her hands, twirling and skipping with excitement right until they got in the door. Robbie's house always had a quieting effect on her. His parents were well-off, and his mother kept the house neat, clean, and exceedingly modern-looking. Pale colors, high ceilings, brushed steel, and open spaces predominated.

"Let's go up to your room, huh?" she asked quietly. His room had been his grandfather's study and was still a comfortable clutter of Victorian bookcases, leather-bound volumes, odd-looking brass instruments, and antiques. Robbie hadn't changed it at all when he decided to sleep there, besides put up his bed and a few posters of various classic rock bands in a corner. The rest he used, if not reverentially then most certainly respectfully, just as his grandfather had. He had been a great scholar and an explorer too, especially in his early years. Robbie had loved him dearly and looked up to him like only an adoring little boy could. His only regrets were that Gramps wasn't around anymore (How he would have loved the Grail!) and that he hadn't been born in Gramps' time. He was certain he would have fit in much better there.

Ascending the spiral staircase, Robbie and Infernobella tiptoed to avoid disrupting Robbie's mother's yoga exercises. She was bent into a seemingly impossible configuration at the moment - Infernobella was pretty sure humans were not supposed to move that way - and they didn't want to break her concentration. It looked as if it may have disastrous consequences if they did.