Episode 24: Grilled Cheese and Julius Caesar

Aubrey Lance, S.S. (Supernatural Sleuth) -- Season 1, Episode 24: Grilled Cheese & Julius Caesar

Once the adrenaline of what I’d just been through wore off a bit, it didn’t take long for me to remember I’d skipped dinner. As soon as I mentioned I was hungry, my mom pulled out the dinner she had on warm from earlier and made plates for all of us, and even whipped up some fresh grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it. It was way too much food, but that was Mom's way... She liked to make sure everyone had more than enough to eat.

Collin and Lockley accepted their plates gratefully, as did my dad and me, and Mom sat down to eat with us, too. She’d made some sort of fancy chicken and pasta dish as the main course, but aside from registering the primary ingredients, my mind was too scattered to analyze it further.

“This is delicious,” my dad said once he’d tasted his. 

I nodded my agreement, as did Collin and Lockley.

“Thank you,” Mom said. “I’m glad you all like it.” 

“Thank you for making dinner,” I told her. 

“Yes, thank you,” Lockley said, and Collin echoed her. 

“Of course.” Mom smiled warmly at all of us, then turned back to her food.

We ate without much further conversation—we all had thoughts of our own to explore. 

When we were done eating, Dad and Mom went into the kitchen to clean things up, and I headed up to my room to take another look at Emery’s notebook.

“Mind if I join you?” Lockley asked when I announced where I was going. “I’d like to hear more about your theories.” 

“Of course,” I said. I glanced at Collin, who had already listened to all my theories more times than any one human should have to. “You want to come?” 

He shrugged. “Three heads are better than one. Maybe something new will jump out this time.” 

I gave him a grateful smile. I knew he had to be getting tired of revisiting the same old discussions over and over—even I was getting weary of it. 

“I’m not giving up until we figure this out,” he said. 

“Thanks,” I told him, though the word seemed inadequate.

He just nodded. 

We all headed upstairs to my room.

I pulled out the notebook and opened it to the page Emery had addressed to me, then set it on my bed where we could all see it.

Collin glanced over it again from the end of the bed. 

Meanwhile, Lockley dropped to her knees and leaned over the bed to examine the page more closely. She’d never had reason to give these sketches from Emery’s notebook more than a cursory glance, even though she’d known I had them. After all, this page had been addressed to me. We’d both assumed it was just a collection of quotes for my radio show. 

A new thought suddenly occurred to me. “Do you think it’s possible Emery knew someone was after her? Coming for her that exact night, I mean?”

Lockley and Collin both looked up at me. 

Lockley tilted her head. “I mean, it seems she was having visions, and she approached the cheer hawks, right? She seemed to know someone could be after her, so she could have known specifics. But if so, why wouldn’t she have told your parents?” 

I didn’t have an answer for that, but something else about the notebook page was bothering me. “Is it possible she would have taken precautions in the event something happened to her? To warn me that they might be after me, too?” The thought that Emery may have been worrying about me when she knew her own life was in danger sent a pang of longing for my sister through my chest. 

Collin studied my face. “Even if she wasn’t sure if you had magic, I’d guess the possibility you were being watched would have occurred to her. And if she knew you might be in danger, it makes sense she would’ve done what she could to protect you.” He looked at me intently. “Why do you ask?” 

I locked eyes with him. “Trenchcoat Man said I should avoid active magic. What if Emery knew that?” My voice heightened, excitement growing as the idea took shape. “What if she’d had a vision, and knew we were both being watched and that she was going to be taken, and knew that my magic would emerge and I would hear her cry for help or warning in my dreams… but also knew that if she needed to leave a message behind for me, she’d have to leave it in a way I could understand without magic?” I grabbed the notebook and held it up. “Something about these sketches and quotes has always felt strange to me, but maybe it’s not that they’re supposed to awaken some kind of magical knowing from my gift. Maybe they’re messages Emery thought I could decipher without active magic, concealed in a way she thought only I would understand.” 

The more words tumbled out of me, the more certain I became. These were not just random quotations… but they also weren’t a magical message Emery expected my gift to reveal. 

They were a puzzle.

Collin and Lockley both looked at me. 

“Okay,” Lockley said after a moment. “I think that’s possible. I mean, Em was certainly clever enough, and with how much you both loved books, she would’ve known you’d spot something off if she put it in there. Maybe she left you a code.” Even she was looking excited now. 

I nodded. “She did. I’m sure she did. It would explain why something about this page never seemed right to me. Maybe my subconscious was picking up on something all along, or maybe that part is the latent gift or some sister connection, nudging me to look more deeply. I don’t know, but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure there’s something more here than it seems—something in the actual quotes and sketches.” 

Collin glanced at the still-open page in my hand. “Okay, then. So, if these pictures and quotes are a code… what do they say?” 

That was the million-dollar question.

We all crowded back around the notebook.

“They all look like quotes from books,” Lockley said, looking up at me. “Right?” 

I stared at the page again, that itch in my brain returning. “Books, plays, and poems, yeah. But—” I stopped, my eyes catching as usual on the drawing of the raven in the center-top of the page. “This one,” I said. “I don’t know why, but every time I look at it, it just…” I shrugged, unable to put my hunch into words. “I don’t know; it just feels like there’s something. And some of the letters are capitalized. I’ve tried writing just the words that had emphasized letters, or even just the capitalized letters themselves, but it was just a nonsensical string of words. I even tried putting them in some kind of order based on how many capital letters were emphasized per word, but it all came to nothing. I eventually decided the capital letters must’ve just been for stylistic pizzazz.” 

Lockley nodded, still staring at where I’d pointed. “Emery did like pizzazz, but…” She squinted at the page. “Which way does this quote even start? I’m assuming it’s T.S. Eliot or something, but I don’t know whether to read from the outer ring in, or from the inner one out.” 

Collin looked up at her incredulously. “It’s not Eliot, Lockley. It’s Shakespeare. Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1, to be exact. Have you really never read Julius Caesar?” 

Lockley gaped at him. “Of course I have—it was required. But I didn’t memorize it.” 

At this point, Lockley and I were both staring at Collin, who blushed slightly. 

“Well, I did. Parts, at least.” He turned back to the page. “The quote starts from the inside ring and she wrote it going out like a spiral. You start here.” He pointed to the inner loop of the quote. 

“Wait,” I said. “Let me grab a notepad.” I snagged a blank pocket-sized notebook from my desk drawer and a pen from the cup on my desk, then nodded to him. “Read it. I just want to listen to see if anything jumps out at me.” 

Collin turned back to the page and read. 

But I am constant as the Northern Star,

Of whose true fixed and resting quality

There is no fellow in the firmament.

The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;

They are all fire, and every one doth shine.

He looked up at me. “Anything?” 

I shook my head. A pressure in my chest had now joined the niggling in my brain. Something was there—but what? “Can you try just the words that have capital letters in them?” I asked Collin. “Read them like they’re their own sentence.”  

Collin turned back to the page. “Uh, sure. Am constant… the Northern… of resting quality… fellow the firmament… unnumbered they are fire… every one shine.” He looked up at me. “That mean anything to you?” 

I sighed. “No. Maybe read them backwards? The quote may go from the inside loop outward, but it’s possible Emery wanted to emphasize the words in the opposite—”

“Wait,” Lockley said, peering more closely at the page. “You said you once tried just the capital letters, but it was nonsense, right?” 

I looked at her and nodded. “It wasn’t even really a sentence.” 

She stared at me a moment, then looked back at the page. “Write them down again. Maybe it’s just the ones that aren’t supposed to be capitalized in the quote—like the ones that wouldn’t have been in the original. I think I see something. I’m gonna go in the order the quote is supposed to be read, okay?” 

I pressed my pen to the page, ready to write. 

Lockley read. “M, a, t, h, f, i, r, s, t, l, e, f, t, u, n, d, e, r, e, y, e, s.” She looked up at me, a strange excitement in her eyes. “Read that back to me? As words, if you can.” 

I looked down, recognizing the string of words I’d deemed nonsensical in the past. “Math… first… left… under… eyes.” I lowered my pen, disappointed. “It doesn’t make any sense.” 

“But it does,” Lockley said, climbing hurriedly to her feet. “Don’t you remember where Em’s locker was?” 

A chill shot straight through my chest. “By the advanced math classrooms.” That particular bay of lockers was in a little alcove off a wing of the high school I’d rarely had reason to enter since Emery had vanished—I wasn’t exactly doing AP Calculus. I’d only ever entered that area if I was with Emery when she went to get her books. 

Lockley’s excitement was mounting. “Yes! My locker was there too, last year. And do you remember what was on the wall over the lockers—over the left-most strip of those lockers?” 

My heart skipped. “Eyes. Graffiti eyes someone had painted, like they were staring down at you—I kept wondering why the school hadn’t painted over them, until finally last year they did… Oh my goodness, Lock!” Now I was on my feet, too. “Do you think she meant there was something in those lockers?” 

Lockley grabbed my hands. “Math, first left, under eyes! It’s a clue, Aubs! You were right!” 

We were both bouncing now, holding each other’s hands. “It’s a clue!” I echoed, then a heaviness hit my chest. I stopped bouncing and dropped her hands. 

“Aubs?” Lockley asked, concerned. 

I looked up at her. “It’s been here in this notebook this whole time. This whole time. What if Em was waiting for us to help her, and what if we’re—” 

I couldn’t even finish the phrase out loud. What if we’re too late? 

What if I was too late?

My throat tightened. “It took me so long to figure this out, and you had it right away—”

“Hey,” Lockley said firmly. “I never would’ve figured that out if you hadn’t already suggested the idea of the letters. The page said Tell Aubrey, and there’s a reason for that. These notes were meant for you. You and Em were both so into books, it’s practically like a secret language you shared, and she knew that. I didn’t even know which direction to read the quote.” She glanced up at Collin with a little huff, then looked back at me. “If there’s more in here, you’re the most likely one to find it. But did you ever think that maybe she didn’t expect you to figure this out alone? Maybe she meant for us to help you?” 

I just gaped at her, because honestly, until very, very recently, I truly wouldn’t have considered that. 

“What if there is more?” I asked Lockley. “What if every quote on this page is some kind of message?” That thought was both exciting and overwhelming. “I should’ve gotten help sooner,” I whispered. If we were too late to help Emery, that was on me.

A cool hand rested on my shoulder. “You have it now,” Collin said, and when I looked up at him, his eyes were warm. “Whatever other hidden messages are on that page, we’ll help you figure them out. But first—we finally have a clue, so I say we go check out those lockers.” 

I drew a breath and nodded. “Yes. Just let me tell Mom and Dad first, then we’ll go.” I was done keeping secrets from my parents.

Lockley smiled. “That’s an excellent idea.” 

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Author Note:

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