The Secret Songs of D.C. Silverenn

| 14

Emi's keys clang on the corner table as we enter our apartment. I hurry into the kitchen, clutching the safe to my chest. It bangs down on our dining table, beside an empty bowl and mac n' cheese box.

"I don't like this," Emi says. She appears across from me, and her chair screeches backward as she pulls it back to sit in. "I mean, what if that man took down my license plate number? They might cme looking for us!"

"Why would they do that?" I sigh, laying Silverenn's music out on the table.

Increase a groove up to the top. Let it crash into the drop.

"You can't honestly believe that they were doing some harmless little errand in that warehouse. They were smuggling musical instruments."

"That's a hasty conclusion to jump to." Though my suspicions are the same.

"Cerise, we could get into major trouble if we keep pursuing the treasure."

My eyes still are glued to the score, searching for what the riddle could mean. "And we will be in major trouble if we don't find the treasure — major financial trouble."

"Oh, please! Give it up already so we can find a real job."

My gaze snaps up, gaze narrowed on Emi. She matches me with a piercing stare of her own, her dark brown eyes daring me to challenge her.

There is that performance job, the one that requires me to submit a video of me playing Bach and a concerto. When was the deadline again? Would there even be enough time to practice for it?

Emi pushes back from the table, the chair's legs scraping against the floor. She stalks to her room, while I continue to survey the tiny lines on the piece "In Lace." A moment later, she returns, plopping down with a sigh across from me.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"All good. It's been a long day." My fingers tap a few times on the table. "I just can't figure out why the combination wouldn't work inside the warehouse." My eyes drift to the dial, complete with all the notes of a scale: letters A-G in the alphabet. The trick is to figure out which measure, or measures, are the combination.

Increase a groove up to the top.

"The top sounds like the top of the scale," I say. "I'm like, ninety-percent sure that the combination is all those sixty-four second notes."

Emi doesn't peel her eyes away from her mug of tea. Her fingers shift around its ceramic sides. "How many accelerandos are there?"

"Huh?" I count them quickly. "Nine. Why?"

"Maybe we're supposed to spin the dial ten times each time we input a letter."

"What?" I exclaim. "That's crazy."

"Silverenn is crazy."

A scowl settles over my face. "Fine. But I'm writing down the note names first. I don't need the lock to not work on account of getting the note name wrong."

With two pairs of eyes scrutinizing each note, we come to a consensus on which letter each one is. I jot down the long string of numbers, then begin the painstaking task of turning the dial nine times to the right, then to the left.

Emi hovers over my shoulder, silently counting along with me. At the end of the combination, metal clicks into place. I glance up at Emi, a grin parting my lips.

"And that's how you open a safe." I swing the lid back. Inside, a single, faded black-and-white photograph lies amidst the black, metal interior. Carefully, I raise the flimsy print to the light. A circular object with a dot in the center sits in the middle, and to the side, a chain swirls in a pile.