A Puzzling Gift

The black suit itched. The jacket arms were too tight. She was hot and uncomfortable sitting in the old wooden church while the preacher droned on.

“Amen.” The preacher had finished.

The crowd replied, “Amen.”

She brought her attention back to the here and now. The pianist began playing somber music suitable to the occasion. The crowd stood, and began making their orderly way past the family, then out the doors into the churchyard.

“Sparrow.” The old greying preacher quietly called her name. “Your grandmother asked me to make sure that you received this.”

The preacher pulled a card-sized black envelope from the breast pocket inside his suit coat. “Tabitha was a beautiful and compassionate woman. She’ll be missed by all of us here.”

Sparrow took the envelope and stuck it in her own pocket. “Thank you, Bro. Robert. The memorial service was beautiful.”

A small hand urgently tugged her jacket. “Mom, I really need to find the bathroom!”

“Okay, kid. Let’s do that.”

They found the bathroom down the hall and behind the kitchen. After they finished, Sparrow and her tweenage daughter, Inara, walked out to the gravel parking lot to find their car. Most everyone else had already left.

Once the car was cranked, and the A/C was blowing cool air, Sparrow took out the envelope. On the front, her name had been written in script with silver ink: Sparrow Catcher

The flap on the envelope had a silver foil circle sealing it. Sparrow opened the seal, then shook out the envelope. A thin, pocket-sized, black softcover notebook fell into her lap. The cover held a beautiful and colorful hand-drawn flower with eight equidistant petals. Sparrow recognized her grandmother’s art. A note was written on the first page inside the book:

“Find the coin which is lost. Light your lamp. Sweep the corners and the shadows.”

The note was set in between two odd asymmetrical borders.

"Mom, what is it? What does it mean?"

"Momo loves…loved…puzzles. I believe that she’s referring to a Bible story; however, I don’t know what she’s trying to say.” Sparrow sighed. “Let's go home, kid. We need to eat and decompress. We can work out the puzzle tomorrow."

"Love you, Mom."

"Love you, Inara."

They buckled their seatbelts, and turned the car towards home.

***

“Mom! Mom! MOM!”

“What!?”

“Are you awake?”

“I’m awake now. Is there a tornado on the ground? Why are you waking me up while it’s still dark outside?”

“I figured out the puzzle! Part of it at least. Part of the border is made from the Cistercian number system.”

“I’m rethinking the wisdom of giving you a smartphone. Did you sleep at all last night?”

“That’s not important. Come downstairs and help me solve Momo’s puzzle!”

Inara bounced out the bedroom door.

Sparrow sat up, and put her feet on the floor. She turned up the bedside lamp, and stood up out of the bed. She took off her pajamas, and got dressed in the clothes that she had laid out a few hours earlier. Then, she walked out of the bedroom with slow and quiet dignity.

Sparrow made her way downstairs to the kitchen. Inara was already sitting at the counter.

“Coffee. I need coffee! Kid, would you like coffee?”

“Yes?” said Inara.

Sparrow pulled two small mugs from the overhead cabinet. She filled the kettle, and set it on the stove burner, then she ignited the gas flame. She took out two phin filters. She added a few spoons of coffee grounds and a pinch of salt to the brewing chamber of each one. She set each filter on the top of a mug. Once the kettle was boiling, she took it off the stove, and turned off the gas. She added water to the brewing chambers and waited.

When the coffee was ready, Sparrow brought mugs, spoons, and sugar, over to the counter. She gave one mug to Inara, then she took the chair to her daughter’s right.

Inara started talking with too much energy for o-dark-thirty. “So. The rest of the book is blank. Momo only wrote on the first page."

"Oh! I found this.” Inara handed Sparrow a black coin envelope. The seal was already open. “There’s a pocket inside the back cover of the book. That,” she pointed, “was inside the pocket.”

Sparrow opened the envelope and upended it. A small silver key dropped into her cupped hand.

“Where do you think it fits?” Inara asked.

“It looks like it might go to a cashbox or a book safe; maybe a drop-box.” Sparrow replied. She tucked the key back into the envelope and set them aside.

She pointed her chin at the notes Inara held in her hands. “Show me what you’ve got so far.”

Inara laid her papers on the counter and spread them out.

“There are four symbols that don’t seem to be part of the number system. I haven’t solved those, yet. For the top line, I have: three, one, blank, five, eight, two, five, blank. For the bottom line, I have: blank, nine, seven, blank, eight, five, five, two. The symbols that I haven’t decoded look like one black dot, one white dot, a horizontal line, and another black dot.”

Sparrow looked closely at the symbols. “Kid, does this number system have a symbol for the zero?”

“No. Not exactly. The numbers start with one, and there are symbols for the tens, hundreds, and thousands, but no symbol for zero by itself.”

“Does it have equivalent symbols for the math symbols?”

“No, just numbers.”

“Let me tell you some things that I know about cryptography. First, when a person encrypts a message, they need to encrypt it so that the message is too hard for the wrong people to solve, but it also needs to be a simple message that is easy enough for the right person to solve quickly, before the information hidden in it becomes irrelevant.”

“Second, sometimes the encryptor will include uncoded symbols in the message as a method to confuse the wrong people. They may also insert nonsense symbols in the message as another confusion tactic.”

“I believe that what Momo did for this message was to use uncoded symbols for those four you haven’t solved.”

“Let me show you something else. Look on the front of the book.”

Inara picked up the black book and looked at the cover. “Momo’s flower? She drew lots of these; on nearly everything.”

“That’s not just a flower.” Sparrow grinned. “It may also be a compass. Momo liked compasses because she didn’t like getting lost; either physically, or spiritually.”

“She told us: “Find the coin which is lost.” If that flower is a compass, then these numbers might be latitude and longitude coordinates.”

“So, ‘X’ marks the spot?” Inara asked excitedly.

“Yes! Now, let’s take your numbers and fill in the blanks. If these are uncoded symbols, they give us: three one point five eight two five zero, and negative nine seven point eight five five two.”

Inara asked, “How do we find out where these lead to?”

“Get your phone. Open your map app, plug the numbers in, and tell it to search.”

Inara jumped in her seat. “Hey! It worked!"

"It looks like the location is in the middle of a grass field. The app says that it’s about an hour’s drive from here. Can we go check it out, right now?”

Sparrow chuckled. “Kid, get dressed first, and put on your boots. We’ll grab some breakfast on the way out of town.”

***

31.58250, -97.8552

The coordinates brought them to an old graveyard that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There was now enough morning light that they could walk around without needing flashlights. Sparrow parked their car on the grass edge of the dirt road. At the entrance to the graveyard, there was a state marker that designated the site as an Historic Cemetery dating back to 1858.

Sparrow turned to Inara. “Your great-grandmother wouldn’t want us desecrating graves. When we get out of the car, step respectfully and carefully. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They walked carefully through the graveyard until Inara’s phone showed them that they’d reached their destination.

Inside the graveyard, they found the broken stone remains of a building foundation in the exact spot where the app had dropped the pin. On the grass inside the remains, an out-of-place dark red stone block sat in a shaded corner by itself. The block was partially buried under leaf litter and duff.

Sparrow grinned. “I believe that we’ve found what we’re searching for.”

The block had a lid. Sparrow lifted it off, and set it down in the grass. Inside the block was a small flat pistol box. Sparrow lifted the box out of the stone block. She replaced the stone lid, and set the box down on it.

She took the coin envelope out of her pocket and shook out the silver key.

She tried the key in the lock.

It fit.

She turned the key a quarter-turn clockwise.

She heard a soft click.

As she lifted the lid, she glimpsed bright yellow.

Inside the box, lay ten large gold coins, each enclosed in hard plastic. The years minted on the coins were modern. Liberty proudly held up her torch on the face of each coin. Sparrow began to feel light-headed.

"Hot damage!” cried Inara. “Treasure!"

There was an envelope bearing her name tucked inside the lid of the pistol box. Sparrow took it out and opened it. Inside, there was a recent appraisal for the coins. The appraised value was $20,000.

There was also another handwritten note:

Dear Sparrow,

Rejoice!

The coins that were “lost” have now been found!

Take them, and use them with my blessing.

All my love,

Momo