Each was painted larger than life. On the far left was a thin, cruel-looking man with dark hair. He held a dagger that was almost hidden in his sleeve. Faded black letters at his feet read L. CAHILL. Next to him stood a young lady with short blond hair and intelligent eyes. She held an old-fashioned mechanism with bronze gears -- like a navigation instrument or a clock. The inscription under the hem of her brown dress read K. CAHILL. To her right was a huge dude with a thick neck and bushy eyebrows.
He had a sword at his side. His jaw and his fists were clenched, like he was getting ready to slam his head into a brick wall. The inscription read T. CAHILL. Finally, on the far right, was a woman in a gold dress. Her red hair was gathered in a braid over one shoulder. She held a small harp -- like one of those Irish harps Dan had seen in the Saint Patrick's Day parade back home in Boston. Her inscription read J. CAHILL.
Dan got the strangest feeling all four were watching him. They seemed angry, like he'd just interrupted them in the middle of a fight... but that was stupid. How could he tell that just from a wall painting?
"Who are they?" Nellie asked.
Amy touched the figure of L. Cahill, the man with the knife. "L ... for Lucian?"
"Yeah," Dan said. He wasn't sure how, but he knew immediately that Amy was right. It was like he could read the expressions of the painted figures, the way he could sometimes do with Amy. "Lucian branch. That guy was the first."
"And K. Cahill ..." Amy moved to the lady with the mechanical device. "Maybe K stood for Katrina or Katherine? Like Ekaterina branch?"
"Maybe." Dan looked at the guy with the sword. "Then T for Tomas? Hey, he looks like the Holts."
The picture of T. Cahill seemed to glare at him. Dan could totally see him in a purple running suit. Then Dan turned his attention to the last picture -- the lady with the harp. "And... J for Janus. You think her name was Jane?"
Amy nodded. "Could be. The first of the Janus. Look, she's got -- "
"Jonah Wizard's eyes," Dan said. The resemblance was eerie.
"These four," Amy said. "They look almost like -- "
"Brothers and sisters," Dan said. It wasn't just their similar features. It was their postures, their expressions. Dan had been in enough fights with Amy to recognize the look: These guys were siblings who'd spent years annoying each other. The way they were standing -- like they knew each other intimately but were also trying really hard not to throttle each other.
"Something must've happened between them," Amy said. "Something ..."
Her eyes widened. She moved to the middle of the mural and brushed away some cobwebs between K. and T. Cahill. There, small but clear on the painted horizon, was a burning house and a dark figure running away from it -- someone shrouded in a black cloak.
"A fire." Amy clutched her jade necklace. "Like Grace's mansion. Like what happened to our parents. We haven't changed in all these centuries. We're still trying to destroy each other."
Dan ran his fingers across the mural. It made no sense that they could know who these people were, but he was sure Amy was right. He just knew it, somewhere inside.
He was looking at four siblings -- the beginnings of the Cahill branches. He studied their faces the way he used to do with his parents' photograph, wondering who he resembled most.
"But what happened?" Nellie said. "What was in that house?"
Dan turned toward the stone pedestal. "I don't know, but I'm thinking it's time to open that vase."
Dan volunteered. Amy and Nellie stood back as he slowly lifted the vase off the pedestal. No poison arrows flew out. No spikes shot from the ceiling and no snake pits opened up, which Dan found kind of disappointing.
He was about to open the lid when Amy said, "Wait."
She pointed to the base of the pedestal. Dan had noticed the carvings, but he hadn't realized exactly what they were.
"Is that... sheet music?" he asked. Amy nodded.
Notes, lines, and stanzas were etched in the rock -- a complicated song. It brought back bad memories of Dan's piano teacher, Mrs. Harsh, who'd quit giving him lessons last year after he painted her minor keys with Crazy Glue.
"What does it mean?" he asked.
"I don't know," Amy said. "Franklin liked music -- "
"Probably just decoration," Dan said impatiently. Something was rattling around inside the vase, and he was itching to open it. He put his hand on the lid.
"Dan, no!" Amy said.
But he opened it. Nothing bad happened. Dan reached inside and pulled out a corked glass cylinder wrapped in paper.
"What is that?" Amy asked.
"Liquid," Dan said. "A vial of something."
He untied the paper and tossed it aside.
"Hey!" Amy said. "That could be important."
"It's just a wrapper."
She picked it up and unfolded it. She scanned whatever was on it and quickly tucked it in her shirt pocket. Dan didn't care about that. He was trying to decipher the words etched on the glass vial. Inside was a thick green liquid, like the slime he used to play with and throw at his friends. The inscription read:
[proofreader's note: printed on the vial is "Sa othu gearch sith, os I gearch ethe. Sue yht slslki het urtht ot efre."]
"What is that?"
Nellie said.
"German?" Amy asked.
"Uh-uh," Nellie said. "That's no language I've ever seen."
Suddenly, Dan's whole body tingled. The letters started rearranging themselves in his head. "It's one of those word puzzles," he announced. "Where they scramble the letters."
"An anagram?" Amy said. "How can you tell?"
Dan couldn't explain. It just made sense to him, the same way numbers did, or locks, or baseball card stats. "Give me a piece of paper and a pen."
Amy fished around in her bag. The only paper she could find was a piece of crème cardstock -- their original clue about Poor Richard -- but Dan didn't care. He gave Amy the vial and took the paper. He turned it over and wrote on the back, unscrambling the anagram word by word:
As thou charge this, so I charge thee. Use thy skills the truth to free.
Nellie whistled. "Okay, I'm impressed."
"It's the second clue," Dan said. "The second big one. This has to be it."