Page 54 of Alchemy of Secrets

A yellow pencil.

It felt like a joke without a punch line.

Holland picked up the pencil. “I don’t understand.”

“We must be missing something.” Adam picked up the empty book and shook it, but all that fell out was dust.

“It can’t end here,” Holland said.

She took the pencil and started to scribble in the book, hoping magic words would appear, but it seemed that all the magic had been in the lock Gabe had opened. Holland wondered again how he’d even gotten a key. Then she remembered the mysterious phone call she’d received in the coffin.

Quickly, she reached into her purse and pulled out the phone.

Missed call First Bank of Centennial City

Voice Message

Adam suddenly looked nervous.

“I don’t even know how they got this number,” Holland said.

“Ignore it,” Adam warned.

But Holland was already pressing Play on the message.

“Hello, my dear,” the Professor’s familiar voice flowed through the phone.

“Your friend Gabriel and I had an interesting chat, in which he gave me this number. If you could call me back, I would greatly appreciate it. But since I’m doubtful you will, I’m going to speak plainly.

While I was conversing with Mr. Cabral, I became aware of your very alarming bleeding episodes.

“I know what’s happening to you, Holland, and I know how to save you, but you must bring me the Alchemical Heart. You can find me tonight, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Halloween Ball—and I hope you do. Please let me help before it’s too late.”

“You can’t trust her,” Adam said as soon as the message was done.

But the problem was, Holland was tempted to believe her. She had thought earlier that if anyone knew what was wrong with her, it would be the Professor.

“If you find the Alchemical Heart, you won’t need her.”

“But what if we don’t find it?” Holland looked down at her watch. There were only five hours left. And her father’s latest clue didn’t feel like much of a clue at all. Gabe hadn’t even bothered to take it. But Gabe didn’t have her father’s screenplay pages.

Holland pulled out her father’s pages, and instantly she saw it. Her father’s familiar handwriting— in pencil.

“This is it,” she said excitedly. “My father wants us to look at the notes he made in pencil.”

She pointed to the first set of pages.

EXT. A GRAVEYARD. SUNSET

A hand (the hand of Red Westcott) sets a bouquet of flowers in front of a grave covered in spring-green grass. The tombstone reads:

Sophia Westcott

Beloved Wife. Beautiful Soul.

This is only temporary. My neighbor next door?

There is a moment of perfect silence, except for the sound of a breeze rustling leaves on a sycamore tree. Then…

Red plunges his fist into his wife’s grave and pulls out a handful of dirt.

“Look at the words he’s written in pencil: My neighbor next door? And then look at this.”

Holland shuffled the pages to get to the ones from the Watch Man and pointed at the bottom of the final page. Her father had penciled the words: Be certain you’re going in the right direction before you dig in .

“So, back at the hotel, I was right about the digging,” Adam said.

“Yes, it looks like my father buried something. And I think this is telling us where to look.”

She showed Adam the pencil marks on the first page again. “The houses used in My Neighbor Next Door are part of the JME tours. I think that’s where he buried his next clue.”

Holland just hoped it would also be the last clue.

Holland could acutely feel the change in time when she and Adam exited Stage 10.

The studio looked empty.

There were no more buses of tourists.

The sky was as dark as it ever got in the middle of a city.

The whirl of the golf cart seemed too loud as Holland and Adam drove through the studio back lot and then to the houses for My Neighbor Next Door .

The set felt like a different version of reality. A neighborhood from the days when doors were never locked, all phones could do was make calls, and most problems could be solved with a good heart-to-heart with Mom or Dad.

Holland knew that in the daylight they would all be as pretty as pastel candies, with crisp white shutters and overflowing flowerbeds. But tonight, the neighborhood felt eerie. The lampposts cast all the houses in a soft glow that made it impossible to distinguish their colors.

“Everything looks the same,” Adam muttered. He looked up and down the perfect street as if he didn’t understand the appeal.

“You don’t like My Neighbor Next Door ?” Holland asked.

Although she had to admit, right now it looked more horror movie than wholesome.

And she had no idea where they were supposed to dig.

Before leaving Stage 10, Adam had grabbed a large shovel, but it would take all night to dig up all the yards.

“Can you pull out the screenplay again?” Adam asked.

Holland stopped under one of the streetlamps and held out the page where her father had penciled My neighbor next door?

“‘Red plunges his fist into his wife’s grave and pulls out a handful of dirt,’” Adam read. “Are we supposed to look for a grave?”

Holland raised an eyebrow at him. “There aren’t any graves on this street.” She continued to flip through the pages, but the only words written in pencil were My neighbor next door? and Be certain you’re going in the right direction before you dig in .

“Let me see a few of those?” Adam asked.

Holland handed him the set of pages from the Watch Man, while she combed over the pages she’d found in the safety deposit box.

The first page already held a clue, so she focused on the second, wondering if there was something she’d overlooked.

INT. A BOWLING ALLEY. EVENING.

Red slams the jar full of dirt down on a table. The jar now says the word Ball instead of the title of the film.

In the background, balls are rolling, pins are falling.

When someone gets a gutter ball, a neon sign inside of a heart lights up with the words Not Your Lucky Day .

Think Cassius Marcellus Coolidge meets Spanish colonial revival.

The neon sign is on as Red walks in. He approaches a vinyl table with a group of stylish older women in matching bowling shirts.

The word Hollybells is monogrammed on the backs of their pink-and-green shirts.

Five of the women are sipping sodas from vintage glass bottles with striped straws.

The sixth is stitching a yellow house on a needlepoint pillowcase.

Holland’s heart started racing. “I think I found the next clue.” She pointed to the final paragraph. “See this bit about the needlepoint pillow? It’s totally unnecessary to the story. I think it means we’re supposed to go to the yellow house.”

“How do we find the yellow house?” Adam asked. All the colors looked the same in the dark.

But Holland didn’t need the light. Anyone who’d ever watched My Neighbor Next Door knew the yellow house had a tree with an old wooden swing where arms were broken, love was confessed, and tears were shed. And now she wondered if this was where her father’s secrets were buried.