"'Masque,'" Bev read from the CD booklet.  "'A disguise of reality created through a theatrical or musical performance.'"

"That's what the guys in Kansas were aiming for with their third album back in 1975," Michael said.  "Well, for the most part, they were.  After two albums of original but mostly 'non-radio-friendly' music Kirshner Records was pressuring them for a 'hit' song that would actually make some money for the band and, more importantly, for the record company.  Steve Walsh wrote a couple of up-tempo, boy-girl love songs for the album to satisfy the higher-ups and even Kerry Livgren added a somewhat bouncy tune, but for the rest of the album they went ahead with the kind of music they wanted to make."

Michael picked up the jewel case and turned it over to the album's track listing to show it to his wife.

"Some of the most beloved songs among Kansas fans are on this album," he continued."  "'Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel,' 'All the World,' 'The Pinnacle'... and not one of them 'Top-40' material."

"You used 'Icarus' for your Challenger memorial site, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied.  "That song was playing in the back of my mind all day long on the day of the disaster."

"So our mysterious code writer is telling us to look at this album to figure out what he's saying," Bev said.

"Maybe," Michael answered.  "Maybe not.  He didn't actually name the album in the message, just the artist who painted the cover art.  And that painting had been around for more than four hundred years before it was used on this album.  Maybe the message is pointing us to the original painting, not the album."

"It's a weird looking painting," Bev said, looking at the CD cover.  "Is that an octopus?" she asked, pointing to the lower right side.

"Yes," Michael said.  "This was part of a series of paintings that Arcimboldo made expressing the human form in unconventional ways.  This painting, Water, shows a human figure in profile composed entirely of sea creatures."

"Oh," she replied.  "Oh!  I see it now!"

"And he did another painting called Earth that depicted a human profile from land animals.  Then there was Air, which used birds."

"That's really creative," Bev said.

"It was the Renaissance," Michael added.

Bev stared at the album cover for a few more seconds and then asked, "Well, if our code writer is indeed pointing us to this painting, maybe the answer to the mystery is in the painting itself.  Where is this Water painting now?"

"According to the original album credits from 1975," Michael replied, checking the CD booklet, "it was at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.  I suppose it's still there."

"You pronounced that very well," she said.

"Oh... thank you."

"But wait a minute.  Vienna's in Austria," Bev exclaimed.  "We can't go all that distance just to see a painting."

"No, we can't, "Michael said.  "Trans-atlantic airfare for seven would be gastronomical."

"You mean, 'astronomical,'" Bev offered.

"No, 'gastronomical,'" Michael replied.  "It would make me sick to my stomach."

"Maybe we wouldn't need to go there anyway," Bev said.  "After all, we've got the painting here on the CD cover.  And while the coded message may not have mentioned the album by name, it definitely linked the painting with Kerry Livgren.  This album is the only connection between the two."

She looked at the painting on the cover again.  "But it's not very big.  Can you find a larger picture of it?"

"Maybe," Michael said, turning back to his computer.  "The 'Olga's Gallery - Online Art Museum' has thousands of paintings and images from throughout the entire history of art.  Let me see if I can find it there."  Michael typed the address into his browser, clicked on the "search" link, entered "arcimboldo" and "water" in the field and clicked the button.  Seconds later the site's search engine returned four results.

"Here," Michael said, moving the mouse.  "The third result."

Michael clicked the link, and a moment later the screen filled with a much larger image of the painting.

"That's much better," Bev said.  "It's brighter than the CD cover, too."

The two of them stared at the screen for a few moments, trying to find something decipherable in the mass of marine life that formed a human figure.

"Fish, stingrays, crabs, turtles," Bev murmured.  "It's still not big enough.  Can you print it out?  Would that make it bigger?"

"Bigger maybe, but not much clearer.  My printer's only a basic inkjet."

Bev stared again at the image on the screen for a few more seconds.  "I still wish I could see it bigger than this.  Don't you have any way of enlarging it?"

"No," Michael said, standing up.  "But I don't think we need to.  I just remembered something."

He got up and walked over to the storage closet on the other side of the room.  Flicking on the overhead light, he started looking for something on the upper shelf.  After a few moments, he said, "Yeah.  Here it is.  In my old record album collection.  Man, I haven't pulled this out for almost twenty years."

Michael turned off the light and walked back over to where Bev was sitting, a dark colored record album in his hand.  He handed it to his wife, who immediately recognized the cover image as a large version of the CD booklet cover they had started with.

"The original Kansas record album Masque," Michael said.  "Well, not the original, of course," he corrected himself.  "My copy of the album.  And the biggest, clearest image of Water I can show you this side of the Atlantic."

"That's much better," Bev said, adjusting her reading glasses.  The aquatic life represented in the painting stood out sharply and clearly.  Michael came and stood over her shoulder as they both scrutinized the image.

After a minute or so Bev said, "I still don't see anything that could be a message of any kind.  No words or numbers or anything like that."  She continued looking for a few moments.  "Hmm," she finally said, "I wonder..."

"What, honey?"

"Where's my purse?" she asked.

"Your hidden portal to another dimension?" Michael answered, only half-jokingly.  "It's over there on the chair.  I'll get it."

Michael walked across the room, picked up the purse and brought it to his wife, keeping it closed so as not to inadvertently gaze into its unfathomable mysteries and thus be driven insane.  Like Spock in that old Star Trek episode.

Bev reached into her purse, fishing for something while continuing to look at the album cover.  It seemed to Michael that her arm disappeared deeper into the purse than its apparent outside dimensions would have allowed.  What was it that had he once heard of on an old BBC science-fiction series?  Time And Relative Dimensions In Space?

Ignorance is bliss, he thought to himself.

"Here it is," Bev said, pulling her arm out.  "My black-light penlight."

"You think there's another secret message on the album cover?  Written in black-light ink?"  Michael asked skeptically.

"Worth a shot," she replied, getting up and carrying the album with her.  "Come with me into the bathroom."

The bathroom, Michael thought to himself.  Well well well...

They walked a short distance down the hallway and went into the small, windowless room.  Bev closed the door behind them and they were immediately plunged into total darkness.

"You know, Sweetie," Michael said, putting his arm around what he thought was his wife's shoulder, "given the dramatic and romantic nature of this adventure so far, what with my role as leading man and yours as my leading lady, this is the perfect place in the story line for us to notice increased sexual tension between the two of us."

"Time out, Casanova," Bev replied.  "First, that's my elbow; and second, we've been married almost twenty years and have five kids.  There is no sexual tension between us."

"Oh.  Shucks."

"Now, let's see what we can see," Bev said, holding the album in the darkness and turning on the penlight, moving the beam back and forth across the cover.

"I don't see anything," Michael said.

"Me neither," she said, turning off the light.  "Not that I really expected to."

"You know, honey," Michael tried again, "it would be a shame to let all this darkness go to waste.  And the kids are still at school."

"Honey," Bev said, opening the door and brushing him aside, "we've got to solve this mystery.  You've always wished I would be more interested in Kansas; well, now I am."  She walked out and back down the hallway.

Of all the times to... Michael grumbled to himself as he followed his wife back into the bedroom, where he found her sitting at the computer.

"Maybe we've got to see the original after all," she said, staring at the album cover.

"Right," Michael replied.  "I'll call a travel agent and then declare bankruptcy."

"Hmm?" she said.  "Oh, no, not the original painting in Venice.  The original record album."

"The original album?"  Michael asked.

"Yes," Bev answered.  "The original Masque album."

"Wait a minute, honey," Michael said, mystified.  "First, I don't know if you can even talk about an 'original' album.  Hundreds of thousands of copies of this album, cover and all, were pressed and sold by Kirshner Records before CDs took over.  There'd be no way to know which one was printed first.  Besides, that was more than thirty years ago.  I don't even know if the record company's prototype of the album's artwork even exists anymore."

"Maybe we don't need the original, though," Bev said.  "After all, that message we found last night wasn't written on the original John Brown painting, was it?"

"No," Michael replied, "just near a representation of it."

"Maybe we need to find something that represents the original album," Bev continued.  "What's the closest thing you can think of to the original?"

Michael had no idea where his wife was going with this.  "Well," he finally said after a few moments of thought, "when I think of an original copy of an album, any album, what comes to my mind is the album in its shrink-wrap.  Unopened.  Unplayed.  Virgin vinyl.  Like this copy of Masque when I first bought it."

"Where did you buy it?" Bev asked.

"At a vintage record store in Richmond, Virginia, when I was in seminary," Michael replied.  "Before we met.  I hadn't yet bought a CD player and my old copy of the album was all scratchy, so I went and bought a new copy."

"Shrink-wrapped," she added.

"Yes, shrink-wrapped," he repeated.

"Closest thing you can think of to an original copy."

"I suppose so," Michael answered, still mystified.

"Does that store still exist?" Bev asked.

"Well," Michael said, "I sure don't know.  But there's one way to find out."  He sat down in front of the computer and called up a business directory Web site.

"Records," he said as he typed, "in Richmond, Virginia."  After a few seconds the system returned its results.  "33 listings found," Michael said as he started scrolling through them.

"Anything?" Bev asked.

"Just a moment," he said.  "Bingo.  Here.  I don't believe it.  Budget Music on Patterson Avenue.  They're still around."

"Is there a phone number?"

"Yep.  Here," he said, reaching for the phone, "I'll dial them."

Michael punched in the phone number as his wife watched him.  She could sense the excitement he felt over their shared adventure.  A little boy, she though to herself, smiling.

"Hello?  Yes," he said into the phone.  "My name is Michael Brooks.  I remember your store from twenty years ago.  I'm calling to see if you still sell old record albums there."

"Yes, we do, sir," the young man's voice on the other end said.  He couldn't have even been born the last time Michael had gone into the store.

"I'm calling to find out if you have in your old records an album by the band Kansas called Masque, M-A-S-Q-U-E," Michael said, spelling it out.

"Let me check," the young man said and put down the phone.

"He's checking," Michael told Bev as he waited.  The other end was silent for a time, and then it seemed to him that he could hear voices talking faintly, as if they were some distance from the receiver.  The voices almost seemed to be arguing.

Finally the young man came back on the line.  "You wanted an LP record album of Masque by Kansas, right?" he asked.  Michael though he detected a note of uneasiness in his voice.

"Yes, that's the one.  Do you have it?"

"Did you say your name was Michael Brooks?" the young man asked.

"Yes, I did," Michael replied.  "Michael Everett Brooks. I'm calling from Culpeper, Virginia."

"Uh, yes, sir," the young man said after a moment, "we have it.  One copy.  Shrink-wrapped.  Just like new.  Would you like to get it?"

"Um, yes, I would," Michael said, struck that the clerk would specify that the copy was shrink-wrapped.

"How soon can you come?" the young man asked.

Suddenly the front door opened.  "Hi, Mom; hi, Dad," three young voices called out, almost in unison.  It was their three youngest returning home from school, having been dropped off by their friend's mother.

"Hi guys," Bev called out as they came in.

Michael turned back to his phone call.  "I'm sorry, my kids just came in.  Did you want to know when we could get there?"

"Yes, please," the clerk answered.

Just then the front door opened again as their two oldest barged into the house after being dropped off by the bus.  "Mom, Dad," Jeff called out, "we're home."

"Hey," Bev said to them.  "Michael, how was your SOL?"

"Fine," he called out as he headed toward his bedroom, his baritone case bumping lightly against the walls as he walked.  "It was easy."

"Hey," Michael also called out to his sons and then returned to the phone call.  "I'm sorry again, my other kids just came in too.  When can we get there?  Umm..." Michael hesitated.

He looked at the calendar.  It was Friday afternoon.  No school tomorrow.

"When do you close today?" Michael asked.

"Five o'clock."

Too close to make it today.  "When do you open tomorrow?"

"Noon," the young man said.  "Then we close at eight."

"We'll be there tomorrow," Michael said.  "Just put my name on it."

"Well, you know, that's funny, sir," the clerk replied.  "Your name's already on it.  Like it was reserved for you."

Michael was at a complete loss.  Finally he stammered out, "Okay, well, um, that's good.  We'll be there tomorrow to get it."

"Okay, sir.  It'll be here.  Good-bye."  The clerk hung up.

"What was all that about, honey?" Bev asked as the kids strolled into the room.  Youngest son Graham opened the back door to let their dog Cypress in.

"They've got the album.  Shrink-wrapped.  And he said that my name was already on it."

"Well, I'm glad they could reserve it for you," she said.

"No," he said, "I mean 'on it' as in my name was on the copy of the record before I even called about it."

"That's fishy," she replied, a frown crossing her lips.

"What's fishy?" Jeff asked as the other kids started playing with Cypress.

Michael knew that if he answered Jeff now he'd just have to repeat himself several times for each child in succession because they're just young kids and their brains are still developing and they never listen the first time and...

Sorry.  Again.

"Pack your overnight bags, guys," Michael said.  "We're taking a road trip."

"Yay!" the kids shouted together.  "Where?"

"Richmond."

"Oh, yeah!" Graham shouted.  "We can play at the seminary!"

"And go on the paddleboats at Maymont Park!" Emily squealed.

"And play pool in Richmond Hall," Katherine added excitedly.

"And ping-pong, too!" Michael (the younger one) said, the narrative once again differentiating between him and his father.

"And throw the baseball on the Quad," Jeff said.  "When are we leaving?"

"As soon as you can pack.  Hurry up!"

The household became a cacophony of chaos as the kids ran off to pack their things, the dog tearing after them this way and that as they ran from room to room, gathering their belongings.  Bev walked over to her husband, a frown still on her face.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked.

"Only way to get to the bottom of this thing," Michael answered.  "Come on, let's pack our bags."