Destiny

ONE

No one knew what was in the old trunk. It had been locked for more than 250 years. But in 1936, the trunk was about to be opened, and in a few days its contents would be sold to the highest bidder. For more than two centuries, the trunk was stored in a back room deep in the bowels of a home owned by the Earl of Portsmouth’s family. The trunk, a shade of tarnished silver, had been moved to the Sotheby’s building on New Bond Street in London where a locksmith kneeled, probing the rusty lock.

The Sotheby’s auctioneer, a balding man with sagging eyes, wiped a handkerchief across his perspiring upper lip. “How much longer?”

The locksmith grunted, his slender fingers twisting a pick inside the lock. “This chest has been bolted since 1727. I can’t open two-and-a-half centuries in a few seconds.”

“The auction is in two weeks.”

“Whatever’s in here could have bloody turned to dust.”

“The trunk looks secure to me. Perhaps its contents are fine.”

There was a sound, ancient metal releasing its grasp. The locksmith grinned. “Got it!”

“Please, open it.”

A rail-thin photographer for the London Times finished a cigarette, crushing the butt in an ashtray. He advanced the film in his camera, stepping closer to the trunk. “I hope there’s something worth photographing,” he said, flicking a speck of tobacco from his tongue.

The auctioneer said, “The trunk is heavy. There’s definitely something in there.”

The locksmith nodded, using a chisel to pry between the top of the trunk and the base. “Get the other side.”

The auctioneer leaned down, gripping the left side of the trunk.

“On three,” said the locksmith. “One…two…three.”

Both men carefully lifted the lid. Under the flickering light from the incandescent bulbs, the men could see thousands of papers, all handwritten, stacked in the trunk.

“What’s that?” asked the locksmith.

The auctioneer’s hands trembled as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He leaned closer and read from one paper. “This, my friend, is a treasure.”

“Doesn’t look like gold to me.”

“Perhaps it’s more valuable than gold.”

“A lot of old papers. They even smell musty.”

“These are not a lot of musty-old papers. They are the unpublished works of Britain’s greatest scientist, perhaps the most brilliant mind the world has ever known. These are the secret papers of Sir Isaac Newton.”

“Newton? Why were they hidden? What’s in ‘em?”

The auctioneer touched the notes, all stacked high in the trunk. With shaking hands, he lifted out some of the papers, the ink dark brown, originally written using a quill pen. The odor of aged papers, as if opening an old cellar door, crawled out of the chest where it had been trapped for centuries. The auctioneer read silently for half a minute.

“Oh my.”

“What is it?” asked the photographer, lifting his camera.

“Oh dear.”

“What?”

“This is incredible.”

“What does it say?” asked the locksmith.

The auctioneer didn’t answer. He scanned the aged handwriting, lifted a few more pages from the trunk and read, his hands pale in the soft light.

The photographer said, “Hold the papers up, and I’ll snap a photograph.”

The auctioneer looked up from the pages, his eyes filled with delight. “Although these are the unpublished works of Britain’s greatest scientist, he was apparently much more than a scientist.”

“What do you mean?” asked the photographer.

“Newton seems to have had a lot to say about God.”

“What would a scientist have to say about God?”

The auctioneer said nothing. He set the papers down and lifted another one. He released a low whistle, his eyes narrowing.

“What is it, Mr. Kinsley?” The photographer scribbled notes.

“It looks like Newton was extracting passages from the Bible. He’s writing about mysterious fires. He mentions the Book of Revelation and the Books of Daniel, Matthew, Ezekiel and Isaiah. He seems to have been comparing something. He’s writing about alchemy and scribbles something that seems to spell the words Philosopher’s Stone.”

“What in bloody hell is that all about?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it will take a scientist, or a man of God to understand these. Newton seems to have been both. Now it’s my task to try and catalog these by subject, and there are a lot of words written here. The question is: What is it that Newton is trying to say, and is there anyone out there smart enough to find the answer?”

The photographer nodded. “All right, Mr. Kinsley, stand to the left of the ol’ trunk and hold up some of those papers.”

The auctioneer held papers in both hands, looked toward the camera and smiled. The camera’s flash engulfed the room, capturing a time capsule originally written by a man who understood the meaning of time and space more than anyone on earth.