Wolf Song (Wolf Singer Prophecies Book 1)

metal of the keyboards. I pushed the lever of one and heard the ding and report. I only vaguely remembered my typing classes in school and they were all on computers.
Man. Computers.
"Why did you all keep these things?"
Kirby shrugged. "It wasn't like it was on purpose. It was the church's, collected for their mission or something. We just organized it."
I turned to him. "You just organized it?"
He shrugged again. "What else you gonna do during the apocalypse?"
He had a point.
"So, what did you want me to see, Kirby?"
Instead of answering me, he got up on a stool that he placed in the area that we had cleared and then reached up to the boxes on top of the shelf. I didn't even see those, I was so enamored of the typewriters.
I could only imagine the words that my dad could make with those.
A pang ached in my chest. My dad wasn't going to be making any words the way he was right now. But he would. He had to.
Whatever Kirby got down, it was relatively heavy because he had to steady himself. I helped to grab it and it was way grimy from the dust.
He put it on the table and took the cover off. Inside was a peculiar machine that looked almost like a typewriter but wasn't.
"What is this?"
"This? Was an interesting donation to the church. It's an Enigma."
My forehead scrunched. "Yeah, I guess it's a puzzle?" I didn't know where he was going with this.
He rolled his eyes. "No, that's what it is. An Enigma." He pointed to the machine and I actually focused on the fact that there were words and things, picking up on fine detail.
And there in the corner. Enigma.
"Ah." Then I waited a beat. "So, what's it do?"
"Here, help me lift it out of the box." He did so and I slid the bottom out of the way. "This here was how they used to like make codes and stuff back in the day. I mean like before the Before. Like, during the war stuff that we used to learn about in school."
I did my best work for my parents because my mother wanted me to follow in her footsteps in herbology and witchcraft, and my dad, well, he of course wanted me to know the word.
Me? I just wanted to spend time with my friends and I knew the way to do that was to do well in school. Unfortunately, histories were my worst subjects.
"Okay, refresh my memory? I didn't retain any information when I was in school because we were told that the technology would always be there as reference."
"Oooh, your dad was a preacher; it must have broken his heart to hear that."
"Is a preacher. My dad's not dead." I said it in a flat tone.
Kirby was instantly sorry, cheeks flushing red. He swallowed. "So, anyway, remember how they needed to find a way to create secret codes so the enemy countries couldn't overhear anything, so they made these. They were both code makers and code breakers. Each machine would function slightly differently, but it’s basically a simple substitution cipher. Each letter would represent another letter. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.” He said, pointing to the Enigma. “Your dad would know about these, though. He asked about them a while back."
A crop of goosebumps rose on my skin, but I kept my cool and just nodded. I wanted to say Yes, that was what it was.
"But if there is a code machine, wouldn't there be a code...like I don't know what I'm trying to say." I snapped my fingers. "Like, if I wanted a coded message, there needs to be a person receiving the message, and the ability to decode the message, yes? So there are too many pieces missing, I think. Because even though there is this machine, which I think is awesome, by the way, we need a...what are they called? Like the thing that tells you what the coded message is? Does that make sense?"
Light dawned in Kirby's eyes. "Ah, you mean a key!"
"Yes, that's what I was thinking. We need a key!"
"But hey, at least you have two of the three pieces, right? You have the message and the thing to possibly unlock it? Maybe?"
I still felt like I was missing more than that, but I nodded anyway. "Yeah, I guess. There's this at least." I still felt like we were starting from zero, though. Considering all the possible ciphers that could create this Morse coded-message into letters, it was near impossible.
Of course it would be something like this. Word puzzles wrapped in more word puzzles. My dad was a word mage in truth. He just wore a preacher suit as icing on the cake!
I chose not to be discouraged, though. I bit my lip, trying my luck on something.
"Do you think it would be okay to borrow this machine? Maybe I could figure out the key at home, and don’t want to keep going back and forth?"
He shrugged. “I don't see why not. No one was using it, clearly. It was all caked over in dust.”
I blinked. The box was all caked over in dust, and yet the machine was well-oiled and maintained still. Which could mean something, but I kept that to myself. I also looked to the typewriters. They all were in various states of wear, of course, but the one that interested me was the one that I'd initially been drawn to. The one with the smooth gliding arm that went ding.
I looked again. It was loaded with fresh ink and dirt-free. Well-maintained like it was ready to be used at any moment, whereas the others were weren’t. This one sang to me.
"And this is the typewriter? Maybe I can type up what the code said and then go from there."
Kirby shrugged. "You need help bringing them over? They're kind of heavy."
I shook my head. No one knew where we lived. Dad enchanted the paths we walked so that they