"WOULD YOU BELIEVE," said Jack, "that we are sitting in the middle of it?""

Huh? What do you mean? Right here, this little village?" Zane looked all around in disbelief. He and the rest of his family were taken aback.

"Keep in mind that Z was always a hypothetical. It was never what we think of as a 'lost' city, seen once and then forgotten, waiting only to be rediscovered. It was a theory of Daddy's, inspired by, but not always presumed to be, the city of the 1753 account."

"That's what we now refer to as Manuscript 512, after its designation in the Brazilian Library," said Skip.

"We'll come back to that in a minute. But Daddy's idea was that there may have been one more advanced civilization in South America that had not even been found yet. Since it would be the last to be discovered, he referred to it as Z, the last letter of the alphabet. What we never thought of was that it might just be a new, undiscovered location for a previously known people, in this case the Inca. And when you think about it, it makes sense that in the last days of the conquest, some of them may have escaped subjugation at the hands of the Spanish, moved as far away as possible, and rebuilt their cities and their culture."

It certainly made sense to Skip. There was a similar theory that a band of Aztec had fled north from Mexico and settled in what is now the Southwestern United States. But as he looked at the little village that ran through the forest down to the narrow river, it hardly seemed like the remnants of a great civilization. "So, where is this city? I don't even see evidence of ruins."

Jack smiled and waved his hand outward, to the landscape beyond. "See those jungle-choked hills? Incan temples!"

As Skip took a closer look at the nearest one, just behind the village, he thought he could make out stone blocks peeking out from under the foliage, thinner on that side than elsewhere on the steep slopes. And a dark spot, high up, might indicate the entrance to a natural cave, or fancied as a man-made doorway.

Jack continued. "The original refugees, five hundred years ago, did indeed build a city here, to rival Machu Picchu. Its peak period lasted almost fifty years. But according to stories that have been passed down, conflicts with the existing tribes in the area, and disease spreading upriver from the Portuguese explorers eventually took their toll. The survivors found it better to let the jungle bury their grand buildings and temples, and live a more simple village life, thereby blending in better with the locals."

"How do you know this? Have you done any excavation?"

"I have indeed, many years ago now. With the help of a few of my friends among the people, I have peeled back layers enough on a few of the mounds to get a general idea of the size of the city and the purpose of a few of the buildings. We even uncovered a doorway, and made our way a short distance inside." He glanced down the hill, to a group of villagers who were eyeing them warily. "Of course, not everyone approved. Then or now. And that is another reason I have been here all these years. Once having learned these people' secrets, I was not allowed to leave."

"A policy which has carried over to this day," said Killa. "As the eyes and ears of the People to the outside world, it is I who decides who from beyond is taken in, who is allowed to stay, and who must leave."

Skip was glad they were on Killa's good side. At least for now. He hoped their luck would last. He also hoped to get a better look at those temples hidden beneath the mounds, if the vegetation hadn't grown back over too much, and any passage or stairway hadn't been totally reclaimed by the jungle. Better still would be a peek inside that doorway. That, and the pictures to go with it, would go a long way to add credibility to what was shaping up to be an article bordering on the fantastic.

But it was Nusiri who pushed their luck in a slightly different direction. "You said they had built another city, the outpost to the east, where your healing herbs grow. The City of the Moon, you called it?"

Leave it to Nusiri, thought Skip, to leverage her new-found rapport with Killa into one more angle for them to explore. The in-the-field, hands-on research and study of ancient cultures was even more up her alley than it was Skip's.

"Ah," said Jack. "Glad you asked. I was just coming to that. Yes, they did explore on to the east, and established another settlement there. But they did not have to build a new city; they merely needed to renovate and restore the ruins of the ancient lost city that they found, a city unlike any other seen in this land."

"Manuscript 512!" Skip said, the realization dawning on him. "Your City of 1753." He fished his cell phone out of his pocket, opened up the Kindle app, and in a moment turned the screen to Jack.

"Read this. Manuscript 512. Is this the same account you know as the document from 1753?"

Jack Fawcett was completely taken aback by the backlit screen on Skip's handheld device. To him, such technology must look like something dropped by the Martians in an H. G. Wells story.

"What is this?" he asked in wonder. "A tiny book that glows and fits in your pocket?"

"That's not all it does," said Skip with a smile. "It would take too long to explain. But yes, it's not only a book, it can hold a whole library of books, and my research and notes for my article, too. It's got a flashlight which comes in handy." He clicked the button a few times to show Jack. "A calculator to help figure your budget, and I won't even get into the Internet right now. It even makes phone calls, at least in an area with the right service. It is a telephone, after all."

"Amazing," said Jack in awe, as Skip showed him how to swipe and scroll the pages. "Yes," he said at last. "This does indeed sound like the same city. The architecture, in the manuscript, it is described as something akin to Greek or Roman, but in reality, it is something different. And there is an Incan touch, too. But that came later, of course. The initial city was built by people not of this part of the world. Just who remains a mystery, though I have my own theories."

"You have been there? You have seen it?"

Jack nodded enthusistically. "Yes, I have." He paused a long moment, regarding Skip, Nusiri, and Zane, his eyes resting for a second on each of them, pondering something in his mind. "And so, you shall too," he announced at last. "My great-granddaughter Killa will show you the way. Tomorrow, if you like."

Killa looked aghast. "But—" she began.

But Jack Fawcett held up his hand. "They have traveled a long way to find me, a long way to see what this is all about." He looked now at Skip. "You came here to solve the mystery behind one lost city. Now you will find two."

He turned to his great-granddaughter. "Killa, could you please go get that box underneath the bed?"

Killa went into the house, coming back out a moment later with a small wooden box which she handed to her great-grandfather.

Jack opened the box and pulled out a leather-bound book, of about five by eight inches, and handed it to Skip.

"What's this?" Skip looked at the small volume and flipped the cover. "A journal? Your journal. Something that will help us on our way?"

"Not exactly. Something for when you get back. A little contingency plan I cooked up many years back. You see, I've always dreamed of being able to share the wonders of this land with someone, the lost cities, the story of these people, gracious enough to have put up with me all these years. But at the same time, I needed to respect their culture, their secrets, and their privacy.

"And so, I wrote an alternate journal, shortly before I 'died,' for that's the story that the intrepid journalist who finally meets me will take back to civilization. It will tell the facts of what happened to Daddy and Raleigh, and how I was taken in by a friendly tribe who nursed me back to health, no other identity of that tribe mentioned. Of how I heard from them a tale of ruins in the jungle and how I visited said ruins, only to be disappointed to find nothing more than a few lines of stones denoting walls and foundations. No artifacts, nothing more of interest, and no reason for anyone else to come tramping into the hot, humid, mosquito-and-tick-infested, miserable jungle in search of either our party or the lost city of Z. I had found it, and it amounted to nothing. The rest of the journal chronicles my supposed final bout with malaria, setting up the abrupt end, and suggesting to those who read it, that I had passed away, and wrote no more entries."

He tapped the journal in Skip's hands with his finger. "When you return, this is what your article will say. Out there is the story your eyes will see, but here, right here, is the story your fingers will write."