The Strangers

As they stare at the encrypted letter, Finn looks to Emma and Chess to solve the puzzle. He takes comfort in Emma’s logic and determination. Even Natalie tries to help, searching her phone for “codebreaker apps.” As the four of them jostle around the laptop, Emma and Chess relegate Finn to what he considers a lesser job: searching through invoices in their mother’s work computer with Natalie. A look from Emma, however, convinces him that their real aim is to keep Natalie from viewing the letter by having Finn distract her. He tries to keep Natalie occupied, but she keeps peering over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of the other computer screen. As Finn scans various websites his mother designed, he notices slight variations in her company logo, a butterfly. Enlarging the images, he sees differences in the color and pattern of dots on each wing. He believes this is a clue to decrypting the letter. 

Emma, normally a math whiz, is frustrated that she can’t decipher the letter despite her interest in codes and codebreaking. She remembers her mother giving her a book about codes, and she wonders if that act was a sort of preparation for this moment.