Link to the contest: https://steemit.com/hive-108800/@solperez/concurso-de-arte-y-escritura-126-y-ganadores-de-la-edicion-125-art-and-writing-contest-126-y-ganadores-de-la-edicion-125

Mary was not an ordinary woman for her time. She was involved in an underground movement dedicated to fighting for women's rights. Together with her group, she championed women's right to education—their primary cause. Mary knew she was one of the few women who could read and write. She came from a wealthy family and had been fortunate.

The group usually met in the basement of an abandoned tenement building to discuss their plans for the near future. But this day was different. Mary received a letter informing her that several women from her movement had been arrested at that very location. She knew she needed to warn others as quickly as possible, so she sat down to write a letter—but it wasn’t as simple as that. The message had to be encoded so no outsider could decipher it. Being discovered as part of the resistance could have severe consequences for Mary.

Her organization used a book cipher. The books used for decoding messages were agreed upon in advance, with a different book assigned to each day, and they were regularly rotated. Mary’s message looked like an ordinary letter to a friend, in which she wrote about her activities and whereabouts that day. However, within the text, she embedded numbers that corresponded to the page, line, and position of specific words in the designated book. Writing the message required intense concentration and focus, but she finally succeeded.

Now, the letter had to be delivered to a predetermined drop-off point. Mary tied her hair back and put on a cap. She slipped into trousers and threw on a long coat. All that was left was to run as fast as she could.

Invitations to @lizum @maira27