The Library at Mount Char

by Scott Hawkins

  “He’s not in any futures and he’s not dead. How is that possible?”

  Alicia and Rachel looked at each other and shrugged. “It is indeed a riddle,” Rachel said. “I cannot account for it.”

  “That’s not much of an answer.”

  “Perhaps you ask the wrong questions.”

  “Do I?” David walked over to her, grinning dangerously, jaw muscles jumping. “Do I really?”

  Rachel went pale. “I didn’t mean—”

  David let her grovel for a moment, then touched a finger to her lips. “Later.” She sank to the ground, trembling visibly in the moonlight.

  “Peter, you’re meant to be good with all that abstract crap. Figures and so forth. What do you think?”

  Peter hesitated. “There are aspects of Father’s work that I was never allowed to see—”

  “Father kept things from all of us. Answer my question.”

  “When he disappeared he was working on something called regression completeness,” Peter said. “It’s the notion that the universe is structured in such a way that no matter how many mysteries you solve, there is always a deeper mystery behind it. Father seemed very—”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Do you know where Father is or don’t you?”

  “Not exactly, but if you follow that line of thinking, it might explain—”

  “Never mind.”

  “But—”

  “Stop talking. Carolyn, get with Peter later and translate whatever he says into something normal people can understand.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Michael, what about the Far Hill? Was there any sign there?”

  The Far Hill was the heaven of the Forest God, where all the clever little beasts went when they died—something like that, at any rate. Carolyn hadn’t been aware that it was real. For that matter, she hadn’t been certain that the Forest God was real until just now.

  “No. Not there.” His speech was better now.

  “And the Forest God? Is he—”

  “The Forest God is sleeping. He has massed no armies against us. Among his pack there were the usual intrigues, but nothing that concerns us directly. I see no reason to think—”

  “Think? You? That’s almost funny.” He turned away. “Emily, what about—”

  “There’s something else,” Michael said. “We are to have a visitor.”

  David glared at him. “A visitor? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “You hit me in the mouth,” Michael said. “You told me to be quiet.”

  David’s jaw muscles jumped again. “Now I’m telling you to not be quiet,” he said. “Who is coming?”

  “Nobununga.”

  “What? Here?”

  “He is concerned for Father’s safety,” Michael said. “He wishes to investigate.”

  “Oh fuck,” said Carolyn. This was startled out of her—she hadn’t expected Nobununga quite so soon. But she had the presence of mind to speak softly, and in English. No one noticed.

  “When will he arrive?”

  Michael’s brow furrowed. “He…he will arrive, um…when he gets here?”

  David gritted his teeth. “Do we have any idea when that might be?”

  “It will be later.”

  “Like, when, exactly?” His hand curled into a fist.

  “He doesn’t understand, David,” Jennifer said softly. “He doesn’t see time the way people do. Not anymore. Hitting him won’t change that.”

  Michael, panicky now, flitted his eyes from Jennifer to David. “The mice have seen him! He approaches!”

  David unclenched his fist. He rubbed his temples. “Never mind,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. He’s even right. Nobununga will arrive when he arrives. All we can do is make him welcome. Peter, Richard—collect the totems.” The twins bounced up, scrambling to obey.

  “Carolyn—I need you to go back into America. We need an innocent heart. We will offer it to Nobununga when he arrives. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “An innocent heart? In America?” She hesitated. “Possibly.”

  Misunderstanding, he said, “It’s easy. Just cut through the ribs.” He scissored his fingers through the air. “Like so. If you can’t get it out yourself, send for me.”

  “Yes, David.”

  “That will be all for tonight. Carolyn, you can go whenever you’re ready. The rest of you stay close.” He glanced at the bull, uneasy. “Richard, Peter, be quick about it. I want to, um, get back to Mrs. McGillicutty’s,” he said, winking at Margaret. “Dinner will be ready soon.”

  Rachel sat down on the ground. Her children crowded around her. In a moment she was entirely hidden behind them. Carolyn wanted to speak with Michael, but he and his cougars had faded into the woods. Jennifer unrolled her sleeping skins and lay back on them with a groan. Margaret drifted into orbit around David.

  David rummaged around in his knapsack for a moment. “Here you go, Margaret,” he said. “I brought you a gift.” He pulled out the severed head of an old man, hoisting him by his long, wispy beard. He swung the head back and forth a couple of times, then tossed it to her.

  Margaret caught it with both hands, grunting a bit at the weight. She grinned, delighted. Her teeth were black. “Thank you.”

  David sat down beside her and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “How long will it be?” he called over his shoulder.

  “An hour,” Richard said, running his fingers through the bowl of totems—Michael’s hair of the Forest God, the black candle, the scrap of Carolyn’s dress, stiff with blood, a drop of wax from the black candle. These would be used as nodes of an n-dimensional tracking tool that they were quite sure—well…fairly sure, at least—would point them toward Father. Well…probably. Carolyn had her doubts.

  “No more than that,” Peter agreed.

  Margaret took the head into her lap and began fussing over it—caressing its cheeks, cooing at it, smoothing its bushy eyebrows. After a moment of her attentions the dead man’s eyelids fluttered, then opened.

  “Blue eyes!” Margaret exclaimed. “Oh, David, thank you!”

  David shrugged.

  Carolyn snuck a peek. Perhaps the man’s eyes had been blue once, but now mostly what they were was sunken and filmed over. But she recognized him. He had been a minor courtier in one of Father’s cabinets and, once, the prime minister of Japan. Normally such a man would be protected. David must be feeling bold. The head blinked again and fastened his eyes upon Margaret. His tongue stirred and his lips began to move, though of course without lungs he could make no sound.

  “What is he saying?” David asked. After six weeks of banishment, most of them had picked up at least a smattering of American, but Carolyn was the only one who spoke Japanese.

  Carolyn leaned in close, her nose wrinkling at the smell. She tilted her head and touched the man’s cheeks. “Moo ichido itte kudasai, Yamada-san.” The dead man tried again, pleading to her with sightless eyes.

  Carolyn sat back and arranged her hands in her lap demurely, left over right, in such a way that the palm of each hand concealed the fingers of the other from view. Her expression was peaceful, even pleasant. She knew that Emily could read her thoughts easily. David, too, could sense thoughts, at least the basic flavor. He knew when someone bore him ill will. In battle he could peer into the minds of his enemies and see their strategies, see the weapons that might be raised against him. Carolyn suspected that he might be able to look deeper if there were a need. But it didn’t matter. If Emily or David chose to look into Carolyn’s thoughts, they would find only the desire to help.

  Of course, genuine emotion is the very essence of self. It cannot ever be unfelt, cannot be ignored, cannot even be rechanneled for very long.

  But with practice and care, it may be hidden.

  “He is asking about Chieko and Kiko-chan,” Carolyn said. “I think they are his daughters. He wants to know if they are safe.”

  “Ah,” David said. “Tell him I gutted them for the prac
tice. Their mother as well.”

  “Is it true?”

  David shrugged.

  “Sorera wa anzen desu, Yamada-san. Ima yasumu desu nee,” Carolyn said, telling him that they were safe, telling him that he could rest now. The dead man allowed his eyes to droop. A single tear trembled on the edge of his left eyelid. Margaret studied it with bright, greedy eyes. When it broke free and ran down Yamada’s cheek she dipped her head, birdlike, and licked it up with a single deft flick of her tongue.

  The dead man puffed his cheeks and blew them out, the softest, saddest sound Carolyn had ever heard. David and Margaret laughed together.

  Carolyn’s smile was just the right amount of forced. Perhaps she was overcome with pity for the poor man? Or maybe it was the smell. Again, anyone who bothered to peek in on her thoughts would find only concern for Father and a sincere—if slightly nervous—desire to please David. But her fingertips trembled with the memory of faint, fading vibrations carried down the shaft of a brass spear, and in her heart the hate of them blazed like a black sun.

  Chapter 2

  Buddhism for Assholes

  I

  “So,” she said, “do you want to break into a house?”

  Steve froze for a long moment, his mouth hanging open. Over by the bar he heard a series of clicks in the bowels of the Automated Musical Instruments juke. Somebody had dropped in a penny. He set his Coors back down on the table un-sipped. What’s her name again? Christy? Cathy?

  “Beg pardon?” he said finally. Then it came to him: Carolyn. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She took a drag off her cigarette. The coal flared, casting an orange glow over a half dozen greasy shot glasses and a small pile of chicken bones. “Nope. I’m completely serious.”

  The AMI juke whirred. A moment later the opening thunder of Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” boomed out across the bar like the war drums of some savage lost tribe. All of a sudden Steve’s heart was thudding in his chest.

  “OK. Fine. You’re not kidding. So, what you’re talking about is a pretty serious felony.”

  She said nothing. She only looked at him.

  He scrambled for something clever to say. But what came out was “I’m a plumber.”

  “You weren’t always.”

  Steve stared at her. That was true, but there was no way in the world she could have known it. He’d had nightmares about this sort of conversation. Trying to camouflage his horror, he grabbed the last wing off the plate and dipped it in bleu cheese, but stopped short of actually eating it. The wings there did not mess around. The smell of vinegar and pepper drifted up to him like a warning. “I can’t,” he said. “I’ve gotta get home and feed Petey.”

  “Who?”

  “My dog. Petey. He’s a cocker sp—”

  She shook her head. “That can wait.”

  Change the subject. “How do you like this place?” he said, grinning and desperate.

  “Quite a lot, actually,” she said, fingering the magazine Steve had been reading. “What’s it called again?”

  “Warwick Hall. It used to be an actual speakeasy, back in the twenties. Cath—the lady who runs the place—inherited it from her grandfather, along with some old photos of how it used to look. She’s a big jazz fan, so when she retired she restored it and opened it as a private club.”

  “Right.” Carolyn sipped her beer, then looked around at the framed posters—Lonnie Johnson, Roy Eldridge holding his trumpet, an ad for a Theatrical Clam Bake on October 3 and 4, 1920-something. “It’s different.”

  “It is that.” Steve shook out a cigarette and offered her the pack. As she took it, he noticed that although the nails of her right hand were unpainted and gnawed away almost to the quick, the ones on her left were long and manicured, lacquered red. Weird. He lit their cigarettes off a single match. “I started coming here because it was the only bar around you can still smoke in, but it grew on me.”

  “Why don’t I give you a minute to chew on the idea,” Carolyn said. “I know I sprang it on you out of the blue. Where’s the ladies’ room?”

  “No need to think it over. The answer is no. Ladies’ is back that way.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve never been in there, but on the urinals in the men’s room you have to pull a brass chain to flush. It took me a minute to figure that out.” He paused. “Who are you, exactly?”

  “I told you,” Carolyn said. “I’m a librarian.”

  “OK.” At first, the way she looked—Christmas sweater, complete with reindeer, over Spandex bicycle shorts, red rubber galoshes with 1980s leg warmers—made him think she was schizophrenic. Now he doubted that was it.

  OK, he thought, not schizophrenic. What, then? Carolyn wasn’t unduly burdened with good grooming, but neither was she unattractive. He got the impression that she was also very smart. About an hour and a half earlier she’d sauntered up with a couple of beers, introduced herself, and asked if she could sit down. Steve, a bachelor with no attachments other than his dog, had said sure. They talked for a while. She peppered him with questions and answered his own questions vaguely. All the while she studied him with dark-brown eyes.

  Steve had kinda-sorta gathered the impression that she worked at the university, maybe as some sort of linguist? She spoke French to Cath, and surprised another regular, Eddie Hu, by being fluent in Chinese. Librarian kind of fits too, though. He imagined her, frizzy-haired, surrounded by teetering stacks of books, muttering into a stained mug of staff lounge coffee as she schemed her burglary. He grinned and shook his head. No way. He ordered another pitcher.

  The beer beat Carolyn back to the table by a good couple of minutes. Steve poured himself another glass. As he drank, he decided to change his diagnosis from schizophrenic to “doesn’t give a fuck about clothes.” A lot of people claimed not to give a fuck about clothes, but those who actually didn’t were rare. Not entirely unheard-of, though.

  A guy Steve had gone to high school with, Bob-something, spent two years on a South Pacific island as part of some weirdly successful drug-running scheme. When he got back he was rich as hell—two Ferraris, for chrissakes—but he would wear any old thing. Bob, he remembered, had once—

  “I’m back,” she said. “Sorry.” She had a pretty smile.

  “Hope you’re up for another round,” he said, nodding at the pitcher.

  “Sure.”

  He poured for her. “If you don’t mind me saying so, this is weird.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The librarians I know are into, like, I dunno, tea and cozy mysteries, not breaking and entering.”

  “Yeah, well. This is a different kind of library.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to need a bit more in the way of explanation.” As soon as the question was out of his mouth he regretted it. You’re not actually considering this, are you? He took a quick spiritual inventory. No. I’m not. He was curious though.

  “I’ve got a problem,” Carolyn said. “My sister said you might have the sort of experience required to solve it.”

  “Like, what sort of experience are we talking about?”

  “Residential locks—nothing special—and a Lorex alarm.”

  “That’s it?” His mind went out to the toolbox in the back of his truck. He had his plumbing tools, sure—torch, solder, pipe cutter, wrench—but there were other things as well. Wire cutters, crowbar, a multimeter, a small metal ruler that he could use to—No. He clamped down on the thought, but it was too late. Something inside him had come awake and was beginning to stir.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Easy-peasy.”

  “Who’s your sister?”

  “Her name’s Rachel. You wouldn’t know her.”

  He thought about it. “You’re right. I don’t recall meeting anyone by that name.” She certainly wasn’t part of the small—very small—circle of people who knew about his former career. “So, how does this Rachel person know so much about me?”

  “I’m honestly not clear on it myse
lf. But she’s very good at finding things out.”

  “And what, exactly, did she find out about me?”

  Carolyn lit another cigarette and blew twin columns of smoke out of her nostrils. “She said you’ve got a knack for mechanical things and an outlaw streak. And that you’ve committed over a hundred burglaries. A hundred and twelve, I think she said.”

  That was true, if almost ten years out of date. Suddenly his stomach was in knots. The things he had done and, worse, the things he hadn’t done back then were always circling, never far from his thoughts. At her words they landed, tore into him. “I’d like you to go now,” he said quietly. “Please.”

  He wanted to read Sports Illustrated. He wanted to think about the Colts’ offensive line, not about how he could bump through a residential Kwikset in thirty seconds even without proper tools. He wanted to—

  “Relax. This could be very good for you.” She slid something across the floor to him. He peeked under the table and saw a blue duffel bag. “Look inside.”

  He picked the bag up by the handle. Already half suspecting what he might find, he unzipped it and peeked inside. Cash. Lots of it. Mostly fifties and hundreds.

  Steve set the bag down and pushed it back across the floor. “How much is in there?”

  “Three hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “-ish.”

  “That’s an odd amount.”

  “I’m an odd person.”

  Steve sighed. “You have my attention.”

  “Then you’ll do it?”

  “No. Absolutely not.” The Buddhist undertakes to refrain from taking that which is not given. He paused, grimaced. The previous year he had declared $58,000 on his taxes. His credit card debt was just slightly less than that. “Maybe.” He lit another cigarette. “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Is it? I suppose.”

  “It is to me, anyway. You rich?”

  She shrugged. “My Father.”

  “Ah.” Rich daddy. That explained some of it, anyway. “How’d you come up with—how much did you say it was?”