The Book of Joby

by Ferrari, Mark J.

  Hawk’s excitement was palpable as they pushed stealthily through the thicket toward his house of horrors. But as they broke from cover, he stopped abruptly, crouching down to hide, and frantically motioning Joby to do the same.

  “What’s wrong?” Joby whispered.

  “Someone’s there!” Hawk moaned quietly. “They’ve ruined it!”

  Joby crawled forward, coming shoulder to shoulder with Hawk, and looked out between the branches at an attractive, freshly painted, two-story, wooden house. The lush green lawn around it was neatly mown, and wind chimes tinkled on a porch that wrapped around two sides of the structure.

  “Looks like they even pulled that body out of the chimney,” Joby said, glancing up at the smoke drifting cheerfully from the chimney. “Too bad. But don’t worry, this hike’s been plenty—” He fell silent as a man walked into view from behind the house, carrying a garden spade. A man he recognized. With a smile, Joby got up and began to press through the remaining bushes.

  “What are you doing?” Hawk whispered in alarm.

  “It’s okay,” Joby said. “I know this guy.” Then he called out, “Solomon?”

  “Joby!” Solomon said, clearly startled, then, more calmly, “What an unexpected pleasure.” The old man set down his spade and came to meet him.

  Hawk followed Joby out of hiding and stood staring from one man to the other.

  “Hawk,” Joby said, “this is Solomon. Solomon, this is my friend Hawk.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Hawk.” Solomon grinned.

  “How come I never saw you before?” Hawk asked cautiously.

  “Like Joby, I’m new to Taubolt, and I tend to guard my privacy rather closely.”

  “I hope we’re not intruding,” Joby said. “We were out for a hike, and Hawk thought this was an abandoned house.”

  “No bother at all,” Solomon assured them. “I’m delighted to have your company. Care to come inside? I have some lemonade in the kitchen if either of you is thirsty. Gotten rather warm all of a sudden, hasn’t it?”

  Joby looked to Hawk, who shrugged uncertainly. “Sure,” Joby said. “Thanks.”

  “It’s amazing you could fix it up like this,” Hawk said suspiciously as they headed for Solomon’s back porch. “I thought it was way too ruined.”

  “It was work,” Solomon conceded. “And expensive. Almost irretrievable when I found it. Such a fine house should never have been allowed to go to ruin like that.”

  “Did you have to clean out the chimney?” Hawk asked.

  “Oh yes.” Solomon grinned. “Completely blocked, when I came.”

  “By what?” Hawk asked with poorly concealed urgency.

  “Leaves,” Solomon said. “Sticks and birds’ nests. Even a beehive! Everything that collects in chimneys over the ages. Such a moldy mess. To be honest, there might have been anything decaying in all that muck. . . . Anything at all.” He winked at Hawk, then grinned at Joby.

  Solomon’s back door opened into a kitchen, neatly tricked out in white enameled furnishings, a red-checkered tablecloth, lace curtains, and blue willow-pattern china plates hanging up near the ceiling. An old cast-iron stove seemed all there was for cooking, and a hand pump over the sink was the only fixture. Solomon looked on, amused, as Hawk went over to give it a few skeptical pumps. When it gurgled and coughed up its first small stream of clear water, Hawk stepped back and said, “Cool!”

  From there, Solomon led them into what he called “the parlor,” warmly furnished in comfortable old chairs and a thickly upholstered Victorian couch. There was a large wooden rocker facing the fire, but what seized Joby’s attention was an aged spinning wheel in front of the lace-curtained window.

  “My grandfather had one of these!” Joby said, walking over to place a hand lightly on the wheel, resisting the impulse to spin it as he had in childhood.

  “Did he?” Solomon asked quietly.

  “Yes. It belonged to my gramma. She died before I was born. But Grampa kept it in their living room.” He shook his head. “He died when I was five. But I remember, whenever we went to his house I’d stand there spinning and spinning it ’til my mother made me stop.”

  “A lovely thing,” Solomon said sadly, “from a time when there was still room for beauty as well as function.” He turned and headed back toward the kitchen, saying a bit roughly, “I’ll get that lemonade.”

  He was back a moment later, carrying a tray with three tall glasses of lemonade garnished with sprigs of fresh mint. “The real thing—not concentrate,” he announced, any trace of melancholy banished.

  Hawk thanked Solomon, took an eager gulp, and smiled.

  “What do you do, Solomon?” Joby asked. “For a living, I mean.”

  “I’m a storyteller of sorts.” He handed a glass to Joby. “Retired now, or nearly so. I’ve come here to settle my affairs, and move on to the next chapter of my life.”

  “How do you make a living telling stories?” Hawk asked.

  Solomon’s brows rose in surprise. “You’ve never read a book or seen a film?”

  “Oh!” Hawk replied. “You’re a writer? Why didn’t you just say that?”

  “You make it sound so pedestrian,” Solomon said with a playful scowl. “But I’ve told my tales in many ways, as actor, poet, musician, soldier, merchant, politician. There are more ways to tell a story than you’ll have guessed, young Hawk, and since the world is always hungry for another, there is never lack of work for one who tells them well. I’ve been rich and poor, famous and obscure, but never unemployed.” Solomon smiled and winked at Hawk.

  “Sounds like a cool job,” Hawk said. “Could you tell us one now?”

  “Hmm,” Solomon mused. “Well . . . I don’t see why not. Let me think.”

  Hawk and Joby waited expectantly.

  “Once, long ago,” Solomon began, gazing intently at Hawk, “there came a dark and bitter winter that would not give way to spring. At the height of summer’s lawful reign, trees that should have been green and heavy with fruit, cracked under burdens of ice instead and toppled in the cold. Families huddled fearfully around their dwindling fires, their houses buried in snow, and still the days grew shorter, until it seemed even the memory of light might be extinguished. In that dark world haunted by dread and gnawed by need, greedy men of vicious cunning and brute, ugly force wriggled up into the failing light like maggots out of rotting meat, to oppress and devour a people grown all but ignorant of goodness, courage, or love.”

  Solomon spoke in dark, musical rhythms that struggled to rise, and fell again, making palpable the hopeless weight of that doomed world’s slow collapse.

  “Into this hopeless winter, a child named Measure was born, in whose heart the seeds of summer’s resurrection were hidden, though no one near him knew it, least of all himself. Only the imperiled winter sensed the truth, for even the smallest flame cannot go long unnoticed by the darkness around it. Thus, the brightness hidden in Measure’s heart drew torments from the darkness as a rubbed cat draws sparks, and Measure was no little god to lightly shrug off such assaults. He was just a very human child.”

  As Solomon went on to unravel the tale of Measure’s desperate struggle, the villainous winter transcended mere season to become a person, malevolent and cold. Such was the old man’s skill, that Joby saw, and felt, and was, somehow, whatever Solomon described. No book or movie he’d ever known had drawn Joby in with such immediacy. He both longed to know how it would end, and wished it would go on forever, but after what seemed far too short a time, the tale wound toward completion.

  “And so, after all his many adventures,” Solomon intoned at last, “it seemed that all was lost. But Measure’s years of captivity in that black and empty cell had left him stronger than he knew. The darkness trembled at his touch now, though Measure did not see it, and the silence drew away in fear, though Measure did not hear it flee. Left to sit, and stare, and listen, unheeded, some part of him had, itself, become so dark and still, that he no longer feared those jailers, bu
t now made ghosts of them who had so long made one of him, and they feared that soon he’d come to know it. Very soon perhaps.”

  Solomon fell silent.

  Joby and Hawk waited.

  Solomon leaned back, lifted his lemonade, and took a sip. Then he stretched and smiled and said, “Well, this has been a real pleasure. I’m very glad you all stopped by.”

  “What?” Hawk protested. “What happens to Measure?”

  “That is not for me to say. But when you know, I hope you’ll tell me.” Adopting his grave storyteller’s voice again, he added, “For countless are we who long to know how Measure’s tale ends.”

  “No! You can’t stop there!” Hawk exclaimed. “That’s cheap!”

  “You’re not really going to leave us hanging like that!” Joby laughed in disbelief.

  “What kind of mother,” Solomon answered, “murders her newborn child just to satisfy her curiosity about how its life will end?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Hawk demanded angrily.

  “A true story is a very living thing,” Solomon said, “and mine still has its life ahead of it. If I told you what you want to know, it would die right here without accomplishing its purpose. I am not that kind of mother.”

  “I bet you don’t even know the ending,” Hawk said sullenly.

  “I know many endings to this tale,” Solomon assured him gravely. “I’d be a very poor storyteller if I did not. I certainly know how I’d want it to end.”

  “Then tell us!” Hawk pleaded. “I have to know!”

  “How badly?” Solomon asked.

  “Real bad!” Hawk assured him.

  “Good.” He smiled. “Then you’ll find the answer.”

  Hawk gaped in outrage.

  Solomon shrugged. “I am sorry bards aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, but I promise, Hawk,” he said earnestly, “that next time I tell you a story, I will finish it completely. This one simply wasn’t meant to work that way. I hope you will forgive me.”

  Hawk frowned at him, fingering his empty lemonade glass.

  Solomon looked at the clock above his mantel. “In the meantime, it’s gotten rather late, and I recall you said something about a long hike home?”

  Hawk looked at his watch, and gasped, “Oh crap!” He leapt from his chair. “Mom’ll kill me if I’m not back before dark!”

  “Right after she has me arrested for kidnapping,” Joby said, getting up as well.

  “I’ve enjoyed the company,” Solomon said. “I hope you’ll both visit again.”

  “And I hope you’ll come have dinner with me at Mrs. Lindsay’s inn some night,” Joby said. “If you’ll give me your phone number, I’ll call to set it up.”

  “I have no phone,” Solomon replied. “Part of my quest for peace and quiet. But perhaps I’ll stop by the inn next time I’m in town, and we can arrange it then.”

  Joby said that would work, finding it hard to imagine doing without a phone, as Hawk rushed out the kitchen door ahead of them. A moment later, having hastily thanked Solomon for his hospitality, they trotted back across his lawn and headed for the path.

  “Okay,” Hawk said when they had reached the far side of the old orchard. “We’re gonna have to run, but it’s downhill all the way, so there’s a fun way we can do it. You ever tried running like a deer?”

  “I have trouble running like a slug,” Joby joked.

  “I heard how you almost beat Jupiter up that hill,” Hawk scoffed. “So cut it out. This is serious. Deer don’t just run. They bounce. Like this.” He took a few quick strides downhill, bounded into the air, and glided nearly six feet before springing up to do it again. Then he stopped, turned back to Joby, and called, “Now you try!”

  “Looks like a good way to break my leg,” Joby said.

  “My mom’ll break more than that if we’re late,” he said. “Like you said, she might think you should have got me back earlier.” Joby wondered if all of Taubolt’s kids were such natural extortionists. “Come on!” Hawk urged. “It’s fun. Your feet hardly ever touch the ground, so there’s almost no chance to trip, and it doesn’t tire you out like running either! That’s why the deer do it!”

  The kid seemed to know an awful lot about deer, Joby thought, as he jogged downhill, then took a timid leap, and bounced immediately up into another in imitation of Hawk. Surprisingly, the boy was right. His downhill momentum was so strong that he had plenty of time in the air to plan his landing and his next jump. In fact, there was almost time between landings to rest his legs. Minutes later, they were leaping and sailing down the hill at a speed that would have frightened Joby if he’d stopped to think about it. But he didn’t. They were having too much fun, whooping and laughing as they barged between the evergreen branches that sometimes crowded the road.

  Merlin waited until Joby and Hawk were well out of sight, then growled, “Don’t just hover there, old friend. Come in and visit for a while.” He turned without waiting for an answer. Gardening, he thought with chagrin. All his defenses undone by a moment of careless absorption in mulching roses! Then again, he’d never expected anyone, least of all Joby, to come waltzing all the way up here unannounced. The world was strange with luck these days. Upon reaching his parlor, he was unsurprised to find Michael there ahead of him, seated in casual glory on the couch.

  “You’ve done a marvelous job with this place,” the angel said amiably. “But ‘old friends’ don’t usually hide from one another, Merlin. Or is it Solomon now?”

  “Have you no old friends in Taubolt then, Michael? Or should I call you Jake?” He smiled grimly as Michael conceded the point. “You followed Joby here, I take it?”

  “Hawk actually,” Michael replied. “You gave him quite a scare at first, and I pay special attention to Taubolt’s children. Your skills have grown mighty indeed, Merlin. I’d not have believed even you could hide all this right under my nose for . . . how long now?”

  “December, more or less.”

  “I thought so,” Michael sighed. “What on earth are you thinking, Merlin? Did you really believe the Creator could be deceived just by covering my eyes?”

  “Deceiving Him was not my concern,” Merlin sighed. “It was only your own disposition toward my purpose here that concerned me.” He shrugged and smiled. “I apologize, if that will help.”

  “To me?” Michael chided. “It is not my will you defy here.”

  “You won’t hinder me then?”

  Michael looked mildly surprised. “For all you’ve been set apart, you are still a mortal man, and like all mortal men, free to choose your own path, Merlin, for good or ill. You know that as well as I.”

  “I feared you might have been commanded to enforce His will in this matter.”

  “I have had no such command,” the angel assured him, looking troubled for the first time in their conversation. “In fact, I have been left without any word from Him at all since this matter started. His decree against interference was the last instruction I was given.” The angel’s gaze hardened some. “The same decree you surely received.”

  “Yes,” Merlin said sadly. “Which I find I cannot obey.”

  The angel shook his head. “Then the boy has not asked for your help.”

  “Me?” Merlin laughed bitterly. “How could he? He thinks his grandfather long dead, and, if I read his boyhood journal rightly, even my real identity has been usurped by the enemy.”

  “If you still call him enemy,” Michael replied, “why are you defying our Lord?”

  “What do you expect of me, Michael?” Merlin demanded angrily. “Are fifteen hundred years of loyalty to Heaven not sufficient proof of my intentions?”

  “Longevity was not thrust upon you unwillingly, as I recall,” the angel replied. “You accepted your mandate as a gift, and of him to whom much is given, much will be required. I know it is hard, but—”

  “Oh, spare me your platitudes, Michael!” Merlin snapped. “What do you know of perishable love?” Merlin looked away, una
ble to endure the angel’s sympathetic gaze. “I am as loyal to the Creator as ever I was. What I would give much to know is why He has left me and my family in this abysmal circumstance with no right way to proceed.”

  “Surely you are too much wiser than other men to seek refuge in such confusion,” Michael quietly insisted. “Obedience is the right way to proceed. What mortal man knows this better than yourself? Truly, you astonish me.”

  “Obedience to what?” Merlin demanded hotly. “To love? Has that not been the foremost law of Heaven since ever there were laws? The Creator knows I love Him well, but I love my grandson too, and my daughter!” He could not keep his voice from shaking, or tears from welling in his eyes. “How, in Heaven’s name, am I to choose between love and love, Michael? How can the Author of love itself demand that of me?”

  Looking, perhaps, contrite, Michael said nothing.

  “It still torments me to recall how I failed Arthur, who was, in all but fact, a son to me,” Merlin said more quietly. “I will not fail this boy who is my grandson in truth. If our Lord should damn me for it, then I will be damned.”

  “You cannot know what that means,” Michael said softly.

  “No, I only know what it would mean to betray my grandson.”

  “You do not mean to tell him about the wager, do you?” Michael warned. “That would mean default.”

  “Do you think me that rash?” Merlin said wearily.

  “Your artful little tale came perilously close,” the angel pressed.

  “But close only,” Merlin insisted.

  The angel sat in silence for a time, searching Merlin’s face, then said, “There is one thing that deeply puzzles me. If you so love your daughter and her son, why pretend to die, and leave them?”

  “You do have a talent, angel, for knowing just where to rub the salt.”

  “I do not seek to hurt you,” Michael said. “You know that’s not my nature.”

  “Nonetheless, you do,” said Merlin sadly. “My gift for premonition is a chancy thing, being, as it is, the bequest of my demonic father, but bitter experience has taught me to ignore it to my peril. Having divined some imminent calamity aimed at my daughter and her family, I could secure no clue as to its nature or what might be required to protect them when it came. To my endless grief and disgust, I foolishly determined that I might help them more effectively unhobbled by the parameters of my disguise as a frail old man. There seemed only one way to free myself from that disguise, though severing a hand—both hands—would not have caused me so much pain. I told myself that I was doing it for them.