The Book of Joby

by Ferrari, Mark J.

  “No!” Ben said. “How do you . . . That’s not what I meant. Telling him that you want to move forward somehow, like you just said, doesn’t have to be an ultimatum.”

  “What if he takes it that way?” she pressed. “What if he’s acting like this because he still doesn’t trust me, then I say this, and—”

  “If he’s even halfway worthy of you,” Ben interjected firmly, “and I think he is, he won’t. I think you know he won’t too—or you wouldn’t be with him to begin with.” He gave her a skeptical look, and asked, “What’s this really about, Laura? It’s not just the sex. Not with you. What aren’t you telling me?”

  She was silent for a long time, looking everywhere except at Ben. It was a moment before he realized that she was trying not to cry.

  “Oh!” he said softly, and, without thinking, put his arms around her and drew her close. “What’s up, Lady Bayer?” he crooned, as she wept into his shoulder.

  “What if I don’t want him anymore?” she barely breathed. “How could I do that to him?”

  Ben felt ambushed, though he should have seen it coming. The conflict of emotions within him was immediate and titanic. “If you didn’t want him anymore, I think you wouldn’t be crying now,” he said softly, holding everything else rigidly inside. “What makes you think—”

  “It’s not me he doesn’t trust,” she wept. “I know that. It’s himself. Still.” She pulled away to wipe her eyes and face and try to gather her composure. “He keeps telling me there’s never been anyone for him but me and never will be, and I can tell he means it. It’s himself he doesn’t love, Ben. No matter how recovered he may seem here. I know the signs all too well, because . . .” She began to lose it again, but pulled herself together with visible severity. “Because Sandy was exactly the same. Why do I keep choosing men who don’t love themselves enough to love anybody else?”

  “You don’t,” Ben said, adding both anger at Joby and grief for him, to the list of feelings at war within him. “You chose Joby way before he was ever such a man. We both did. It was Joby, King of the Roundtable, we both loved, and—” Ben fought a lump growing in his own throat. “I can’t believe he’s not still inside there, somewhere.” With that declaration, the war inside him seemed suddenly decided. “If you still love him, you’ve got to fight this out with him, Laura. He needs someone to do that for him.”

  “How?” she asked miserably, falling back into his arms, still leaking tears. “He’s talked to me about all those years in Berkeley. All the awful things that happened. He says he’s left it all behind. He lives as if he has, but . . .” She pulled away from him again, with a deep breath and an air of grim decisiveness. “You’re right. I’m still in love with the Joby we knew as children, but that Joby has been pulverized for years. I don’t know why, or whose fault it was, but it happened.” She shook her head in frustration. “How do you fight a lifetime, Ben? How do you put a pulverized child back together, and fit it into the body and the life of a grown man? If you have any concrete ideas, I’m all ears.”

  Ben could think of no credible reply.

  “I’m very certain of one thing,” she said firmly. “I’ve been through Sandy once. I am not doing that, to myself or to Arthur, again. Not even for Joby. Not even for love.”

  “Then you have to tell him that,” said Ben, “and convince him not to make you. Maybe Joby is the only one who can put that child back together, but at least you have to tell him what’s at stake and help him try.” Shoving the last inch of the blade into his own heart, Ben said, “I’ll help you do that any way I can. Both of you.”

  23

  ( Conspiracy )

  From the moment he’d come before the Cup three weeks earlier, Swami had understood that Joby was somehow key to whatever was unfolding around them and woefully unprepared for whatever part he was to play. There had been no vision or voices; only a visceral knowing like that which told him where his limbs were in the darkness, or what he wished to eat when he was hungry. Knowing was Swami’s gift. The Council respected his talent, but not enough, he suspected, to approve what he intended now, so he had not asked their permission, or told anyone that he was bringing Joby here. Since that moment in the chapel, his sleep had roiled with vivid dreams, of Joby and of the Garden. If the Council condemned him for this later, so be it. Swami knew what he knew, and had learned to trust his gift.

  Still, as he and Joby knelt by Swami’s car, stuffing a few last items into their backpacks before hoisting them on and adjusting the straps, Swami was nervous.

  “You ready?” he asked Joby.

  Joby smiled and nodded. “You sure the car will be all right here, like this?”

  “No one will come here,” Swami assured him.

  Joby glanced again at the car, pulled not quite out of the rutted dirt road onto a narrow, weedy shoulder against a high embankment, then grinned and said, “I suppose you’re right. I didn’t even realize this road was here until you turned onto it. How does anyone remember where that turnoff is?”

  “Anyone doesn’t,” Swami said, forcing a smile. “Let’s go.”

  Coming to perch high atop a fir tree, Michael folded his hawk’s wings, and watched Swami lead Joby down the trail toward what very few had any business seeing. Michael had no idea where the boy’s reckless choice would lead, but the angel knew better than to interfere with anything in which Joby was involved. So he watched, contemplating the accelerating disintegration of Taubolt’s carefully ordered existence.

  As if yet another reason for concern were needed, something troubling had recently crossed into Taubolt. Michael was not sure how long ago, for it seemed able to hide from him—in itself, reason for apprehension—straying into his awareness only for fleeting instances since early September. It was nothing human, but too full of intelligence to be any mere animal either. The brief glimpses Michael had been allowed were fevered with despair, confusion, or anger. While the Cup’s power still filled the land for such a distance, it could not be a demon, though that is what it felt most like, but whatever it was, Michael felt certain it should not be here.

  As Swami and Joby disappeared around the bend, Michael’s mind flew out again across the fields and ridge tops, deep into the forests, along the winding roads, searching for some further sign of . . . And there it was again! In the woods east of town! Much too close for comfort! Michael spread his wings and flew, but even as his mind reached out to pin the presence down, it flinched away from his awareness like a feral, frightened animal, and fled. What on earth could do that to an archangel? With Merlin accounted for, Michael could not imagine.

  All afternoon Swami had led him steeply upward over hillsides covered in the usual dry grass and dusty brambles. It had been a hard, hot climb under fully loaded packs, making the few blessed stretches of shady woodland especially welcome. Not until early evening had they finally reached the ridge top, and stopped to gaze out over a breathtaking expanse of coastline stretching north, layer after paler layer, into the mountainous distance. Thickly forested hills of amazing height plunged down to meet the sea far below them, where mist churned up against the rocky shoreline spread into deep ravines giving the view a mythic atmosphere.

  From there, Swami had led Joby down into woodland immediately different from any he’d ever seen. The trees here were wind-sculpted into graceful geometric shapes, as if decorations for a fairy tale, and the gargantuan ferns lining their path brushed at Joby’s shoulders as they dropped farther into the gorge. Many of the tree trunks here were easily fifteen feet across, and an almost eerie stillness made the place seem even more primeval. When Swami had invited him to come backpacking for the weekend, one last time before the heat of Indian summer failed, Joby had expected nothing so remarkable.

  “Where are we?” Joby breathed at last. It seemed no place they should have been able to walk to in a single afternoon. “How come I’ve never heard of this place?”

  “We’re on the Garden Coast,” Swami answered, turning back to face him gra
vely. “This is one of Taubolt’s most guarded secrets, Joby. You must promise never to speak a word of it to anyone who hasn’t spoken to you about it first.”

  Joby was unsure what to make of such a strange request.

  “I’m serious,” Swami pressed. “Please. Promise me you’ll keep this to yourself.”

  “Sure.” Joby shrugged. “Wouldn’t want this crawling with tourists, would we?”

  Seeming mollified, Swami turned and continued down the path.

  It got darker as they hiked through stands of impossibly huge redwoods and other kinds of trees Joby didn’t think he’d even seen before. No sound but their own footfalls disturbed the evening air. When it had grown almost too dark to see, they came to a small flat patch of grass beside the black glass pools of a gurgling brook, where Swami suggested they make camp for the night.

  The place imposed its quiet on them as they prepared and ate a simple meal of tortillas and beans. After that, they sat watching sparks fountain up into the well of stars between the trees above their fire.

  “This is real virgin forest, isn’t it,” Joby murmured at last.

  “You can’t begin to guess,” Swami replied, his obsidian eyes and swarthy face grown suddenly fey and sad in the firelight. “I’m turning in. Long hike tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Me too,” said Joby and headed for his sleeping bag wondering what kinds of dreams a place like this might bring.

  As they packed up their camp after breakfast, a gem-bright bird of red and blue flashed down from the trees above them to snatch a crumb of oatmeal, and fly off again.

  “What was that?” Joby exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a bird so beautiful!”

  “It’s called a ruby thrush,” Swami replied, hoisting his pack onto one knee and over his shoulders with practiced ease.

  “I’ve never even heard of it,” Joby said in awe.

  “There are some very rare things living here,” Swami said. “This forest has never been disturbed.”

  Soon, they were on the trail again, and in the clear light of day, Joby began to notice all kinds of astonishing and completely unfamiliar plants. They passed beneath arboreal clusters of blue, thumb-size orchids, and crossed a glade of shiny crimson lilies. Joby stopped to finger a furry, silvery shrub trailing strings of what he assumed were berries, though they looked more like pearls. As the morning wore on, they hiked through glades with leaves that swiveled and shimmered in the breeze like a shower of gold-green coins, passed dwarf maples with leaves as wide as dinner plates, and waded through thickets of fan-shaped foliage the color of eggplant, which smelled of cinnamon and crushed celery.

  Nor were just the plants remarkable. Snails with bright purple shells half as big as Joby’s fist crawled up tree trunks. By a muddy streambed, swarms of large green butterflies fluttered into the air at their approach like an upward shower of windblown leaves. He saw two more ruby thrushes; a snow-white sparrow; a yellow frog; bright blue fish, whiskered like carp; a speckled, scarlet salamander the length of his forearm; an orb-weaving spider of pure metallic gold; and a sunning snake tiled in glassy, iridescent scales. Swami had names for all of them, none of which Joby had ever heard.

  Joby’s exclamations of surprise and wonder had soon given way to uncertain silence. Something odd was going on. He’d spent lots of time in Taubolt’s woods by now, and never seen any of what they passed with such increasing frequency here.

  Weird sounds issued from the hills around them: remarkable spirals of ascending birdsong, melodious strains of something like a high French horn, bursts of clucking chatter like musical monkeys. Even the air here was different somehow, or the light perhaps. Things seemed clearer, more sharp-edged and vivid. It all seemed impossibly strange, yet strangely familiar too. When he finally realized why, chills ran down his arms despite the morning’s warmth.

  “I had this dream last night,” he said quietly to Swami, who was walking several feet ahead of him, “full of strange animals who were trying to make me sing a song I didn’t know.”

  Swami stopped and turned to gaze at him intently. “What kind of song?”

  “I can’t remember,” Joby said. “It was very beautiful. I wanted to sing it pretty badly, but it kept changing all the time. The point is, that red salamander we saw a while back was one of them. And I’m pretty sure that iridescent snake was too. In fact, I think a lot of this stuff we’ve seen was in that dream, but I’ve never seen any of it ’til today.”

  Swami smiled for the first time on their whole hike, Joby realized. “Maybe your mind is just inserting all of this into the memory.” Swami shrugged. “Or maybe you were really meant to come here.”

  Wondering what he meant by that, Joby said, “You were in it too. Only you had huge eyes, like black glass, and the face of a ten-year-old child.”

  Swami’s smile wilted. “What did I do, in your dream?”

  “Tried to make me sing, like the rest,” said Joby. “Swami, what is this place?”

  “I told you,” he said, turning to resume their hike, “a very old, and undisturbed forest. This is how the forests all were once. How they’d be now if it weren’t for people.”

  “I used to study animals,” Joby said to Swami’s departing back. “How can I never have heard of any of these things?”

  “Some of them live nowhere else,” Swami said, without slowing ahead of him. “Many have not been discovered by anyone but us.”

  “Not discovered?” Joby exclaimed. “Swami, shouldn’t someone—”

  “NO!” Swami whirled to face him, angry or afraid; Joby wasn’t certain which. “You promised you’d tell no one!”

  “And I won’t,” Joby said, looking around in helpless frustration. “But this many rare species in one place—Swami, do you have any idea how important this is? It’s got to be protected, or there will be nothing to stop someone like Ferristaff from—”

  “There would be no protection!” Swami looked panic-stricken. “No matter what they promise, it would be . . . disaster. Joby, please listen to me. I wasn’t even supposed to show you this. But—”

  “Says who?” Joby interrupted. “Swami, what the hell is going on here? You make it sound like you’re part of some conspiracy to—”

  “I am,” Swami cut him off, “part of some conspiracy.”

  “What?” Joby said, taken aback.

  “There are . . . people here,” Swami said, clearly struggling to navigate some very fine line, “who . . . protect this.” He looked away, upset. “Please, Joby. I trusted you enough to bring you here. Trust me too. I . . . think we’re going to need your help soon. I don’t know how, but . . . for God’s sake, keep your promise to me and say nothing about this place to anyone, or . . . or I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  Joby didn’t know what to say. He did not make or break promises lightly, but it seemed so wrong to know about this and tell no one. The right people, at least, should be aware that there was a veritable zoo of unknown species parked on the California coast. That might be enough to save all of Taubolt from guys like Ferristaff. After what had happened to Rose, Joby would have dearly loved to see the look on Ferristaff’s face when the EPA told him to shut his whole claptrap down and go. And this conspiracy stuff? It gave him the creeps. “How can you and . . . whoever you’re working with hope to defend this all alone against someone with Ferristaff’s money and power?”

  “No one like Ferristaff will ever find this place,” Swami said with conviction. “Not unless he was shown. Taubolt was never hidden so well as this place is.”

  “Taubolt was hidden?” Joby asked. “Since when?”

  Swami gave him an imploring look. “Please. For now, just trust me.”

  “All right,” Joby said uncertainly. “I did promise. Consider me part of your conspiracy, I guess.”

  Swami smiled, somewhat anxiously. “Actually, you and I are sort of a conspiracy inside the conspiracy now.”

  “Uh-huh,” Joby nodded skeptically, “and what exactly are we conspiring to do?”


  “Protect all this,” Swami said.

  “From?”

  “Something bad . . . that’s coming. I don’t know what yet. But when it comes, will you help us save this?” the boy asked urgently.

  “If I can, of course,” said Joby, more skeptical than ever. “Who wouldn’t? But, what makes you think I can help? If you don’t even know what this bad thing is—” He stopped in mid-remark, staring as a tiny stag stepped shyly into the ferny glade behind Swami. It was no larger than a small dog, and its horns were silver!

  “What is that?” Joby whispered.

  Swami turned, just as the first stag was joined by a second. The deer stared back at them, ears up, posture wary, but they made no move to flee.

  “Pigmy silvertip,” Swami said quietly. “They’re not afraid of men here. Few men come, and none of those have ever hurt them.”

  “They have silver horns!” Joby whispered.

  Swami shook his head. “It’s just a fine, shiny fur. Only looks like silver.” He turned back to grin at Joby. “They have a larger cousin who’s pure white, with horns that look like gold. But those are even rarer.”

  Joby only shook his head and stared, quite certain that this animal had been in no nature book he’d ever read.

  From grammar school on, Joby’s teachers had sternly assured him that “science” had mapped and paved every mystery of consequence on earth. There were no lost continents, no mythical creatures, nor had there ever been. The ocean floor harbored no sunken cities or sea monsters now, only tube worms. The atom had been smashed into particles too tiny and technical to interest anyone but physicists. Even the vastness of space had been reduced, in the common mind at least, to little but a thin, lifeless gruel of gas, dust, and the occasional large rock. Since junior high, Joby’s whole world had practically been summed up in the phrase “there’s no such thing.” But three days on the Garden Coast had turned all that on its head. There were lost continents and mythical creatures, right here in Joby’s own backyard.