The Vanishing Island

by Barry Wolverton

  Bren almost threw up himself. But he took a deep breath and looked at the object, which appeared to be a coin, about the size of a gold sovereign.

  “Oh no,” said Bren. “You don’t owe me anything. Save it for the doctor if you must.” He tried to give the coin back, but the man shook his head and pushed it away. “At least lie back down. I’ll get help.”

  He squatted next to the man again to straighten his blankets, and when he did the man grabbed Bren by the shoulders and hugged him close, and Bren felt his hot breath next to his ear, and smelled the foul odor of his illness. Then he realized the man was whispering something.

  “What?” said Bren. “Say it again.”

  But the man had spoken his last words. He was wracked by a violent fit of coughing, which ended only when the poor soul pitched forward from the cot onto his face, as if in prayer, and breathed no more.

  Bren could feel himself shaking. He’d never seen a dead man so close . . . never had a man die right in front of him. Mr. Black put a hand on his shoulder; Dr. Hendrick made a quick examination of the body to confirm the grim truth.

  Mr. Black had brought one of the flat carts he used for transporting books, and they used it to carry the body to the doctor’s office to prepare it for burial. Both of the older men urged Bren to go home, but he wanted to come with them. He wasn’t sure why.

  Hendrick’s Apothecary & Physicks occupied a run-down, two-story clapboard house just off the Pub District. It didn’t look much like a place you would go to get better, and in fact, most people didn’t. Dr. Hendrick served as the town undertaker as much as anything else.

  The doctor lived on the first floor and practiced on the second, so they took the body upstairs and laid it on a table in the middle of the room. To his horror, Bren noticed that four other tables were already occupied, stained white sheets concealing the bodies.

  “It’s par for the course this time of year,” said the doctor. “The crimpers always start trouble.”

  “So are these the wolves or the prey?” said Mr. Black.

  “A little of both,” said the doctor. “They often gang up on drunk men, and fights break out.” He looked at the man they had just brought in. “You said you thought he was a sailor?”

  “He’s not a wolf,” said Bren. “I think he’s a Netherlander, and the Dutch wouldn’t be crimping sailors from Map.”

  “A Netherlander?” said Mr. Black. “What makes you so sure?”

  Bren walked over to the corpse and forced himself to grasp the man’s rigid arm and his cold wrist, to show the doctor and Mr. Black the tattoo of the black tulip. “Who else would have a tattoo like this?”

  “Search me,” said the doctor.

  Mr. Black studied it a bit longer. “VZT?”

  “Maybe I’ll know more after an autopsy,” said the doctor.

  “An autopsy?” said Bren.

  “The doctor will cut the body open to investigate the cause of death,” Mr. Black explained.

  Bren still didn’t get it. To him the man was dead from being practically dead to begin with. “Does it matter? I mean, there’s no family to report to or anything.”

  Mr. Black and the doctor exchanged a look. “Bren, Dr. Hendrick is grateful for any opportunity to have a body he can learn from. Medical investigation of corpses is valuable to a doctor’s knowledge, but most people don’t allow it for their loved ones.”

  “Oh,” said Bren. For the first time he noticed that the walls were lined with shelves, filled with specimen jars. Hearts, hands, brains . . . other things he couldn’t make out. He wondered if all these organs had come from people who died mysteriously in Map, anonymous and alone.

  “Don’t look so pale, young man,” said the doctor. “A dead man still has a lot to give.”

  Bren suddenly remembered the coin, and he dug it out of his ticket pocket and offered it to the doctor. For the first time he noticed the oddly embossed front, and the small hole at the top. “The man tried to give this to me before he died. I thought you should have it for your troubles.”

  The doctor took it, and both he and Mr. Black fumbled in their pockets for half-spectacles. The doctor then held the object up to his eye like a monocle and looked at Bren through the hole.

  “I don’t reckon the Gooey Duck will take a brass medallion for payment,” he said, handing it back to Bren.

  “Maybe it was the man’s lucky charm. Like a rabbit’s foot,” said Mr. Black.

  “Didn’t do him much good, did it?” said Dr. Hendrick.

  “So can I keep it?”

  “By all means,” said Mr. Black, putting his hand on Bren’s shoulder to let him know it was time to go.

  Back at Black’s shop, the bookseller made lunch for them both.

  “You do know there’s food in front of you?”

  Bren pulled the coin or medallion or whatever it was out of his pocket and looked at it again. “Why would a dying stranger give me this?”

  “A fair question,” said Mr. Black. “Just a second.” He dug around behind his counter until he found a loupe—a small magnifying glass—and brought it over to the table. “Let’s have another look.”

  Bren gave it to him and Mr. Black looked closely at both sides. “Well, it’s interesting. It certainly looks and feel like a coin. Bronze, I believe.”

  “Except it has a hole at the top,” said Bren.

  “Actually,” said Mr. Black, “some ancient coins did have holes in them. I have some examples in my collection. They could be strung on lines or thin rods, and it made them easier to carry and count.”

  All Bren heard was ancient coins. “And they made coins from bronze in ancient times, right? Like the Roman ones Judge Clower goes looking for every Sunday?”

  “They did,” said Mr. Black. “But before you get carried away—”

  “And why would the man have swallowed it unless it was valuable?” said Bren, practically jumping to his feet.

  Mr. Black put the coin back down. “He regurgitated this?”

  “If that means puked it up, then yes.”

  Mr. Black pulled a square of linen from his breast pocket and gave the coin a good rubdown before setting it back on the table. Both he and Bren bent down at the same time to look at it, and butted heads.

  “Ow! Your head is so hard!” said Bren.

  “That’s because I’m a fossil,” said Mr. Black. “I’ve got a better idea. Come.”

  Bren followed him to the rear of the store. The bookseller looked around as if he had forgotten what he came for, then walked over to a shelf, stood up on his tiptoes, and began blindly rummaging through boxes stored on top of the shelves. Finally he pulled down a wooden box, causing a minor avalanche of books in the process. “Look out below!”

  He set the box down and opened it, removing a strange metal contraption that looked sort of like a cannon with a chimney.

  “Behold, my magic lantern!” he said theatrically.

  He laid the coin on the table, covered it with a scrap of parchment, and began to rub a stick of graphite back and forth across the surface. The design came into sharper relief as black lines against the parchment’s ivory surface. Mr. Black then slid the scrap of paper into a slot where the chimney met the cannon, took off the chimney cap, and lit a candle. Carefully turning the lit candle upside down, he stuck it down the chimney, projecting a larger image of the tracing against a bare wall.

  The small hole at the top was at the mouth of a lion’s head. The rest of the coin’s face was embossed with a square frame, within which were three columns of what appeared to be three different inscriptions.

  “It’s Chinese writing!” said Bren.

  The image began to curl away and disappear—the parchment had caught fire. Mr. Black jerked the candle from the lantern, snuffed it, and beat the small flames from the paper with his hands.

  “Minor design flaw,” he said. “But those didn’t look like Chinese characters to me. I do admit, however, that the scripts looked Asian.”

  Bren
picked up the coin, tracing the worn, embossed front with his finger. “If the man was a Netherlander, then this coin is obviously from the Far East!”

  Mr. Black shook his head. “We don’t know anything for certain yet, Bren.”

  “Can you figure out what it means?” Mr. Black had more books on the Far East than anyone Bren knew.

  “I can try,” said Mr. Black. “May I hold on to this for further study?”

  “Can I draw it for you instead?” said Bren. The last thing he wanted to do was to surrender the coin—his newfound treasure.

  Mr. Black agreed, and studied the coin while Bren fetched a clean sheet of paper. He freehanded a near-perfect circle, much larger than the actual coin so it would be easier to read. He then duplicated the image from memory.

  “Quite remarkable,” said Mr. Black, comparing the drawing to the coin. “You really are skilled with a pen. I can see why both your father and Mr. McNally think you have so much potential.”

  “Don’t start,” said Bren, who considered Mr. Black a co-conspirator when it came to keeping him in Map. “Not when we’ve just discovered that I’ve come into possession of ancient treasure!”

  Mr. Black immediately opened his mouth to correct him, but Bren beat him to the punch: “Now don’t get carried away!” he said, in his best imitation of Mr. Black’s stern voice.

  His friend sighed. “At least you’re learning.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  A WARNING TO THE WICKED

  Bren lay on his cot, turning the coin over and over in his hand. Where was it from? How much could it be worth? He needed a safe place he could keep it, but both of his trouser pockets had holes and the ticket pocket in his vest was so small he was afraid the coin would fall out. He didn’t carry a coin purse because he didn’t have any money. So he opened the lid of his writing desk and saw the black stone necklace lying there, right where he had thrown it. He removed it and threaded the coin onto the lanyard, next to the stone, and pulled it over his head.

  “Bren? Is that you up there?”

  Rats, thought Bren. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “It’s okay,” said his father. “Why don’t you come down for a minute.”

  He looked up to find Mr. Grey sitting in the window. “Want to trade places with me?” Mr. Grey narrowed his eyes and began grooming himself.

  “You’ve been with Archibald?” said his father when Bren came downstairs.

  “I work in the vomitorium. I don’t have any friends. Can I at least enjoy something?”

  “You brought your position on yourself,” said his father.

  “You’ve told me that before.”

  His father nodded, drumming his fingers on the table. Bren watched.

  “You go straight to Black’s from work, and some nights I’m asleep before you come home.”

  “It’s not like I’m wandering the streets,” said Bren. “You know that.”

  “You still have to walk the streets home,” said his father. “Port towns are not safe after dark.”

  Bren wasn’t sure how to respond, so he pulled the necklace off over his head and laid it on the table.

  “Emily’s necklace,” his father said, wistfully rubbing his index finger over the black stone.

  “She never told me where she got it,” said Bren.

  His father continued to run his finger over the smooth black stone. “She was from Cumbria, you know. Up in lake country. She would go there, and take you with her, anytime there were rumors of plague, because port towns were considered unsafe.”

  “She didn’t go that last time,” said Bren. “Why?”

  His father slowly shook his head. “It’s a long, hard trip from here. And she always felt bad about leaving me. You know very well I can barely put a meal together. And after so many false alarms, I guess . . . I guess we got careless.”

  His father’s voice faltered, but he cleared his throat and righted himself. “Anyway, she bought the necklace up there in an old curiosity shop. Was fond of it for no good reason, really. But once she got sick . . . well, I guess she looked at it as something that came from a safe place, and she wanted you to have it for good luck.”

  Bren had to look away. He was about to take the necklace back when his father noticed the new addition.

  “What do you have there?”

  “A coin,” Bren said. “It’s very old.”

  His father raised an eyebrow. “Where did you get it?”

  Bren thought about it for a second. He didn’t really want to go into all the grisly details. “Found it.”

  His father smiled. “Did Mr. McNally sell you a Map of Local Interest?”

  “No. It was actually . . . someone gave it to me in the vomitorium.”

  “Like a tip?”

  “Something like that.”

  His father looked at him skeptically. “Bren, you didn’t steal this from one of Mr. McNally’s clients, did you?”

  “You mean one of his explorers?”

  “Bren . . .”

  “No! Honestly, a man gave it to me. Mr. Black thinks it could be from an ancient treasure hoard!”

  “That doesn’t sound like something Archibald Black would have told you.”

  “Well, I may have added the treasure hoard part,” Bren admitted. “But he does think it’s very old. Ancient, even.”

  His father picked up the coin.

  “It’s badly worn,” said Bren. “But you can make out the Asian writing.”

  “Ah yes, all things Oriental, right?” said his father, pushing the coin back across the table. “And all this means what?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bren. “But what if it is?”

  “Is what? Old? From the Far East? Are you suggesting there’s more where this came from, and we should commission a ship and go off like in one of your adventure novels?”

  Bren felt his face grow hot. “It could be worth a lot.”

  “Enough to live on for the rest of your life?”

  “Never mind,” said Bren. “You’re right—I’m being foolish.”

  “Bren, try to understand. I’m not trying to hold you back. I know you feel like you’re being punished, but you have the opportunity for a good trade, one other boys would kill for. Would you rather be a tanner, stripping bloody hides from animals all day? Or a stonemason? McNally’s offers long-term security, without breaking your back.”

  Just your soul, thought Bren.

  “If you can stay out of trouble the rest of the summer,” his father said, “I’m sure I can arrange it with Mr. McNally to let you begin your apprenticeship.”

  I knew it, thought Bren. “Did you and Mr. McNally cook this whole vomitorium thing up together?”

  His father shook his head. “Do you really have no idea how much worse things could have been because of that accident at the harbor? How much worse they could be? We have a decent life, Bren. More than people like us could rightly ask for.”

  Bren wondered if his father had ever bothered to look around when he walked into town. At the nicer houses that had slate roofs instead of thatch. He would love, for once, not to have to catch leaks when it rained, or check his bedroom for rats. He looked at their tiny kitchen and thought of how his father never even tried to do better with things like cooking after Bren’s mom died. He had been one of McNally’s best draftsmen for twenty years and this was where it had gotten them.

  Bren excused himself and went back to bed. What was the use? He was convinced his father didn’t dream, even in his sleep.

  Beginning the next day, Bren had the creeping sensation that he was being followed. Walking around Map, amid the constant ruck of people, this might not have seemed so unusual. Pickpockets were common, and even though Bren had nothing to steal, they would sometimes shadow you to make sure.

  Or did he in fact have something to steal? He touched the coin under his shirt. Maybe his imagination was running away with him because of it.

  After work he decided to try his luck at the Gooey
Duck. He hadn’t gone there much of late because the vomitorium didn’t do wonders for his appetite. But also because Beatrice was still mad at him for trying to run away. She hadn’t given him plum cake once since then.

  She was there when he walked in. Bren’s usual dark corner table was taken, so she nodded to a small table by the window.

  And that’s when a very strange thing happened.

  Even as far south as Map was, the sun set very late there during the summer. The windows of the Gooey Duck faced west, and light was still pouring through the glass at suppertime. When Bren bent down to move his chair, the necklace fell from his shirt, the bronze coin momentarily dangling there like a pendulum, the face of it twisting first one way, then the other. When the back of it, the blank side, turned into the sun, Bren saw for that brief moment an image reflected against the wall of the Duck.

  “What’s wrong?” said Beatrice, a bowl of stew in one hand and a plate of bread in the other. “Sit down!”

  Bren sat, staring at the food as she put it down.

  “Don’t tell me you aren’t hungry,” she said.

  “I do. I mean, I am . . . thank you.”

  She smiled and grabbed his ear, gently this time, and left. Bren couldn’t remember if he was hungry or not. He lifted the coin, looking at it for something he and Mr. Black had missed. He shifted in his chair to catch light off the blank side again, and there it was, the image on the wall again. Three pairs of symbols, forming the points of an equilateral triangle. What were they exactly? Where were they?

  He realized he was behaving oddly, and even worse, he was holding up what looked like a gold coin for everyone to see. He stuffed the necklace back into his shirt and glanced around. Two men stood up to leave, but no one seemed to be paying him any mind. He forced himself to eat, and when he had finished, he thanked Beatrice and hurried out, eager to get to Black’s.

  From the Duck to Black’s Books, the least crowded way was a system of alleys that secretly joined the seedy Pub District to the respectable Merchant Quarter. Bren’s father would not have been pleased to know he traveled this route.