The Paper Grail

by James P. Blaylock

  The tip of the dowser bent downward, drawn toward the soil, twisting in her hands so that she could barely hold on to it. “Cabbages,” she said out loud. It was as if she had seen them herself, like slide film played against the back of her eyelids. He had put out cabbages. She opened her eyes and swayed there, nearly losing her balance and blinded by the bright sunlight. With an effort she managed to clear her mind, bringing herself back around to her own garden. She marked the spot with a piece of stick, and then using the dowser again, she traced out the row, some twelve feet of it, wondering what to plant there, what sort of maleficent vegetation might wither his cabbages.

  She worked by instinct. Someday soon she would know where his garden was hidden, where he was hidden, and she would have a look at her handiwork. It struck her as funny that she was engaged in a vegetable war, probably the first in the history of the world. It was a war she must ultimately win. He was old and feeble and dying, and his power was dying with him.

  She fetched a trowel from the porch and began to dig holes in the dirt, humming now and laying a tuber in the bottom of each. A sea breeze ruffled her hair, and she scowled, looking without wanting to at the thing on the roof across the street. Its plywood arm caught a gust and slowly straightened out in a long, sardonic salute, jerking upright in order to repeat the gesture, probably over and over for the rest of the afternoon. She hummed louder, drowning out the world, pausing to pour sea hare ink over each tuber in turn and then filling in the holes with dirt.

  * * *

  HOWARD woke up stiff. Sleeping on the Morris chair had required a certain degree of exhaustion, and it had taken him half the night to attain it. He had slept hard in the early hours of the morning, though, and now he felt disheveled and drooly and wrinkled, and his neck was kinked and stiff.

  Abruptly he knew what had awakened him—his name had been called. A key rattled in the lock, the door swung open, and there stood Mr. Jimmers and, for God’s sake, Sylvia. Howard pulled himself up and hurriedly wiped his face and ran his hands through his hair. He unwrapped himself from the quilt and stood up, the pain in his spine nearly arching him over backward. “Sylvia!” he said, trying to sound cheerful and robust but actually just croaking. He tried to clear his throat. Like a proud father, Mr. Jimmers stood beaming at Sylvia, the look on his face seeming to assure Howard that although he had waited a long time for this moment, the wait must clearly have been worth it.

  He was right. Sylvia seemed not to have aged. Her skin had the same pale cast to it, almost a translucence, and her hair was full and dark and an absolute sculptured mess. She wore red lipstick, too, which was gaudy, but right at the moment she seemed custom-built for gaudy, even though it wasn’t what Howard remembered or expected. And her eyes were larger than he remembered them, too. She reminded him of a woman out of a Rossetti painting, modernized with twentieth-century makeup and natural, handmade-looking clothes. She would have looked terrific even in a flour sack or a mu-mu. Almost laughing at him, she said, “You look awful.”

  “Do I?” he managed to say. He was flattered, somehow, that she would say such a thing to him, willing to joke around when they hadn’t seen each other or even spoken in years. He tried to think of a way to quit looking awful, but there wasn’t any.

  “Utterly awful. It’s my fault that you had to sleep in a chair all night, too. Mr. Jimmers couldn’t get through to me until this morning, because I was out late. He said that he had a man locked into the attic who might be a thief and murderer but claimed to be my cousin. We didn’t expect you until the end of the week, actually.”

  “I got impatient. Solitude wears you out after a while.”

  “And you’ve had years of it, haven’t you? No wonder you look like you do.” She smiled at him, clearly assuming that his sense of humor had held up. She might easily have seen him last week, It was as if there were nothing about him that she had forgotten, which either was a good thing or wasn’t. Howard wasn’t awake enough to tell yet, but he remembered that this was another reason he had never gotten rid of his memories of her.

  He dropped the quilt and managed a smile. He was a fairly ridiculous sight. The whole adventure in the attic was funny as hell if you looked at it right, through the Sylvia spectacles, so to speak. He realized that he was staring at her, and he looked away, bending over suddenly to pick up the quilt from the chair. He folded it carefully.

  “And I’m awfully sorry about all this,” Mr. Jimmers said to Howard. “There’s been dirty work recently, though, what with Mr. Graham going off the cliff and all. Things along the north coast are … unsettled, you might say, and your sudden appearance, I’m afraid, was fraught with suspicion. I hope you forgive me.”

  “Sure,” said Howard. “Not at all. Of course I do.” Forgiving him was easy all of a sudden. He was a friend of Sylvia’s, after all. Howard wondered exactly how he was a friend of Sylvia’s, and whether he could use that friendship to pry the sketch out of Jimmers. This was no time for that sort of selfish thinking, though. He would tackle Mr. Jimmers some other time. He’d had enough of the man for the moment.

  Mr. Jimmers hurried across the room just then and pulled the plug on the space heater, looking skeptically at the frayed cord. He threw open one of the windows. “Close in here,” he said, wrinkling up his face. Then he caught sight of the chiseled wall, blinked at it in surprise, started to say something, and fell silent. He picked up Howard’s pocket knife, which still lay open on the desk. “Burrowing out through the wall?” he asked, gesturing at the hacked plaster. Sylvia looked at it, seeming mildly surprised. “This man is a curious man,” Mr. Jimmers said to Sylvia. “You must always be a tiny bit vigilant around a man who suspects that things are hidden in the walls.” He closed the knife and handed it across carefully.

  Sylvia peered more closely at the plaster now. “Things are hidden in the walls,” she said to Mr. Jimmers.

  “I wonder if this man didn’t put them there himself,” Jimmers said.

  “I … Of course I didn’t. How would I have done that?” Howard found himself fumbling again. Mr. Jimmers couldn’t seem to stop pummeling him with nonsense.

  Jimmers shrugged, as if he would believe Howard mainly out of politeness. “Well,” he said. “I’m nearly certain that you would have put them there, if you’d been given half a chance. Don’t you think so, Sylvia?”

  “Of course he would have. So would I. I think right now, though, that I have to get back to the shop. Some of us have to work. Where are you going?” she asked Howard.

  “Why … I thought I’d drive up to Uncle Roy’s,” he said. “Up to your place. You’re still there, I guess.”

  She nodded.

  He felt a little like he was inviting himself, despite his having sent the letter telling them that he was coming—which is to say, the letter inviting himself.

  “It isn’t any sort of palace,” she said.

  “I don’t need a palace, really. I’m not the palace type.”

  “You never were,” she said, and she stepped across and kissed him on the cheek in a sisterly way. “Father is a little down on his luck right now. He’s not what you’d call solvent. I think you two will hit it off, though.”

  Howard couldn’t remember a time when Uncle Roy wasn’t down on his luck. He was a businessman—something that he would tell you proudly, making the word sound less generic than it really was. But as a businessman he was a spectacular failure. He had done moderately well as a salesman when he was younger, then managed to force a living out of the pet store trade for a few years. But then he had sold the business and borrowed heavily to open the spirit museum, which had cooked his goose financially.

  “I want to help out,” Howard said. “I haven’t done anything for the last two years but squirrel money away.”

  “Father isn’t fond of charity,” Sylvia said flatly. “I wouldn’t bring it up to him.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant that I don’t want to mooch off him or anything.”

  Mr. Jimmer
s appeared to be uncomfortable listening to the two of them talk. He edged toward the door, as if to hurry things along. It was checkout time for Howard.

  Sylvia beamed her smile at him again and fingered the quartz crystal that hung around her neck on a copper chain. “Duty calls,” she said, turning to leave. “Can you find the house all right?”

  “Sure,” Howard said. “No problem. I’ve got the address.” Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be out of there—out of the attic and out of the house. He wanted elbowroom and space to think, to rearrange what he knew about the world. He realized that his shirt was half untucked, so he shoved it back in, excusing himself and heading for the door of the bathroom. Mr. Jimmers went out, following Sylvia, and when Howard appeared downstairs a few moments later, Mr. Jimmers asked him if he wanted breakfast. “My hospitality hasn’t been worth much so far,” he said, looking abruptly downcast. “I’m a scientist, in my way, an inventor, and I’m afraid that I overlook the niceties sometimes. I live rough, you see, with no one to care for but myself …”

  This was a new Mr. Jimmers. Howard hadn’t thought of that. It must be terribly lonely, living out on the deserted bluffs like this. And now with Graham dead, maybe murdered, Mr. Jimmers was alone and pretty clearly frightened of strangers, and rightfully so.

  “I’m afraid that all I’ve got are these cans of chop suey,” Mr. Jimmers said, hauling one of them out of the cupboard. “You can scramble them up with eggs. It’s not bad, actually, on toast. Pity we don’t have any toast. The sandwiches last night were the end of the bread. I’ve got salt, though. I don’t eat breakfast myself. It runs my metabolism ragged, breakfast does. I take a cup of Postum, actually, with hot water out of the tap in order to flush the system.”

  “Thanks,” said Howard, trying to sound sincere. “I’ve got to get up to Fort Bragg, though. I’m not a breakfast man, either.”

  Jimmers put the chop suey away. “Cup of Postum, then?”

  Howard held up a restraining hand. “System’s fine. I’ll just run, I think. The ham sandwich last night was tip-top, though.”

  “You’re too kind,” said Jimmers, ushering him through the room with the fireplace and out toward the front door, where Howard fetched his shoes back. Having sat outside through the foggy night, they felt damp and sticky to the touch. The truck heater would dry them. “Goodbye, then,” said Mr. Jimmers, starting to close the door as soon as Howard stepped out onto the front stoop. “Nice of you to drop by.”

  The sky was clear and blue and the air was cold. Out over the ocean the fog lay like a gray blanket, but it was a long way off. The day would be a warm one, and Howard was almost cheerful, anticipating breakfast in Fort Bragg. He went around to the camper door, thinking to throw his jacket into the back. On the window, dead center, was the pelican decal. These were gluers, all right, just like Jimmers had said. They’d stolen the damned decal and then stuck it onto the first window they’d come to. Oh, well, Howard thought. That’s pretty much where he would have put it, anyway. They’d saved him the work.

  After a moment he drove away north, mulling over the last twenty-four hours. Mr. Jimmers had told him nothing. Had the sketch been stolen? Or had Mr. Jimmers put it somewhere for safekeeping? Is that what he had in the mysterious tin shed? Howard hoped not. The thing wouldn’t be worth hanging in an incinerator after a week outdoors in a misty climate like this. You might as well throw it in the ocean. Howard would have to deal with Mr. Jimmers again soon. He would get Uncle Roy to help him. Maybe he could fake up some sort of story about the museum paying a commission so as to be able to slip poor old Uncle Roy a couple of hundred dollars. He’d have to be canny about it, though.

  He thought momentarily about being trapped in the attic last night, how he had been scared half witless and then had been furious with Jimmers. It still wasn’t funny. Not really. But it wasn’t a matter for the police, either. There was too much that he didn’t understand, too much mystery hovering on the fog. Maybe he was done with it; maybe not. He would ask Sylvia, appeal to her inherent honesty. Sylvia wasn’t the cipher that Jimmers was.

  Sylvia. Things had started off unevenly there. It seemed to him suddenly that he had made an off-key, Blinky the Clown impression on Sylvia. On an impulse he sucked his stomach in a little and sat up straighter, regarding himself in the mirror. He wasn’t hopeless, anyway. His face was still pretty lean. Some people developed moon faces when they gained weight, but he had never had that problem. He had a rapid-fire metabolism that let him eat anything at all without regret, and he took that to be a sign of good health. At times, when he really overdid it, he developed a moderate spare tire, which, unless it got out of hand, was easy to hide. At least the north coast beaches didn’t lend themselves to sunbathing. He could keep his shirt on and his stomach pulled in.

  Maybe he would start jogging again, too. And no more junk food, either—no doughnuts or Twinkies. It would be a new regime, the Sunberry Farms approach, starting after breakfast, which he’d eat in Fort Bragg and which would consist of a hell of a stack of pancakes. An hour a day chopping wood for Uncle Roy wouldn’t hurt him any, either. He would earn his keep is what he would do. He rolled down the window and inhaled hugely. The air was full of the ocean and the musty smell of autumn vegetation. He was surprised at how good he felt, despite having been tortured in an attic. It was a brand-new day.

  Maybe he’d be better off if the Hoku-sai were gone. It would almost sever his connection with the museum. Over the past week the sketch had become a sort of carrot on a stick. Its having disappeared would free him, wouldn’t it? If he managed to get hold of it, he’d have to haul it back down south, out of duty, and actually put together the display of Japanese artwork that he’d been mouthing off about. He had worked hard at selling the idea to Mrs. Gleason, although now he didn’t know quite why. The museum seemed a long, long way off. If he walked back into it today, it would seem utterly alien to him. Before long he would forget where the paper clips were kept and how the coffee-maker worked. Maybe he had come north to stay, and he was just now realizing it.

  He flicked sand out of the corner of his eye, which looked almost unnaturally blue because of the reflection of the sky in the rearview mirror. His hair was cooperating, too. It was a little long, but what the hell. He would have to shave, though. His beard, when he tried to grow one years ago, had looked like something bought cheap at a swap meet. It was getting gray, too—a constant blow to the vanity, and a reminder that the years were flying past, that he was older now. The thought sobered him just a little, and suddenly he was cold from the sea wind blowing in through the open window.

  He passed the first turnoff into Mendocino and looked back into town, and there was Sylvia standing next to a yellow Toyota parked at the gas station. In an instant he lost sight of her. That’s where her store was, on Main Street in Mendocino. He had heard all about her opening it up, running it on a shoestring, half her stuff selling on consignment. On impulse he turned back down Lansing Street, driving toward Main.

  The gas station was empty now, which was just as well. He didn’t really want her to see him and think he was skulking around, spying on her. He was just curious about her shop, about what her life had become during the years that he hadn’t known her. He drove slowly down Main, surprised at the number of cars on the street. It was as if Mendocino had become a sort of shoppers’ amusement park. There was the yellow Toyota, parked along the curb. He slowed, wondering which store was hers. Too many of them qualified as “boutiques.”

  Suddenly there she was, standing on the sidewalk in front of an ice cream store. She saw him and widened her eyes, starting to wave, actually looking happy and surprised to see him. Howard grinned, made a waving gesture of his own, and then looked away stupidly, pretending he was just passing through. He would have stopped, to explain to her that he was curious to see what she was up to, to thank her for having come to rescue him from the clutches of Mr. Jimmers. But he couldn’t. Standing next to her, shaking his head and gestu
ring, was a tall, blond man, nicely dressed, fit-looking. He didn’t wear a single black glove anymore, but Howard knew who he was.

  “Shit,” Howard said out loud, mad at himself for having been so utterly incapable of dealing with things. Intending to circle back toward the highway, he turned right down Albion and nearly drove straight into an oncoming car. The driver honked, shouting incoherently out the window. Shaking, Howard pulled to the shoulder, staring in disbelief at the roof of the house across the street. Fixed to the shingles, gazing placidly down at him, was a tremendous wooden egg man with a by-now familiar face. After a moment the thing waved at him. Howard drove slowly away, looking back at it once in the rearview mirror just to make sure he hadn’t imagined it.

  His hands shook on the steering wheel, and not entirely from the near accident. He had never before felt so cut adrift, so entirely out of his element and broken off from everything he was familiar with. He had fallen among pod people. Yesterday he had whistled a tune while he fed that pelican his fish bait and then innocently followed it up the coast. He possessed dependable road maps drawn up by the Triple A. And in his pocket, folded like a passport, was a signed letter from Michael Graham. The headlights on his truck were new and so was the battery. He had the receipt from the Pep Boys to prove it.

  So what the hell had happened? He had apparently turned up the highway to Loonyville by mistake, because he was watching the pelican instead of the road map. His worries and his troubles hadn’t vanished into the landscape, after all; they had merely taken new faces, and for a few idle days they had been harder to see because of the shifting shadows of north coast vegetation. He watched the cars whiz past on the highway, thinking that with a flick of his hand he could trip the right-turn blinker instead of the left and simply go home.