The Zaanics Deceit (Cate Lyr #1)

by Nina Post

  “That’s not a great standard of comparison.”

  Fortune hath giv’n us þes torfare

  Ilyche þe un-bliðe osses of Cumae

  Certes þe wereld a-rechen þe ende-deis, we ken it a-bidens

  Fortune has given us this hardship

  Like the joyless prophecies of Cumae

  Certain the world reached its last days, we see it goes on

  Wayten qualm scipen at medley casse

  Seluer briddis a-loft in þe lyft

  Wheeled cartes a-londe

  Watch for pestilence ships with a medley of boxes

  Silver birds aloft in the sky

  Wheeled carts (trucks) on the ground

  “Sounds like container ships,” Cate said. “And silver birds — airplanes?”

  Noah nodded in agreement. “Wheeled carts mean trucks, I suppose.” He hesitated. “Do you think they’re implying a similar plague will spread again?”

  “What, in Lyr shipping containers?”

  “No. Maybe. Their tone is dire enough.” She took a forkful of cake. “I don’t know.”

  Oure parage for-wurðen of qualm, certes Atropus kuttened here strenge

  Wa a-cennen a barn-team, a dere ympe

  To amaistren ouer langage liðe þes derf erfeð elde

  Our family perished of pestilence, certain Atropus cut her string

  We beget a baby, a dear offspring

  To teach our language through this difficult time

  “Their families died, probably parents, siblings. Atropus is one of the fates,” Cate said. “She ends a life.” She paused. “But look, they had a baby.”

  Noah glanced up at her.

  “And the cycle begins.” She smiled briefly and went back to the poem, trying not to think about it.

  Cheuesen þe quayrs þo ælle esperance þynken loste

  Þo it sembeles þes atelich tydings wille I-wurðen an-on at dreʒ randon

  Gode wate ælle eke wæs duʒti

  She wrote:

  Retrieve the books when all hope seems lost

  When it seems these horrible events will happen at once/very soon with powerful force

  Good luck and be brave/strong

  “Retrieve or possibly relocate,” Cate said. “Like we did with the first book.”

  Noah’s phone buzzed. He wrinkled his forehead when he saw the number but picked it up.

  “Hello? Yes, this is Noah Severn.” A minute passed as he listened. Cate’s pulse sped up, because she knew it had to be bad news.

  “I’ll be right there. Thank you.”

  He set the phone back on the table and stared at it. “My father’s in the hospital.”

  Cate sat back. “What happened?”

  “He’s been blinded.”

  Chapter 13

  Cate and Benjamin only planned to be in Micronesia for two nights, but he brought enough luggage for at least a week. When he checked his bag at SFO, Cate had to help him lift it onto the platform. “What’s in this, a bison?”

  “Shhh, they’ll intercept it.”

  Benjamin had two carry-on bags, and Cate had one. Benjamin asked her to bring his bags over to the bookstore while he ran to the restroom. “Do not lose these.”

  “Benjamin, I can barely lift them off the ground. Especially this one.”

  He added even more to one of them when he bought five books at the bookstore.

  “Are you kidding me?” Cate said, hands on her hips. “Where are you going to put those?”

  “It looks like you have some room in your bag.”

  “There’s no room in my bag,” she said incredulously. “I have a system. My bag is packed exactly the way I want it.”

  He pressed down on the top. “There’s plenty of room there.”

  “Benjamin, the very point of packing like this is so my bag isn’t a Sisyphean stone. If I had wanted to pack a small library, I would have.”

  He shrugged. “So you forgot to pack a small library. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

  “Have you ever heard of those new electronic devices that store as many books as you want? Are you aware that you can even read on them?”

  “I prefer not to. Or, more precisely, I only read books made of paper.” He leaned in and spoke in a low voice. “And need I remind you that I’m carrying one of the Zaanics books?” He glanced at his climate-controlled locking briefcase.

  Cate held out her palm then gestured to her one bag. “Okay, Bartleby. Fine. Put three of the books you just bought in my bag. But you’re on your own with the other two.”

  “But there’s no room left in mine!”

  “Then you shouldn’t’ve bought them! Are you even going to have time to read all five books in two days?”

  “You just don’t know how to live, Cate.”

  “Clearly, that’s my problem.”

  “And I hardly ever have time to go to the bookstore. Perhaps I got carried away.” He stuffed the three books in her bag and left the other two sitting on top of his. “I’m going to stop by the Nut House.”

  “Good idea,” Cate told him. “Maybe they can give you some meds to help with this compulsive behavior. Also, just so we’re clear, my carry-on is now at full capacity. If you buy any more stuff, I suggest you purchase another bag to go with it, though I wonder if they’ll let you take on two bags.”

  “Are you going to be like this the whole trip?”

  “Yes, I plan on being a reasonable person for the rest of the trip,” Cate said, “just like I’m being now. And let me remind you that you insisted I go. Why we have to take the Zaanics book all the way to Micronesia, I have no idea. Only a complete moron would want to hide medieval vellum-skin books in Micronesia’s climate.”

  “That’s what I’m relying on,” Benjamin said. “That anyone who wants to get their hands on the books won’t even consider a place like Micronesia. I’m relying on them to say, What kind of an imbecile would hide them there?”

  “That’s just crazy enough to work,” Cate conceded.

  “I’m worried that if the books are anywhere near me, they would be at risk,” Benjamin said. “And the creators of VZ stipulated the books were to be kept in a place of learning, a place of worship, and a place of healing. My most important job, albeit one that doesn’t pay my bills, is to protect the books.”

  At her skeptical expression, Benjamin added, “Look, I’ve been to Micronesia before. I have a contact there, someone I trust.”

  She snorted.

  “Someone I helped.”

  Cate knew it was possible she was wrong, but read a trace of condemnation in his expression. “That makes them worthy of your trust? Of mine?”

  “They’re just going to take us to the place where we’re relocating — hiding — the book.”

  “Oh, they already know where the book is going to be. Even better.”

  From Honolulu, they took an eleven-hour fight to Pohnpei on United Airlines’ Island Hopper. The former Continental Micronesia was colloquially known as “Air Mike,” and started service in 1968 with seaplanes, or so Cate read in the in-flight magazine.

  The Island Hopper made its first stop at Majuro, a long, semi-circular atoll that circled the top of a volcano under the water. Cate couldn’t tell which of the tapeworm-shaped barrier islands could possibly hold a runway. And when the plane headed right for a strip of land shaped like a cayenne pepper that barely had room for a Big Wheel, let alone an airplane, she closed her eyes. When she opened them a few seconds later, she saw dark clouds, palm trees, crystal-clear water, and a building that reminded her of a Howard Johnson’s restaurant.

  “,” Cate said, once the plane slowed to golf cart speed at Marshall Islands International Airport.

  “That’s not Zaanics,” Benjamin said. “Or is it?”

  “It’s like aloha in Marshallese, which, by the way, has at least 40,000 speakers.”

  “More than Zaanics.”

  “Zaanics should have one speaker right now,” Cate pointed out. “Small diff
erence.”

  “Welcome to Majuro,” the flight attendant said over the intercom. “If you will be continuing on with us to Pohnpei, please remain in your seats. If this is your final destination, you will be disembarking. If you have any questions, please ask a flight attendant. Thanks for choosing United Airlines.”

  One of the airport workers rolled the stairs to the plane, and when they opened the door for some of the passengers to leave, an infusion of hot, steamy air saturated Cate’s skin. “Ah, perfect for vellum storage.”

  Benjamin arched a brow. “Such a worrier. This is one of the safest places in the world, and it’s not as though I’m just going to leave the Zaanics book outside. The book will be stored in an environment with less than 11% relative humidity to prevent brittleness, gelation, and mold or fungal growth, which happens at over 40% relative humidity. Don’t worry, the temperature and humidity will be precisely controlled.”

  “In a museum?” Cate asked. “There’s one in Palau.”

  “No. Convenient, but too obvious. I set this in motion months ago, and now it’s completed.”

  “I don’t like guile, Benjamin.”

  “You’ll see the details later, after we meet with my contact.”

  “That’s not how I like to work,” she said. “I like to know these things up front.” How were they supposed to foresee any obstacles or devise backup plans in case the contact didn’t show or flaked out?

  “I’m not trying to deceive you, Cate. I paid for the renovation of a facility inside a building in Chuuk that now has a perfectly suitable chamber for the long-term storage of the first Zaanics book.”

  “You paid for this renovation?”

  “It would be more apt to say that I oversaw the payment. Your father paid for it.”

  At the mention of her father, Cate clenched her jaw.

  “Did he know that?” She twisted around in her seat and held out her hand, palm out. “More important, does Gaelen? Also, why didn’t we bring our own fan?” Cate fanned herself with the safety guide.

  Benjamin did the same with the in-flight magazine. “It has always been understood that the two families provide whatever resources necessary for the safe harbor of the books. With that said, no, of course not.”

  Cate sat back, relieved.

  “I think you’ll be pleased with our priest’s hole,” he added.

  “I’m not even responding to that.”

  After they got back in the air, the penultimate landing was on Kosrae, a string of green mountains that looked lushly verdant, and then the plane finally landed on Pohnpei’s narrow runway, banked with water catchments along the side. Cate took several deep breaths and drank some water from the bottle. She was used to traveling, but mostly in Europe, and you didn’t land repeatedly in quick succession. The landings had been bumpy on each island, and it was taking all of her control to keep from losing her breakfast.

  “Welcome to Pohnpei,” the flight attendant said, in her calm, light voice.

  “AKA Jurassic Park,” Cate said to herself.

  According to her phone, the temperature in Pohnpei was 89F with a dew point of 81 and a heat index of 106, but Cate could have guessed close to all three as they walked outside to the terminal. Istanbul was often humid, but foggy, and could be hot in the summer, but it was cold in the winter — and it depended on where you were in the city. San Francisco had the most temperate summers in the continental U.S., but once you left the peninsula, temperatures could easily go up twenty degrees. Neither was any match to the saturated warmth of Pohnpei. Cate gathered her hair in the back and pushed it through a rubber band she had in her pocket.

  The sky was so vividly blue and the mountain so vividly green that she had to squint and look away. There was a scent she couldn’t place, aside from the recognizable and intense smell of tropical vegetation.

  “Do you smell that?” she asked Benjamin.

  “Of course I do. I have a highly sensitive olfactory epithelium,” he replied as he struggled with his bags.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a layer of skin that is crucial to smell,” he said. “So yes, I smell that.”

  She had probably known that about him, before. She knew he was a gourmet cook, and you probably didn’t reach that level without a good sense of smell. “Do you know what it is?”

  Benjamin just gave her a pained look. She couldn’t tell if he knew what the smell was and just didn’t want to say, or if he was so overwhelmed by it he couldn’t bring himself to answer.

  At the airport, she left her carry-on with Benjamin and headed right for the bathroom, where she thought she’d dry heave for a while. The restrooms were marked with the Pohnpeian words ohl and lih, and judging by the pictographs, lih was the ladies’. She did not dry heave, and also realized she was inexplicably hungry. After she left the restroom, she passed by a Micronesian soldier, back from Afghanistan, perhaps, whose family was engulfing him in a kind of hugging scrum.

  They took a cab to their hotel, checked in, and took their bags to the room. Despite the heat and the turbulence of the flight, the first thing she did was go for a run. There was a time when she was too afraid to leave the house, even for a minute, though she still had to force herself. Flying to Micronesia was no more daunting to her, anxiety-wise, than going for a short walk within blocks of where she lived, or just crossing the street or taking a short ride in a car, so to run in a completely unfamiliar place was definitely progress.

  After two miles, she headed back to the hotel because there were so many feral dogs and she didn’t want to have to seek medical attention on Pohnpei for complications arising from a dog bite. When she saw a boy who looked to be about thirteen carrying a giant machete, she ran a wide berth right into a brood of chickens. When she heard a pig scream, she nearly had a heart attack, and by the time she got back to the hotel, it was raining in sheets.

  When she got back in the room, sodden and grumpy, Benjamin was reading, probably a selection from his portable library.

  “Have a nice swim?” he asked.

  She took a quick shower, checking herself for any open wounds because the tap water wasn’t safe to drink, and made sure to keep her mouth tightly closed.

  “We’re meeting my contact at the Rusty Anchor in thirty minutes,” he told her when she got out, dressed in cargo pants, boatneck tee, and Tretorn tennis shoes.

  “What’s that?”

  “A dive bar, basically.”

  “Ah. Your kind of place.”

  They wound through a labyrinth of dark rooms and multiple entrances in the building that housed the Rusty Anchor.

  They passed through to the next dark, empty room.

  “Where is this place?” Benjamin muttered.

  “Do you really expect me to trust someone I don’t know with one of the Zaanics books?” Cate asked him.

  Benjamin stopped abruptly in a dark hallway, causing her to nearly fall into him. “You’re going to meet her in about a minute, and you don’t trust people you do know.”

  Cate caught the ‘her.’ “That’s beside the point. How can you trust this contact of yours to know where the book is hidden?”

  “I just do. Isn’t that good enough for you?”

  “Not really, no. We could have picked a place to hide the book that didn’t require a casual acquaintance to know the location.”

  “My contact knows these islands. She’s been here for ten years.”

  “Then she’s crazy.”

  “Not that much more than any of us.” Benjamin continued down the last several feet of hallway and opened the last door, which led into a linoleum-floored room with a bar and a random assortment of chairs and stools. The dark fishnet that covered the ceiling over the bar was studded with lures, and a flat-screen TV played Kids Incorporated. Cate wondered if the reruns were still in syndication.

  The view overlooked the Kolonia marina and a warm breeze drifted through the bar, but the sky looked like a typhoon was about to hit.

  “There she
is,” Benjamin said.

  In the middle of one side of the bar, sitting right by a bell suspended from the ceiling, was a woman with big tortoiseshell glasses, knee-length chino cut-offs, an untucked collared shirt, and scuffed brown wingtip shoes, like a man would wear with a suit. Her glossy dark hair was secured in a bun with two sticks.

  Benjamin stood next to her, at her shoulder. “Hello Mohini.”

  She turned from her drink and looked them over with large, espresso-colored eyes. “Kaselehlie, Benjamin Nightjar. You look even better than Daniel Day-Lewis.”

  Cate took a stool, avoiding areas under the large glass orbs that were perched precariously in old mesh.

  “And who is this, your young bride?” she said lightly.

  Cate took the hand offered to her and did a firm shake. “Cate Lyr. Bride and first cousin.”

  “Mohini Westwood. A pleasure.”

  Cate had the feeling it would not be a pleasure. And all she could think about was what it would take to get Mohini Westwood to give away the location of the Zaanics book. How much money, how much torture, what kind of threat. There was no reason Mohini wouldn’t break easily. Jake Dumont’s familiarity with VZ still bothered her, and involving Mohini with the process of relocating the book only exacerbated that feeling. She was angry that Benjamin hadn’t run this by her when he started this, but then she was the outcast — until someone needed an organ donation, of course.

  Benjamin gave her a quizzical look, probably wondering why she was shaking her head. Her brief flicker of eyelids said ‘It’s nothing.’

  “How was your flight?” Mohini asked both of them.

  “Torment,” Cate muttered.

  “Invigorating,” Benjamin said.

  Mohini rang the bell and the bartender came over. “Sakau for my associates, please.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Benjamin said. “No sakau for us.”

  “Kidding.” Mohini smirked a little.

  “What’s that?” Cate asked.

  Benjamin grimaced. “A foul-tasting pepper beverage used to bring about numbness and moderate hallucinations. Useful for making the next day a crapulous misery.”