The Letterbox

by Layton Green

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapters

  1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30 • 31 • 32 • 33 • 34 • 35 • 36 • 37 • 38 • 39 • 40 • 41 • 42 • 43 • 44 • 45 • 46 • 47 • 48 • 49 • 50 • 51 • 52 • 53 • 54 • 55 • 56 • 57 • 58 • 59 • 60 • 61 • 62 • 63 • 64 • 65 • 66 • 67 • 68 • 69 • 70 • 71 • 72 • 73 • 74 • 75 • 76 • 77 • 78 • 79 • 80 • 81 • 82

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  THE LETTERBOX

  Layton Green

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Layton Green

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by Sammy Yuen.

  Ebook Interior by QA Productions

  Books by Layton Green

  THE DOMINIC GREY SERIES

  The Summoner

  The Egyptian

  The Diabolist

  The Shadow Cartel

  The Reaper’s Game (Novella)

  OTHER WORKS

  The Letterbox

  The Metaxy Project

  Hemingway’s Ghost (Novella)

  To my mother, for everything

  “The Gallic provinces, too, were pervaded by the magic art, and that even down to a period within memory; for it was the Emperor Tiberius that put down their Druids, and all that tribe of wizards and physicians.”

  (Plin. Nat. 30.4) (Latin)

  Dartmoor, England

  Three Months Earlier

  The odor of waterlogged peat filled the air. Lucius Sofistere drew his coat tight, his eyes roving the mist-enshrouded worksite as the geologists labored to extract a tarnished silver container buried deep beneath the fen.

  The moors were different at night. The silence, unnerving during the day, became deafening after sunset. Tendrils of fog caught the moonlight, turning the moorland into an eerie, dreamlike tableau of hidden menaces and imagined dangers. The fog didn’t hide him, Lucius realized—it hid the moors.

  He was used to eccentric clients in the world of high-end antiques, but this was extraordinary. Discretion is paramount, the voice on the phone had said. No public officials, no reporters. This alone was not unusual; many high-end collectors preferred the shadows, preferred to keep their Rembrandts and Egyptian artifacts to themselves, to hoard and worship in the privacy of their homes. And while this was a private dig, Lucius knew that governments had a way of making claims on significant pieces, regardless of the letter of the law.

  No, the strangeness of the request had come in the collector’s insistence—a mere forty-eight hours prior—that Lucius travel immediately across the Atlantic to this godforsaken expanse of moorland. As soon as the container was unearthed, Lucius was to carry it home and wade through the quagmire of history.

  Reconstruct the past.

  Discover its origins.

  At last one of the geologists approached, cradling a silver container the size of a fattened briefcase. The geologist moved his scarf low enough to reveal the tanned, creased face of someone used to working in the elements. “Fresh from its grave. I was paid to knock the dirt off and hand it straight over.”

  “How’d you know something was down there?” Lucius asked.

  “Sensors picked it up about a month back,” he said, ignoring Lucius’s real question: Why look here, in the middle of this wasteland?

  The geologist gave the moors a nervous moment of attention. “We went deep. Judging from the soil samples beneath the bog, this thing’s been down there, untouched, for a long time. A very long time.”

  Just as Lucius moved to take it, the geologist muttered, “I saw something.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “In the pit, during the extraction. When I was down there by myself.”

  When the man turned to face him, Lucius saw a haunted look in his eyes, a ragged mixture of fear and disbelief.

  A grim smirk lifted the corners of the geologist’s mouth. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  Lucius was disturbed by the man’s behavior, but not enough to delay the job. The geologist had been working all night and was probably delusional from exhaustion. “I believe,” Lucius said, “that fog and lack of sleep can play tricks with a man’s mind.”

  The geologist chuckled with the edgy, disingenuous type of laughter used to break tension. “That’s what the others said.” He shrugged and handed Lucius the silver container. “It’s all yours.”

  Lucius placed the vessel inside a leather carrying case. As he was walking away, the geologist called out to him, his voice still unbalanced. “So I don’t get a look at it, then?”

  It wasn’t Lucius’s place to inform the team, so he remained silent, intent upon the narrow path leading to his car. Following the footpath through the dangerous terrain required his complete attention, and he didn’t look up for the entirety of the journey.

  As soon as Lucius was out of sight, another figure, clad in a hooded white robe that merged into the fog, turned from his hidden vantage point and strode in the opposite direction.

  Deeper into the moor.

  NEW ORLEANS

  The Present

  -1-

  I breathed deeply as I walked, enjoying the perfumed night air and languid pace of Uptown New Orleans. My best friend Lou and I had arranged to meet at Maison de la Voyageur, our local café, and after crossing St. Charles Avenue under a canopy of brooding oaks, I soon reached the familiar block of the Garden District where Maison lay nestled between a hookah lounge and an art gallery.

  I spotted Lou in the corner. He was short and round and had a cherubic face, topped by the wispy blond hair of a newborn. I ordered an espresso, and Lou removed his stumpy legs from the chair opposite him.

  “Have you banished the foul beast of work yet?” he asked.

  “I wish.”

  Joining the pack of Camel Lights on Lou’s table was a threadbare Princeton backpack, a coffee mug from Tulane law school, and a stained paperback. “So what’s the grand plan tonight?” he asked.

  “You mean with my life, or after I finish this espresso?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  I’d been planning to quit my job for years and could never seem to do it. I was a young attorney at a large firm, and things looked good on paper.

  But at some point I found myself disillusioned with what life had to offer—and not just life at the firm. As the Chinese say, the mirror is the most powerful weapon one can wield, and when I looked in the mirror I saw a wind-up toy, at first unrelenting in its naive march through life, but with a battery that was winding down, stumbling in a circle with no way to recharge.

  I had money and security but no soul, and was left with the constant nagging feeling that there was something else out there.

  Something more.

  “It’s hardly grand,” I said, “but I might try for an adjunct gig at the law school. Maybe take the Foreign Service exam.”

  “You’re thinking of all those wide-eyed coeds who can’t help but have a crush on the noble young prof who walked away from a life of luxury.”

  “You watch far too much television,” I said.

  “I’m down to eight hours a day. ‘Oh, Aidan, I love those cowlicks
in your soft brown hair and those dimples when you smile, your piercing blue eyes and—”’

  I tried not to encourage him with laughter and failed. “Let’s go to St. Joe’s. I need a drink.”

  “Twist my arm,” he said. “But I have to go somewhere first.”

  “Where?” I asked, surprised. Lou never had anywhere to go.

  “A consulting job.”

  “At nine o’clock at night?”

  “Some guy who owns an antiques shop wants me to come in after hours to look at a piece. Thinks there may be some type of obscure language on it. Come with me. It should only take a minute, and we can walk to St. Joe’s from there.”

  I knocked back my espresso. “Sure.”

  The night air was as humid as a sauna. A few blocks later we found Antiques and Objets d’Art tucked away in the middle of the Garden District, on a deserted side street branching off Prytania. Lou pressed the buzzer, and I heard the click of a latch.

  Dimly lit, the store possessed a subtle elegance. Richly framed paintings adorned the walls, lush carpets covered the floor, and it lacked the clutter of most antique shops. In addition to the typical period pieces, I noticed a number of macabre items scattered about the room: a six-foot-tall totem decorated with hair and animal skulls; intricately worked African figurines with deformed faces; a collection of golden masks whose vacant stares seemed to follow me around the room. Some of the paintings depicted fantastical scenes I would have expected to find gracing the walls of an occult shop in the French Quarter.

  I cast an uneasy glance at Lou. He shrugged as two people entered the room through the rear of the shop.

  The first was a tall, well-dressed man with an aristocratic face. Streaks of brown accented a thicket of gray hair. He entered cradling a wooden box, and as he looked up his weathered eyes gleamed with vitality.

  “Mr. Sofistere?” Lou asked.

  “Good evening.”

  “This is Aidan, a friend of mine. I hope you don’t mind if he joins us.”

  “Not at all.”

  The shop owner didn’t sound like a native English speaker, though his hint of an accent was oddly neutral, as if he had worked to scrub away all traces of the original inflection.

  After he shook our hands, an attractive young woman stepped forward. She was slender, with mocha-colored skin and East Indian features. Wavy black hair framed her face, and she wore tan slacks, a silver choker, and a black spaghetti-strapped top. An assortment of colorful wooden bracelets adorned her right wrist.

  “Asha manages the shop for me,” Mr. Sofistere said. “As you can see, we specialize in objects of a more esoteric nature.” He turned to Lou. “Which brings us to the purpose of my call. I understand you’re knowledgeable in the history of Indo-European languages?”

  “I am.”

  Mr. Sofistere stepped closer and held up a finely crafted wooden container the size of a shoebox. The lid of the box had splayed edges and was covered in lines of flowery design.

  “I should begin with a bit of background,” he said. “This letterbox, as we have come to call it, was unearthed by a dig in the Devonshire moors of England. I’ve had the box examined and it dates to approximately first-century A.C.E.”

  “How was it preserved?” Lou asked.

  “Sealed inside a silver container. Do you notice how the edges of the top are splayed, almost like tiny feet or wings? The style is distinctive to wood carvers in Southern Russia and the Baltic region. It was often used on pagan religious pieces.” He wagged a finger. “But there’s no evidence of this style outside the Baltics until centuries after the letterbox was made.”

  “That sounds like a puzzle,” Lou said, his distracted tone evidencing his lack of interest in the history of wood carving in England, the Baltics, or anywhere else. “What’s a letterbox?”

  “Simply a name we’ve given it, since we don’t know what else to call it.”

  “Isn’t letterboxing some type of game?” I asked. “I seem to remember reading about it.”

  Mr. Sofistere paced in front of the totem. “Letterboxing is a hobby that started in England over a century ago, a treasure hunt for a small box or container. The owner of the box places a small prize inside, hides the box in a remote outdoor location, and makes up clues to find it. Nowadays, clues are usually posted on the Internet.”

  Lou flicked a wrist. “What does letterboxing have to do with this piece?”

  Mr. Sofistere let his gaze fall on the relic. “In 1854, a traveler ventured into a remote region of the moors of South West England. As he was making camp for the night, he was shocked to find a cairn a few feet from the shore of a fen. Even more surprising, he found a bottle underneath the cairn, and inside the bottle he discovered a pile of ashes and a calling card. The name on the card was James Perrott.”

  Mr. Sofistere had an engaging voice, and I found myself leaning in to hear the story. I noticed Asha doing the same, though I assumed she’d heard it before.

  “A local paper published the story. The idea of placing calling cards in remote locales caught the public’s imagination, and the hobby of letterboxing was born.”

  Lou shrugged. “Okay?”

  Mr. Sofistere smiled a smile of secrets. “On Perrott’s calling card was a peculiar symbol drawn in ink—” he moved closer and held up one side of the letterbox “—which looked exactly like this.”

  One of the two longer sides of the box revealed a carving: four irregularly spaced vertical lines topped by a longer, wavier marking.

  “Given your specialty,” Mr. Sofistere said to Lou, “I was hoping you could provide some insight.”

  Lou took a long look at the box, eyes narrowing with focus. “That’s nothing with which I’m familiar.”

  Mr. Sofistere looked away, disappointed.

  “Does it open?” Lou asked.

  Mr. Sofistere lifted the lid to reveal an immaculately smooth interior. Although empty, I had the impression that something belonged inside.

  “Was that why you contacted me?” Lou said. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

  “That, and the smaller markings on the other side.”

  Mr. Sofistere turned the box over, and Lou drew a sharp breath. He looked at Mr. Sofistere, then back at the box. “Those aren’t random markings—those are runes.”

  Mr. Sofistere frowned. “Runes?”

  “Characters forming ancient alphabets, sometimes reputed to have magical properties, often derived from modifying existing characters in order to facilitate carving on wood or stone. In layman’s terms, runes are simply words. In ancient languages.”

  Mr. Sofistere gave an impatient wave. “Yes, yes, I know what runes are. But these aren’t any I recognize.”

  “Those are Ogham runes,” Lou said slowly as he studied the box. “Of which there are less than four hundred known surviving inscriptions.”

  “I’ve never heard of Ogham.”

  “There are almost seven thousand languages either spoken today or recently extinct. Not to mention the untold number of dead languages.” Lou began pacing and waving his arms. I’d never seen him this engaged. “To be fair, compared to the number of spoken languages, there’re only a handful of writing systems. I can’t read this right now, but it’s Ogham all right.” Lou put his hands on his hips with authority. “First century, you said? That’s earlier than any known Ogham inscriptions. This is a remarkable find.”

  “What exactly is Ogham?” Mr. Sofistere said.

  “The alphabet of the insular Celts.”

  “Didn’t the Celts utilize the Latin alphabet?”

  “Only after the arrival of Christianity. Before the fifth century, the Celts were mainly an oral society, but among the Celts on the British Isles—or the insular Celts as they were called—a writing system called Ogham was used.”

  “If you’re right,” Mr. Sofistere murmured, “this could be an immense aid to the study of this piece.”

  “I’m right.”

  Asha peered at the runes. “Y
ou’re sure you don’t recognize the same marking that was on Perrott’s card?”

  Lou reexamined the larger symbol. “Nope. It’s not Ogham.”

  “Can a translation be arranged?” Mr. Sofistere asked, a trace of eagerness creeping into his cultured voice.

  “Of course. I’ll need a few days to find the books I need.”

  He handed Lou a check. “Then let’s meet at noon on Saturday and see what the letterbox has to say.”

  -2-

  Lou and I walked the few blocks to where St. Joe’s stood at the corner of Magazine and Joseph Street. A window covered by iron bars and burgundy drapes complimented the Gothic doorway, and we stepped into the shadowy confines of a bar that could only exist in New Orleans.

  Catholic symbols inundated every inch of real estate: crosses of every shape and size, religious artwork, chalices suspended from the ceiling, replicas of saints and the Virgin Mary. The irony of St. Joe’s, the religious décor hovering over the inebriated masses, always made me introspective. I think I viewed God in the same way I viewed relationships: I believed in the possibilities, but had never known faith or love, never felt them.

  We wandered to the enclosed patio in the back. “So how’s Fredda?” I asked.

  Fredda was Lou’s latest obsession, a professor of German literature he had met at Rock and Bowl. He fumbled with a cigarette. “Fine.”

  “Called her yet?”

  “It’s all about timing.”

  “Really?” I said mildly. “It’s been two months.”

  Lou was pudgy and blond. I was tall and slender with a head full of dark hair. We joked that if joined, we would make the perfect male.

  “Where’s Veronica?” he shot back. “I haven’t seen her around.”

  “Ancient history. She wants to make partner, I want to ride a motorcycle across Southeast Asia. The great tragedy of adulthood: you can’t enjoy life without money, and you can’t enjoy money without a life.”

  “That’s why I have the perfect career plan,” he said.