by Layton Green
We wound our way down ancient walkways and in and out of rooms, sometimes having to clamber over stones blocking the passage. The place had been stripped long ago, and we didn’t find anything that looked remotely connected to the letterbox.
One of the chambers had a hole in the ceiling. The failing evening light backlit the exposed sky like a giant movie screen.
“This place is eerie,” Asha said. “And too quiet.”
“I don’t disagree,” I said.
“If there was something here it was looted a long time ago, don’t you think?”
“For sure,” I said.
We met up with Jake and Lou in the central courtyard, their dulled faces reflecting our lack of success.
“I should have told the taxi to return sooner,” Lou said.
Night was falling as if someone were closing a lid. Jake pulled a flask out of his back pocket and took a long pull. “Might as well make good use of the time.”
As I sat cross-legged beside him, Asha pointed into the courtyard. “Is that a child over there? Near the center?”
Straining to peer into the darkened enclosure, I saw a shape that could have been a small boy sitting by himself, though I couldn’t tell for sure. Asha was already moving closer. I followed her, Jake and Lou right behind me.
She was right. Sitting alone in the twilight of the courtyard, head bowed, was a dark-skinned, curly-headed boy. He was hugging his knees and rocking back and forth.
None of us seemed sure what to do.
“Hey,” I called out. “Are you lost?”
No response.
“Son?” Jake said.
“He’s Italian, morons,” Lou whispered. “Ciao, ragazzo,” he said, louder.
Still no answer.
The boy continued rocking. When we moved closer, he stood with his head still bowed, his features too deep in shadow for us to get a good look. He turned and started walking away. From his size, I estimated he was nine or ten years old.
Asha called out to him. “What are you doing out here? Where’re your parents?”
He kept walking.
“He’s going towards the tower,” Lou said. “That’s strange—now there’s a light on up there.”
I turned and saw a soft glow emanating from a window close to the top of the fortification. “I think it’s just moonlight filtering through,” I said. “There must be another opening.”
Asha looked around. “Where’d the boy go?”
Lou craned his neck. “Over there, I think. At the base of the tower. It’s so dark it’s hard to tell.”
We moved closer. As we approached the tower, we saw no sign of the boy.
“Must have run off,” Jake said. “The local kids probably come up here and pester tourists all the time.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “There was something odd about him. And his clothes . . . .”
“What?” I said.
“Never mind.”
There was a wooden door set into the base of the tower. Lou tugged on the handle, and the door swung open to reveal an iron staircase spiraling upwards.
I put a foot on the bottom step to test it. “It feels okay.”
“Step up or step aside,” Jake said.
I began to climb, testing every step. At the top of the staircase, a ladder extended into a narrow opening. I climbed through and found myself in a small round chamber, barren except for two windows.
One of the windows faced the courtyard we had just left. On the other side, overlooking a different courtyard, was a latticed opening the size of a shoebox, a chessboard pattern of weathered stone and open air. Moonlight streamed through the odd window, illuminating the chamber.
Jake climbed up behind me, followed by Asha. Lou came last, wiping his brow as he sucked in huge draughts of air.
Asha approached the checkered window. “That’s an odd design.”
“It was probably made for archers,” Lou said, still catching his breath.
Jake walked over. “Do y’all see how there’s a rectangular depression where the window is set into the stone? Anyone else thinkin’ what I’m thinking?”
Lou snapped his fingers. “It’s the same size as the letterbox.”
Jake was already in motion. He pulled out the letterbox from his backpack and placed it into the shallow cavity formed by the chessboard-patterned window.
It fit perfectly.
-13-
We all peered at the letterbox. Nothing seemed to happen.
“Try turning it around and fitting the bottom into the opening,” I suggested.
“I see what you mean,” Jake said. “The arrow slits might change the pattern.”
I nodded. “But it’s still facing outward. We won’t be able to see it.”
“Just hold the box up in front of the window,” Asha said. “So we can tell if the light forms a new pattern.”
“That won’t work,” Lou said.
Asha tried anyway. As she held the letterbox up a few inches from the window, Jake set down his backpack and pulled out a magnifier and an expensive-looking camera. He positioned himself underneath the letterbox, scanning up and down.
“Commie’s right. The map doesn’t look any different.”
“Of course I’m right. If we want to see if there’s a new pattern,” Lou said, pointing imperiously at the window, “we’re going to have to place the bottom flush against the window and look at the box from the other side.”
“In the middle of the air?” Asha said. “Maybe this isn’t the right place.”
Jake was shaking his head. “This isn’t random.”
I glanced up and saw something I hadn’t noticed earlier: a rusty iron ring set into the ceiling. I tugged on it a few times before a trap door swung down to reveal a narrow opening. I rubbed my fingers; no one had pulled on that ring in a very long while.
“Access to the top for defenders,” Lou murmured.
I jumped to grab the lip of the opening, and Jake helped push me through to the roof. I assumed a ladder existed at one time.
Gazing over the lip of the tower, I saw the ruins spread out before me, silent and imposing beneath a sliver of moon. After helping pull Jake up, we leaned over the side of the tower where the chessboard window faced.
“It’s reachable,” Jake said. “Someone can hold the letterbox against the window and I’ll lean over with the camera. You can hold my feet.”
I didn’t like the idea of holding a two hundred-pound man over the edge of a tower, but Jake cut off my protest. “We’re doing it,” he said.
In the room below, Asha held the letterbox against the depression, and Jake slipped between two of the crenellated blocks on the lip of the tower and leaned over the edge. I held onto his legs, bracing myself by pushing my knees against the wall. His body was halfway off the tower, camera in one hand and magnifier in the other.
The shutter started clicking. “There’s something there?” I asked.
“Hold on, just a few more. I’m almost—”
One of the stones bracing my knees broke free without warning and fell to the ground, just missing Jake’s head. I scrambled to find another stone to brace with, but Jake’s weight caused us to lurch forward.
“Aidan!” Jake yelled.
His knees were already over the ledge, and I gripped his calves in desperation, hugging them to my chest. I managed to slow our descent by pressing my body against the side of the tower, but he was too heavy, and the reprieve wasn’t going to last. If another stone broke free, we were both going over.
“Lou,” I shouted. “Get up here!”
“I can’t pull myself up! I’m trying!”
Jake slipped another few inches. I clutched his jeans, my muscles aching from the weight of the grip. “Hold onto the window,” I shouted.
He grunted. “I’ve got it with one hand, but I can’t lose the camera.”
I heard something shatter below; it must have been the magnifier. “Drop the damn camera!”
He slipped further. My torso w
as straddling the edge. I clutched Jake’s ankles, fingers quivering from the strain.
“Not,” he grunted, “gonna happen.”
I watched, helpless, as he twisted his body around to toss the camera onto the roof. It landed beside me with a thud. My arms had numbed from the weight, and I had the sickening realization that he was about to slip out of my grasp.
I put every ounce of strength I had into holding him, but I was losing my grip. Just before he slipped away, I heard a noise behind me, and glanced back to see Asha climbing through the trap door. She rushed over to grasp my legs.
The reprieve gave me leverage and a burst of energy. I took a few quick breaths and pulled Jake closer. As my grip started to slip again, the pull on my arms lessened.
“I’ve got the window,” Jake called up, “but I’m hangin’ like a bat!”
I’d never felt so relieved. Blood flowed back into my arms, and I reeled him in by clutching on to his limbs and clothing. Jake finally put his hands on the edge of the tower and pulled himself up.
We lay on our backs, breathing heavily. I was too angry to speak.
Jake picked up the camera, a thin smile creasing his lips. “Got it.”
-14-
Asha hugged me. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine,” I said, eying Jake as I caught my breath. “I wasn’t the one hanging upside down over the courtyard.”
He winked at me and clicked the side of his mouth. “’Preciate you, Counselor.”
“Yeah.”
We climbed back down. Lou looked embarrassed that he hadn’t been able to help. After returning to the courtyard, we hovered around Jake, eager to hear what he had seen.
“Most of it’s still gibberish, and I couldn’t make out the first pattern because of the new distortion. But,” Jake paused to light a cigarette, the corners of his mouth curling upward, “a new pattern appeared. In the section of the box above the representation of the castle.”
“The portion of the box where the path leads,” I said, my excitement flushing away my anger. “My God, it really is a map.”
Jake nodded. “Looks that way.”
“Did you recognize the pattern?” Lou asked.
“I was paying more attention to snapping photos and not dying. We can develop and enlarge the photos. I’ve got a macro lens.”
I gritted my teeth as the adrenaline seeped out of my veins. “What I’d like to know is why whoever made this map constructed it so you have to be on the outside of the tower to see the pattern.”
“I’d like to know that myself,” Jake said, his voice tight.
I turned to Lou. “How’d you know it wouldn’t work from the inside?”
“Something to do with quantum physics. I just know that if you shine light through an irregularly patterned object, and the light is reflected on another object in the distance, the light doesn’t retain the shape or pattern of the object it shines through.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “When you shine a flashlight around, the beam doesn’t take on the pattern of the objects.”
“Exactly,” Lou said.
“How old is this thing?” I marveled, turning over the letterbox in my hands. “Asha, what do you think Mr. Sofistere will say—” I stopped speaking, realizing she wasn’t with the group.
“Guys,” Asha called from somewhere in the courtyard, her voice oddly subdued. “Come over here.”
She sounded close, but I couldn’t make her out in the dim light.
“Where are you?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“Just come to the middle of the courtyard.”
I headed towards the center, Jake and Lou right behind me. Asha’s figure adumbrated in the darkness, and as we drew closer, I saw the little boy from earlier, sitting in the same position. Head down, hands hugging his knees, rocking back and forth.
“I thought I caught a glimpse of something,” Asha said as we caught up to her. “He was like this when I got here. Same as before.”
I shifted uncomfortably. The boy was wearing brown corduroy pants and a white, collared polo shirt. Dark curls fell to his collar, and his spindly arms wrapped his knees.
Asha moved closer. “Hi there,” she said gently.
Right before she reached him, he stopped rocking and turned to look at her. Asha gasped and stumbled backwards.
“Asha?” I said.
She didn’t respond. I went to her. She was looking at the boy with an intense stew of joy and horror and disbelief. I touched her shoulder. “What’s wrong? Do you know him?”
For a wild moment I thought this was the same boy who had appeared on the wall our last night in New Orleans. Then he stood, and I saw his face. It was light brown and, as his frame suggested, very young. He had a slightly crooked nose, similar to Asha’s, and he extended a shy hand towards her, his lips parted with longing.
“Asha?” I asked again.
The boy moved closer and offered his other hand, as if asking her to accept his presence, pleading with her to communicate. She took a hesitant step forward. Her mouth opened and she made a sound, but her voice cracked and I couldn’t understand her.
Asha was oblivious to everything but the boy, as if in a trance. He took another step forward, his hands still extended.
The two of them drew closer together, shadows merging in the gloom. Arms outstretched, Asha reached for the boy’s hands.
Her fingers passed right through him.
-15-
I blinked, unsure if I had seen what I thought I had.
The boy’s face turned from inquisitive to confused to distressed. Eyes wide, he dropped his arms and scampered backwards.
Asha stumbled towards him. “No,” she moaned.
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t find my voice. The boy was vanishing into the darkness. Asha ran after him. I followed her out of the courtyard, to the edge of the forest. She had stopped and was whipping her head back and forth.
There was no sign of the boy.
I touched her shoulder. She shrugged me off, ran a few steps inside the forest, and then stopped, uncertain where to go. “Dev!” she screamed. “Deva!”
Jake, Lou, and I peered into the trees, but it was obvious searching the woods in the darkness would be fruitless.
“Asha?” I said gently. “Who was that?”
She looked up at me as if just realizing I was standing there, and then slumped against me, shaking so hard I worried she was having a seizure. Her words came in soft gasps. “It, it can’t be. He wasn’t . . . .”
I held her tight and didn’t press her. I knew only that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
She wouldn’t move from the forest’s edge until we heard the rumble of an approaching car. I half-carried Asha to the edge of the ruins, where the headlights of our taxi illuminated the clearing below.
She stared straight ahead with glazed eyes as the taxi drove off. Lou looked at me with raised eyebrows, and Jake was gripping the seat rest.
No one uttered a word on the ride home.
We arrived at the hotel and agreed to reconvene in the morning. I paced the room while Asha was in the bathroom. I could hear light sobbing.
When she emerged, eyes red, she slid in bed beside me. Her movements were jerky and disjointed, as if her emotions had disassociated from her body.
I stroked her hair. She stared at the wall with an expression so despondent it frightened me. I took her hands in mine and waited for her to speak.
“That boy,” she said finally, swallowing a few times to compose herself, “was my brother.”
My eyes flared. “Your brother? I didn’t even know you had a sibling.”
“I did. He died when he was ten.”
My hands went limp, and she let them slide away. I was too stunned to speak.
“It was nine years ago. I was sixteen. A drunk driver hit us on my brother’s side of the car.”
Sympathy for Asha vied for my top emotion, along with the visceral punch of hearing that I had just seen a d
ead child roaming the castle ruins.
“I was in the backseat and saw it happen,” she continued, in the same wooden voice. “I watched him die.” She put her hand on the silver bangle she always wore on her right wrist. “He gave this to me on my last birthday before he died. My mother was shopping for jewelry, and he told her she needed to buy it for me. I never take it off.”
She broke down and had to compose herself again. “I haven’t cried for him in years. With something like that . . . we cry and cry and after a time there’s nothing left, you know? The pain doesn’t lessen but there just aren’t any more tears. But tonight . . . .” She closed her eyes and kept them shut for long moments. “He was reaching out for us in that courtyard. For me.”
“I don’t mean to be insensitive . . . but are you absolutely sure it was your brother? It was so dark and—”
“Do you think I don’t know my brother’s face? Those were his clothes. He was wearing them the day he died. It was him, Aidan. Oh, God, it was him.”
I pulled her to me. It was like holding a mannequin, stiff and unfeeling. “I’m so sorry.”
“I tried to hold his hands and it was like they weren’t even there. My hands went right through his.”
I had no idea how to comfort her. Had it been me in her position, I didn’t think words would have sufficed. But I had to try.
“Remember what you made me promise?” I said gently. “In Dubrovnik?”
“Of course.”
“Doesn’t it give you some comfort to know he’s out there?”
Her face whipped towards mine. “Comfort? Did you see him, huddled all by himself in the courtyard? He couldn’t even talk. Like he’s a . . . a . . . thing.”
I looked away.
She put her head in my lap, and I stroked her back, her hair, her cheek. Eventually she fell asleep curled into me.
I lay with my hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling. I had asked her about her family before. She had always deflected my questions. Perhaps the memory was too painful to discuss.
The thought passed through my mind that she could be lying, but the pain and shock on her face when she had seen that little boy up close, the sheer emotion: that had been real.
