* * *
Owen Mason sat facing his father’s ship as the cutter rowed away from her larboard side. His sister, Sandra, sat before him while Stephanie faced them both on another plank and Matthew paddled with Nora backing the Tempest behind her. Their daring rescuer had a telescope with him, with which he often spied on the battle ship behind them to know what her occupants were up to.
“They will never follow us,” he said aloud, after the ship had disappeared in the horizon. “My father loves Sandra more than any of his other children.”
“That is not true, Owen,” Barbara cut in. “He loves us all, but you have turned yourself into a rebel.”
“Which we’re grateful for, Barbara,” Matthew told her. He couldn’t help cutting in. It just happened.
“You speak differently,” Owen observed, staring at the boy.
“Yeah, Owen,” Nora said, ignorant of the American English version she had also resorted to. “Thanks for your help back there! We wouldn’t have done it without you.” She picked up an apple like Stephanie and started munching away like Stephanie.
“Nora,” Matthew warned her and she realized her blunder.
“You shouldn’t worry about it,” the young man with them suddenly said. “I’m fully aware of the change in dialect—it happens to me whenever I’m alone or far from anybody. You must have come here through the book and I know how you feel, because I was forced to come here as well. I haven’t forgiven the unknown guy who wrote my name in it since then.”
That explained a lot!
“You know about the book?” the three Quentins asked him in unison, their surprise clearly etched on their faces.
“Of course I do,” the young man replied. “I’ve lived here for twelve months now and don’t think I’ll ever go back home. By the way, I am Owen and I served in the Second Gulf War.”
Nobody took his outstretched hand. Nora, because she held a paddle and an apple; Matthew, because he was thinking of a certain German military officer; and Stephanie because twelve months rang a bell in her head.
“I’m Matthew Quentin,” Matthew muttered after a long time, “and these two are my sisters.”
“It’s good to meet you all! And you’ve met Sandra, my sister here,” Owen enthused. The little girl smiled at them. It appeared she didn’t notice any difference in the way they now spoke.
“Owen always talks about this book,” she said to reassure them. “His dream has always been to find it, which I fail to understand how he can accomplish.”
“Then he’s in luck,” Nora told her before Matthew could stop her.
“What do you mean?” Owen asked her.
“We came to fetch your sister, Owen,” Stephanie quipped without restraint.
“Stephanie!” Matthew exclaimed. He covered his face with his hands. His sisters had just blown everything!
“You can come with her as well,” Stephanie continued. She touched Barbara.
“You know where the black book is hidden?” Owen asked her.
“No—Yes,” Matthew stammered. “No, we don’t have it here, but yes, we know where it is.”
“Matthew!” It was his adopted sisters’ turn to gape at him, but the deed had already been done.
“But you guys started it,” he accused. Why did they always see only his mistakes?
“So you guys know where the black book is hidden, right?” Owen repeated. Nobody said a word. He took this as a big yes. “Then you must show me,” he said in a very different tone of voice. “We can head for land now.”
“What of your father?” Nora asked.
“We’ll escape before he finds us. I know he’ll be following us now, but he’ll never show up for fear of what I might do to Sandra. Besides, there are many inlets along Virginia’s shores.”
Owen’s little sister was staring into the distance before him and he didn’t know this yet. Only the Quentins realized what Stephanie had done, and they tried to reach an agreement amongst themselves with eye signals alone.
“What is it?” a confused Owen finally demanded.
“Sandra’s real name was written in the book,” Matthew revealed to him.
“By who?” was the next question.
“I—I did,” Matthew replied in a small voice. The strange pistol appeared again. “Look, we—we can correct this.”
“How dare you bring her here?” Owen shouted with disgust. He was visibly enraged. “And how dare you tell me that in my face?”
“We can take her back,” Nora assured the young man without confidence. “We’re here to do that.”
“So you have the black book here with you?” The gun turned towards her direction. Owens’s face had changed dramatically from a sincere one to a greedy one, his brow rudely furrowing in concentration as he waited for Nora’s answer, but it didn’t come. Matthew had pinched her forcefully to seal her mouth. “Where is it?” the young man repeated, shaking the gun in Nora’s face, but still she kept quiet, although she was scared stiff.
For all the Quentins knew, Owen could decide to go back alone with the book in his present state of mind and that would seriously worsen their situation. It was certainly their duty to see that this scenario never happened by guarding this item with their lives, if they must.
The pistol turned to face Stephanie and Matthew brought out the book.
Owen seized it without hesitation. He pointed towards the water with his pistol, feeling the book’s edges with his left fingers. “Just as I’ve seen in my dreams,” he sang, glowing with joy. “Now jump into the water before I change my mind! My father needs his boat back.”
“Can’t you see?” Matthew started, alarmed. “We can all go home now! What I just gave you can make this possible.”
“And who says I wanna go home?” the young man asked him, laughing. “I’m the son of a noble captain here and I will inherit a manor and acres of land after his death! Tell me what I have in New York, huh? A lonely house and a terrible divorce! No, thank you.”
“Then allow us to go home.”
“You’ll deceive me.”
“No, no, no, we won’t,” Nora persuaded. “Just . . . send us back! Our names are on page four! It’s so easy! We’ll disappear just like that! Then you can have the book for all eternity! You can do whatever you want with it after that.”
“You’ll deceive me.”
“Your father will never welcome you back,” Matthew pointed out.
“I’ll only fall on my knees and beg for his forgiveness if I need to,” Owen snarled. “Now, jump in.”
“But I can’t swim,” Stephanie protested. “It’s too cold.”
“You were fished out two hours ago, girl . . . ,” Owen shouted at her. The pistol’s muzzle completed the sentence and the children moved to obey him.
Fortunately, the water was very warm and Nora held up Stephanie, who couldn’t really swim. “You don’t give us any choice, do you, Owen?” she coldly whispered in a strained voice. “I was beginning to like you.”
“I wasn’t,” he retorted as he turned the cutter around with one paddle. “My father was right about you, you know. The prostitute of pirates long dead?”
“You’ll never know how to use the book,” Nora threw back with rage. “You’ll never manipulate it for your selfish aims.”
“We can help you if you let us,” Matthew exclaimed, struggling to stay afloat. “She’s right.”
“She’s wrong! I’ve seen how to use the book in my dream as well.” Barbara moved and Owen brought in the oar before sitting her up, the pistol unwaveringly glaring at the swimming children in one hand. No wonder the girl had never blocked his change in dialect whenever he was alone with her—she was also alien like him! “Is Sandra her real name?” he asked the floating kids, and when they didn’t answer, he placed the gun on Barbara’s head.
“It’s Barbara,” Matthew coughed out.
“I knew her name, kid. You said it earlier,” the soldier snapped, smiling. “I was just playing with you.�
�
“Matthew,” Barbara began, becoming fully awake. “What are you guys doing in the water? What am I doing here?”
Owen suddenly took a chalk stick from her apron and wrote her name on the book’s page. A second time.
“What are you doing?” Barbara demanded from him. “Who are you?” But she was becoming translucent and her dress soon fell into the boat. “Matthew,” wafted across in the breeze. “Help me!”
“Barbara!” Matthew fruitlessly screamed. He angrily turned to the new enemy. “Why did you do that?”
“You see?” Owen announced. “I know how to use it.”
“She was your sister for a year!” Matthew accused him. “You could have sent her back home.”
“I hate you, Owen,” Stephanie yelled and he moved to write her name before stopping to laugh at her anxiety.
“I don’t have the time to entertain myself here,” he snapped and picked up the paddle again, dropping the black book in the cutter.
“What will you do with it?” Matthew asked him, still misty-eyed over Barbara’s second journey. “What good can you do with it?”
“Well, I’ll inherit my father’s property today,” was the arrogant reply. “And then what next? Take over the world? God, am I gonna be rich.” But suddenly, the blue, clear sky lost its brightness and Owen quickly noticed this and lost his calm. “They’re coming!” he shouted, cursing and looking frantically around him as well as upwards. “They’re coming!”
“Who’s coming?” Stephanie asked him. The others held their breaths, staring around them as they swam. The sudden darkness, which had befallen them, was total. The ocean’s peaceful surface was becoming unreasonably agitated as the wind slowly picked up strength, and the children turned to the cutter’s direction in the darkness, anxiously searching for Owen’s figure in its shadowy blackness.
“We must get into the boat!” Matthew begged him. “We can’t stay here in the storm!”
“It’s not a storm,” Owen exclaimed in a scared voice, wiping away the unseen sweat on his forehead. “IT’S THEM AND THEY’RE COMING FOR ME!”
The children didn’t see him draw his pistol, but they saw the yellow sparks that flew from its mouth and heard the deafening explosion of gunpowder as he fired a crazy warning shot upwards.
“What are you doing, you jerk?” Nora ridiculed him. “You’ll give away our position!”
“THEY’LL NEVER GET ME THIS TIME!” Owen shouted.
Gunpowder exploded again.
“Please, STOP!” Stephanie yelled.
“You’ll never get me!” the apprehensive man hoarsely screamed into the quickly-growing wind. “I AM INVINCIBLE!”
“Who’s he talking to?” Matthew shouted above the howling wind. He struggled to remain afloat like Nora. Things were getting out of hand.
“THEY’RE HERE!” the Gulf War Two veteran suddenly croaked. “I must escape! MUST ESCAPE!” He stooped down and felt for the book on the cutter’s floor.
Lightning struck.
It started raining.
Then they came!
From all around the bleak sky and in droves!
Owen fired a third shot while holding the book tightly to his bosom. He struggled to reload his gun as the black figures circled overhead, and one of them, hissing strangely and howling horribly, steered away from the circle to rapidly lose height and smash into him, putting him off-balance and causing him to fall into the boat!
“Owen,” Nora wailed. “WE MUST LEAVE THE WATER!”
“They want the book,” Matthew realized. “They must not get it!” He felt the boat’s edge hit him and tried to heave himself up over it. “Nora, give me your hand!” he yelled into the howling rain and pitch blackness.
Owen struggled on his knees with a black entity for the book. His gun had fallen into the boat. A second shape left the hovering horde and joined its colleague near the boat.
Matthew fell into the cutter and quickly turned the right way up. “NORA!” he screamed, reaching out his hands from the cutter’s edge. “WHERE ARE YOU?” Accidentally, their hands touched. Matthew helped Stephanie into the boat before holding on to Nora.
“HELP!” Owen screamed beside him. “THEY’RE TAKING THE BOOK! HELP ME!”
Matthew turned to help but realized there were three black silhouettes facing the frightened man when lightning flashed behind him. What could he do? Nora climbed into the unsteady boat and he charged into the fight.
The struggle grew intense.
The black shapes started floating as they held on to the book, trying to pull it away from Matthew and his greedy partner. A kind of emptiness was also growing from deep within the boy and drawing him towards one of their hollow faces. This was accompanied by the kind of sluggish incompetence he’d experienced in that far away pine forest with one of them and he fought with himself to stay awake as much as he did to keep up his strength. The book was getting too hot, itself, and a reddish glow started emanating from within its pages.
From the corner of his eyes, Matthew noticed Nora join the struggle, while Stephanie picked up a paddle. “We can’t hold them much longer!” he cried out. “I’m feeling tired.”
Owen fell into the boat and the black forms pulled the more, all the while hissing terribly. The book became too hot for Nora and she let go to fall into the boat beside him. Matthew was pulled up and out into the air and Stephanie dropped the paddle to grab his legs and cause the cutter to wobble dangerously. She could have also risen up into the air before her brother let go and they both fell into the boat with a slight thump.
The downpour slowed down to a drizzle.
“They’ve taken it!” Matthew sadly announced, getting up.
“You fool!” Owen shouted, sitting up on hearing this and looking for his pistol. “I’ll kill you before I kill myself!” He picked up his gun. Nora tried to hit him with a paddle and he pushed her into the water with it. Before he could turn back to Matthew, a bright light lit the area from above and the book fell back into the boat, burning. “Quick! Water!” Owen ordered Matthew, who had already started responding without being told. Out went the biscuits and fruits, and water was scooped into the tin, but as the boy turned to quench the fire, it died out completely.
“Look, they’re flying away,” Stephanie pointed out in the sky, which had lost some of its darkness. The black forms were frantically dispersing in all directions, and looked like a scattered shoal of herring scampering away from a source of danger.
“No, you don’t,” Owen warned Nora with his pistol’s muzzle as she grabbed the cutter’s side. “You all belong in the water, remember?” He picked up the book and drew back to cover the three kids with the flintlock.
“That’s not fair,” Matthew told him. “We helped you get back the book.”
“You tried to help me get back the book, boy,” Owen corrected. “They don’t mean the same thing. Now, jump back in.”
Stephanie held on to Nora and Matthew sank in beside her. The children wore sad, long faces as they watched Owen paddle away.
“I hope it burns a hole in his boat,” Nora cursed.
“I hope the sharks get him,” Stephanie added and froze. “Did I just say that? Are there sharks in the water?”
“I—I don’t think so,” Nora stammered, looking around her in earnest. “I hope there’s none, for your sake . . . and mine.”
“What do we do now?” Matthew cried, looking up towards the ominous sky in earnest when his ears caught a familiar rumble. “It’s gonna rain again.”
The Black Book Page 45
