by Dan Poblocki
“What kind of code?”
Eddie thought about that. “Like … this,” he said, reaching into his bag and pulling out the book his mother had found the night before. He opened it to the middle and handed the book to her.
The librarian flipped through the pages. When she happened upon the first page, she glanced at him, squinting with what looked like concern. “Where did you get this?” said Mrs. Singh quietly.
“My mom gave it to me,” said Eddie, suddenly unsure of himself. “Do you know what it means?”
The librarian’s face turned red. “Of course I don’t know what it means,” she said, too forcefully. “Why would I know what it means?”
“I just thought …,” he said. He cleared his throat, trying to compose himself. Maybe it wasn’t so easy to talk to book people, after all. “Can you recommend a book that might help?”
“No, actually,” she said suddenly. “I’m quite busy, and the library closes at noon today.” She turned her back on him and started typing something at the computer on the table behind her.
Eddie’s face burned. Her attitude toward him had changed when she saw the first page. He wondered if the symbol written there had upset her? Or had it been Nathaniel Olmstead’s name that sparked her irritation? Eddie decided not to ask. Instead, he quietly made his way to a cluster of computers near the back spiral staircase.
Pulling up the library’s online catalog, Eddie suddenly had an idea. Since his own Nathaniel Olmstead books were packed away, it might be worth checking out a few from here—just to acquaint (or reacquaint) himself with some of the town’s locations.
When he typed the author’s name, a message appeared: WE DID NOT FIND RESULTS FOR “NATHANIEL OLMSTEAD.” Confused, Eddie checked his spelling and entered the name again. But he received the same message. No results? How could that be? He glanced at the librarian at the front desk.
She was watching him.
When she saw him looking at her, she flinched and turned back to her computer. Eddie shivered. The librarian must not be a fan of Nathaniel Olmstead.
Eddie understood that some people didn’t think Olmstead’s books were very good, that they weren’t considered literature. Still, it seemed odd that the man’s hometown library wouldn’t carry his own books, even if there was supposed to be an—
Olmstead Curse …
The tow truck driver’s words echoed in Eddie’s head. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Don’t be silly, he told himself. It’s only a story, right?
After searching the catalog for books about codes, Eddie climbed the stairs to the second floor and wandered into a row of shelves hidden in shadow. Even in the dim light, he managed to find The History of Cryptography. At least this should get me started, he thought.
Eddie headed back downstairs and reluctantly approached the front desk, where Mrs. Singh pretended to ignore him. After a few seconds, he said, “I’d like to check out this book, please.”
Finally, she turned around with a huff and a sigh. “Your library card?” she said, holding out her hand to him. She waved her fingers impatiently.
“I … don’t have one.”
“Mmm-hmm,” said Mrs. Singh. Eddie almost expected her to tell him that they were not issuing any new cards, but she reached under her desk, pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil, and handed them to him. Without looking at him, she said, “Fill this out.” Eddie wrote down his new address and phone number and handed the paper back to Mrs. Singh.
“You’re new in town?” she said curiously. Eddie merely nodded. As she turned around, she began to chew on her lip.
While he waited for her to process his new card, he flipped through the heavy book. It was filled with all sorts of confusing language—almost as weird as that of The Enigmatic Manuscript. Strange words like cipher, algorithm, scytale, skipjack, and cryptanalysis jumped off the page. There was so much stuff shoved between the covers, he wasn’t even sure if he would be able to understand everything.
“Here you go,” said Mrs. Singh. She handed him a small peach-colored paper card on which was printed Gatesweed Public Library, a place where stories are told.
“Thank you,” he said, as politely as possible. Eddie shoved the book in his bag, hiked it onto his shoulders, and struggled to open the library door.
Once outside, Eddie could not deny that it was a lovely day. Puffy clouds hovered over the hills, and a warm breeze skirted around the corner of the library. When Eddie unlocked his bike, he decided to ride over to the park and flip through his new library book. He crossed Center Street and followed the path through the middle of the town green. Like the rest of the town, the park was strangely deserted. There were several benches planted randomly in the grass. Eddie hopped off his bike and was about to find a place to sit when he heard an odd whispering sound from across the lawn.
The sound came from the direction of a bronze bust perched on top of a rectangular marble pedestal. The gray slab stood in the center of an old granite circle. Dandelions filled wide spaces where the slate had cracked over time. A plaque was attached to the front of the pedestal, but from where he stood, Eddie couldn’t read what it said. He rested his bike on the sidewalk and trampled across the tall grass.
When he got closer, Eddie could see that the face of the bust had been destroyed, as if by a large blunt instrument. The nose had been mashed flat. Where its eyes should have been were two dark holes. Its lips were mangled into a permanent gaping howl. As he got even closer, the whispering sound grew louder.
Whist-whist-whist-whist-whist-whist.
It almost seemed as though the head was trying to speak to him through its distorted mouth. Eddie’s hands went numb. He clutched the straps of his book bag against his shoulders. The pungent smell of bleach filled the air. How strange, he thought. Then, from the edge of the stone circle, he realized he could finally read the plaque: DEXTER AUGUST, 1717-1779.
Sam had mentioned this place. Eddie had actually found one of Olmstead’s inspirations! Nathaniel Olmstead had written about the bust of Dexter August in The Ghost in the Poet’s Mansion. It wasn’t quite how Eddie had pictured it when he’d read the book; in Nathaniel Olmstead’s version, Mr. August’s face had not been vandalized.
The sound of something splashing came from the other side of the statue, startling Eddie. He stumbled off the edge of the granite circle.
A second later, he noticed a face peering at him from around the marble base. Before he could see it clearly, the face disappeared and the whispering sound began again. “Hello?” he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. Keeping his distance from the bust, Eddie made his way to the other side.
A skinny man dressed in a wrinkly blue uniform knelt in the center of the granite circle. He scrubbed at the marble pedestal with a heavy wood brush. Whist-whist-whist-whist-whist-whist. Beside him sat a squat red metal bucket. After a moment, Eddie realized the man was the same police officer who had abandoned his family on Black Ribbon Road yesterday.
Eddie could hear the man muttering when he noticed what the police officer was scrubbing at. Someone had sprayed black paint in the primitive shape of a face onto the back of the pedestal. Two black squiggles for eyes dripped down the stone where the paint had been sprayed on thick. Below the eyes, one blunt, almost straight line grinned grimly. On the ground, behind where the police officer knelt, Eddie noticed more graffiti, huge words painted directly onto the broken granite. THE WOMAN IS WATCHING.
Eddie hiked his bag higher onto his shoulder. The woman is watching? What woman? Who is she watching? He glanced at the library, where the glass doors stared at him darkly. He wondered if Mrs. Singh was watching him from behind her desk.
Finally, the man looked at him, holding up his hand to block the sun’s glare. He scowled. “It’s not coming off this time.”
This time? Had someone done this before? Eddie wondered. “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling for some reason as if the officer blamed him.
“Oh, it’s you,” said the man
, suddenly recognizing him. Eddie expected him to finish with You made it home all right, or Sorry I couldn’t be of more help yesterday, or at the very least, You lived! But the man simply stared at him expectantly, as if he anticipated Eddie to sprout wings and fly away.
The man’s silence made him feel weird. “I, uh … I’ll let you get back to work,” Eddie said, stepping into the grass, heading toward his bike. The police officer continued to stare at him as he walked away. Eventually, the whispering sound began again as the man went back to scrubbing at the black paint. Whist-whist-whist.
Eddie began to run. When he reached the sidewalk where his bike lay, he noticed something painted onto the window of a store on the other side of the park.
BOOKS.
This time, the paint was not graffiti.
Even though he was sort of freaked out, Eddie couldn’t resist. His mother had mentioned a bookstore in Gatesweed. This must be it. A bookstore was always cozier than a library—more comforting—a familiar place in an unfamiliar town. He picked up his bike from the sidewalk. Keeping far away from the weird cop, he walked his bike across the grass and crossed the street.
The bookstore was in the lower portion of a two-story white wooden house, the last in a row of buildings that curved along the park. A green-and-white-striped awning reached out toward Eddie, shading the house’s porch from the sunlight. Glancing over his shoulder toward the park, Eddie noticed the cop staring but decided to ignore him.
He crept up the stairs and pressed his nose to the window of the store, holding up his hands to block out the glare. Dim lights hung from the ceiling, and bookshelves stretched up so high that tall ladders leaned against them in several spots. The store looked empty.
“We’re not open,” said a voice behind him.
Eddie spun around to see a blond-haired boy who’d spent too much of the summer exposed to the sun. The skin on the boy’s nose was peeling. Eddie thought he smelled like insect repellent. Eddie stood there with his mouth open, barely able to breathe. Why was it that he could approach an adult librarian without a problem, but when facing the possibility of conversation with someone his own age, Eddie’s brain shut tight?
“What do you want?” said the boy.
“Nuh,” said Eddie, turning sunburn red. He’d meant to say Nothing, but was only able to spit out the first part of the word.
The boy examined Eddie quizzically before reaching around and opening the door. Cool air breezed out. Eddie was about to ask what time he should come back when the boy brushed past Eddie, closed the door, and locked it.
Embarrassed, Eddie almost turned to leave when the window display caught his attention. He came closer to the glass to make sure his eyes weren’t fooling him.
Sitting on the table near the window ledge was a small display of Nathaniel Olmstead’s books. A hand-painted sign propped up on the table read GATESWEED’S VERY OWN. The books were stacked precisely in several piles. The Ghost in the Poet’s Mansion. The Revenge of the Nightmarys. The Cat, the Quill, and the Candle. The Wrath of the Wendigo. They were all there; however, these were not the books that caught Eddie’s attention.
At the far edge of the table sat a small stack of leather-bound books that had a different title.
The Enigmatic Manuscript.
Eddie dropped his book bag onto the porch. Bending over, he opened the bag’s front pocket and pulled out the book his mother had found the night before. Holding it up, Eddie compared it to the books sitting on the table. They seemed to be exactly the same. Would the inside of the books be the same too? Eddie felt his heart pumping. He could see the blond boy moving around near the back of the store. Eddie took a deep breath, realizing what he must do. The characters in Nathaniel Olmstead’s books never solved any of their mysteries without taking a risk or two.
Before he could think to stop himself, Eddie knocked on the window. When the blond boy peered around the corner of a bookshelf, Eddie waved and forced himself to smile.
“We’re closed!” shouted the boy before ducking away. His words hit Eddie in the chest like a fast, hard baseball. This wasn’t going to be easy. Maybe he should leave. But no, he told himself. Ronald Plimpton would not have given up so easily.
He raised his hand again and continued to knock. He didn’t stop until the blond boy had come all the way to the front of the store. Angrily, the boy shouted through the door, “What is wrong with you?”
“I—I wanted to ask you something,” Eddie stammered.
“Yeah …?” said the boy, looking as if he were about to walk away. His voice sounded muffled through the glass.
“I wanted to know about that book on the table in the window. The Enigmatic Manuscript.“
“What about it?”
“I was wondering if you knew when Nathaniel Olmstead wrote it?”
The boy made a face like Eddie was crazy. “Wrote it?”
“Yeah,” said Eddie. “What year did the book come out?”
“Nathaniel Olmstead didn’t write a book called The Enigmatic Manuscript. Nobody wrote The Enigmatic Manuscript.“
Eddie shook his head, confused. The blond boy rolled his eyes, grabbed one of the books off the pile of Enigmatic Manuscripts, and opened it to a page in the middle. He held the book up to the window for Eddie to see.
“Blank,” said the boy.
Eddie still didn’t understand.
“The Enigmatic Manuscript is the name of my mother’s store!” said the boy.
“The name of your mother’s store?” said Eddie. He looked over his shoulder. The store’s hanging placard sign stuck out from the pole at the top of the stairs, but it hung perpendicular to the street, so it was really only visible from either side of the stairs.
“We sell souvenir blank notebooks,” the boy continued. “If you wanna buy one …” The boy spun around and started back toward the bookshelves. Over his shoulder, he called, “Then come back some other time.”
“Wait!” cried Eddie, knocking on the window. When the boy turned around, Eddie quickly pressed the cover of his own copy of the book up to the window. “I don’t want to buy one,” he called through the glass. “I’ve already got one. And I think it might have belonged to Nathaniel Olmstead.”
The boy paused for a few moments before returning to the front of the store again. He unlocked the door, opened it, and stood in the doorway. “Why do you think that?” he asked.
Suddenly, Eddie felt foolish. “Because mine’s not blank.” He awkwardly held out the book.
The boy took it from Eddie and brushed the cover with his fingers. It was obviously older than the ones in the store. He turned it over and examined the spine. When he opened the cover and saw the first page, his eyes widened. A moment later, he squinted skeptically. “Where’d you get this?” His reaction reminded Eddie of the librarian’s.
“My parents bought it at an antiques fair just north of here,” said Eddie. “But look.” He reached forward to turn the page.
“Whoa,” said the boy, examining the strange words. “What is this?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” said Eddie. “In his books, Nathaniel Olmstead always uses codes and stuff. Looks like he went a little bit overboard with this one.”
“Right, I know. I’ve got all of his books upstairs in my bedroom.”
“You do?” Eddie was surprised. He had begun to think no one in Gatesweed appreciated Nathaniel Olmstead like he did. “Maybe you can tell me how Nathaniel Olmstead ended up with a souvenir book from your mom’s store?”
“Duh … Nathaniel Olmstead lived in Gatesweed. My mom knew him.”
Eddie was speechless. Forgetting the mystery for the moment, he wondered if Nathaniel Olmstead might have stood in this very spot.
“A long time ago, my mom told me Nathaniel Olmstead was the one who suggested she open the store. He even came up with the name.”
“That is so cool. Did you know him?”
“No way,” said the boy. “I was, like, zero years old when h
e disappeared. Thirteen years ago, on Halloween, he was supposed to give a reading at my mom’s store, but he never showed up. She tried calling him for the next few weeks … but she’s never heard from him again. No one has.”
“Huh,” said Eddie. “That’s so weird.” Then he had an idea. “Hey, what do you know about the Olmstead Curse?”
The boy gave him a sharp look. He pressed his lips together, then glanced over Eddie’s shoulder toward the park. When Eddie turned around, he saw the police officer near the bronze bust glaring at them.
“I—I gotta go,” said the boy suddenly.
“But—”
“I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to …” The boy shoved the book into Eddie’s hands. He turned around and closed the door to the bookstore, leaving Eddie alone on the porch.
Across the street, the police officer tossed his brush into the bucket with a splash.
Eddie decided to ride his bike back home. After hearing Sam mention the possibility of an Olmstead Curse yesterday, he had expected that he might encounter some weird things in Gatesweed. After all, Olmstead stories were pretty weird, so it made sense that the place where he wrote them might be weird too. But after his experience that morning, he thought he could use a break from weird for a few hours. Besides, the cryptology book was too heavy to simply carry around while he searched for more sites from Olmstead’s books.
When he opened his bedroom door, Eddie found his mother sitting on his bed, facing the window with her back to him. “Mom?” Eddie said. She yelped, leapt off his bed, and spun around. When she saw that it was Eddie, relief flooded her face.
“Edgar, you scared me so badly I nearly flew out the window!”
“What are you doing?” Eddie asked, curious. Then he noticed what she was holding in her hand, his copy of The Wrath of the Wendigo.
She held up the book and said, “Guilty as charged. I was flipping through your book. I’m sorry I barged in here, but when I was unpacking this morning, I found a box that belongs to you.” The small cardboard box sat at the end of his bed. “Since you were looking for these books last night, I brought them up.”
