Book on the Isle

by Stuart Jaffe

  Roni took the fragment over to her scanning table — an expense that bothered Gram but that she acquiesced to after Elliot and Sully defended the purchase. Upon scanning the fragment into the computer and having it rescale the image to match the rest, Roni started by letting the computer attempt to find where the fragment connected with the whole map. As expected, it came up empty. Well, it actually returned over four thousand results which pretty much meant the same thing. There were simply too many gaps in the overall map.

  She then spent over an hour going through the four thousand plus possibilities. Most were easily discarded, but some required several minutes of failed attempts to make the fragment fit. Even as she rotated and flipped the image on another attempt, part of her questioned if it would fit any of the map. The possibility existed that the fragment sat in the middle of a missing section with no connection to any of the current edges — like a puzzle piece for the center when all she had was the outer-frame.

  Taking a break from the computer screen, Roni walked over to the map wall. Her eyes roved over the endless corridors and tunnels, the steps and drops, the widening spaces and narrowing fields. Somewhere in all of that mess, a single book sitting on a tiny island awaited her. She read off the names of the various spots that previous Society explorers had discovered and marked. Things like Stalactite Plains, Connor’s Corner, the Cathedral, and Soft Slope — each name written by the hand of the cartographer, probably at the location itself.

  Roni’s mouth dropped open. She whirled back to the scanner and picked up the map fragment. There. In tiny script, neatly scrawled on the bottom edge — the name Gerald Waterfield.

  She hurried back to the main room and brought up the library catalog on her computer. Typing in Gerald Waterfield, her fingers tingled and her lips lifted at the corners. But no results came from her search. That didn’t mean anything yet — Roni had only digitized the Library holdings she had placed on the shelves. She had years of work ahead of her before the whole library could be searched via computer.

  In the back corner of the main room, the old card catalog gathered dust. Much of it no longer corresponded with the actual locations of books, but for the moment, Roni only wanted to confirm the book’s existence. After a short rifling through a drawer of typed and hand-written index cards, she found it:

  Waterfield, Gerald. The Journal of Gerald Waterfield. incl 4 maps and 7 plates. Society member 1807-1842. Loc: Row 21, WAT

  Roni snagged the card out of the drawer and worked her way through the Library. Many of the shelves had been moved throughout the years. She had moved several herself. But she doubted many would have shifted the books far from where they had been shelved.

  As she walked up and down several aisles, she wondered at the immense effort required to move the entire operation from Paris to England to America. All those books in the caverns chained to the walls — where were they held in England? How did Grace Covington, the leader of the Society at the time, even know about the caverns in Pennsylvania? And with Gram, Elliot, and Sully nearing the ends of their lives, did that mean that Roni would someday be responsible for moving everything again? She thought over the map and all its missing parts. Moving all the books in those caverns without an accident destroying universes would be impossible.

  At the end of one aisle, Roni found ten stacks of dust-covered books piled as high as her chest. On the wall, small gold plates marked the old row numbers — 19, 20, and 21. She walked back to her work desk and dragged her chair to the ten piles of books.

  Though she wanted to rifle through it all to find Waterfield’s journal, part of her could not resist organizing the books into ready-to-go piles that she could come back to later. Despite the extra time, she managed to get through three-quarters of the books in under an hour — getting distracted only when she came upon a book with Grace Covington’s name on it. Turned out to be a biography rather than a personal journal. She set that book to one side and continued on.

  And then she found it. A leather bound journal that smelled of long years outdoors by a campfire. The pages crackled, instantly bringing images of a hard-faced man of good upbringing, exploring the underside of the world, aware that he did his part to save so many lives and that so few would ever read his words or know his contribution. Roni clutched the journal against her chest like a schoolgirl in an old film.

  Returning to her desk with the book and her chair, she settled in, intent on approaching her find carefully. While the pages were stiff, they did not break under her touch. Good. She had no desire to bring the journal upstairs to the floor where Elliot and Sully repaired old volumes of all kinds.

  Before she read a single word, she sifted through page after page. Waterfield’s sharp-angled script and messy use of ink would be difficult to decipher, but she had read enough journals from further back than the 19th century — she could handle this one. Searching deeper into the book, she finally found the key page she sought — the torn page displaying the rest of the Waterfield’s map. To be sure, she retrieved the fragment and matched it up with the journal. A perfect fit.

  Picking up the journal to get the rest of the map scanned into the computer, a yellowed card fell from the back of the book, flipping to the ground like a fallen leaf. The library checkout card. As she picked it up, she made a mental note that the checkout system would have to be digitized as well. Setting the card into the sleeve on the journal’s back page, her heart jumped.

  The last person to check out the book — Elliot Kenwana.

  Chapter 5

  For several minutes, Roni stood immobile in the middle of the library, the old checkout card held tight between her fingers. Her mind blanked. She kept seeing the clean, steady penmanship that men rarely possessed. She only knew one man who wrote like that — Elliot, of course.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to think straight. First, she needed to confirm that this wasn’t a coincidence. Perhaps there had been another Elliot Kenwana with excellent penmanship. She didn’t believe it, but going through the thought process provided her body and brain with an action. She walked over to several book piles throughout the room and randomly opened books. None had been checked out by Elliot. While that did not prove anything concrete, it did suggest that he was connected to all of this — whatever this was. After all, if he had simply been a curious reader, she would have found other titles he had explored. That would have made her feel better. She inspected more of the books, but after twenty minutes without finding Elliot’s name, she decided that would be confirmation enough.

  Resisting the urge to race upstairs and confront the old man, Roni walked the journal over to the map room. As the new map fragment scanned into the computer, she reorganized her thoughts. It would do her no good to approach Elliot without more information. She had to attack this problem like a police detective. Whenever possible, a detective interrogated a suspect with enough knowledge of the truth that they had a good shot of catching a lie. Roni knew so little at the moment that, no matter what Elliot said, she would never be able to separate fact from fiction.

  Why am I assuming that he’d lie to me? That thought troubled her. Gram would lie. Gram had lied. But Elliot? She always thought of him as the most honest man in her life.

  After the scan completed, Roni once more sent the image through the computer program to find matches to the existing map. Only 2900 results this time. Better than before. But over the next few hours, she ended up in the same place. The fragment did not connect with any part of the map.

  The grandfather clock standing against a support pillar chimed six o’clock, and Roni’s stomach rumbled on cue. Arching her head back, she smacked the arm of her chair. The entire day had gone, and she had made so little progress. The island in the lake could be practically anywhere in the caverns, and she had come across nothing that pointed to why Elliot would have an interest in any of this.

  Except for Yal-hara. If Roni could believe even part of what Kenneth Bay had said, then at one time, Yal-hara asked the
Old Gang for help and they refused her. Except that didn’t make much sense. Roni couldn’t see Elliot turning away any living creature.

  Which left Roni with a baffled mind, an empty stomach, and a need for answers. No point in stalling further — her claims at a detective’s approach sounded good, but she knew better. No secret evidence would be revealed unless she started kicking over stones. She had to deal with Elliot.

  Stepping out of the elevator onto the main floor, Roni planned on inviting Elliot to dinner. A nice, public place would keep their conversation calm — not that she thought Elliot would raise his voice, but as a precaution against whatever secret lay beneath. Plus, she needed to eat. But when she walked toward the big table in the center of the room, she found Elliot, Sully, and Gram all dressed nicely and ready to leave.

  “What’s the occasion?” she asked.

  Gram flipped open her compact to check on her hair. “Nothing at all. For many years now, we’ve made sure to get together for a nice dinner at least once every month. It’s a good way to keep our team strong and our morale up.”

  Placing a tweed hat on his head, Sully said, “Oh, we’ve made a mistake. You should’ve been asked to join us. How could we do such a thing? You’re part of the team now.”

  Elliot gave Sully a squeeze on the shoulder. “You are absolutely right. Please, Roni, accept our apology. We did not intend to exclude you. Rather, we have been doing this dinner for so long that we all simply got ready to go without thinking about it. It is our old habit.”

  Snapping the compact shut, Gram said, “Boys, don’t pressure her. I’m sure she has a million things more fun to do than spend an evening stuck with three old folks like us.” She looked at Roni. “Of course, dear, if you’d like to join us, you’re more than welcome.”

  Roni could not read her face. Did she want Roni to join or not? A piece of Roni broke inside — how had things devolved so far between them that she would even question if Gram wanted her around? Worse than that, Roni knew exactly when this change began — a year ago, on the night she first learned of Gram’s powers, the caverns, and the Society. Once the Old Gang’s secret had been revealed, much of the warmth and stern caring that made up Gram’s foundation disappeared.

  “Maybe next time,” Roni said. “It’s been a long day.”

  Gram raised an eyebrow but said nothing more. As the Old Gang left the bookstore, Roni thought she had made the right choice. She didn’t want to be sitting through a long meal while itching to speak with Elliot privately, and she didn’t want to talk about Waterfield’s journal with Gram and Sully until she had more information at hand. Besides, Roni was the New Gang — a gang of one for the moment, but the New Gang nonetheless. She would be better off getting comfortable with that fact.

  Having the bookstore to herself, she ordered a cheesesteak, retrieved the Waterfield journal from the Grand Library, and settled at the big table in the main room. Reading while eating, surrounded by the quiet of the closed store and the blanketing aroma of old books, she allowed herself to relax — not entirely, but enough.

  The journal had many entries covering a wide variety of topics, but she found three key details within Waterfield’s words. The first had nothing to do with Yal-hara nor Elliot’s possible involvement. Rather it focused on the nature of the caves themselves —

  I must admit that I have pondered these caverns at great length. The rest of the team seems accepting of the structure and shows no more curiosity, but I find that infuriating to say the least. I requested the opportunity to perform certain experiments upon the cavern walls to determine how it can be that I find references to these very caverns within the diaries of Society members from over a hundred years past. This is simply impossible when one considers the verifiable fact that the Society has changed locations throughout the world on numerous occasions. How can it be that we all utilize the same caverns?

  Roni jotted down a note, marking where she could find this entry again at a later time. But as she read on, she could not stop her own curiosity —

  I’ve been denied my request. Short-sightedness appears to be the common ground for my peers. They fear that interfering with the cavern walls might cause damage to our purpose. Since we do not understand the cavern itself, they reason that we cannot comprehend how our actions upon it might behave. But is not that the very point of experimentation? How are we to learn if not by trial?

  Well, it has become apparent that I have another resource for information. The Grand Library has several volumes by Mr. Augustus Kincaid who grappled with the same concerns. According to the good gentleman, the caverns must exist within a universe of their own. It is that simple. When we step through the entrance into the caverns, we leave our universe and walk through to another. The caverns universe, therefore, is the storage container for all the breaches we investigate and attempt to close. Fascinating as a hypothesis, but one that requires deeper attention to prove valid or false. Of course, I shall never divulge to my teammates that there is this information. They would argue that such information makes experimentation unrequired.

  Roni wrote down the name Augustus Kincaid to deal with another day. The next entry she found useful had been written one page before the map Waterfield had drawn. He described a seven day journey through the caverns which ended with the discovery of a narrow river. He named it for himself — Waterfield River. None of his teammates joined him on the expedition, so he chose to return before traveling the river. A month later, despite his teammates refusal to help, he found his way back to the river. This time he brought supplies to build a simple raft and took to the water.

  Roni then read:

  The waters of my namesake carried me through tunnels upon which no other path could be taken, and following a rather unsettling patch of rough currents, I was deposited into a massive lake with a lone island in the center.

  With her hands shaking from adrenaline, Roni could barely write her notes. No wonder the map never matched up with anything she had already scanned through — it never would. The access to the lake involved a river, not a path. Clearly, Waterfield found a route back because he lived to complete his journal and shelve it in the Grand Library — and why couldn’t that route be used to get there? — but for the moment, Roni reveled in the idea that all she needed to do was find the river.

  The last entry she read that made a strong impression came only pages later. Waterfield navigated his raft to the island — “a circular clump of empty sand no bigger than the parlor room of a home.” Almost empty. In the center, a stone pedestal had been built. Sitting on the pedestal, Waterfield found the Book of the Isle — a single volume chained to the stone.

  He wrote:

  I cannot account for the sensations that overcame me, the thoughts that grew within my mind, but I had the undeniable urge to open that book. What kind of universe would be so special that it received an island all to itself. Quite naturally, I considered the possibility that the book accessed a most dangerous universe, one that should never be opened. And yet, my heart denied this. I could feel a loving embrace, a warmth of welcome that no evil could ever produce. Since it was my instincts that brought me to this place, despite the disagreements with my fellow Society members, I chose to adhere to my instincts once more. I opened the book.

  I discovered Heaven.

  The front door rattled as Gram unlocked it, and the Old Gang bumbled inside. Roni closed the journal and grabbed her notes, but Sully had already stumbled further in.

  “You had quite a bit to drink,” she said with a lighthearted chuckle. She slid the book into her bag, but Sully’s brow knitted downward.

  “Whatcha reading there?” He burped and pointed at the bag.

  “Nothing important.”

  “Don’t be like that. It’s good to be a reader. I’ve always loved that about you. And you’ve got strong taste. Good taste.”

  Elliot stepped over and steadied Sully. “You have had too much to drink. Leave Roni alone.”

  “Since
you won’t drink, I gotta do it for both of us.”

  Gram laughed. “You didn’t have to do it for me, but you did anyway.”

  Roni shouldered her bag. “Well, you all need to get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  As she walked by Sully, however, he dipped his hand into her bag and pulled out the journal. “Well, well, let’s see here. The Journal of Gerald Waterfield. Who the heck is that?”

  Roni spun back and snatched the journal — but not in time. Elliot had frozen. He stared at Roni, his eyes glistening as his jaw shivered.

  Chapter 6

  Holding onto the table for balance, Sully waved his hand in the air. “What’s with you two? Somebody tell me who Gerald Whatever-his-name-is is?”

  From behind, Roni heard the hardline tones of Gram upset. “He’s the man who discovered the Book on the Isle.”

  The words sobered Sully fast. “Oh. Isn’t that where Elliot … oh, I see.” He looked to Roni and shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Done what?” Roni said, her focus still on Elliot. “What is this island to you?”

  Elliot brushed a tear before it could fall. He glanced upward, perhaps gaining strength from above, and opened his mouth to respond. But Gram stepped between them.

  “We will not be discussing that island,” she said. “Elliot, help Sully get upstairs before the poor man can’t stand anymore.” With a meek nod, Elliot did as instructed. Gram then turned to Roni. “You need to forget about the Book on the Isle. You need to forget about Waterfield and anything you read in his journal. The man was a crackpot, and his writings have done more harm to members of the Parallel Society than any other journal in our library.”