I sighed with relief. So, Sally did remember something important after all. Would that be enough to keep her from dissolving?
Mr. Jake held the magnifying glass over the parchment. I put my cocoa aside, got up and stood beside him to watch. But despite the magnifying glass, I couldn't read the script. Mr. Jake murmured a few words in a language I didn't understand.
“What did you say?”
He looked up. “I read out loud. It's Latin, but written with Greek letters, and I'm not really good at Greek.”
He knew Latin and could read Greek. My admiration for him grew even more. “What does it say?”
Mr. Jake shrugged. “It repeats innocent love over and over again. I wonder how it got onto our street.”
“The Beast lost it when it fled from your magical fence,” I said. “Sally told me to pick it up.”
“It came from the Beast?” His eyes widened. “Then it has to be a message. We'll have to figure out what it means. Innocent love can be anything; the love of a mother for her child, or Sally's last memory.”
“What if there are more papers lying around?”
“You know, Tom, you might be right. Let's go and look.” Mr. Jake stood up.
Chapter Ten
Sally: Here and Now
Tom put aside a page of writing, and took another bite of his bread. The room was gloomy. Sally feared that all this writing might weaken his eyesight, but her pleading had gone unnoticed. Tom turned his table-lamp on and wiped his eyes.
“You don't look well,” Sally said. “You need to sleep.”
Tom shook his head.
Was he trying to avoid the inevitable, or didn't he know she was right? “This Dad of yours wants to put you in a locked ward.”
The surprise in Tom's face was genuine. “Why would he do that?”
“Maybe he thinks you're going mad because you talk to ghosts?” Sally giggled and her eyes sparkled. “You? Insane?” The giggling became louder, and she somersaulted. She was fighting to breathe while she spoke, turned, and laughed at the same time. “I bet … there isn't … a single boy your age … who is … more … levelheaded … about this whole … Beast-story … than you.”
Tom drank the rest of his milk. “That's just the problem. Mamá and Dad don't believe in the Beast. They think you drowned.” He walked to the sofa.
Sally stopped in mid-air. “Wasn't I a good swimmer? I'm old enough, am I not?”
“You were a very good swimmer. We used to go to the public pool together, and you taught me how to swim.” Tom lay down.
Sally could see he had to fight to keep his eyes open. She floated to his side and perched on the armrest. “I could present myself to Mamá and Dad. Then they'd have to believe you.”
“Thanks for the offer.” Tom closed his eyes. “But they'd freak out. And even if they believed in you—as a ghost—it wouldn't mean they'd believe in the Beast.”
After a while, he asked, “How does it feel to be a ghost, Sally?”
At first, Sally didn't answer. When Tom opened his eyes again, she pouted because there was so much sadness in his gaze. Thoughts flitted through her mind like a cloud of butterflies. It was hard to catch them, and even harder to put words to them. She saw pity in Tom's eyes and frowned. How can I know? He shouldn't have asked. Still, she didn't give up. When she finally answered, she didn't look at him.
“It's not easy to describe. Everything is soothing and calm. I'm warm inside but cold on the outside, and there is a hole in the middle of my body that scares me a lot. Whenever I feel this hole, I know that there should be more of me, but I forget it right after. It's like losing your favorite whatever, and you can't for the life of you remember where you left it or what it was.”
“I know what you are missing,” Tom said. “And I'll get it back. I promise.”
“Don't worry. I like being a ghost. It's fun. Now, go to sleep.” Sally kissed his cheek like the touch of a butterfly wing, and his soft skin warmed her being to the core.
Tom: Diary
Just in case the Beast returned, I told Sally to hide in her hair and followed Mr. Jake outside. Snoop stood in the gate and barked at the Beast that hovered near the lilac bush beside the door to my home. A nebulous figure stood at Mr. Jake's gate and watched it. It wore a brown dress that reached the ground, and a light brown cloth that looked like a table cloth with a hole for the head. I didn't know if the figure was a man or a woman, but when it saw me, it slid sideways to the back of the house. Mr. Jake didn't notice it. After all, it was even less real than Sally in her weakest moment.
Since Snoop ignored it, I decided it wasn't dangerous. I put my hands on my knees and searched the ground near the gate. Mr. Jake went down on his knees and looked under bushes and into the decorative flowerpots sitting on his lawn. We found two more pages of crumpled paper that looked like the one we had left inside. Mr. Jake sat on the steps to his house, pulled out his magnifying glass and read haltingly. I waited. It was hard not to move, but I so much wanted to know what the papers said that I forced myself to stand still.
After a while, Mr. Jake looked up. “It's a story like mine,” he said. “It's a true report from a monk from 14th century Europe, who cared for his sister's son after her death. He writes that one day, the devil appeared and tempted him. And when he refused to fall from grace, the devil took the boy who was six at that time. There has to be at least one more page because the last paragraph ends with half a sentence.”
I remembered the nebulous figure I had seen earlier. Could the ghost have been the monk? What if he had followed the Beast through centuries? What if Mr. Jake and I weren't the only ones looking for their loved ones? I cocked my head.
“What did a monk from that time look like?”
Mr. Jake shrugged. “Most likely like any other human being on Earth.”
“I mean what kind of clothes would he be wearing?”
“I would assume a religious habit, maybe with a monastic scapular.” He described a monk's clothing in more detail and I recognized the dress of the nebulous figure I had noticed before. I told Mr. Jake about the ghost.
“You're very observant, Tom. I was so preoccupied with finding the papers that I didn't see him. Let's try to find him.” Mr. Jake patted my shoulder and smiled. Suddenly I felt very grown up.
Together, we rounded the house and looked in the shadows for the monk. We had to be very thorough because the ghost had been hardly more than the memory of a person. I wondered if the monk had been inside the Beast, and if so, had he seen the missing parts of Sally or Mr. Jake's daughter? I looked to where he searched the flower beds. From time to time, he picked up another piece of paper. I bet he was just as eager to talk to the monk as I was. I returned to my search. The garden wasn't very big but a lot of bushes surrounded the small patch of grass that grew beside the terrace. I went down on my knees and looked under them. Finally, I noticed a pair of pale, naked feet under a lilac. Two more sheets of paper lay beside them.
“I found him,” I whispered.
Mr. Jake came over and knelt beside me. He spoke a few words that sounded like a marriage of Russian, which I had heard on TV once, with English and Spanish. The feet moved and the ghost of a monk appeared in front of the bush. Another piece of paper floated from a leather-bound notebook he held in his hand. The notebook looked much more real than the ghost.
Mr. Jake pointed to the house and said some more in the strange language. The monk nodded but didn't move. Mr. Jake got up and walked slowly backward toward the house. I extended a hand and picked up the pages the ghost had lost. He didn't seem to mind. When I got up to join Mr. Jake, the ghost followed me. I held my breath and watched him glide over the lawn without disturbing a single blade of grass and without moving his feet. Creepy. I shivered. Mr. Jake muttered a curse, and I turned to him.
He shrugged and smiled. “The terrace door is locked. We've got to take the front door.”
Slowly, we lured the ghost around the house. Just in case, I never turned my back
to him. When we rounded the last corner, Snoop joined us. The ghost stopped and looked around. So did I, but the Beast wasn't in sight. Relieved, I ran to open the door. A roar pierced my ears and left them ringing. With my hands over my ears, I turned. The monk exploded into a cloud of tiny fragments that were hardly visible. Only his leather-bound notebook stayed in one piece. It fell to the ground with a thud.
I looked around to find out where the roar had come from. The Beast stood as close to the garden as it could without touching Mr. Jake's magical barrier. It had taken the form of a giant lion and paced to and fro. When Snoop growled and moved closer, it shrank back into the shadow of my parents' house.
“We'll have to try a spell to reassemble him,” Mr. Jake said as he watched the last fragments of the ghost drift away. “I know just the one. It's in one of my books.”
“Can't we use it to reassemble Sally?” There was so much hope inside of me, my heart hurt.
He smiled, but it came out lopsided. “I've tried it, and it doesn't work. We can only use the spell on a ghost outside of the Beast.”
Biting my lip not to cry, I bent and picked up the ghost's notebook. It felt as solid as it should be. “I could search your books for the spell. Then you can read this.” I handed him the notebook and the loose pages. He nodded and went inside. A few minutes later, I sat on the chair with a fat book on my knees. The title read “The Magnifizent Spelles of Agnez the Witche.”
Chapter Eleven
Sally: Here and Now
Sally's heart alternated between sorrow and pride as she watched Tom's chest rise and fall. At one point, the dog owner tiptoed in and put a covered plate with food on the desk beside the manuscript. His dog jumped onto the sofa and curled up at Tom's feet. Sally's eyes narrowed. It was unsanitary to have a dog in the bed. But Tom looked so pale with bags under his eyes, he needed the protection, so she didn't say anything. She was glad he slept at all.
Finally Tom woke, went to the table, ate, and went back to work.
Sally descended upon the desk top. “How much longer do you need to finish?”
“Two or three days at the most,” Tom said with his mouth full. “I just wrote what happened to the monk.”
“Which monk?” She frowned. There, somewhere in her fading memory, there was a worn brown robe. Could that be the monk? Why were her memories so muddled? And what was the Beast Tom kept referring to? Everything around her seemed less real and less important with every passing day. Sally walked over to the window and stood with her back to Tom.
“Did I really live out there? Everything looks so strange, so unreal.”
Without a word, he walked to her side. She could feel his warmth and it seemed like all that connected her to this world. She let her gaze wander. The mist outside blurred the world, and the sun had difficulties chasing away the tendrils of fog that drifted through the streets.
“Mamá would have called it pictorial but to me it looks scary,” Tom said.
“You believe that the Beast is still lurking out there?”
Tom nodded.
“There is something tugging inside of me. It's calling with such a friendly voice.” Sally closed her eyes. She felt tired, but not in the way her brother had been—it was more like a longing for eternal peace.
Tom's gaze was full of pity and worry. “I'm sorry, but I need to write faster.”
Sally turned as he went back to his task. He seemed so small compared to the desk. What was he trying to accomplish with all that writing anyway?
“You are wearing yourself out. Why don't you have a break? There must be a friend or two you can play with.” Sally floated back to the sofa and curled into a ball. “Don't worry about me. I can't go anywhere. I'd love to but I can't.”
“You can, with me.” Tom pointed to a smooth black stone. “It keeps the Beast at bay. You know what? Later, we'll go out together. If you promise to hold my hand. The stone will protect both of us.”
Suddenly, Sally felt new strength coursing through her mind. He'd take her out of this room. She'd get to see the rest of the world. How big would it be? Would she really have to hold his hand as if he were a toddler?
“I'm old enough to walk on my own.”
“We'll only go if you promise.” Tom looked at her steadily. He wouldn't change his mind for sure. This whole mess made him grow up way too fast. Sally frowned.
“Okay then.” She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “But hurry or I'll become really annoying.”
Tom: Diary
Mr. Jake showed me the table of contents and left me to decipher the old print. He settled onto the sofa, flattened out the papers of the monk's manuscript, and began to sort them. I watched him for a while and then started on the spell book. I growled a little when I saw that there was nothing as simple as an inventory. The pages were printed with very old-fashioned letters, but apart from the weird spelling, the words were very similar to ours. If I used my imagination, I could understand at least the headlines. Painstakingly I worked my way through the headers. “Heal the Cophing fitte,” I read, and “Cute Warts bereft of Paine,” “Banne Ghostes” and “Calle Daemonies.” The spells weren't even sorted alphabetically. I read and read until my eyes burned. I rubbed them and turned to the next page. “Reassembele a Ghoste Disturbed,” I read.
“I found it.” My voice sounded far more tired than I had realized.
Mr. Jake looked up from the monk's book. “Well done. I'm nearly finished too.”
I put the spell book on the table, leaving it open on the page we needed. My stomach grumbled just as Mr. Jake put aside his reading.
He smiled. “I guess we'll need something filling before we go on.”
I cleared the table save for the spell book and the monk's journal, and he loaded the front half with bread, butter, sausages, cheese, fried eggs, jam, and peanut butter. We sat, and I tried not to gorge.
“The monk's manuscript is a journal,” Mr. Jake said. “It begins when he learned how to write after he joined the cloister. The beginning is rather boring; he only lists the duties of a monk working in the garden. But then his sister died, and he convinced the abbot to allow him to take in her four-year-old boy. For two years, they were happy.”
“And then the Beast showed up?” A few crumbs flew out of my mouth and landed beside the spell book.
“Careful. The book is valuable.” Mr. Jake sat up, marked the page with a piece of paper, and closed the book. “He thought it was the devil, but I'm sure it was the Beast. He describes his confusion as the people around him forgot his little boy as if he had never existed.”
“How did he get into the Beast?” This time I swallowed before I spoke.
“I'm not sure. The monk used every exorcism he knew to free his foster son but with very little success. The devil avoided his blessings and prayers. This corresponds with my discoveries. Whenever I try to use a spell on the Beast, it withdraws into this other…” He searched for a fitting word and finally shrugged. “…this other part of the world. And you can't send something back to hell or wherever it came from if the exorcism doesn't meet its target.”
I hadn't understood half of what he said but nodded nonetheless. I wanted to know what else happened to the monk. “What did he do?”
“When the devil moved on, the monk followed it as best he could. He planned to ambush it, but didn't go into specifics.” Mr. Jake pointed to the journal. “And that's all there is. If we want to know more, we'll need either more pages of the journal, or the monk himself.”
I washed down my food and said, “If there are more pages to the journal, they'll be inside the Beast.”
“Good point. So let's try to reassemble the ghost as best we can. Maybe he knows what happened to all those missing children.” He put aside his plate and wiped his hands on a wet cloth.
“Do you think they are still alive?” He must be missing his daughter just as much as I missed Sally.
“I sincerely hope so.” He picked up the spell book. His eyes fle
w over the page.
“Not much to it,” he said. “But I'll need you to assist me.”
After we had cleared the table, Mr. Jake drew a circle on the ground and placed the journal inside. Then we switched off the lights, opened all the windows and the door. Snoop went outside sliding on his belly as if he didn't want to be seen. I wondered what he was up to but he seemed to know what he had to do. Mr. Jake pushed me to a place close to the circle.
“Stand here and don't move, whatever happens,” he said. “You need to catch him when he's complete. He'll be exhausted.”
I squared my shoulders. It felt good to be trusted. Then I thought of something. “Won't he fall through my hands? After all, he's a ghost.”
“Don't worry. There are so many memories in the book, he'll be quite solid.” Mr. Jake walked to the middle of the room and sprinkled petals from a jar on the ground into another circle. He put the jar aside and stood in it, raising his arms and humming. The air filled with the sweet scent of lavender, and the humming relaxed me. I felt my eyelids droop; it had been an exhausting day. With a sigh, I forced myself to stay alert.
Then I saw it. Tiny whiffs of fog floated in from the window and gathered in the circle above the book. The longer Mr. Jake hummed, the denser the column of fog got. I held my breath. It was a great start but would he be able to turn the fog into a person again?
A piercing shriek of pain sliced though me. The foggy column wavered but didn't break apart. It didn't grow either. Snoop came in, wagging his tail and carrying another page of the monk's manuscript in his muzzle. He walked as close to the fog as he could without disturbing the circle and dropped the paper. It floated gently over the crayon mark and settled on the rest of the manuscript. Immediately, the column of fog increased in size. Snoop snorted in a satisfied way and walked over to his favorite place. There he lay down and licked his ruffled fur. His left ear dropped blood on the carpet. He must have been fighting the Beast again, probably for the last page of the monk's journal.
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