[Both focusing on the ex–blank sheet; even HELP seems involved.]
A.: There it is; the jokers mark where the message starts and ends. It’s the only part that makes sense. [Frowns.] Some.
[Grabs the paper for a zoom-in.]
James, sacred, fount … B-Q-V. What does this mean?
[NIAMH suddenly explodes, chair pawing the ground like a mad horse; she frantically writes in her notepad; shows.]
A.: [Reads.] “Henry James’ Sacred Fount.” Is that a book?
NIAMH: [Nods.]
A.: How come you know that?
NIAMH: [Stares.]
A.: [Back to his paper.] Okay, then maybe B-Q-V didn’t stand for letters; must be the card numbers themselves. Two, four, nine. That must be the page!
[Niamh bounces onto the table and dashes out, scampering the papers on her way.]
A.: [Speaker voice.] JUMANJI!
[They all dash out for the library.]
PAGE 249 FROM HENRY JAMES’ THE SACRED FOUNT10
* * *
Dear Caleb,
I always find great comfort in the words of that sifu in Yunnan who told us that the best place to hide a leaf is in a forest. And whenever I flick through these pages in particular I am further reassured that this letter is well hidden, for no one in his sane mind would read beyond page one hundred of James’ extravaganza. I know it is safe for us to talk here. It is overdramatic too, but this is what the Society was created for: to put some drama into our lives.
Unfortunately, in every story some characters must fall along the way. If you are reading these lines, my friend, you are the hero to our story, and I am the character whose death will serve as an example. Hopefully one you will not ignore, as I did with Spears, Dagenais, or Wells Sr.
I don’t have many regrets. We led fascinating lives, all of us. The places we visited, the people we met, the things we saw, they are all well above what the average man will witness. We paid the toll too: All of us suffer sleep disorders; seventeen underwent therapy at some moment; many have panic attacks; a few have had seizures. These scars will not wash away, but neither will the experience.
I am not advising you all to throw it away. I am just telling you, do not let it consume the rest of your lives. They have been enriched and consumed enough. What further enlightenment can you expect? For three generations my family has participated in this magic, gazed at it with awe and fear, and I, at fifty, stand not an inch closer to understanding it than my grandfather stood when this gift first fell upon him. It will never cease to surprise you if you live for a thousand years. It will never acknowledge you either. There is no end to this trip. You all might as well stop now; take some rest; meet before Christmas and share the good memories. May the Society live long and peaceful years.
The Wells’ heirloom is yours to dispose of. Strabo guards last year, and the key to the present. The past is for our Historian to look after; the present, only you know where to find.
There are no instructions for you, Caleb. Just these words of mine, written in good faith. The dead cannot give orders; they can only whisper.
It has been a pleasure to live this adventure together. Farewell, my friend.
Ambrose G. Wells
NIAMH’S NOTEPAD
* * *
(After like 5 minutes.)
—What IS Strabo?
—He was a Greek geographer of the first century. The book in the library that you pull to reveal the secret room was a volume of Strabo’s Geography, but we already knew that.
—SO?!
—So … nothing. This is it.
GALLERY FRI DEC-8-1995 17:30:23
The many windows cry gentle raindrops. HELP, NIAMH, and A. sit on the Playfair-strewn floor, waiting for page 249 of Henry James’ The Sacred Fount to say something else.
—All these clues led NOWHERE?
—Well, they led to the secret room in the library, but we blew that surprise already. We didn’t follow the steps properly.
—Who the Historian?
—Curtis Knox. Those are the ranks in the Society: Ambrose is the host; Caleb’s the secretary; Knox is the historian.
—“Past & present”?
—When the host died, he split the legacy between secretary and historian. He did it because he wanted to end the Society: A divided empire is harder to perpetuate. “Last year” is the crystal ball we found in the secret room. It belongs in the archives, which means the vault in the basement, where the other crystal balls are, which are the past, which is for Knox. But we’ve been there too. It’s useless; it’s a nightmare catalog. The key to the present must be that sort of hex key we found in the secret room, but we don’t know where the lock is. Caleb does.
—Then we wait for Caleb?
—I’m beginning to think Knox was right, Niamh. Caleb never made it out of Africa.
LETTER
* * *
Axton House
1 Axton Rd.
Point Bless, VA 26969
Dear Aunt Liza,
[…] So, we’re back to fucked again.
As usual, I am open to any suggestions from you. I mean, if you happen to be interested. Not like all this is any of your business or anything.
Kisses,
A.
VIDEO RECORDING
* * *
GALLERY FRI DEC-8-1995 18:06:29
HELP leans his head on his mistress’ calf, sharing the depression. An idle right hand of NIAMH scratches him gently, while the left hand holds open The Sacred Fount for one of her eyes to read for the nth time. (The other one is hidden by the tuft of hair cascading down her face.)
Meanwhile, A.’s visual line has long ago spiral-plunged like a wounded F-16 into the marsh of wasted paper covering the whole breadth of the windowed gallery: dozens and dozens of paper sheets with five-by-five grids, consonant-infested paragraphs, and speculative maps of a labyrinth.
Raindrops peek through the Gothic windows.
[A. fishes out a paper. One of the labyrinth maps.]
A.: Niamh … Did you draw this maze?
NIAMH: [Nods.]
A.: [Finger stabbing the drawing.] How does one get here?
* * *
10 The page was sewn inside the book, printed in the same type as the rest.
December 9
HANDHELD CAMERA
* * *
Torn shreds of clouds hover ghostly in front of the eye of the camera, between the moving figures and the electric green corridors of the maze. A., in a red jacket, marches ahead, camera peeking over his arm to spy the hand-drawn map, while Help trots past them, eager to explore, unceremoniously crossing the gate and sniffing the hedge. The red jacket reaches a gap, points left, and then follows his own finger, camera tailing him, and the mist keeps receding as they advance, and a cautious whistle, very close to the mike, alerts Help not to wander around, and so the red jacket, the camera, the quadruped, and the green-walled street all transcur in silence, cleaving the obliterating fog, but the camera fears, and then confirms, by glancing over its scarfed shoulder, that the fog only feigns to allow them, for it lurks behind them and it veils the yards they previously walked, like the Red Sea closing after Moses and his people. And at a new intersection the red jacket points to his left, and follows, and shortly after it takes a left, and they all enter a cul-de-sac. Where the man consults the map, and the camera waits, and the dog sniffs and reclaims by urination the land they have conquered.
“It’s supposed to be on the other side of this wall,” says A.
A.’S DIARY
* * *
We flung Niamh’s scarf over the hedge and tied one end around a bough. Then we trekked around, keeping the same wall to our right. After what seemed like miles, we met the scarf again—the tied end. So there is a closed area within the maze.
We still have to figure out which entryway the Society used to take. There must be a narrow clearing between two trees somewhere to let people in and out, but Help suggested it was faster to just craw
l.
The closed section turned out to be disappointingly close to the rest: more oppressive green walls and a single corridor. The passage meanders between the foliage, flooded with fog always skulking a corner ahead.
We zigzagged our way, generally heading to the west. It looked shorter on the map. By the end, the lane becomes a U-turn and stops in a dead end, but the wall in that U-turn conceals more than trees. A small part of the hedge has been cropped out, but not up to the top, so as not to make the gap visible from the sky. And in that gap sits another weathered statue, one with the appeal of having been less looked at: a man with a bull’s head.
There’s no inscription on the pedestal. You can’t walk around the statue, but you can complete the U-turn to see its back. This is where our hearts jumped: at the discovery of an inconspicuous, hexagonal hole between the minotaur’s shoulder blades.
This was the perfect reward to our faith. And to our bringing that large hex key we found in the secret room.
Niamh fitted it into the hole. A latch clacked somewhere within the marble torso. She turned the key a quarter to the right. Gears were set in motion inside the monster’s skeleton. Stone grumbled.
When we ran to the front again, a narrow crack had opened in the pedestal. Spider silk and mold kept it sealed. We removed the heavy slab, dropped it onto the ground. An object lurked inside the pedestal.
Niamh touched it.
The millisecond after, she’d been thrown like an overdressed mannequin against the hedge behind her, the upper half of her body actually crashing through the foliage.
I pulled her up; her limbs were shaking. She gazed at me in shock through the billion shadows lingering in her pupils.
I used my own jacket to make the treasure roll out—by this time I’d guessed it was a crystal ball. The electric shock, though, was unexplained. Niamh told me she hadn’t actually felt electricity; her hand didn’t hurt; she’d just felt a spasm. We didn’t need to keep Help away from it—he doesn’t like it.
I wrapped the ball in my jacket and we returned home.
HANDHELD CAMERA
* * *
The man sticks closer to the camera now, too close to come into focus, and the fog is closing in too, revealing but five yards ahead the green passageway. Then Help rushes past the camera, fading into the mist, and by the time the pitter-patter of paws on sallow leaves should fade away, he bursts into riotous barks.
Then the man says, “Fuck,” and both he and the camera speed up forward, taking a right in the maze foyer, glancing outside the gate, where finally the hedge disappears, and the fog recedes, and the barking continues, and the dull Gothic house can be seen in the distance, as well as the naked backyard, and a white car parked right in front, and a Victorian man standing by, aiming a revolver at the camera.
A freezing drizzle chose to join us.
It was really an uncomfortable situation, standing there, both parties obviously unwilling to shoot or be shot. There was only Help’s barking to distract us from the awkwardness.
“Drop what you’re holding,” the man said at long last.
“It might break.”
“No, it won’t.”
I dropped it, together with the jacket, which I was really yearning for under the rain.
“Maybe we should talk,” I suggested.
“Where is Ambrose?” he asked. His mustache twitched on his uttering the name.
I chin-pointed to Axton House.
“He jumped out of the bedroom window in September.”
His visage upgraded a new level in tension. He was blond and blue eyed, with a youthful yet weary look to his face.
I added, “I really think we should talk, Mr. Ford.”
VIDEO RECORDING
* * *
KITCHEN SAT DEC-9-1995 11:14:01
Tea is ready. A service for three is laid on a tray on the counter.
NIAMH feeds HELP biscuits.
A. checks the clock, arms folded, leaning on the sink.
A.’S DIARY
* * *
We left him in the music room, reading page 249 of The Sacred Fount by the fire while we made tea. We owed him that, at least: a letter from the dead, plus five minutes alone to mourn him.
We returned clearing our throats (those of us who can) to give him time to pull himself together, which he visibly did. He had this sort of childish face where sadness seems to leave a deeper print. At first, he’d struck me as a naive yet courageous Dr. Watson type. Now, he’d just learned that his Sherlock Holmes was gone.
I asked casually, “So, how was Africa?”
“Hell on Earth. Thanks for asking,” he answered.
(Later I learned he’d spent eight weeks in an understaffed, underwalled embassy, waiting for repatriation.)
A spoon fell clinking off Niamh’s hand while she served the tea. I asked her if she was okay. She started to walk out, tried to lean on the piano, failed, and crashed very gently onto the floor, her idle hand inadvertently playing a dramatic cue.
I ran to her, talked to her, but she hardly tried to keep her eyes open.
“She’ll be all right,” said Caleb from the rocking chair he’d settled down in. “She just needs to sleep. She touched it, didn’t she?”
“How is that relevant? How does it cause you to doze off?”
“It’s not the Eye that causes it; it’s a brain mechanism of self-defense. She has seen so much, her brain is exhausted.”
“She said she hadn’t seen anything.”
“It’s quite the opposite. She just channeled such a formidable quantity of information so quickly, she didn’t notice. But her short-term memory is full over capacity. Her brain must shut down and go into REM sleep, so it can clean up. Just lay her on the sofa; she’ll have some unquiet dreams.”
She was completely passed out at this point, so I carried her to the sofa. Help sat next to her and didn’t move for the whole conversation; one of the longest I’ve had in my life.
“How did you know where the Eye was from this?” Caleb asked, alluding to James’ book.
“We didn’t. Niamh drew a map of the maze; we noticed a closed section. We broke in.”
“What about the key?”
“It was in the secret room.”
“How did you find the secret room?”
“Same way: mapping the floor.”
“How unorthodox,” was his comment.
“Well, I find your protocols a little over-the-top. You people go to great lengths to hide dreams.”
“Excuse me?”
For the first time I looked up from Niamh’s face. “Dream recordings. What you keep in those crystal balls. Spheres. Eyes,” I tried.
He glanced at me once again, his mustache retracting with a mixture of interest and skepticism I was growing accustomed to.
“You two did a lot of work,” he remarked, “and yet I don’t think you grasped half of it.”
“Please enlighten me. I am genuinely interested.”
He skipped his turn there.
“On the other hand, I could just find out myself,” I thought aloud. “If there’s one thing I have, it’s time.”
“Not that much,” he pointed out.
“Oh, you mean till the solstice meeting? Well, if I’m not allowed to know what it is, I don’t see why it should take place in my house. Maybe you should get a new manor. And new artifacts.”
“But this letter bequeaths the artifacts to me.”
“An unsealed letter with no witnesses and no legal value.”
“Ambrose meant for me to have them.”
“Ambrose meant for you to arrive before I did. Ambrose meant Strückner to interpret instructions correctly. Come to think of it, he never planned this legacy business so well. Now I am the owner of Axton House and all of its contents. That includes the keys, the archive in the basement, and the crystal balls.”
“Not that one,” said he, pointing at what sat on its own chair, still shrouded in my jacket.
Niamh
came splashing out of her coma like a harpooned dolphin. I rushed to soothe her down, to dissuade her from trying to scream.
Ten seconds later she fainted back to sleep while I was holding her shoulders. Caleb appeared utterly unmoved. I studied him a second time. It was hard to picture him in a war zone in Africa. I saw him like one of those characters in Westerns—probably the town’s clockmaker or some paper pusher working for the railroad company: someone who wears tweed in the desert and whom people poke fun at because he keeps his fingernails clean. I bet he kept them clean in Rwanda. And yet, despite his round face and soft manners, there were those deep lines around his blue eyes that confirmed it: I was there.
“Okay, I give up,” I said. “Please tell me. What makes that sphere so different?”
He hurriedly began to answer, then stopped himself at the first syllable. He mentally rewrote it, then dismissed it. He tried a new strategy, thought for an alternative route. It eluded him. I kept my most receptive face on all the while.
Then he remembered his briefcase—the only thing he’d retrieved from his car after returning his revolver to the glove compartment. He laid it on his lap, unzipped it, took out a folder. There was a Post-it on the cover, numbered “12.” He browsed through its contents, then decided to share a picture.
“Are you acquainted with this man?”
It was a black, trim-haired male in a cheesy driver’s license picture, with a limestone wall as a background.
The Supernatural Enhancements Page 18
