I opened the beautiful pouch with the gold and silver embroidery. The coins in this one were thick, nickel sized coins of silver and they bore the image of an owl. The sheepskin pouch contained small, greenish coins that I realized were tarnished copper and they looked like they had a crude tree on one side with maybe a man hanging from it. One suede pouch had coins of a grey metal that may have been steel, or iron. On one side were some letters and all I could make out were what looked strangely like a “V” and a “D,” but I don’t think they were in English. On the other side was an image of a man so weathered that he had no face. The other three pouches weren’t divided by image or by metal, as these had been, but seemed to be separated by language. The remaining suede pouch had coins of different metals all showing Greek letters, one of the canvas pouches had Roman numerals and Latin inscriptions on coins so tarnished and fated I couldn’t tell what metal they could’ve been, and the last pouch contained bronze-looking coins that had what looked like Viking ships and a mixture of Latin letters and Norse Runes. I heard whispers in my mind that told me they all were, all the pouches and all the coins, provisions for the journey of the dead. I gathered them up into a pile and turned my attention to the green bundle.
I sat down on the ship’s central bench, placing the bundle upon my lap. It was square and seemed about a foot and a half all around and had some serious heft to it. I was reminded of how I kept my journal, wrapped up and safe. But this was much larger. It felt like a thick hardbound book. As I unclasped the leather strip that kept the cloth closed, the brittle belt fell apart. As it came undone, bits of nondescript leather and metal fell with a soft thud on the Boat’s wooden deck. The ragged, oily green cloth opened easily to reveal an extremely large, thick book bound in snake skin leather. At first glance it reminded me of an old Bible or a witch’s spell book. It was easily thicker than the thickest phonebook—maybe five or six inches thick, and that was just the pages, not counting the cover. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an enormous book. Since the rain was light, I awkwardly shielded the book from the drops, but I kept the green oil-cloth to hand in case I had to rewrap the book to protect it from the tempest that seemed fit to break any second. I could do nothing about the wind, however, and with careful movements, I examined the covers and binding of the book taking note of the parchment-like page-edges crumbling, loose in the mounting squall. By holding the book closed, I managed to keep any pages from blowing away outright, but I didn’t yet open the book to examine them —and was a little afraid to. Just touching the page edges, the material wasn’t like any parchment I had every handled though —not that I had much experience with ancient paper.
I wasn’t as lucky with the cover and the snake skin cover was flaking in several areas as fingers of wind tore at it. The centuries old board stock was revealed beneath. There were numerous raised symbols upon the cover, down the spine, and even inked into the board cover that became exposed beneath the antique leather. Most of the symbols were familiar to me —and not from my dreams. Thinking back to my obsession with Cosmos that led to me reading as many books on astronomy as I could find, combined with the astrology book Aunt Judy gave me for my birthday when I was a kid (since she didn’t know the difference between astronomy and astrology), and from the book I borrowed from Dr. Peterson on astrological symbology from the old world, I recognized one repeated symbol. Pluto. There were others that seemed to blend astrological symbols with others that Dr. Peterson’s book had called symbols of alchemy and the language of the angels. Before reading that book from Dr. Peterson’s library, I hadn’t realized that angels had a language.
The most obvious, the primary and largest symbol on the snakeskin book was what I knew it would be. Emblazoned on the cover and throughout the fragile pages was of course, the Yellow Sign.
What was all this?
At that point, I hadn’t yet noticed how far the boat had drifted out, well past the pier, gliding into the shipping channel of Raritan Bay. I don’t really know how I didn’t notice, or how the boat managed to remain still, despite the churning and chopping waves. I kept my head bowed and my body hunched over the book protecting it. I was as intent on the book as I had been on the Yellow Sign when I found it in the basket of clams. And then in my mind, but also in the wind that was ripping at my hair, I began to hear the same chanting I had heard in my dreams: “Charon.” Repeated and echoing without any instruments —just the voices twining and twisting, that reminded me of church choirs and chanting monks. I had to open the book now. They were asking me to —imploring me.
I set my palms firmly on the cover and asked the book to please not blow away. I asked the storm and the voices to not take the pages from me before I could read them and the book shuddered beneath my fingers. It felt like an animal breathing or a cat purring or both because as I sat there I noticed a sound, a drumming that came from the book to accompany the choir.
As I opened the book, there was a sliding, shifting sound that reminded me of sand slipping through fingers and dry leaves crackling under foot. The inside of the book was a bright tan, almost golden. Unlike the dark, brown frayed edges. The frontispiece had no image, only a string of large block letters that seemed carefully drawn, sort of like the ones you’d see in an old Bible. They weren’t English, though. The characters seemed ancient, maybe Greek? I don’t know though. They weren’t exactly like Greek either. I couldn’t place it but they reminded me of some of the symbols on the cover. And I wondered if it was Greek or some of that language of the angels —or a combination of both.
The choir was a mere whisper now at the back of my mind, almost replaced by the breathing sounds from the book —but not wholly gone either.
As I turned each page, carefully holding my hands to secure the binding, but also confident that the purring, breathing thing beneath my fingers wouldn’t give up one of its pages, just as a purring cat wouldn’t give up one of her ears when you pet her. The pages were part of it and it was alive. As I turned the pages, the languages changed. The handwriting changed. Sometimes there were small images drawn in the margins. Some pages were elaborate with gilding and color, but not many of those. But it seemed to be a sort of journal, or diary, and there were always numbers that appeared at the top of a new page, numbers with a word that I suppose were dates. The numbers were most commonly Arabic or Roman —but some of the first entries were wholly unfamiliar to me. Maybe they were Greek numerals. Maybe they were some other language that was older than Ancient Greek? I don’t know. The first numerals I could make out were Roman and went back over two thousand years ago. That’s crazy because how could a book survive that long?
The thought occurred to me that it was a copy…. But then the purring stopped and there was almost a hiccup and I wondered if it would snap shut and begin hissing at me. I knew it was no copy. And I knew it was no regular book. Further along in the book the languages and dates became more familiar. There was some Italian and something that looked Spanish, but I guess was maybe Portuguese and there was Arabic…. then I saw some English. I felt almost relieved —like when you’re looking for your picture in the school yearbook.
Then the bottom fell out of my stomach as my eyes focused on individual words before I read the page as a whole: “Willowbrook… Dr. Peterson…. Clamming… Tim.”
I tried to throw the book down, but it growled at me and shuddered. The pages flipped as though caught by a breeze and I saw that from that point, maybe three quarters through a book that was easily several thousand pages long, the entire end was blank. The pages shuddered again and turned back to the first entry in English. It was dated with a year only and the date was obscured by what looked like a bloody thumbprint. The year read 1977.
I wanted to vomit.
But instead I read a single line that said:
“He has come from the flames and will take up the mantel soon—I am coming home.”
There was no signature, but the handwriting looked familiar. I remembered my dreams —seeing Dad with Jona
than’s crazy eyes. Hearing the Yellow King speak in Dad’s voice.
I knew the handwriting was Dad’s. I kept reading. The next entry wasn’t until seven years after that: June 6th 1984.
This time I did vomit, pitching myself to the side of the boat, I dropped the book, heaving over the side. As my eyes focused tightly on the pages —I realized I was reading my own journal. It started the way my journal started —with my dreams. And then there were bits about Dad and Uncle Tim and my dreams and a sketch of my mural.
All in this book. All here. I couldn’t take it and as I read my words, the singing steadily grew louder —more insistent and less melodious. I tore open my bag, looking for my journal —the one I knew I had carefully wrapped and carefully put in there before setting out earlier— and it was gone. Did I drop it? Was it back on the beach? Had it fucking fallen out when I climbed that damned rope ladder? When I teetered and climbed into the fucking boat? I jumped up, looking around to see if it was lying somewhere in the Boat —and I saw that the pier was off in the distance and I was in the middle of the bay just floating. I wanted to scream and shout —but no one would hear me. Instead, I barfed again and the skies opened up and the rains came.
When I was done heaving and choking, I looked back and the book was neatly wrapped up inside the green oil-cloth. The pouches were closed and placed alongside the book, tidy, orderly and all inside my bag. As I turned, the top of my bag seemed to hover for a second, just enough for me to see what was inside my bag, before the top flipped down against the deluge.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!”
This time I did scream. The Boat wasn’t moving fast. I had to get out. To swim back to shore while I could still see it. But, when I tried putting my foot over the side, outside of the Boat —it was like hitting a brick wall. I felt the reverberation up my leg and the jolt was enough to knock me back a bit. But I didn’t lose my feet, despite the slick deck and the rain pelting down on me. Uncle Tim would be proud. I had my sea legs finally.
I gripped the side of the Boat and tested again, placing my foot a scant few inches over the carved lip of the boat and some force, invisible —a wall— kept me from stepping over.
“Ok,” I said this time, turning toward my bag and the book that I knew was happily purring inside, dry, nestled in with its coins. “I’ll ask nicely this time: what the fuck is going on?”
I didn’t expect an answer, but I noticed the singing had stopped. I sprang back, bouncing a moment on the balls of my feet, wiping away the water running into my eyes, getting up the courage to try a last leap, I guess and I lunged forward hoping the momentum would break through.
It didn’t. The unseen barrier kept me back, repelling me like I ran face first into a trampoline —but not with a nice bounce. I felt like I was a bird hitting a window. The impact threw me backward completely. I smashed onto the deck, landing on my ass. I scooted back, my tailbone screaming and I wondered if I broke it. I wanted to huddle into a ball, but I retreated as far away from my bag and the book as I could, pushing my back against the side of the boat, wishing I could push through to the other side.
But I guess not far enough, because I’m writing now. I’m telling you my story —whatever that is. Whoever you are.
I didn’t huddle into a ball, but I hugged myself, crisscrossing my arms across my chest, each hand gripping the opposite shoulder. I tried to do Dr. Peterson’s breathing exercises to uncoil the panic in my chest. They didn’t work. I had to try to get off the Boat again, but when I tried to get up, to uncross my arms, I couldn’t. It was like the barrier; no matter what I tried, I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place, struggling against my own flesh that held me fast.
I began to tune out again —like I did in the kitchen with mom and beside Dad’s truck and with Uncle Tim in the clam-boat when I found the Yellow Sign. I’m not sure it matters very much —after all I was able to move, eventually, because I’m writing now and I’m cataloguing my experiences, like Dr. Peterson told me and the voices singing Charon’s name told me to.
But as I sat there frozen in place, I saw the world shimmer and twist and the hard wooden side of the boat became soft, pliable, padded almost beneath my back.
My eyes, fixed on my bag, saw the bag ripple —like Uncle Tim’s face had done— and for a fraction of a millisecond, I wasn’t seeing my bag anymore. I was looking at a square metal tray with several hypodermic needles of various sizes and three evil looking scalpels.
My vision shifted again and set into sky a little higher than I am tall, just above the edge of the Boat with its carved symbols was the window of my basement apartment. It was just hanging there, with the wooded grounds pictured inside it, sort of like the Cheshire Cat’s smile. Just then two sets of arms grabbed me about the shoulders and pulled me to my feet. I barely saw their white coat sleeves. But I was calm and did not scream. Calm in the fact that I’m writing my story in that purring book now. As I know I’m writing, I have to wonder why my throat feels raw again and why I can only see their arms.
Where are the rest of them?
~XI~
“You have to hold him still, Timothy. If he moves too much, we could break the needle and that’s not wise,” spoke a thin man who was so pale as to be albino, save for his eyes which were a putrid yellow the exact shade of his hair. His voice was even, with a stilted almost English accent, but with a slight lisp.
“Yeah, got it, doc. You just try wrangling this skinny little shit and see if you can hold him still. But, I guess we’re lucky he’s not screaming no more. Where’s Justini, the bald guinea?” A short man about the shape and size of a spark plug, his face haggard, his thick arms and callused hands network of scars, grumbled at the albino while holding a skinny boy wearing a straight jacket in a bear hug. The two men were in a dingy room covered floor to ceiling in thick padding that, at one time in the distant past, used to be white. A large section of padded wall behind them looked as though it had been recently bleached and the smell of disinfectant clawed the air. The opposite wall was smeared in shades of brown and rust in what looked like letters of some deranged, dead language.
Just then a tall bald man in a white uniform entered the room with a cough that was more of a momentary gag reflex. “That bald guinea was just making sure our little prince Karen, or whatever the fuck he wants to call himself today, has a clean pen to go home to when Doc says so. I’m tired of him writing all over the walls, making believe it’s some goddamned journal, in his fucking shit, no less—”
“Time and place boys,” the albino doctor piped up, motioning for Justini to help Timothy hold the boy still. The needle wasn’t inserted into the boy’s arm, but the side of his neck. Justini stepped away, wiping his hands on his crisp uniform.
“The kid gives me the skeevatz. Can’t we just shove him out back, like we did his old man? I mean —what’s the point, doc? If we move him to another room, he’s just going to gnaw at his fingers and start painting. Doesn’t matter what you shoot him full of, he thinks his fingers are fucking quills and he’s painting his goddamned John Hancock on the wall in shit and god knows what else.” Justini smoothed down his shirt, retucking it and ignoring the fact that Timothy still held the squirming but silent young man.
“Ease him down, Timothy.” The doctor said with annoyance as the burly, grey-haired man made as though he would drop the boy immediately to the ground. “And, Francis—”
“Hey, ooh. Doc, what I tell ya? You want me to call you Doc Peterson and be all professional, have the decency to call me Justini.” Justini brushed off his collar, pulled out an ID-badge from his pocket and clipped it to his breast pocket. On the badge was a round lapel style metallic pin about the size of a quarter. Justini took a moment to breathe on the pin and buff it slightly with his fingertips.
The grey-haired man lowered his charge to the ground and the men stood back a moment while the boy stopped writhing. After a few quick moments, the young man with the auburn hair and vivid green eyes sat up, blinking. He cock
ed his head to the side and looked up at them.
“Justini,” the doctor corrected. “Let us not again mention our little Potter’s Field, shall we? That’s anathema to the conversation here. For the moment, leave our boy’s ‘old man’ out of the conversation as well.” Dr. Peterson turned his attention to the young man on the floor. Dr. Peterson forced a smile while placing his needle back into a silver, crescent shaped dish set on a metal tray on top of a rolling medical cart that Justini had wheeled into the room about twenty minutes earlier. Beside the crescent shaped dish was a pile of gauze, stained with blood and iodine, several vicious looking surgical instruments, and three bottles of intravenous medication in varying shades. The one anachronism on the cart, the thing that wasn’t at home was a small triangular stone carved with strange symbols. It was resting inside another crescent shaped dish. Beneath it was a dark liquid that had a reddish cast. The dish was resting on top of something large, square shaped, covered in green cloth. The room had a metallic tang beneath the disinfectant.
“Daniel. How are you feeling Daniel?” Dr. Peterson, face frozen in an artificial smile that snarled at the edges, looked down at the young man on the floor.
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