Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

  “You do have a most careless mouth, Dafyd,” he said, his tone warm but cautionary. “You should be careful that your tongue doesn’t get you into trouble.”

  David allowed himself a small smile. “I’ve heard that before,” he said.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Knox,” Ernest said, gesturing to one of the chairs as he stepped toward the stove. A kettle was starting to whistle. The library’s kitchen was almost as homey as Sarah and Nora’s.

  When he put a plate of cookies on the table in front of me, I had to suppress a grin. “Thank you for this.”

  “You’re most welcome, sir. I thought that perhaps you could use a little refreshment. You’ve been locked away for quite some time.”

  My stomach groaned. “I guess I lost track of the time.”

  “That happens, sir. Can I make you a sandwich?”

  I shook my head in spite of my sudden hunger. “No, that’s all right. This will be more than enough.”

  He let the tea steep briefly, then poured two cups. I waited for him to take a cookie off the plate before I took one myself.

  “Are you finding everything you’re looking for?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “It’s a bit overwhelming,” I said.

  “There is a great deal of material to go through.”

  “I think I’m going to have to come back tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine, sir. You can leave the room as it is, if that would help you get a faster start in the morning.”

  “Thanks.” I finished my cookie, and found myself desperately wishing for another.

  “So tell me,” I said. “How did you end up working at the library?”

  “It’s the family business,” he said. “My grandfather was Robert Barlow.”

  “Ah.” I took another cookie from the platter, acutely conscious of his eyes on me. “Funny—you’re the second grandchild I’ve met since I started this project.” He looked puzzled. “I’ve been corresponding with Lazarus Took’s granddaughter as well.”

  “I didn’t realize he had a granddaughter.” He thought for a moment. “But then, that’s hardly the sort of information one would find in a collection of papers we purchased more than fifty years ago.”

  I nodded. “Ernest, if you don’t mind my asking, do you share your grandfather’s interest in all of this”—I waved my hand loosely in the air—“magic?”

  He smiled. “That’s why I’m here.”

  I looked down at the table, reluctant to make eye contact as I asked, “So, are you a believer?”

  “I suppose that depends on what you mean.”

  I started to clarify, but he continued.

  “Do I believe in all the chanting and the ritual and the trying to contact the Old Gods, that sort of thing? No, not really. But do I believe in magic itself? Yes.” He sipped gingerly from his tea. “There are so many things that can’t be explained rationally, so many mysteries that are impervious to scientific examination. Even in the heart of the sciences themselves one invariably reaches a point where rational analysis ceases to work and faith takes over.”

  “That sounds more like religion than magic.”

  “Why do you think there’s a difference between the two? Magic is just another faith, another way of living with the mysteries in the world, rather than trying to explain them away.”

  I nodded slowly, trying to accommodate the faith that he was describing with what I knew of Lazarus Took’s actions.

  “What about spells and rituals and things like that?”

  “Aleister Crowley and such, you mean?”

  I nodded again.

  “I think that words and rituals can have a powerful effect on the human soul, an effect that science can’t explain. But then, you must know that, Mr. Knox, being a writer? You must have written something that made people laugh or made them cry. Or made them fall in love with you.”

  I thought of Jacqui.

  “Well, that’s what’s at the heart of magic—the power of words over the human soul.”

  —

  Sitting on the subway on my way back to the hotel, wedged against the window, I wished that I had brought something with me to read, something to isolate myself from the crowding and the noise.

  In desperation, I pulled To the Four Directions out of my bag.

  I could see why Jacqui thought I was crazy: it was so innocuous. So banal. Just a book.

  By now I had read it from cover to cover. The story was pitched perfectly for an eleven-year-old, complete with the hero completing his quest, returning to the Queen triumphant, saving the life of the King and vanquishing the threatening hordes. The closing scene, with the newly healed King riding out at the head of his army, had given me goose bumps such that I was willing to ignore how clichéd it was. A perfect happy ending—a little too pat for my liking now, as an adult, but the sort of thing that David would have loved.

  Too bad David wasn’t living the events of the book I was reading. If Nora was right, his story would be different. Trapped between the endpapers, his life was, literally, in my hands.

  How would his story end?

  And what would happen to him when the cover closed on the printed text?

  Trying to distract myself from the noise, and the smell of the man next to me who seemed to have fallen asleep, I started flipping through the book absent-mindedly, the way I had done so often in the past weeks.

  The book opened to the early scene where everything started to come together, just before the Queen revealed the King’s failing health.

  “Me?” Dafyd asked incredulously.

  The captain nodded.

  “Captain Bream has selected a troop of his finest men,” the Queen said.

  I sat up so quickly in my seat that I almost woke the slumbering man, who grumbled and shifted.

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

  Pilbream.

  Took had named one of the characters in the book, the faithful guard, after his own faithful servant. It was obvious once I saw it, but that’s not how my mind usually works. In my mind, books and the real world occupied separate places—

  And I stopped.

  A thought was growing in me, a thought that, once I recognized it, I knew to be a fact.

  “Excuse me,” I said, holding tightly to the book and my bag as I lunged to my feet. “Excuse me.” I pushed my way through the crowd, desperate to get to the doors before they slid shut.

  I was already dialling the phone by the time I got to the busy street above.

  Nora answered on the second ring.

  “Nora, it’s Chris.” My voice was shaking. “Can you hear me?”

  “Chris, it’s very loud where you are.”

  I ducked into an empty doorway and turned my back to the street. “Is that better?”

  There was a clattering noise, and the sound of another line being picked up.

  “That’s Sarah,” Nora explained. “On the extension.”

  “Did you find it?” Sarah asked. “The lexicon?”

  “No. But, Nora, do you remember telling me that there was a scandal concerning the Brotherhood, that it seemed to dissolve after that?”

  “Yes. In the late ’40s, I believe.”

  “I think I’ve figured it out. The Tooks had a servant, a man named Pilbream. Worked for them for years. He was part of their inner circle. Apparently he was injured at Raven’s Moor during a ritual weekend. People basically ran Took and his wife out of town.”

  “Of course they would,” Sarah said. “Narrow-minded—”

  “I think they were right,” I said, cutting her off. “I think he was injured in a ritual. I don’t think it was an accident, though.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. “Nora, the spell that’s in the book, the spell that pulled David in—would that work if it were spoken, rather than being read?” I was tapping the fingers of my free hand anxiously on my pant leg.

  “Of course,” she said cautiously. “If anything, it would probably be more effect
ive. Especially if the spell were cast in a ritual setting.”

  “And a spell, even from a powerful magician, still has to be tested, right?”

  “There’s a certain amount of trial and error involved. Though with a magician as powerful as Took, probably not that much. His spell would likely work the first time.”

  My stomach sank. “There’s a character in the book, a Captain of the Guard, who’s sent along with Dafyd”—I stumbled slightly over the name—“on the quest. To protect him. To guard him. The guard’s name is Bream.” I waited a moment for the information to sink in. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

  “No,” Nora said. “There aren’t many coincidences. Not in the magical world. Especially not where names are concerned.”

  “I think that back in 1946 Lazarus Took used one of his ritual gatherings to test out this spell that he was working on. I think that Pilbream was the first victim of the spell.”

  “Chris—”

  “The articles that came out after the accident, they all described Pilbream as being injured mentally somehow. He doesn’t move. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t seem to see. It sounds just like David.”

  “Chris,” Nora repeated.

  “That makes sense, right? That Took tested the spell on Pilbream, and trapped him in the book, just like David. Doesn’t that make sense?”

  “It sounds—” Sarah began, but her mother cut her off.

  “Chris, this Bream in the book—he’s in a position of authority? Guiding the child, the children, on the quest? Overseeing them?”

  “Right.”

  “Chris, what you’re describing could very easily happen.”

  It seemed my day hadn’t been a complete waste after all.

  “But, Chris,” Nora continued. “What if it wasn’t an accident?”

  Her words brought me up short.

  “What if Took put Pilbream into the book deliberately? What if Pilbream volunteered?”

  After camp was set, David wandered into the surrounding woods by himself.

  “Don’t get lost,” the captain had said, without looking up from where he was starting a small fire. It sounded almost affectionate, until he added, “I don’t want to have to send the men out for you once darkness falls.”

  “I won’t,” David muttered, but he was pretty sure that the captain wasn’t listening.

  Away from the camp, David allowed himself to be lulled by the solitude, by the rich, loamy smell of the earth, the gentle creaking of the treetops in the breeze high above him.

  There were bushes everywhere, but the trees kept the groundcover broken up, with lots of natural paths for walking. David loved the feeling of being alone, of walking among the huge trees, touching them, letting his fingers run over their bark. Some of the trees were so old their trunks were as wide around as a room in his house.

  “Did you ever see that picture?” he asked out loud, stooping to pick up a twig.

  Which one? Matt asked.

  “It’s got an old tree, and it’s so big that they’ve cut a drive-thru out of the bottom, and there’s a car driving right through this tree. An old car, too. A big one.”

  I have that on a postcard, Matt said. From when we drove down to Disneyland a couple of years ago. We stopped in the Redwood Forest.

  “That’s what it was called.”

  Yeah, we stopped there. We drove through that tree. Or another one like it. This place is a lot like that.

  “This could even be the Redwood Forest,” David said. “Or Lazarus Took’s version of it.” He slapped the twig against a bush as they went deeper into the forest, unaware of the eyes watching him.

  So what do you think we’re looking for? Matt asked.

  David hadn’t mentioned looking for anything, but he had come into the forest with that thought in the back of his mind.

  He tossed the twig into the brush.

  I don’t know, he answered. He was getting used to having no privacy. With the cave you had to be in the right place at the right time to see the door.

  And the same with the map. Right place, right time.

  As David bent to pick up a larger stick, the scent of his hand drifted heavy and rich under a bush spotted with red berries.

  But there’s nothing else on the map, David said, plucking a berry and sniffing it, then flicking it away. He had no idea what might be poisonous here.

  He looked around, nothing but trees and low bushes as far as he could see, a drowsy pall falling over the forest.

  No notes or clues.

  And no idea if we’re even looking in the right place. David thought of what the captain had said about the magus’s calculations. One degree off and they would be searching miles from where they should be.

  We should get back, Matt said, at almost the same moment that David noticed the thickening of the shadows.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, and as he turned he whacked his stick into the berry bush.

  The undergrowth exploded with a mighty roar, a blur of brown fur and claws, of teeth and muscle suddenly towering above him, mouth open, teeth bared and dripping.

  David stumbled backwards and fell onto his back as the bear loomed over him. It roared again, its paws waving, claws glinting in the half-light. The bear reeked of feral wildness, a rank, musky odour that David feared would be the last thing he ever smelled.

  I walked the dozen or so blocks back to my hotel in a daze. The sidewalks were packed with the afternoon rush, but I seemed to drift between people, allowing the force of the crowd to buoy me along, my thoughts still racing from my telephone call with Nora.

  “What if Pilbream volunteered?”

  I hadn’t been able to say anything for several seconds after she’d spoken the words.

  “You said that in real life he was one of their most devoted servants. Involved in their rituals.”

  “Yes.” My mouth suddenly dry and sticky.

  “What if Took placed him, deliberately, into the world of the book? Someone to look after his interests in the world that the spell had created? A way of making sure that the children trapped there, no matter the amount of free will they might have, couldn’t interfere with the effects of the spell?”

  I shook my head. Everything she was saying made sense. Too much sense. “That’s a horrible thing to do to your most devoted servant.”

  “Maybe there’s something more concrete in it for him, some tangible benefit. It’s impossible to tell without knowing the full effect, the full aim of the spell itself.”

  The thought of Pilbream catatonic in a private hospital haunted me as I drifted back to the hotel. How long had he lived, in that mindless, soulless state?

  Back in my room I flopped into the easy chair, closing my eyes.

  Until my telephone conversation with Nora and Sarah, a small part of me had still believed that David’s enchantment must have been a mistake—after all, what sort of person would you have to be to cripple an innocent child?

  But now I could see clearly the depths of Took’s depravity. Did he just hate children that much?

  “Concentrate on the lexicon, Chris,” Nora had said.

  One day to do it.

  One day to save my son.

  David tried to scramble away from the bear, but with his every move back the bear would take a tottering, uneasy step on its hind legs and tower above him again. David watched the animal’s chest—when it dropped to all fours, he would be trapped by those paws. The last thing he would feel would be the weight of the bear crushing him, or the crunch as those fangs ripped into his skull.

  The bear roared again, shifted its weight, and David braced himself.

  But the roar turned into a surprised and pained squeal. The bear twisted its neck, trying to see what was happening behind it, but it didn’t seem to be able to turn, to move. It bellowed again in frustration, shaking its head vigorously from side to side.

  David saw his chance and scurried away, down the path.

  Some distance away, he stoppe
d and glanced back. He couldn’t believe what he saw.

  The bear was being lifted above the earth, its hind feet kicking fruitlessly. It flailed back and forth, trying to determine what was happening.

  As the bear rose, David could see the magus standing emerging from the bush behind it, one hand holding the medallion around his neck, the other arm extended toward the bear, fingers curled as if clutching it by the scruff of the neck.

  He’s picking it up, Matt said in a hushed, awed voice, like it’s a kitten.

  David could almost see the energy flowing across the clearing, from the magus’s outstretched hand to the bear’s thrashing body. The magus flicked his wrist, and just like that the bear flew through the forest, crashing into a tree with another shriek of pain.

  David waited, breathless, for the bear to attack again, but it lay there crumpled for almost a minute. When it finally stood up, it lumbered away into the woods.

  Loren walked over to where David was still shaking on the ground.

  Oh shit, Matt muttered, and David agreed. They were in the deep woods, far from the camp, alone with the magus. He wanted to run, but he could only cower.

  “Are you hurt?” the old man asked, touching him lightly on the shoulder.

  David shook his head, unable to speak.

  “You should stay closer to the camp. There are dangers in these parts.”

  There were only a couple of empty stools at the hotel bar when I sat down. The redheaded bartender smiled.

  “The usual?” she asked.

  “I find it disturbing that I’ve been in the city less than seventy-two hours and I’ve already got a usual,” I said.

  “That’s never a good sign,” someone a couple of stools over said. Marci, a highball glass in front of her.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Are you afraid I’m going to bite?” she asked, looking pointedly at the empty stool between us.

  I slid over. “So how was your day?”

  “Productive. Had a meeting this morning, then lunch with some Japanese investors. A very long lunch.” She stretched out the adjective. “They do like their Scotch, those Japanese investors. And their steaks.”