The Ghost Manuscript

by Kris Frieswick

  “Who’s that?” asked Harper.

  “My boss at Sothington’s,” said Carys. “The one who blackmailed JJ. Can’t imagine what he’s got to say to me.”

  “You don’t have to worry about him or that job anymore,” said Harper.

  She smiled. She’d almost forgotten that the library was part of the original deal.

  “Have you been to the doctor yet?” he asked her quietly.

  “No. I haven’t had time. This seemed more important.”

  “You need to do that,” said Harper.

  “The pain has mostly gone away. I don’t think I was exposed long enough to do serious damage anyway.”

  Harper continued to watch the side of her face, and broke off his gaze only when she turned and faced him.

  It took them an hour and a half to get from Wellesley to the Sagamore Bridge and onto Route 6A, which wound through sparse scrub and pine forests along the northern coast of Cape Cod, skirting around the lakes, rivers, inlets, and salt marshes that dominated the landscape. The road had been in use nearly continuously since the 1600s, when, according to conventional history, white men first arrived on the Cape, a peninsula of Massachusetts that resembles a flexed arm. But the Morfran manuscript had just shattered that piece of American lore.

  Carys had loved coming to the Cape with her parents when she was little. Her favorite memory from those trips was of spending entire days with her father watching the horseshoe crabs in the marshes near the house they always rented in the town of Dennis. She thought they were little monsters. Her father said they were the oldest inhabitants of the Cape, dating back before there were men here. Had Madoc Morfran gazed at these little creatures, with their front-mounted spike, so like a sword, and their hard, shield-shaped carapace, and seen in them an omen?

  The view, the sun, the memories lulled her, but behind it all lurked the knowledge that somewhere, someone was still after them.

  The Colonial Inn was the definition of Cape Cod quaint. It was a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old, rambling colonial-era farmhouse, sitting in a copse on the edge of a large pond. It was the only inn in Barnstable with Wi-Fi and three vacancies. Carys didn’t feel comfortable sharing a room with Dafydd with Harper there. She didn’t want to give him any more reasons to question her decision to bring him along.

  They lugged their bags in and greeted the young innkeeper, who informed them that she and her husband had taken over the B&B the year before and were hoping to have a better summer than they’d had last year. There was talk of a broken furnace and mice in the attic, all rectified, and breakfast in the dining room from seven to ten. Harper, who was used to ignoring service people, interrupted her as she was about to describe their famous French toast.

  “Can you show us to our rooms right away?” he asked. “We’ve got some work we’ve got to get done.”

  “On such a beautiful day?” protested the innkeeper. “That’s such a shame. Sandy Neck is right around the corner. Five-minute drive. It’s one of the most beautiful beaches in the area. You should—”

  “We really need to get started,” said Carys. The young woman looked crestfallen. She quietly retreated to the kitchen and returned with three sets of keys.

  “Follow me,” she said.

  Once Carys dropped her luggage in her own room, she went to Harper’s, which, like hers, resembled a page out of Victorian Homes magazine. Nearly every surface was covered with blue chintz, and there were so many pillows piled up on the bed that she wasn’t sure which end was the head. Harper had settled into a wingback chair by long windows overlooking the back garden. She sat in the other wingback. The garden was in full, glorious bloom. The last of the peonies were wrestling with a tangle of new red tiger lilies and the green leaves of the hydrangea bushes were just beginning to sprout from the remnants of the previous year’s plants.

  They didn’t speak a word for a long time. Harper was about to say something when there was a light knock and Dafydd pushed open the door. He instantly began grinning at the decor.

  “It looks like my grandmother threw up in here,” he said. He shoved some of the pillows over and sat at the end of the bed facing them. “What’s the plan?”

  “The meeting,” she said to Harper. “How should we play it?”

  “First of all, I don’t think Dafydd should join us,” said Harper. She began to speak but Harper raised his hand. “Hear me out. Three people against one will immediately put her back up against the wall. We need her to cooperate, and I think three will just be too intimidating.”

  He was right. She turned to Dafydd.

  “You’ll have to find something to do for an hour or two,” she said.

  Dafydd looked like he was going to put up a fight, then shook his head. She smiled and Dafydd winked at her. The briefest of scowls crossed Harper’s face.

  ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

  They had an hour before their meeting with the sachem, so Carys and Dafydd left Harper’s room. They stood in the hallway.

  “You’ll tell me everything, right?” Dafydd asked.

  “Of course,” she said, and kissed him again before breaking free and going inside her room. When she was done unpacking, she went downstairs to meet Harper. He was sitting at a desk in the parlor just off the inn’s main hallway, typing furiously on his laptop.

  Harper’s eyes popped up at her for a second as she entered.

  “Come look at this,” he said. She walked to his side and peered over his shoulder. He was examining a map of what looked like Sandy Neck. There were little X’s drawn on it, clustered at various places along the Neck, each one accompanied by a handwritten date range.

  “Those X’s are the aboriginal burial sites that Grant was talking about,” said Harper. “Sandy Neck has been an archaeological dig site for centuries. They’ve been finding aboriginal artifacts there almost since the Europeans arrived. The sites get younger and younger as you go east along the Neck.” He pointed at the dates next to the X clusters. The first site seemed to be two thousand years old; the second, fifteen hundred; the third, around five hundred, and so on. “They carbon-dated these sites, and they also inventoried what they found. Guess what they found in this cluster of sites from fifteen hundred years ago?”

  “Beach plum seeds, cranberry seeds, and wampum?”

  “Bingo,” he said. “The section with the oldest burial mounds is also the widest part of the Neck. Not much erosion or sand-shifting there. But lots as you go farther east.” He clicked on a second window on his browser, and up popped a satellite image of Sandy Neck.

  “The area of the dig site dating to the Dark Ages is virtually the same as the day those graves were dug,” he said. “But who knows how many younger sites have been buried beyond discovery or washed away by storms farther down the Neck.”

  “That reduces the search area,” she said. “Can we just go out there and start using that giant vacuum cleaner thingy or a metal detector?”

  “No,” said Harper. “We’re still talking about dozens of acres that need to be searched, most of it sand dunes. It would take us months, if we could even get permission from the authorities to tramp around in those dunes. They’re all considered sensitive environmental areas. But at least we know he’s there. We know the place that he was buried could not have been eroded away—although he may be buried under half a mile of sand by now. We know that it’s not a wild goose chase. He and whatever was buried with him are still there, waiting for us to find him.”

  “Unless someone already dug it up,” she said.

  “Carys,” he said. “I told you before. If someone already found that burial site, I would have heard about it.”

  “Someone could have dug it up centuries ago. Looters have been around since…” Harper was actively ignoring this possibility, as he had been since the beginning of his search. The chance that someone had gotten to the King long, long ago was the on
ly thing that would render his quest futile.

  She sat down on the chintz-covered sofa. “What do we do now?”

  Harper rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. When he removed them, his age was hard upon his face. He took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, and stretched.

  “I, for one, could use a nap,” he said. “It’s been a long few days.”

  She smiled.

  “The service and the brunch for Nicola were really beautiful,” she said. “She would have loved it.”

  He stared off into a far-away place.

  “I can’t believe she’s gone,” he finally said. “I keep wanting to pick up the phone and call her and tell her what’s happening. She’d be so excited. All these years we worked on the translation. It is as much her find as mine and yours, you know. I could not have done it without her.”

  “I know,” she said. “And she went to her grave to protect what you’d done together. You can never blame yourself for that.”

  Harper’s eyes snapped onto Carys’s and turned razor sharp.

  “I want you to know that when this is over, I will make good on my promise to give you the manuscript and the library,” he said. “I’ve already drawn up the documents and had them notarized. It’s all legal. Every single thing in the library will be yours, to do whatever you want with. Remember our deal: I get credit for the find; you get everything else.”

  “Of course.” She smiled. “And I can run my new business from your library, right?”

  Harper’s eyes continued to bore through her.

  “I’ll be selling the house when we’re done,” he said. “The books must go with you.”

  “Why on earth would you sell that place?”

  “I won’t need it where I’ll be going,” he said.

  “Which is where, exactly?” she asked, leaning slightly forward.

  “I’m going to find and kill the motherfucker who murdered Nicola,” he said. “This Frank Marshfield asshole. Then I’ll turn myself in. I’ll spend the rest of my life in jail, happily. It’s the only thing I have to offer her.”

  Her body stiffened. “You can’t do that,” she said.

  You very literally cannot, she thought.

  “I can and I will,” he said. “I am looking forward to it almost as much as I am to finding Arcturus.”

  She had stolen his revenge. He’d hate her for that when he found out. The fire in her abdomen flared, and she winced slightly.

  “What’s happening?” Harper asked.

  “Just a little pain in my gut,” she said. “It’s getting better.”

  “You need to start in on the meds they have me on,” said Harper. “Are you still smelling the manuscript?”

  Just then a racket arose as the front door opened and a morbidly obese, middle-aged couple wearing visors, loud Hawaiian print shirts, and knee-length khaki shorts clambered in. They glanced into the parlor, waved half-heartedly at her and Harper, and began their trudge up the stairs to their room, the stairs squeaking in protest. When the tourists had finally waddled their way up to the first landing, she figured they were out of earshot. She turned to Harper and whispered.

  “I haven’t seen Lestinus since I’ve been back in the U.S.,” she said. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “When is the last time you saw him?”

  “The last morning in Aberystwyth,” she said.

  “Maybe he thinks his part is done,” says Harper. “He led you to where he left the King.” Then his expression shifted, and he looked at her long and hard. “What happened in Wales?”

  She knew that he’d get around to asking, and she still didn’t know how she was going to answer. So she didn’t. Harper sat, staring at her, waiting for a response, and she continued to not give it. Finally, he took a long, slow breath, leaned his elbows on the desk, and put his head in his hands.

  ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

  The tribal office of the Mattakeese was located behind the Barnstable County Courthouse in the center of Barnstable Village. Main Street was dotted with clapboard-sided restaurants, a grocery store, real estate offices, a post office, a barber shop, a flower shop—and to the north of the road, immediately behind the stores, was the marsh that rimmed Barnstable Harbor. The deeper back into the harbor you went, the marshier it got, until you hit Great Marsh, which was a bird sanctuary and, according to historians, one of the most primitive marshes in all of the northeast. These were the marshlands referenced in Madoc Morfran’s story.

  The brick and marble courthouse stood at the top of a hill on the south side of Main Street. Behind it was a large parking lot ringed with low office buildings. Carys steered the Range Rover up the short, steep driveway into the parking lot and stopped in front of a nondescript, single-story brick building. Next to its front door was a small white sign with black lettering that read “Tribal Office.” It looked like a dentist’s office.

  The door was already half open, so they walked inside. It looked like a dentist’s office on the inside as well, with beige linoleum floors, a suspended ceiling, and fluorescent lights. There were four laminated wood desks and metal chairs with wheels. The space was sterile, giving no indication of what business was conducted within. There was no one in sight.

  “Hello,” Harper called out.

  “I’m here,” said a woman’s voice. Carys and Harper walked toward it, down a short hallway to another door that was open. They entered what looked like a larger version of Grant’s office. Every wall of the large, windowless room was lined with shelves filled with Native American artifacts. On the right-hand wall as they walked in was a filing cabinet with long, very shallow drawers, like architects use to store their flat drawings.

  Running down the center of the room were three glass cases, like those in a jewelry shop, arranged end to end. At the very back was a small desk, where a middle-aged woman with short-cropped dark-blonde hair and green eyes was seated. She stood up as they entered. She was tall. Almost as tall as Harper.

  “I’m Mary Clark,” she said.

  Carys was about to open her mouth, but Harper spoke first.

  “Sachem Clark,” said Harper as he shook her hand. “It’s our honor to meet you, and thank you so much for meeting with us. We promise we won’t take much of your time.”

  “I’m happy that someone of your reputation is interested in our tribe,” she said. “Doctor Grant said you wanted to know about our origin legends. I’ve compiled some reading material for you.”

  “Thank you for that,” said Harper, accepting the stack of documents and books. Then he placed them on the desk and sat down. Clark looked slightly taken aback. “Can we chat about this material for a few minutes?”

  Carys walked to the first glass case, which was filled with dozens of small arrowheads of various shapes and sizes, some of which exactly resembled the one in the leather pouch from the cave. Her heart rate spiked.

  “Sure,” said Clark, and took her seat again. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

  In the second glass case, hundreds of smooth, highly polished stones were arranged in rows. Some were the size of a hand, others the size of a quarter. Each had a symbol or an image etched into its surface. Some were clearly of animals, birds and deer; some had human figures. Some carried symbols that were geometric, like squares, triangles, circles, and stars.

  “Yes,” said Harper. “We have uncovered some evidence that white Europeans visited this region far, far earlier than current historical records indicate. We were hoping there might be some legend, song, or folktale that memorializes such a visit.”

  “It’s pretty common knowledge that there were visitors to this region who predated Columbus,” said Clark. “They were mostly of Norwegian origin, but none of them stayed very long when they realized we didn’t have gold or anything they considered valuable.”

  At the end
of the second glass case was a series of very small stones, not as highly polished as the others. Carys bent over so her nose was almost touching the glass. The etching on these stones was extremely faint.

  “I’m referring to a much earlier visit,” said Harper.

  “How much earlier?” asked Clark.

  Harper paused. Carys glanced over at the back of his head.

  “About fifteen hundred years ago,” he finally said.

  She looked at Clark’s face to gauge her reaction. There wasn’t one.

  “No,” Clark said. “There’s no history of any visit that far back. The very first and oldest legends involving a visitor tell of our tribe’s great god, Maushop, who was a giant. Our legends say he came to this area and helped the local people learn to farm the sea and cultivate the land for food. He created Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket by pouring sand from his moccasins. But then the Great Spirit Kitanitowit called him home and he walked into the sea, turned into a great white whale, and swam back across the ocean so that we could learn to fend for ourselves.”

  Harper sat silently for a moment.

  Carys looked back down into the glass case. Her eye fell on a single stone, the smallest one. She took a magnifying glass that was lying on the top of the case and leaned over again. On the tiny stone’s face was the very faint etching of a rudimentary human form. The form appeared to be shrouded in some kind of tunic or robe.

  On the front of the robe was carved a circle, quartered by a cross with four arms of equal length.

  Carys stood upright and stared at the wall.

  An ancient Christian cross.

  “What was his name again?” asked Harper. “This giant?”

  “Maushop,” said the sachem.

  “Does he have other names in your legends?”

  “Oh, many, but all are slight variations on that name. It’s a legend we share with several other tribes as well. Ironically, before Maushop left, he warned our people that a new breed of man would visit us and that we should not trust them,” she said. “Obviously, we didn’t pay attention.”