Ren looked at Tau, studying his eyes. She took them in for a long time, wondering if they could be read the same way as the other eyes she’d seen through her life.
“Who told you about the journal?”
He shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know. They wore hoods.” Joe let out a skeptical sound. “If I knew, I’d tell you. What choice do I have at this point?” His eyes glistening as he tried to blink it away.
Ren motioned to Joe. She took her by the elbow and they stepped away from Tau, hoping they were out of earshot.
“Ren, I don’t like where you’re going with this. Helping him sounds dangerous.”
“So does letting him loose and hoping he doesn’t come back.”
Joe nodded as she grabbed a fistful of hair, hoping to shake loose the anxiety that was building. “Fine. So what’s the plan?”
“We help him however we can. But the journal doesn’t leave this house.” The moment she said it, she heard the chair creak behind them and she knew his hearing was better than average.
“What? No, you have to!”
She spun and put up her hands. “We can’t. And you know why. Whatever is in this journal, there is no way we can just hand it over.”
Tau stammered, Ren closing the gap. “If they kidnapped your sister, where do they draw the line?”
“But Panya, she can’t just –“
“She won’t. We’ll find a way to help her.”
He looked up, his eyes glittering – partly in sorrow, but partly in hope.
**
Tau huffed as he dragged another large box, putting it on a growing stack on the narrowing stairwell. He wiped at the sweat prickling on his brow and moved to grab another box they had pushed toward the opening. He was mesmerized as he watched them work, moving tirelessly as they pulled down one box after the next, poring over the contents and – with unexpected regularity – forcing down the lid with a huff and a grunt of frustration. Each box was shoved away with the same animosity and rejection, making a train wreck configuration leading up to the doorway where Tau stood now. He looked on, a sense of self-consciousness clinging to him and he realized his energy was starting to wane and these girls showed no signs of slowing. In fact, they looked like they were settling into their stride. Joe pulled another box down, dropping it between them as Ren grabbed the lid and looked at the manifest. For the umpteenth time, Ren read the contents of the manifest while Joe picked through, sorting between books that might be of use and those that would be no help.
“Wizard of Oz?” Ren looked over the top of the list with curiosity as Joe moved a couple books and pulled out a large novel wrapped in plastic. She turned it over in her hands and whistled her approval. It was weathered, but the pages still looked healthy, as did the binding.
“Looks like an early edition.” She set it to the side gently with the other items of disinterest. “Next.”
“Three books by Winston Churchill.” Her eyes widened, flicking between Joe’s search and the rest of the list.
Joe held one, furrowing her brow as she shifted books from one pile to the next, finally finding a second. “I have two. The other one is probably at the bottom.” She set them aside with the rest and Ren fought the urge to scream blasphemy. Joe made a sound and withdrew a wrapped parcel. “Maybe – no. Not it.”
“What’s that one?”
Joe looked at the letters and recognized Mariel’s hand. “It says ‘Voynich Manuscript, Second Edition.’”
“What?” Ren grabbed the parcel, forgetting for a moment about reverence and stared at the words. “That’s impossible!”
“Not really. You’d be amazed at some of the crap Mariel has stowed away in these rooms.”
“But the Voynich Manuscript is one of a kind…” Ren drifted. She was sitting on a secret that could single-handedly start her career as a historian – and she couldn’t say a word about it. Joe ignored the earth-shattering revelation going on in front of her and retrieved the parcel, placing it on the pile with two Churchills and a Baum.
“Obviously not, because we have one. What’s next?”
**
Night passed in a blur and morning greeted them without ceremony. All three stood on uncertain legs, rocking in an imaginary wind if they stood still for too long. No one had heeded when the call for sleep came. They continued to work, moving and examining boxes until there were none remaining. All the shelves were bare, the walkway crammed with boxes that would eventually need to find their way back inside. For now, they waited, looking out over the common room.
The only time sleep came was when it forced itself upon them. All at once, Ren had been in the middle of lugging out another box when the sensation over took her. She leaned onto the shelf, her knees bracing on a shelf beneath and suddenly she was drifting away. It was warm, soft, and incredibly comfortable – the kind of sleep that could only be better enjoyed if she were awake for it. Wonderful though it was, it was fleeting. She shifted too far to the right and her knees buckled. The sensation of falling was all she needed to bring her back to full alert for a while.
Each of them had moments like that, more than once through the night. By the end of the search, they were limping along. The well-oiled machine of the overnight was a hobbled jalopy today. They had persisted, forcing themselves onward to finish the task. Coming up empty was not something they expected, nor was it something they were ready to handle as frayed and worn down by exhaustion as they were. They had moved to the common room to sit and consider their next move – and passed out again, this time comfortably.
Ren woke to a shuddering in the house. It clattered and vibrated in its place. She heard it ring out three times before her brain finally pulled itself from its sleepy fog. Her eyes opened. Tau was standing in front of Mariel’s office, one tight fist around the knob as he put a firm shoulder to the door, trying to hold to it to soften the impact.
He’s trying not to wake us. I can’t tell if that’s sweet or shady.
She sat up, watching him teeter back before leaning into the door again.
“Ah. Hem.” On any other day, she might have laughed as he jumped, losing the tough exterior and looking like a child caught in the act. “Go ahead: tell me it’s not what it looks like.”
He didn’t reply, but he did let go of the door and step away from it. Ren stood up and wobbled for a second, then took a couple long strides in his direction.
“Did we make a mistake trusting you? Because I can certainly show you the door now.”
He froze, his eyes meeting hers.
“No, please.”
“Didn’t we show you that we were invested yesterday? Was it not clear that we want to help? Because what I see here,” Her eyes flared and he faltered, taking half a step back. “This is either blatant disrespect or outright betrayal.”
“It’s not either.” His shoulders sank; he didn’t bother to meet her eye. “I couldn’t just wait for you to wake up.”
“Yes, you could.”
“Look Ren, I appreciate the help, but every minute wasted I risk my sister –“
He flinched as her arm snapped out to her side. She didn’t move otherwise, didn’t lunge to attack him. She only pointed. But her muscles vibrated with the weight of the world upon them. He looked at where she was pointing: the small ball curled up in the corner of the couch that would at some point unfurl into a full-size Joe.
“I am risking mine every minute I help you.” Her arm snapped back, pointing at him. “If any of this comes back on her…” She couldn’t finish the statement. Her brain reminded her how exhausted she was, her nerves were healing but still frayed. Bad thoughts could become runaway terrors in the wrong frame of mind, which she was certainly in. “Maybe you should leave.”
He looked shocked, as if he might have been prepared for anything to be hurled at him right now except that. He was suddenly alert and apologetic. He turned, following as Ren moved past him, through the kitchen.
“No, wait. Please!” He tried t
o stop himself as she turned around.
“We’ll keep looking, but you can’t stay.”
“But if they come looking for me…”
“Then maybe you can ask them where they saw it last. We’re not hiding it from you, obviously. And we are running out of places to look.”
“But –“
“No.” She guided him to the side entrance, opening the door. “Get us a lead. Anything would help.”
He nodded, begrudgingly moving toward the door. He paused on the stoop as he passed through the threshold.
“Come back tomorrow. And cross your fingers that we come across something in your absence.”
He half smiled over his shoulder. “I will.”
Ren closed the door, twisting the lock. She stepped back into the kitchen, grabbing a bag of sliced deli pepperoni from the fridge as she stared out the window, watching him move across the lawn. She followed his movements from window to window, watching as he shuffled slowly. He didn’t pause or look back, but he certainly took his time making his way off the property. It was that moment, as he was about to vanish out of sight, that Ren got an idea. It was as stupid as it was brilliant, but she needed to act fast.
She tossed the bag of lunchmeat onto the coffee table and lunged onto the couch. The ball in the corner barely stirred, even when Ren grabbed it with both hands.
“Joe, listen, I need to hurry.” There was a grunt and a growl in reply. She growled in response and grabbed a marker from the table. In a hurried scrawl, she left a message on Joe’s arm, certain the girl would find it when she woke – she almost had to.
Chasing Tau. Back soon.
I hope. She wanted to add, but knew the panic it would cause. All the same, she swallowed hard and looked at the windows again. She grabbed a jacket as she sprinted through the rooms, slipping out the door and trying to catch his trail before it went cold.
**
Ren darted carefully across the neighborhood lawns as she moved down the block. She had lost sight of Tau, and had no idea if she was catching up to him or not. She darted through bushes and behind trees, trying to stay behind cover as she attempted to catch up. The morning light was growing, but the sun had not yet climbed over the horizon. She lost track of how far she’d traveled, but suddenly the foliage simply vanished. Just as the neighborhood gave way to the shopping district to the south, to the north it ended in the blight of industry.
Abandoned garages, enormous industrial machines and barren, broken concrete sprawled before her, contained safely behind rusty barbed fences. She looked in all directions but could see no trail to follow and no leads. She had lost him, but she was certain he headed in this direction. The area seemed a far cry from civilization. It would be a good hiding place for someone resourceful – a thief, or perhaps a den of them.
She continued on, following the broken sidewalk and feeling like she stepped out of reality and into some dystopian fantasy. All she was missing now was some sort of nihilistic army to hunt her and the picture would be complete.
Shut up, brain. The last thing we want is a robot army hunting us.
Maybe it was paranoia, but she felt like she was already being hunted. From the moment she had stepped out into the open, the eyes had been on her. Of course, she hadn’t seen them, which is why she was discounting it as paranoia. She reminded herself that paranoia did not necessarily mean she was wrong.
Rocks tumbled beyond the fence, making her jump. She snapped her head around, but saw nothing. She didn’t even see the rocks; still she stared wide-eyed, hoping to catch a glimpse of… someone? Something? She strafed down the fence line, looking inward. There was, as far as she could tell, no life in the industrial park. But there were plenty of hiding places. There were more than enough hills to duck behind, plenty of machines to conceal within. And there appeared to be a large warehouse beyond the piles of stone and silt. It was mostly obscured, and Ren decided it was best not to linger on it; there would definitely be another opportunity to look into it.
She looked around again, slowly turning and heading back to civilization. Every now and again, she would be tempted, but decided it was better not to look over her shoulder. If anything were going to get the drop on her, she would rather not know.
When she was obscured by the neighborhood again, Tau stepped out of his hiding place. It hadn’t been much of one, but he hadn’t had much time. Ren was light on her feet – and fast. He had underestimated her once already, and it had gotten him caught. Then, she had almost gotten the drop on him here – completely inexcusable. He had ducked behind an abandoned garage across from the quarry and held his breath. Fortunately, it appeared that Ren had overestimated his skills – she was heavily focused on the quarry itself, even with its tall fence. She had almost started looking elsewhere when he threw the rock over her head into the debris. It hadn’t been much of a clatter, but it was enough to pull her focus. He wasn’t sure what to do beyond that – he knew he couldn’t sneak up on her out in the open. There were only so many times he could distract her before she caught wise. He crouched low and waited, watching. He had expected her to search more, maybe try to find a way into the quarry – that would have been very bad. But just when he expected things to get worse for him, she turned and left.
For a moment, he just waited, certain she was going to turn back and look over her shoulder. He continued watching until she was out of sight. Even then it wasn’t safe, but he had a powerful head start. He kept an eye on the tree line as he moved across the street and along the fence. He found the break in the fence line and slipped through it, scrambling into the obscurity of the quarry, making his way to the warehouse where he could check in and decide on the next course of action.
TEN
Joe saw the message some time after waking. If she had been worried when she woke up and found that neither Ren nor Tau were around, she could only call this current sensation panic. Her nerves frayed as she worried a path into the carpets and hardwoods, wandering the halls of the manor house in anything but a patient fashion.
It seemed like such a simple task: just wait around until Ren got back. The problem in Joe’s brain was that she had no idea when Ren would be returning, what condition she’d be returning in, or what kind of chaos would befall the house before she returned. It had not been a great week for the Delaneys so far. Joe wasn’t even sure what Mariel and Colette were up to, but she was certain that it couldn’t be good news that dragged them away so abruptly, so that was one more worry on the brain. Embracing the panic of waking up alone in the middle of a crisis, she had tried both Colette and then Mariel’s cell phones – to no avail. She tried to shake it off. Clearly they were still sleeping. A voice mail would only panic them. She could try again later.
In her worry and wonder, Joe had ensured that all doors and windows were locked and found her way back into the common room, staring at the wall of shelves and all of the books it housed. She often found herself here when she was aimless. She thought it was partly because it was the common room – the central hub of life in the house, but the other part was that, whether she enjoyed reading as much as her sisters, she enjoyed the cross section of history that these shelves held. Old books and new, it was a collection that was ever circulating.
Dusty but immaculate, some books were famous in recent years, others famous for all time, some completely obscure but beautifully crafted. Each a piece of art and history in its own right and as well maintained as the day it was bound. She walked up and down the wall of shelves, dragging gentle fingers along the spines, listening to the sound of her soft pads on leather and cloth spines, feeling the molded spines, the deep insets of names and titles. She closed her eyes as she often did and wandered back along another shelf, making a soft pitter-patter rhythm of fingertips hopping from book to book. And then – cold. She stopped, stepping back and looking with eyes that focused slowly as she turned to the books. She looked again, uncertain what she had touched. It had been hard, ugly. It was not the luxurious sensati
on of any book she knew in the Delaney library. It was an imposter and she could feel its presence creeping in, molesting her sense of calm. She couldn’t see anything out of place, so she hesitantly reached along the shelf, passing fingers over the spines again. She felt along, touching with trepidation. As if the imposter could hurt her physically as well as mentally. Her fingers brushed the hard surface and she retracted quickly. She stared at it, poking it again. Tactile sensation betrayed what she saw with her own eyes. She shifted from side to side, judging it on contrasting angles. It looked just like any one of its compatriots on the shelf, exactly like them.
But one of these things is not like the other.
She sneered at the imposter and grabbed at its spine. She tried to pull it from the shelf but it would not budge. She tapped her knuckles on it and heard the solid thud as she connected. Gently, carefully, she removed its neighbors, finding that they relocated without issue.
This one definitely does not belong.
She cleared the shelf and thunked it again. It held firm to its place on the shelf. She tried to shift it, push it, and pull it, all with the same result. It seemed, somehow, to be connected directly to the shelf it rested on. She placed fingers on each of its false and uncomfortable covers, pressing and lifting directly. It gave slightly before catching, but there was definitely a space beneath it now. She screwed up her face in concentration as she wiggled the phony hardcover again. Her concentration gave way to clenched teeth, wiggling and pushing, feeling the tension appear in her muscles. All at once, the charlatan popped loose, knocking against the shelf above and getting loose from Joe’s grip, clattering loudly on the empty shelf. She pulled her hand away with surprise, not sure what she expected to happen as it fell, but not wanting her precious digits anywhere near in the event of catastrophe.
House of Thirteen Page 12
