Book of Souls

IT WAS LATE, and the Great Hall was quiet. Lord Cantwell had struggled to keep up with his granddaughter’s methodical readings, but he finally succumbed to his hearing problems, his age, and his snifter of brandy, and he trundled off to bed with a request for an accounting in the morning, when he was fresh.

Late into the night, accompanied by the background music of the crackling and popping fire, Isabelle slowly translated the abbot’s letter. Will listened impassively as missing pieces of the Library’s story fell into place. Despite the fantastic content of the letter, he wasn’t shocked. He knew that the Library existed-that much was a fact, and its very existence implied a fantastic explanation. Now he had one that was no more fanciful than any he’d contemplated since the day Mark Shackleton dropped the bomb on him.

As Isabelle spoke, he tried to form a mental image of Octavus and his spawn, pale, spindly savants who lived their lives hunched over parchments in a chamber hardly more illuminated than this Great Hall. He wondered, did they have any inkling what they were creating? Or why? He studied Isabelle’s face as she read, imagining what she was thinking and what he would tell her when she was done. He steeled himself for the punch line: was he about to learn the significance of 2027?

She read the last sentence: At the age of twelve years she was cast out and given to the grain merchant, Gassonet the Jew who took her away from the island and did with her I know not what. She looked up at him, blinking her dry eyes.

“What?” he asked. “Why are you stopping?”

“That’s it.”

“What do you mean, that’s it?”

She answered in frustration. “There is no more!”

He swore. “The other clues. They’re making us work for it.”

Then she said simply, “Our book. It’s from that Library, isn’t it?”

He thought about stonewalling her but what was the point? For better or worse she’d become an insider. So he answered by nodding.

She put the letter down and got up. “I need a drink.” There was a liquor cabinet in a sideboard. He heard the tinkling of bottles bumping each other and watched the curve of her back arching gracefully like a musical clef. When she turned to him, there was a bottle of scotch in her hand. “Join me?”

It wasn’t his brand, but still, he could almost taste the warm, mellow sting. He’d gone a long time without and was proud of that. He was a better person for it, no doubt, and his family was better for it too. The Great Hall was hazy with particulate matter from the balky fireplace. Windowless and cut off from the outside, it was a sensory isolation chamber. He was tired, jet-lagged and off-kilter in unfamiliar surroundings. From the shadows, a beautiful young woman was waving a bottle of scotch at him.

“Yeah. Why not?”

In half an hour the bottle was half-empty. They were both drinking it neat. Will loved every mouthful, every swallow and with each one, the pleasantly rising tide of disinhibition.

She leaned on him for answers. She was a good interrogator, he had to admit. But he wasn’t going to just give it up. She’d have to work for it, ask the right questions, work past his balkiness. Plead. Cajole. Threaten. He was peppered: “Then what happened? There’s got to be more to it than that. What were you thinking? Please, go on, you’re holding back. If you don’t tell me everything, Will, I won’t help you with the rest of the poem.”

He realized he was taking a risk by opening the tent flaps and letting her inside. It was dangerous for him and dangerous for her but, damn it, she already knew more about the origins of the Library than anyone in Nevada or Washington. So he swore her to secrecy, the kind of oath solemnly taken by those with full glasses in their hands. Then he told her about the postcards. The “murders.” The Doomsday case. How the killings didn’t fit together. The frustrations. His partner who would become his wife. The breakthrough, shining a light on a man he knew, his college roommate, a pathetic computer genius who worked deep underground in a secret government base at Area 51. The Library. Government data mining. Shackleton’s financial scheme with Desert Life Insurance Company. The watchers. Becoming a fugitive. The final act, played out in a hotel suite in Los Angeles, which left Shackleton with a bullet in his brain. The hidden database. His deal with the feds. Henry Spence. Twenty twenty-seven.

He was done. He’d told her everything. The fire was dying, and the room had become even darker. After a long silence, she finally said, “Quite a lot to take in.” Then she poured herself another half inch of scotch, and mumbled, “That’s my limit. What’s yours?”