The Book of Blood and Shadow (9 page)

17

The Voynich manuscript surfaced in 1912 and has since foiled a century’s worth of historians, linguists, and cryptographers, driving at least one of them insane. Its 240 pages are filled with a language of twenty to thirty distinct glyphs, seemingly a random ordering of meaningless ink marks designed to befuddle and
humiliate readers, but linguistic analysis strongly suggests that the symbols form a language—possibly one that’s yet to be discovered.

Some believe the Voynich manuscript to be a hoax, cooked up in the twentieth century, though carbon dating pushes its origin to the 1400s. The Hoff suspected it was even older than that. He was a traditionalist, as Voynich speculators went, adhering to a theory most had given up for dead. He believed that the demented alchemist Edward Kelley had owned the book but that Roger Bacon, a thirteenth-century friar, philosopher, scholar, and mystic, had written it. The letters were beginning to vindicate him. Kelley referred to a book, written by Bacon in the language of God, and Elizabeth seemed to suggest that—whether thanks to the intercession of his angelic overseers or an epileptic seizure or simply a genius for defrauding gullible acolytes—he had cracked the code and transcribed its holy secrets.

Now we had proof.

18

For a few moments we thought the Hoff might actually pop a coronary, but gradually the red leached out of his face and he stopped ranting about how he would show them all and get out of this hellhole and die at Harvard, where he belonged. When he finally acknowledged our presence, it was only to order us into indentured servitude; naptime was over. “If we work morning, noon, and night, we just
might
be ready with a full translation by the next American Historical Association conference,” he told Chris and Max. When they stammered something about classes and homework and, not incidentally, having a life, he made a noise like a deflating tire. “We’re talking about the pursuit of
knowledge
,” he told them. “This could change the world. This
could be your
legacy
. And you’re worried about some multiplication tables?”

Chris cleared his throat. “Actually, it’s multivariable calculus with—”

“It’s useless.” The Hoff snorted. “Young man, no one else is going to tell you the truth, so allow me. Your education is a joke. Your classes lack quality and depth, and even if you were learning from the Athenian masters themselves, do you really think the world needs yet another term paper on the themes of protofeminist rage in
Macbeth
or the structural causes of World War I? It’s busywork, son. It’s a scam to trade your tuition money for a piece of paper that will let you go work at a bank or some
company
for the rest of your life, pretending that because you once read Plato, you can call yourself an educated man.” He grazed his fingers along Elizabeth’s secret pages, then pointed to the door. “That, out there, is a facsimile of knowledge.
This
is real. The choice is yours, of course. I assume you’re not the only student capable of translation work, though in this godforsaken place, one can never be sure.”

Chris looked helplessly at Max, who only had eyes for the Hoff. “We’ll do what we can,” he said, steady.

The Hoff nodded. “And you,” he said.

Me.

“You have school, of course, and I suspect I don’t need to lecture you about what a waste
that
sand trap of bureaucracy and busywork will turn out to be, but your obligations are your obligations, nonetheless. However, I expect that while you’re here—”

“Actually,” I said, my voice smaller than I would have liked, “I was thinking that maybe I could stick with the Elizabeth letters. For a while. If that’s all right.”

His bushy eyebrows nearly receded to his distant hairline. I couldn’t blame him. Here was my chance to do something that
actually
mattered
, and I was going to pass it up for some wannabe poet’s cryptic teen angst?

I was.

The Hoff was nodding. “Yes. Yes, yes. Who knows what else may be hidden in those letters? You follow your instincts, Nora. You’re the miracle worker.”

I hadn’t even been sure he knew my first name.

“You have changed history,” he said. “Better, you’ve
revealed
history. Your Elizabeth translations will no doubt be worthy of publication, perhaps even a small volume of their own. So yes, keep at it.”

And then, in awkward slow motion, he opened his arms and lurched toward me. Before I had a chance to back away, he had folded himself around me, his sandpaper skin pressed to my cheek. I held myself stiff, enduring.

“Gratias tibi ago,”
he said.
Thank you
. “Everything will be different now.”

“You’re welcome,” I mumbled, and waited for it to be over.

19

“Okay, I’m here.” Adriane flounced into the church with two pizza boxes and a bottle of vodka. “Now who wants to tell me why? Because giant crosses and creepy statues of the Virgin Mary do not a celebration make.”

“They do when it’s the scene of our triumph.” Chris swung her off her feet and twirled her around, pizza, vodka, and all. “Ever dreamed of kissing a world-famous historian? Pucker up.”

Adriane twisted out of his grasp. “As far as world-famous goes, I’ve got my hopes set on rock star. Or maybe astronaut.” She set the celebratory provisions down in an empty pew. “Explanation? Anyone?”

“We made a brilliant discovery,” Chris said.

“Nora made a discovery,” Max said.

Adriane arched an eyebrow. “Dead-girl porn? I knew it!”

“Ignore her,” I said quickly, catching the look on Max’s face. “She can’t help herself. It’s a disease.”

“Gutterminditis,” Adriane said. “If you want to use the technical Latin term. As I know you do.”

The sanctuary, which had seemed foreboding in the pitch black, glowed in the soft light of the overhead candelabras, bright enough to illuminate sculpted stone angels swirling around the pillars and golden candles ringing the altar, dim enough to disguise peeling paint, splintered wood, rust and corrosion and decay. It wasn’t the most appropriate spot for a victory party, but when Chris had one of what he termed his brain monsoons, he was nearly impossible to resist. The Hoff was long gone, off to dream of academic glory or librarian torture or whatever enlivened his fantasies—he’d left us to celebrate our triumph with “an exuberance commensurate with your youth.”

We scavenged the pizza, downed the vodka—or at least Chris, Adriane, and Max did, while I weathered their mockery and stuck to water, arguing that, as resident “miracle worker,” it was probably part of my job description to stay pure—and speculated wildly about the shining futures we might have just ensured for ourselves. Chris foresaw a glowing recommendation for law school three years hence, paving the yellow-brick road all the way to the Supreme Court; I just wanted to make sure I got out of Chapman and into college, useless facsimile of knowledge or not; Adriane, unpersuaded that any of this was a deal big enough for ten-dollar pizza, much less a night of drunken blue-skying, was nonetheless set to write, produce, and costume our inevitable television appearance (albeit presumably on PBS); Max was silent.

“Now can we get out of here and celebrate for real?” Adriane asked once the food and drink were gone.

Chris leapt off his pew and grabbed her hand. “Not until I have my way with you, fair lady.”

“Your way isn’t exactly churchly,” Adriane pointed out. But she held on as he danced her around the nave in a left-footed waltz, whirling with clownish grace.

Max and I watched.

“ ‘I found that ivory image there, dancing with her chosen youth,’ ” Max said. Then, realizing that I was staring at him, he blushed. “It’s a poem. Yeats.”

“I know.”

He looked surprised. “Really?”

Of course not really—the only poetry I knew by heart was the first and last stanzas of T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and that only because we’d been forced to memorize them for sophomore English—but I didn’t like that shocked expression, as if it were so out of the question I’d know a random Yeats line off the top of my head. I wondered if he’d been trying to impress me, then dismissed the idea. Max didn’t strike me as the type to make the effort.

Then again, neither was I.

“ ‘We have lingered in the chambers of the sea. By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown,’ ” I quoted, though it bore no relevance to anything, even in the loosest of poetically metaphorical terms. “Eliot.”

“ ‘Till human voices wake us, and we drown.’ ” It was the next line.

“Are we competing now?” I asked. “Over who knows more poetry by heart? Because if so, this is officially the geekiest conversation of my life.”

He tensed, and another red flush crept across his face.

“Joking,” I assured him. “Remember, I’m the funny one?”

We fell silent again and watched them dance. Chris lurched about with the best of intentions and a congenital lack of rhythm, but Adriane—physically incapable of an awkward move—twirled and dipped like a Disney princess at the ball, absent only shimmering gown and diamond tiara. “She’s beautiful. Don’t you think?”

Max shrugged.

“She inspired you to poetry,” I pointed out.

“So do spotted toads. And the occasional well-barbecued steak. Beauty’s not really a necessary criterion.”

“Spotted
toads
? You recite poetry to toads?”

Max stood abruptly and reached out his hand. “Let’s take a walk.”

I glanced at Chris and Adriane, who had dispensed with the ballroom theatrics and were swaying slowly back and forth, closing in on the very unchurchly inevitable.

“Let’s.” I grabbed his hand. Wheelbarrow or not, sometimes three was an ugly number.

Without discussion, Max led me up the narrow spiral staircase that rose to the church quire. It was a shallow balcony overlooking the nave, complete with choir risers and a dying pipe organ. “I’ve never been up here,” I said, leaning against the balcony and watching Chris and Adriane sway and spin beneath us. The wooden rail creaked with my weight, sign enough to step back and forget the rituals of seduction playing out below.

“I come a lot,” Max said. “I like the way things look from up here. Small.”

There was a sudden draft, and I shivered in the blast of frigid air.

“Cold?” Max inched closer, hand on the lapel of his blazer, as if he wanted to offer it but couldn’t quite muster the nerve. He almost always wore a blazer, khaki in the early fall, corduroy now in the encroaching cold. It wasn’t an unusual uniform amid the New England tweediness of the Chapman quad, but I liked the way Max pulled it off, pairing his jackets with faded vintage T-shirts that looked—as opposed to the crisply colored ironic tees paraded by the occasional out-of-place hipster—genuinely bedraggled, as if they had been plucked from the pile of dirty laundry in his childhood bedroom.

“I like this,” I said, pinching the thin cotton of his faded Simpsons T-shirt and tugging it toward me. Then, though I’d never thought of doing anything like it before and didn’t technically
think
of it at all, not in any way that constituted conscious thought as opposed to reflexive, unmotivated, utterly irrational action, I kissed him.

He let me. For a few seconds—then he pulled back and adjusted his glasses, looking at me like I was a puppy who’d just performed a particularly complicated dance step, then peed on his leg.

I wanted to die.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Why’d you do that?”

Because I’d wanted to kiss someone. Because my two best friends were best friends with each other, a seamless unit who probably spent the majority of their time together waiting for me to go away. Because his eyes were brown in one light and green in another, magnetic in both. Because I’d worked a miracle—or maybe because I’d done so only by imagining I was someone else, someone intrepid and intense and long dead, and I wasn’t quite ready to go back to being me. “I don’t know.”

He laughed. Now I wanted to kill him—
then
die.

“That’s a terrible reason,” he said.

“Yeah? You’ve got a better one?”

He leaned forward. He cupped his hands around my face, one warm hand over each cheek. He kissed me.

“Because I wanted to,” he said when he let go. “That would have sufficed.”

20

We kissed only once more that night, on the steps of the church before he went in one direction and I went in the other. And yes, I lay awake half the night replaying the details in my mind, imagining I could still feel his hands on my face, my neck, the curve of my hip, his fingers entwined in mine, his lips, and the way that, for a few seconds, it felt like we were breathing together. I replayed the goodbye, the awkward moment beneath the streetlight, our breath white puffs disappearing into the night, him not asking me back to his dorm room, me babbling something inane about being able to use my father’s car when I asked nicely but sometimes preferring my bike and sometimes not, and then one final, feathery peck on the cheek, the soft touch of my gloved fingers against his. I woke up convinced that if it hadn’t been a dream, it had been an aberration, and not only had I guilted him into a pity kiss—
Max
, of all people, a
college
guy, and, more to the point, a college guy who’d never shown any romantic inclinations in my direction—but there was no way I’d be able to return to the Hoff’s office. It would be torture, pretending to translate while I wondered whether Max was staring at me, and what kind of pitying, mocking thoughts were running through his head as he did. Or worse, realize that he wasn’t staring, because he couldn’t care less.

Suffice it to say, I wasn’t expecting a happy ending, any more than I was expecting my phone to buzz with an incoming text. From him:

Thinking about you
.

21

Max had a half-moon of freckles on his left shoulder.

Max was nearly as bad at getting jokes as he was at making them, but he was ticklish, especially on the bottom of his right foot, and when he laughed, his face turned pink.