The Book (12 page)

“I’m sorry about the bar, Marion. I know how much that meant to you and your family.”

Marion shrugged off his tenderness and turned to face him. “What have you gotten me into, Holden? I have nowhere to go.”

He frowned and sat on the footstool beside her. “I think I need to take you to the man who started all of this. He may welcome you in, based on the circumstances. His home is large. And he lives far enough away from the city that…you know. I just have to tell work that I’ll be late.”

Unable to deal with such intense emotions and not wanting to appear weak anymore in front of him, Marion turned back to the window and nodded.

By the time Holden walked over to the phone and left a message for Numbskull, Marion had already packed what little she’d brought with and they were soon outside the door to his apartment, sneaking around corners. Thankfully Holden had parked near the back entrance. He assumed they may need to avoid contact with the two other people renting space in the minty-fresh house. Holden opened the rear doors of the van, moved some debris aside and reversed it toward the back entrance. Other than sitting on the last remaining pieces of the bar in black garbage bags, there wasn’t much for Marion, in terms of comfort. But she climbed into the back without complaint and closed the doors.

As Holden turned the key and they drove off toward Wilmette, unseen by the eyes of the public, Marion had already accepted a horrifying truth. For the rest of her life, she would never again step foot within the city limits of Chicago.

And she was right.

* * * * *

012-27248

The cold rain returned, insistent on soaking the Second City. It had been weeks of inclement weather, but finally, along Chicago’s sinful fringe, the clouds were breaking to extend a hand of photosynthetic peace. Marion poked her head out nervously from between the front seats to see the first sliver of blue sky in a lifetime. As they wove the snaking streets of Wilmette, that fragile moment of sunshine brightened her despair. The greens of the trees shone more saturated against the dark gray clouds. The multitude of branches and limbs flickered the light of life onto the glistening ladders and waterlogged windshield of the environmentally-impolite van. Kneeling uncomfortably on the filthy plywood floor, dreading the prospect of hiding away for the rest of her life, Marion was unexpectedly serene. The setting of where she would live now blessed her with a few crumbs of hope.

When the van slowed, Holden pointed toward the large Tudor estate, shocking Marion by its enormity. As they drew near, she could see that the home stepped back an acre from the main road. Pebbles knocked the side of the van as Holden navigated them along the curling path that cut through a pristine yard with trees that speckled the lawn’s thick green blades with intention. To Marion, it was as if the trees were so free that they could uproot and mingle where they pleased, as long as they shaded the leaded glass windows. Holden was already mumbling through the pitch he would deliver to Winston as he parked the van where it had been a day earlier and hopped out.

“Holden,” Marion began, as he wrenched the handle to the rusty side door, “How do you know you can trust this guy?”

He reached out for Marion and eased her gently to the gravel driveway. “I guess….it’s because he trusted me first.” She forced herself to nod in agreement as he dragged the garbage bags from the van. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But I promise I’ll keep you safe.” Holden turned to face her with an assuring grin. “This is much bigger than the both of us. I don’t know what we can do at this point. We need someone with answers.”

“How does he know so much?”

Holden slid the door closed and stared at rain-smattered gravel. “I have no idea.”

They shared an expression of strength and approached the door of the estate, gripping the tightly compacted garbage bags of old book pages. Within moments of their knocking, Winston was at the door, greeting his guests as if he had been waiting for them.

“Holden, I’m glad to see you again. And Marion…” his aged voice seemed to ask, “It’s a pleasure.” He held up his hand as they entered, halting her obvious question, “Yes, I know your name. I
do
own a television.”

“I was going to call. But I…well…”

“I’m certain you have an entertaining story waiting in the wings for me.” Winston closed his gray eyes and nodded. When he opened them again, there was a glint of admiration in them. The man was impressed. Holden had achieved far more than Winston had expected he could, and it gave him hope. “Might I borrow him, dear?”

Marion shrugged and looked to Holden for confirmation. “Yeah, I guess.”

“We’ll only be a moment.”

Winston took Holden by the arm and walked him into the sitting room off the foyer. Winston skidded his walker to a stop beside the piano. “I know why you brought her here, but what do you expect will happen? They will find her. There’s nothing you can do to stop them.”

“I know, but she needs help and it’s my fault. For some reason, you’re the only one in the world who knows anything about this.”

“Let’s hope that’s not true,” Winston whispered, pausing as he glanced back at Marion. She was perched quietly, like a lost puppy – innocent, hungry and wet from the rain. “You have courage Holden, but please tell me you weren’t stupid enough to bring her Book with you.”

“No. We ditched it right away.”

Winston bobbed his boney head, stroked the flock of hair on his chin and took a seat at the piano bench. “I’ve been watching the news all day. It’s too bad that the whole bar burned down. All those innocent pages…”

Marion couldn’t wait by the door another moment. She raced into the room with the two bags and took Winston by the hand, pleading, “I’m sorry. I don’t know you. But I have nowhere else to go and I need to understand why these lies are being spread about me when I’ve done nothing wrong.”

A small giggle escaped the many lines of Winston’s tightened lips as he ignored the bags and gave her his attention. “You have done nothing wrong, my dear. You have done everything right. And, I must say, it would be nice to have a female presence in this house. It has been a long time. And I have many, many rooms for you to choose from. You know…I love gardening,” he added, pointing to a beveled window beyond the dining room. Through the prism of glass, it revealed a breathtaking back yard with rolling foliage and manicured hedges leading off toward Lake Michigan, placid in the drizzling distance. “I never seem to know what to do with the vegetables once their grown. If you’re willing to give them a proper death in the kitchen, slice us up a nice salad now and again, I think we have a deal.”

“Oh, Sir. That would be fantastic.”

“Sir!” the elderly man spat, in mock aggravation. “
Sir
is my father. Call me Winston.”

“Thank you, Winston.”

“So tell me…what do we have here? I must know, because…as you will certainly discover, my patience is rivaled only by my child-like attention span.” Winston inquired, as his gaze traveled to the two garbage bags. Confused but interested, he shuffled his walker to the right and propped himself up dexterously to admire them.

“Hopefully this will grease the pan a bit.”

Winston fondled the many strands of goat hair on his chin. “Am I to assume then that you brought me the neighbor’s refuse in exchange for harboring this woman?” he queried, shooting his right eye up to Holden.

Marion lifted the bag and let it drop to the wood floor, allowing the crinkling sound of leaves to resonate in the piano’s hollow chamber. “This is what’s left.”

As realization set in, the wrinkles on Winston’s face were intensified with sharp definition and his eyebrows stood at attention. He scrambled for the twisted top of the bag and instantly released an exhalation of intense joy, like a child on Christmas morning. “You DO NOT have a page from this book! Oh…my goodness…oh…” He very carefully lifted a single page from the bag and rested it on the polished piano, switching between eyeglasses for a closer look.

Holden used this distraction as an opportunity to escape. He put his arm around Marion and said, “I need to run, but I’ll be back by three. You gonna be alright?” She nodded. “Winston, you have my cell number, right? Winston?”

“Yes…yes…I may be old, but I’m not deaf. We’ll be fine.” He waved Holden away in surprising adolescence while he regained his focus on the page in front of him. His tired eyes were more alive than they had been in years, scanning every letter in obvious delight.

Holden stood at the large oak door, granted Marion a simple grin and left the house. He knew he was leaving her in complete distress, but Numbskull had called on his way to Wilmette and told him to return to a job he had completed a few months earlier. Nothing serious. One of the apprentices would be there to do the work. All Holden had to do was supervise, instruct and switch out a few sprinkler heads. Thankfully, all the materials he needed for the job were in his van and he wouldn’t have to return to the city.

At the end of it all, the work day was much easier than usual. Beyond discovering a single book page in the rear of the van from a story entitled
Jurassic Park
by a man named Michael Crichton, which he quickly stashed into his pocket before the apprentice noticed, the normal drudgery of working in horrible weather was a bit of a relief. Going through the motions of carrying greasy pipe, walking through a busy job site, dealing with clients, eating lunch and feeling the cold surety of his wrench as he tightened sprinkler heads allowed Holden’s heart to slow and his mind to regain function. He was so tired and so tense with everything that had happened that consistent manual labor had become the perfect way for him to gather back what little of himself remained. An unforeseen blessing was that the apprentice hadn’t known Marion, like most of the other men at General Fire, so Holden wasn’t forced to talk about how she had turned against her country or why she had burned The Library down. That hour was coming like an owl to the night, but at least he knew he was safe for the day.

By the time Holden made it back to Winston’s home, he was refreshed and determined to learn precisely how deep the alterations in The Book went. Questions raked his mind during the drive as each mile brought him closer to his answers. Winston knew more than Holden could guess and this made him certain that by the end of the evening, this enormous life changing event would be explained. It had to be explained. Imagining the next twenty-four hours without understanding seemed impossible. He simply could not exist under the weight of such confusion.

When no one answered at Winston’s estate, he instantly expected the worst and opened the door. The ground floor, while decadent in its decoration, was totally empty. Eventually, Holden found Winston in the cellar, sitting in the reading nook beside a pile of the tiniest slivers of paper. The elderly man was spellbound in an innocent focus, very carefully separating the pages from the garbage bags and using whatever wisdom he had to devise some sort of plan for archiving them. On the cellar floor were rows of many crusty pages, ordered, it seemed, by title. Most of the thin stacks were one page thick, but a few had ten to fifteen pages.

Winston wouldn’t allow his eyes to move from the scraps below him to address the man standing quietly at the foot of the stairs. “Is it three o’clock already?”

“Actually, it’s five.”

“Wonderful,” he breathed, wrapped in smiles and satiated by long lost words. “Wonderful. I haven’t been this excited in years.” He tried to get up and a wince twisted his face.

“She has been resting since you brought her here. We were speaking on the couch in the great room one minute, and the next…it was lights out. To be completely honest, I was glad to see it. I’ve been looking forward to going through these bags. But, not to worry, I have been checking on her every hour or so. Her body must have gone very long without sleep. Makes sense, I suppose.” Winston gazed down at the cellar floor and to all the tousled paper Marion had peeled from the walls of her family business.

“It must be from the shock of what she discovered while looking up all these pages on The Book.”

Life returned to Winston like rowdy horses through the starting gate and he raised his arms in triumph. “Oh, and what pages, Holden. What pages! Marion’s grandfather was an oracle. It was as if his accidental arrangement of these pages was done intentionally to showcase the most controversial work of all.”

“Marion will be glad to hear that. At least something good could come out of this.”

“Oh, it is wonderful. I cannot explain to you just how wonderful yet, but you should be able to tell by my attitude that this is a find indeed. So many books, Holden. So many books gone. What you see here, in this cellar…all these shelves stocked with literature...this is quite unnatural. My knowledge comes from a high source and I can tell you for certain that libraries of this caliber don’t exist anymore. They simply don’t.”

“How do you know all this?” Holden asked, still wearing his work boots and jacket. “Honestly, that is the one thing I’m still in the dark about. Where is all your information coming from? I mean…you’re making me feel trapped…making Marion feel trapped...and I guess I just need some answers. I don’t sit well when things aren’t explained enough to me.”

“Right you are,” Winston agreed, stepping out from the reading nook. “I have neglected you in my haste to devour these works of art. I must remind myself that not everyone is like me and stewing on such bold information, especially when it’s new, is a difficult one.” He waddled forward and placed a hand on Holden’s shoulder to steady himself and apologize. “Forgive me. I’ve known about these errors since I was a young man. I would explain things to you now, but Marion has risked much and is as deep in the dark as any. First, let us wake her. And then dinner. No doubt she needs to eat. Answers will come, Holden. Tonight, you will understand everything. Now, be a good man and hand me my cane.”