The Door to Lost Pages (10 page)

And so it came to pass that Yamesh-Lot won the war over the land of dreams. However, his nightmares no longer covered the night sky, and the shining stars were the source of new dreams for humanity, dreams outside the reach of the dark lord.

Trembling slightly, I sat on the floor, silently but nervously pondering this story. After awhile, I calmed down again and read the rest of the collection. There were no other references to these characters, to this tale. In an appendix, the author quoted some sources and suggested further reading for each story. “Why We Dream Nightmares” had but one reference:
Ambrosia: The History of a Cornucopia of Transformation.

I picked up the bookmark from the floor, remembering the many hours spent at Lost Pages. I knew I would not find the volume anywhere else. The book was on the shelves of the shop, waiting for me. It had to be.

It would have to wait, I thought. The next few days were filled with engagements from which I could not, in good conscience, extricate myself. I was also dimly aware of, although not dealing with, the anxieties that gnawed at me: about where all this might lead and the possibility that it would, in fact, lead to nowhere. Almost any excuse was good enough to cause a delay. I suppose I could have called the bookshop in advance to make sure they had the book, or to ask to have it put aside for me, or to ask to have it delivered to me. But I needed the quest, the adventure of visiting the place once again, of finding the book myself.

I knew in which box to find the bottle. I took it out and held it up to my face. The pool of liquid was now several centimetres deep, the bottle nearly half full.

Three days later, tense and anxious, I was on a plane to my hometown. The last time I’d been there was to settle the last of my parents’ affairs, about eight months ago.

As I had hoped, I found the book at Lost Pages.

Inside the bookshop, I recognized the young boy who had once been the shopkeeper’s assistant, now grown up. He appeared now to be running the place with an assistant of his own, a girl in her early teens. I did not attempt to identify myself to him as a long-lost customer. I quickly made my purchase, promising myself to return one day and take the time to enjoy the experience. This short trip was an indulgence my schedule could barely accommodate.

I took a cab to the airport. The terminal was bustling. Long lineups writhed in irritated impatience. Indecipherable announcements fizzled from unseen speakers. Travellers and personnel crisscrossed the huge room every which way.

A hand brushed against mine. I was aroused by the intensity of that elusive touch. I looked around, in vain, hoping to find the source of this furtive sexual thrill. I shivered—like an eager teenage boy.

Frustrated, I joined the lineup for my airline and eventually secured a boarding pass. My plane was scheduled to start boarding in fifty minutes. I settled on a bench and savoured the anticipation of cracking open my new acquisition, eager to find answers to questions I’d long neglected.

About ten minutes later, I suddenly felt very dizzy, as if all the blood had rushed out of my head. I had to brace myself on my neighbour. At the contact, he turned his head toward me.

His face was beautiful. He now appeared to be about my age, but how could I not recognize the features of the boy who had been the first to kiss me? His greying hair had lost some of it lustre, but I thought I could still glimpse hints of green, blue, and brown.

Staring at the bulge in my pants, he laughed. With the embarrassment of a boy, I noticed my conspicuously large erection.

I regained my composure—partly because of the pleasant nostalgia his good humour called up, but also because I recognized the comical nature of my situation. I chuckled, but then a spiky chill tore down my chest.

I knew who he was, now. What he was.

I opened my mouth, ready to . . . interrogate him? Plead with him? Or . . . I never found out what I would have said. He placed two fingers on my mouth, tenderly silencing me. He looked hurt. No. Something else. Some emotion I couldn’t grasp. I longed to know him better, to understand his every gesture, his every expression.

He seemed to shrug off whatever he was feeling, and he smiled. He gave me a look—of deep compassion, perhaps? It made me feel profoundly lonely.

I realized then how, these past few years, I still hadn’t learned to care about anyone. I still protected myself against intimacy. Now, I was overcome by how much I wanted to care about him, care for him. It suddenly seemed so obvious to me that I’d spent all these years trying to recapture the transcendence I’d experienced when he’d seduced me and, failing to ever again reach those heights of ecstasy, how I’d shielded myself against my inevitable disappointments.

He clamped his hand behind my neck and gave me a fierce kiss. He released me, and nodded upward, silently telling me that I should go. My flight was being called.

I looked into his eyes, but they refused to yield any answers. Stifling tears, I nodded back, got up, and walked toward the gate. I didn’t look back. I was afraid to see in his eyes the gaze of a stranger. The sound of beating wings drowned out the ambient noise around me. Did I imagine that?

I told myself that it was his wish that I leave.

Two days later, in my house, in this upstairs room that was still not organized to my satisfaction, I sat with my eyes shut; the book,
Ambrosia: The History of a Cornucopia of Transformation
, closed on my lap. I studiously read every word. How had the author found all that information? I felt a surge of envy at his ability to uncover so much about my seducer’s mysterious life.

The book revealed many of the identities Behl Jezath adopted and speculated on many more. It detailed years, centuries, millennia spent in solitude—hiding and fleeing from the pride of his youth and its consequences. It told of epochs wiped from human memory. It described how Behl Jezath’s continued life depended on the bottle of ambrosia, the memento of his terrible moment of weakness.

What would happen to him now? Why did he give me the bottle? Why had I been such a coward at the airport? Too many unanswerable questions. . . .

I stared at the bottle. It rested on the side table next to my armchair. The light from the window caught the slowly rising pool of ambrosia. Rainbows danced and swirled, flowing and erupting from the amber fluid.

That night, I sat on the roof and tried to look at the stars. But it was overcast. I closed my eyes, felt the chill of the early autumn wind against my cheeks, and dreamt of the furious beating of multicoloured wings.

When Lucas called out to her as he knocked on her door, Aydee realized that she was crying, and had been doing so for a while.

“Are you okay, Aydee? You’ve been cooped up in there for hours. Dinner’s ready, if you’re hungry.”

She hesitated before replying, worried her voice might betray her tears. “I’m fine. I just have a lot of thinking to do today. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You know I always will, though. Come down whenever you’re hungry. I’ll leave the leftovers in the fridge, top shelf. But take whatever time you need.”

A dog scratched at the door to be let in. Lucas asked, “Can Gold come in?”

“Sure.”

Lucas opened the door just enough for Gold to barrel in—Aydee noticed how Lucas was careful not to peek inside uninvited—and then shut it again. Lucas trusted her so much.

She never showed him the letter.

Kurt was four years old when he found the rock shaped like a star. His grandparents lived next to a little beach. He spent that whole summer there, loving every moment of it. They built fires, waded in the ocean, hunted for seashells. For many years, even into adulthood, whenever he held the star-stone and closed his eyes, he would smell the ocean the way it had smelled to him then: like another world. Like the promise of magic. If such a majestic thing as the ocean were possible—if the world contained such an immense creation, and if that creation’s fragrance could be so intoxicatingly complex—then anything could be possible.

One morning, shortly after the break of dawn, while the rest of the family was still asleep, he had walked toward that vast expanse of water, eyes closed, letting the smell transport him beyond anything he’d ever imagined. Then he stepped on something that scraped his foot.

Startled, he opened his eyes and bent down to investigate. Half-buried in the sand was a lopsided, five-pointed star—a speckled rock, just a bit bigger than his four-year-old hand, sculpted into that shape by time and water.

He saw in that rock a mysterious, seductive beauty. He was convinced that his discovery heralded the promise of a wondrous future.

He kept it. He kept it for years.

Why had Kurt insisted that he and Holly go to that party at Carol’s? He’d forgotten why, but he wished they had stayed in—had sex, watched TV, played cards, whatever.

Carol’s spacious apartment overflowed with guests. The effect, oddly, was to make it seem even bigger, like endless catacombs invaded and overrun by a throng of decadent bacchants. Kurt knew about half the people there: a good mix of familiar faces and new people, exactly how he liked parties. Beer flowed. Joints passed from hand to hand. Smoke was blown from mouth to mouth. Flirtation was mandatory. At first, he’d been having a great time.

Then he noticed Holly chatting with Giovanni. At the sight of him he’d felt something slither down his back.

He didn’t think that Holly knew him. Certainly, he’d never mentioned him to her. He realized then that he should have—a long time ago, to warn her. But shame had proved stronger than caution. Kurt had met Giovanni about five years previously but it had been four years since they’d last seen each other.