Bedtime Story (26 page)

I told Jacqui it had been John on the phone.

“Deadline,” she said, resigned.

I didn’t tell her that he had let me off the hook for the column. Instead, I took a cab home.

Sitting down at the computer, I saw John’s two messages, along with a note from my agent’s assistant, confirming dinner with Roger when I was in New York the following week. I made another mental note to cancel the trip.

There were two messages remaining, one from [email protected], one from [email protected]. I clicked on the one from the publisher first. Thankfully, I wasn’t expecting much.

“Thank you for your message. Your e-mail is very important to us …”

I closed the window without reading the rest.

I clicked on the second message, expecting nothing more than an auto-reply from the Took site as well. I was shocked when a lengthy note opened on my screen:

I turned to a fresh page in my notebook and took the pen out of my pocket.

I sat back in my chair and stared at the screen. I had expected at best a terse and unhelpful response from the webmaster, who I had imagined to be a middle-aged male book collector somewhere in Scandinavia, a devotee of children’s literature from the ancestral home of children’s literature. But here I was, in correspondence with Took’s granddaughter, who was not only being helpful, but had the keys to the archives.

From the sound of her note, though, it didn’t seem like she knew anything about
To the Four Directions
. How was it possible that a relative devoted to his memory and his work had never heard of it?

I scratched a few notes into my notebook, then leaned forward to the keyboard.

Hello Cat, I typed, I hope you don’t mind me calling you that.

Jacqui’s telephone rang partway through the afternoon; she glanced at the display before she pressed the button to connect.

“Chris,” she said.

“God, it freaks me out when you do that.”

She grinned; she couldn’t help it.

“You can’t use your cell in David’s room,” he said. “Where are you?”

“In line at Tim Hortons. Should I get you something?”

“Not quite yet,” he said, his words measured.

“It’s not going well?”

“Not really,” he said, his voice faint, almost overwhelmed by a sudden noise on his end of the line.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Some idiot in a tricked-out car.”

“Aren’t you at home?”

“I’m out front having a cigarette, checking the sidewalk for inspiration.”

“Why don’t you just tell John that you can’t do it this week? I’m sure he’d understand.”

“Nah, I’m all right. It shouldn’t be too long. I’ve got a few ideas. I’m just waiting for it to gel.”

“It’s just—there’s a physiotherapist coming and it would be—”

“A physiotherapist?”

“They’re worried about his muscles atrophying, and they want to show us some exercises to do with him. When do you think you’ll be back?” she asked again, taking another step forward in line.

“I’ll get this done and I’ll be there as soon as I can. All right?”

She wanted to tell him that he could bring his laptop in, that he could work in the room, close by. Instead, she said, “Whatever works for you.”

There was a long pause. “I’ll see you later, then,” he said.

“Yeah.” She folded the phone shut and slid it back into her pocket as she stepped to the counter.

I pressed the button to disconnect the call, and stepped through the front door of Prospero’s Books. The bell over the door jangled as I walked in.

“You’re late, Chris. I thought maybe something was wrong with the universe.” Brian’s smile was unforced; he seemed genuinely happy to see me.

My expression must have given me away, though.

“Something
is
wrong with the universe, though, isn’t it?” He stood up behind his desk, his heavy body lurching over the stacks of books.

He didn’t say a word as I gave him the same story I had given John earlier. I was already getting better at telling it.

Brian was shaking his head when I finished. “And it was just his birthday too, right? He’s eleven now?”

He had given me the opening that I needed. “Yeah, eleven. It was his birthday last week.” I reached into my shoulder bag. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.” I laid the book on the desk between us. “Do you remember this?”

He picked it up, looked at the spine, turned it over in his hand. “You bought this for your son a couple of weeks ago. ‘Something other than
The Lord of the Rings.’
I remember that, sure.” He set the book back down on the desk. “Why? Is there something wrong with it?”

I shook my head. “No, there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just trying to figure out what it is. Do you happen to recall where you got it from?”

He looked at me as if he might start laughing. “Jesus, Chris, you know this place.” He gestured at the crowded bookshelves and the stacks teetering on his desk. “Do you really expect me to remember where one book came from?”

“Actually, I do,” I said, one book aficionado to another.

“Chis, I’d like to help, but …” He stopped himself. “What do you mean you’re trying to figure out what it is?”

I had no idea how much I could tell him. “I’m not really sure,” I confessed. “David fell in love with the book when he started reading it. I tried to find some history on it and I couldn’t. It doesn’t appear on any of the online databases; there’s a website for the author and there’s no mention of it there. I can’t seem to track it down anywhere.”

He looked at me for a long moment without speaking. “And you’re looking into this to take your mind off your son in the hospital?”

I didn’t say anything. Probably better to have him think me overcome by grief, obsessing over something other than David.

“Anything you can remember, Brian, anything at all. It would be a big help to me.”

He examined the book, flipping to the inside of the front cover.

“I do remember this,” he said. He held up the book to me, open to the front endpapers. “This name right here?”

I’d looked at the inscription dozens of times:
Matthew Corvin, Seattle, 1976
. “What about it?”

“I remember thinking to myself that it was going to be a crying shame to have that writing in the book if it turned out to be worth anything.” He hefted the book in his hand. “It was in pretty good shape, except for that. But then I punched it into some of the collectors’ databases and there wasn’t any listing for it, so I figured it wasn’t worth anything anyway.” He shrugged, looked at the book ruefully, as if staring at a missed opportunity. “You’re telling me that this is too rare to even have a profile on the collectors’ market?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I can’t find any mention of it. Do you remember where you got it?” I tucked the book back into my bag.

“Portland,” he said, sitting back down. “There’s a dealer down there I do business with sometimes. More of a collector, really. He’ll give me a call every few months when it comes time to cull his collection a bit, make space for new acquisitions. I’ve gotten a nice couple of Hemingway firsts from him over the years.”

“You bought it from him?”

“Bought it? Nah. He always throws in a couple of extras. Nothing really valuable, you can be sure of that. A little something to help me break even on the shipping and the customs fees. It’s a nice arrangement.”

“Can you put me in touch with him?” I asked, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice.

Brian shook his head. “He’s a really private guy.”

His refusal took the wind out of me. “Brian, I wouldn’t ask if—”

He held up a hand to stop me. “But,” he said firmly, lowering his hand before continuing. “I could send him an e-mail if you’d like. If you have any particular questions.”

The relief hit me so hard it almost brought tears to my eyes.

“I have to warn you, he’s not the most dedicated correspondent.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “At least I know there’s someone out there who might know something.”

Uncapping a pen, he asked, “So what do you want to know?”

“Everything,” I said, without hesitation. “Anything he can tell me. What it is, where it came from, how he got it.”

Brian jotted down a few notes in handwriting worse than my own.

“Thanks, Brian,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t expect any miracles,” he said, re-capping his pen.

“What is that?” David choked, spitting out a mouthful of water as he struggled to his feet.

The water shooting from the hole in the wall had buffeted him toward the far wall of the chamber with the force of a fire hose, but he had managed to retain his grip on the cylinder.

“It’s the river,” Matt answered, shouting to be heard.

“The river?” David crammed the cylinder inside his shirt, tucking it under his left arm.

“This chamber is under the river,” Matt said, as the shade drifted across the room toward David.

Already there were several inches of water on the floor. David’s boots were soaked, his feet chilled, his clothes sticking cold to him.

“That wall,” David said, pointing toward the hole left by the cylinder. “It’s like a dam. It’s holding back the water.”

“It was,” Matt said, looking at the lump under David’s shirt. “I guess you were right. About the story going on.”

David didn’t take any pleasure or comfort in the words. As he watched, cracks started to appear, trailing out from the hole in the wall like the cracks in a windshield. “That wall’s not going to hold,” he shouted. “We’ve got to go!”

He turned for the stairway, expecting Matt to follow, but he didn’t.

“Come on,” David said, the water spilling over the tops of his boots now, water starting to seep through the cracks in the wall. “We’ve gotta go!”

“I can’t,” Matt said. “Remember?”

A sound almost like ripping fabric shook the chamber as a huge crack opened from the hole in the centre of the wall to the upper corner, spewing torrents of water into the room.

“It’s your story now. You have to finish it.”