Bedtime Story (30 page)

I nodded slowly.

“But there’s no evidence of infection, is there?” Jacqui asked.

The doctor shook his head. “David’s running a slight fever, but no more than we would expect given his symptoms. We’ll do some broad spectrum blood work and see what comes up.”

Jacqui nodded, her lips set in a hard line.

“I have to caution you, though,” the doctor said, closing the file. “I don’t think it’s environmental. If it were, the symptoms wouldn’t be increasing in severity with his removal from the initial environment. If it were cigarette smoke or perfume, we would have expected to see some warning signs with earlier exposure, and the allergen would have to have
been present, in concentrated form, at the time of the initial attack.” He glanced between us. “You would have had to have been there.”

After the doctor left, Jacqui stared down at David in silence. I waited for a long moment, then said, against my better judgment, “I think it’s the book.” I tried to keep my tone neutral, my voice matter-of-fact.

She turned to me, her expression caught somewhere between shocked and oddly hurt. “Chris, you heard what the doctor said. There’s no way it can be the book. And even if it were mould or dust there’s no sign of infection. Chris, it’s just a book.”

“That’s the thing,” I said, my voice rising before I had a chance to rein it in. I told her, in the most general of terms, about the research I had been doing, the web searches and the e-mails. “The thing is, as near as I can tell, the book”—I hefted the weight of it in my bag—“doesn’t exist. No one’s heard of it. The publishing house doesn’t exist. Aside from this copy, there’s no trace of it.”

I looked at her, waiting to see the effect of my words, my research.

“So?”

I felt myself crumbling. “What do you mean, so? I just …”

She shook her head. “Chris, all you’ve got is a rare book. Unless it was printed with toxic ink or something, there’s no way it could have caused this.” She gestured at David.

“But he calms down when I read it to him. And the seizures have come on nights that I
didn’t
read to him.” As if that were conclusive evidence.

She put her hand on my arm, obviously believing that I needed sympathy. “He likes the sound of your voice, Chris. It probably soothes him.”

“The other night, I tried reading to him from that magazine.” I pointed to the table beside the bed. “And it didn’t do anything. It’s not just reading. It’s not just the sound of my voice. It’s the book.”

The pity in her eyes stopped me.

“I know how helpless this makes you feel,” she said in a consoling tone. “Hell, I spend my days surrounded by this kind of thing and I’m still feeling completely overwhelmed. But all we can do is hope that something comes up in the blood work or on one of the scans. All we can do is wait, okay?” Talking to me like I was a child. “One step at a time.”

I nodded as if her words had convinced me, all the time feeling myself standing between David in the bed and the book in my bag, unsure if I was part of the solution, or part of the problem.

Voices. Voices around him in the dark, low murmurs that seemed to blend with the burbling of the river.

“David?”

Like the sounds of his parents having friends visit, distant and unclear as he tried to sleep. He could almost make out what they were saying, if he tried, but it was easier to just—

“David?”

—let the voices wash over him. There was something warm and comforting in hearing them, in knowing that he was surrounded by people, that he wasn’t alone.

“David?”

He could feel himself moving toward them as if rising toward the water’s surface, the sound of the voices gaining a shape, a physical presence, a location. Up.

“David?

Except that one voice, clear and loud, a child’s voice repeating his name. But not above him. Not around him.

Inside him, somehow.

Matt?
he said, without speaking.

David!
He could feel the other boy’s joy, his relief.
I thought you were gone!

Aren’t I?
Seeing nothing but the black, knowing nothing else in the world but the sound of voices.

He thought he heard Matt laugh.
They’ve found you
, he said.
You’re going to wake up
.

We were in the cafeteria when my cell phone rang. They had taken David down to the Medical Imaging Lab about half an hour ago.

Jacqui looked at me over the rim of her coffee cup and gave me a
bemused smile. I answered the phone as I negotiated my way toward an exit.

“Chris Knox,” I said, dodging past an employee shifting a huge cart of dirty dishes.

“Chris, it’s John.”

I stepped out into the small side-yard, crowded with smokers. “John?” I couldn’t guess why he would be calling.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Twice in the same week.” His voice softened a little, with concern. “How’s David doing?”

“He’s the same,” I said. “The doctors are having a hard time figuring out what’s going on.”

“Diane wanted to send flowers,” he said. I’d only met his wife on a couple of occasions. “I told her a bottle of Scotch might be more appropriate.” He chuckled. “She vetoed that pretty quick.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “A bottle of Scotch would be just what the doctor ordered.”

“Well, check your mailbox,” he said. “Just because she vetoed me sending it doesn’t mean your friends at the paper can’t send you a little something.”

“Thanks, John. I’m touched.”

“Anything I can do to make it a little easier,” he said. “And that’s why I’m calling. A bit of good news. Your piece from Saturday? It’s been getting a huge response. Tons of e-mails.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really,” he said. “It’s different from your usual curmudgeonly approach. I like that stuff; I think everyone likes it. But this is a nice change. And people noticed.”

I racked my brain, trying to remember what exactly I had written.

“I especially like the way you wrapped it up.”

“How was that?” I asked. “I’m not at my computer, so I don’t have the piece in front of me.”

“Just a sec.” There was a rattling sound as he reached for something on his desk. “The paragraph that starts ‘Like the best books …’ ”

When I didn’t say anything, he started to read “Like the best books, the novels I found in my father’s box were capable of magic.’” It was
strange hearing my own words in someone else’s voice, knowing that they were mine but not remembering them. “They took me to another world, made me feel more deeply than I could allow myself to feel in the real world. While I was reading, I ceased to be little Christopher Knox. I became someone else entirely.’ That’s good …”

I wasn’t listening to him anymore, overwhelmed by the thoughts rushing through my head. Of course. The answer had been right in front of me all along.

“Chris?”

Lazarus Took’s interest in magic, his skills as a writer: what if he had figured out a way to build on the inherent power of storytelling, to add to it in such a way that a book, a single book, could literally carry the reader away?

“Yeah, I’m here, John.” It was all I could do not to hang up on him.

“I thought I’d lost you there.”

“Just a blip, I guess.” I was curling and uncurling my toes I was so desperate to get off the phone.

Jacqui looked up when I joined her at the table. Something must have seemed off with my expression. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. That was John at the paper—apparently my column got lost in the e-mail, so he wants me to resend it.”

I couldn’t very well tell her the truth.

She smiled wryly. “Technology.”

“I was in a rush to get back to the hospital,” I explained. “I just hope I didn’t delete it.” Might as well play it out for all it’s worth. “Do you have the keys?”

She passed me the keys for the van, still half smiling.

“I’ll be quick,” I said.

She waved the comment away. “The tests will take a while.”

Apparently last night’s sleep had done her good. I kissed her on the top of the head as I left, surprising both of us, and practically ran for the parking lot.

“Wake up!” A commanding voice, impossible to resist.

David flinched as he opened his eyes to bright sunlight. Dark shapes loomed over him.

“He’s awake.” This voice gentler, calmer.

“Loren?” he whispered.

One of the shapes nodded.

“At least he hasn’t lost all his faculties,” said the other.

As David blinked into wakefulness, the shapes became clear—Captain Bream and Loren looking down at him. The old man looked concerned, his face pale and drawn, while the captain looked as stern as ever.

They were both pretty much as David had pictured them.

“I’m cold,” David stuttered, his jaw shaking, his body trembling uncontrollably.

“The men are building a fire,” Bream said, looking behind himself to check on their progress.

“But the Berok …”

“Let us worry about them,” the captain said.

“Where … where am I?” His tongue felt too thick for his mouth, lazy and uncooperative.

“A good ride downriver from the canyon,” the magus said. David struggled to focus on his face. “You had been in the cave for a long time when we heard a roar, and then we saw you running and jumping into the river. We didn’t think there was any way you would survive, you were under the water for so long, but then you came up. We rode after you. Thankfully, the river takes a bend here and you washed up, or you would have floated all the way back to Colcott Town.” The old man was frowning, obviously concerned. “What happened in the cave?”

David nodded, then suddenly remembered, bringing his hands to his chest, feeling for the outline of the cylinder. He couldn’t find it.

“Not to worry, Dafyd,” the magus said. “We’ve got the Stone. You’ve done well. Now let’s get you to the fire, see if we can’t melt some of that ice out of your bones.”

John’s phone call kept rattling in my head as I drove home. I had exhausted, as far as I could, my inquiries into the book and its publishing history. But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there?

What about other readers?