Bedtime Story (56 page)

“I would be concerned if you had.”

I smiled.

“The whole time Brent was in school we had a pretty clear track in mind: he’d get his doctorate, then get a job at a university and teach, and then we’d retire.” She shrugged and sat down. “The only variables were where he would teach, where we would live, that sort of thing.” She took a sip of her lemonade. “And then, when he was in the process of applying for teaching jobs, he took a position with a company that was just starting up. He said he figured he’d try it for a few years, and who was I to say no? He’d worked so hard, he deserved a chance to do what he wanted for a while.”

I nodded.

“Of course,” she said smiling, “that company was Microsoft, so he never did take any teaching jobs. More than thirty years now.”

I tried to figure out the dates. “Thirty years? He must have been there almost from the beginning.”

“Almost,” she said. “He wasn’t one of the very first, but pretty close. Close enough for all of this.” She gestured at our surroundings. “Close enough for the foundation.”

“Brent’s making more than we ever thought he’d make. Beyond our wildest dreams, as a matter of fact. So I started the foundation as a way of making some of that money do some good. We’ve been funding summer camps and special shuttles so people with neurological conditions can get to medical appointments. We’ve got treatment bursaries established, so that people can travel to specialists if necessary. We’ve been helping fund some significant research. Oh—” She stopped suddenly. “That reminds me,” she said, looking at her watch and standing up. “Matthew is probably up from his nap. Would you mind if he joined us?”

I stood up reflexively, because she had. “No, of course not.”

“I’ll be back in a sec. You sit. Enjoy your lemonade.”

I helped David take a drink, unable to keep myself from expecting a reaction—a smacking of his lips, a wrinkling of his face at the sourness, some comment—that just didn’t come.

“And here we are,” Carol said from the foyer, and then they were coming through the door.

Matthew was in his late thirties or early forties. He would have been a handsome man, I thought, if not for Lazarus Took; his body was soft and gangly, though not fat. He was dressed in loose-fitting grey jogging pants and a tent-like black T-shirt. His face was soft and doughy, and seemed somehow fallen in on itself, completely expressionless. Carol was leading him by one hand. His other hung at his side, limp and motionless.

No clenching.

And his eyes were dead, motionless and dark.

“This is Matthew,” Carol said proudly. “And Matthew, this is Christopher and his son David.”

Was this what the future looked like?

“Would you like to sit next to David?” Carol asked her son. “I’m sure there’s room.”

I shuffled over to make space. The two boys sat side by side, distorted reflections of one another, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall.

“So …” I cleared my throat, still not entirely comfortable with her level of candour. “What happened …?”

“What happened with Matthew?” She picked up my question with an understanding smile.

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess it was a spontaneous occurrence, too. The doctors never could diagnose his condition—that’s one of the reasons I started the foundation, so that someday there might be some answers to those questions.” She nodded. “As to Matthew, though”—she shrugged—“one minute he was reading and the next—”

I seized the moment. “He had a seizure.”

“Yes.” She looked at me curiously. “We’ve kept that information private, and I would appreciate—”

“Mrs. Corvin.” I leaned forward, closer to her. “That’s what happened to David. One minute he was reading, and the next he was in convulsions.”

She had leaned back in her chair. “Carol,” she said weakly. “Call me Carol.”

“Carol.” I decided to play all my cards. “Do you remember what Matthew was reading when he had the attack?”

She shook her head. “That was thirty years ago. He was always reading …

“Does a novel called
To the Four Directions
sound familiar? By Lazarus Took?”

“Maybe,” she said, but then she shrugged it off. “What difference does it make?”

“Mrs. Corvin, Carol, please, just—” I was aware that I was starting to sound like I was crazed. “Please, humour me. Was it an old book? Brown leather?”

She was nodding slowly as I described it. “With some sort of symbol on the front,” she said carefully, trying to remember.

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s the one.”

“What one?” she asked sharply.

I took a deep breath. “Carol, David and Matthew were reading the same book when their seizures started. Not just the same book, the very same copy.”

“That’s not—”

I pulled the photocopy paper out of my pocket. Unfolding it, I passed it to her. “Does that look familiar?” I asked.

She looked at the page, at her son’s name, photocopied from the inside cover of
To the Four Directions
, and put her hand to her mouth.

“That’s how I found you,” I confessed. “I went online to find out who Matthew Corvin was, what might have happened to him, and I came across the foundation.”

Her face was pale. “That’s Matthew’s writing,” she said.

“I know it is. In the same book he was reading when he had his first seizure. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

“So you think the book had something to do with it?” she asked, staring at the page.

“I’m sure of it.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath.

“Okay?”

“Let’s take a look at it,” she said, her voice strangely calm. “I can get on the phone to one of the local labs, they can test it for mould and spores, toxins in the paper or the binding, psychoactive agents …” She was watching me, and she stopped. “What?”

“I don’t have it. The book. It was stolen from me, a couple of nights ago in New York.”

“You don’t have it.”

“That’s actually why David and I are here. We’re on our way to Oregon—we’re trying to find it.”

“We could do blood tests, then. They could check both boys’ blood, compare them, look for contaminants …” Carol Corvin was clearly a force to be reckoned with, a woman used to getting things done.

“Sure,” I said slowly. “We could do that. But, Carol …”

Something in my voice must have registered, because she turned to me, actually listening, rather than mentally calculating her next half-dozen steps.

“I don’t think the tests are going to find anything.”

She shook her head. “Why not?”

“David’s been tested. For everything. I think—” I took a deep breath. “I think it’s the book itself.”

She looked at me blankly.

“It sounds crazy,” I said, forestalling her objections, “but I think something happened to both of our sons while they were reading.
Because
of what they were reading. I think that the book itself—”

“You think
words
did this?”

I hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” she said, leaning back in her chair, pulling as far back from me as she could. “Look, if you find this book, we’ll run some—”

And then she stopped.

“Oh my God,” she murmured.

I glanced over my shoulder to see what she was looking at.

It was the boys. I felt a leap of emotion in my throat, threatening to choke me, felt Carol’s hand at my shoulder, clutching, as if she couldn’t trust herself alone to see what she was seeing.

It had been only a few weeks since my son had last moved of his own accord; for Matthew Corvin, it had been three decades.

But as Carol and I had been talking, Matthew and David had turned on the couch to face each other, their faces only inches apart, their eyes not only open but focused. Seeing. Looking at one another. Their expressions were still mostly flat, but there was something there in both, some faint hint of emotion that I couldn’t quite identify.

“Oh my God,” Carol said again in a whisper, her fingers digging into my shoulder. “It’s like they know each other.”

That was it: recognition. They knew each other, these two boys, though there was more than thirty years between them, though they had never actually met.

In this world
, I thought.

Carol drew in a sharp breath that seemed almost a sob as Matthew slowly lifted his hand and, reaching out, laid it across David’s, squeezing it gently.

David didn’t volunteer to help the captain row. The way he was feeling, he knew he would be of no use. Instead, he huddled in the stern, wrapped in his blanket, watching the boat break the clear, implacable surface of the water.

The captain wiped his hand across his brow. He was sweating. The sun was high overhead. David knew, rationally, that there was heat beating down on his face, but it seemed distant, almost an abstraction against the deep cold that he was feeling.

It’s almost over
, Matt said.
You’ll be home soon
.

We don’t know that
. David’s thoughts were slow and dark.

But once you get to the end of the story—

If
I get to the end of the story
.

You will
, he urged.
You will
.

I don’t know
, he thought.
Have you ever read a story where the hero keeps getting weaker and weaker?

Frodo
, Matt said.
In Lord of the Rings
.

David shook his head and stared down into the water.
I haven’t read that
.

You’re not dying, David. You just have to get to the end of the story, bring the Sunstone back to the Queen, and—

And what? What then? We’ve been thinking that that’s the end. But what if it’s not? What if there’s no magical release? What if it keeps going on and on, with me stuck here forever? Or what if, when the story ends, it all just stops? What then?

Matt didn’t say anything. The only sound was the captain paddling, the splash of the water, and his grunts and groans. David watched him as he worked, the heavy muscles of his arms, the cords of his neck, the tight mask of determination.

I’m not getting out of this alive
.

Tony Markus made a point of arriving at the restaurant more than ten minutes early. To arrive any later risked being the second person to arrive, thereby putting himself at a disadvantage by giving whoever he was meeting—in this case, Cat Took—the upper hand, primacy of place, all that Sun Tzu
Art of War
shit.

Besides, all he had to do was ride the elevator down six floors, step through the hotel’s front door and turn left. Except that as he turned, he almost ran into a woman standing outside the restaurant doors.

“I’m sorry,” he said, keeping a careful hold on the bag from Powell’s City of Books that he had tucked under his arm.

“Mr. Markus?” the woman said, extending her hand. “I’m Cat Took.”

He took her hand, hoping that his wasn’t too sweaty, and cursed himself for not getting to the restaurant earlier. “Nice to meet you,” he said, as warmly as he could muster.

It wasn’t difficult: Cat Took was a pretty woman, not yet thirty, with long dark hair and glowing skin, the sort of look that seemed to come
from equal parts outdoor exercise and flakey New Age thinking. Vegetarianism, probably. “How did you know …?”

When she smiled, her teeth were bright. “I looked you up,” she said. “So I’d know who to look for. The miracle of Google. A single girl’s best friend.”

“This is starting to feel like a blind date,” Markus said, shifting a little. He hadn’t expected her to be so pretty, so small and trim, so obviously comfortable in her dark jeans and black top, a large silver medallion hanging just at the neckline. Oh yes, he’d have to be careful in his negotiations, careful not to give too much up. It was easy when it was some crotchety Upper West Side academic, or some overwhelmed first-timer, desperate to get into print. With a woman like Cat Took, he’d have to be very careful indeed.

Still, it was going to be very nice to have her to look at over dinner.