Legend of the Book Keeper (4 page)

Cody sensed his quest was becoming more direr by the second. He examined the back of the house. Just as he had remembered, there was the window, his one glimmer of hope. Rushing toward it, he was pleased to find it had not been completely closed. A sliver remained separating the glass and the window sill. Sliding his fingernails under the crack he heaved with all his might—it didn’t budge.
It’s jammed.

Cody looked around him for something to use as leverage. His eyes fell on the shovel. Dashing back into the rain he quickly retrieved the tool. Returning to the window, he slipped the spade under the crack. Applying all his weight, he pressed forcefully down on the handle. With a thud the rustic window dislodged and opened up. Eager to gain shelter from the storm, Cody crawled through the window and into the house—the house of a murderer.

He collapsed on the floor. The temperature inside was nearly as chilly as the stormy air outside. Gathering himself off the floor, he removed his drenched jacket and shoes, laying them by the window for his departure. He didn’t want to risk his soaked sneakers squeaking and revealing his intrusion.

Tip-toeing to the door, he cautiously stuck his head out of the room. As expected, the floor was empty. The house was dark, with the only light coming from the chandelier candles that still faintly flickered. Ducking down to conceal himself behind the piles of books, Cody made his way toward the stairs. Reaching them, he knew he would have to temporarily forgo his cover. Taking a deep breath, he stood and dashed up the spiral stair-case. Without stopping at the top, he turned down the hall, weaving his way around piles of books and corners, until he finally threw himself against the wall and sunk down to the floor. He had reached the spot. Looking at the wall erased any doubt that the ‘For Sale’ sign corresponded with his discovery. In the place where the revealed door had been, now, once again, was a neat pile of books.
Wesley knows
.

Just then he heard a creaking noise. Cody froze. The sound was coming from above his head. He could make out slight bowing of the ceiling.
Wesley’s awake! And he’s walking around.
Cody could think of only a few reasons for Wesley to still be awake, and all of them meant that Cody would be dead by the end of the night. He swallowed hard.

Every fiber in his body was screaming at him to return home, but thoughts of the horrifying nightmare were too great to overcome. He had come too far to turn back. His desire to open the door trumped all rational thinking. As quietly as he could, Cody began removing books one by one.

The footsteps overhead continued in frantic bursts of movement. Wesley seemed to be riled up. Removing the top several rows of books, the red letters once again came into view:
Restricted
. Looking closer, Cody confirmed his earlier thoughts. The letters were indeed written in blood.

Exhilaration shot through Cody’s body. With increasing pace, no longer worried about noise, he continued to remove book after book. The polished oak door came back into view. Cody felt every hair on his arms stand straight. Having removed most of the books, Cody knelt down and pushed the remaining books aside with reckless abandon, too possessed by a savage yearning to worry about noise. The last book fell limp to the ground.

With the door fully revealed, Cody was surprised to discover that it was not full-sized. In fact, it resembled a child’s playhouse door.
Odd
thought Cody, pondering how an elderly man would be able to enter the door. Reaching a shaky arm out, he grasped hold of the handle. Adrenaline pumped uncontrollably through his veins like a drum. He braced himself for what he was about to witness; Cody turned the handle and opened the door. Ducking down, with a final pause, he entered the room . . . and gasped.

The scene before his eyes was shocking.

The Man with the Knife

T
ime was running out. The man glanced around his messy room.
Everything is going to change tonight
. With haste he raced back to his closet and grabbed another bundle of clothes, stuffing them into an overflowing suitcase. The boom of thunder outside startled him.
Yes, time is very short
.

It had happened as he had feared, yet the moment had still found him unprepared the same way one still flinches when anticipating a needle. His secret had been discovered. Shuffling over to his lone window he peered anxiously out onto the street. It was empty.
How much longer do I have? They could be on their way this moment
. This last thought sent a jolt of terror down his spine.
I’m getting too old for this.

He grabbed his wallet off his desk and flipped through to survey his cash. It was not much, but it would be enough to get to where he needed to go—that being as far away from Havenwood as absolutely possible. The man returned to the window that once again revealed he was still alone on the dreary night. He watched as a hawk flew gracefully into the fog.
Am I too late?

This was not the first time he had had his secret discovered, but it was the first time the intruder had been allowed to exit his store unquestioned. He glanced at his watch, it was a quarter to two in the morning; time was running out.

How much had the boy seen? Had he been inside?
Surely not. If so, he would have known. He would have been dead by now.
But this weather
? Clearly, this was a bad omen. Something sliced through his thoughts, paralyzing him. The man dropped to the floor and pressed his ear against the dusty wood. His worst fears had been realized.
Somebody’s entering the hidden room!

The man jumped up with unnatural agility for a man his age and dashed to his nightstand. Opening the top drawer he began tossing out papers and trinkets until he found what he was looking for—a sharp, serrated knife. He staggered toward the stairs.
This is it
, he grimly determined,
or the world as we know it is doomed.

A Scarlet Letter

C
ody rubbed his eyes and stared back into the small room.
How could it be?
He glanced around the room; he had expected a lot of things. He had prepared himself for the most horrific sights. But what he now saw before him was the last thing he had ever expected to see. The room was filled—with books. An initial feeling of disappointment was soon consumed by the uncomfortable feeling of a tightening stomach, the kind you get when you realize you have just made a terrible, terrible mistake. It had never crossed his mind that his theory could be incorrect; it had all seemed so logical: the door, the blood, the sign, and the freshly dug grave.
Jade was right. Jade’s always right.
It suddenly dawned on him that with the absence of murdered bodies, he now had no conceivable reason to have broken into an elderly man’s house and trespassed onto private property. Cody sickly began to think that Wesley was not the man who was going to end the night behind bars.

The room was not large, about the size of a small bedroom or large bathroom. After entering through the child-sized door, the ceiling once again rose to standard size. The two flanking walls, mirroring the rest of the store, were covered with large bookshelves. Various trinkets and unusual objects decorated the shelves. The center-piece of the room, against the far wall, was an extravagantly carved podium with a single book resting on it.

What is the book?
Cody wondered as he walked toward it. His eyes explored the room. The spines of the books were too worn down and tattered to make out the names or authors. But what really captured Cody’s attention were the unusual objects on the shelves. Many of them looked like travel devices, perhaps a sexton or a compass, yet like nothing he had ever seen before. As to what purpose they served, Cody could only speculate.

Approaching the book on the podium, a decoration on the final shelf drew his attention away. It was a picture, framed by an elaborate silver frame. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the frame, however, what was
inside
the frame left Cody speechless. The picture was of Wesley, looking many years younger, shaking hands with a familiar man. The man was George Washington.

Cody was no history scholar, but he remembered enough from the history essays Jade had written for him to understand that George Washington lived around the seventeen hundreds.
How old IS Wesley?
Shaking his head, he returned the picture to the shelf.
All this adrenaline is making me crazy
. Gathering his wits, he realized that the man with Washington could easily be one of Wesley’s ancestors. Or at worst, it was merely a photography trick. Several of the boys in his school had played a similar prank on him a number of years back by photo editing Jade into a picture with Jules Verne in an attempt to make Cody jealous and profess his love for her. It hadn’t worked then, and it wouldn’t work now.

Besides, the more pressing concern was the large Book lying, unopened, on the podium before him. Cody’s first impression was that it would be a Bible or a Koran, or some other significant religious book. Now that he stood before it, he realized his assumptions had been wrong.
It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong tonight
.

The Book was larger than the average novel, closer to the size of a traditional magazine. It had a dark brown, leather cover, which was tattered and clearly showed the wear-andtear of its age. Along the edges of the front cover, various cryptic symbols created a border around the perimeter. The only other marking, placed directly in the middle, framed by the symbol border, was a large scarlet ‘A.’

You have got to be kidding,
thought Cody.
All this trouble for a lousy Hawthorne novel?
Reaching down, Cody picked the Book up with his hands. It was remarkably lighter than he had expected. In fact, it felt almost weightless in his hands. He also noticed that the pages were not regular paper, but rather a tough parchment.
Well, here goes nothing.
Inhaling deeply, he anxiously pulled opened the cover. The first page revealed two very important facts to Cody. The first was that the Book was definitely
not
the famous classic written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. And secondly, the Book was clearly not written in English.

Running his eyes across the page he could not recognize any familiar word. The letters seemed similar to English; in fact several of the letters, such as the vowels, were almost identical to English. However, there were many letter shapes that Cody had never seen before, and unfamiliar accents marked the majority of the letters.
What is this?

For lack of a better idea, Cody cleared his throat and began sounding out the first line as best he could. The words slipped awkwardly off his tongue. The instant he finished the sentence, a roaring clash of thunder shook the house, knocking Cody back against the bookshelf. Regaining his balance, he opened his mouth to attempt to read the next line, but didn’t get far.

“What are you doing!?” Cody’s stomach jumped. He turned to the open door way. In the archway stood a frantic-looking Wesley; he was wielding a knife. Cody unconsciously concealed the Book behind his back, “I . . . um . . . I . . . Sir . . . I’m so sorry . . . I just . . .” Cody stuttered.

Wesley wasn’t paying any attention to him. The old man’s eyes scanned the room until they stopped at the empty podium. “No! Where is the Book?! What have you done with the Book?!” Wesley was in a state of hysterics, and Cody knew that the knife he was holding was not intended to butter a late-night slab of toast. Cody understood his chances of survival were slim and brought the Book out from behind his back.

“I . . . ah . . . just wanted to look inside. I’m very sorry, Sir. I couldn’t read it so you don’t have to worry. I’ll leave you now, I just . . . ”

At this comment Wesley’s eyes flared up and blazed like a forest fire. “You tried to
read
it! You
fool!
What would