There were holes and false leads in everything I’d learned (a school of red herring?). I closed the folder with a sigh of both frustration and anticipation; no more could be revealed until I had a look for myself. Overnight storms woke me frequently, but I did not shut every window.
I followed the Ohio River northwest from Pittsburgh up to Sewickley and then turned northeast to go into the hills beyond. The pleasant family homes alongside the road retreated and hid behind narrow conifers; metal guardrails were replaced by low walls of brick or stone, conspicuously ordered to appear quaintly haphazard and intermittently broken by gated, upward-sloping private drives. I suppose there is no more enviable ‘house on the hill’ than the one that cannot be seen. Turns sharpened as I climbed, and shadow dappled the blacktop, until the road opened suddenly on a wide plateau where it bisected a golf course. A foursome of elderly gentlemen paused to watch me pass as though wondering if they should wave. I have never begrudged them who enjoyed their spoils, but this was not my world. I was therefore quite content to discover that my way continued onward. The transition out from the sun was equally abrupt. I rumbled on a cracked road; all manner of trees choked with spilling ruffles of ivy burst from naked embankments, leaning to squeeze me toward the far side, once again lined with state-sanctioned metal. Some wry soul thought to erect a sign indicating ‘One Lane Ahead’ and I wondered if that meant I might have to go up on two wheels. Still, the drive was beautiful and chastely ominous in a ‘shadowy back road on a summer’s morning’ sort-of-way. Then once more I was in the sun. I turned left onto a pavestone track and passed between sentinels of ancient catalpa and disconsolate willow to a house of mystery waiting at the terminus. I parked on a gravel lot on the side of the house next to two late-model imports—the professor’s grad students, I guessed; I didn’t see the professor’s car—and walked around to the front.
Though the white brick could have done with a fresh coat of paint, the house—mansion, really—appeared stately and solemn. I might have thought it almost distressingly normal if I hadn’t known better. The odd assemblage of blocks and angles that the fifth renovation covered with a Georgian revival façade meant only that the interior was rendered even stranger by its addition. The austere, symmetrical style was doubtless the least conciliatory possible for the existing house, as if Judge Whitehead had fought to subdue a thing he could not kill. If I hadn’t been intent on going immediately to the library, I was sure I could spend an hour wandering through the sprawl with map in hand and hopelessly lost.
The fifth renovation went so far as to change the direction of the house; the plans seemed to indicate that the new, broad front was meant to make better sense of the long rooms and corridors that were stacked as if grown from the original two-room crystal. Per the style, the door was cantered, and, as the Judge’s architect was apparently not one to miss a trick, fronted by a half-rounded, columned portico topped by a balustrade.
The door was unlocked. As I’d been told the house was otherwise uninhabited, I didn’t think it necessary to summon one of the grad students to grant me admittance. I stepped into a wide and tall but shallow entry hall leading off in both directions. Directly opposite the entry door, an arch had been cut into a former exterior wall, inviting the entrant to move forward rather than explore the wings. I could not say what sort of grandeur a visitor might have once seen in the entry or the grand hall; both now served as staging areas and were cluttered with crates and boxes, full and empty. The carpets were rolled up, and only a few pieces of furniture remained. I gathered that much of the appraisal and appropriation had already been completed. I was not surprised by the generous resonance of my hail, ‘Hello?’
Well, the house was quite large. I could not expect anyone to rush into the hall unless they were just around the corner. But I heard no response, either. I called again, a bit louder. I waited half a minute before trying a third time. I took out my copy of the floor plan and unfolded it. Despite the obliging acoustics, it was easy to see that there were spaces in which the students might work where I could not be heard. That is, if they were even in the house—I hadn’t gone around the back, after all. Calling repeatedly until I got an answer would have been pointless and tiresome; I saw no reason why I shouldn’t begin my investigation on my own.
With the aid of my map, I made only one wrong turn before I found the room where I thought the professor had improvised his portal, but not seeing it there, I concluded I’d made two wrong turns and retraced my steps. Five minutes later I was back in the same room. I realised I had not gone in far enough. The room’s purpose I couldn’t guess. It was large and empty. I’d missed the hole in the wall the first time because it was on the far side of a hearth which protruded into the room. I’d noted a similar feature in two other nearby rooms I’d wandered through, and attributed the odd design to the primitive heating system of the older house—more exposed surface area, more warmed brick to heat the room. It seemed an obtrusive design, but I knew little of such matters.
The smell emanating from the crude hole was, for someone of my interests, positively glorious. The musk of dry paper dominated, which was encouraging. I had been afraid condensation had gathered inside the enclosed room, but I detected no rot. There was also a scent I can only describe as ‘rusty smoke’—copper and ash, or some such. One disagreeable note marred the mix, of stale faeces or death—I imagine, however well-sealed the library might have been, a mouse occasionally took its last repose within; I hoped none had nested. An orange electrical cord trailed like a fuse into the black beyond. The ‘male’ end lay on the floor beneath a receptacle. I plugged it in.
Two halogen work lamps on tripods blazed in the library. One sat near the top of the reverse ‘L’, facing the improvised entryway. It provided ample light for the length of the room, but the head-on glare made it impossible to see the far end. The other shone away from me, illuminating a rectangular folding table set in the middle of the passage. The table was stacked with books, presumably those from the shelves which the professor destroyed to gain entry. The far end of the base of the mutant letter running to my left was black, and the slight ‘nub’ just ahead to my right was almost as deeply shadowed, but it was easy enough to see that they shared the dominant characteristic of the main channel: they were lined with shelves, and the shelves were full of books. The alcoves were, however, different from the trunk in that they were single storeyed, whereas the main room opened and widened above. A wraparound metal walkway was accessed by a ladder through an opening opposite the ‘nub’. As I could not see the shape or details of the upper floor, I made my way to the table to direct the light upward, but my attention was arrested by what lay in front of me.
I picked up one of the books, The Hard Road Behind, apparently a novel, published in 1888 and attributed to Declan Hartford. The author’s name was unfamiliar, as was the press, Lilycinth Publishing, ostensibly based in New York. The volume in my hand seemed fairly representative of the books on the table. Almost all were case bound; sixteen-page signatures appeared standard; most were laid with cloth, only a few with leather; as might be expected for the period, none retained its dust jacket. A quick survey unfortunately reinforced the professor’s observation, as I recognised no titles or authors. I noticed no author was duplicated, but of course I was looking at only a small sample of the collection. Some of the publishing houses were known to me: L.P. Crown & Co., the ubiquitous Harper & Brothers, the much rarer Copeland & Day. But these imprints were few among the unfamiliar: Channel Bright Publishers, Joss Brothers Co., Solomon & Wilcox, etc. Even so, the books published with these curious imprints were in step with the styles of those from their more famous brethren. I ran my fingers appreciatively over the shallow relief of intricate blind blocking on one tome and then marvelled at the undiminished lustre of gold inlay well into its second century on the next. From another stack I took up The Harness of Redemption by an ‘Edmund Greeley’ and pawed the immaculate satin grained cloth. I grabbed and shuffled the boo
ks with increasing joy and speed; here was a collection of someone’s poems with a vibrant chromolithographic inset, here an unfamiliar juvenile fiction from Lothrop Publishing, here a newfound novel blessed with the restrained art nouveau of Thomas Watson Ball, and again and again!—houses often unfamiliar, authors always unknown. Enough. The details will mean little to the uninitiated. Suffice to say, the collection was as intriguing as it was inscrutable.
I glanced over at the opening as the digital chime of a cellphone cheeped from somewhere in the house beyond. It rang five times. I didn’t hear anyone answer, but I wasn’t sure I should. I thought about exiting and calling once more to the grad students, but didn’t see the need.
The publication dates of the books on the table ranged over a period of seventy years. There seemed to be no unifying attribute to the scrambled ‘section’. Unfortunately, I saw no more discernible systemisation on the shelves. Each row was somewhat in chronological order as it ran down one wall, but that order was broken at every turn. The next row up was similarly arranged and dated generally slightly later than the lower row, but again, any overall guiding principle escaped me.
A particular volume on one of the shelves behind the table caught my eye and I pulled it free. Title and author meant nothing to me, but the imprint was that of ‘Alfred A. Knof’. I opened the frontispiece and discovered that the book was reputed to have been published in 1913. Even five years before he began his company, I doubt Mr Knopf operated without the ‘p’ in his name! The discrepancy was disheartening. Was the entire collection falsified—a vast library of fakes? I could easily believe that this book was the lone fake, given the quality of books on display, but why had I heard of none of the other books? If they were all fakes, then the clumsy flaw of the volume in my hand was exceptional. But then, why did no author appear twice? If this was a collection of artifice, I wouldn’t expect the perpetrators to be so restrained—it would have been easier to build the fable of an undiscovered genius. I was perplexed.
The distant phone rang once more and I again absently glanced towards the portal. I saw something on one of the shelves. There was a bit of movement between the tops of the books and the next shelf up. I jumped. I saw a brown thing that moved with a noise like the rustle of a page as it scurried deeper into the shadow. I stared at the spot where it had disappeared from view. I felt revulsion at the thing. I was sure it was an insect of some sort, but the size and the shape distressed me. But soon I caught my breath and reasoned what it must have been: a stick insect of some sort. I might have guessed its length initially at a foot, but that was because I had been startled. I had barely glimpsed the thing. Of course it was no more than six inches, with its front and back legs extended as it moved in the narrow space, its slender body thickened by shadow. One may pick up a stick insect and it will pose restfully on your hand, but, even with my reassurance of its identity, I felt no compulsion to seek it out. Let it hide where it will, I thought.
I wondered how it might have found its way in. It would not have been difficult; the thing might have hitched a ride on an incoming crate and then crawled in to the hidden room days ago. Though that was the obvious answer, still I was inspired to gaze around the full room again (as best as I could see), and from that I discovered something I thought rather ingenious. I realised that the chimneys for the various fireplaces I had seen all abutted the secret library. Closer inspection revealed small angled holes cut upwards into the brick at staggered intervals. I guessed that the heated updrafts in the chimneys in some way drew the moisture from the sealed room, which helped to account for the immaculate condition of the collection. I nodded in appreciation at the elegantly simple feat of engineering. Yet it seemed unlikely the stick insect had come in through one of the chimney holes.
I yelped as my own phone broke the shuttered silence. I might have been embarrassed but instead was chilled as I thought I heard that sort of rustle again, though louder, and from somewhere in the far side of the library, too removed to be from the bug I’d seen.
I ignored the thought that the sound was too loud to come from the movement of any insect as I answered my phone.
The professor wondered how I was getting on and had I met his grad students. I replied that I was fascinated by the library, though it was too early to draw any conclusions. I mentioned I had heard a phone ring somewhere in the house but hadn’t met his students. He said that that had been him trying to call, but he had received no answer.
‘Well, I should try to find out what they’re up to, then,’ I said, already moving to the door.
‘No, no, don’t concern yourself,’ Randall said, ‘I’ll be up to the house in an hour or two, anyway.’
‘It’s no problem,’ I assured him, loudly and genially. I was surprised how happy I was to be out in the main house again. ‘Why don’t you call again after we hang up? I’ll track the ring.’
I followed two sets of five chimes to a room along the ‘back’ of the house. Despite my uneasiness in the library, once out of it I was more afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back than I was I’d fail to find the students. I discovered the phone resting on a table in a long room bright with sun from a wall of windows divided by French doors. Next to the phone sat a sports bag containing food and drink and a zippered workout jacket. Clipboards and notebooks littered the table; sticky notes flaked from small antiques.
‘Hello?’ I called several times.
I wanted to go back to the library, but I felt impelled to first assure myself that someone else was in the house. I felt foolish. I chastised myself; there was no point in delay. What could one of the grad students tell me that I couldn’t discover on my own? And after all, wasn’t that the reason I was there?
I surprised myself by finding my way to the library without any difficulty.
I was not pleased by what I saw. The utility lamp at the far end of the passage was ‘face’-down on the floor. I couldn’t see the far wall at all. I stepped into the library and listened. Only after several hushed seconds did I let my heels down to the slate floor. They’re just bugs, I tried to convince myself. My breath was shallow and quick as I eased into and through the ‘safe’ pool of light from the other lamp. I crouched and reached out to the downed lamp. I hissed and cursed myself for touching the hot hood. The pain grounded me, and I cursed myself again for being scared at something as innocuous as an unsteady tripod. I lifted the lamp up (protected by a grill, the bulb was intact) and swung it around to burn off the dark in front of me.
Two of them—at least two of them—scampered from the spines and back into the crevasses between shelves. God!—they were big—and—and not quite insects. They moved quickly, and were hard to see, brown against the dark spines, but I could have sworn they did not have six legs, only four. I knew they were not mammal or lizard—at least, I thought not—they seemed too light, their sharp-angled legs skittered too quickly. Then I saw one easing slowly into a deeper recess, as though unconcerned or slowed by torpidity. Its body was different, its abdomen distended. I barely saw it at all but I had to suppress instant nausea. I grabbed a book from a nearby shelf and hurled it at the thing. I struck it. I heard a pop and high squeak followed by a sickening spurt or gurgle. The thing was gone, but it was damaged in some way; I saw a white and ochre residue on the books, not a smooth ichor but a lumpy, partially-congealed smear. I could not keep the light on it. I had a thought what it was, but I refused to believe it. Again I fought the need to retch.
I was ready to leave then. These were not stick insects. Whatever they were, they damn well were not those lithe, slow forest-grazers, and, as intriguing as the library was, I wanted no more of the place until I could safely see. I had no thought to allow an exterminator spray unknown poisons around the collection, but I thought I could at least do with more light, as they did not seem to like it.
But before I began to move toward the opening, I was suddenly overcome by a terrible apprehension of the dark ceiling above. I hated to think what things cra
wling over my head could fall any instant. I hated nearly as much to think of watching them flee over each other to the corners, but I knew I must see if any were there. I turned the light upward.
To my inestimable relief, nothing moved. But then I saw that there was something above me. Not a creature of nightmare, but unexpected shapes and curls painted onto the ceiling, patterns of diamonds, gothic flourishes and abstract blooms—every bit akin to the gilt stamping of a book’s front board writ large. An oval cartouche appeared as near the ‘centre’ of the library as possible. Inside it was a symbol that the casual observer might judge as purely ornamental. I knew better. I did not know its meaning, but I had no doubt it was a symbol of power.
All thought of retreating dissolved. I steadied the lamp. As I passed the table on my way to the opening to the catwalk, I angled the other light to shine on the one pointing up. This left only the space near the opening dim, but I thought it satisfactorily lit by the exterior sun if I needed to beat a hasty retreat. I grasped the ladder and bounced on the lower rungs to test its hardiness. The iron appeared as well-preserved as the paper. I ascended.
Once up, I leaned out as far as I dared and examined the symbol. The quality of the craftsmanship was clear: edges were sure-handed and bold, curves were effortless and refined. The dense interweaving of thick lines brought to mind the design work of Althea Gyles. No design element on the entire ceiling appeared compromised by the uneven available space (somewhat more symmetrical than below, but hardly ideal for classical forms), which meant it was most likely painted as a whole after the completion of the disjointed form it capped. As I mentioned, I did not know the symbol, but likening it on generality with those familiar to me I guessed it was likely having to do with ‘door’ or ‘station’ (which can have multiple interpretations), or possibly but less likely a particular ‘invocation’ or ‘identity’ (as with a named entity); I did not think it had to do with a ‘ward’ or ‘blessing’ or ‘devotion’. Mystery piled upon mystery in that place. I turned once more to the shelves for clues.
The Hidden Back Room Page 27