“Yes, of course,” Jons said. “I’m embarrassed to have forgotten about the diary. I, myself, performed a thorough investigation when I first obtained it and found nothing to those rumors. I haven’t considered it in decades. But I have no doubt I can find it. However, I was—It’s a bit awkward to descend. I injured my back this morning—assaulted by that satanic Wax boy! I’m not quite sure I can manage the—”
“Pastor Jons, it is of the utmost importance that we examine the diary. If necessary I will go down and retrieve it myself.”
“Not at all. Not at all,” Jons said. “I shall fetch it forthwith. I do not mean to appear uncooperative. Nothing could be further from my aim. I am fully out-of-sorts with my sinful daughter. It is my pleasure to be of service.”
Nora clutched Dex even harder and let out a little yelp of fear, but just then the thunder crashed.
And then it crashed again, rocking the little house.
And then it crashed again.
And again.
Dex and Nora were thrown onto the concrete floor. They could hear things falling upstairs, lots of things.
A book hit Dexter in the head. Then another.
Nora cried out when one struck her in the head. Dex cried out when one hit him in the neck, but both their voices were lost in what was suddenly a deafening avalanche of books.
Dexter managed to roll to Nora, who was curled in the fetal position again. He tented himself over her to absorb the blows, which came one after another, a barrage of punches to the head, the neck, his back, and legs.
The thunder continued to crash, and the books continued to fall, pummeling Dexter.
“Hold on!” he urged Nora, but he doubted she could hear anything, even right under him like that.
It felt like he was being beaten with a baseball bat. The blows kept raining down; he was sure they would both be killed.
But then it stopped.
It was quiet. Dex was battered and bruised, but alive. Nora was under him, whimpering, but very much alive, too.
They’d been buried by the books.
“An omen,” Jons said above the trapdoor. “A most ominous one.”
“An damnable delay,” the Secret Keeper snapped. His voice was terse now, severe. “Find the book and bring it to me at once. In the end, it may be of little import.”
The floors creaked as the pair moved back through the kitchen.
Dexter held his breath. It was hard to breathe under the books, and they were heavy.
It sounded like the front door opened, then closed. He dared to let out a sigh of relief.
But now footsteps came back toward the kitchen.
Nora found Dexter’s hand and squeezed it, desperately.
The trapdoor creaked. He’s closing it! Dex thought. He’s not coming down!
But it stopped.
It creaked again and smacked down.
Open or closed?
The answer came with a pained groan, and then the sound of feet on the ladder.
Jons was coming down.
CHAPTER 19
every single day
Quinn burst back into the closet.
“Great job!” Daphna exclaimed. “It’s just like—!”
“The Hardy Boys!”
Daphna grinned. “I was going to say Nancy Drew. They were always finding secret passageways and rooms. I love those books!”
“Me, too!”
The pair smiled at each other, but then Daphna turned away.
“One of these shelves must swing open,” she said. There were three separate units. Daphna attacked the first, sweeping off shoes, shirts, ties, and everything else that might be covering up a clue. When it was cleared, she moved to the second. Quinn took on the third, but neither of them found anything like—whatever it was they were looking for. A knob? A switch?
The lower portion of the units held dresser drawers, so they emptied them next. But neither found any way to open any kind of door.
“There’s got to be a way,” Daphna sighed when there was nothing left to remove.
“Hmmm,” said Quinn. “Ever read Sherlock Holmes?”
“Of course,” Daphna said, offended, “every story.”
Quinn smiled again. “My dad almost got his hands on a First Edition of Enter Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “For five bucks.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, marbled endpapers and gilt pages and everything. He found it at an estate sale but didn’t have the heart not to tell the old widow what she was selling.”
“That’d’ve been worth a fortune!” Daphna cried. “And you needed money! Wow, your dad sounds like he was a really good—I mean, he sounds like he is a really—Oh, gosh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Quinn said, shaking off the despairing look that suddenly crept over his features. “Let’s think like Holmes for a second. What do you notice about the shelves. Describe them for me.”
“Describe them?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there are three units, all white, each with four shelves resting on—Hey! Let’s take them out.”
So Daphna and Quinn removed the shelves.
“What are those?” Daphna pointed to the little plastic discs now exposed on the back of each unit. They’d been covered by the back edges of the shelves.
Quinn approached the middle unit and popped one out. Behind it was a screw.
“Oh,” Daphna sighed. “They cover up the screws that hold it on the wall. If you set the shelves at different places, they’d show, and it would look ugly.”
“There’s an extra one here,” Quinn pointed out. It was true. There were two behind each shelf in all the units, but three on the middle shelf of the first. The one in the center was larger than the others.
It was about the size of a—
Daphna attacked it.
The little plug popped right out into her hand.
She and Quinn looked at what was behind it.
A keyhole.
Daphna and Quinn turned to each other with the same victorious smiles and cried, “Elementary, my dear, Watson!” Then they burst out laughing.
Then they stopped.
There was a long moment during which their eyes locked. And then, suddenly, they were kissing.
Quinn was kissing Daphna again, but this time Daphna kissed him back.
But just before the world tipped off its axis again, Daphna shoved Quinn away. She jammed her eyes shut for a moment, willing her head to clear.
“Daphna,” Quinn said, “I—I’m sorry. I—”
“I’m already helping you!” Daphna screamed. “Okay?”
“What—what do you mean? I thought—It seemed like you—”
“You did it on purpose! I know you did it on purpose!”
“What? I did what on purpose?”
“You erased her so we would have to help you!”
“Dr. Fludd?” Quinn gasped. “You think I—I would never do anything like that! What kind of person do you think I am?”
“How am I supposed to know? Maybe the kind of person who was desperate for my brother’s help and knew how easily someone like you could get someone like me to help someone like you!”
“What?” Quinn was incredulous now. “What do you mean someone like me and someone like you? And why would I come up with something so elaborate and unlikely—?”
“BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE DO IN THIS WORLD! THEY USE YOU! THEY DISCOVER YOUR WEAKNESSESS AND THEY LIE AND CHEAT AND SCHEME AND PLOT AND DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU CARE AND DREAM ABOUT!”
Quinn looked as if he were considering all kinds of responses to this, but what he finally said was, “The first time I saw you was in my father’s shop. You were there with your dad. You were nine. It was April Fools Day, and I was going to play a prank on you, something brilliant like sneaking up and saying ‘Boo’ or pulling your hair. You were wearing white shorts with white stripes down the sides and a white shirt and one of those visors. It was white, too. You even had whi
te tennis shoes. You looked like an angel.”
Daphna shook her head as if to ward this off.
“I don’t remember dressing like that,” she challenged. “I’m sure I’d remember dressing like that!”
Quinn ignored this.
“I forgot all about scaring you as I watched you move around the shop,” he continued. “I’d never seen a child behave like that in the store. They usually wrecked the place. But you were totally engrossed in the books, lost in your own world. You took them off and put them back onto shelves like they were made of crystal. You had no idea I was trailing you in and out of the aisles, falling over stacks of books. You had no idea I was falling head over heels in love with you.”
A strangled sob escaped Daphna’s throat.
“Love at first sight?” she wailed. “At age nine? You expect me to believe in something like that in this world!”
“I believe in it,” Quinn said. “You and I were meant to meet again this way, to—”
“Quinn,” Daphna said, exasperated, “why do you always talk like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like things are supposed to happen the way they do.”
“I—I don’t know,” Quinn said. “I guess sometimes I really think they do.”
“Well, let me tell you something,” Daphna snapped. “God isn’t writing the script. Mysteries don’t exist just to entertain you. Tragedies don’t happen so you can build your character!”
“But—”
“People suffer, Quinn! Did my mother have to die to teach me the value of appreciating the people in my life while they’re still there? What about her life? Did Evelyn rot away from the plague so I could find a boyfriend to teach me about Destiny and True Love? Only children think the world revolves around them, Quinn. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a child. I was evicted from Storybook Land a long time ago.”
“You—you’re right,” Quinn conceded. “I’m sorry. I—I guess I read too much. I don’t refer to books all the time to impress people. I do it because it’s all I know. But I kissed you because I’ve been dreaming about you since the moment you left my father’s store that day.”
“Living in a dream world—” Daphna shouted, “It—it isn’t living!”
Quinn had no reply for this. He looked utterly defeated, and now Daphna felt ashamed. She felt like she’d just done a very bad thing.
“No,” she said, deciding just to forget about his supposedly being in love with her. “I’m sorry. I’m not right about being so upbeat. Being confident and optimistic is a good thing, no matter the reason. Expecting a happy ending makes them more likely to happen, I’m sure. You’ve helped me already by being so positive. Please, don’t stop.”
“Okay,” Quinn said, but he did not meet Daphna’s eyes. “You don’t trust me,” he said. “I understand.”
“I don’t trust anyone. No one but Dexter, and now something’s happened to us.”
“Daphna, no—we’ll all get back together as soon as we can.”
This seemed like the proper line of thought to pursue, and more importantly, to act upon. Daphna took Mr. G’s key out of her pocket and put it into the keyhole. Then she looked at Quinn, at his damnably handsome face.
He nodded, so she turned the key.
The entire shelving unit opened into the closet revealing a dark room behind it.
“Yes!” Quinn cried, but he did not try to hug Daphna. Instead, he went right into the room, feeling around on the wall for a light switch.
Daphna hesitated, but when the light came on she stepped inside.
“This is weird,” she said. “So very weird.”
It was a room full of filing cabinets.
“It’s like everything is happening over and over again.”
“What do you mean?” Quinn asked.
“Never mind—Hey, that’s just a few days after my birthday.”
Quinn approached the cabinet Daphna was pointing to. It had a label on the top drawer, a fourteen year old date. He opened the drawer and pulled out the first file.
Daphna hung back, sure that whatever was in there wasn’t something she wanted to see.
“There’s a copy of your birth certificate in here,” Quinn said. “Yours and your brother’s. At least I think that’s what it is. It’s in Hebrew maybe? Except for your names. There’s a picture of you—at least I assume it’s you.”
Daphna hurried over. Yes, that’s what it looked like, an Israeli birth certificate with their names on it. Clipped to it were two photos, one of her and one of Dex. Dex was in their father’s arms. Daphna was in their mother’s—their mother! They were in a hospital.
Daphna pulled a piece of paper with typing on it out of a file, a brief note that read: “Have reached the children. Nothing unusual to report.” There was a stamp above reading, ‘Copy.’
Bewildered, and not a little disturbed, Daphna turned the folder over. There was a date on the tab—the same date on the cabinet. The drawer was still open, and now she saw that it was stuffed with files, all dated in order. She grabbed the next one and found photos of her and Dex in their cribs.
Frantic now, Daphna rifled through more files until she found one with a report longer than a few lines. She pulled it out and read: “Twins’ mother did not return from cave expedition. Presumed dead. Father injured. Move to America being planned. Will follow.” One further in the cabinet said, “Father functional with brain injury/memory impairment. Mother not dead but living with family disguised as caretaker: reasons unclear.”
Daphna shoved the file back into the drawer, then slammed it shut. She turned to take in the full effect of all these cabinets—these drawers that apparently contained a chronicle of her life. She opened the top drawer in the next cabinet and found a file with pictures of her and Dex in their Multnomah Village house. They looked about two.
‘Nothing unusual to report.’
Flipping through random files now, Daphna saw picture after picture of her and Dex, most of which featured their mother as well. It was as if all her lost photographs had materialized here, even the ones she had to conjure up in her mind this past year. This trove should have felt like a goldmine, but instead it disgusted her. It was a violation she could scarcely conceive. It felt as if someone had quite literally stolen her memories.
Daphna counted the cabinets. There were thirteen. She moved to the twelfth and opened it. After fingering through, she pulled out a file. There were photos of her and Dex in the Clearing, in the rain, with seven elderly people lying dead in the leaves. The report read, “Twins not killed in events of the day. As previously reported, the book in question is not what we seek.”
“I—I can’t believe this,” Daphna stuttered. “Every single day?”
Quinn had a drawer open in the last cabinet.
“This is yesterday,” he said. “Or last night. There’s a picture of you and Dexter coming out of the hosp—”
Thunder slammed the world just then. The house reacted like it had been kicked. Then more booming claps followed, slamming and slamming and slamming the house, threatening to knock it down. The filing cabinets toppled and crashed to the floor disgorging their contents like piñatas. It was a wonder none of them struck Daphna or Quinn, both of whom sank to the floor in the midst of it all, huddling together.
When the thunder finally ceased, they found themselves surrounded by what looked like felled metal trees. Folders and photos were strewn about like leaves covering a forest floor.
Neither spoke for a few moments, but finally Daphna said, “I lost all my own pictures. All my albums were destroyed.” Then, with no warning, she jumped up and scrambled over the mess back into the closet. After crashing through the wall of clothes, Daphna ran back into the living room. She needed to get out of there, to get some fresh air, though she was sure what she’d find outside would be some fresh horror instead. She settled for throwing open the drapes to let the sun shine on her face.
Fortunately, no one was around. Daphn
a just stood there looking at the sky, trying not to think about pictures, about her inadequate memories, about Quinn and kissing and destiny, about abandoning Dexter again, about Heaven and Earth and Just Desserts.
She tried to let her eyes unfocus but was distracted by an image of that ridiculous painting behind her reflected on the window glass. She looked at all the squiggles superimposed over the school and thought about the paths that pastor said they better choose. A quote came to mind: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. She was probably on that road. But how could she be blamed if it was the only road open to her?
Quinn was there, standing behind her.
“All that camera equipment is obviously not just for butterflies,” Daphna said without taking her eyes off the two images in the glass. Now it sort of looked like worms attacking the school. They’d attack her that way, when she was finally dead and buried, all but her precious rib, she supposed. “The butterfly thing is probably just his cover,” she added. “I guess I know why he’s been at every school we’ve gone to now.”
“But,” Quinn said, “with all those things you told me about, almost getting killed all those times? He just watched? What if you died?”
“He—whoever he’s working for—they want us to die,” Daphna realized, finally turning around. “They know we’re Lamed Vavniks somehow, and for some reason they think one of us—They must be watching us all if they know how to find us. They must think—Oh, my gosh!”
“What?”
“That murder scene—when Dex and I were there. In the hotel room—there were two cops, and someone taking pictures! We figured it was a reporter. The cops were Masons, but the photographer—He could have been one of these people!”
“Wow,” Quinn said. “The poor guy’s been murdered, and there’s a room full of people all just—What were you going to say your teacher must think?”
Book of Names Page 12