“I know,” Kimberley said softly. “Have some patience, okay?” The sergeant-turned-doctor knew that only the strange girl could change Dr. Isaacs to his ancient self. Neither she nor Aiden could do that magic, perhaps since they were both from Portwood and their present target never resided there in the past.
There were so many people in the emergency response room, though, and Kimberley knew they couldn’t risk any mistake at that point. If Dr. Isaacs was to become his old self with Rachel’s help, then it must be done in a secluded area, like his office.
“Do you know that Freetown was first settled in 1787 by four hundred formerly enslaved blacks sent from the UK?” Dr. Isaacs told them as they passed a sparsely occupied passageway.
“No, sir,” Aiden replied.
“These blacks were African-Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Africans, Southeast Asians, and blacks born in Britain,” their host continued warmly. “They established the ‘Province of Freedom’ and the settlement of Granville Town on land purchased from local Koya Temne sub chief, King Tom, and Regent Naimbana.”
“You seem to know a lot about this town,” Kimberley commended, watching the passageway traffic. Not yet, she silently told a restless Rachel by shaking her head from side to side. There were still people in the passageway.
“Yes,” Ezra agreed to Kimberley’s assumption. “History is a hubby I pride myself in, Dr. Katie. Right, here we are.” A paneled door stood flush with the passageway wall after which the long corridor veered off into another corridor to their left. The short doctor used his key to unlock this door, which led into his office.
Rachel touched the man’s hand as they all trooped into the room furnished with a small desk and four locally made chairs. Kimberley noticed his pupils disappear for awhile before reappearing with a different shade of brown as its hue. She couldn’t be more grateful for his next question, meant for the strange little girl from the Mine.
“Rachel, is…is that really you?” Dr. Isaacs wondered aloud, staring at the little girl he knew to be his friend’s daughter. His countenance had changed, but his smile remained on his face, though a bit more subtle.
“Yes, dear uncle,” Rachel began, stepping forward. “Shalom.”
“Shalom. You survived! Praise the Lord,” Ezra said with relief, and then his smile faded. “You brought me here from France? You fled with the white book, or a piece of it, right? Is that…it?”
Rachel nodded, showing her uncle the book. “I came with my father’s blessing,” she said. “He said I should move forward in time until I find someone who can help me defeat our enemies.” The little girl was closely watching the man’s reaction with Aiden and Kimberley. “I escaped before father could give me the names of those he said would help me, and I’ve been looking for those I know ever since. I need to go back to Rome after defeating the Gray Ones.”
“And they are after you?”
“Yes, uncle. They give me no rest.”
“Then you must…”
Aiden cleared his throat and the other three individuals turned to him. “Sorry,” he began, “but do you have anything to eat in this place?” he asked the man called Ezra. “My stomach’s quite empty.”
* * *
At first, the ambulance driver refused to come out of the vehicle, cursing the man urging him to do this in the local Creole dialect. When he finally stepped out, he didn’t shake the motorcyclist’s outstretched hand, nor did he want to hear the man’s confusing explanation afterwards. He didn’t even notice anything unusual in the fact that the bike rider gesticulated more often than was necessary and communicated in an awkward voice whenever the need to say something arose. The Sierra Leonean ambulance driver with a wife and two kids in Waterloo only felt that this fellow standing before him covered from head to toe in fashionable motorcycle garb was delaying his lunch break back at the health center by going on and on about a sick woman presently lying in the forest flanking the road.
Of course, the ambulance driver was also covered from head to toe in gear necessary for his work. What he didn’t know was that the motorcyclist disturbing him had already decided that this personal protective equipment, or PPE, which the African wore, would be a nice fit, since they were of the same height and size.
“So, where is she?” the Sierra Leonean wanted to know, impatiently heading towards the thick undergrowth beside the road.
“Very close by,” Carl Bain muttered softly behind the man, pointing further into the forest. “She is vomiting.”
The driver quickened his pace on hearing this. He didn’t see his guide bring out motorcycle rope and twist the ends around both hands. He only wanted to help a fellow Sierra Leonean and get back to the hospital and his lunch before his break ended. He stopped after pushing through the thick undergrowth for some time and scanned the area. “Where is she?” he asked the man behind him without looking back.
Tough synthetic cord dug into his windpipe and he struggled to catch his breath. Unable to loosen the braided baggage rope, he groped for the hands behind their strength, falling on both knees when he realized the futility of this attempt. Now he punched away at the human trunk behind him with both elbows in a bid to distract the person snuffing out his life, and when this did not work, he tried to scream, producing only hoarse sound. All this effort at breaking free from his attacker forced him to gasp for air that failed to reach his lungs, and now short of breath, he noticed his vision deeming quickly and pulled on the biker’s jacket and helmet with his failing strength, knowing that death stared at him in the face. He stopped doing this when he couldn’t muster enough strength to continue doing so, and towards the end, he could only swing his arms around. Pointlessly.
Carl Bain knelt down behind the African and waited for the flailing hands before him to go limp. His victim’s head slumped forward in death, and he waited some more to be sure of the man’s current status before loosening the weapon he had used to murder the careless man.
Few minutes later, he emerged from the forest in the dead man’s protective gear, hopped into the ambulance, made sure that the sick boy was still sitting in the emergency compartment behind him and started the engine.
“Where is the other man?” his only passenger called out to him.
No reply. Carl Bain started the engine and put the gear control in drive.
“We are going to be late,” the boy complained.
The new driver looked straight ahead. “Don’t worry, boy,” he sneered in that same awkward voice. “I’ll get you to the hospital in no time.” And the boy said nothing, having hopefully noticed nothing out of place.
The ambulance started moving.
* * *
For the first time since they left Portwood, Kimberley’s mind went back to all that had happened after she came across Rachel’s freezing body on that snow-covered road near David’s grocery store. Jim’s death she was yet to accept, often telling herself it was a bad dream that would unravel once morning arrived. But then, she would put food in her mouth, feeling the table’s hard wood before her with her left hand as she ate, and the realization that this was really happening would dawn on her in a brutal manner. And her heart would start bleeding all over again for her dead boyfriend.
‘Why did he have to die?’ she kept wondering, throwing angry stares at the little girl eating across the table. If not for Rachel’s appearance that snowy day, none of this would have happened. None of her colleagues at the station would have died. No, not Patrol Officer Lyndon, or the others.
Or Jim.
Jim would still be alive.
Feeling embarrassed, Aiden stopped eating when Kimberley turned her intense gaze on him. “What?” he gestured with his free hand.
“Been wondering why you left school,” she mouthed. “You’re very brilliant, you know.”
Aiden’s countenance changed and he dropped his head to concentrate on his plate. Obviously, he didn’t like the subject.
“I’ve always wanted to ask you a question,” Kimberley beg
an, turning to Rachel as she changed the subject.
“Okay?” The little girl stopped eating and looked up.
“Why is your name all over the book’s pages? I mean, if you’ve been going places with the names of your father’s friends, where did you go to when you write down your name all that time?”
“I use my name to escape from the Gray Ones when I can’t defend myself anymore,” Rachel replied. “I appear somewhere and then write down the next name I had in mind, so that I can get to him or her.”
Kimberley frowned. That sounded sensible.
“You haven’t done that ever since we met,” Aiden pointed out.
“I-I haven’t been in a desperate position ever since I met you guys,” Rachel stammered.
“Really?” Kimberley asked her. “We all know that’s not true, Rachel.”
The little girl did not look up from her food. “Okay, let’s just say I haven’t used it ever since I met you guys.”
Ezra cleared his throat to get the attention of the three at table in his office. He tried to say something but the words wouldn’t come out. An anticipatory Rachel had stopped eating; looking at him like her life depended on his next words. He swallowed hard and looked straight at her, summoning the courage to finally say it like he should. “You must go back.”
“What?” Rachel began.
“What?” Kimberley cried, turning to the little girl. “I mean, what’s he saying?”
Aiden had an expressionless face. His thoughts had gone wild all of a sudden.
“Rachel, what does he mean by what he just told us?” Kimberley demanded.
“I…He…,” Rachel stuttered.
“What’s the matter?” Dr. Isaacs finally asked. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, doctor,” Kimberley said, shaking her head from side to side. “Just that your niece here, or whatever, told us something entirely different about being able to go back to our time with the book?”
“And what did she tell you?”
Kimberley glared at Rachel. “I mean, you said that’s impossible, right?”
“Yes,” Rachel replied, trying to avoid all the eyes in the small office.
“And why would you say that?” her uncle asked her.
“To think that we trusted you,” Aiden snapped. “You’ve been lying to us this whole time!”
“No…I–I didn’t want to be alone anymore!” Rachel cried, turning back to face the others. “I–I was afraid!”
“And so you lied to us,” Kimberley concluded for her. “You made us go through what we’ve gone through, because you were afraid of losing us as friends? We couldn’t go back to our own homes, because you didn’t want to lose us as friends? Who does that to a friend, huh?”
Rachel kept quiet. There was nothing more to say.
“How do you go back with the book, Ezra?” Kimberley asked the little girl’s uncle.
“Well, you write your name behind the leaf on which you’ve earlier written your name when you wanted to be brought forward in time.”
“Wow,” Kimberley said. “That simple, huh?”
“But that’s not all that I wanted to tell you,” the Israeli doctor said, turning back to Rachel. “Rachel, you must find a way to give the book back to the Gray Ones.”
“No!” Rachel cried, standing up and walking away from the group.
“Okay, I didn’t get that,” Aiden said, confused.
“What do you mean?” Kimberley asked Ezra, her hands spread out. “I mean, why should that be a priority now?”
“That’s the only way,” the short man said, his permanent smile having since disappeared. “That’s the only way to stop all this…madness.”
“Father said to go forward until I find someone who can help me,” Rachel said with conviction, tightly embracing the leather-bound book with both arms. “There is no other way.”
Ezra seemed desperate. “Look,” he said, going round the table in the office to get to his dead friend’s daughter. “Your father will be proud of you, Rachel. You’ve done your best. This is the only way to have rest.”
“You’re telling me to give up.”
“No, I’m just saying you deserve to be free of all this,” her uncle urged her. “You need not be the Bookbearer if you don’t want to.”
“And what happens if she gives the book back to those…things?” Kimberley wanted to know.
“That must be after you’re returned to your time, doctor.”
“Actually, I’m a police officer in my time,” Kimberley pointed out.
“Well, officer…”
“Sergeant Kimberley Reyna.”
“Well, sergeant, the Booklords will stop at nothing until they take back that book.”
“The Booklords?” Aiden began. “They’re also called the Gray Ones, right?”
“You know them as the Gray Ones, but actually, they are not the only group of Booklords. The second group is the Black Ones,” Ezra told him. “This second set of Booklords went after the black book.”
“The black book?” Kimberley asked him. “Is that the other book’s name?”
“Eh, yes, my dear,” Ezra said. “Fitting names, eh? Black and white. Hot and cold.”
“The black book gets hot?” Aiden asked. “What’s it…”
“Made of?” Ezra brightened. “Well, it’s…”
“What’s the story behind the Booklords?” Kimberley interrupted. “What must we know now?”
“Can’t go into details,” the Israeli said, looking worried. “Just know that it’s in your best interest to return the book to them.”
“Why?” Aiden wanted to know, and Rachel’s uncle sighed.
“Look,” he began, “these things have been after me ever since I fled the Mine. They’ve been tormenting me in order to get information about the book from me.”
“Okay,” Kimberley said, frowning.
“Truth is that they desperately want that book back, and they can’t get it unless the Bookbearer with it gives it back willingly. At least, it’s a lot easier getting it that way than the way they’ve been going about it.”
Aiden sighed. “And how did you know all this, sir?”
“They communicated with me in my sleep,” the man said, studying the boy.
“Uncle Ezra, how could you?” Rachel cried. “How could you make such a mistake?”
“It wasn’t a choice I made,” her uncle said. “They controlled my mind. They can control anyone they want to.”
“They cannot control me,” Rachel snapped.
“Believe me, child,” her uncle said. “They can do any…”
“You’ve failed your people, uncle,” his little niece interrupted, turning to Aiden and Kimberley. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Kimberley asked the little girl. “We still have unanswered questions.”
“Please, don’t listen to him anymore, Kim,” the strange girl begged her. “He’s lying to you.”
“Like you lied to us?” Aiden asked.
“What more do you want to know, sergeant?” Ezra asked Kimberley.
“Why do you keep talking about returning the book to them?” she asked him. “Do these…these Booklords own the book?”
“Actually, there were two books,” Ezra began.
“Yep, we already know that,” Aiden quipped.
“And these two books were crafted with the help of these…things. These…demons.”
“So, it’s not really their property?” Kimberley asked the man.
“It’s…It’s partly owned by them,” Ezra tried to explain. “They put in more work than the Bookmakers.”
“Another new one,” Aiden noted.
“Not true,” Rachel denied. “God gave us the two books and after He fell out with the messengers He assigned to us, these angels-turned-demons wanted to seize the power in the books and God gave us the Fire and Ice of Masada to protect the books with.”
“Fire and Ice of what?” Kimberley began.
“That was f
olklore cooked up to encourage us, my dear,” Ezra told his niece. “Even your father knew the truth.”
“No!” Rachel cried.“You lie!”
“I think so, too,” Kimberley said, having made up her mind. “You’ve been lying to us, doctor.”
“No, you have to believe me, sergeant,” Rachel’s uncle said. “Everything I just told you is true.”
“You’re working with those things for whatever selfish reason,” Kimberley pointed out, “and I can see that now.” She turned to Aiden. “Let’s go.”
“Hello, she lied to us?” Aiden began, pointing at Rachel. “Can we trust her again?”
“Please…Please don’t go,” Ezra pleaded with them. “Please take my advice and return that evil book.”
Kimberley noticed the unease in his voice. “And why should we go back to those things you called demons?” she wanted to know. “Demons aren’t good news, you know?”
The doctor drew nearer. “They–They just want the book and nothing more,” he said. “They have the other volume in their possession now. They need this one as well.”
“They don’t have the black book, uncle. They cannot face the Fire of Masada,” Rachel said. “We need to go now, Kim.”
“Wow,” Aiden said, holding his head. Every statement in this journey kept throwing up more unanswered questions. He joined the other two as they headed for the office door.
Ezra looked like he could choke. “Anyway,” he began. “They–They promised to fix things in your time if the book is returned to them.”
Kimberley’s heart skipped. “Did they promise that?” she asked.
“Yes,” the man said. “They promised to bring things back to normal. To bring back the dead.”
Kimberley stopped in her tracks.
“Will they bring back Father?” Rachel asked her uncle. His face told her all she needed to know. “He’s lying, Kim,” she urged her fellow time-traveler, who seemed to be having second thoughts.
“Aiden, let’s go back,” Kimberley said, Ezra’s last statement being the reason for the change in her decision. She turned to Rachel. “Your uncle is right, Rachel,” she said. “You need to move on. Come live with me in Portwood if you don’t want to go back to your place and time.”
The White Book Page 9