The Paper Grail

by James P. Blaylock

He widened his eyes at her. “Do you mean like bird-headed men and ankhs and people doing that bent-handed Egyptian dance? I always loved that stuff. I had an elementary school teacher whose name, I swear it, was Rosetta Stone.”

  “Seen enough?” she asked, heading toward the door.

  “I guess. Look, I’m sorry. I was just being funny.”

  “You’re a riot. You don’t believe in anything and so you make fun of people who do. Are you frightened of something, or what?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it that way.”

  “Well, think about it. You don’t half understand what’s going on up here, do you? Maybe you ought to go back down to L. A. and leave us alone. Get lost on the freeways or something.”

  Howard followed her out of the store, into the moonlight. His mind whirled. He’d been stupidly facetious, even though he could have predicted it would cause trouble. If he were utterly confident that he did understand some central mystery, then maybe he could put up with that sort of behavior from himself. But truthfully he had come to think, over the last couple of years, that he understood almost nothing. And the last two days had pretty much made him certain of it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Actually I’m a little nervous. I don’t know what’s going on, just like you said. Everybody’s telling me that, and I think it’s getting to me. I don’t know anything about anybody’s past lives, and I’ll admit it. I promise I won’t make fun of it anymore. Let’s get something to drink, like we set out to do. A bottle of wine.”

  “I’m pretty busy,” she said, clearly still miffed about his attitude.

  “What busy? What’s there to do?”

  They stood on the boardwalk near the duck pond. The full moon shone on the weedy water. It might have been romantic under other circumstances, but at the moment it was just cold and windy and uncomfortable. It occurred to Howard that he and Sylvia had gotten remarkably familiar with each other in the last two hours. The fifteen years had simply disappeared, like Uncle Roy’s ghosts. Somehow, though, it had gone just as quickly sour. And it was Howard’s fault, mostly. He tried to think of why it was partly Sylvia’s fault, but he couldn’t come up with anything good except for the reincarnation nonsense.

  “I’m sorry I got smart,” he said.

  She nodded. “I think you say that too often.”

  “Say what?”

  ‘That you’re sorry. Quit saying it. Just do something about it.”

  “Right. Bottle of wine?”

  Without saying anything more she headed up the street. He followed along, catching up to her at the corner, where she turned, angling across toward the Albatross Cafe. The bar upstairs was nearly empty, only a couple of people playing darts and eating popcorn. Geriatric-sounding New Age jazz played softly over hidden speakers. After being careful to consult her, Howard ordered a bottle of white wine and two glasses, and they sat in silence for a time.

  “Mr. Jimmers tells me you were robbed yesterday,” she said finally.

  Howard nodded, then went on to tell her about the adventure at the turnout on the highway, about the gluer microbus and the stolen paperweight. The news didn’t seem to surprise her. “Did you tell Father about it, about the paperweight?”

  “Nope. Subject never came up.”

  “I’ll see if he can get it back for you,” she said. “It might be sold by now, or traded away. There’s a fairly hot black market operating up here. Lots of bartering and contraband. Father’s had a hand in it. He’s got connections that might have seen it. You might check out the antique stores downtown, too, or right here in Mendocino.”

  “Good idea,” Howard said. “I wouldn’t mind buying it back.” He paused, thinking hard. Seconds passed while he stared into his glass. Finally he spoke, taking his chance on the wine and on Sylvia’s inherently romantic nature. “Actually I was bringing it up as a gift for you.” He gazed into his glass as the moments slipped past, hoping that the silence was underscoring his meaning. When he looked up in order to meet her eyes, she wasn’t there; she was standing at the popcorn machine, holding the empty bowl from the table.

  “I can’t stand not to eat popcorn when it’s around,” she said, returning with a full bowl.

  “Me neither.” He snatched up a big handful and munched on it, trying to think of how to rephrase the statement about the paperweight. He topped off their wineglasses, noticing that the level in the bottle had gone down quickly. That wasn’t a bad thing, except that if he were depending on the wine to loosen the evening up, a single bottle might not do it. And yet if he ordered a second, she might think he was up to something, or else drank like a fish along with the rest of his vices and bad attitudes.

  “Anyway, this paperweight was a Mount Washington weight. I’m not sure how old, but nineteenth century for sure.”

  She nodded at him and said, “I almost feel like an appetizer. What do you think?”

  “Sure,” he said, putting the lid on the urge to make a silly joke out of her statement. “I mean, I’m pretty full of salmon. Something light, maybe. You choose it.”

  “Be back in a sec.” She stood up and moved away, studying a menu that lay on the bar and then talking to the bartender for a moment. Howard could hear her laugh, but she was speaking too low for him to make out any of the conversation. Clearly they knew each other well. He felt like a tourist as he pretended to watch the dart game. Now he would have to bring up the paperweight a third time. That was almost impossible.

  “Want anything to drink?” Sylvia asked from the bar.

  “A beer,” he said. “Anything local, thanks.” He turned back to the dart game. He might as well leave the rest of the wine to Sylvia.

  She sat back down, smiling and with his beer and a glass. “The bartender’s a friend of mine,” she said. “His name is Jean Paul. He’s a martial arts expert and owns—what do they call it?—a dojo up in Fort Bragg. He has to moonlight here four days a week in order to keep the dojo open. Martial arts is a spiritual thing with him, a way of life.”

  Howard decided to say nothing. He couldn’t tolerate Jean Paul. Clearly it was a fake name. The subject of Jean Paul would just get him into trouble. The man had probably been a ninja assassin during the Ming dynasty. Wasn’t a dojo some sort of aquarium fish? Martial arts stank on ice. It was another New Age phenomenon pretending to have lived exotic past lives.

  “Say,” he said. “I ran into Stoat down at a tavern in town.”

  She was silent on the subject of Stoat.

  “What’s he up to these days along artistic lines? Does he still paint, or is he mostly a financier?”

  “He paints pictures of complicated-looking microcircuitry, with bits yanked out of it. It looks sort of … physiological. Fleshy, I guess you’d say, but it’s cold and empty and nasty. Very nasty. To my eye it’s just dead on the canvas. He’s heavily into cybernetics.”

  “You two aren’t …”

  “Aren’t what?”

  “Seeing each other.”

  “I saw him this afternoon. You drove past, remember.”

  He nodded. “Of course. I just …” Howard let the subject die. Somehow the jovial bartender had made him jealous, and the jealousy had reminded him of Stoat. He had caught himself, though. There was no percentage in taking that line. “So anyway, this paperweight…” Howard started to say.

  “Oh, yes,” Sylvia said, interrupting. “You were worried about getting it back.”

  “Well, no. Not exactly. You see, I remembered back when you used to have a couple. Remember that French one that you had—the St. Louis weight with the little running devil in it?”

  She nodded, but the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the food—two plates, a tray full of potato skins, and a wire rack full of condiments and a couple of spoons. Sylvia studied her wineglass, her eyes distant, her mind troubled again. The paperweight subject had evaporated.

  On the theory that desperate times called for desperate measures, Howard picked up the two spoons and we
dged one into each eye so that the handles thrust away on either side of his head like dragonfly wings. He stared in her general direction, his face screwed up to keep the spoons from falling out. He swore to himself that he wouldn’t relinquish the spoons, no matter what, until she did something—hit him, walked out, asked to use a spoon, anything.

  She let him sit for a long minute, until he began to think about the other people in the bar and the spectacle he was making of himself. He started to wish he could see something past the edges of the spoons. What if she had left—gone to the popcorn machine or the rest room? What if she slipped out and drove home? Finally she laughed, though, as if she couldn’t help herself, and shoved the end of a potato skin into his mouth when he tried to say something.

  “Cheer the hell up,” he said, swallowing the thing.

  “You cheer up. Better yet, don’t talk. You keep getting into trouble when you talk.”

  “I won’t. I promise. I mean I will. Anyway, this paper- weight …” He wanted more than ever for her to know that he had brought it as a gift.

  She pursed her lips and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. I can see that it’s really bothering you. Like I said, if it’s still around, maybe Father can get it back. You’ll just have to be patient about it. It’s really got you worked up, hasn’t it? That’s probably why you’re on edge, why you’re so catty about things.”

  It was hopeless. Giving her the paperweight now, even if he had it, wouldn’t work. He had made too big an issue of it. He decided to cut his losses and drink his beer. He poured the rest of the bottle of wine into her glass.

  “I’m warning you right now,” she said, “that if I drink that, you’re going to have to drive home.”

  “Fine. I’m sober as a judge. It’s still early, though.”

  She checked her watch. “Just nine o’clock.” She drank her wine meditatively for a moment. Then she said, “You know, for a minute there I thought you were going to tell me that you’d brought the paperweight up to give it to me.”

  His eyes shot open. “That’s what I did,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  She laughed. “That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to say that now. I know what the thing means to you. You were like that when you were a kid, too. Remember?”

  “I guess I was.” He wondered what she meant, what she was up to. “Like what?”

  “Remember you had that one marble, the one with the red and blue swirls? That favorite one? What did you call it? ‘Martian Winter.’ Remember that? You were sure cornball sometimes.”

  “I …” He shrugged. He had actually made up names for his marbles, but how on earth had she remembered them?

  “You went absolutely stark when it disappeared. Remember? You cried for about a week.”

  “Me? I never cried about that.” He’d been about eight at the time. He could still remember it clearly. It was one of those disasters that loom monumental in the mind of a child. He certainly hadn’t cried about it, though—not in public, anyway.

  “Did you ever figure out what happened to it?”

  He shook his head. “Lost it under the couch or something.”

  Now she shook her head. “Nope. I stole it. I gave it to Jimmy Hooper.” She smirked at him, finishing off her wine.

  “I knew you did.”

  “You liar! You never knew anything about it.”

  “And I never drew bird men in the dirt, either, and had my trance therapist scope them out.”

  “Neither did I. I was lying about that. I knew it would about kill you. I really didn’t steal your marble, either.”

  “I knew you didn’t,” he said. “And I really did bring that paperweight up here to give it to you.”

  “You’re sweet,” she said, still not believing him. “I know what let’s do, let’s go out to the museum.”

  “Now? In the dark?” Suddenly he regretted letting her finish the bottle of wine by herself.

  “I’ve got a flashlight in the car. Don’t forget that I’m pretty familiar with the place. I grew up there, nearly.”

  “Would tomorrow be better? Tomorrow afternoon—I’m supposed to work on the haunted house tomorrow with Uncle Roy, but not all day.”

  “You’re scared,” she said. “Just like when you lost the marble. Tell me your pet name for it again. I’ve forgotten. I want to hear you say it just once, just for the sake of old times.”

  He sat like a stone idol, smashing his mouth shut, and then made the motion of turning a key in front of his lips, locking them tight.

  “Remember when you set marbles all over the floor and said they were the ‘ice planetoids,’ and then you went to the bathroom and I brought Trixie into the house and played ‘deadly comet’? I think that’s when the Martian one disappeared, don’t you? It went down the heater vent in the floor.”

  “No. Forget the marble. We were talking about going down to the museum. I can’t believe you’re serious about that.” He found himself hoping that she was, though. He could picture them hand in hand in the moonlit museum, waiting for the arrival of the ghost car. It was something they might have done in high school.

  “Why not?” she said. “What are you afraid of, ghosts?”

  “What the heck,” he said. “Not me.” Not for the first time, it struck him that Sylvia looked astonishing in her sweater. It gave him a new appreciation for the overpriced clothes in her shop. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll drive.”

  9

  THANK God for the moonlight, Howard said to himself as they wound their way down the highway, south through Little River. The road was empty save for one set of headlights a half mile behind them. Howard was ready to pull off the road and let the car pass rather than drive with its lights shining into his rearview mirror, but it stayed well back—always one or two bends behind them, pacing them evenly.

  Without the moonlight it would have been utterly dark. As it was, there were patches of silvery light, illuminating here and there a bit of road or beach cut by the shadows of rocks and trees. The wind and the darkness had sobered Howard up quickly, but Sylvia leaned against his shoulder with her eyes closed, softly humming. The wine had relaxed her and she had managed to forget the day’s troubles. Howard wished that it had been something else that had relaxed her—him, specifically. But he hadn’t been able to.

  This was home to her, this wild stretch of twisting ocean highway. He was in strange territory, though, and it made him nervous. No, that didn’t entirely explain it—even as kids she had twice his sense of adventure, half his sense of fear. He watched for the headlights behind them. There they were, right on track. He couldn’t see the car, even with the moonlight. “Slow down,” she said, sitting up straight in the seat. “Here it comes.”

  He turned off the highway, past the picket fence with its cow skulls and across the weedy gravel parking lot where he pulled up against a wooden berm and shut the engine off, leaving the keys in the ignition. The windows in the building were tightly covered with plywood shutters, and even in the darkness, maybe especially so, the place had a long-disused look about it that somehow made him skeptical about going in.

  Sylvia climbed right out, though, pulling a parka out of the backseat along with a flashlight. Howard reached for his corduroy coat, wishing he had brought something warmer. The ocean wind rushed straight up at them from across the road, and he could hear the crash of breakers, unnaturally loud in the silent night. They scrunched across the gravel toward the rear of the building, back into the shadows of the forest. The smell of eucalyptus leaves was heavy in the air along with the smell of the sea.

  Sylvia shifted a little pile of granite rocks beneath an electrical circuit-breaker box, carefully lifting the grapefruit-sized rocks, as if wary of bugs, and shining her light in among them. “There’s a key here somewhere,” she said. Beyond, at the end of the building, was a padlocked door.

  On an impulse he stepped back around into the parking lot and waited. Nothing. There wasn’t a
car in sight. He thought without meaning to of the gluer microbus on the highway and of the Chevy in the parking lot at Sammy’s. Where was the car that had been following them? It should have gone past while they were fishing out their coats, but it hadn’t. It had vanished.

  There were driveways off the highway, of course, dirt roads leading down to houses on the bluffs or else up into the hills, up to the land of the cultists and dope gardeners. That would explain it. The car had turned off. It was as simple as that. It wasn’t the fabled ghost car making a run down the coast. Graham’s Studebaker was smashed to scrap on the rocks, anyway. Even ghosts wouldn’t care to drive a wreck like that.

  Cutting off the urge to whistle, Howard walked hurriedly around back, to where Sylvia ought to have been searching for the key. She was gone.

  “Syl!” he whispered, suddenly terrified. There was no answer. He looked around wildly for a rock, a stick, anything. He hunched down and scuttled across to the pile of rocks she’d been messing with, picking one up and hefting it. Then he stood still, listening, and very slowly edged toward the building to get his back to a wall. He gripped the rock. There was nothing—no sound at all.

  Until the door swung open and Sylvia stepped out onto the little wooden stoop, shining her flashlight into his face. He shouted—something between a scream and a groan—and threw the rock straight at the ground, as if he wanted to pulverize a lizard.

  “What on earth is wrong with you?” she asked in a normally pitched voice. It sounded insanely loud. “What were you going to do with that rock?”

  He stood blinking at her, his heart pounding against his ribs. “I thought you were gone,” he gasped out. “I thought there was some sort of trouble.” He whispered this last bit, knowing that there was no reason to and that it made him seem twice as terrified.

  “Aren’t you gallant?” she said, laughing. “Coming to my rescue like that. There’s nothing out here.” Then she was silent, listening, as if to let the night provide its own evidence. There was nothing but the low rumble of breakers from across the road and the sound of the wind sighing in the trees.