by Lis Wiehl
“Got it,” he said.
“And I’ll press here . . .”
Dani and Tommy pressed, then pulled. The box slid open.
29.
Nested inside the box was a book, about twelve inches by eight, and three inches thick. On the cover were the words Vademecum Absconditus embossed in gold leaf.
“A Vademecum is a reference,” Villanegre said. “The Oxford Vademecum lists phone numbers of the colleges and local restaurants and such. Absconditus . . .”
“Means secret,” Ruth said. “Or concealed.”
“Yes,” Villanegre said. “I’d suppose it means it’s a reference of secret things.”
“That’s so weird,” Cassandra said to Tommy. “I had a dream in which you were looking at a book.”
Tommy was startled and tried hard not to show it as he looked at Dani. He could see by her reaction that she too had immediately grasped the implications of what Cassandra had said. If Cassandra had had a prophetic dream about Tommy, with such specific imagery, it signified more than just a random reconfiguration of preexisting memes. It meant the mosaic of God’s design included her.
“Dreams are one way we’ve been getting messages,” Tommy told her. “Some of us have found connections in our dreams.” He looked at Dani again. “Carl,” he said, offering his friend the first chance to open it. “You wanna go first?”
“No, no,” Carl said, waving him off and stepping back, holding his hands up in refusal. “All yours.”
While Tommy carefully lifted the book from the box, Carl cleared the magazines from the coffee table and spread a polar fleece throw on the table to protect the book.
Tommy set the book down and gently ran his hand across the surface, feeling the ridges and depressions of the leather and the indentations of the embossed title. He couldn’t begin to guess how old it was. He carefully opened it, placing the tip of his little finger beneath the upper corner of the cover and gently folding it back.
The title page was only that—the same words that were on the cover, but hand lettered and surrounded by a colorful decorated border of leafy vines bearing fruits and flowers.
“I do know a bit about these as works of art,” Villanegre said. “May I?” He reached in to feel the paper. “I believe that’s calf vellum. It’s rare to find such a well-preserved example. Too dry and it turns brittle, and above 40 percent humidity, it gelatinizes. Or else mold destroys it.”
“The library attic would be a good place to put it, in that case,” Ruth said.
“The rinceaux,” he explained, “that’s the decorative border—and the script, which is insular majuscule, were commonly found in Psalters and Books of Hours in medieval Britain and Ireland. The black-letter gothic script didn’t come into favor until the thirteenth century, so this most likely predates that. I’d be willing to bet the red ink is insect-based. The yellow is probably from tumeric or saffron.”
Tommy carefully turned the page. The facing page seemed to have been written in a different hand from the title page. Tommy turned the book so that Villanegre and Carl could have a better look. It read:
TU TITULARI SACRO TEXTU VOS HAEC CUSTOS,
HAEC VOBIS IN MANUS CONFREGI CATENAS
TU TENENTES ET ABSCONDITUS ES POSSESSIO IMPETUM
CUM SANCTO MUNERE USQUE AD ULTIMUM SPIRITUM
TUUM ET ANIMAM TUAM ADVERSUS OMNES SATANAE
ET OMNIBUS OPERIBUS EIUS VIRTUTEM,
OMNEM GLORIAM DEI,
ET PUERUM EIUS CUSTODIO.
HAEC MANDO VOBIS,
UT ERAT DICTUM,
IN NOMINE PATRIS ET FILII ET SPIRITUS SANCTI.
EXCEPTEUR SINT RENATI,
ET ACCIPE VOCATIONEM SACRAM,
HABEBIS PROMISSUM CAELI IN ALTERA VITA,
ET HOC IN CUSTODIA ANGELORUM.
ET AMARE EIUS HUMILIS ANCILLA,
ADRIANI
ABBATIS IN ABBATIA SANCTI AUGUSTINI
CANTUARIENSIS
“Oh dear,” the Englishman said. “I may be wrong, but I believe this is Middle Latin, or what was called Church Latin. Not the Latin of Cicero or Caesar that I’m familiar with.”
“Do you mind if I try?” Ben said. Tommy was doubtful but moved aside so that Ben could sit in front of the book. He settled into his chair, aligned the book, and then leaned in to study the text. “That’s funnylooking writing.”
“Can you read it?” Tommy said.
“You, the holder of this sacred text,” Ben read slowly, studying the words carefully. “You, the keeper of these words, you whose hands have broken this lock, you hold the secret. And you are charged by this—oh, wait; make that by the fact of your possession—with a holy task to give until . . . Sorry, can’t make that out . . . to offer your last breath, your life, and all your strength to the battle against Satan and his works, and to glorify God and to keep safe his every child. That’s this part here.”
He pointed to a passage.
“This I ask—no, I think it says command—this I command of you, to keep this promise, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. If you are born again, and accept this sacred calling, and keep his commandments, you will have the certain promise of heaven in the next life, and the protection of angels in this one.”
He leaned back and smiled. “That’s good to know. It explains something I was wondering about,” he said.
“What did you need to know?” Cassandra asked.
“It explains why I’m here,” Ben said. “What my purpose is.”
“What’s the last line?” Dani said. “I recognize the name Adrian there.”
“The last line is just the signature of the guy who wrote this,” Ben said. “His humble and loving servant, Adrian, Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“The man himself,” Ruth said.
“Scholars of the day believed Latin was a language that would never die,” Villanegre said. “Like English today, I suppose. He must have given the book, or part of it, to Charles the Black. This page was his commission.”
“Sic transit gloria,” Dani said.
“The keeper of the book is protected by angels,” Tommy said, looking at Carl. “So where were they the night Abbie died?”
“She was no longer the keeper of the book,” Dani said. “But why did she hide this in the library?”
“She wasn’t thinking too straight toward the end,” Tommy said. “If she was being protected, she was still over a hundred years old. Nobody beats the clock.”
“If it takes two people to open it, what was she doing in the attic alone?” Ruth said.
“It takes two to open it,” Tommy said, “but it only took one to hide it. She brought it there. Probably from her home.”
He turned to the next page, which had, rather than words, a parade of runes and glyphs drawn across the page in sequences that reminded Dani of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. They were executed in the same style as the pictographs found in Leatherman’s Cave. Ben put his finger on the first rune, then the second, then the third. He turned the next page, then the next, then skipped ahead a dozen pages, and a dozen more.
“I know what this is,” he said. “It’s rather remarkable. It’s an Algonquin Bible. A translation of the main stories, not a complete, word-for-word rendering. This canoe with two bears in it and a man and his family is Noah and the flood. The bear was the symbol for all animal life. And this drawing . . .” He quickly flipped through the pages to find what he was looking for. “Here—what would you think that is?”
He pointed at a grouping of feathers surrounding a child, with a deer or elk standing next to him and three men who appeared to be chiefs.
“That’s the Nativity,” Tommy said.
“Here’s the Star of David,” Ben said, pointing. He smiled. “The man who wrote this wouldn’t have used donkeys because the people who lived here wouldn’t have known what he was referring to, so he drew an elk.”
He leafed through more pages, letting them reveal their narratives. On the last page of runes Tommy
saw, though it took a bit of effort to decode the images precisely, a trial and a crucifixion and a cave, and a man rising into the stars.
“Who drew it?” Villanegre said.
“Hiawatha,” Ben said. “This white canoe here was the mark he made. Deganawida—”
“The Man of the North,” Dani explained to Cassandra. “He was a Christian Viking who stayed behind when Leif Ericson sailed back to Iceland. Sort of the first missionary in the Western Hemisphere.”
“Deganawida told Hiawatha the stories, and Hiawatha translated them,” Ben said. “Deganawida must have brought this calf vellum with him.”
Ben then turned the page again, and showed that the closing images of the Algonquin Bible were not the final pages of the book. After the last page of runes there was a blank page, and then a page upon which something was written in a script none of them could recognize or parse. Without being able to translate this text, they were still able to conclude that the pages contained a series of letters. As they turned the pages of these letters, they were gradually able to read and understand them, because they were written in a language that grew closer and closer to modern-day English. The first letter they could fully understand began:
Dear Robert,
As thou holdest this book and letter, it shall indicate that thou hast been chosen not only by me but by the Lord God Himself, who hast told me thou art a Good Christian and worthy of carrying out this Sacred mission. This is a secret thou art commanded to keep, for in the forfeit of such, shalt thou surely fail. When the day cometh that thou must choose a successor, thou shalt copy this letter to him.
A great evil hath come onto this land. That evil is nothing less than Satan himself and the fallen angels who do his bidding. They will seek to find you out and destroy you if they can. Thou shalt be safe as long as this book is kept close and these words live in thine heart. In our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, from Whom all blessings flow and in Whom only salvation and the promise of Eternal Life may be found, shalt thou find guidance and surety in the wisdom of His Holy Might . . .
“Can we go back for a moment?” Villanegre said. “I’d like to see the first letter again.”
He read it several times.
“You said that Hiawatha and Deganawida defeated Thadodaho, but that they were in turn visited by an affliction?” he asked Ben.
“Yes,” Ben said. “The people who lived here enjoyed an abundance difficult to imagine today. Before the Europeans arrived in great numbers, a squirrel from Massachusetts could travel from tree limb to tree limb and reach the Mississippi River without ever touching the ground. The skies turned black from flocks of passenger pigeons so numerous they blotted out the sun. You know about the buffalo. Because there was so much food to eat, the people had no need to grow crops or keep livestock. But the Europeans came from lands where they’d learned to live with animals the people who already lived in America would have considered unclean.”
“And those domesticated animals exposed the early Europeans and cultures from the Mesopotamian regions to all kinds of diseases. The Europeans had built up strong immunities. The Native Americans had none,” Dani said.
Ben nodded.
“I’ve read estimates by pandemiologists,” Quinn said, “that as much as 95 percent of the indigenous American population died off due to exposure to diseases to which the European settlers had acquired immunities in childhood. Measles, the flu, all sorts of things.”
“So many people died,” Ben said. “It was germ warfare. That’s the affliction the demon-worshippers gave to Hiawatha and Deganawida.”
“And Hiawatha and Deganawida knew what would happen,” Dani said. “They knew they would infect the others, so they quarantined themselves. At the time it would have been the only way to stop the infection from spreading.”
“The Black Death was around then,” Quinn said. “And don’t forget our boy Albert Gitchell and the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. I wonder how long Satan has been using biological weapons.”
“So they put what they knew in a book,” Tommy said.
“How did the book get from there to Abbie?” Dani asked. “Not to Abbie, but to the first Guardian?”
“Either the Guardian found them or they found the Guardian,” Villanegre said. “I’d love to know that provenance. It’s probably in this first letter. The one we can’t translate.”
Villanegre turned to the second-to-the-last letter, a loose-leaf insert that began, Dear Abigail.
I have chosen you as my successor, Abigail. I’m writing this letter to you, and when it’s your turn to choose a successor, you will need to write a letter to him or her in your own words. I can tell by your fine good manners and deportment that you are a shining model of feminine grace and charm, and have in you a keen intelligence, and by means of this alone you will prosper and do well. However, as you will see, I have chosen you according to the direction of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and by his guidance through prayer. I know you love and worship him and that your heart is filled with piety, charity, and humility. In the task I am about to describe, Abigail, you will need to use all your God-given talents, and be both humble and bold . . .
It was signed by a man named Julius Leominster.
Quinn pointed at the font. “That’s a typewriter,” he said to Tommy. “You asked.”
“I know that name,” Ruth said. “He was on the library board when they built the extension. He was a banker. Had a reputation as a meanie.”
“I think the Guardians do what they can to keep the town at bay,” Tommy said. “Which is why Abbie cultivated the image of an eccentric. This is the letter that recruited her.”
“Go to the last letter,” Dani said anxiously.
Tommy turned the page. The final letter was signed by Abbie Gardener, and it began, Dear Jerome.
The room was silent.
“Well, I have to say I didn’t see that one coming,” Tommy finally said. “Who’s Jerome?”
“Read the letter,” Dani said to Dr. Villanegre. “Maybe it will tell us.”
The historian read:
The fact that you hold this book in your hands means that you have been chosen both by me and by God, to whom I have prayed for guidance. He has told me that you are pure of heart and have the courage and strength to carry out this sacred mission. I knew when I visited your class when you were in fourth grade, and you were all excited that “the Witch Lady” was coming to speak (Oh dear!). But you were not afraid of me. You spoke up, asking good questions about witches and ghosts, when the others sat in silence or perhaps even made fun of you and your faith in Jesus Christ.
You must never tell another soul about this letter and the contents of this book, for telling others will place them in great danger. There may be times when you feel this to be a burden, but it is indeed a sacred calling from which you cannot turn away. There is no way that I can overstate the importance, except to say that there are many in this place where you live who would kill you and everyone you love to get their hands on this book, for once they have it in their possession, the knowledge of their existence will disappear with it.
Jerome, you need to know a story that will probably surprise you. Hundreds of years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, a great evil came to this land. I have spent my life researching that evil, trying to understand it . . .
Her letter went on to describe how St. Adrian drove the pagans from the English shores but learned later that he’d been deceived, and how he’d commissioned Charles the Black to find out where they’d gone. Charles had created a society of pious men, scholars and historians who knew the battle against evil had not been won. She described how they’d been able to discover a group of pagans in France, but not all of them. The remainder of the group had sailed west across the Atlantic, where no one of that day could follow. Some so-called “wise men” believed the ship had sailed off the edge of the world. Some held out hope the ship had been lost in a storm. Others feared it had succeeded and made landfal
l.
The men charged by Charles the Black, and the descendants of those men, watched and read, studied and researched, until they learned of an account written in Norway of a Holy Man who’d traveled to America, where he encountered a group of brutal savages who practiced witchcraft, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.
Abbie’s account told the story of Hiawatha and Deganawida and how they were able to defeat Thadodaho. Villanegre read the rest of the letter out loud.
But all they were able to do was drive the Druids into hiding. They knew that if they surfaced again, they would be destroyed outright by the angels of the Lord. Then one day more ships arrived, carrying people who looked like them. Finally, enough Europeans migrated to the New World to allow the evil ones to blend back in, and then it became even more difficult to find them.
At the time of the American Revolution, the place we know as St. Adrian’s Academy was called Fort Atticus. It had barracks for the troops of the great generals, first George Washington and then Horatio Gates, who turned it into a military training facility. After the war was over, the new government moved all their training facilities to West Point across the Hudson. Fort Atticus was sold to a group of so-called academics who claimed they wanted to turn it into a college to rival Harvard or William and Mary. They proposed to name their school after St. Adrian, the medieval Archbishop of Canterbury credited with driving the darkness out of England.
Posing as an institution of higher learning, it became a school for depravity. In the name of academic freedom, they resisted governmental oversight and refused to open their rolls for review. The walls of the old fortress, fallen into disrepair, were restored and refortified. Boys from the highest ranks of society, from all over the world, were recruited and tested. Some were found lacking, and they passed through the school with a standard education without ever suspecting there were others among them receiving a second, more subversive education. Yet in all graduates the mandate for secrecy surpassed all other bonds uniting them. They were charged to aid and assist each other as they made their way in the world. St. Adrian’s graduates were to hire other St. Adrian’s graduates without question; they were to assist each other and they were to tell no one, ever, what went on inside those walls. It was always a simple choice for any St. Adrian’s graduate: follow the rules and keep the secrets, and you will become wealthy and prosper; break the rules, and you will perish and go unrecorded in the annals of time.