by Layton Green
She turned to Lou. “So what’s your theory on the runes?”
“That whoever made the box was under the same mass delusion as the rest of the religious world.” He snorted. “I truly don’t get it. Ninety percent of mankind still believes in the tooth fairy.”
“Why are you so fanatical about your non-belief?” Asha said. “Isn’t that the same as religious zealotry? They’re both a belief system.”
“My belief system doesn’t need to invent answers to life’s big questions. Don’t you know that truth is always stranger than fiction?”
Asha smiled sweetly. “My sentiments exactly. We have no idea what’s out there.”
As they continued to argue, I noticed a figure in a hooded white robe lurking in the street outside our window. Except for the shadowy outline of his face beneath the cowl, I could see only wrists and supple fingers protruding from his sleeves, like the legs of a spider feeling around a corner. A mottled burn scar covered the back of one hand.
In any other city, I would have checked the news for escaped mental patients. But New Orleans was a magnet for bizarre characters and weird occurrences.
However, the man’s appearance wasn’t the only reason he had caught my attention.
I noticed him because he was staring right at us.
I didn’t think the others had seen him, and I peered back uneasily through the glass, remembering the dragging footsteps from a few weeks ago. The robe, erect posture, and hands crossed in front of his body reminded me of a medieval cleric standing gravely before an altar.
Lou nudged me. “Hey. We’re leaving.”
I sensed the man’s eyes following us out the door, and I looked for him as soon as we stepped outside.
As with the footsteps, there was nothing but the breeze.
I felt foolish and said nothing to Lou or Asha. The man was probably a drunken straggler from one of the Quarter’s costume parties.
We made our way towards the streetcar, taking a detour because Asha wanted to walk through Jackson Square. A cornucopia of occult practitioners occupied the square at night: black-garbed magicians, tarot readers, palm readers, and others, hawking and practicing their crafts directly in front of the alabaster spires of St. Louis Cathedral. Instead of repelling each other, the two factions seemed locked in a symbiotic embrace of darkness and light.
As we ambled through the square, I felt Asha close to my ear. “I feel like some of these people are looking at me,” she said.
“What’re you talking about?”
She grabbed my arm and whispered, “Over there.” She pointed at a hunchbacked crone perched behind a tarot table on the sidewalk. “She was staring right at me.”
“She’s not now. Are you sure?”
She hesitated. “And that man by the church, with the swords.”
After casting a surreptitious glance around the square, she shrugged and kept walking. As we reached the edge of the low wall ringing the square, she gasped and drew back. I turned and saw a small hand holding Asha’s wrist. The hand was protruding from a cheap, glossy black shirt and belonged to a young boy sitting on the wall. I moved to help Asha, but she held me back.
The boy was about twelve years old, thin and pale. Lank brown hair framed limpid eyes. He was a striking figure in a tragic way, and less overtly commercial than the other occult practitioners, as if this was how he looked and dressed all the time, not just at night in Jackson Square.
“Why’d you grab me?” Asha asked softly.
“You have a presence.”
Lou snorted. “Get a new line.”
Asha didn’t respond. I had been watching the boy, but when my gaze traveled to her face, I was taken aback.
Her face had gone as pale as her brown skin would allow, and her eyes looked like twin headlights from an oncoming car, huge and intense and filled with an inexorable energy.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
The boy’s eyes flicked to Asha’s purse, then back to her face. I noticed he didn’t have any cards or gimmicks, no sign proclaiming his skills or powers.
He released Asha’s arm, but she edged closer. “Do you read palms? Auras?”
The boy looked up at her. “I read other things. I’ll tell you more, but could you give me something small? I’ll take whatever you want to give.”
This was a common strategy among the street entertainers: people often gave of their own accord more than they might have paid up front, after their interest was piqued.
“C’mon Asha,” Lou said, “it’s just a scam. It’s getting late.”
Asha fumbled to take money out of her purse. The boy pocketed the bills and took Asha’s hands in his own.
“What do you sense?” Asha asked, her eyes locked on him. “Is it me?”
The boy reached towards her purse. His hands hovered over it for a moment, at the spot where the letterbox bulged outward. He swallowed and inched his hands inside, then drew back as if bitten by a snake. With a wild look he jumped off the wall, backed away from Asha, and sprinted into the crowd.
Asha was rooted to the ground, shocked. Lou started laughing. “Check your purse, Asha. He just saw you pull money out of it, and we all stood here and watched him. I’ll bet my next translation fee you’re missing something.”
She hesitated, then opened her handbag and held the letterbox for a long moment, before handing it to me while she riffled through her purse.
“There’s nothing here,” she said slowly. “But I think I cleaned it out already. I can’t remember.”
Lou rose up like a peacock. “You see? Those people will rob you blind.”
“He’s a kid out here by himself,” she murmured. “He can have my money.”
Lou walked off shaking his head. I gave the letterbox back to Asha. “You okay?” I asked.
She forced a smile. “Sure.”
We caught the streetcar and returned Uptown. Lou exited after a few stops, and Asha settled her head against my shoulder.
“You want to talk about it?” I said.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
Oh, there was something to talk about.
The conductor called out her stop. She rose.
I said, “Want me to come in for a while?”
“It’s late, and we’re leaving early. Thanks, though.”
“You sure you want to be alone?”
“I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m excited about the trip.”
She kissed me, let our fingertips linger, and then exited with a small crowd of people. By the time the streetcar crept out of sight, I had seen her unlock and enter her building, clutching her purse to her chest.
After the streetcar dropped me off, I shuffled home, unable to stop thinking about Jackson Square. The part I couldn’t shake was the look on Asha’s face when the boy told her she had a presence. It brought back an unpleasant memory of the last time I had seen a look like that, when I had attended a trial in law school of a man accused of murdering his wife. He swore to his innocence, and had an airtight alibi that got him off, but whenever he talked about his wife he got a look of pure obsession that made me think, whether he had murdered her or not, that he would do just about anything where his wife was concerned.
I walked home and cracked a beer. I realized how little I knew about Asha’s past. My own history was a quick and easy read, unworthy of translation, and I had assumed she felt the same about hers.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
I finished my beer and went to lock up. As I was closing the blinds to the front window, I saw a glimpse of white in the darkness. I peered outside, at the cemetery across the street.
And saw the same cowled figure I’d seen outside Lafitte’s.
He was standing a few feet back from the first row of headstones, pallid robes gleaming in the darkness. As before, he was facing in my direction.
I whipped the blinds shut and stood with my hand on the cord, mouth dry and heart thumping in my chest. I didn’t know whether to
call 911 or the mental asylum.
Clutching my cell phone, I got my nerve back and reopened the blinds, telling myself I was a grown man and this was my neighborhood.
The cemetery was empty.
I checked the doors and windows and fell into a troubled sleep on the couch, thoughts of boy mystics and dragging footsteps and figures in white robes crowding my dreams.
DUBROVNIK
-7-
On the way to the airport, I told Lou and Asha about the figure in the white robe.
Lou laughed. “New Orleans gave you a parting gift. That or you might want to lay off the sauce.”
“I was sober by the time I got home.”
“Whatever,” he said. “My sixth-grade science teacher was a voodoo priest. Forget about it.”
Asha said nothing, her eyes roving nervously to her handbag.
After a long flight, we arrived just after dawn at Zagreb, the capital of Croatia: a quaint, manageable city founded sometime during the last Ice Age. I took comfort in the fact that an ocean separated us from whoever had followed me home from Lafitte’s.
Although attractive and hospitable, Zagreb seemed subdued, as if the Balkan Wars had left a pall of sobriety hanging over the city. We caught an overnight bus to Dubrovnik, and I woke to the Adriatic sparkling on my right, stretched out like a vast blue canvas.
A series of icicle-blue lakes dotted the countryside, and the bus began a gradual climb until we were traveling atop a seaside ridge. Little green islands poked out of the Adriatic like floating forests, sprinkled with stone cottages and lighthouses.
Around noon the bus started to descend. At the bottom of the cliff, a thick stone wall enclosed a medieval town poised right on the Adriatic. The morning sun glinted off the terra cotta rooftops, the city a peeled onion below.
“Dubrovnik’s gorgeous,” Asha breathed.
We grabbed our backpacks and walked through a handsome stone gate. A broad marble thoroughfare led into the city, lined with buildings crafted from the same smooth, dun-colored stone. Asha had booked a hotel on an island just offshore, so after dinner we caught a ferry to a cluster of pine trees that marked the edge of the island. A minibus carried us to a clearing dominated by a four-story hotel.
We dropped Lou off at his room and stepped into our suite overlooking the Adriatic. Asha purred when she saw it.
She dropped her backpack and flopped on the bed. “I’m spent.”
“So what’s the agenda?” I asked, propping open the balcony door to hear the lapping of the waves. I had left my laptop behind and it felt great to unplug. “What time do we meet the expert tomorrow?”
“Not until six.”
“Listen, Asha, how much do you know about Mr. Sofistere?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I took off my boots and sat beside her. “You’ve never wondered where he got his money?”
“I always assumed it was family money.”
“Then why bother with the antique store?”
“I . . . guess I never thought about that.”
She looked away when she said it, which made me think that she had, indeed, thought about it. “And the religious pieces?” I pressed. “Why the obsession?”
“Obsession’s a strong word. Some people gravitate towards Chippendale furniture, some like French Restoration. Mr. Sofistere specializes in hard-to-find religious esoterica.”
I backed off. It was obviously a touchy subject and we were both exhausted from the journey. She showered and joined me on the bed, resting her head on my chest. “I think I’ll sleep right here.”
I ran my fingers through her hair, and she coiled her arms around my waist. Moments later I heard the rise and fall of her breath. The last thing I saw before closing my eyes was the letterbox resting on the bedside table, the cryptic runes illuminated by the moonlight spilling in from the balcony.
We woke to an unseasonably warm morning. After spending the day lounging on the white-pebble beach, we cleaned up and headed to town to find Mr. Sofistere’s expert. Dubrovnik’s twisting side streets and tightly spaced shops gave the city a charming, maze-like feel.
The directions led to a narrow storefront situated at the end of a side street, right at the base of the wall. Two flags hung from the balcony, flapping in the late evening breeze. One bore the familiar colors of the United States, while the other consisted of a yellow and white field bearing a pair of crossed keys, set below a tiara. The sign above the entrance read JAKE’S.
“Maybe Dr. Fleniken lives on the second floor,” Asha said.
“The papal flag?” Lou said, gazing at the crossed keys. “Someone outside of Rome actually flies that?”
We stepped inside. In sharp contrast to the sophisticated galleries of Dubrovnik, the left side of the store housed a jumbled collection of cheap Americana, everything from Elvis T-shirts to movie posters to model pickup trucks. The other side showcased an assortment of crosses, bibles, prints of famous religious art, and other spiritual memorabilia. A large portrait of the pope hung in the center of the wall.
Lou surveyed the empty store with a disdainful eye. “What kind of idiot owns this place? It’s like a cross between the Mall of America and the gift shop at the Vatican.”
“The same idiot who thinks you need a lesson in manners,” said a voice with a pronounced Southern drawl.
Faded jeans and worn black boots materialized from a swinging door in the back, followed by a cowboy hat, a white T-shirt, and the tip of a cigarette dangling insouciantly from pursed lips. The owner of the ensemble was a tall and lean man around forty, stubbled, handsome in a rugged way. Auburn hair spilled to his shoulders.
Lou’s mouth hung open, and I worked hard to suppress a laugh. The owner had good ears.
“Excuse my friend,” I said, stepping forward. “We’re supposed to meet someone here this evening and we’re a little early. We’ll wait outside.”
“At least someone’s got some manners.” He held out his hand, which I shook. “Dr. Joseph J. Fleniken. Call me Jake.”
Lou looked like he had just witnessed a mute person speak. I, too, had been under the impression that our renowned scholar of religious artifacts would not look like an adult Huckleberry Finn and work at a dollar store.
A small, forced smile curled the corners of Asha’s mouth. “I’m Ashritha Rana. This is Lou, our translator, and Aidan’s our attorney.”
“What do we need an attorney for?”
“Hopefully nothing,” I said.
He chuckled. “I guess we’ve got some business to dispose of. C’mon back.”
He flipped the sign to CLOSED and led us to a far more orderly back room. A wooden desk dominated the center, and books and other objects lined the walls: a collection of weathered tomes, artifacts, and religious icons with none of the cheap and generic feel of the trinkets out front.
Framed diplomas hung on the wall, and I glanced at a few of the books: Archaeology and the Religions of Ancient Israel; Christian Iconology; History of the Vatican Councils; The Sacred and the Profane: The Import of Monuments in Ancient Religion.
Dr. Fleniken was a bit more sophisticated than he was letting on.
“You had dinner?” he asked. “I have some beer and crackers.”
Or maybe he wasn’t.
“I could use a beer,” Lou muttered, staring at the Harvard diploma. “I suppose I’ll have to settle for a Budweiser.”
“I don’t drink cheerleader beer. I have some cold Pivo in the back.”
“Croatian beer?” Lou said. “What happened to your patriotism?”
“What happened to yours? Who doesn’t like Elvis and movies?”
Jake pulled up three chairs across from the desk, then returned with a cooler of beers and plopped in his seat. “So let’s take a look at this pile of wood. I’m curious about anythin’s got that old goat intrigued.”
Asha took out the letterbox and handed it to Jake. The box had taken on an unsettling anthropomorphic presence. I couldn’t shake the
feeling that the little wooden feet were legs, and that something was watching us from beneath the lid.
Jake turned it over, pausing as he looked at the bottom and then again at the runes on the sides. “What do we know so far? Lucius told me where it was found and the age.”
“Why not send a fax?” I asked.
“Does this look like Office Depot to you? A fax won’t show the texture of the wood, or a purposeful imperfection, or weight or dimensions or all those tiny little details that can flesh out the history of a piece. So, like I said, what else?”
“That’s about it,” Asha said. “Except for what Lou figured out, which might impress you.”
“I’m not impressed by shit.”
Asha paused half a beat with her mouth open, then said, “Do you see the symbols on the side of the box? No, not the larger one, the ones below it. Those are Ogham runes.”
Jake’s lips pursed. “That right? You sure, Commie?”
Lou looked even more surprised than Jake. “You know what Ogham is?”
“The alphabet of the insular Celts. Before St. Patrick converted the heathens during the reign of Pope Sixtus III.”
Lou stared at him. “I’m impressed you’re familiar with Ogham.”
“I’ve studied plenty of Celtic pieces. I don’t know anything about the language, just who used it. You translated it yet?”
Asha traced a finger along the runes. “The runes translate more or less to ‘God Path.’”
Jake grunted. “Any idea what the larger marking is?”
“It’s definitely not Ogham,” Lou said.
We gazed at the letterbox as Jake rubbed at his stubble. “Well, the piece isn’t Christian.”
“How do you know?” Asha said.
“I know. Are you positive the Ogham translates to God in the singular and not the plural?
“Yeah,” Lou said. “Why?”
“The Celts were still pagan at the time. Monotheism didn’t even reach the British Isles until Pope Anicetus.”
“Which was when?” Lou asked in exasperation.