The Letterbox

by Layton Green

  “This has gone far enough,” Jake said. “Who are you, what do you know about the box, and how the hell did you get in here?”

  The man took another step forward. He was ten feet away from Jake.

  “I said that’s far enough.”

  Another step. “Give it to me,” he whispered.

  I gripped the handle of my knife.

  “Not one more step,” Jake said.

  I looked from Jake to the man, and he seemed to flicker.

  “Did you see that?” Asha said.

  He flickered again and started walking faster. “Give it to me,” he said, but his voice wavered, as if the volume was coming in and out.

  Jake stepped forward to meet him, knife clutched tight, stance low and threatening. The man’s arms were outstretched, his sleeves hanging loose beneath his arms as he reached for Jake.

  Just before they met, the man disappeared.

  -31-

  Jake canvassed the floor and walls where the man had been. “He’s gone,” he muttered, and bounded up the stairs.

  I waited for Lou to snicker, but he leaned against the tomb and stared at the floor.

  When Jake returned, his voice was grim. “The door to the outside’s still locked.”

  “Maybe there’s a secret door,” I said. “Or it was some kind of projected image.”

  Asha seemed to snap out of a trance. She walked to where the man had been standing and ran her hands along the wall.

  “Don’t bother,” Jake said. “He was here.”

  “How do you know? I think Aidan might be onto something.”

  Jake bent to grab something off the floor. “Because I thought of that. I had a few rocks in my pocket I picked up outside, and while we were talking I tossed one at him.” He opened his hand to reveal a thumb-size rock. “I saw this hit his clothes and fall to the ground. I saw it and I heard it.”

  I remembered the faint clanking sound I had heard: Jake’s rock falling to the stone floor after making contact with the man standing ten feet in front of us.

  The same man who had disappeared into thin air from a locked and empty crypt, in full view of four witnesses.

  “Then maybe he was hiding near the stairwell,” I said slowly, though I knew there wasn’t enough space for a man to hide, and it still didn’t explain the disappearing act.

  Jake looked at his watch. “Five-fifty a.m. Sun’s almost up, and the gates open at six.”

  Asha sat and put her hands to her temples. I sat beside her, stunned and exhausted, until Jake went up the stairs ten minutes later and opened the tomb, letting in a flood of sunlight. I had begun to question whether we would ever see that particular sight again.

  Lou put his weight on my shoulders as I helped him climb the stairs, and we emerged squinting into the light like newborn babes. There was no sign of wolves, Druids, or black-robed figures.

  Pere Lachaise had returned to its innocuous daytime state.

  It took me a long time to figure out the loud noise I was hearing was our hotel phone and not something chasing me in a dream. It didn’t seem to want to stop, so I roused myself and picked up the receiver.

  “It’s noon,” Lou said.

  “Meet you downstairs.”

  I padded to the shower and let steaming water pour over me. The events of the night were dreamlike, a blur of nightmarish imagery. I waited on Asha to shower, and then we made our way to the lobby. Jake and Lou were sitting in a corner drinking coffee.

  “You should all go home,” Jake said, after Asha and I grabbed coffees and joined them. “There’s some bad business going down, and I’d sleep better if you did.”

  Lou slumped in his chair. “They tried to hunt us down like animals.”

  Every synapse in my brain told me to get on the next plane to New Orleans. As curious as I was about the letterbox, the balance had tipped in favor of personal safety. I looked at Asha, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “I’m not going home,” she said quietly.

  I was stunned. I knew she’d been close to her brother, extremely close, but I didn’t think that alone warranted this sort of recklessness. Then again, I didn’t have a sibling.

  Her eyes slipped towards mine, asking a wordless question.

  Regardless of the danger, I knew I couldn’t leave her. I’d have to try to talk some sense into her later. I nodded slowly, and her hand slipped over mine. Lou looked at the two of us as if we had just declared a suicide pact. Maybe we had.

  I cradled my coffee cup. “There’s no reason for you to stay, Lou.”

  He lit a cigarette and took two long drags, then waved the cigarette in the air. “I know I’m a coward, but I don’t leave my friends. I’ll stay in the hotel from now on.”

  Jake put a hand up, as if to say you’re all free to do what you want. “Commie, who’s Kika?”

  “Just an old friend,” Lou mumbled. Jake pressed his lips together and watched him, but Lou was staring at his feet.

  “What were those things in black?” Asha said. “And that man in the tomb—did anyone else notice he didn’t seem to have a face?”

  “I did,” I said. “It must’ve been a mask.”

  “The fact of the matter,” Lou said, finally looking up, “is that once again we don’t really know what we saw. It was dark and chaotic, and we were frightened and out of sorts. It was the perfect scenario to pull a few tricks of the mind.”

  Asha curled tighter into her chair. “It looked real enough to me. And the way those things in black moved, like they were being jerked around or controlled by someone . . . .” She turned to Jake. “You said the Druids had the power to raise the dead. Do you think my brother—” Her voice cracked, and she looked away. “That man in the crypt asked Jake to give him something. He could only have meant the letterbox.” She looked around the room, her eyes wild. “Like it’s somehow calling out to them.”

  Jake folded his arms. “We’ll find out what’s going on, I promise you. But we need to keep moving. The longer we sit around, the more time they have to find us.”

  “There’s something that’s been bothering me,” I said. “Why didn’t they just loose the wolves on us?”

  “Maybe they aren’t prepared to go that far,” Lou said. “It was still the middle of Paris. Or maybe they think we have information they need.”

  “It felt like they were prepared to go pretty far,” I muttered.

  Asha’s eyes found the window. “So what now?”

  “We follow the map,” Jake said.

  Lou frowned. “And what, stick around here like sitting ducks until we figure out the next location?”

  Jake leaned back in his chair. “I know where it is.”

  -32-

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I said.

  Jake shrugged. “Last night was a little hectic.”

  Asha clutched my knee. “So where is it?”

  He lit a cigarette and slid the ashtray closer, taking a few drags before speaking. “Anyone heard of Kostel Utes?”

  “Kos what?” I asked.

  Even Lou looked stumped.

  “It’s a very old church close to Prague,” Jake said. “To commemorate the founding, the church stuck a minor Catholic relic inside, which is why I know of the place. Never visited it, but I recognized it.”

  “What’s the relic?” I asked.

  “Doubt it has anything to do with our box. It’s a reliquary for Saint . . . I forget which one.”

  “But how’d you recognize it?” Lou pressed.

  “It’s a rotunda with a steeple, sitting on a cliff outside Prague, above the Vltava River. Two things got me: the dogleg in the river below the church, and most of all, the cliff face covered in rock triangles.”

  “What?” Lou said.

  Jake shook his head. “It’s a geological formation caused by exfoliation or something, I can’t remember. But it’s very distinct. The map depicted the exact scene: rotunda, steeple, J-shaped bend in the river, and cliff covered in triangles. It’s got
to be it.”

  “What time period are we talking?” Asha asked.

  “Ninth century.”

  Lou spoke from the side of his mouth as he lit up. “My guess? Whoever’s following us doesn’t know where the next location is.” He blew a smoke ring and pointed with the tip of his cigarette. “I think they’re after the map.”

  “I agree,” I said. “And we have to stop helping them follow it. If we’re smart, we can stay a step ahead. And if it gets too dangerous, if for one second we think we might have to go someplace that might not be safe, we back off.”

  “What about informing the authorities?” Asha said. “Can’t they do something about these people?”

  “And tell them how we broke into Pere Lachaise and a private crypt,” Lou said, “and got chased by a group of occultists and wolves?”

  “I hate to say it,” I said, “but Lou’s right. They’re smart, and only show themselves when we’re alone and vulnerable.”

  Jake wagged his finger in the air, as if he hadn’t been paying attention. “I think the places on the map are supposed to be obvious to certain people.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” I said. “Once you know the stones are a map, the locations aren’t that difficult to figure out, if you’re familiar with the sites—which I’m assuming the ancient Druids were.”

  “A church, a castle, and a cemetery,” Jake mused. “There must be some connection.”

  I stood. “Back to Lou’s point about the Druids not knowing where the map leads. If we’re smart, we can send them on a wild goose chase, then give them the slip and be in Prague before they know we’re gone. Let them play catch-up for a change.”

  Jake’s lips compressed. “Let’s run all this by Lucius and figure out a strategy. How’s eight p.m. sound?”

  “Lunchtime in the States,” Asha said. “It’s a good time to catch him.”

  Asha headed to the restroom. I followed Lou up the stairs. “You didn’t say much in there,” I said. “Has the font of useless knowledge run dry?”

  “I’m still a little tired,” he said, pulling away. “I’m going to grab a nap.”

  “Lou,” I said as he reached the middle of the staircase, “who’s Kika?”

  Lou stopped moving and put a hand on the railing. “I told you. Just an old friend.”

  “I know all your old friends.”

  He muttered something I couldn’t understand.

  “I saw the effect it had on you,” I said. “Why haven’t I heard of her?”

  Lou slumped against the wall, his back still to me. “It’s impossible.”

  I climbed to face him. He looked as serious as I had ever seen him. “What is?”

  He let out a slow breath. “During my comparison of syntax among dialects of Romance languages, I went to Brazil for two weeks. While I was there, I jumped in a taxi and visited a favela.”

  “The slum cities.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how sad they are. While I was there, a little girl approached me begging for dollars. There were hundreds of beggars, but she really touched me. Eight years old at best and so filthy it broke my heart. Yet after all she’d been through, she was still so sweet and animated, and had a childlike look in her eyes. Her name was Kika. I gave her some money and came back every day for a week.”

  “So what happened? And why’ve you never told me any of this?”

  I saw a tear form in Lou’s eye. He turned away. I had never seen him cry.

  “She acquired HIV from a blood transfusion when she was a baby, and developed AIDS. I went to the clinic with her. A nurse told me she had a few months to live. No family. Slept on the streets. I helped her as much as I could, gave her all the money I had, but it was a pitiful amount. I’ve never felt so helpless. I came back to the States and left her to die.”

  “You made her life a little brighter in the end. It was more than anyone else had ever done.”

  He bowed his head. “It wasn’t enough.”

  “Is that why you were so upset in the tomb? The memory of her?”

  He looked up at me. “Don’t you get it? Kika is my burden and my memory. I’ve never told anyone that story, and she didn’t even know my last name. No one could possibly know about her.”

  -33-

  I let Lou go and caught up with Asha in the lobby, unsure how to process what my friend had just told me. I stored it with the rest of the mounting impossibilities.

  “There you are,” she said. “Want to go to Notre Dame with me?”

  Her voice didn’t possess the thrill of discovery, so I knew there was something on her mind besides tourism. I looked down and noticed the bulge of the letterbox in her handbag.

  “Go out with that? After last night?”

  “There’s something we haven’t tried,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  Her eyes flicked to the sun streaming in through the window, and she rested her hand on the contours of the letterbox. “Bringing the God Path to God.”

  I could tell by the set of her mouth she was going with or without me. “A taxi straight there and back,” I said grimly.

  She nodded, her gaze slipping to the side.

  Jake was smoking outside the door and grabbed my arm as we walked past. I filled him in, and he said, “Be careful, Counselor. And be back before dark.”

  When we arrived at the huge plaza fronting the Gothic spectacle of Notre Dame, we took a moment to absorb the cathedral’s majestic colonettes and entrance arches. The imposing façade dwarfed the tourists swarming before it.

  I followed Asha as she strode through the throngs of people and into the dimly lit cathedral, our pupils dilating as they adjusted. The nave stretched out before us, and we walked between slender columns to the vaulted transept, then past the main altar to the choir hall, a more intimate area of worship and meditation.

  Asha took an aisle seat on the far left side of the choir. We were alone. A tiny chapel was recessed into the wall beside us, lit by candles from the faithful.

  I sat next to her. “What now?”

  “I don’t know. I just wanted to . . . see if anything happens.”

  We both quieted, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe as I contemplated the grandeur of the cathedral. It was quixotic, I had always thought, to attempt to evoke the majesty of God through human endeavors. Tilting against a windmill beyond our comprehension.

  Yet I had to admit, whether due to the Great Architect in the Sky or simply the architect of Notre Dame, the cathedral exuded a powerful aura.

  “I didn’t think anything would happen,” Asha said after a time, her voice small and sheepish.

  “I understand.”

  “I feel foolish.”

  “With all that’s going on,” I said, “it was worth a shot.” She started to stand, but there was something I had to get off my mind. “Asha, why’d you pull away when I tried to kiss you in the courtyard?”

  She looked down at her hands.

  “People who are into each other are generally interested in kissing after a night of intimacy, especially in a courtyard in the most romantic city on earth.”

  “You’re right,” she said softly.

  I felt as if someone had slipped a knife under my ribcage. After a long moment she took my hand and said, “Sometimes I . . . shut down.”

  “I see.”

  Her hand moved to my cheek, and she ran her fingers through my hair. I stood still and wordless, the current from her touch as electric as ever. I still wanted to kiss her like we were on a goddamned movie set.

  “It’s not what you think,” she whispered.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I just need some time. I—”

  She cut off as a woman sat in the chair beside me. Her oval face possessed a timeless quality, and I could make no better guess as to her age than somewhere between thirty and forty-five. Luxurious pale curls reached halfway down her back, and anxious green eyes stared back at me. A necklace with an emerald teardrop pendan
t rested just below her neckline, and she wore a long-sleeved white dress that looked too formal for a weekday afternoon.

  “My time is short,” she said with a sense of urgency, and I started.

  Asha and I exchanged a glance. I could tell she was just as confused. “Do I know you?” I asked the woman.

  “I came to warn you.”

  “About what?”

  Her gaze slipped downward, coming to rest on the side of Asha’s handbag bulging from the letterbox.

  Asha’s eyes widened, and I rushed to get my words out. If this woman knew something, anything at all . . . “Do you know what the inscription means, where the map leads?”

  Now the woman looked confused. “Inscription? Map?”

  I pulled back as the obvious conclusion hit me. “You’re with the Druids.”

  Her mouth curled downward, in a frown that still managed to be beautiful. “Don’t you understand what you have?”

  Asha took the letterbox out of her handbag. The woman stared at it, a mixture of fear and desire twisting her features. She started to reach for it, then drew back. “Leave it,” she said. “Leave it and forget you ever saw it.” Her eyes roved the cathedral. “There are others who aren’t like me. Others you don’t want to meet.”

  “What’re you talking about?” I said in frustration.

  She stood and backed away. “My time is gone. Please leave.”

  Asha stood. “Wait! I have to ask you something.”

  The woman had already started walking away.

  Asha called out, “Do you know anything about my brother?”

  The woman hesitated, then turned towards Asha with a sad, knowing expression.

  Asha gave a spontaneous sob. “Please. If you know something, anything—where is he? Does he need me? Is he hurt, lost? Why—”

  “I’m sorry. I have to go.” The woman spun and walked rapidly away.

  Asha jumped up and went after her, weaving through the startled worshippers and tourists. I hurried to keep up. We followed the woman past the chapel and into the plaza. We tried to run, but the crowds were too thick.

  Asha pointed across the open space. “Over there!”