by Layton Green
I sat back in my chair, my shoulders slumping. “Jake, I’m so sorry. Sorry sounds hopelessly inadequate. I can tell how much you loved her.”
“Her loss was unbearable to me. It still is. But that isn’t the kicker.”
I looked at him in confusion.
“She called me because I’m her husband. But she had the doc call the Father because she knew she was about to die, and had just committed a mortal sin. She wanted to confess before she died.”
My comprehension arrived like a physical blow.
“She died in a state of mortal sin,” he said, “just like a suicide. According to Catholic doctrine, my wife died and went to Hell.”
Thinking of the impact of the tragic event on Jake left me numb. I imagined myself as a believer and a similar thing happening to Asha, and my soul shrank from the thought.
“God exists all right—I have no doubt about that. But if my wife is damned, then I don’t know if I can love Him. And for that, I might be damned as well.”
The hush of night filled the common room. I didn’t move, sensing he wasn’t quite finished.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life lookin’ for the relic, the hidden scripture, the buried scroll, something that questions the Church’s doctrine on the issue. I’ll gladly refute and even embarrass the Church if it means there’s a chance my wife’s in Heaven.”
He stopped and lit another cigarette. His shaky thumb mirrored the grief in his eyes. “Or maybe I’ll find something else that sets it straight. There’s something out there, Counselor, I can feel it in my bones.” He looked me in the eye, his hands steady once again. “I don’t know what we’ll find at the end of this path. But after the things we’ve seen . . . I’ll see it through or die trying.”
As powerful as his story was, I sensed there was a portion untold. And he still hadn’t told me what he had seen in the Bone Church.
Jake gave a hollow laugh. “Got more than you bargained for, didn’t you?”
I was still trying to find the right words, knowing my sympathy was the last thing Jake wanted. “So that’s why you stayed in Croatia. Home was too painful.”
“I didn’t leave my house for a year after she died. When the Vatican called and offered me the project in Croatia, I knew it was time to start searching. It’s easier there, somehow, with the shop and my research gigs.”
“I understand.”
He chuckled. “Those Sistine Chapel posters sell like hotcakes.”
“I can only imagine.”
I picked up the paperback, and he leaned back in his chair. “You know, Counselor, I haven’t told a soul that story since I left the States.”
“I appreciate your trust.”
Jake pursed his lips and nodded. I opened the book, then looked up before I started reading. “Did they ever catch the man who did it?”
“The rapist?”
I nodded.
“The authorities never found the guy.”
“Damn,” I muttered.
Jake ground his cigarette into the ashtray and stood. Right before he reached the staircase, he looked back at me with predatory calm. “I said the authorities never found him.”
-49-
We returned to Prague the next morning and bought tickets to London. A backup due to weather caused a delay, and we ended up languishing at Ruzyne Airport, in an alcove near our boarding gate.
One of those long airport benches with plastic seats ran along the rear wall of the alcove. Lou managed to turn it into a makeshift sofa. Jake stood at the entrance, scanning the crowd for danger.
Asha and I sat on the frayed green carpet, side by side with our backs against the wall. We were all lost in our thoughts until Asha broke the silence. “What if the letterbox wasn’t supposed to be found?”
Both Lou and Jake shifted to look at her.
“What did the Druids find all those centuries ago, and why did they bury it?”
I saw Jake’s face cloud over. Lou was staring at a fixed point to Jake’s left.
“Jake, you’re the expert,” she said. “Give us some answers.”
Jake stroked his chin as he watched the crowd. “There are some incongruities I’m trying to reconcile. The origin, the monotheism, and the construction of the box, for starters. That knowledge alone could be revelatory from a scholarly standpoint.” He crossed his arms. “I’ve never heard of anything that claims to be a literal path to God, complete with map inside as special bonus feature. I don’t know what we have on our hands, but I think this map is leading us someplace I haven’t been before. Someplace maybe no one has been, at least for a very long time.”
Despite all that had happened, I felt a shiver of excitement at his words.
“But if we finish what we started,” Jake said, his face tightening, “we may not like what we find.”
Asha’s eyes turned troubled as she absorbed his words and stared into the crowd. I longed to stroke her cheek until the softness returned, though I knew my growing feelings might not be reciprocated. I knew she had reservations, I knew of her deep-seated issues with emotion.
Yet I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop. As I sat at Ruzyne Airport in the Czech Republic, embroiled in that insane quest, I felt gorged with desire, bloated, puffed up like a fat Roman emperor.
Loving Asha was the closest thing to meaning I had ever had.
As I crossed my legs on the worn carpet, I realized there was another, equally mysterious seed sprouting inside me: that of belief.
Was there, indeed, something to uncover? Something apart from mortal skin and decaying bone, something to give us hope that we were not just collections of subatomic particles glued together by chance, colliding with useless zeal inside a cold and unfeeling universe?
A mental image of the letterbox sprang to mind, followed by a memory of lying on the stone floor in the tunnels beneath Kostnice, at the mercy of the shadow thing.
The loudspeaker squawked, and I joined the others in the haphazard line forming by the counter. My mouth felt dry as we moved through the gate.
DARTMOOR, ENGLAND
-50-
We left Prague in the middle of the night. By the time we landed at Heathrow, took the tube into Charing Cross, and stepped outside, we were entrenched in our first dawn in the English-speaking world in weeks.
The day began overcast, but the brisk London air had always made me feel keen and invigorated. We took the Underground to Victoria Station, a cavernous sprawl of mass transit, and purchased tickets for the two o’clock train to Exeter, the last stop before the moors.
After grabbing lunch at one of the gritty tourist pubs hovering like flies around Victoria Station, we boarded a train to the boggy grave of the letterbox.
“When did Arthur Conan Doyle write The Hound of the Baskervilles?” Asha asked as the train chugged through the sculpted British countryside. “Didn’t that take place in the moors?”
“Early nineteen hundreds,” Lou said. “And yes, it did. Another, lesser known fact: the esteemed Sir Arthur was obsessed with the occult.”
Asha turned towards Lou, the familiar intensity sparking her eyes. Lou continued, “He was a member of The Ghost Club—no joke—and even knew Madame Blavatsky. He sat in on a number of her séances.”
“The woman whose portrait’s hanging in Kardec’s tomb?” Asha asked, giving a small shiver before looking out the window.
“Commie, tell us something useful or shut your trap.”
Four hours after leaving London, the train pulled into Exeter, a middle-class university town with an enormous Anglican cathedral. We stood and examined the board with the bus schedules.
Lou yawned. “Why don’t we just stay here for the night?”
“Or,” Jake said, moving closer to the board, “we could take a little detour and stay someplace a little more interesting.”
I eyed the name at which he was pointing: Chagstead.
The town nearest to the estate of James Perrott—the man who had drawn the mysterious letterbox symbo
l on his calling card and left it under a cairn at Cranmere Pool.
Jake crossed his arms. “A bus leaves in fifteen minutes.”
No one argued.
Twenty minutes outside Exeter, the countryside took on a wilder feel, more overgrown and less populated by cottages and farms, the roads narrowing as they wound through denser vegetation.
Half an hour later we saw the brown and gray smudge of civilization on the horizon, and soon the bus was pulling into a car park on the edge of a tiny town. The driver announced our arrival at Chagstead.
Down the road from the bus station, two-story almshouses lined the pair of streets that essentially comprised the village, intersecting in a town square dominated by a pretty spired church.
We found a bed and breakfast with a blue roof and eaves, run by a silver-haired woman named Mrs. Leckie. Although stooped, she walked with a purposeful grace, and her rural English accent was a step back in time.
Asha’s room and mine was a simple affair, white-paneled and rustic, with a window above the headboard affording a view of the village. When we returned downstairs to join Jake and Lou, Mrs. Leckie had set out a tea service and a plate of scones.
“What brings you to Chagstead?” she asked.
“We’re doing some research in the area,” I said.
“On the moors?”
I tried a scone. A little hard for my taste, but I ate it to be polite. “Have you heard of James Perrott?”
“Of course. You must be letterboxers.”
I looked up, surprised.
“They come around every now and again, asking about Perrott. I suppose you know his old estate is outside of town. It’s a bed and breakfast now. Twenty-minute drive, or you can walk it in an hour if you cut through the woods. It’s just past Teign Gorge.”
Jake leaned forward. “I’m a religious historian, and there’s another topic that interests me at the moment.”
The wrinkles on Mrs. Leckie’s forehead lifted as she awaited the question.
“We’re investigating rumors about a modern-day remnant of the Druids. You ever hear of anything like that?”
She paused mid-pour, glancing out a window into the darkened village. “Not around here,” she said. After a curt goodnight, she disappeared up the stairs.
Asha and I collapsed into the soft bed. “I’m too tired to take off my clothes.”
“I can help you with that,” I said.
“What a gentleman.”
“I do what I can.”
I flicked the lights, fulfilled my promise, and slid in beside her. She purred as I massaged her. “You’re too good to me,” she said.
“Do you deserve it?”
“Probably not. Does anyone?”
“Probably not,” I said.
“My parents always said they deserved each other,” she said. “They had an arranged marriage.”
“You never told me that.”
“I suppose it’s a bit embarrassing. They were never in love, but they were happy and made a good team. My dad doesn’t believe in the fairytale of passionate soulmates, and calls it a Western ideal. I mean, of course people from all cultures fall in love, but he thinks Americans expect it too much and think they can’t be happy without it.”
“And what do you think?” I said, feeling a tightness in my chest as I asked the question.
“Of course I want it. Who doesn’t?”
That wasn’t what I was asking.
“How do you know what you have isn’t fleeting,” she continued, “or based on some temporary physical or even emotional connection that won’t last a year of marriage?”
I rolled over, turning my back to her. She snaked her arms around me, stroking my chest and kissing my neck. I closed my eyes, knowing I would succumb to the drug of her naked body entwined in mine.
You just know, I thought to myself. That’s how you know for sure.
You just know.
I woke earlier than everyone except Jake, and used the time to conduct research on Mrs. Leckie’s computer. I found nothing else on Donn Enterprises, and not a hint of a connection to Mr. Sofistere. Frustrated, I checked my email, but still no word from my private investigator.
After a hearty English breakfast, we took a taxi to Perrott’s estate. Despite my nervousness about traipsing through the Druids’ backyard, I couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the countryside as we passed alongside low green hills, the lush Teign Gorge, pastures, fields, and pockets of purple and gold heather that looked like overland beds of coral.
The manor was a sprawling country estate, replete with manicured grounds and stone walls. A middle-aged man emerged to greet us with an avuncular smile. His bald head and fair English skin were tinged pink by the sun. “Welcome to Teign Manor. You’re looking for a room?”
“Not exactly,” Jake said. “We’re staying over in Chagstead and wanted to see the home of James Perrott.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Letterboxers?”
“Sure.”
“I get that request a few times a year. Feel free to browse, but be careful not to disturb the rooms. We’ve tried to maintain the house close to its original condition.”
“Are you related to the Perrotts?”
“The family sold off the estate a while back. It’s been a bed and breakfast for some time now. You might find the library and the game room of particular interest. They still contain Perrott’s personal effects and haven’t been altered since he lived here.” He pointed to his right. “They’re down this corridor.”
We tried the library first. Two side walls showcased floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and a massive stone fireplace dominated the far wall.
Jake frowned as he took in the mountain of books. “Why don’t you two find the game room,” he said to Asha and me. “I’ll use the wayward scholar here to help skim the titles.”
Asha and I continued down the hallway. An open door on the left revealed a room which, judging by the pool table and mounted heads and animal skins covering the walls, served as the game room.
I closed the door behind us. Dull light seeped through the burnt-orange drapes, and an antique painting the size of a quilt hung on the wall to our left. The painting portrayed a barren expanse of windswept hills and plateaus, devoid of all but the shabbiest of vegetation, surrounding a lifeless bog. The scene was beautiful in a stark and lonely way.
“Cranmere Pool,” Asha said, reading from a bronze plaque beneath the painting. She met my eyes. “Where the letterbox was found.”
We both gazed at the painting, willing it to tell its story. Asha’s stare fell so intensely upon the desolate scene I assumed she was thinking of her brother. After a spell, she approached the painting, positioning both hands on one side of the frame. “Aidan—take the other side.”
I grabbed hold. “Don’t lift,” she said, “just pull straight out. We might have to wiggle a little.”
My eyes flicked to the closed door. “What’re we doing?”
“You’ll see. Just pull.”
The heavy frame slid out of the wall and we eased it to the ground, exposing an empty space in the wall about the size of a small safe.
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“This framing style is typical of Perrott’s era. See how deep the frame is? It was a common place for concealing valuables.” She sighed. “There’s nothing here.”
I ran my finger along the inside of the wall; it came back coated with dust.She put her fist to her mouth in thought, then ran her fingers along the back edge of the canvas. “There’s another place I’ve seen things hidden in paintings from old estates. Let’s see . . . there! Do you see it?”
One of her fingernails had exposed a slit on the back of the painting, running six inches along the edge.
“Looks natural to me,” I said. “Like the canvas separated from the frame over time.”
“Let’s find out. Help me hold it so this side is down.”
We gave it a shake, and the corner of a faded blue envelope fel
l into the crack in the canvas. Asha carefully pulled it out.
A wax seal secured the aged flap of the envelope. Impressed into the wax was a now-familiar symbol: the same marking James Perrott had left under a cairn on the shore of Cranmere Pool in 1854, as well as the one Lou and I had seen scorched into the earth at the ruins of Castello di Selva.
The same symbol that was on the letterbox.
-51-
I looked nervously around the room, as if the Druids could somehow divine that we were prying into their affairs.
“This looks like it’s been here since Perrott’s day,” Asha whispered.
The door creaked open. My pulse spiked as I whipped the envelope out of her hand and inside my windbreaker. Jake walked in, eyes widening when he saw the painting on the floor. I showed him the envelope, and his eyes lasered onto it. “Commie, watch the door.”
Before anyone could protest, Jake broke the seal with his pocketknife, pulling out a letter the color of a tobacco stain. The pages seemed to creak as he unfolded them, and we crowded in to read the stilted handwriting.
Dear Reader,
I write to you, my unknown progeny of spirit, in a state of despair. My time grows short, and I am no closer to fulfilling what I once believed, with all of my heart and soul, to be my destiny. I cannot bring to words what it does to a man to know that he is about to die, while the object of his lifelong search yet eludes his grasp.
I surmise that the finder of this letter will be following in my footsteps, searching for the Vessel of the God Path. If you know naught of which I speak, then I beseech you to replace this letter and forget it ever graced your sight. If you hesitate, remember to respect the wishes of a dead man as you would one day wish your own respected. If you hesitate further, then heed my words: you want no part of this madness.