The Black Book

by George Shadow

  * * *

  “Why did he do that?” Stephanie asked her sister as they started climbing up the rocky slope.

  “I don’t know,” Nora said with a shrug. “Just keep climbing.”

  “The soldiers are still coming,” Monocles warned when he briefly glanced back. “Their torches appear in the darkness behind us.” Only his two sons understood him.

  The escaping prisoners heard the swish of arrows in the night.

  “They’re shooting at us,” Stephanie cried.

  “Why should they do that?” Barbara wailed beside Matthew. “Who are these people?”

  “Persians,” Matthew said in reply.

  “Persians? Who are they?”

  “Thought you knew,” Matthew returned. Someone shouted below him and he knew it was one of the Athenians because he could clearly see Stephanie and Nora on his left. Majority of the arrows were going wide and he thanked the night for this. “There it is,” he finally remembered, clambering over some rocks into the narrow passage through which they had tried to escape in the afternoon. The three girls followed him as the sound of those searching the hills for them became louder, but Monocles didn’t do so with his remaining son. “Come on,” Matthew urged the Athenian. “We can take you away from all this.”

  “No, it is not safe here,” the old man said in Greek. “The gods will look after their own, but we will both be caught when you have all gone back to Olympus! There is no other escape from here.” The boy made to come to him but he held up his hand. “Farewell, my friend,” Monocles solemnly said. “It is here we part ways for I must go back to Athens and report the loss of Thermopylae.”

  “You can come with us.”

  “No,” the old man objected, holding Matthew by the hands. Unknown to him, this connection immediately brought back Mathildes. “Themistocles awaits the Persians with a fleet of triremes near Salamis, and I must join him to avenge the death of my son,” he said. “You must let the gods know what is happening, Mathildes. They must help us fight the invaders near Salamis.”

  And he turned away without another word.

  “Wait,” Matthew said, stopping him. “What am I known for in Sparta?”

  The Athenian smiled. “I see you have lost your memory, Mathildes, since you have been conversing with the gods! You have a flare for the languages of the world and your wisdom is also renowned in Greece! I am most honored to have witnessed it firsthand today.”

  The old Athenian statesman left with his son.

  Nora came up behind Mathildes and grabbed his hand, changing him back to Matthew. “Where did you hide it?” she asked him, and he quickly went back with her to where Stephanie waited with a faint-hearted Barbara. A crevice on the wall to their right revealed a piece of dry papyrus and Nora stared at it in surprise. “The book turned to that?” she asked her foster brother.

  “It does that sometimes,” Matthew carelessly said, unrolling the scroll. Funny enough, their names were not in Greek and he found Barbara’s name on his own list of names. “Give me your hand,” he urgently told Barbara and she did, coming forward. Matthew placed one of her fingers on her name and removed his own hand. The name he used was the one he’d earlier written down, himself, before Owen chalked in another.

  “There’s. . . There’s something I must tell you, Matt,” Barbara began, a little in haste.

  “It’s alright,” Matthew assured her. “I know.”

  “You—You do?”

  “Yes, and I forgive you.”

  “You—You do?”

  “Why not?” He smiled at her and she smiled back.

  “Thanks, Matt,” she said, feeling relief sweep over her. “You don’t know how relieved you’ve made me feel, and really, I’m so sorry for all the hurt I’ve caused you! I really am! It’s…”

  Her Persian attire fell to the ground.

  Matthew had wanted to ask Barbara for her own forgiveness before this.

  “Stephanie must go home with her,” Nora started. “She could tell Mom and Dad where we are.”

  “But I don’t want to,” Stephanie snapped.

  “You have to, Steph,” Matthew said. “It’s getting too dangerous for us all to be out here like this.”

  “I don’t want to,” Stephanie whined, but grudgingly provided both hands for him. Her Persian clothes fell to the ground as well.

  “Hold me,” Matthew told Nora and looked for Yung Ji’s name. She obeyed him and he found the name, which he preferred to Fat George’s name atop the list, or Rupert’s in the middle.

  “Wait,” Nora suddenly said, leaving him again.

  “What?”

  “We must save him.”

  “Save who?”

  “The guy who helped us escape.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “No, I’m not,” she retorted. “We—We just can’t leave him.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s Peter.”