The Daykeeper's Grimoire

by Christy Raedeke

  Tenzo takes a deep breath, then looks up and rubs his hands together. “Where to start?”

  “You tell me,” I say. “How about why you came here in the first place?”

  He looks right at me. “Well, that was entirely because of you, my dear.” I shudder as he calls me dear. He continues. “It all started when Dr. Middleford emailed me a copy of a rubbing you had taken. It was a beautiful sight, one I had been waiting to see for many, many years.”

  “Where had you seen Drocane before?” Uncle Li asks.

  “At home. My mother has one of the only Drocane codices in existence,” Tenzo says, grabbing a scone. He sets it on the napkin draped over his knee. “Before my mother changed our names back to her maiden name of Tenzo, my last name was Xu,” he says, as if this is supposed to mean something. We both look at him blankly.

  Tenzo’s eyes move from me to Uncle Li and back again. “Have you not heard of Xu Bao Cheng?” he asks.

  Uncle Li gasps. “No! You’re related to the man who helped Fergus build the tower?”

  “He was my grandfather’s grandfather,” Tenzo replies.

  “You could have just seen Xu Bao Cheng’s name on the tower and made that up,” I say. “Or maybe ‘Xu’ is as common as ‘Smith’ in the United States.”

  Tenzo shrugs. “What do you want to know? How can I prove that I am a descendant of Xu Bao Cheng?”

  “What do you know about the tower?” I ask.

  “Very little. My mother never told me where this was, for fear I’d go looking for my father when I was too young,” Tenzo says.

  “Where was your father?” Uncle Li asks.

  “My father,” he says as he picks up the scone and then puts it back down again. “My father died here at the castle when I was just a small boy.”

  “Died?” My voice comes out shrill and high. “Here?”

  Now two people’s fathers have died at this castle?

  “My father was here working with your great-grandfather, Robert Mac Fireland, during World War II. Although he was Chinese, my mother was Japanese. As soon as the Japanese became allies of the Germans, he had to go underground. He would have been thrown into prison or worse had he been found.” He pours more tea. “Robert was kind enough to risk his life to help my father—and both gave up much in order to protect what is in this tower.”

  “So what was your father doing with Robert?” I ask. “I mean, why was he here?”

  “‘Preparing the way’ was how my mother put it,” he says, removing his glasses and wiping his greasy face with a napkin.

  “Preparing the way for what?” I ask. I sip my tea, which has gotten a little cold.

  Instead of answering, Tenzo looks at Uncle Li and then at me. “So what do you know about the tower?”

  I feel like it’s a standoff: How much do you know? No, how much do you know? Neither of us say anything.

  Tenzo breaks first and says, “Let me tell you how this all started, centuries ago. Xu Bao Cheng lived in Dunhuang in the western Chinese province of Gansu. Although it’s obscure, you may have heard of this place—it’s been in the news recently as one of the oldest sightings of the three hares symbol.”

  “Like the three hares carved on the panel in my room?” I ask.

  He nods. “Like the Flower of Life, it’s a very old symbol that’s been found all over the world yet has not been accurately decoded. Anyway, Dunhuang was once the beginning of the Silk Road, the trading route through Asia to Europe. There is a massive network of caves in Dunhuang that archaeologists are just beginning to discover. Of course, Xu Bao Cheng had known of them all his life.”

  “And this is where he met Fergus?” I ask.

  Tenzo nods. “One day Fergus showed up at Xu Bao Cheng’s house and said, ‘I think we’re supposed to meet.’”

  “In China?” I ask. “How did he get there? Why did he pick Xu Bao Cheng?”

  “Crazy as it seems, Xu Bao Cheng had been waiting for him,” Tenzo replies. “He was the Keeper of the Caves.”

  “What’s the Keeper of the Caves?”

  “The Dunhuang Caves are full of documents, fabrics, paintings, and relics, kind of like a library. But in addition to things cataloged for history and reference, a secret part of the cave holds …” he pauses, looking for the right word, “I suppose you would call it ‘esoteric’ information.”

  “Chinese esoterica?” Uncle Li asks.

  Tenzo shakes his head. “Not exactly. This information belongs to the world, but much of it came from the Maya.”

  “Another Maya connection …” Uncle Li says.

  “I don’t get why Fergus would go there and how he would know to look for this Xu Bao Cheng guy,” I say.

  “Well, it’s all part of the prophecy.” He looks at me, then Uncle Li, and then me again. “Do you know anything about this?” he asks.

  I’m about to say yes, but Uncle Li says, “What prophecy?”

  “Remember at dinner we were talking about how the Maya predicted, to the day, when Cortez and his conquistadors were coming?” Uncle Li and I both nod. “Well,” Tenzo continues, “because by their calendars they could predict when things would happen, the Maya had sent many of their Elders to caves to keep their most precious information safe. But they also sent a few groups of Elders far away, to all ends of the Earth, so keeping the Mayan prophecy alive would be guaranteed.”

  “So Mayan Elders made it to Dunhuang?” I ask.

  Tenzo nods and says, “And to the Isle of Huracan.”

  “Right here?” I say, pointing down to the ground. “In this place?”

  “Yes. But they were old, the journey was arduous, and they didn’t last long here. They had just enough time to find this energy center—where the tower is—and place their relics.”

  I glance at Uncle Li to see if he will give away anything about the calendar, the cogs below the tower. At this point, knowing what I know, I’m starting to trust Tenzo, but I don’t think Uncle Li is. His face gives nothing away as he asks, “What happened to the Elders in Dunhuang?”

  “Three of them arrived in 1518. They were very strong and lived there for years. The knowledge they imparted has been handed down to one person in each generation. Since then each man, the Keeper of the Cave, has passed this information to his first son. The last one was Xu Bao Cheng.”

  “Why did Xu Bao Cheng leave the caves and come here with Fergus?”

  “The prophecy said that a man from the west would come when the Mayan Long Count Calendar read 12-8-4-2-0.”

  Uncle Li asks, “Did he make it on the date?”

  “That was the summer of 1780. Fergus had been robbed of everything a couple weeks earlier. They’d even taken his shoes. But he made it to Dunhuang with bare feet the day of the prediction. Of course he knew nothing of this, he was just compelled to keep going, driven to find this person and this place he had been dreaming about.”

  Mrs. Findlay stands in the entryway to the parlor and says, “Knock knock.”

  She must know something intense is going on because she doesn’t move until Uncle Li says, “Yes, please come in.”

  She wrings her hands together. “Forgive the interruption, but the Laird just called. The van’s axle has broken—no injuries, the driver just backed into a rock while parking at a whisky distillery. Perhaps the driver was tasting as well …”

  “But everyone is okay? Are the guests upset?” Uncle Li asks.

  Mrs. Findlay laughs. “Quite the contrary. They have had a lot of drink and are thinking of this as some sort of adventure! Being stuck in Ballamorgh overnight is like being shipwrecked in heaven; a quaint little town with fine inns and, most important, a lot of single malt Scotch.”

  Uncle Li and Tenzo laugh and I try to smile, but I am seriously worried about tonight, without my parents here. Remembering the last time my parents were not home at night, a chill runs down my spine like ice water. “Will you be staying the night?” I ask Mrs. Findlay.

  “Yes, of course dear. I just sent Thomas off m
inutes ago to find a replacement part, so it should be all sorted out by tomorrow.”

  “Wait, Thomas just left from here?” I ask.

  “Aye,” she answers. “Why, did you need him for something?”

  I shake my head. “No, but I thought he was driving the van.”

  “Nae, lassie, the tour van comes with a driver. Thomas has been here all day.”

  Uncle Li and I catch eyes, thinking the same thing. Would Thomas have locked us in?

  “Can I get you anything else, then?” Mrs. Findlay asks.

  “No thanks,” I reply. I pull at a string on the hem of my T-shirt and it starts unraveling. I find it impossible to stop, even though I know it will ruin the shirt.

  When Mrs. Ferguson is gone, Tenzo asks, “Were you thinking that Thomas may have locked you in?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Uncle Li says. “He does seem like a man who is hiding something.”

  “Obviously someone other than the three of us knows about the tower,” he says.

  Uncle Li nods in agreement. “It couldn’t be any of the guests; they were all gone by the time we went down there. And Mrs. Findlay wouldn’t know anything about that—your parents hired her, right? She wasn’t a fixture at the castle?”

  “No, she wouldn’t have anything to do with this,” I say. Now that Tenzo is no longer a suspect, I think it has to be either Barend Schlacter or Thomas.

  “And her grandson, that fellow you’re so fond of … what’s his name?” Uncle Li asks.

  I instantly turn red. “What? Alex? I’m not …” I stammer for the words. “He doesn’t know anything either. They’re all totally not involved.”

  I cradle my forehead in my hand. “If my parents knew what was going on, they’d freak out.” I’ve never been a part of something big before. I mean, a prophecy, for God’s sake! Do I bag it because I’m scared, or do I trust Uncle Li and Tenzo to keep me safe?

  Uncle Li closes his eyes for a moment and pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Buddha help me when your parents find out I kept any of this from them—”

  “I’ll take all the blame,” I say. “Really. All of it.”

  Uncle Li shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m the responsible adult in this situation. But I do agree that our efforts to get to the bottom of this would be thwarted if we told them.”

  “They already want to send me to boarding school. If they found out any of this they’d send me to a locked-down military school.” If I’m going to trust Tenzo to keep me safe, I might as well tell him what we know. Looking Tenzo in the eyes I say, “So, you want the full scoop?”

  “Absolutely,” he says, eyes wide with surprise.

  Uncle Li gives me an approving nod so I take a deep breath and dive in. I tell him about the grimoire I found in the secret room, the rubbings I took of the square spirals on the wall, about how I conned Dad into decoding the symbols in the spirals and then copied his program, how I found the way to the tower and the stuff we discovered there, like the fountain and the glowing rocks and the cogs and wheels down below. “Am I forgetting anything?” I ask.

  Uncle Li raises his hands up to the air and makes that floating gesture. “Oh my God, that’s right,” I say. “There’s a huge magnetic field or something that makes you float!”

  Tenzo looks at me and then at Uncle Li and says, “Okay” in that long drawn-out way that really means I’m not sure I believe you.

  “Really! Mr. Papers showed us. You stand inside the circle of rocks and you start floating.”

  Tenzo leans forward in his seat. Then he asks, “Have either of you ever been to the United Nations Headquarters in New York?”

  We both shake our heads.

  “There’s a very interesting room there, the Meditation Room,” Tenzo says. “In the center of the space is a six-ton block of solid iron ore—said to be the largest natural piece ever mined.”

  “So you think they’re trying to create a place of power there?” I ask.

  “Well, you have to wonder why the architects of the U.N. Meditation Room would import and install such an expensive material if it didn’t do anything.”

  “Can you float above the United Nations one?” I ask, more interested in the amusement-park aspect of it than the weird theories.

  Tenzo chuckles. “No, there are different types of magnets and magnetic fields. I don’t think this one is like the one in the tower.”

  My legs are falling asleep under me, so I shift. Mr. Papers lifts his head and screeches with irritation because I wake him up. When I settle, he curls back up like a cinnamon roll. “You know,” Tenzo says, “my father was responsible for bringing Mr. Papers here.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, he’s from a rare pygmy lineage of white-throated capuchin monkeys, brought to Dunhuang from the Mayalands by the first Daykeepers. There was an extensive breeding and training program in the caves to produce helper monkeys with special skills. Basically they were using the same type of electromagnetic energy from the Galactic Center on monkeys and they found a leap of evolution happened. Mr. Papers is from this lineage.”

  “But that would make him really old, wouldn’t it? How long do they live?”

  Uncle Li says, “Capuchin monkeys can live fifty years or more in captivity, and the pygmy variation lives even longer. Based on what I know, I’d guess he was about sixty-five.”

  “So did you know Mr. Papers when you were a kid?” I ask, petting the fur on his head until it’s slicked back, soft and shiny. He looks too young to be sixty-five.

  “No, but he knew my father. He’d send me letters with stories of Mr. Papers. It’s delightful to finally meet him.” He takes a deep breath through his nose and exhales quietly.

  The fact that Tenzo doesn’t seem to be the bad guy any more doesn’t change the fact that he still looks creepy. I want to get over it because I know he can’t help it, but it might take more than a day.

  I try for a kind gesture. “Would you like to spend some time with Mr. Papers?” I ask. He seems touched. I put Mr. Papers in his lap and he jumps up to his shoulder and puts one hand on Tenzo’s head. His eyes say thank you.

  Looking weary, Uncle Li suggests that we rest and reconvene for dinner. I agree, wanting to go back to my room to see what the newly decoded spiral says.

  Once back in my room I rush over to my computer and read:

  When the masses, by bondage and slavery are torn

  Eight Batz, the Last Daykeeper, will then be born

  This beginning of the end before the new beginning will arrive

  The twelfth of November, nineteen hundred ninety-five

  I gasp. November 12, 1995? That was the day I was born.

  I feel dizzy and taste metal in my mouth.

  I’m overwhelmed so I do what any overwhelmed girl would do: I lay face down on my bed and crash. When I wake up a little later feeling chilled, I’m too tired to get up and crawl under the covers so I reach over to grab the comforter and fold myself up like a burrito.

  That’s when I see the man standing at the foot of my bed.

  You know in dreams when you’re too scared to run or scream? That’s how I feel: paralyzed.

  The man walks to the side of my bed. “Do not be afraid,” he says.

  I assume I must be dreaming because all of a sudden I’m not scared.

  He sits on the edge of my bed. His poncho looks like a rug, woven with really bright colors. His skin is dark and weathered and he has very high cheekbones and small square teeth; I get a feeling he’s Mexican, although he almost looks Asian. He’s wearing old black sandals and thick pants made out of some kind of heavy linen cloth.

  “It’s good to see you,” he says with an accent I can’t place. “My name is Bolon. It has been a long day, yes?”

  “You have no idea,” I reply.

  He is silent for a long time, but it doesn’t seem weird. We just look at each other.

  Then he says, “You are doing well. You are on the path and we are ve
ry proud of you.”

  “Wow … thanks, I guess. But who do you mean by ‘we’?”

  “The Elders on The Council who help guide the prophecy.”

  I prop up on one elbow and wonder if I could be aware of myself like this if I were actually dreaming. “Is this a dream?” I ask.

  He smiles, “Isn’t it all? What is the difference between a dream and waking life—both are created by you, so which is real? Or are they both?”

  I lay back down on the pillow with a thud. He shifts a little and I get a whiff of a complex smell—wood fire, spices, tree sap. I don’t remember ever smelling anything in a dream, but if this is real, why aren’t I scared?

  He seems to know what I’m thinking. “I am not here to frighten you, or to make you uncomfortable. I am here to answer any questions you have.”

  I sit up again. He has this incredibly kind face with the type of small, squinty eyes that make a person look like he’s always smiling.

  “I just don’t understand any of this.”

  He puts his old hand over mine and I feel the same jolt of energy I did when I touched the names on the tower, which seems like forever ago. He looks me straight in the eyes and starts to speak, although I feel like he could tell me everything I need to know without saying it out loud.

  “The world is changing very fast right now, and will only get faster as we head toward 2012. The Shadow Forces are gaining momentum. From an evolutionary perspective, things have not moved this fast in the billions of years that the Earth has existed. Imagine how lucky you are to be living here, now, at this moment.”

  “But how am I involved in any of this?” I ask.

  “You will help overcome the Shadow Forces.”

  I can’t help but laugh.

  “Caity, you and the hundreds of millions of other young people on the planet are the midwives of a new world.”

  “We can’t do anything! We don’t run the world. Old white men run the world.”

  Bolon smiles. “Oh, so you’ve met the Fraternitas?”