The Book Code: A Gripping Psychological Thriller with a Brilliant Twist (The Girl in the Book Box Set 2)

by Dan Noble

  “Here!” she says a little frantic. “Why don’t you come inside and take a break?”

  She won’t say, I’m worried that you are weak because you are dying of cancer. Or mention any of the other stuff going on here.

  “Thanks,” I say, and take a long sip of the tea. “And, surprise! I’m making you a garden.” She tries to smile, but it falls fast. I catch her looking at the ground. Does she know about this thing in the dirt? Did she put it there? If so, why? And why can’t I bring myself to ask her if she’s been hiding something from me? It’s amazing how quickly our perceptions can change.

  23

  MILLIE

  Another sleepless night after catching Kennedy by the tackle box in the garden. I pretend to sleep and then when I hear Kennedy drive off to work, I rise to bathe and dress Rose for the day. I didn’t think he would leave me alone with her after the way he acted the other day, but I was glad for it.

  I can’t know if he was looking for the box or had come across it by accident. It wouldn’t have been difficult the way I left it. I also can’t know whether he looked inside and put it back, or never got to that point. I know I mustn’t let on until I’ve got the facts straight. It’s just papers. I’m sure it’s just papers. What else would it be? Gestalt. Instinct.

  The morning is sweltering. After breakfast I scrape my hair back into a bun, but it’s already wet at the roots just two shovel swings into the effort. Later, I’m sure to feel the sting from where the sun is burning my neck. I swing and dig, toss the dirt, swing again. Surely, I hadn’t buried it this deeply.

  I hear Rose call for me and drop the shovel. There’s a hug, kickles, teeth brushing and breakfast. Then I settle her in front of Sesame Street, her book and charm necklace in hand, and head back out to the garden where I can see her through the large picture window. I still can’t believe Kennedy would leave her with me today. He must believe me about what happened the other day, that she magically ended up barricaded in there.

  I dig until I’d made a mess of that corner of the garden, just alongside Kennedy’s impressive veggie patch. The tackle box isn’t there. He’s got it, hasn’t he? And if he does, then why hasn’t he said anything? Why am I so worried about it? I don’t believe I know what’s inside, and yet I feel a strong tug toward it. I sense whatever’s in there is monumental to me.

  I look through the window at Rose. She’s just listening to Sesame Street, her attention on the book. It’s a normal scene, I tell myself. I replace the dirt and pack it as best I can.

  Back inside, I pull up Google. I type the words: Dr. Pinocchio.

  24

  KENNEDY

  At work, I lock the door to my office, and tell Seb not to disturb me. Over the desk, I drape a moving blanket we keep to protect our floors when we’re unpacking and moving merchandise. I place the tackle box on top of it.

  I had to make quick work of digging it up and putting it in my trunk before Millie and Rose were up and about this morning. I lift the latches. The smell is of old, moldy paper, which is exactly what’s inside. This doesn’t bother me. I’ve come to love the smell. Our house is filled with Emily’s old books that smell exactly that way. If it wasn’t for Emily and her fucking books, I wouldn’t be with Millie, after all. I’m grateful to moldy books.

  But when I realize what’s inside, I drop my head in my hands. The fucking quelque choses papers from my shop that Millie used to carry around all the time. Hundreds of them, and not in any particular order. They’re torn into individual sheets and piled any which way. I remember when she told me about the paper, and I went along with the idea of the incredible coincidence that she’d bought them in my shop. Oh, Emily, I bet you rued the day you ever walked by that place. Even I had to admit that despite the untruths, it felt like a sign that she’d found something so important to her in my store before we ever met.

  But these are the notes of a person who is not well. The writing is frantic, followed by tons of exclamation points, the slant is that strange backward slant of Millie’s. These were from a different time, when she was quite sick, and now that I’ve put her under so much stress, she’s not coping, and she’s come back to these, to the only way she knows how to comfort herself.

  I cannot believe I am now in the same camp as her mother, having pushed her just as far. And now her father is ready to make it all worse. What will become of Millie? What will become of Rose?

  I pull back the silk scarf the pile is covering. Amongst the musty scent of old unwashed fabric, the rhododendron perfume is still there: cinnamon chocolate. I breathe it in deeply, hold it in my lungs. Scent is a strong sense. I remember Millie’s original telling of her mother’s story—the dramatic smashing into the rhodo plant along their driveway. Poor Millie.

  I’ll never understand this world. I’ll never understand myself. I have done everything to save her from this—and in turn, I have everything a man could ever want, and I’ve managed to fuck it up, lose it all to cancer, and ruin lives instead of saving them.

  I have to do something with this box that has presented itself to me. Something to fix what’s going wrong with Millie. I sit down to memorize every single word and get ready for my biggest lie yet.

  25

  MILLIE

  My google search pulls up a plethora of cartoon images of storybook Pinocchio on a physician’s table, nose extended, hat feathered. I realize how deeply ingrained this story is in our culture. Pinocchio means liar. I see your nose growing. But there’s another meaning that’s been popularized too: he’s become a real boy! And here I get a frisson. Yes, Dr. Pinocchio has always reminded me of a boy in a man’s body, one who looked uncomfortable in it.

  But none of this is news.

  The next click brings something juicier. Chapter 16 of Pinocchio, the original novel by Carlo Collodi, features three falcon doctors who can’t agree whether Pinocchio is dead or alive. Pinocchio—a story of cheeky puzzles. Why should I be surprised?

  Finally, my search calls up some real, live doctors (and plastic surgeon advice about reducing an “overprojecting nose tip”), who attained the moniker Pinocchio because of untruths. There are twenty pages of entries like this. Who says literature is dead?

  Unsurprisingly, there are not a lot of people, let alone doctors with Pinocchio as a genuine last name. I come across one, in Northern Australia, who treats birds exclusively. But my Doctor Pinocchio has not joined Facebook, he has not become digitally part of our history in any way. When I see this, I feel I shouldn’t be surprised. These are not modern people. These are classical people with ideas too modern for modern people. I will have to visit a library to find him. See if he has published anything, and if so, through what hospital or university, or press, and then try to track him down from there.

  So I add “+ New Jersey General” to the search and the hospital’s number comes up, firing off all kinds of memories for me, and a quick call tells me he’s no longer with the hospital. There’s no forwarding information.

  Later that day, with Rose’s crayon bashing a Disney coloring book at my feet, a librarian across a desk has found something published in the last three years by a “Dr. P,” entitled, Psycholinguistics: A Non-Medical Approach. It was put out by a small medical press in New York. With little effort, I find their details on the internet and ask after Dr. P’s contact details.

  “I’m writing an article about Psycholinguistics, and I’d like to interview him,” I say.

  “Any publicity is good publicity for book sales these days,” the young woman says. “Especially books about Psycholinguistics. The study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. What does that even mean? And why the mysterious nom de plume ‘Dr. P?’ I can’t seem to get anyone to tell me.”

  I won’t give this girl the satisfaction of the truth. “It also studies psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language,” I say instead.

  “Yeah right. I forgot that bit.”
She laughs, as if we’re both convinced the P stands for pointless drivel.

  I force myself to laugh.

  “Gosh, I’ve landed a long way from the bestsellers, haven’t I?” She reads off his telephone number and asks me to send a copy of the article.

  I dial four numbers and hang up. Six. Six again. Finally, I make it to a ring before cutting the line. Lucky six again. In the end, I get a voicemail message. You’ve reached Doctor P. Messages may be left here. His voice sets off a kaleidoscope of sensations, the deeper I gaze, the more quickly they reconfigure themselves. I remember writing down all the things I told him, so I could look back later and assure myself of his response. I’d burned those pages long ago.

  I muster the energy to leave a message. “This is Millie Burns. Please ring me. It’s urgent.” I leave him my contact information and hang up.

  I wait all day, trembling, keeping Rose in front of the television, with food out in case I disappear, terrified of what will happen to her if I do, but I don’t. And Pinocchio doesn’t ring. Meanwhile, to my eye, it looks like Kennedy’s garden has exploded after this one sunny day. I try not to imagine Mother’s bony fingers grasping the roots.

  26

  MILLIE

  Rose has been sulking far away from me all afternoon. Dinner was a disaster. I could think of nothing but Pinocchio and lost track of the meal the second I closed it in the oven.

  “How can a chicken be both overcooked and raw?” I asked as Kennedy brushed his teeth in the en suite. The good doctor hadn’t rung and I was sick of leaving messages, each sounding more desperate than the next. I swore myself off after three. I should have used the same pretense I used with his publicist.

  This morning, I called the publishing house back with a lie. I was on my way to meet him and left the slip of paper I’d written his address on at the house. She hadn’t followed up with him, she admitted! She hoped he’d been easy to get a hold of. No wonder she had no bestsellers.

  “Wait. I know the answer to this one!” Kennedy replied to the rhetorical question about the chicken.

  “No, you’re thinking of the one about the salmon,” I said.

  “Am I? We should wake Rose. She always knows these things.”

  But Rose was exhausted. Apparently, she was barricaded in her room again for hours. I had blacked out, gone to the book world. This time it was The Fountainhead—god, how Mother loved that book.

  Again, I wondered how she’d gotten herself stuck in there. Yes, I understood it would be blamed on me, but it was difficult to feel guilt when I had no memory of doing it. I couldn’t understand but again, Kennedy was kind about it, strangely so, despite his obvious panic. And the part of me that believed Rose was doing this when she crossed over to the book world thought, yes! Let’s keep this magical book world to ourselves. This is how a mother and daughter ought to be. I felt overjoyed with images of her practicing her moves on the ice, making friends, and living life to the fullest in a way I never could manage. The meaningful parts of life, the beauty of it, would pull us through. It was unconventional, the barricading she managed to arrange from that other world, but what was conventional about any of this? I thought, good on you, Rose. You are a clever girl. She was sleeping when he found her, which is just as well after such a long day on the ice.

  I’m going to Pinocchio tomorrow, whether he calls me or not.

  Rose picked two small purple buds off the rhododendron this afternoon before her disappearance. They’re in a tiny, chipped teacup on the kitchen table, aggressively vibrant. The root beer smell permeates, reminds me of the missing tackle box. Of course she’s paging-in.

  I suddenly feel the way I did back then when it was Mother’s house, and I can almost believe Mother really had insisted the garden wreckage outside our home remain untouched. But no, the truth is I hadn’t wanted anyone to discover what I’d buried. That feels like a lifetime ago.

  I need to get to Pinocchio. He’s the only one who understands the book world, knows the truth.

  After dinner, I put Rose to bed with Kennedy hovering nearby, pretending he isn’t worried I’ll harm her. He coincidentally is heading down to watch the news just as I leave her room.

  “Glass of wine?” I ask. I’m exhausted. I feel like my every action is a sham. I’m faking everything, and yet the life I had only days ago feels like it’s just past the tips of my fingers.

  “Please.” I want his arms around me. I feel tears prick my eyes. Could he really die? In certain moments, everything looks so normal, I can almost forget. But I will save him.

  I hear the snippet from the presidential debate the other night. I’ve nearly got it memorized by now, there’s been so much coverage. The shorthand is Bush doesn’t give a fig about the rules, but the rules matter to people. The public seems to like Bush anyway, and so they don’t care about the rules. My ears perk up, because there’s something new to the story tonight.

  Bush was in the lead in all eleven swing states, including Colorado, Florida, Iowa, and Michigan, until Monday’s debate. It seems polls are showing people do care about the rules, as the moderator had insisted. Our teams hit the streets to ask voters why they felt so strongly about having a president who follows the rules. Answers varied widely.

  Darryl Kings in Cedar Rapids, Iowa quoted Ayn Rand’s famous novel, The Fountainhead: “‘Nothing is more important than the collective brain. We are together in this world. We get our best innovations, as a collective, each of us channeling the best in ourselves and bringing that together. . .’”

  That is not how that quote goes. Mother quoted that book to me nearly as much as her line about grounding books in reality. “The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise…The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone.”

  I look to Kennedy to see if he recognizes the change. I know he’s read the book. In today’s world, this book is different from yesterday’s. Because a book has been changed, it has created different influences. Ground your reading in reality. I am making real headway. Look how powerful I am! I am doing this.

  The novel’s words, in their original form, sound sinister. They certainly align with a mother who chooses, three times, to abandon her child to suicide. Not the romantic, mystical explanations I’ve always used to explain why she hadn’t meant to abandon me. “I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.” Kennedy said the main character was a dick, stood for everything that’s wrong with this world, that no one gave a shit about anyone else. And now I’ve changed that. Perhaps I can make the whole world a better place.

  It feels almost like this incredible change in reality is a message from the universe to me. You can fix this, it’s saying. Trust yourself.

  I barely know it when I’m standing in front of the television, blocking Kennedy’s view. Even I can tell my words are too excited.

  Slow down, Millie. You are not making sense.

  I hear him, but I speak over him anyway. “This is not how the debate went. We watched the debate. We laughed along with all the morning radio shows as they lampooned a Bush-run country, breaking rules like washing your hands after using the toilet.” The book in my hand, I flutter the pages to find that bit from the television, but I can’t concentrate. I’m too hyped up. I can’t find it.

  “Slow down,” Kennedy is saying. “I don’t understand you. What are you saying? Something about The Fountainhead?”

  Didn’t he hear the news? Doesn’t he realize I’m changing reality? He looks concerned. I don’t like the way he is looking at me.

  “I think you should lie down, hon. I’ll come with you. It’s been a difficult week for all of us.”

  “What? This has nothing to do with that! Don’t you see?”


  “Millie, you know what this is. Come, come to me.” He tries to pull me in. For a second I think I’m trembling. But it’s him. He’s crying. I’ve never seen it before, and it strikes me like the end of the world.

  We are both spent after and fall asleep for half an hour.

  “What are we doing here?” I ask when we wake.

  “What do you mean?”

  I decide to take a chance. “Where’s the tackle box, Kennedy?”

  “What tackle box?”

  “The one I buried in the garden.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “If I mean anything to you, you will answer this question honestly. Where is the tackle box?”

  He stares at me long and hard, as if making a decision. “I have it.”

  “Where?”

  “In my car.”

  “Why do you have it, the box of all Mother’s most treasured research?”

  He doesn’t answer. I move to the armchair. My gaze drops to the picture window, to the garden. Something aligns in my mind.

  To Kennedy’s credit, he keeps looking me in the eye. It’s me who looks away. I can’t reconcile this man with the one I fell in love with. Despite the pull, the way I’ve always known him as much as myself, as part of myself even, the truth is, he’s a stranger. All his secrets. And all mine. If he knows about the tackle box, what else does he know?

  It must take courage for him to cross the room and kneel before me. He takes my hands in his.