“How thick is this thing?” he muttered.
Without warning, the disk froze into place again with another click. Gripping with two hands now, he pulled.
The disk slid from the wall easily and smoothly. What he had thought was a silver plate, a setting for the Sunstone, was actually the top of a silver cylinder, a shiny tube about the size of a large soup can.
David leaned his torch against the wall and held his hand under the tube. He didn’t want it falling to the floor. It was a wise decision.
The tube burst free of the wall, heavier than David had been expecting, propelled out of the hole by the force of the jet of water behind it. The white froth drove the cylinder painfully against his chest, and knocked David backwards halfway across the chamber.
I told Jacqui it had been John on the phone.
“Deadline,” she said, resigned.
I didn’t tell her that he had let me off the hook for the column. Instead, I took a cab home.
Sitting down at the computer, I saw John’s two messages, along with a note from my agent’s assistant, confirming dinner with Roger when I was in New York the following week. I made another mental note to cancel the trip.
There were two messages remaining, one from [email protected], one from [email protected]. I clicked on the one from the publisher first. Thankfully, I wasn’t expecting much.
“Thank you for your message. Your e-mail is very important to us …”
I closed the window without reading the rest.
I clicked on the second message, expecting nothing more than an auto-reply from the Took site as well. I was shocked when a lengthy note opened on my screen:
Mr. Knox –
I cannot express how pleased I am that you found LazarusTook.com, and that you were impressed with the website. As I am sure you will understand, it really is a labour of love, and it does thrill me to hear from readers like yourself. Especially readers who still remember the works of Lazarus Took who, as you rightly note, has been largely forgotten by modern readers. I’m not sure why that is: one would think that in this age of Harry Potter, and with renewed interest in J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, there might be more attention paid to a writer like Lazarus Took.
By way of responding to your questions, I have something of a confession to make: I do not come by my interest in Lazarus Took by chance. Lazarus was my grandfather. Although I never knew him myself, I grew up with him as a significant presence in my life: his stories, both his books and the stories of his life, were like mother’s milk to me, and my work on the website is just a small way of keeping his memory alive. I hope you’ll forgive me for not mentioning on the site that this was a “family project”—I wanted it to have as much credibility as possible.
I turned to a fresh page in my notebook and took the pen out of my pocket.
To reply to a few of your questions: yes, I would be delighted to be interviewed for your article. I’ll answer your questions to the best of my knowledge and, failing that, I do have some of my grandfather’s papers to draw upon. E-mail is fine, or by telephone. My contact information is below.
Lastly—as far as I know, the four published novels are the bulk of my grandfather’s work. There are unpublished stories in the papers, and notes for other planned novels, but no books beyond the four which you remember so fondly. He did write some ritual guides when he was involved with the Brotherhood of the Stone, although he is not credited as their author. I don’t believe he ever wrote or published under a pseudonym.
I look forward to speaking with you further.
With all best wishes,
C. Agatha Took (but my friends call me Cat!)
I sat back in my chair and stared at the screen. I had expected at best a terse and unhelpful response from the webmaster, who I had imagined to be a middle-aged male book collector somewhere in Scandinavia, a devotee of children’s literature from the ancestral home of children’s literature. But here I was, in correspondence with Took’s granddaughter, who was not only being helpful, but had the keys to the archives.
From the sound of her note, though, it didn’t seem like she knew anything about To the Four Directions. How was it possible that a relative devoted to his memory and his work had never heard of it?
I scratched a few notes into my notebook, then leaned forward to the keyboard.
Hello Cat, I typed, I hope you don’t mind me calling you that.
Jacqui’s telephone rang partway through the afternoon; she glanced at the display before she pressed the button to connect.
“Chris,” she said.
“God, it freaks me out when you do that.”
She grinned; she couldn’t help it.
“You can’t use your cell in David’s room,” he said. “Where are you?”
“In line at Tim Hortons. Should I get you something?”
“Not quite yet,” he said, his words measured.
“It’s not going well?”
“Not really,” he said, his voice faint, almost overwhelmed by a sudden noise on his end of the line.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Some idiot in a tricked-out car.”
“Aren’t you at home?”
“I’m out front having a cigarette, checking the sidewalk for inspiration.”
“Why don’t you just tell John that you can’t do it this week? I’m sure he’d understand.”
“Nah, I’m all right. It shouldn’t be too long. I’ve got a few ideas. I’m just waiting for it to gel.”
“It’s just—there’s a physiotherapist coming and it would be—”
“A physiotherapist?”
“They’re worried about his muscles atrophying, and they want to show us some exercises to do with him. When do you think you’ll be back?” she asked again, taking another step forward in line.
“I’ll get this done and I’ll be there as soon as I can. All right?”
She wanted to tell him that he could bring his laptop in, that he could work in the room, close by. Instead, she said, “Whatever works for you.”
There was a long pause. “I’ll see you later, then,” he said.
“Yeah.” She folded the phone shut and slid it back into her pocket as she stepped to the counter.
I pressed the button to disconnect the call, and stepped through the front door of Prospero’s Books. The bell over the door jangled as I walked in.
“You’re late, Chris. I thought maybe something was wrong with the universe.” Brian’s smile was unforced; he seemed genuinely happy to see me.
My expression must have given me away, though.
“Something is wrong with the universe, though, isn’t it?” He stood up behind his desk, his heavy body lurching over the stacks of books.
He didn’t say a word as I gave him the same story I had given John earlier. I was already getting better at telling it.
Brian was shaking his head when I finished. “And it was just his birthday too, right? He’s eleven now?”
He had given me the opening that I needed. “Yeah, eleven. It was his birthday last week.” I reached into my shoulder bag. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.” I laid the book on the desk between us. “Do you remember this?”
He picked it up, looked at the spine, turned it over in his hand. “You bought this for your son a couple of weeks ago. ‘Something other than The Lord of the Rings.’ I remember that, sure.” He set the book back down on the desk. “Why? Is there something wrong with it?”
I shook my head. “No, there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just trying to figure out what it is. Do you happen to recall where you got it from?”
He looked at me as if he might start laughing. “Jesus, Chris, you know this place.” He gestured at the crowded bookshelves and the stacks teetering on his desk. “Do you really expect me to remember where one book came from?”
“Actually, I do,” I said, one book aficionado to another.
“Chis, I’d like to help, bu
t …” He stopped himself. “What do you mean you’re trying to figure out what it is?”
I had no idea how much I could tell him. “I’m not really sure,” I confessed. “David fell in love with the book when he started reading it. I tried to find some history on it and I couldn’t. It doesn’t appear on any of the online databases; there’s a website for the author and there’s no mention of it there. I can’t seem to track it down anywhere.”
He looked at me for a long moment without speaking. “And you’re looking into this to take your mind off your son in the hospital?”
I didn’t say anything. Probably better to have him think me overcome by grief, obsessing over something other than David.
“Anything you can remember, Brian, anything at all. It would be a big help to me.”
He examined the book, flipping to the inside of the front cover.
“I do remember this,” he said. He held up the book to me, open to the front endpapers. “This name right here?”
I’d looked at the inscription dozens of times: Matthew Corvin, Seattle, 1976. “What about it?”
“I remember thinking to myself that it was going to be a crying shame to have that writing in the book if it turned out to be worth anything.” He hefted the book in his hand. “It was in pretty good shape, except for that. But then I punched it into some of the collectors’ databases and there wasn’t any listing for it, so I figured it wasn’t worth anything anyway.” He shrugged, looked at the book ruefully, as if staring at a missed opportunity. “You’re telling me that this is too rare to even have a profile on the collectors’ market?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I can’t find any mention of it. Do you remember where you got it?” I tucked the book back into my bag.
“Portland,” he said, sitting back down. “There’s a dealer down there I do business with sometimes. More of a collector, really. He’ll give me a call every few months when it comes time to cull his collection a bit, make space for new acquisitions. I’ve gotten a nice couple of Hemingway firsts from him over the years.”
“You bought it from him?”
“Bought it? Nah. He always throws in a couple of extras. Nothing really valuable, you can be sure of that. A little something to help me break even on the shipping and the customs fees. It’s a nice arrangement.”
“Can you put me in touch with him?” I asked, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice.
Brian shook his head. “He’s a really private guy.”
His refusal took the wind out of me. “Brian, I wouldn’t ask if—”
He held up a hand to stop me. “But,” he said firmly, lowering his hand before continuing. “I could send him an e-mail if you’d like. If you have any particular questions.”
The relief hit me so hard it almost brought tears to my eyes.
“I have to warn you, he’s not the most dedicated correspondent.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “At least I know there’s someone out there who might know something.”
Uncapping a pen, he asked, “So what do you want to know?”
“Everything,” I said, without hesitation. “Anything he can tell me. What it is, where it came from, how he got it.”
Brian jotted down a few notes in handwriting worse than my own.
“Thanks, Brian,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Don’t expect any miracles,” he said, re-capping his pen.
“What is that?” David choked, spitting out a mouthful of water as he struggled to his feet.
The water shooting from the hole in the wall had buffeted him toward the far wall of the chamber with the force of a fire hose, but he had managed to retain his grip on the cylinder.
“It’s the river,” Matt answered, shouting to be heard.
“The river?” David crammed the cylinder inside his shirt, tucking it under his left arm.
“This chamber is under the river,” Matt said, as the shade drifted across the room toward David.
Already there were several inches of water on the floor. David’s boots were soaked, his feet chilled, his clothes sticking cold to him.
“That wall,” David said, pointing toward the hole left by the cylinder. “It’s like a dam. It’s holding back the water.”
“It was,” Matt said, looking at the lump under David’s shirt. “I guess you were right. About the story going on.”
David didn’t take any pleasure or comfort in the words. As he watched, cracks started to appear, trailing out from the hole in the wall like the cracks in a windshield. “That wall’s not going to hold,” he shouted. “We’ve got to go!”
He turned for the stairway, expecting Matt to follow, but he didn’t.
“Come on,” David said, the water spilling over the tops of his boots now, water starting to seep through the cracks in the wall. “We’ve gotta go!”
“I can’t,” Matt said. “Remember?”
A sound almost like ripping fabric shook the chamber as a huge crack opened from the hole in the centre of the wall to the upper corner, spewing torrents of water into the room.
“It’s your story now. You have to finish it.”
There was another e-mail waiting for me from Cat when I got home from Prospero’s. Another lengthy reply.
Chris,
I’m fine with you calling me Cat, so long as I can call you Chris.;)
You’ve probably got a deadline to meet so I wanted to get back to you quickly. Besides, I don’t get many opportunities to talk about Lazarus these days. I like to seize these chances when they come along. I trust you don’t mind.
You’ve certainly asked some interesting questions: I’ll do my best to answer them from what I recall hearing my mother and grandmother say, and if you need more details I’ll venture into the archives.
The reason for Lazarus’s move to the United States has never been entirely clear to me. Coming as it did so soon after the war, I suspect it had something to do with that. Lazarus and Cora were great believers in personal liberty, and I think the experience of Europe in wartime, and the restrictions they suffered at that time even in England, soured them on the land of their birth. I don’t think it’s any accident that they ended up in Oregon—we’ve always had a strong live-and-let-live attitude here.
I stopped reading and picked up my pen, writing the work Oregon into my notebook, circling it several times.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that there were always whispers in the family about something that had happened in England, an accident of some sort that created a certain amount of notoriety which apparently plagued them for a long time. This may also have contributed to their decision to leave England, but I don’t really have any concrete information—it wasn’t something that was much talked about.
As to the question of magic—that’s a long story, and I’m not really clear on a lot of the details. I do know that both Lazarus and Cora, in their younger years, were members of a group called the Order of the Golden Sunset, a group run by a man named William Thorne, with some vague lineage to Aleister Crowley and the Order of the Golden Dawn. They left this group in the 1930s, I believe, along with several other members of the group, forming a new group called the Brotherhood of the Stone. Again, this is not something that was spoken of much when I was growing up.
I wrote the name of the Order down in my notebook, then scrawled: Stone = Sunstone???
The sense that I got, however, was that Lazarus wished he could have the same renown in magical circles as Thorne, but he lacked the selfish sadism which contributed so much to Thorne’s legend. I don’t think Lazarus was a wizard or anything like that—as I mentioned, he wrote volumes of lore and ritual for the Order, but my impression is that he was more of an observer. A “pagan-type earth-devotee” as you put it in your e-mail. Suffice it to say, I never heard of any blood sacrifices or satanic orgies, but we did observe the solstices and equinoxes when I was growing up.
I’m sorry for going on so long—as I
mentioned, I don’t get a lot of opportunity to talk about Lazarus.
Yes, I represent the literary estate. My mother let his books go out of print before I was born, and they’ve stayed that way ever since. Frankly, it’s a matter of laziness and nervousness on my part—I simply don’t have any idea how the publishing industry works or how one would go about getting the books published again. Do you have any advice or connections that you can share?
As for Lazarus’s papers, there are still pages and outlines and books from his time here in Oregon, but he sold his earlier papers to the Hunter Barlow Library in New York prior to coming to the United States. In fact, I suspect the sale helped finance the move. If you’re ever down this way, I’d be delighted to show you what I have, though.
I suppose I should sign off here—I’m starting to feel like one of those little old ladies who prattles on and on about things you probably have no interest in. I’m sorry about that. Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any more questions.
With best wishes,
Cat
Oh, and no, I’ve never heard of Alexander Press. Is that a publisher that might be appropriate for Lazarus’s books?
I leaned back in the chair, rubbing my eyes. It took a while to sort out what I was feeling, to try to separate my inherent interest in a good story from my need for answers. This correspondence with Cat was interesting, but she clearly didn’t know anything about her grandfather’s fifth book. And there were much more important matters at hand.
Matters of life and death.
The ringing of the cell phone woke me up. I was startled to find myself in my reading chair, To the Four Directions open on my lap.
Bedtime Story Page 17