Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

  It all made perfect sense, except for one detail.

  “If David’s storyline is one of those purple lines, what are all the other ones?”

  My heart sank: in asking the question, I had intuited the answer.

  “Other children,” Sarah whispered.

  David sipped from the cup of hot wine, trying not to gag, to buy himself time. If his only hope of getting out of this world was to get to the end of the book, it was important that he pretend to be the Dafyd that these people had known. That meant he couldn’t tell Bream and Loren anything about Matt, or the shades in the cave. He couldn’t say anything about the story they were all trapped in: not if he wanted to get safely out of it.

  So he limited himself to a chronology of what he had done to get the Sunstone, and to escape from the cave once the water had started pouring in. He broke up the story every so often with sips from his cup. How could his mom and dad drink this stuff?

  “And you managed to hold on to that”—Captain Bream pointed at the cylinder—“even as you struggled under the waves?”

  David nodded slowly. He didn’t like the way the captain was looking at him. Had he always been this distrusting and Dafyd had just never noticed it?

  To his surprise, the captain reached over and patted David heavily on the shoulder. “Nicely done, Dafyd,” he said. “I’ll be sure the Queen learns of your bravery.”

  He bent forward and picked up the silver cylinder, looking at it for a moment before handing it to David. “It seems only right that you should be the one to carry it home.”

  David took the cylinder. He touched the stone tentatively, brushing his fingertips across the smooth surface, still half expecting it to shock him.

  The Stone and the disk looked much different than they had in the chamber. The Stone seemed small and dull by the light of the sun, flat and unremarkable.

  “This doesn’t—” David began, before he could stop himself. Once the words were out of his mouth, all he could do was hope that no one had noticed them.

  “What?” Bream asked, looking more closely at the Stone.

  David was vaguely aware of the magus rising and walking away.

  “I was expecting it to look more important, I guess,” David said, touching it with his fingertip.

  The Stone sat at the centre of what looked like a sunburst or star, radiating out in four long points at the top and bottom and sides of the circle, with smaller points between them. Around the rim of the disk was a narrow band of writing that David couldn’t read.

  The magus returned holding his book. He sat and thumbed through the pages as David lingered over the strange inscription. The letters seemed distorted somehow. Familiar, but strange.

  “It’s mirror writing,” he exclaimed, causing the magus to close his book with a surprised snap.

  The captain leaned in close to look.

  David pointed at the faint writing. “It’s written backwards,” he said. “You need a mirror to read it.”

  Both the magus and the captain slowly lifted their eyes from the Stone to look at David.

  Be careful, David, Matt warned. In this world—

  “I’ve heard stories,” he muttered weakly. The captain held his gaze a moment longer, then looked away.

  The magus took both the cylinder and David’s cup of wine. Leaning toward the fire, he held the cylinder face down above the wine, adjusting its position to reflect the firelight into the mouth of the cup.

  Once he got the angles right, he peered intently into the glass.

  David leaned forward, catching a glimpse of the reflected silver disk, which seemed to float on the dark surface of the liquid.

  “This,” the magus said heavily, “is not the Sunstone.”

  Something in the air seemed to change whenever Sharon Cahill came down the two floors to the editorial bullpen. A hush would fall, starting with the junior editor closest to the elevator, a palpable stillness of people not just working, but staring deeply at their monitors in an attempt to look like they were really working. She wasn’t an imposing presence physically. She always had a warm smile if someone happened to meet her eye, and she’d stop occasionally, inquiring casually after a project, or someone’s family. But as she made her way through the warren of desks, the usual hum of conversation disappeared, and a wave of silence rolled over the room in advance of her like ripples spreading out from a thrown stone.

  In his office at the far end, Queen’s Greatest Hits playing low from his iPod speakers, Tony Markus was completely unaware of his publisher’s stately approach.

  “Dammit,” he muttered. He had spent most of the day trying to amass as much information as possible on Lazarus Took. What he had assumed would be a simple search had turned out to be anything but. Aside from the usual antiquarian value sites (which all seemed to agree that Took’s books were worthless) and a low-budget home page, he hadn’t come up with much of anything. Certainly no mention of a previously unpublished book (which he hadn’t expected to find) or any reference to the dead author’s estate (which he certainly had).

  He tried another term in the search field, and came up with no results yet again. “Dammit,” he repeated.

  “Stymied?” Sharon asked from the doorway.

  He spun to face her so fast he almost tipped his chair. “Sharon,” he said, trying to effect a tone of fond surprise.

  She was leaning against the door frame with a casual ease that was entirely at odds with her aura. Tony wondered how long she had been standing there.

  “Is that to do with the kids’ book?” she asked, glancing at his monitor.

  He nodded. “I’m trying to collate as much information as I can before I present it to the board.”

  “And how are things looking for the fifth book?” she asked.

  It had been only four or five hours since he had brought her the idea in the first place—he had clearly piqued her interest.

  “I’ve got lines in the water,” he said, as vaguely as he could. “I’ve got an intern from Rights trying to dig up any existing contracts we might have had with Lazarus Took. And”—he gestured toward the computer—“I’m trying to get in contact with someone from the estate.”

  “And not having much luck with it,” she observed, bemusement on her face.

  “I am having a bit of trouble on that front,” he admitted. “There’s not a lot of information out there about it.”

  She nodded slowly. “And I suppose you’ve already tried the telephone book? I know it sounds old-fashioned …”

  He raised one eyebrow: as if he would overlook something that simple.

  She started out of his office.

  “Oh,” she said, turning back, treating it like an afterthought. “I spoke to Peter a little while ago, and he’s definitely on board,” she said. “Depending on the book, of course.”

  “Of course,” he agreed.

  No additional pressure there.

  After Sharon had gone, he brought up the national phone directory website and searched “Took” in Oregon.

  Less than a second later he had eight results.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Is there any way to break the spell?” I asked, looking at the book, now closed in the centre of the green cloth in the middle of the table.

  “I don’t think so,” Nora said apologetically. “Without being able to translate the symbols, it’s impossible to develop a counter-spell—it would be like trying to make an antibody with no idea of what we were trying to cure. Do you see?”

  I nodded, suddenly weary. Heartsick.

  “And even with a lexicon, and a translation, I’m not sure if I would be able to create the spell.” I must have looked surprised or confused. “This is powerful magic, Mr. Knox. I’m not sure that I have it in me to counter it.”

  “But you might be able to?”

  “If I had the lexicon, I might be able to do something. Maybe.” She looked down at the book. “But this is dark stuff. And beautiful, in its own way. Lazarus
Took spent a lot of time creating this, a lot of effort, a lot of magic.” Her tone was almost admiring.

  “What if we destroyed it?” I asked, returning to her earlier, instinctive reaction. “Wouldn’t that release all of the trapped … energies?”

  Nora shrugged. “It might. Or it might destroy them, along with the world they’re living in.”

  All of the hopes that I had allowed to build in my mind, however guardedly, crashed back to earth.

  “Thank you anyway,” Tony Markus said, forcing a smile into his voice. “I’m sorry for taking up your time.”

  He hung up the phone and scratched the fourth number off his list. He deeply resented this cold-calling, this spade-work. Surely there had to be a better way.

  Grumbling, he went to the fifth name on his list. C.A. Took. Seaside, Oregon.

  He punched in the numbers and waited. It took two rings for the telephone to be picked up with an uncertain “Hello?”

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m sorry to be calling like this. My name is Tony Markus. I’m an editor at Davis & Keelor in New York City, and I’m trying to track down someone who might be able to help me—”

  “You’re calling about my grandfather,” she said. “Lazarus Took.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.” He settled back into his chair, ticking a large checkmark beside her name. “I was hoping to get in touch with someone from the estate.”

  “You just did,” she said.

  “This is—” He consulted the list. “C.A. Took?”

  “You can call me Cat.”

  “Well, Cat, I’m calling because, first off, I’m a huge admirer of your grandfather’s work. I read all of his books as a boy. I’m not sure if I’d be as much of a booklover as I am now if it weren’t for his stories.” Tony Markus took great pride in his ability to sling BS. “And I think it’s just terrible that these books have been out of print for so long. It must be, what, more than thirty years?”

  “Almost forty,” she said.

  “That’s three generations of children who have missed out on these books? I think that’s terrible. Cat, I’d like to talk to you about the possibility of bringing your grandfather’s books back into print. Is that something you would be interested in?”

  “That would be lovely,” she said. “I’d just about given up hope of ever seeing them published again.”

  Sometimes it was too easy. “Well, I’ve got a few questions. First off, just to be clear: are you the person I should be discussing this with? Is there a board I should be presenting this to, or …”

  “Oh, no, it’s just me.”

  “So you’ve got signing authority as far as publication contracts and the like are concerned?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the estate still holds the rights to those books?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  He’d double-check that.

  “And tell me, Cat: did your grandfather write anything else? We’re definitely looking at reissuing the four novels, but if there were some other work, another novel perhaps, that would really round out the relaunch.”

  “You know, you’re the second person this week to ask me that.”

  “Hmm,” he grunted, silently cursing the Canadian writer. No sense of finesse—the idiot could have given the whole thing away.

  “And before that, no one had asked about Lazarus for a very long time.”

  “So is there another book? Or some papers I could look at? I’m planning on being out in Oregon in the next couple of weeks; I could come by.”

  The idea of going out to Oregon had occurred to him on the fly, but it made sense. He hoped to have a copy of the book by that time. He’d carry the provisional agreement with him. And even if he didn’t have the book yet, sitting down with her face-to-face would probably serve to lock him into a deal before the Canadian could take the deal to someone else.

  “No, unfortunately Lazarus wrote only the four books. You’d be more than welcome to go through his papers here, though, if you’re thinking of coming out this way.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t miss it, Cat.”

  Captain Bream snapped to his feet as if he were facing a Berok attack. “What?” he spat.

  “This is not the Sunstone,” the magus repeated.

  “Then what is it?” the captain asked, snapping out each word clearly and distinctly.

  “It’s a compass rose,” the magus said, still studying the disk intently. “For a map. The writing is …” He hesitated. “It looks like instructions to a traveller. To the traveller.” He glanced at David. “To you.”

  “And what does it say?”

  The magus squinted into the wine, trying to read. “To the Four Directions ride,” he said. “With stone and silver key to guide.”

  In the silence that followed, the only sound was the popping and crackling of the fire.

  “And just what,” the captain said, his voice seething, “in the name of the Queen does that mean?”

  Neither David nor the magus had an answer ready for the captain.

  “It’s a compass rose,” the magus said, as if thinking it through as he was speaking. “So it works with a map.”

  “Which map?” the captain asked, clearly having lost all patience. “There are dozens of maps.”

  “Dafyd,” the magus said, turning to him. “Was there anything else in the chamber?”

  David’s heart stopped. Had he missed something?

  “I—I don’t think so,” he stammered, not entirely sure.

  “Dammit, think!” the captain barked.

  “What about the wall?” the magus continued. “Where the stone was set?”

  “It was just a wall.”

  There was nothing else there, Matt said. Just the stone. And that poem. I would have seen anything else.

  “So no map?” the magus said.

  “That was all,” David said, gesturing at the cylinder.

  “So this is what it comes to,” the captain said in disgust. “We’re left with a compass rose to a map that’s lost to the river now.”

  David rose to his feet. “It wasn’t there,” he said, in his own defence. “If there was a map, I would have brought it out.”

  The captain stared at him for a long moment, his face setting in anger.

  David, Matt said, don’t push him.

  David pulled his eyes away from the captain and sat back down, his face burning.

  “So what do we do now?” the captain asked the magus, ignoring David altogether.

  The magus was about to reply when David asked, “Did you look inside?”

  I came to a sudden stop in the doorway of David’s hospital room—he was sitting up in the bed, the blankets draped over his lap.

  “What—?”

  As Jacqui turned to me I took a closer look at David. His eyes were still moving rapidly from side to side, his mouth still slack, his hands still twitching.

  “The rehab doctor came by,” Jacqui said. “Dr. Jonas. He wanted to go over coping strategies.”

  “Coping strategies.” The words had the grim finality of a life sentence: David wasn’t going to get any better. Our future would consist of coping.

  “The physiotherapist was very impressed with David’s responsiveness. She had him up yesterday and taking a few steps with a walker, even. And Dr. Jonas says that if they get the seizures under control, he’ll be able to come home.” She sounded genuinely excited by the prospect, as if it marked a great victory.

  She turned back toward David. “We’re just about to have lunch, aren’t we, Davy? We’re going to practise eating.” A covered tray sat on the bedside table.

  The notion of my son having to practise eating filled me with a sick feeling that began in my lower belly and crept upwards.

  “Did the tests show anything?” Still grasping at faint hopes.

  “Dr. Rutherford hasn’t been back yet.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until we hear what he has to say before we …” The words died on my lips.

>   She frowned at me. “It’s just coping skills. We might not need them. And if David is this responsive …” She gave me a long look. “I know it’s not perfect, Chris, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to deal with this.”

  I nodded. Nobody knew better than me that need to be doing something, anything. “Okay,” I said.

  “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” she said, cooing a little as she lifted the lid off the tray. “Oh, this looks good. We’ve got some cream of wheat, and some pudding, and a nice ripe banana. That sounds like a great lunch. And they sent extra napkins.”

  I looked away as Jacqui unfolded a napkin and tucked one edge into the neckline of David’s gown to make a bib.

  Hands in my pockets, I watched her feed our eleven-year-old son the same way she had when he was a baby, the same tiny mouthfuls, the same soft food. I clenched my fists until my fingers ached, feeling more helpless by degrees.

  How could he do this? How could Lazarus Took take my son as he had, stealing not only his future but the last eight or nine years of his life, all that living, all that growing, reducing him to a second infancy, an infancy that he might never grow out of? What kind of sick joke was this? What power came with crippling a child?

  David picked the cylinder up from the ground, shaking it slightly in his hand. Something shifted inside. “Something’s in here,” he said, although it seemed obvious.

  To you, maybe, Matt said. But they’ve never seen a soup can.

  The magus leaned closer to the canister. “But how do we—?”

  “Easily,” the captain said, reaching for the cylinder and for the hilt of his sword in almost the same motion.

  “Wait,” David said, pulling the canister close to himself. “I think there’s a better way.”

  Anger flashed in the captain’s eyes.

  He didn’t like that, Matt said.

  No, he didn’t.

  “We don’t want to risk damaging whatever’s inside,” David said quickly, to soothe the captain.

  The captain adjusted his sword-belt.

  “I think,” David said, as he curled his fingers around the lettered edges of the disk, which looked like the top of the container. “That if I do this …” The stone pressed cold into the palm of his hand as he twisted. “It should …” It took a moment of pressure, but a seal broke with a faint popping noise as the lid started to turn.