Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

  David remembered that feeling.

  I got to that section in the cave, and when Matthias reached for the stone, it felt like I got a … a shock A bad one. The last thing I remember is dropping the book, and the taste of blood in my mouth. And then … I was here.

  David couldn’t breathe.

  But that doesn’t mean you died, David thought, arguing against the worst of his own fears.

  You saw me. I don’t know of any other way for a spirit to come out of a body, he said. Do you?

  “Magic,” David whispered.

  It’s all magic, Matt said, his words bitter and pointed. And I think we both know who’s to blame.

  David thought of Loren, and the huge book he carried. The book the magus thought only he could read.

  Exactly, Matt said.

  David pictured his room, his body lying lifeless on the carpet. It didn’t feel like he had died. He could still remember everything about his old life, a connection to his old self like he might be able to pull himself back to his body at any time.

  If only he knew how.

  Maybe that’s the way ghosts always feel, Matt said. Maybe that’s why they keep trying to go back.

  II

  THE TELEPHONE JARRED ME from a fractured sleep of strange, unpleasant dreams. Hotel-sleep: one of the reasons I didn’t like to venture too far from home.

  “Hello,” I groaned into the phone, expecting it to be Jacqui.

  “Mr. Knox?”

  I sat up in bed at the sound of the strange voice. A man’s voice. And then it occurred to me that Jacqui would have called my cell.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Tony Markus calling. From Davis & Keelor. I’m glad I caught you.”

  Sleep-addled, it took me a moment to recognize the name. “Right. Tony Markus.”

  “How was your flight?”

  It was too surreal to continue having this conversation in the curtain-blotted dark. “Fine,” I said as I reached for the lamp on the bedside table.

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it. And I’m glad to hear that you changed your mind and decided to come to New York.”

  “How did you get this number?” I was starting to put things together. I had managed to avoid Tony Markus’s e-mails and calls for the past week—there was no way he should have known that I was in New York.

  “Oh,” he said. “I spoke to your wife. She was kind enough to tell me where you were staying.”

  Still more questions, but I didn’t have time to ask them. And then I noticed the time on the clock-radio: noon.

  “I wonder if you’d let me buy you lunch?” he asked without pause.

  “Or breakfast, perhaps, from the sound of things.” He chuckled. “I’m hoping we could talk about—”

  “Lazarus Took,” I finished for him, trying to think of ways to avoid lunch.

  “Well, yes, that, of course,” he said. “But actually, I’d like to talk to you about your own work.”

  That brought me up short. “My work?”

  “I didn’t put it together when we first spoke. Different contexts and such, I suppose. But I read Coastal Drift when I was in college. I loved it. I just loved it.”

  Absolutely speechless.

  “I was hoping we’d have a chance to sit down and talk about it, and about what you’re working on now.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Do you have someplace in mind?”

  “Well, that depends on your plans for the rest of the afternoon.”

  I told him that I was hoping to spend a few hours at the Metropolitan Museum and he quickly suggested a restaurant just off Lexington, a few blocks from there.

  “It’s a small place, pretty low-key, but the food is fabulous.”

  He gave me thorough directions, but a subway ride later, still sleep-addled, I almost walked past it: there was a single window and a small, unassuming door with DONOFRIO’S on a brass plate and the hours below. I saw no indication at all that it was a restaurant.

  I checked my watch. Fifty-five minutes from bed to brunch—not too shabby. Juggling my coffee cup between my hands, I managed to light a cigarette without spilling a drop.

  The first cigarette of the day, with a hot coffee on a sunny New York spring afternoon—it really didn’t get any better than that. I could almost forget what was happening at home. Almost.

  “I can’t believe my eyes,” said an overweight man who had lumbered up beside me, his voice thick with a Brooklyn accent.

  I glanced over at him, assuming he was talking on a cell phone, surprised to see him looking directly at me.

  “I thought you West Coast types were all about healthy living and yoga and that sort of thing.” He extended his hand. “Tony Markus,” he said.

  Cocking the cigarette in the corner of my mouth, I shook his hand. “Chris Knox,” I said. “How did you know it was me?”

  He smiled broadly and took the book out from under his arm. It was the hardcover of Coastal Drift, the one with my picture on the flyleaf. The same one Tara Scott had been carrying.

  I already preferred that meeting to this one.

  “I’m a little older than that now,” I muttered. “It’s a wonder you recognized me at all.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you out here smoking, either,” he said.

  I took one last drag and flicked my butt into the street. “I’m a writer,” I said, blowing out the smoke as Tony held the restaurant door open for me. “Someone’s got to conform to the stereotypes.” I wasn’t sure who I had stolen the line from.

  He grinned. “I guess that means martinis with lunch.”

  Dawn arrived eventually, the black sky fading to the purple hue of a bruise. The camp came quietly to life with the sound of men stowing their bedrolls, packing their horses. They did not speak.

  David rose slowly, his body aching. Shivering in the cool air, he went in search of the magus.

  A short distance from the camp, close to the river’s edge, the old man was leaning over a flat rock, looking intently down at something by the faint glow of a lamp. He looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps.

  “Ah, Dafyd. I trust you slept well, after yesterday’s hardships.”

  His voice was so friendly David wondered if his suspicions, his and Matt’s fears, were misplaced. But then he saw the massive book tucked under the old man’s arm.

  “Not really,” he said. He took several steps forward.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Loren said. “There are more hard days to come, I think.”

  David gestured with his hand toward the rock. “Is that the map?”

  “Yes, yes,” the old man said. He beckoned for David to come closer.

  David reluctantly joined him.

  The magus had laid the map out on the surface of the rock, with stones on each corner to keep it flat.

  “I’ve lined it up so the compass faces north,” he explained, gesturing at the silver disk with the red stone. “And the river on the map is aligned with the actual river. It’s just a guess, really, but if something is to happen at dawn it seems to me that it might be best if everything is lined up and ready.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” came a deep voice out of the shadows. David hadn’t heard the captain approach.

  The captain doesn’t like him either, Matt said.

  “How will this work?” the captain asked. He didn’t acknowledge David’s presence.

  “We’ll know soon,” the magus said, looking up at the sky, quickly brightening.

  They didn’t wait long. Only minutes later, the first light of the sun broke across the crest of the distant hills, a faint sliver of gold against the darkness.

  The light struck the top of the red stone, and it burst with colour. A thin ray of red light shot from one of the stone’s facets across the map.

  David took a half-step back.

  Partway down the map the beam touched the vellum in a tiny red dot.

  After a moment, smoke began to curl from the spot.

  “It’s c
apturing the sunlight,” the magus said. “And using it to show us the way!”

  David had learned about light and refraction at school: how had Gafilair done it? Had he found a stone with a fault in it that would make the light refract in just the right way, to direct the light to a particular point on a map … Or was it more magic?

  As quickly as it had started, the beam faded and disappeared. The sun had risen higher, the intensity of those first moments replaced with the steady glow of another morning.

  “That’s where we’re headed next,” the magus said, gesturing at the small burn mark, still smoking, on the vellum map.

  That was cool, Matt said.

  The captain, however, was not convinced.

  “How can we be sure?” he asked, looking closely at the map. The hole was far to the south of them, and looked to be nestled in the bend of a smaller river.

  “It’s as Brother Gafilair planned,” the magus said. “He left us the tools, and the instructions for their use.”

  “But how do you know you read the instructions correctly, Loren?” the captain demanded.

  “I lined up the map—”

  “But if you were even a degree off, or had your stone at slightly the wrong angle, would not the marking be off as well?”

  David flinched at the captain’s raised voice.

  “I … yes …” The magus kept glancing between the captain and the map.

  “So we should just take it on faith that your calculations were correct and lead my best men hundreds of miles to the south?”

  What an asshole, Matt muttered.

  The captain glared at the magus, daring him to argue.

  When he didn’t speak, the captain turned on his heel and called out to his men as he walked away. “Break camp,” he said loudly. “We’ve got a long day’s ride.”

  Tony Markus took a care with his actions that straddled the border between fastidious and prissy. He had spent several seconds hanging his coat, making sure the shoulder seams lined up with the back of the chair. Setting his copy of Coastal Drift on the table between us, he had lined it up carefully with the table’s edge, rubbing a spot on the cover lightly with his thumb to remove a smudge.

  When the waitress arrived with our drinks, he carefully arranged his napkin on his lap before picking up his glass. He took a small sip of his mojito and smacked his lips in satisfaction.

  “I’m thrilled that you were able to take the time to have lunch with me today,” he began.

  I smiled and took a deep swallow from my martini. It left a comforting trail of warmth all the way down.

  “I really should have recognized your name when I got that first e-mail,” he said. “Especially since you were writing from Victoria.” He took another tiny sip from his drink. At that rate, it was going to take him most of the afternoon to finish it. “But then, you don’t really expect one of your favourite authors to just e-mail you out of the blue.”

  I didn’t know how to respond; it had been a long time since I’d had smoke blown quite so exuberantly up my ass.

  “Do you mind if I ask you some questions about it?”

  “No, not at all,” I said. Another healthy swallow from my martini, which was disappearing all too fast.

  He paused briefly while the waiter took our lunch order.

  At first, I was comfortable answering the expected questions: my inspiration, whether the book was based on my life, my writing process. It had been a long time, but I slipped easily into the practised patter, the book tour boilerplate. But there was no way he had retained that much from reading the book years before. He had clearly only read the book in the last few days.

  It was a set-up. Nicely engineered, I had to give him that. I hoped that he had made someone a little money on eBay, purchasing the book.

  I waved the waitress over and ordered another martini, smiling at Tony as I drained off my first one and handed her the glass. No reason not to make the most of it.

  A few minutes later I was thoroughly enjoying my steak, crisp and spiced on the outside, pink and cool in the middle. He had ordered a salad, and I managed not to break into laughter when he began to cut each leaf of lettuce into smaller pieces with his knife before placing it carefully between his lips.

  “So about Lazarus Took,” he began when his salad was done, folding his napkin and placing it on the edge of his plate.

  I nodded, allowing one of my last bites of steak to melt on my tongue.

  “I’ve had an intern digging through boxes of old contracts in New Jersey for the last week.” He smiled, as if this were the most hilarious thing he could imagine. “And I’ve been in touch with the estate, just to see if there was any interest there.”

  I was surprised that he would admit to the end-run. “So much for keeping it between us,” I said, setting my knife and fork side by side on the plate.

  “The strange thing is, the woman at the estate didn’t seem to know about any unpublished writings.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I told you.”

  “Of course,” he said. “You did. It does make it difficult, though, to be talking about publishing a book that a deceased author’s representative doesn’t even know exists.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I said, finishing another martini, enjoying the way the world blurred on the edges of my vision.

  He ignored my comment and cut right to the chase. “Do you have it? The book, I mean. Can I see it? I need to be able to look at it before I even think of bringing the idea up with my publisher. It’s not like she would agree to publish a book that neither of us has ever seen, right?”

  I reached for my bag, but immediately second-guessed myself.

  He caught the interrupted movement. “You’ve got it here?” he said excitedly, starting to move his plate to clear a spot in front of himself.

  In for a penny, I thought, as I reached into the bag and passed him the book. Tony’s eyes lit up like a child’s at Christmas.

  “Oh, that’s lovely,” he said. He handled the book carefully, weighing it in his hands, turning it over front to back. “That’s gorgeous. I mean, we’d want to put a jacket on it, make it more enticing to young readers, but we could print the boards like this, class it up for the adult crossover market.” He held it up to show me as if he were a spokes-model, as if he were practising the pitch to his publisher.

  I tried to rein him in. “Like I said, nothing’s set in stone right now.”

  “Oh, I know, I know,” Tony said, starting to flip through the pages. “If we do go ahead with this, though, we’ll really need to jump on it. It’s not like we’ve got to wait for a manuscript, right?”

  “I’ll have to talk to the estate,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, still buried in the book. “We’ll have to talk to the estate, make sure they’re on board.”

  A slow wave of anger was rising in me, but it was my fault. This was the monster I had created.

  “Have you read it?” he asked, carefully turning the pages.

  I nodded. “Most of it.”

  “How is it?”

  And with that question, my stomach lurched. I’d been so caught up in the business, in the lunch, that I had somehow managed to overlook, for a moment, the true nature of what I had handed him. It looked like a book, but it was a bomb. And I had no idea when the fuse would start burning.

  “It’s good,” I said haltingly. “Of its time. I mean, it’s worlds away from what kids are reading now. It’s a bit dated.” My heart was pounding in my chest, and I cursed the third martini as I tried to ease him away from his interest. “To be honest, I’m not sure what someone coming from Harry Potter would make of it.”

  “Mm-hmm,” he said, and I noticed with horror that he had flipped to the first page, that he had started to read. “I see what you mean,” he said slowly, running one finger along each line as he came to it.

  I started to feel optimistic. He would read a bit more, then decide to pass. Why take on a forgotten mid-level hac
k? If Lazarus Took was forgotten, there was probably a good reason for it, right?

  “I don’t think the prose is a problem, though,” he said slowly, still not looking up.

  “What?” How could an editor not be concerned about the writing?

  “I’m not worried about it,” he said as he closed the book and set it on the spot he had cleared. “The thing is, when they’re done with Harry Potter, there’s a whole generation of kids turning to the Narnia books and The Lord of the Rings. And there’s nobody more stilted than Tolkien, is there?”

  He looked at me for agreement and I managed a weak smile.

  “So how should we proceed?” he asked, his tone tightening, strengthening. For a moment I understood how he could have dragged a memoir out of a convicted mafia killer.

  As I thought about my response, he drummed his fingers slowly on the corner of the book.

  “Well, there’s the matter of the rights—”

  He waved the comment away with a flick of his wrist. “Not an issue,” he said. “Rights must have reverted to the estate years ago. Hell, everyone who signed that contract is dead now. Long dead. But I don’t think we’ll need them anyway. I’ve started to develop a pretty good relationship with Cat Took.”

  He was calling her Cat. Jesus, I couldn’t believe that I had inflicted this man on that poor, unsuspecting woman.

  Still, it had seemed to make sense at the time. Anything to help David.

  “Well, I guess it’s time for me to talk to Cat, to tell her about the book.” I gestured at it. “She’s probably aware that something’s up.”

  “In that case,” he said, shifting, “why don’t we concentrate our efforts, consolidate, so she’s talking to only one of us. Cut down on the confusion.”

  I nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.”

  “Good,” he said, laying both hands on the book and starting to move it toward himself. “I’ll hang on to this—”