Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

  Fortunately, I had already come up with a story. “I’m a writer myself, and I’m considering a book about Lazarus Took. I’ve got a feeling that there’s a story there just waiting to be told.”

  He nodded, and seemed to be considering my words. “Oh, I would agree with that, sir. There’s quite a story in Lazarus Took.” He paused. “And it must be getting increasingly difficult to find writers who haven’t already been written about.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “If you would be so kind as to fill out the blank spaces on this form.” He passed me a clipboard from the desk. “I’ve taken the liberty of filling in most of it from the information in your e-mail.”

  “What is this?”

  “A waiver, sir. Limitations of liability and such. It’s mostly for insurance purposes.”

  I wondered what the “mostly” left out.

  I started to fill in the blanks. “So I wasn’t able to find much information about the library,” I said, trying to make the questioning sound conversational.

  “No, you wouldn’t have, sir. We try to maintain as low a profile as we possibly can, owing to the nature of our collection.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Sir, we pride ourselves in being a serious collection, a resource for scholars and committed students.” He looked at me with an expression that clearly grouped me with the latter. “And because of the nature of the collection, we have to keep a low profile, in order to allow access to those with legitimate avenues of inquiry, like yours.”

  “I’m sorry, ‘the nature of the collection’?”

  “Yes, sir. The Hunter Barlow collection is one of the largest private collections of material pertaining to the occult and the arcane in the world. But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  I capped the pen and passed him the clipboard. “Actually, I didn’t know that,” I lied, hoping that he might give me more information than I had been able to find. “I found you from information that Lazarus Took had sold the library his papers.”

  “Ah, well. Then I can see the source of the confusion. The Hunter Barlow Library is devoted to material having to do with the occult. The library was founded in 1915 by James Hunter and Robert Barlow, initially as a repository for their personal materials and memorabilia. You see, both men had been involved with mystical orders in England, where they grew up. In fact, Mr. Hunter apparently credited magical forces for his success in the shipping industry. Mr. Barlow was more of a collector, and the collection itself is largely his work, and his legacy. While Mr. Hunter chose to focus on his enterprises, Mr. Barlow explored more widely. Over the last century, the collection has grown immeasurably, funded by the estates of Mr. Hunter and Mr. Barlow.”

  “I see.” The idea of all that material, all that information, gave me renewed hope.

  “I’m sure you can understand, then, the need for our discretion. If word were to get out about the nature of our collection—” He shuddered. “I can only imagine what sort of people it might attract.”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, and I should mention—one of those papers you signed was a non-disclosure agreement.”

  Of course it was.

  “Certainly if there are materials you’d like to use in your work, permissions can be readily granted, but any discussion of the library itself is strictly prohibited.”

  “That’s fine.”

  He nodded, and smiled, as if pleased by my compliance. I didn’t care about any of the legal mumbo-jumbo—I just wanted to get at the papers.

  “Normally I take first-time visitors on a walk through the upstairs gallery, which houses some of the highlights of our collection. There are”—he thought for a moment—“Aleister Crowley’s handwritten notes for the Book of the Law. A letter from W.B. Yeats to Lady Gregory regarding the faerie tribes of Ireland. A copy of the so-called Demonic Bible. A letter from Vladimir Rasputin to Czar Nicholas, telling him of a dream he had in which the entire royal family was killed. A grimoire, allegedly bound in the skin of a witch executed at Salem.”

  He was watching my face as he listed off their “treasures.”

  “Actually—”

  “But I digress. Let me show you directly to the Lazarus Took material.”

  “It’s just that I’m somewhat short of time.” Wanting, for some reason, not to seem rude.

  “Of course, sir. If you’ll just follow me.”

  He stepped out of the foyer.

  “I will have to insist that you leave your coat and bag in this vestibule.” He gestured toward the well-appointed check room. “And you are, of course, subject to search prior to leaving.”

  I hung my coat on one of the hooks. “Is it all right if I take a couple of books in with me? For reference?” I took my notebook out of my jacket pocket, and pulled the copy of To the Four Directions out of my bag.

  Ernest’s eyes followed the book; I could tell he wanted to ask about it, but decorum and training held his tongue.

  “Of course, sir. They will, however, also be subject to search prior to your departure.”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, and—” He pointed at my shirt pocket. “I’m afraid that will have to stay out here as well.” I pulled the fountain pen out of my pocket and looked at it inquiringly. “Pencils are provided if you need to take notes,” he said. “We can’t risk any damage to the documents.”

  He led me through an anteroom and into a study. A stately desk, heavy and masculine, backed onto a bay window with a view of the park. In front of the desk was a stainless steel table and a light table, each fitted with a floor-standing magnifying glass, a chair on wheels between them. A dozen archive boxes had been neatly stacked next to the steel table. I couldn’t decide whether that seemed like a lot of material to sort through, or not nearly enough to give me hope of finding what I sought.

  “This was Mr. Hunter’s private office,” Ernest said. “As you can see, we’ve brought up the materials you requested from the archive proper.”

  I nodded. He seemed born to say the word proper.

  “There are pencils and paper there—” He gestured at the steel desk. “And I would ask that you wear these while you’re perusing the documents.” Reaching down to a table beside the door, he passed me a pair of soft cotton gloves, almost blindingly white, and waited while I slipped them on.

  “Very good, sir,” he said.

  “I feel like a mime.”

  He showed not the slightest trace of amusement.

  “The door will be locked from the outside,” he said, half turning to leave. “But you can use this intercom to contact me if you need anything at all. There’s an override in case of emergency—simply press 555 and the door will release and an alarm will sound.”

  I nodded. “That’s fine.” I hadn’t noticed it when I first came in: the office door wasn’t wood, but brushed steel.

  The sound of Ernest turning the lock behind himself was sharp and loud in the small room.

  “We did what we had to do,” the captain said, startling David.

  David spun around to face him.

  “You killed them in their sleep!” David cried out. The magus flinched and Matt gasped at the words. “You called them cowards when they killed the men at the watchtowers in their beds, but you—”

  The captain slapped him across the face with the broad of his hand. David dropped to his knees, his ears ringing.

  “Do not speak,” the captain commanded, towering over him, “of things you know nothing about.”

  The captain stared at him for a long moment, then looked away.

  “I couldn’t risk this mission by waiting to follow the rules of war.” The captain spoke, quietly now, still not looking at the boy on the ground. “Returning with the Sunstone is our mission. Nothing can stand in the way of that.” He turned away.

  David could hear the hushed voices of the men, the gentle rumble of the river, the scraping of corpses being dragged across the clearing.
/>   “Captain Bream,” the magus said carefully. “What will you do with the bodies?”

  The captain turned to Loren as David stood up slowly, unsteady on his feet. “We’ll drag the bodies off the trail. Conceal them in the clearing under branches and brush.” He shrugged. “Someone will miss them, sooner rather than later. We’ll have to be on our guard: I had thought we were well clear of the Berok.”

  The magus nodded.

  Without another word to David, the captain started back for the clearing.

  I had no idea where to begin, facing the sum total of a man’s life and work in a dozen identical cardboard boxes. If I hadn’t been so conscious of time, I would have started with the earliest box, labelled 1918–20, and used it as a way of getting to know Took thoroughly. But I didn’t have that kind of time: I had, at the outside, two days here.

  I pulled the lid off the top box and smelled pipe-smoke and incense, old paper and the faint hint of leather.

  At first it looked like the contents had been hastily thrown into the box, but that wasn’t the case: there was simply too much odd-sized material—notebooks, a small leather bag, a set of medallions and, though I couldn’t get over just how hackneyed it seemed, a crystal ball—to file it neatly.

  Setting the contents out as neatly as I could on the steel table, I went through the loose papers first. Everything seemed to create more questions than it answered.

  Two tickets for transatlantic passage on the SS Franklin in the fall of 1949—Lazarus Took and his wife coming to America. Fleeing England, but why?

  A letter from James Hunter agreeing to purchase Took’s papers for $100,000. I gave a low whistle—such an amount for an author’s papers would be remarkable even today. In 1949 it would have been a fortune.

  And why did James Hunter address the letter to “Lazarus,” and sign it “Yours, J”? Were they friends?

  I only glanced at the letters from Took to his acolytes in London, Dublin, Basel and San Francisco. Every letter read the same way: after an ostentatious opening, reminding them of their privilege in serving the Brotherhood of the Stone, he adopted a wheedling tone. Hitting them up for money “to finance my travels in search of truth and enlightenment,” clearly Took had reached a low point in the late 1940s. He was outright grovelling for money from the members of his cult.

  I skimmed through everything from letters from a lawyer (referring only to “a matter which needs clearing up”) to a magical grocery list, detailing what ritual supplies the Order was short of. Then I stopped at a crumpled letter. The letterhead bore a sketch of a rambling building, clearly an institution of some sort, with the words “Barnwick–Hay” below it. It was a report on a patient in a private hospital: Reginald Pilbream.

  The letter was addressed not to Took, but to his wife Cora. I scanned it quickly: “condition remains unchanged,” “prognosis is unfavourable,” “resting comfortably.” The letter ended by thanking Cora for her continued support of “this unfortunate soul,” and reminding her that the annual payment for care and lodging was due before the first of the new year.

  I had no idea what it might mean, but I took notes anyway. Lazarus Took didn’t strike me as likely to support an indigent patient in a private hospital, especially at a time when his finances were crumbling around him.

  I leaned back and took off one of the gloves to rub my eyes. It was already after eleven, and I had only made it through the household accumulation of less than one year. I needed to speed up.

  I started through the notebooks next. A small, battered, black leather book contained almost fifty pages of what looked like a novel. The writing on the early pages was dense and intense, gradually thinning before disappearing altogether, leaving most of the notebook blank. I knew exactly what that was like. Every writer has notebooks like this; Took had five in this box alone. 1949 had been a rough year for him.

  The sixth notebook was slightly larger than the others. I felt a rush when I opened it: a journal.

  I don’t know what I was expecting from the journal of a noted magus and cult leader, but it certainly wasn’t anything as banal as what I found inside.

  “Jan 1, 1949—I begin the new year with faint hopes, and deepening concern for Cora …

  Jan 10, 1949—The post brought news from the hospital, and Cora took one of her turns …

  April 17, 1949—As preparations continue, Cora grows increasingly grim. Perhaps America will have some small, good effect upon her …

  May 12, 1949—Cora’s visage is growing strained and worrying. I know not what to do when she takes these moods.”

  Page after page of a man worrying about his wife; I dropped the journal on the desk.

  I only glanced at the paraphernalia on the table. There might have been a clue in one of the several small medallions I’d removed from the box, but I would have had no way of knowing. I couldn’t undo the knot at the top of the leather bag, but whatever was inside felt like a small bone—I was just as grateful not to have to handle it directly.

  “Shit,” I said, looking at the mass of stuff on the table. With a sigh, I stood up and repacked the box.

  In need of a break, I buzzed Ernest to let me out for a cigarette.

  When I came back, renewed and refreshed, I opened the second box and my heart sank: more papers, more abandoned notebooks, more 1949 banality. But at the bottom of the box was a large leather notebook. I pulled it out carefully and opened it on the table.

  It was a scrapbook.

  Someone, I assumed Cora Took, had meticulously clipped and pasted every newspaper mention even peripherally concerned with Lazarus Took and the orders he had belonged to, starting in the fall of 1925 with a small announcement of a meeting “for those who seek truth and power in these dark times,” giving a date and a London address.

  For a man who had left so little trace, he had made no secret of his existence, at least in the early years. There were regular announcements of meetings and appearances by “Master Lazarus,” who would speak, depending on the night, on “Light and Truth” or “Power Over the Self” or “Finding Your Way.” An article from 1927 went on at some length regarding “the Master’s” charisma and insight—another convert, it seemed. I couldn’t help but think of Dale, and all those self-help, personal-growth, power-through-your-thoughts types out there, monopolizing talk shows and selling out lecture halls and weekend retreats.

  In the early 1930s, though, the listings and announcements seemed to taper off.

  In February 1935, there was mention in a legal round-up column that Lazarus Took, “orator and specialist in personal magic,” had been arrested for public intoxication. Later that same year, a small announcement appeared that all correspondence for Lazarus Took, Cora Took and the Brotherhood should be sent to Raven’s Moor, their new headquarters, with an address below.

  An article with a definite small-town feel to it marked Took’s return to Raven’s Moor. “The manor on the hill, dark for so many years, returned to life last week with the arrival of Lazarus Took and his wife, freshly returned from London in the wake of a successful European tour.” I flipped back, looking for any mention of a European tour that I might have missed. Hyperbole, perhaps? It would have fit with Took’s over-the-top style, and grandiose posturing.

  The next page of the scrapbook was a lengthy piece from the same city newspaper as the earlier articles.

  APRIL 15, 1935

  INSIDE THE DEVIL’S LAIR

  This is not a story that I ever imagined myself writing. Nor is it a story for all to read. Some of the subjects I find myself forced to explore, and many of the events I have witnessed, are simply unfit for most company. I am compelled to repeat them, however, to alert readers to the evil that is growing in our midst.

  Lazarus Took has developed something of a reputation as an orator and a counsellor. His regular Thursday evening meetings, which, until his recent decampment, took place in his large Mayfair flat, were well-attended and popular. Many people returned, week after week, to hear To
ok expound on the world at large and, most significantly, on personal mastery through force of will, focused though a system he referred to as “majick.” This is no ordinary stage-magic, however, but a system of rituals and beliefs designed wholly to facilitate greater knowledge and control over one’s self. These rituals involved a variety of prayers, control of the breath, meditation and devoted study of ancient texts.

  I must admit that I fell, for a time, under the spell of Lazarus Took. Little did I know how apt that term “spell” was to be.

  Following one of the Thursday meetings, I was invited by Took and his wife, the blushing, quiet Cora, to attend a weekend of intensive study and ritual at the same apartment. Naturally, I agreed.

  The following Saturday morning found me back in Mayfair, knocking on the door of the apartment. It was opened by a man whom I had previously seen in the back of Took’s meetings, standing near the door. This time, however, he was dressed in a black robe, with a large silver star hanging upside down from a chain around his neck.

  In fact, this was the standard uniform of all those attending this weekend meeting, and a similar robe was provided for me.

  I skipped ahead, through a tedious description of the other guests and an endless account of dinner—clearly the writer was being paid by the word.

  The room in which we typically took our meetings had been completely transformed. There were no chairs, no dais, and candles flickered on every available surface. The carpet had been rolled, and on the floor was painted a large circle, within which was the same inverted star as dangled from every necklace.

  “A pentagram,” I muttered. Did this amateur occultist honestly not know what a pentagram was?

  I followed the group’s example, taking my place in a circle around the symbol painted on the floor. Once we were in position, everyone, as if on a prearranged signal, raised their hoods, obscuring their expressions and identities for the whole of the ritual.

  A door at the back of the room opened, and two people entered, both of them dressed in matching red robes, their hoods already concealing their faces. I assumed that this was the master and his lady, Lazarus and Cora Took. The foremost of the pair carried a large black book. The second carried a large knife, which was set on the floor next to the golden bowl at one point of the star.