The Book (10 page)

Droplets of rainwater followed along the contours of Holden’s ear and he heard a rustling. Immediately his mind allowed images of terrible things to flash in the bright white of the light beyond and he rushed forward to see the truth. It wasn’t until he saw Marion beside a series of work lights, huddled coolly on the floor with her back to him that he was able to breathe. His worst fears had been wrong. For now.

“Marion,” Holden gasped, scanning the room in disbelieving shock. She didn’t turn and he was glad because he needed a moment to gather the information that was bombarding his eyes.

The three walls that wrapped the bar were ravaged by a sharpened object. Its jagged edge left gouges and canyons in the bludgeoned, red wood paneling that had been hiding beneath yellowing scraps of paper, leaving the walls to resemble the fang-torn flesh of an animal attack. All around him, the floor was littered with scraps of paper. Corners and strips that were worth thousands of dollars. But there were no full sheets. With Winston’s cautious words in his mind, Holden wouldn’t allow himself the privilege to understand what Marion had done and called out to her again. That time, she hopped in place. Her legs uncrossed and she rolled to her right carrying the appearance of an Unfortunate. Like so many Unfortunates,
homeless people
to the minds of another time, Marion looked frightened, shocked, and disturbed by whoever was greeting her. He dared to charge toward her and lowered himself to her level, hoping to pull her from the trance she was in.

“Marion, what happened to you?”

“Holden. Oh, I’m so glad it’s you,” she cheered tiredly before wrapping her arms around him, only to release them just as quickly. “You were right. I’ve been checking everything. So many of these pages…” She held up a scattered pile of paper fragments and waved them absently in the air. Pieces fluttered freely from her grip as she lifted her other hand. It was an old edition of The Book and it was attached to a long, green extension cord. “It’s a word, right? Sometimes it’s just a word. And what’s the big deal about a word, right? But other times…other times, it’s big stuff. I mean, BIG stuff. And I’ve been trying to figure out why. I mean, why would they do this? Whoever is in charge…why would they change…this…paragraph. Out of everything, why this? And then…a whole character is gone. This book here,” Marion announced, scrambling for a few pages that rested on the fireplace, “This book is completely missing and…and…I can’t even find
this
author anywhere. And on this page, it was a scene where a married couple were
sharing a memory
.
What’s wrong with sharing a memory
?”

As she continued spouting her conclusion and interpretations of the pages that had surrounded her life, Holden saw in her eyes the same tenor of desperation and fear that he felt, only at a higher pitch. The only examples that had been revealed to him were chosen by Winston or found on the page of
The Catcher in the Rye
that started it all. What sort of monumental alterations had Marion discovered in the dark silence of the bar? What words carved from the wall had birthed such a fright?

CAND…Curklunk.

They reeled and stared wide-eyed at the front door. At some point during the night Marion had tipped over the immense coat rack to stop anyone from coming in. Whoever was at the door, rapped their knuckles a few times against the worn wood before trying the handle again.
CAND…Curklunk.

“Marion, we have to get out of here.”

“What?”

She tilted her head and looked at Holden as if he hadn’t been beside her that whole time. Her blue eyes were distant as they trailed back to the page at her feet, the one she had been studying with feverish attention when he had come into the room. Holden watched as Marion absently returned to the party-of-one she had been attending, cross-legged on a wrinkled rug of paper that would look obscene to any other eyes but his. Next to them, perched delicately against the wall of booths, were eight large, black garbage bags, overflowing with paper feathers of history. Seeing them through the strings of hair that hung beside her face, Holden was beginning to understand a bit of the insatiable journey Marion had been on since last he’d seen her. Guilt throttled him for the awful things that coursed through her mind, of which he could only imagine.

CAND…Curklunk.

His eyes darted back to the door and he reached for her arm. “Marion, you have to wake up from this. We are leaving. If there is anything here at the bar that you want to see again, you need to get it now. Please.”

“Listen to me. Whoever altered these books…they had a reason. And it’s my guess that they don’t want anyone to find out. I can’t get into it all. Just trust me…we have to go.”

For a moment, her face resisted. Her mouth hung open with unspoken questions, but the grip Holden locked on her arm made her slacken. “There is something. It’s just beyond the bar. I’ll get it and we can go.”

Holden was prepared to skate across the shards of paper into the alley and get the van running when he remembered what Winston had said about the page Holden brought to the house. He spun on his heels, snatched two of the eight garbage bags filled with recycled book pages and skipped toward the door. He heard Marion rattling through a few drawers and then she was on his heels, holding the door open for him. Holden side-stepped the two bags of priceless paper through the back entrance and moved to the side door of the van. It slid open with a comforting screech that made him think of crisp mornings, warm cigarette smoke and aisles of oil-slickened pipe waiting to be installed. Memories of a much smaller life.

He twirled the bags closed and tossed them carelessly into the rear of the van before yanking the door shut. A few of the pages that had fluttered out as he walked them to the truck were resting on the filthy asphalt. The edges, once glazed in low VOC polyurethane, now softened in the wetness of the gentle rain. Marion reached down to pick one up and Holden shoved her into the passenger seat before nearly vaulting over the hood. Marion wanted to gripe, but she bent to his will, knowing that Holden was moving quickly for a reason. The van door slammed with importance. Holden cranked the key and clamped fiercely to the steering wheel. The alley was a one way street and he knew that if he didn’t hurry, they may be stuck dealing with the person who saw fit to wrench on the door despite the deadbolt.

The mufflerless van lurched slothfully toward the end of the alley. Without letting up on the gas, he jerked the wheel to the left and narrowly missed the sharp edge of a thickly bricked apartment building. Something heavy crashed behind him, metal on metal, but he wouldn’t dare check the back of the van. The buckets of built-in shelving were growing light in the folly of his reckless driving and he could hear the metal knuckles of many little pieces rolling along the plywood floor. They were half a block away from the gridlock of freedom when he noticed that Marion was holding her Book with an arrested grip. Without a word, he rolled down his window, tore it from her hand, and whipped it with all his strength against the rough, aged brick of the building. There was a spark and a shattering of material, followed by a pinched scream that escaped the passenger seat.

“Holden!” she exclaimed, “Why did you do that? I’ve had that Book my whole life.”

He forced the wheel to the right. “There is a GPS device located in the back. They’re probably tracking you and we cannot be followed by these people. I’m sorry.”

Marion didn’t respond.

Thinking quickly, Holden dodged a few cars, drove a few blocks down the next street and pulled into another forlorn alleyway. It was dark and unsuspecting, and it gave him a chance to stop his heart from beating itself to death. He was hardly ever forced to elude anyone, let alone something he couldn’t see. Although it was against his instincts, Holden assumed that stopping somewhere nearby the last known location of a wanted felon, if that’s what Marion was now, would be an unexpected move.

The van idled noisily in the falling rain. Holden closed his eyes and gripped the steering wheel with unanticipated force. Knowing that Marion was watching him, reserved in fear, he pushed his head back into the cracked pleather seat, took a deep breath and spoke his words plainly and evenly, hoping that the manufactured courage in his voice would seem genuine.

“That may not have been them at the door,” he began. “You may not be in as much immediate danger as I thought. But, for the sake of argument, we need to assume the worst. The bar is gone…and you can’t go back to your apartment again. If there’s something important to you there, tell me what it is and I’ll go back and get it. But you need to tell me in the next fifteen seconds. Because if there is nothing important enough for me to risk my life, we need to...”

“My diary.” Marion said without hesitation. “I’ve had it forever. My mother gave it to me and…it has my whole childhood. If there’s one thing I can’t live without, it’s that. Please.”

Holden sniffed. He nodded.

He loosened the tension in his eyelids and turned up the defrost to clear the fog that was either covering his vision or the windshield.

* * * * *

010-23472

He had been to her apartment before. It was on a night when he and Shane had been at a popular north side restaurant celebrating the birthday of a mutual friend. They were lost in an immense dining room, mingling through a large group of Library regulars, when Marion pulled Holden aside and asked if he could drive her home. She had forgotten her present. They wouldn’t be missed, and knowing that she lived on Belmont, he was sure to find a much needed pack of cigarettes. Of course, that was before he had quit smoking for his daughter’s sake. Now, with all the stress that The Book had brought on, he thanked God that monkey was no longer digging its nails in his back. But because Shane had nabbed his last smoke that night, he had agreed to drive her and they snuck out with another party.

The thing Holden remembered most about her apartment was that it hadn’t looked at all like he’d expected. When she opened the door and let him in he noticed that the interior was subtle and calm, orderly and clean. For the first time, he saw her differently. If he had walked in to find three cats lounging about, incense burning on the television from the mouth of some angry, clay figurine and sheer orange fabric hanging between open doorways, he wouldn’t have thought twice. But the sight of such a fresh apartment gave Marion a new, unexpected dimension that made him notice her. So when she offered him a drink, his guard was down and he accepted (he was used to ordering drinks from her anyway). When she turned on the light to the kitchen, his mind awoke and he retracted.

A drink?
No problem. If it was just a free drink, that would have been great. But, what Marion was offering had been:
A drink…and.

It wasn’t that he didn’t find her attractive. It was that fear had overtaken him. Fear of
what
, he didn’t know. Fear of relationships? Maybe. Commitment? Hell, he screwed that up with Eve. Fear of women? Hello Freud. Fear of love? Yeah, maybe. What he realized, as they drew close to one another in her entryway without much space for Marion to put her jacket on while reaching for an umbrella (It was raining again. Why was it always raining?), was that it had been her lips. For some reason, he had a fear of her lips, as if kissing her would draw him deeply into some form of unrestrained existence. It was a mysterious feeling and there was no reason for it. Marion had never given off the impression that she could sustain such power over Holden. But the thought frightened him all the same because he knew he would succumb to it.

The van jostled to the right as Holden turned the wheel powerfully to the left, banking around a parked car in the lot across the street from her building. He rolled into the nearest spot and killed the engine. The continuous chatter of rain kept their eyes darting about and Holden had to take a few calm breaths before turning to her.

“Alright Marion, I probably don’t have too much time, so I need to know where your diary is, exactly.”

“It’s on my bedside table and looks identical to my Book, if you can remember what it looked like. It came as a companion to The Book when I got it on my eighth birthday.”

Holden drooped his head and looked down. “I’m sorry I broke your Book, Marion. And no…I don’t remember what it looked like.” She nodded and held up her hands, as if modeling the shape would somehow help him imagine the device.

“It’s dark green and orange with some thin, metal details. Like geometric shapes and things, I don’t know. There isn’t much on the table so it should be easy to find.”

Holden cranked the thick handle to the door and it swung open in the wind, scratching the car beside him. That didn’t matter. He tugged his jacket against his neck in preparation for the rain and heard the jingling of Marion’s keys. She had pulled them from her pocket and held them out for him. When their hands met, Marion reached across the wheel and grabbed the scruff of his neck, pulling him close to kiss him with all the shivering spirit she had. The kiss between them was fleeting and simple, but it spoke of her undying trust for Holden and the volumes of dread they both shared in that moment, completely unsure of the profoundness into which they were embarking.

“I have to go Marion.” he said, when she pulled back, embarrassed.

“I know. I’m just afraid I’ll never see you again.” She leaned toward the window. “It’s stupid.”

“I’ll be right back.” Holden glinted a delicate smile and closed the van door. He grabbed onto the truss work that was latched to the top of his van, hopped onto the thick, driver’s side tire and unfastened the rope that clung to the longest ladder. He pulled it free, threaded his arm through the middle rung and hoisted the ladder onto his shoulder before striding boldly toward the polished surface of the steel structure that was her apartment building.