MORTAL COILS (35 page)

Eliot
rolled up the tarp, revealing rows of books. Some were paperbacks, some
hardcover, and as Eliot unveiled the last, there were older editions bound in
increasingly darker leather. The last was the size of an encyclopedia with a
hand-tooled spine that looked disturbingly like its human namesake.

Most
were in shockingly bad condition.

Books
were sacrosanct in the Post family. Cee took meticulous care of each volume in
their apartment, repairing torn pages and rebinding when necessary. Even
Grandmother treated them like priceless Ming vases. To leave these down here at
the mercy of mold and insects was a crime.

With
the greatest respect, Fiona lifted a paperback: Childhood’s End by Arthur C.
Clarke. The old acidic paper crumbled. It was a tragedy.

Eliot,
his head turned, read the titles out loud, “The Modern Prometheus . . . twelve
volumes of something called The Golden Bough . . . Bulfinch’s Mythology . . .
Traditional Knitting of the Westerfield Witch Clan . . . Lost Celtic Weavings.”

Fiona’s
insides crawled. RULE 55 forbade science fiction, fantasy, and mythologies.
RULE 11 prohibited arts and crafts. If Grandmother ever caught them with these
. . . They’d never broken two rules at once before.

Eliot
reached for the oldest volume on the end.

“Don’t,”
Fiona said.

“It’s
just a book.”

Fiona
bit her lip. Of course it was just a book, but if they were harmless, why were
they down here?

Still,
she was curious, too.

“Okay,”
she whispered. She glanced back at the open door—half expecting to see
Grandmother’s silhouette.

Eliot
pulled out the book. He opened it and creamy vellum pages turned under his
fingers. The letters were the pristine work of a monk, and every other page had
illuminations, woodcuts, or hair-fine diagrams.

“Text
is . . . what?” His brow crinkled. “Medieval German?”

Fiona
leaned closer. “Old or Middle English maybe.”

“There
are notes scrawled all over the margins,” Eliot said, pointing out the obvious.
“This one is in Latin. Another’s in Greek.”

“Different
handwriting. Not Grandmother’s or Cee’s.”

“Different
inks, too. Some have faded . . . some written over.”

Eliot
flipped through more pages, past a gold-and-red mosaic of Arabic script, a
diagram of a dissected human hand, then he paused at a woodcut of a medieval
piper as he danced and led a procession of children and rats.

“This
one has a note in modern English,” he said.

Fiona
peered closer. In neat cursive it read, Pied Piper of Hamelin. Under this were
five parallel lines and a bunch of meandering dots. It meant nothing to her.

Eliot
ran his finger over them. “Musical notes,” he murmured. “So cool.”

Fiona
inwardly groaned: make that breaking three rules at once. “What’s this thing
called?”

Eliot
flipped to the front. There was no title page, and the first page had large
letters so thick with embellishments that it was impossible to read. Alongside
this, however, penciled in neat block letters was “Mythica Improbiba. Mostly
lies.”27

Fiona
had been fascinated by, in love with, bored from, but never physically
nauseated by ordinary paper and ink—even the autopsy instruction manuals—until
now. Something about this thing made her want to throw up.

“Put
it back,” she said. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

Eliot
closed the volume and smoothed his hand over its cover. “Is this rhinoceros
hide?”

Fiona
started rerolling the tarp onto the shelf. If anyone gave it more than a
cursory look, they’d see that it had been disturbed. There was no way to replace
the dust. She hesitated, waiting for Eliot to put the book back.

“No.”
He slipped it into his pack. “I want to take a closer look at it later.”

Fiona
sighed. She didn’t want to get in an argument here. Grandmother or Cee could
come through the door at any moment. She covered the last of the shelf and
moved out of the basement.

“Whatever,”
she said.

Eliot
followed her and they paused in the stairwell. She handed him her flashlight
and he stuffed it in his pack along with the rubber boots they commandeered . .
. next to that stupid book.

They
then ran up the stairs and pushed through the steel security door. No racing
today; they just both wanted outside.

The
air was deliciously fresh and dust-free, and they took a moment to clear their
lungs.

They
then fell into their usual we’re-late-for-work stride—although today that
seemed to be the only thing so far that was normal.

Fiona
snuck a glance at her brother. Dirt smeared his pants and shirt and his face;
his eyes were focused on his feet.

27.
Written by a thirteenth-century monk of questionable sanity, Sildas Pious, this
collection of late-classical and early-medieval legends provides as many
insights as it does lies and illogical conclusions. It is, however, the only
source for many tales of deities and demons. Only eight (each slightly
different) volumes are known to exist. They rarely remain in private
collections. Owners claim poor luck, nightmares, and other undocumented
paranormal phenomenon . . . which ironically only increases Mythica’s value at
subsequent auctions. The one publicly available edition resides in the Beezle
Collection (viewable by special appointment), Taylor Institution Library Rare
Book Collection, Oxford University. Victor Golden, Golden’s Guide to
Extraordinary Books (Oxford: 1958).

“I’m
sorry,” she said, “about last night.”

She
wanted to be decent to her brother. She knew she’d hurt him.

Her
stomach rumbled, and she found it hard to concentrate. She should have eaten
something solid; she’d skipped dinner and breakfast . . . and eaten how many
chocolates? Three layers from the box?

At
least one layer was left—a treasure trove of sweets in her book bag, inches
away. Her mouth watered thinking of the caramels and truffles.

She
wouldn’t delve into them now, though. Eliot would see. He’d want one, or a few,
or half—which was fair. She should share them. On the other hand, they were
from Fiona’s “secret admirer.” Sharing them would be like sharing a kiss. Yuck.

Fiona
cleared her throat. “So I shouldn’t have locked my door. We’re supposed to
stick together. Like Cee said.”

Eliot
nodded, graciously not saying anything, although there was an obvious
opportunity for an easy insult such as calling her a Tenodera aridifolia
sinensis, the Chinese praying mantis, whose first meal was often its own
just-out-of-the-egg siblings.

He
didn’t take the gibe and Fiona appreciated it.

“I
just needed to think alone,” she said. “The medieval Italian, it’s not that
easy to translate.”

It
had been easy for her, but one tiny lie wouldn’t hurt.

“I
get it.” The hurt in Eliot’s voice was worse than any insult he could have
hurled at her.

They
walked for a while and then he asked, “Did you find out anything useful?”

“There
was plenty about family clans fighting. A lot of people in sixteenth-century
Italy got tortured and murdered.”

“And
that helps us how?”

“The
kids in those noble families . . . they were like chess pawns, meant to be
pushed ahead into danger. Tactically placed to protect the bigger pieces.”

Eliot
licked his lips. “Did Machiavelli have any advice for a ‘pawn’?”

“Yeah.
Get to the other side of the board.”

“Live
long enough to be an ‘important’ piece, right?”

When
pawns made it all the way to the opposite side of the chessboard, they got
promoted to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight.

Fiona
nodded. “I wonder if that’s what Aunt Lucia meant when she said that the trials
might prove our ‘worth to remain alive,’ and then she said they might even
prove our ‘right to be part of this family.’ ”

“I’d
wondered about the order she said that, too. Like being part of the family was
more important than living.”

“Machiavelli
wrote, though, that the promoted pawns were damaged. He didn’t say how, just
that they lost something.”

“Given
the option I’ll cross the board . . .” Eliot’s voice trailed off and he stared
ahead.

Fiona
followed his gaze.

Someone
stood in the alley a quarter block up the street.

It
took three full seconds to register that this someone was the bum that had
lived in this alley for the last few months. He wore a new gray trench coat.
His hair was cleaned and pulled into a ponytail of silver and jet-black. Even
his ratty sneakers had metamorphosed to polished loafers. He waved and beckoned
them closer.

Eliot
veered toward him.

“Oh,
no.” Fiona grabbed Eliot’s arm. “I’ve already had my recommended daily
allowance of strange today.”

Eliot
yanked his arm free. “I want to talk to him.”

Fiona
let go and looked at her hand. Mike had grabbed her exactly as she had just
grabbed her brother.

“I’ll
wait for you.” She moved on and didn’t make eye contact with the old guy. There
was no way she was going to listen to them talk about music and Pompeii and
whatever demented things filtered through that bum’s alcohol-sponge of a brain.

As
soon as she passed the alley, Fiona shifted her book bag and undid the snaps.
She glanced back: Eliot and the old weirdo were talking. He wasn’t grabbing her
brother and dragging him into the alley. So far, so good.

Fiona
slipped her hand into the heart-shaped box. She plucked out a chocolate. It was
textured like a tiny tangerine and sprinkled with orange zest.

She
bit it in half. It was laced with particles of orange and grapefruit swimming
in a bouquet of smoky cocoa.

Her
blood warmed and raced and she felt alive again.

Through
half-lidded eyes she watched Eliot. Still talking. Still safe.

Her
thoughts drifted to Robert, and she remembered his last words about her mother
being a goddess. That couldn’t be true because there was only one divine thing
in the world . . . and she held it between her fingers

26

MORE
THAN ONE KIND OF “PLAYED”

Eliot
couldn’t believe the man in front of him was the same person who had lived in
this alley for the last six months. He looked a half foot taller and part of
his hair had ungrayed and was now as black as midnight. He wore a new trench
coat, pleated slacks, linen shirt, and shiny leather shoes.

Cee
told Eliot people never changed, that they were what they always were (and
that, much to his annoyance, he would always be her “sweet” Eliot).

The
man’s sparkling blue eyes were identical, though, and when he smiled at Eliot,
he knew it was the same person. Maybe this cleaner person was the man he had
always been, and the homelessness was just a phase.

The
man nodded over Eliot’s shoulder. “I see your sister still thinks me an escaped
mental patient.”