The Book (21 page)

Her first words when they released their long hug were, “I’m reading
Big
as Life
by E.L. Doctorow.” She pointed to the coffee table where the lively-covered book was resting. “Winston is taking me through the entire library, story by story. Telling me exactly what I need to read. The first ones are the ones I have to read before I die, apparently.” Marion giggled foolishly before remembering how she wanted to appear to Holden when he walked in the door. As she managed her facial expressions, Marion noticed his eyes and realized how much she had missed him. He looked older to her now. His face was drawn and exhausted. She could sense the weight he was carrying as he muscled out a smile.

“He gave me
Fahrenheit 451
. You have to read it, Marion. It is the most perfect book. It explains so much of how we feel, I think. In a different way, though. I mean…it’s different.” He struggled to explain his emotions behind the experience he had been having with the book, but was unable to. “When I read from paper, it’s…it’s as if I’m finally…I don’t know. It’s almost like the words on the page make me feel…”

“Free,” Marion finished. “That’s what I felt. Like, for the first time ever, the story I read was perfect, just the way it was. There was no need to change it. No one had ever changed it or found anything wrong with it. It was finished. I guess I felt that way because I knew it hadn’t been changed, but...”

“It’s like there was only one author.” The words had finally come and they were confirmed in Marion’s eyes. “Nowhere in the story did it feel like someone else picked up a pen and started writing.”

Holden listened as Marion spoke about her book and a thin smile traced along his face. The moment she noticed, Marion stopped mid-sentence, shook her head and said, “You’ve been here for almost a half hour and you still haven’t told me what happened to you. You never came back.”

“Well, I left and went home to read
Fahrenheit 451
,” Holden confessed, scratching his fuzzy crop of hair. “After that, it was just life as usual.”

Marion looked past Holden to the main staircase, where the cellar door beneath the steps was left open. “And that gargantuan man?”

Holden bobbed his head, still shocked by the news. “Turns out he’s related to one of Winston’s old crew.”

“Well, based on recent events, I’m hoping you’re going to clarify that whole thing,” she smirked, and pulled a case of beer from one of the bags on the table. “For now, what can I get you to drink?”

“Oh, Marion. You know exactly how to get me talking.”

* * * * *

019-50177

A dinner of fine food and well-aged wine often had the ability to compete with conversations around the dining room, but that proved to be the opposite for the four of them that evening. Nestled around Winston’s colonial oak dining table, they listened as Holden retraced his story from the past few days and nothing had been more startling than the words he exchanged with Martin Trust. Feathers were being ruffled and the danger of being discovered was very real. Marion could have gone without hearing the news that her diary, with all its personal details, was the key to tracking Holden down. On more than one occasion, she dropped her fork in embarrassment and it clinked loudly in the compact dining room. On the opposite end of the table, Winston couldn’t have been more excited. He drank every word with sips of wine, feeling quite certain that success was only a few decisions away.

After they ate, the four of them journeyed to the elongated back yard and eventually found themselves walking along Winston’s large deck that stretched like an arm into the lake. A small gazebo capped the end of the dock and they sat underneath it, upon moist cast-iron furniture, and opened a waterproof chest of games that hadn’t been stirred in a decade. Winston carefully removed a wooden box from the chest and lifted the lid to reveal a set of jade chess pieces. They were faultless and intricately carved in the shape of samurai warriors. He arranged them blissfully on the small table at the center.

Delicate drippings of rain fell from all sides of the gutterless gazebo and it gave them a sense of security, as if an unseen shield surrounded them. They could speak freely, without being heard. Content in the moment, Winston packed his pipe and Marion exchanged cigarettes with Moby. Holden searched his pockets for a stick of gum, but couldn’t find any. Thankfully, he had brought another bottle of wine and four glasses.

Moby lifted the thin, fabric cigarette to his mouth and lit it slowly as he looked out on the rain-puckered lake, feeling completely satisfied for the first time in years. He had been taken through a mind-altering journey in the cellar and he finally felt like he was a part of something right. Of course, the situation was helped by the fact that they were sitting in a tall gazebo that had been attached to an immense house. He was a large man in a medium-sized world and the home of Winston Pratt was right up his alley. Feeling free to say what was on his mind, Moby explained his purpose in reaching out to
The Free Thinkers
and how, over time, he revolutionized their recruitment system. Branding city buildings with their ornamental crest had been his idea, along with many others. They weren’t sure yet how they could use a mind like his, but were excited to have him, nevertheless.

As Winston and Marion began what could be a very long game of chess, where each move was thought out to precision, they laughed through puffs of smoke at Moby’s account of how he dressed up as an Unfortunate every day, donning the mask of delirium and the outfit of disgust in the pursuit of truth and revolution. Apparently, few people had reached the doors of the Spire through his hand stitched ribbons, but the group found his tactics quite useful. He elaborated on the type of parties Holden walked in on and described the agenda of
The Free Thinkers
. It was very different than his own, and yet Moby was glad to be a part of it when he had been because it brought him to Holden. The seriousness of that insight moved the conversation to the contentious when Winston sat back from the chess board and added his two cents.

“Moby, I think I can state for the others that we are glad to have you. In the sitting room, I said that we were meant to come together. I still believe that. We are meant to do something. I just don’t know what that something will be. The facts haven’t changed. As your uncle could attest today, having disappeared in our attempt to destroy the Publishing House, there isn’t much we can do. Not only do they track our every move, waiting to find someone smart enough to develop a plan and the abilities to achieve its end, but they have measures in place to protect themselves if they cannot find that person. There is much I know about the way they run their House…but that was forty years ago. The possibilities of success may have disappeared with your uncle.”

Moby adjusted his weight on the thick wooden bench and doused his drooping cigarette in the rainwater that was collecting on the ledge behind him. “Forgive me Winston, if what I’m about to say is perceived as rude,” he hummed politely, “but my perspective on this is quite different. When my uncle vanished, none of my family believed in what he had said about our minds being controlled by The Book. No one listened. No one believed. Except me. As I grew older, I sought a way to fight an injustice that everyone around me thought was a fairy tale. But I still carried the torch. I had faith in my uncle’s words because I could see the truth in his eyes. And today, as you sit here and say that success may have disappeared forty years ago, I am literally breathing in the moments of my own testimony that this struggle to find the truth was not in vain. When Holden arrived at our meeting, he was the homecoming of hope. I couldn’t sleep last night because I realized that I wasn’t the only one. I know it may not seem real to you now, Winston, but this is going to work. Because I still believe. I know there is something epic waiting for us.”

In the wake of such words, Holden and Moby launched ideas back and forth only to have Winston dismiss them easily with well-supported points. As each promising idea was upset by a simple, governmental security measure, the conversation grew heated until Marion, through Winston’s inability to play the game with focus, shocked the gazebo by removing one of his major pieces with a meager pawn.

Silence sliced like a tide against the sand and only the sounds of falling rain dancing on the lake could be heard until Marion retracted her smile and spoke, looking radiant as her surprisingly logical mind joined the discussion. “You guys are thinking too big. It was a mistake to try and dismantle the Publishing House. Really, what good can a small band of revolutionaries do? Even with the right resources, a few people cannot take down The Book. It’s just impossible. A pawn,” she chimed, holding up the jade samurai she had just dethroned, “is incapable of taking out a king. No matter how well planned the strategy, its strength fails. But a legion of pawns moving together across the board, each with their own well-placed attacks…

“With one mind,” Moby agreed. “Working in unison.”

Winston removed his glasses, took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped a tear from his eye. “My mother. I think she would have been classified as a knight. She was very well placed and very powerful. As was Conrad.”

“Yeah, but your mother only had you,” Holden mused, fixing his gaze upon the chess board. “Conrad obviously had others. Enough to get him where he needed to be. Buckingham Palace is not accessible to pawns. Problem is, and forgive the mixed-metaphor, but the guy’s solution was a Hail Mary pass. I don’t mean to knock his courage, but it was too risky. He made a big move hoping it would work, but not enough people caught the reference.”

Marion lowered Winston’s chess piece, nodding. “Holden’s right. We need to learn from the Editors of The Book and take tiny steps. Make patient, simple moves across a chess board, until we’ve won. Some of the pages I took down from the bar had only one word altered on the page. One word…added or changed or removed. Who would suspect a single word could change anything?”

Moby suppressed a snicker of understanding. “Subtlety,” he agreed, reaching across the board to snag a cigarette from Marion’s pack. “Like
The Free Thinkers
. Man, were they ever confused in their beliefs. And yeah, they had too many mislaid plans, but the one thing they had going for them was subtlety. We branded the buildings with nothing more than a picture and then we waited. People believed what they wanted and eventually reached out to us. We never actively recruited anyone.”

“But I don’t know if that was good either,” Holden complained, wishing he had a natural-fiber, fabric cigarette of his own to smoke. “As someone who was reaching out, I can tell you that there were flaws. There is no way you could have known how successful active recruitment would have been. None of us knew how large you were. And all I got to see was the Chicago branch.”

A smile twisted Moby’s immense jaw as the flame of Marion’s lighter licked the end of his cigarette. “I knew I’d have to tell you this at some point. Usually we have more people at those meetings, very important people, but really…there aren’t any other branches.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Holden snapped, now fully disappointed with
The Free Thinkers
. “That was everyone? Serious? What bull!”

“No, that’s amazing,” Winston beamed. “By the way they were vilified in the paper, I thought there were thousands of them across the country. I mean, this is not a bad way to go about things.” He abandoned their game and began shuffling pieces around the board, his frail fingers moving steadily like so many motorized bones. “If we’re going to do this right, it will take dedication and careful decision making. And we can’t do it without some rooks. Some bishops…maybe even a queen some day.”

“We’ll need to judge our opponent’s moves and have a counter attack ready before they make them.”

“Good point, Marion,” Winston agreed, suddenly somber. As he continued, his attitude shifted and his words were slow and precisely spoken. “Yes, this is a good idea. The first one I think I could actually stand behind. But there are two very hard truths you need to hear. The first is that if this works, and it may work, I guarantee you it will not happen during my lifetime. You need to accept that it may not even happen during your own. More importantly, and this is the more difficult fact to accept…but the game cannot be effective and we cannot win if we aren’t willing to make sacrifices.”

At those words, a chilling wind rustled through the gazebo, lifting the board a few centimeters and tousling the smaller pieces to their knees. “This fight is very real and there will be a point when hard decisions will need to be made. We will, most assuredly, lose a pawn or two in pursuit of the greater good.” Not a word was spoken as they rested on the seriousness of his words. “I so wish those moves will be made without my seeing. When victory is close. But knowing that you are all so dedicated to the fight, it gives me hope that one day we could win. There are so many layers to this and our government’s operation is so much bigger than any one of us could imagine, but I am excited. This is the most active my brain has been in years.”

He laughed and puffed from his pipe before adjusting his bowtie as an act of resetting his composure. “You three can count on me to do everything in my power to support this. This home is no longer mine. This is our home. And all the resources I have. My books are our books. And they belong to other people too. Those people don’t know it yet, but they’re going to be part of our group. Like Moby before he met you, Holden. If we are going to make our group larger, we have to be slow and we need to reach out to those we trust.
Truly
and
deeply
trust. I cannot stress that point enough.

“From there, they will have others that they can trust. And so on, until such a time that we can begin developing a plan of attack. Some of our best moves, when I was working with your uncle,” Winston paused, paying respect in a twinkle of silence, “were made when we could all come together and have many minds focusing on the same singular task. I tell you, there are more ideas out there that the four of us could never imagine and we need to find those minds. If we are steadfast, forthright with one another and focused, I believe we may actually have a shot. I am a tired man, and my voice is growing stale in my old age, but together we will strike fear into the hearts of the Publishing House with a voice that has never been heard. A voice that will ring and last the ages.”