Shores of the Marrow Page 4

  She, or he, wasn’t.

  Cal glanced back and forth.

  “Hello?” he said at last. Even though he had barely muttered the word, it sounded impossibly loud to him, reverberating off the stained-glass windows with a force reminiscent of a strong gale. “Jesus,” he whispered, but this word seemed to travel even faster and louder than the previous.

  Cal made a disgusted face and shook his head.

  Maybe I should just leave, get the fuck out of here. Go to school for once.

  But the story…

  Cringing even as his arm reached out, Cal brushed the top of bell as gingerly as possible. If his words had been gale force, the ringing bell was like a shotgun blast at a funeral.

  The sound was so loud that Cal literally jumped backward and covered his ears with his hands.

  Tinnitus ongoing, which he was now fairly certain a product of his first ever hangover, Cal half-expected a trapdoor behind the desk to fly open and a white-bearded librarian to emerge from a cloud of thick smoke.

  But this was Mooreshead, and nothing interesting happens in Mooreshead.

  Except…

  “Calm down, fella. I was just taking a piss.”

  The words were uttered in the same tone that Cal himself had used, but with the damn echo, they sounded like the musings of a giant. Heart racing, Cal whipped around, but when he saw the man who had spoken, his anxiety abated.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Cal opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He had met the librarian previously, both times that he had been in the library, in fact, and this was not her.

  Those times, it had been a short woman with curly brown hair who reeked of mothballs and alcohol. But the man who stood before him now was young, just a handful of years older than Cal himself, with shaggy blond hair and a goatee.

  The man stared back at Cal, waiting for him to speak. Eventually, Cal got over the shock.

  “Sorry, I was… I was looking for the librarian.”

  The man crossed his arms across his thin chest and pushed his lips together defiantly.

  “You’re looking at him. What can I do for you?”

  Cal’s eyebrows knitted.

  “What happened to—happened to—what—” but for the life of him he couldn’t think of the previous librarian’s name.

  The man just watched him sputter, a strange expression on his face. Cal sighed, and then took a deep breath, deciding that it didn’t matter what happened to the other librarian, or if this kid worked here.

  It was best to just get to the point.

  “I’m here to—” he started, but the man broke into a smile, revealing a set of large, white teeth.

  “Lemme guess, you want to know about Father McCabe and Mayor Partridge?”

  Cal’s brow furrowed.

  “Wh—wha—” he stammered, “How did you know?”

  Chapter 9

  “It’s not magic,” the man laughed. “A guy like you? Looking around like a fucking bank robber before entering the library? There’s only one reason why someone like you would come in here.”

  Cal breathed deeply, and then immediately regretted the decision as the pungent scent of mold coated his nose and throat.

  The man pushed a lock of blond hair behind his ear and leaned forward expectantly.

  “Am I right?” he whispered with a grin.

  Cal nodded.

  “You’re right. I just—I heard this story about Mooreshead and the gravel pit, you know? The, uhh, the Forrester Gravel Pit.”

  The librarian smirked.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of bullshit stories about that place, too.”

  Cal’s heart sank.

  “So, it’s not true?”

  The man shrugged.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  When Cal screwed up his face, the man softened and held out his hand.

  “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Cal.”

  Cal shook the man’s outstretched hand. To his surprise, his grip was much stronger than his thin frame suggested.

  “Seth Parsons,” the man said, raising his arms and waving them about the room. “Curator of the Mooreshead Town Library.”

  Cal raised an eyebrow.

  “Curator? I thought you said—”

  Seth shrugged.

  “Meh, Curator, Librarian, what’s the difference? The title has legal ramifications. Anyhoo, you wanna know about the town’s history?”

  He paused for a moment, and Cal felt uncomfortable as Seth eyed him suspiciously.

  “Ah, of course not. You only want to know about the feud, am I right?”

  Cal felt his face redden. There was something about the way Seth could read him like a book, look not only into him, but through him, that was strangely off-putting and embarrassing.

  “Yeah, I’m right. Of course, I’m right. Here, come with me.”

  With that, Seth turned, and started to walk toward the ladder near the far side of the room. Cal, still confused over what was happening, followed.

  What the hell have I gotten myself into?

  Cal half-expected Seth to start up the wooden ladder, grab a book at the very top of the shelves, perhaps a dusty volume that was twice the size of the other books, and bring it down to him, grinning a jester’s grin.

  But that was his imagination running amok.

  Again.

  Instead, Seth grabbed a book off one of the lower shelves. It was a green book, about the size of a hardcover novel, only with a soft jacket.

  But it was far from an ordinary book. As far as Cal could tell, there was no writing on the cover, no title, no author, nothing.

  “That’s it? This is the story of Father McCabe and Mayor Partridge?”

  Seth laughed, but didn’t answer straight away. Instead, he led Cal to one of the empty desks and pulled a chair out for him. Cal sat while Seth took the seat across from him and laid the book in the center of the table.

  “This is the book?” Cal repeated.

  Seth laughed again, but this time he answered.

  Sort of.

  “No, the story isn’t in the book.” He brought a finger and pointed at his temple. “It’s in here.”

  Cal made a face.

  “What?”

  He tapped his temple.

  “In here.”

  Cal leaned back in his chair, wondering if this whole day was just a consequence of his hangover.

  Do hangovers do that? He wondered. Do they make you see things? Turn normal things, like visiting the library, into some sort of mind fuck?

  If they did, then Cal was prepared to swear off alcohol from this day forward.

  Why didn’t I just go to The Pit with Hank and Brent?

  Cal sighed, and then made up his mind.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

  Seth laughed again, but when Cal went to stand, the man reached out and grabbed his arm. His grip wasn’t aggressive, at least not overtly so, but his touch felt strange and Cal instinctively tried to pull away.

  He couldn’t.

  Cal looked down at those fingers, which suddenly seemed watery, as if they weren’t made of skin and bone, but some sort of liquid.

  He gulped down bile that splashed up his esophagus.

  As he watched, Seth’s fingers started to change color, to become almost like a heat map, all reds and yellows and oranges.

  “Wha—”

  The man hushed him, but while the sound itself was normal enough, there was something beneath that sound, something that followed on its heels. Even though Cal was staring at the man’s face, and he could clearly see that his mouth, lips, and tongue were no longer moving, the hush sound, more of a shhh now, continued on… and on… and on…

  It was as if he were hearing waves crash softly on a beach.

  Just as Cal felt an overwhelming calmness wash over, an instant before he was certain he would smell the brine of the sea, Seth let go of his hand and he snapped back to
reality.

  All he smelled now was that rotting wood aroma.

  Cal collapsed in his seat with a deep, shuddering breath.

  “I think you should stay,” Seth said tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. He smiled broadly. “Just for a little while longer… what do you think?”

  Cal swallowed hard and winced as the bile receded back to the pit of his stomach.

  “Just a little while longer,” he whispered. “Just a little longer.”

  Chapter 10

  Seth listened closely as Cal recounted the tale of the Mayor and the priest, as was told to him by Hank. He tried to get as many of the details as he could correct, even going as far as to use Hank’s exact words in some cases, but he wasn’t sure he did it justice.

  Cal’s head still didn’t feel right ever since Seth had grabbed his arm, and he was grateful that he had once again taken up residence across from him.

  The Curator stared at him intently as he spoke, a smirk on his face. Cal, on the other hand, had a hard time keeping his eyes locked on Seth’s; they kept drifting to the green book in the center of the table.

  The one with no title, no author.

  It took all his willpower to resist reaching out and flipping it open, inhaling the words desperately like a suffocating man given a straw full of oxygen.

  Cal finished the story with the mayor tossing the priest into The Pit, but skimmed over the part about a doorway opening and the workers coming back, their eyes black and chalky like coal briquettes; that was too much.

  That was just Hank’s bullshitting.

  Cal cleared his throat and stared sheepishly across the table, leveling his eyes at Seth, trying to gauge the man’s opinion of him, of the story.

  Does he think I’m crazy? Am I crazy?

  He started to second guess himself, cursing internally for telling the story as if it were fact.

  I should have laughed… I should have laughed when I told about Mayor Partridge in his three-piece suit ordering the workers around like a regal Humpty Dumpty. I should have made it clear that I think this is all a stupid joke. Just a dumb joke made up by Hank who was jealous because I have a thing for Stacey, and Stacey has a thing for me.

  But Seth wasn’t laughing. In fact, Seth wasn’t doing anything. He simply sat there, hands clasped on the table in front of him, the smirk still on his young, handsome face.

  Cal waited about thirty seconds before leaning forward and breaking the silence.

  “Well? Have you heard this story before? Is it…” Cal could barely force the word out, “…is it true?”

  Seth slowly separated his hands and placed his palms flat on the table.

  “It’s true,” he said, with a small nod.

  Cal felt the air exit his lungs in an audible whoosh.

  Seth chuckled.

  “It’s true,” he repeated. His laugh slowly transformed from a snicker into a full-blown bellow. “It’s true… it’s true… it’s… it’s…”

  Seth’s laughter became so all-encompassing that he could no longer get the words out. Cal, his face as white as a sheet, watched the man in abject horror.

  For a fleeting moment, he wondered if there was something in the air in Mooreshead Town Library, something other than dust and the foul reek of wet paper and rot. He had heard once that casinos not only pumped oxygen into the air to keep people awake, but that they sometimes pumped something else too, a little je ne sais quoi, to keep people happy as they blew their last dollar on a whim and a prayer.

  Maybe something like that was happening here; maybe this strange man with the long blond hair had pumped some strong, odorless dope into the air and this was making everything so… strange.

  “I’m sorry,” he said without thinking.

  Seth immediately stopped laughing and his expression became flat.

  “You’re sorry? Why are you sorry?”

  Cal, taken aback by the sudden change in expression, blubbered something incoherent.

  He was feeling dizzy again, dizzy and nauseous.

  “Why?” Seth demanded again, his eyes boring into Cal.

  “I—I dunno,” he stammered, “Why—why are you laughing?”

  Seth simply stared at him, and Cal, fearful now that he had offended the strange man, fought the instinct to apologize a second time.

  “Seth?”

  Seth brought a finger and pointed to his head again.

  “It’s funny, because you already knew that the story was true shortly after you stepped inside the library. I mean, you knew it when I did this,” he pointed at his head. “When I said the story was in here.”

  Cal, confused, scrunched up his face.

  “Oh, I see. You thought I meant that it was in here, as in inside my head. Ahh, that makes sense.”

  Seth leaned forward and Cal instinctively drew back.

  “Cal, the stories are real once they form in your head. Not mine. Yours.”

  “Wh—what?”

  The Leporidae burrow is long and deep…

  The thought appeared in Cal’s mind, materialized, as all thoughts do, out of nothing. But this was different. It didn’t feel like his thought. For one, he had no clue what the hell a Leporidae was.

  It was as if it had been placed there.

  He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the strange word, and when he raised his gaze to look at Seth, the man was smiling again.

  “Long and deep, Callum Godfrey. Long and deep.”

  “What—how did you know my last name?” Once again, Cal’s heart was jackhammering away in his chest. “What the fuck is going on here?”

  Seth’s smile grew.

  “You think that Mooreshead is boring, but you’re wrong about that, Cal. That is simply a story that you have woven. The truth is, there are places on this earth—Mooreshead, Askergan, Stumphole Swamp, Scarsdale, Seaforth, Pinedale Hospital, Father Callahan’s church—that mark doorways to other worlds, Cal.”

  The Leporidae burrow is long and deep…

  “What are you talking about?” his words came out in a tight whisper.

  Seth nodded solemnly and continued.

  “These doorways were built long ago—a long, long time ago. Even before me, Cal. And these doors… they must remain closed. Father McCabe made a sacrifice to save Mooreshead, and others have done the same in Askergan County and in the Swamp, although they don’t know it yet. Your time will come to write another story, a different story—and you too will make a sacrifice.”

  Cal felt a heavy wave of dizziness wash over him, culminating in a bout of nausea that brought bile into his throat.

  “I’m going—I think I’m going to be sick,” he said, pushing back from the table. He gagged, and then burped, but nothing came forth.

  Seth was suddenly by his side, leaning in close.

  Don’t touch me… please if you touch me I’m going to puke everywhere…

  Seth didn’t touch him.

  “Open the book, Cal. Read your story,” his voice was soft, quiet.

  Cal closed his eyes for a moment, and the sickness slowly passed.

  Open the book.

  Cal opened his eyes and focused on the dusty green cover in front of him. A few moments ago, he had been chomping at the bit to open it, but now he felt a strong aversion. After all the strange things that had happened since arriving in the library, somehow he just knew that none of this would compare to what would happen if he opened that book.

  He thought briefly of his mother, her smooth, caring face, her kind eyes, holding his brown paper lunch bag, telling him to tuck in his shirt.

  Cal knew that if he opened the book, he would no longer be boring with a capital B—his life would change. Maybe not right away, maybe not for a while, but something deep down told him that he would never be the same again.

  He swallowed hard, forcing images of his family seated at the dinner table out of his mind. With a shaking hand, he reached out and gripped the green cover between thumb and forefinger.

  Then
Cal opened it.

  Chapter 11

  Cal moaned softly and then rubbed his wrist. His hand was cramped, his fingers ached.

  There was something in the library air, there had to be.

  “It’s real, Cal. It’s real.”

  The words were spoken by Seth, his breath hot on his ear, but they were also written.

  Not just words, either, but images. Images of smooth metal tunnels, spiraling from a center point outward like spokes on a wheel.

  And the tanks; large tanks, huge tanks, that ran floor to ceiling. Inside one of them was a man, a man with tubes covering his nose and mouth. Bubbles rose to the surface of the tank, and his eyes were wide. There was a nameplate below the tank, inscribed with a name that Cal didn’t recognize: C. Lawrence.

  He swallowed hard, trying to make sense of what had happened. Never much of an artist, Cal had somehow managed to fill the pages with hundreds of these renderings, all the while with Seth breathing on his ear.

  The air in the library stirred as he scribbled furiously, but nothing else seemed to change. Hours had passed, days, maybe, or maybe no time at all.

  The pencil, reduced to a small nub not more than three inches long, rolled from his fingers and onto the table.

  “What the hell?” he whispered.

  His eyelids fluttered, and he sagged in his chair, overcome with exhaustion. But Seth reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders. With his touch came the briny smell of sea water, as if a wave had crashed at his feet.

  “I told you,” Seth said softly. “Mooreshead is a special place. It’s a place where you can write your story.”

  Cal felt another bout of nausea, but Seth released his shoulders and it passed. With a cramped hand, he reached out and slammed the book closed.

  There’s only one last thing to do…

  With a hand stricken by palsy, he grabbed the pencil and scribbled his name on the cover: Callum Godfrey.

  Strangely disgusted by himself, Cal threw the pencil down for the final time. Whatever trickery was going on, he no longer wanted a part of it.

  “I have to go,” he whispered. He half-expected Seth to wrap his arms around him, perhaps even forcefully keep him here in the library. But the man didn’t object.