Chapter #25The Hymnal by: Seuzz   You put out your hands, but Joe draws the bundle closer to his chest. "I'm not done with her yet," he grins.
"Joe," Rosalie says, and plucks at his arm. "Let Will hold her."
"I won't break her," you say. "I've got a little experience with them."
Pink shows in Joe's face. He's a little paler now at twenty-eight than he had been at eighteen; he doesn't get as much sunlight anymore, since he spends so much time in the Stellae archives or at his university office. But the glow of new fatherhood shines brightly through his countenance. He hands you the pink bundle, but keeps his hand on the blankets even after you've got her cradled to your chest.
"Oh, she is precious," you say. The little girl's eyes are pinched shut, and she breathes softly through her mouth. She looks like every other baby; but like every other baby, she has a sweetness that is her own. "Your dad would be so proud and happy for you."
"We're naming her Charlene, you know," Joe says. "Charlene Frances. It was a lot of fun watching Frank's face when we told him. All that stoic I'm-a-big-boy-and-don't-cry bravado just melting off his face."
You laugh. "He didn't tell me that."
"Well, he wouldn't."
"We're going to name our second after you," Rosalie says. "William if it's a boy and Marta if it's a girl."
"And Funkybits if the little mutant is both," Joe chortles.
You touch Charlene's cheek. "If you ever need a babysitter," you say.
"None of your lullabies for her, thanks," Joe says. "We're going totally natural."
"You check to see if she's Stellae?"
"Ten billion to one against that," Joe says.
"Which didn't stop him from giving her a check up," Rosalie laughs. She rubs Joe's arm.
"So we're just going to keep having kids until we win the lottery," Joe grins.
"You on board with that idea?" you ask Rosalie.
"I want a big family, Will," she says. "I miss having lots of family around. And you and Frank and Miko and Kali and all the others aren't around enough. Not for my taste."
You smile. "Sure. And I don't mean to pry, but since you raise the subject, how are you going to handle that business? You know, her parents being--"
"Naturally, we're not going to tell her about it until she's much older," Rosalie says. "We'll drop a few hints, let her see a few things, so it's not a total shock. Laverne's going to move in with us, act as a kind of nanny. She has a lot of experience with that kind of thing, you know, what with her mother being a Stellae while she herself isn't. And she's so good with kids anyway."
"But we're not going to leave Laverne to raise her," Joe says. He gives Rosalie a slightly sharp look. "The department's only a few blocks away, so I'm going to be spending most of my time here. Might even have my office hours here."
"Bob Flanagan might have something to say about that," Rosalie says.
"He's the one that suggested it."
"It's going to be a lot of fun for her, having you as parents," you laugh. "Especially you, Joe."
"Think I can't handle it?"
"No, I'm just thinking about what'll happen when she hits high school. She's gonna be a beautiful little princess." You look Joe up and down. "So what happens when she brings her dates back here to meet you?" You grin. "What happens if you find out she's dating a guy who's just like you were in high school?"
Joe's eyes glint, and he takes Charlene from you. He holds her very close. "I'll tear off his dick and nail it to his forehead."
* * * * *
Joe--being a new professor in the Slavic Languages and Literatures Department at UNC-Chapel Hill--has classes to teach the next morning, so you spend the morning with Rosalie and Charlene. You meet Joe separately for lunch in the busy strip on Franklin Street. You can't help giving your meeting place a bemused but pale look: it's a combination of used bookstore and restaurant. "I never much cared for used bookstores," you say faintly as you sit at a rough wooden table and pull out some plastic menus. "Not after what I found in Arnholm's a few years back."
"You'd be surprised what you can find in this place." He glances over his shoulder. "We used the settlement from Dad's estate to buy it," he says in a low voice. "Door to the archives is in the occult section."
You stare over the top of the menu at him. "Isn't that kind of an obvious place for it?"
"Ah, but you can only reach that part of the occult section--the actual bookshelf--by navigating the Romance and African literature sections, and even then only if you enter them via the computer languages shelves," he says. "So unless you have a fairly recondite set of interests and a shopping list constructed as an ordered quadruple, you're not going to find it. You also have to find the hidden door and scribble the password into Charles Berlitz's book on the Bermuda Triangle." He taps the menu. "I recommend the quesadillas."
"Why, is there something occult about them?"
"Practically, but the secret ingredient's only cilantro and garlic salt. Now, what is it that you wanted to talk to me about without Rosalie around?" He gives you a pointed look.
"I have to give her my report on Cuthbert tonight," you reply. "I wanted to practice on you." The waitress comes over, and you place your orders before continuing. "The place is sealed tight. Webs and fences in all the woods around. A Watcher over the gas station on the highway, and there appears to be another one patrolling up and down Fifth. Alaknanda managed to get us into town, but it was several hours work getting in and several more getting out. By the way, thanks for borrowing her from the Akshardham. She's the only reason we got through."
"Thank Rosalie. But would you be able to infiltrate once you were inside the fences?"
"Maybe. But that's not a place for someone to go in alone. It was dangerous enough ten years ago," you say, and Joe nods with grim sympathy. "Anyway, we only made it as far as the church, and that place was wound so tight with webs only Alaknanda could get in. She's good--even better than Rick at slipping through the depths--but she hasn't the training to interpret what's inside. And there's a Watcher in there, too."
"Can you make up a map of the town, huddle with Rick and figure out a way of establishing a corridor or closet?"
"We'd have to make a survey expedition, probably the work of a couple of days. Alaknanda would have to go along."
"We could make it a dedicated priority, put it on people's schedules in advance," Joe muses.
"Well, until then there's something else. Alaknanda spotted it on the organ--she said it had an emanation about it--and she brought it back out with her. I brought it along, thought it worth running the risk of its being missed." From your bag you draw out the old church hymnal. "Much of it looks like a standard old hymn book, but at least half of it is handwritten. You're the musician, Joe. I thought you should look at it."
He opens it, and gives the printed portions a cursory glance before turning to the back. He leans over it with his elbows on the table, and after a few minutes traces a fingertip over one of the staves. He is quiet for a very long time.
"Well, musically, it's just a lot of garbage," he says. "Even Schoenberg would wince at it. But there are some patterns in it." He flips the page and traces another musical line. "But I don't think it means anything by itself. The twelve-tone system is just too coarse to contain anything but the most rudimentary sigil work. You say it was on the organ?" You nod. "That's an actual pipe organ, I remember noticing that, because you don't find pipe organs in shitty little towns like Cuthbert."
"So?"
"Pipe organs are complicated machines. Until the nineteenth century, they were the most complex machines in the world. And that was a complicated machine they had in the church basement. If the organ and basement are connected--"
"You mean the organ might be a control console of some kind?"
"Exactly. Nash or somebody would have to look at it. The instructions here--" He closes the hymnal. "They wouldn't mean anything without seeing the machinery they're supposed to run. Oh, did you have this thing in your luggage when you arrived?"
"Uh, yeah."
He chews his lip. "Let's keep it in my office until you leave, and I want you to take it with you. It's probably just a book, but I'd prefer to keep it away from Charlene."
"Oh, crap. Joe, I'm sorry, I didn't think of that."
"Don't worry about it. Million to one against it's being dangerous, even to a sprog. But Rosalie and I are trying to be careful."
You smile, but don't say anything until the waitress has set your plates down and left. "Do you want me to minimize my visits?"
Joe slaps you lightly on the side of the head. "Stop it. Of course not. Although--" He pauses with his fork in the air. "Rosalie and I have already decided to ask a favor of you. Could you pick a single look, and use it when you visit?"
"Sure. Any reason?"
"Charlene. It's going to be weird enough for her when she's fourteen or so and finds out her parents can basically ride broomsticks. We don't need her learning that three of her uncles, two of her aunts, one of her cousins, and five of my best friends are all the same person."
* * * * *
Three days later, in your house in Oxford, you're studying the Cuthbert hymnal when you sense a presence behind you.
To wake from this reverie: "The Boy from Before Everything, Part 2"    indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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