My resolve to remain silent about last night’s fright evaporated as Abigail and I were in conversation. I told her of the movie, and my reaction to it. She laughed! Of course. I am quite amusing to her, and why not? To her, I am a character out of history, and my bafflement at what she finds ordinary is certain to be funny to her.
“That movie was called Alien, right?” she asked me. I nodded and she said, “That movie would scare Dracula. I never could watch it all the way through.”
I made inquiries as to the identity of this Dracula, and now I have an entirely new set of fables to unnerve me. Vampires!? I had never heard of such things.
How these people love to terrify themselves!
We continued our investigations at the local historical society, where we were informed that the Revere manuscript was on loan to a military museum—in London, of all places. Its contents, however, were available “online.”
And here I must digress.
The Internet. I believe I have begun to understand this strange, but seemingly important, hive of highly sophisticated calculating machines called “computers” that can also be used to store information by means of magnetism. One can access this vast storehouse of information by means of these machines, although learning those fiendish devices is a travail itself. I am doing so, but more slowly than I would like—and with the side effect of great hilarity on Abigail’s part.
Fantastic. In the old sense of unbelievable, and yet it is commonplace here. Everyone seems to have this Internet even in their coat pockets, by means of “smartphones” that can access it. One wonders, then, why they are still called phones, or telephones, since my observations would indicate that few owners of these devices use them for telephonic communication.
I see children tapping on these phones to send each other messages when they are yards away from each other. It is as if the phone convinces its bearer that he exists in an entirely separate world, only accessible to the worlds of others by means of the device itself. The phone is a gatekeeper, sentry, jailer—all at once! If ever I possess one, I would hope that a friend—should I ever have a friend in this age—will end my life painlessly and with mercy.
Common phrases and expressions I find either fascinating, repellent, or simply of interest:
OMG
Sitting duck
Shooting fish in a barrel (one wonders if this phrase has an added meaning, for after all any barrel in which fish were shot would no longer hold water.…)
LOL
Catfish as verb
Game-changer
Impact as verb (abomination!)
Win-win
For the win
Boo-yah
Supermarket, superhighway, superstorm—everything must be super!
Noob, troll, spam … there are so many.
I have done it. Surmounting the obstacles we faced, I obtained a paper copy of the Revere manuscript and immediately saw it was a cipher. Adams was a partisan of a particular encryption method now known as the Vigenère cipher—I used that name when speaking of it to Abigail, because I assumed her police training would have included at least the basics of cryptography, and took care to brief myself on the terms now in use. In my time this construct was known as the polyalphabetic cipher of Giovan Battista Bellaso, for it was only later—while I lay in the cave under the spells of my beloved Katrina—that it was misattributed to Blaise de Vigenère.
The fundamental principle of the Vigenère cipher is multiple layers of substitution. A simple code is easily broken if one has any grasp of the relative frequencies with which different letters occur in the message’s language. In English, the most common letter is E, followed by T and A. Once the positions of those are established, the rest of the content may be deduced with ease. The difficulty is multiplied infinitely by the introduction of a second key, a phrase overlaid on the first cipher that changes the substitution with each letter. Without knowing the key, it is nearly impossible to grasp the underlying pattern of the cipher. I wrestled in vain with the coded passage, trying a number of keys—Washington, Adams, Hancock, Revere, various others—until in a moment of frustration I glanced over at the Horseman’s skull and saw something unusual. Sunlight from the archive’s high windows was now, late in the day, striking the skull at a different angle, revealing that the skull’s teeth were inlaid with silver. On that silver were etched letters: CICERO.
In that moment I knew this must be the key.
Who had done this? Someone had taken possession of the Hessian’s head, reduced it to bone, and left this message. Undoubtedly a circuitous route to follow if one wished to communicate a code key, but it made as much sense as any other method given the circumstance. The visionary who had left this message had known that a future confrontation with the Horseman loomed, and knew too that the knowledge of how he might be fought would be lost over the centuries. I suppose, seeing the material of the inlay was silver, that Paul Revere himself—a silversmith by trade—performed the task. If so, all Americans have yet another reason to be grateful to him.
Why Cicero? I can only speculate that Revere chose this key in honor of the Roman orator’s belief in republican ideals. He was a defender of Rome against the constant encroachment of tyranny—though I suspect he would consider the United States, with its numerous representative bodies and constant bickering, an undisciplined rabble. One must always be wary of ascribing to the ancients ideals more at home in this modern age.
Cicero was also the pen name chosen by Arthur Bernard, whose pamphlets Revere would have read. Perhaps he also knew Bernard personally. I cannot help but believe that both Revere and Bernard drew on the legacy of Ciceronian thought: Bernard to disguise himself, and Revere to unlock the secrets of the Horseman’s vulnerability. What tangled webs we weave.
VPGLFF UMOEEO DPQVJH JMTEUW CVEIFT UWNMKW UPKWNS CSPIJG JMEEEB QBDIYS NLHSIS XMTAYC YWWPUG GQBIYW OCUIKV KAUMXW NIFIMW NAVVRD CVFQLG VNKRUO YQVGYK JWOEPA CSGPLB CWHWFZ IE
I write the Vigenère cipher thus, broken into six-letter groups, because the key CICERO consists of six letters. W, the first letter, corresponds to the first C in CICERO. C is the third letter of the alphabet—or two moves from the letter A—so the V has been advanced two places from the actual letter. In other words, for that letter, V equals T. Next, P, which corresponds to the I in CICERO. I being eight moves from A, that P must be moved back eight places in the alphabetic order—yielding H. And so forth. Continuing, one finds (with correct word breaks and a guess at intended punctuation):
THE HORSEMAN ABHORS THE RADIANCE OF SOL. IT IS HIS WEAKNESS. HE CANNOT BE HELD FOREVER; WHO WOULD SEIZE HIM USE THIS SIGIL, A DEVIL’S TRAP—AND MUST FIND A WITCH WHO MAY MAKE LUNA OF SOL. GW
Thus I broke the cipher and went to find Abigail—who was deep in conversation with the revenant Brooks. I write those words as if the occasion was nothing unusual, and indeed given other recent events a casual conversation with an undead man is barely worth notice. Brooks was wracked with guilt over his complicity in the Horseman’s actions, and agreed to convey a message that the Horseman should meet us at the clock tower at nightfall.
Abigail, naturally, demanded to know why I sought a direct engagement with the Horseman. Showing her my scrawled decryption of the manuscript, I explained the outlines of my plan. The Horseman of Death cannot be captured, but he can be trapped—thus the Devil’s Trap on the packet Revere carried. His weakness is sunlight, which we would have inferred from his nocturnal attacks thus far even if Katrina had not told me as much weeks ago, and to trap him, a witch must be found who can work a spell to transform the sun into the moon. This seemed a metaphor to me at the time, and I still am indecisive as to its true meaning.
Tonight will tell. We have gathered the materials we need and all that remains is to wait for night.
Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino qui fertis super caelum caeli ad Orientem
Ecce dabit voci Suae vocem virtutis, tribuite virtutem Deo.
Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.
Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te.
Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare.
Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis.
Humiliare sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt.
Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine.
Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos.
Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos.
Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae te rogamus, audi nos.
Terribilis Deus de sanctuario suo.
Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem et fortitudinem plebi Suae.
Benedictus Deus. Gloria Patri.
—An exorcism
While we pass the time, I write in this journal and Abigail unburdens herself. She left the archive earlier to speak with a former paramour, the officer Luke, whose hostility toward me is now understandable, if still misplaced. Reaching for the only example I had, I told Abigail that despite the course of events I would change nothing about my love for Katrina. Her mystery and allure came at the cost of secrecy; I understand this now, and would have it no other way. This appeared to change Abigail’s mind about something. She has left again to speak to Luke.
Consideration of matters of the heart always returns me to thoughts of Katrina. We stole a few days together once, shortly after our marriage, when it was clear that the tides of the war to come would draw us apart more often than permit us any time together. The locale was a cabin on the banks of the Potomac, let to us by General Washington as a wedding gift. We had wed without benefit of family presence, either mine or hers—mine due to my father’s vehement opposition to the union, and hers due to an estrangement from her relations whose origin and nature she was reluctant to discuss. Looking back with the aid of what I now know of her membership in the Radiant Heart, I can only suspect that the familial discord stemmed from her family’s disapproval—yet I do not know that for sure.
I recall the rhododendrons in full flower on the grounds, and have had a fondness for that plant ever since. Those were the finest days of my life. There was nothing in the world save we two, in the first full bloom of love. I looked upon Katrina with wonder, scarcely able to believe she had assented to my proposal. One always wonders, I suppose, whether the meeting of minds and hearts in marriage will be as beautiful in the event as it has been in the imagination beforehand—and for us it surely was. We took such joy in each other’s company that when we took our leave from the cabin and plunged back into the cause of the colonies’ independence, we were both incalculably stronger for the knowledge that neither of us would ever face troubled times alone. Remembering those days was a source of strength to me during the most difficult and dangerous moments of the war. I fought not just for the independence of the infant United States of America, but for a return to my beloved Katrina and for the peace that would permit us to build our lives together as we both wished.
I wonder what has become of the letters I wrote her, and she wrote to me. Mine are doubtless gone to rot on the battlefield along the banks of the creek running into the Hudson, where the Horseman and I struck each other down. Perhaps she saved them? I cannot imagine how, so pressing were her circumstances. Should I ever encounter those letters again, I will consider it a great gift from the Infinite.
What pleasure this memory brings, for it is she I fight for—and when she is free, we will continue the fight by each other’s sides. She was a witch? Very well, she was a witch. Perhaps she even enchanted me into falling in love with her with the flowers that always seemed to be in her hair. Again, very well; for my love has long since overpowered whatever charm she might have mustered. It is mine, and hers, and its magic is only the magic of two hearts meeting and becoming one.
Also: In honor of our nuptials, a mystery poet—though I have my suspicions about the source—sent a few more bawdy lines of verse:
Ichabod Crane is to ride
On an errand with Mohawks for guides
Pursuing the Hessian
His mood with Katrina his bride.
Now, remembering that little bit of poesy, I cannot help but wonder if it was my friend John Adams having one more sly joke than I had previously understood. I fought many Hessians during the war, but he would have known the degree of their complicity in the occult maneuverings to which I was as yet a stranger. Whoever the sender, I cannot but toast the sharp tooth of your wit.
That damned limerick has guided my thoughts along prurient lines. Since I am the only one who will read this—unless I am dead, in which case it will no longer matter—I confess in these pages that I have encountered the, shall we say, less salutary precincts of the Internet. I will not commit details to paper; however, I will say I long for Katrina yet more intensely after this inadvertent journey through the fleshly cornucopia of these sites. Our union was ever a healthy one. (I am put reluctantly in mind of yet another pompous aphorism from the pen of Franklin, who once wrote, “Rarely use venery but for health or offspring”—yet I do not think I reveal any harmful secrets when I say that he was a devotee of the physical pleasures to a degree exceeding that necessary for health.) Katrina and I would have had children one day; we certainly had adequate practice to ensure the process would go smoothly.
The Horseman is trapped! Using a cell deep in the tunnels where the Freemasons created a supernatural barrier long ago, and a large number of electric lamps whose light shines on the same wavelengths as the invisible portion of the sun’s rays—ultraviolet is the term Abigail used—we drew the Horseman from the clock tower into the tunnels, guiding him into our trap with a trail of skulls. Compelled to touch each skull to discern whether it was his, the Horseman walked straight into our snare.
Now the question is: How long can we hold him? For surely his supernatural allies will rally to his rescue.
