When Roni got involved with a book, the rest of the world slipped away. She absorbed the words, internalized them, and made them real — in some cases, more real than the outside world. Even with non-fiction, she could delve in between the letters and words and punctuation to find the world beneath the words.
As the hours drifted by, Roni and Gram combed over book after book, and throughout it all, Roni relished each treasured word like a connoisseur of fine wines. Most of these books had never been read by anyone other than those few souls who were brought to this special room. In some cases, the books had never been read at all. The robust aroma of the old paper, the crinkling of it as she turned the pages, the weight of each volume in her lap — it combined to make an experience she knew she would never have again. Even as she sought vital information, part of her brain tried to savor the moment itself, tried to record it within its firing neurons. This was something to remember until her final breath.
After another hour, Gram stretched her legs. She mumbled about a coffee machine, and a few minutes later uncovered the relic sitting behind a rolling cart full of books. A few minutes of fiddling and a quick trip upstairs for ground coffee beans, and Gram served up two hot mugs of caffeine.
Once Gram got back to reading, Roni took a lap around the library to get the blood flowing through to her legs. In the back corner, she found two tall shelving units that had been set up in an L-shape, closing off the area. They looked odd, and it took Roni a moment to figure out why — something was behind them.
The tall ceiling meant that none of the shelving units went all the way to the top. Roni could see clearly that the room continued beyond these shelves. Peeking over a few books, she could make a dark shape, perhaps a table, and little else.
Picking the smaller of the two shelves, she removed every book in it — making sure to check the titles in case anything might be useful for the Darin situation. She stacked them in order so they could be refiled with ease. Once emptied, she reached in, grabbed hold of the shelf, and lifted one side of the unit.
Though heavy enough to elicit a hearty grunt, the shelving unit pivoted inward close to a foot. Holding her stomach in, Roni slipped through the opening and discovered a table with rolls of paper. She spread them open, one after the other. Maps. Each one depicted part of the caverns. In many instances, numerical codes designated the various books chained to the walls. In some cases, entire areas had a marking with names like Painted Worlds, Unbreathable, and Carlson’s Journey.
“Ah, the maps,” Gram said, leaning her back against the shelving unit while she sipped her coffee. “There are more somewhere around here.”
“More? How big is this cavern?”
“Don’t know for sure. I have no doubt you could fit entire cities in here.”
Roni’s fingers traced one path after the other. Near the bottom of each map, she saw the cartographer’s name along with the words The Parallel Society. “Why do you call yourselves that when these aren’t parallel universes? Are they?”
“Not in the sense of another Roni, another Sully and Elliot, another me running around. And you won’t find another Earth where Hitler won the war or the Industrial Revolution never happened or anything like that. As far as I can tell from what I’ve read in here, these worlds are not alternates to our own, but rather co-existing universes, each unique unto itself.”
“Then why The Parallel Society? That seems wrong.”
“I didn’t name it. Perhaps back in the 1400s, that was the best way they could understand what was going on. Who knows? But for whatever reason, that was the name the original founders of the Society chose, and it’s stayed with us.”
“The 1400s? This thing goes back that far?”
“Maybe further. I suppose the answer is somewhere in this library, but we haven’t had a dedicated librarian down here for a long time. So, things get hard to know.”
“I can see that.”
Roni opened another map, and near the center, she noticed a roughly circular area. Usually that sort of section marked a manmade pool that gathered water from natural, underground streams — she had seen quite a few on the other maps — but this time the words Lost Memories had been written in, along with several numerical notations near the symbol for books.
“What does this mean?” she asked.
Gram craned her neck to see without moving. “Oh, nothing. There are a ton of fanciful names the mapmakers used. Most are mere flourishes more evocative than meaningful.”
“There’s no way you can read what I’m pointing out from over there.”
Gram’s mouth thinned. “I can see the type of thing you’re pointing at, even if I can’t read the specific words. Grab any map and you’ll see many similar labels.”
“But this one says Lost Memories. What kind of worlds can that mean? Or is something else there?”
“Right now, it doesn’t matter. We need to stay focused.”
Roni read those words again. “I have lost memories. Lost time — that’s what you’ve always called them.”
“Look at those maps long enough and you’ll see infinite answers to infinite questions. It’s like tarot cards or astrology. You can interpret those writings to mean whatever you want them to mean — none of which will help Darin.”
“Maybe.”
“Even if you found some proof that the labels meant something real, you’d still have to go find the place. Map or no map, these caverns are not easy to navigate. More than one Society member went in there looking for some answer and never returned.”
Roni brushed the words Lost Memories before rolling the paper back up. Gram was right. The maps were disorganized, and Roni had no idea how they connected. She had no way to know what route to take in order to find that area nor what to do should she actually locate this specific pool.
Together, they returned to their books. Roni delved into the daily journal of Nigel Cuthbert, a Londoner who came to America in 1807 at the request of his Aunt Millicent. Three years later, he learned of and joined the Society.
Roni had picked out this journal because earlier in the day, she had read a short chapbook entitled, A Discussion Regarding Doppelgangers and Their Multitudinous Primal Forms. The chapbook read more like wishful thinking or creative interpretation, but considering the strange, new reality Roni found herself in, she could not discount anything outright. Still, Mr. Cuthbert’s writing on the subject had numerous open-ended questions and winding paths that lead to no conclusion. Roni hoped that she would come across mention of glowing puddles of ooze, but when it came to primal forms, Mr. Cuthbert had to admit he never encountered such a thing. Worse, in his final paragraph, he admitted that he never encountered a doppelganger and that the entire book contained his best estimation of the possibilities.
That had been a waste of time earlier, but she needed something humorous to clear her head. She hoped Mr. Cuthbert’s daily journal would provide the levity she sought. It did.
He wrote often of a young widow who lived several blocks over. His infatuation with her grew stronger each day, and he invented reasons to visit that area as much as possible. While amusing enough to read about, Roni could not help but chuckle at his failed attempts to woo the young lady.
He brought her flowers which caused a sharp allergic reaction. He bought her a chicken and as he delivered his gift, a rabid dog chased him down, taking the food for itself. He even attempted to write her a poem but stymied himself with the word orange, and refused to change it no matter how long he would have to search for the perfect rhyme.
But then Roni read a sentence that caused her to bolt upright. Gram raised an eyebrow as Roni went over the passage again.
“Well?” Gram finally said when it appeared Roni would get lost in thought.
Roni’s knitted brow loosened. “I think I have an idea. This fellow here is trying to win the heart of a woman, writes a poem, and gets hung up on the word orange. I know, but here’s the thing — he writes in his journal that the word must be in the poem because, ‘it was over that rare fruit in which I first saw her. It is no more or less than a talisman to call her heart to mine.’ A talisman. That’s our answer.”
“How so?”
“You had me get a deeply personal item of Darin’s — the ticket stub — and we used it to lure him back to the Golem so he could come back to our world.”
“Except that isn’t him.”
“Really? What proof do we have? None. The only thing suggesting that Darin is not Darin is, well, Darin.”
Gram sipped her coffee and crossed her legs. “I’m fairly certain that the Darin you went on a date with did not have the ability to turn partly into a wolf.”
“I’m not saying Darin is one hundred percent the human being that went into that book. I’m saying that he did come out and that this creature inside him is a parasite. Who else but Darin would be lured by that ticket stub?”
“Okay. Let’s say you’re right. Where does that get us?”
“To the next logical question — if Darin is really here, then why did he lie about it? I mean, why did his parasite force him to lie? I think that parasite is controlling him. It couldn’t at first, it needed time to take over, but once it did, then Darin was more of a traveler in the backseat of his own body.”
“I hear a lot of supposition and see nothing in the way of evidence.”
“Isn’t that why I’m here, though? To read these books, put ideas together, and come up with possible answers. I mean, you know we’re not going to find a book that says the answer is X. If that answer existed, we could have stopped all of this a long time ago.”
Gram gestured to the disorganized heaps of books. “Are you not seeing the mess here?”
“I do. But Darin — the real Darin — snuck into the caverns and picked out a specific book. It had to be a specific book because otherwise he could have grabbed much closer and easier to reach books. So, whoever hired him knew about that book. All of that means the answer is not hidden away down here where nobody can get to it or everybody forgot about it — clearly somebody knows about this particular book and what can be found in it.”
Gram set her coffee down and leaned forward. “Are you suggesting that somebody wanted Darin to have this parasite in him?”
“To bring it back here.”
“It’s a chilling thought. And you might be right. All the more reason we have to stop Darin before he has a chance to do whatever he intends. Him or whoever hired him — which is a bigger question for another time.”
Roni bounced on the edge of her seat as she pointed in the journal. “If I’m right about Darin, then I’m pretty sure the answer is in the talisman. It was his personal connection to that ticket stub which gave him the strength or the will power to find his way back.”
“And you think he can do it again. Only this time instead of clawing his way to a Golem and out of that book, he’d be clawing his way back into commanding his own body.”
“I think so.”
Gram leaned closer to read the passage from Cuthbert’s journal. “Perhaps. But we have a problem. The ticket stub doesn’t exist anymore. It was destroyed with the Golem.”
“Lucky for us, he didn’t go to that game alone. There’s a second stub. But you’ll have to come with me to get it. No way will Darin’s mother hand over that other stub to me.”
Gram’s eyes widened. She stood and stepped behind Roni. Patting her granddaughter on the shoulder, she said, “I think we can work that out.”