In Tongues of the Dead Read online

  “Um,” Father McCallum said, realizing they were getting away, “I’m a curator here. I wonder if I might join your tour.”

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  He started toward her, regaining his composure. “I love seeing the children discover the magic of this book collection. What school did you say you’re with?”

  “Sacred Heart Elementary.”

  He made a mental note. Sacred Heart Elementary. How fitting!

  III

  For the rest of the morning, Father McCallum followed the first-grade class as they toured the library, led by his colleague, Rhonda. He added the occasional comment but mainly focused on young Matthew, who remained silent and disengaged. The priest watched him and gathered information: the aide’s name was Samantha, and she stayed close to Matthew. After the tour, Father McCallum watched the class go out the main doors, then rushed to his office for his jacket. He would be taking lunch early today.

  The security guard watched Father McCallum hurry toward the west staircase. He stood, moved from behind his desk and laced his fingers behind his back, smiling at the old man’s obvious urgency.

  The bulky flashlight on his belt banged against his thigh, and he looked at it casually. He wasn’t used to the guard uniform, but it suited his purpose: keeping watch over the Voynich manuscript.

  He made his way to the front door and stepped outside, took a deep breath of the cool fall air, and murmured a quick prayer to God, thanking him for the day. It felt great to be alive.

  He watched the children as they walked through the courtyard, making their way to the yellow school bus. One of the children was walking more slowly than the others. The boy suddenly stopped and turned back to the library. He seemed to stare straight at the guard.

  The guard matched the boy’s gaze without reaction.

  The school aide seemed to realize the boy was lagging behind and stopped, urging him to rejoin the group. A few minutes later the children were all on the bus.

  The guard stared at the slowly moving bus. “Soon,” he whispered, “you will be dead and it will all be done. You are the last.”

  IV

  “There are two ways to be dead — the loss of life and the loss of the spirit.” MacKenzie Oak spoke as if he were beginning a lecture.

  Dr. Jake Tunnel nodded, pushed back in his leather chair and occasionally made a motion with his pen, as though he were taking notes. He wasn’t. If he wrote down everything his patient said, he’d run out of paper.

  “I’d much rather lose my life than my spirit,” MacKenzie continued. “I want to live out the rest of my life on this world and go to the next. I refuse to be the walking dead.”

  Jake stopped himself from saying something about zombies; MacKenzie didn’t need encouragement. Jake knew his patient’s lecture was a strategy to avoid talking about the real reason he was sitting in a psychologist’s office. Big, burly MacKenzie Oak was an alcoholic and addicted to gambling — or at least to using video lottery terminals. The man had worked for Canadian Pacific Railways for forty-two years, and now he was wasting his life savings and gambling away his pension. His wife had confronted him about their dwindling bank account, and MacKenzie turned to his former employer for help. The cpr’s Employee Assistance Program referred him to Jake, who specialized in addictions. And an eap meant Jake didn’t have to worry about payment. He felt callous when he listened to a patient pour his or her heart out for fifty minutes, then had to ask, “How will you be paying for all this help?”

  “You can teach your patients about being alive again,” MacKenzie Oak continued. “You can introduce them to a higher power of faith. You can help them find reasons to live — not just be alive.”

  Jake casually checked the small clock he kept hidden from the patient couch: only ten minutes left in the session. Time to get to the real therapy. He hated cutting a patient off, but sometimes he had to be firm.

  “Yes, but we’re here to talk about you, Mac. We need to get back to the reason you came to my office.”

  MacKenzie instantly looked contrite.

  “I know it’s difficult,” Jake said in a soft, nonthreatening manner. “Why don’t you give me an update on how you’ve managed with the gambling over the last week?”

  MacKenzie hung his head. Jake waited patiently, and finally the bearded man began to talk. He had told Jake he was full of guilt, because his church taught him gambling was sinful. And he felt guilty about how he was treating his wife, to whom he was devoted. “I’ve betrayed her,” he told Jake.

  “It’s been a rough week then,” Jake said gently.

  MacKenzie nodded.

  “How much?” Jake asked.

  “Too much.”

  Jake waited.

  “Five hundred,” MacKenzie finally said.

  “And the drinking?”

  His patient looked up. “Nothing,” he said almost proudly. “I did like you taught me. I used one of the drastic measures. I was at the machine and ordered a beer without thinking. I was about to take a drink but I stopped myself and right then and there I dumped that beer on the floor.”

  Jake laughed, “Right on the floor, eh?” MacKenzie finally smiled.

  “Yep, the whole damn thing right there on the floor, and I told myself I’m not going down that slippery slope. I remember you saying it’s that damn first step and then the next steps are so easy. You just slip and slide your way right into an all-out relapse. Well I wasn’t gonna do that. No sir. And even though I got a stare or two, like I was crazy, I made like it was an accident, and the people around me sank right back into themselves.”

  “I’m proud of you, Mac. You’ve taken some pretty big steps. I think it’s been almost a month since your last drink.”

  MacKenzie nodded, but his face was sad. “But I still didn’t get away from the machine after the beer thing. I still wasted all that money.”

  “Hey, you beat the booze — you can beat the machine. Just don’t knock yourself down — you know what that does.”

  “Puts me back in the cycle.”

  “Yep. The cycle of guilt and remorse that drives you right into the addictive behavior.”

  “You’ve been real good to me, Dr. Tunnel. I just wanted to say —”

  “No, no, Mac. It’s my job, and you’re doing all the work. I just wish all my patients were as thoughtful and motivated.”

  “I know, but —”

  “No buts,” Jake insisted. “You keep on working hard like you are, and we’ll put all this stuff behind us. Now get out of here. I’ll see you next week.”

  As soon as MacKenzie Oak was gone, Jake stood and stretched his six-foot frame, working out the knotted muscles that came from focusing on someone else’s problems. Even now, at thirty-eight and after ten years of working with people, he still ached at the end of every session. He was happier than when he’d lived in New York — after he received his PhD from Columbia, he’d worked for two years at an addiction clinic on the Upper West Side, but he hated having to report to a supervisor, and the weekly team meetings wore him down. He preferred to work on his own; in private practice, he never had to explain himself to anyone. He knew he wasn’t much of a people person when it came to coworkers.

  He’d moved to Halifax after he married Abby, a Canadian enjoying her dream vacation in New York. Abby. Jake spun his chair around so he could see the photograph on his desk of Abby and their family. Abby was five years younger than Jake, and bubbled over with enthusiasm about life. He thought fondly of the whirlwind romance, their city wedding, and the move to Nova Scotia. He’d opened his practice in a converted historic stone complex, one of Halifax’s oldest breweries, in a prime location on Lower Water Street. He loved the city, loved working right downtown, and he and Abby were enormously proud of their two children, seven-year-old Emily and five-year-old Wyatt.

  He let loose a sigh as he leaned back in his leather chair. He always tried to leave half an hour between patients so he could relax, but recently he was finding it hard to c
oncentrate. Recently, the only thing on his mind had been his son, Wyatt. The boy had been complaining of headaches and dizzy spells. Jake and Abby knew something was very wrong.

  V

  Father McCallum hurried down the sidewalk toward the bus stop. Only one late-morning bus heading for East Haven stopped near the library. He wanted to be on that bus.

  He was less than half a block from the stop when he saw the bus pull up. He had to get home right away. He started to run; he couldn’t bear the thought of missing that bus.

  He didn’t. Gasping, he hobbled up the steps and showed his bus pass to the driver, then collapsed into the first empty seat he came to.

  When he’d begun working at the library, the Vatican had found him rooms in a house on Henry Street, about a fifteen-minute bus ride from Yale. Today the trip seemed to take two hours. The entire ride he sat looking out the window, nervously playing with the key that hung on a chain around his neck.

  Finally the bus stopped at the corner of Elliot and Henry streets, and Father McCallum climbed off and rushed home. He rented the top floor of a traditional Georgian colonial home, and shared the kitchen with his landlords, a retired couple in their late sixties. Like Father McCallum, they were quiet and kept to themselves much of the time. The three had grown to be friends.

  The priest hurried to the back entrance of the house. He was about to do something he’d been rehearsing in his mind for more than twenty years.

  He went in and started up the stairs. At the top were three rooms: a small living room, a bathroom, and a modest bedroom. The priest entered the bedroom and went directly to the wooden blanket box at the foot of the bed, then unlatched and opened the lid. He lifted out stacks of sheets and blankets and set them aside carefully. At the bottom of the chest was a small metal box with a heavy lock. He pulled it out and set it on the bed, then took the key from around his neck, a key he’d worn every day of his twenty-two years in New Haven. Finally he was going to use it. He unlocked the little box and opened the lid.

  Very carefully, Father McCallum pulled an envelope from the box and looked at it in admiration. A large wax seal held the flap of the handmade parchment envelope in place. The seal bore the symbol of the office of the Holy See, one of the most secretive and powerful branches of the Vatican, and the branch that had sent Father McCallum to Yale.

  He vividly remembered sitting in the office of Cardinal Espinosa twenty-two years ago. Father McCallum had memorized every word of his sacred mission. The cardinal held up this very envelope and said: “If anyone ever claims the ability to read the Voynich manuscript, you will break the seal on this envelope and follow the instructions. Do not lose this envelope. Do not contact us unless you are sure that the Voynich manuscript can be deciphered. Many scientists and scholars will come to this book but they will find nothing. The manuscript will be read by someone who cannot be recognized by his or her outward appearance. You will know when it happens. Then you will break the seal on this envelope. Keep this secret until that day comes.”

  The priest slowly broke the wax seal, lifted the flap of the envelope and pulled out a sheet of parchment. He unfolded the weathered piece of paper, his hands trembling, and read:

  Do not lose track of the child but do not contact him directly. Under no circumstances must the child be allowed to see the manuscript again and certainly not to read the manuscript aloud. Do not neglect this instruction.

  Call this number: 390 (66982) 69.88.35.11 immediately for additional instructions.

  The child? How could they have known? Why didn’t they tell me I was waiting for a child for the past twenty years? He knew he could follow the first instruction: he had the name of the school the child attended and would go there after lunch to learn more about the boy and try to find out where he lived. He read the second instruction again, then leaned across his bed and picked up the telephone. He carefully pressed each digit. His hands were shaking.

  The phone rang only once before it was answered.

  A female voice said, “Please hold.”

  Father McCallum started to speak but realized the woman was gone.

  He waited for about five minutes, imagining a series of phone calls and a flurry of activity at the Vatican. The Voynich manuscript must be important if the Holy Church had kept one line, one phone number, dedicated to his call. He tried to calculate what time it would be in Rome. He thought the Vatican was six hours ahead of Connecticut, so it must be around dinnertime there.

  And then the phone clicked and a voice said, “Yes?” It was a voice well worn with time and betrayed a heavy European accent Father McCallum couldn’t quite place.

  “This is Father McCallum. I have been instructed to phone this number.”

  “Yes, yes, I am well aware. Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can anyone hear our conversation?”

  “Not on this end.”

  “Good, good,” the voice murmured. “Now tell me who read the manuscript.”

  “It was a six-year-old boy.”

  “Yes.”

  Father McCallum expected another question but none came so he continued, “The boy is autistic and a teacher told me that he has never spoken, but he spoke to me.”

  “What did the boy say?”

  “He said the manuscript was written in the language of the forsaken.”

  “The forsaken?” the voice asked.

  Was it the cardinal? Father McCallum strained to place the accent. “The boy said the forsaken were half angel, half human.”

  There was a silence. Then: “Tell me, did he read any part of the manuscript to you?” The voice was suddenly sharp.

  The priest felt sure it was Cardinal Espinosa. “No,” he answered. “I asked the boy to read it but we were interrupted.”

  “Do not allow the boy to read the manuscript,” the cardinal said roughly.

  Father McCallum felt uncomfortable. “Yes, of course,” he said.

  In a more relaxed tone, the cardinal said, “Fine. That is good. And you have told no one but came immediately to this task — to call me?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you know how to find this boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. Do not contact this boy directly. Continue to be aware of him and how to find him. I am sending someone to investigate further. When he arrives you will apprise him of the situation and then wait for further instruction from my office.”

  Father McCallum was taken aback. “You’re sending someone?”

  There was no reply, and he realized the cardinal had hung up the phone.

  He felt let down. He would probably not participate in the investigation of the boy. He was only a watchdog, and now, at the most important moment, someone else would take over, and he, loyal Father McCallum, would end up at a desk job somewhere. He had always hoped solving the mystery of the Voynich manuscript would be life-altering, and that afterward he wouldn’t mind leaving his post at the Beinecke Rare Book Collection.

  Instead he felt a cold chill. It is all for the service of the church, he reminded himself, rubbing his hands together. He had more work to do: he needed to find out about the boy. Where the school was and where the boy lived. When the Vatican representative arrived, Father McCallum would demonstrate his usefulness.

  VI

  Father Benicio Valori’s height made him stand out among the diminutive natives of Cambodia. At just over six feet, he was taller than almost everyone in the tiny village. That wasn’t good — his mission was supposed to be discreet.

  He stretched and yawned. He was almost forty, but still in reasonably good shape, almost as good as when he’d been in grad school a decade earlier. Benicio remembered defending his dissertation to earn his doctorate in clinical psychology, and he remembered the day he sat in his grad-student office and opened the letter containing an engraved invitation and a first-class ticket to Rome. His Columbia degree had turned into a position in the priesthood under the investigative branch of th
e Holy See.

  And now he was in the back of a hut in Prasat, one of the poorest districts in Cambodia and just east of Phnom Penh, the capital city. He shook his head.

  Benicio glanced down. He was wearing nondescript clothes purchased locally: itchy but relatively cool Khmer black shirt and baggy trousers. The heat was oppressive, and his days consisted of a never-ending search for a slightly cooler spot, a bit of shade, a cool drink. The people of Prasat also had to contend with hunger, disease, and roving gangs. The slum was a short distance but a far cry from the capital city. Phnom Penh was rapidly developing into a modern city, with industry and tourism. Not long ago Cambodia would have been completely written off anyone’s list of vacation spots, but the city’s image was changing as the nation opened up to the world.

  Unfortunately, being open to the world brought its share of problems. Benicio rubbed a rough hand through his dark hair as he sat in the back of the ramshackle, dirt-floored hut. The family who owned the hut knew he was a representative of the church. He had tried to explain his reason for coming to their village but he wasn’t sure they understood.

  The people in the village were outcasts, discarded by a city that had no use for them. They were easy prey for hucksters and thieves. Recently a gang had started selling religious relics in the village, promising the relics conveyed special godly passage away from Prasat.

  Benicio knew religious relics were not inherently bad. But he also knew the power of the relic often came from the mythology associated with it.

  He had read about relics attributed with miraculous powers. The power to heal disease. The power to free a dead person from purgatory. The power to change a person’s destiny. A relic with such incredible powers would be of astronomical value. In the Middle Ages, the church sold licenses so individuals could sell relics to the masses. The church made a lot of money, but Benicio thought the practice was a fraudulent, moneymaking proposition and nothing else.