Who will be remembered when the fires grow cold, embers smoldering, and the chill wind rakes the forsaken mountains to sweep down into the scorched valleys? Who will be remembered when man comes to his final winter to watch the snow fall one last time beneath the nuclear clouds of a scourged and cursed world?

  A boy dies. A young lady cries. It’s a tale as old as any ubi sunt motif. Perhaps older; did the young lady cry while primordial man was still howling in the treetops, before he had climbed down and crafted spear and language? Did she cry when her ape brother gasped his last breath, his throat clamped tight in the jaws of the psychic dragons: the jungle cats, the tropic serpents, timber wolves, and hinterland eagles?

  Who can say? Who remembers?

  Emotions are ancient, fickle things. That’s all I know.

  She’s told me her friend, a young man named Barry, has died. I’ve chosen to believe her as much as she believes herself, but still, I have to wonder: where’s the body?

  I wait to doubt.

  Joe makes the sign of the cross, leans forward, and whispers: “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…”

  He goes on petitioning the mother of his god.

  I wonder: what comfort is there in asking a dead woman to pray for you? I’ll never understand. She’s not dead to him, though. She’s alive. She’s real. She cares.

  If faith in ghosts helps make Joe the man he ought to be, who am I to judge? If there’s power in it, I guess it’s as real as anything else.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Clara,” I say. “You must really be hurting.”

  “I don’t know,” she says, wiping her eyes with the green sleeves of her housecoat. “I wasn’t. I didn’t even realize until just now. He’s … gone.” Tears drip down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Detective.”

  “No. Don’t apologize.”

  “I wish I could hold it together,” she says with a sniffle. “I wish you didn’t have to see me like this.”

  “I wish I never had to see anyone like this, but life’s not as simple as baseball and apple pie. The world isn’t perfect, and unfortunately, neither is our country. Not yet, at least.”

  Clara sniffles. She takes a deep breath and composes herself.

  She’s strong. Good for her. I’m really rooting for you, Clara.

  “So,” I say as I scribble a few notes, “Do you still want to talk?”

  “Yes. I’ll tell you everything I can.”

  “I admire that.”

  “Thank you, I suppose.”

  “Not everyone,” says Joe, raising his head from his prayer, “is so brave as to face the Hell of their tragedies through the tempest of memory. You make peace of it all when you do that, though. Stand strong in the storm, and soon it calms.”

  I know enough about Joe to recognize that’s wisdom earned, not given. He didn’t read that in a book. He didn’t hear it from a priest. He lived it, and for him to say something with such pomp and poetry: he’s lived it many times over many years. Joseph Sullivan McCoy is the kind of man who walked out of a legend and into the mortal world.

  “He invited you to the cabin, Barry, this friend from church?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was his last name?”

  “Jones. Barry Jones. We grew up together. We were close friends.”

  “Do you have his address?”

  “I have his mother’s address. She lives in Marisburg. 132 Fox Hollow Rd.”

  “Thank you. That’ll make our job a lot easier,” I say as I jot down the address. “What did he tell you the plans were for the evening?”

  “He said that he and some other friends from church were getting together to study some scripture and mystic texts.”

  “The Bible?” I ask.

  “We read the Bible sometimes.”

  Joe’s face is as stoic as a rock, but I can tell he’s biting his tongue, and I imagine he’s biting hard enough to make it bleed.

  “The Bible is a good and holy book, but the New Faith Unitarian Church isn’t limited by one text. Why would God limit Himself like that? We’re open to anything spiritual.”

  Joe clears his throat.

  I look at him.

  He stares back at me.

  “Did you think of something to ask?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Hm? No. No. Go on. Just clearing my throat. Christ be praised.”

  It makes sense to me, on some level: why limit your game of make-believe? Why not use everything out there?

  “What kind of mystic texts?” I ask.

  “Barry said Steven had something called The Hermetic Key: Secrets of Grimaldius Magosmegistus.” She’s looking away at nothing in particular. “Funny. That’s such a strange name for a book, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. The horrible thing is there when I close my eyes.”

  “What does the book look like?” My stomach sinks faster than a rock tossed in a pond. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My whole body tenses with the instinctive urge to fight. Or maybe run.

  Suppressing the anxiety, I white knuckle a calm composure. This fear over a book: it’s irrational, I remind myself. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it’s not real.

  “It was brown,” says Clara after a moment. Or, maybe an eternity. I struggle to tell the difference. “It had this awful leather cover that I couldn’t help but think was made of human skin.”

  “Have you told anyone else about this?”

  “I told the police, but … I don’t think they took me seriously. I don’t think they really believed anything I told them. I don’t even know what they were writing in that report.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Of course you’d say that. You want me to talk.”

  “No. I believe you because I have the book.”

  “What?” Her jaw drops slowly. She looks directly at me, and her eyes light up for the first time.

  “I found it at the cabin.”

  “I was beginning to think I’d imagined the whole thing, that I really had gone insane.” She compresses like she’s biting them both at once to stifle a sob. She closes her eyes and leans her head back to hide her tears. It doesn’t work.

  She lowers her head, rubbing her eyes and face as if she’s trying to wipe away the weariness and psychic damage underneath.

  “Do you know where the book came from?” I ask.

  She draws a deep breath.

  “Barry said Steven had been able to borrow it from … I don’t know, some secret order or something. I didn’t really care. I was only there because Barry begged me to come.”

  “Okay. So, you went to the cabin expecting to read some books and talk about religion and spirituality. Is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is there anything else you expected?”

  “They did make it sound like a party, but I didn’t expect … all of that!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The alcohol, the drugs, and the rest of the debauchery. I should have left immediately. Some girl, I didn’t know her, even ended up taking her clothes off in front of everyone. Oh! It was so trashy! So wretched and awful. I was so stupid to go, and it was so much stupider to stay.”

  “Mistakes are part of life.”

  “I mean, I should have known they might have drugs there. Barry’s friends like to use those sorts of things. They always talk about how they get closer to the spiritual world when they do them.”

  “You don’t use them.”

  “No. Not … normally.”

  “You did that night?”

  “I felt like I had to, especially after the other girls left without me.” She shifts in her seat and clenches her jaw. Looking down at the table with a mix of shame and anger in her eyes, she continues, “What was I supposed to do? No one left there had a car… I should have just started walking sooner. Then, I could have avoided all this trouble. I’m so stupid!”

  “You sound regretful.”

  She covers her mouth and looks out a window, blinking back tears.

  “Yes,” she chokes out. “I am.”

  “Is that because you care so much?” I ask, trying to help her find the confidence she needs to push through this. “You sound deeply compassionate to me.”

  “Do I?” she asks, wiping tears from her eyes.

  “I think so. Do you?”

  “I don’t think a compassionate person would have forgotten her childhood friend died right in front of her.”

  “You didn’t forget. You blocked it out. That’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “You cared so much, it hurt you deeply. Traumatically. Your mind hides things that are too traumatic. It’s a sign you care. Intensely.”

  She’s quiet. I let her think about that for a while. She keeps looking out the window at nothing in particular with a heartbreak stare as the tempest of her emotions churns the sea of her mind.

  “We all make mistakes, Clara,” I say, finally breaking the silence. “What’s done is done. What will you do next?”

  “I don’t know if I believe you, Detective.”

  This time, I keep my mouth shut and let the silence simmer.

  “I can’t…” she says with a struggling voice. “I can’t think of anything much worse than what happened.”

  She goes quiet again. We sit in silence with her while she struggles to find the words she’s looking for in the wreckage of her mind’s shambles.

  “How can there be a God?”

  Good question. How can there be a God? Maybe you’ll come out the other side of this a little wiser, kid. I can only hope. Get rid of all this make-believe. We’ll all be better for it. I can’t tell her that, though. She has to figure it out for herself.

  “I don’t know, Clara. Life isn’t simple. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “I feel like everything I was raised to believe was shattered in one night.”

  A house of cards falls in the slightest breeze.

  “That’s a hard road to travel. Maybe the hardest.”

  “How can there be a God if there are such terrible things waiting to answer our petitions for truth and love?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Destroy that book, Detective.”

  “What?”

  “You have to destroy it. I don’t know how real what happened was, but I know it was horrible. I know I never want anyone else to go through that. Divine love? Truth? It’s all lies. All of it.” Contempt soaks her face.

  “Keep looking for the truth, Clara. That’s the best we can do. That’s what I have to do. Can you keep helping me? Can you paint me a picture of what happened?”

  “I … can try to remember,” she says, shaking her head, “but it’s all so horrible, and you won’t believe me.”

  “I’ll listen, and I’ll take whatever you say seriously.”

  “I guess that’s the most I can expect. If someone told me what I’m about to tell you, I wouldn’t believe them at all. I’d walk away. I’d laugh. I’d say they were crazy. I’d take them to a mental hospital. How can I expect anyone not to have done the same to me?”

  “Give me a chance not to.”

  “Okay… I’ll try.”

  “You got to the party. Things were wilder than you expected. Your ride left without you. What happened next?”