Dan Poblocki - The Stone Child

P B Z D Y F R H V J W L U

A Q C O E T G S I X K N M

Maggie was right. There were twenty-six letters. She sounded as excited as Eddie felt, when she added, “What else do you know that has twenty-six letters?”

Harris nearly toppled over in his chair. “No way!” he said.

Before Eddie was able to yelp too, Maggie reached out and turned over the piece of paper on the table. At the top, she had drawn out the answer for them to see.

“A is below P ,” she explained. “B is above Q. C is below Z. And so on. Simple, really. Each letter has an opposite. In the text, he just switched their places. That’s his key.”

“Did you try it on the code?” said Harris. “Does it work?”

Nodding her head, Maggie pushed the paper toward him. “He broke the words up into groups of three letters. And he doesn’t use any punctuation. It’s hard to read, but I think he was trying to make it more difficult to find a pattern.” She handed him a pen. “See for yourself,” she said.

Harris laid The Enigmatic Manuscript open and used Maggie’s code key as a reference as he started to translate the first few sentences. Eddie drummed on the table as Harris wrote. When Harris gave him a dirty look, Eddie folded his hands in his lap.

Finally, Harris laid down his pen and picked up the paper. It trembled in his hands. He cleared his throat and slowly worked through what he’d written. “‘I have made an enormous mistake.’”

Wide-eyed, Harris glanced up at them before continuing. “‘The creatures have come through the door, Gatesweed is on the verge of catastrophe, and I realize now that it is my fault. The Woman in Black will haunt me until I use the pendant to open the gate for her too, but I can’t. I won’t. I’ve seen what she can do. Instead, I must stop her. I fear I may fail, but I have no choice. And so I must write my own story.’”

Harris dropped the paper, his mouth open in shock. “Holy cow,” he said quietly, staring at the paper. “‘The creatures have come through the door’? ‘Gatesweed is on the verge of catastrophe’? And it was Nathaniel’s fault?”

“But… what does it mean?” said Maggie.

“It means you were right, Maggie,” Eddie whispered. “You’re a genius. That was the secret. The key was right here. In The Wish of the Woman in Black.”

“We’ve got some answers now, which is amazing, but we also have more questions,” said Harris. He glanced at the paper in his hand and read through it several more times to himself. When he was done, he looked up. “Where is this gate he’s talking about? And what is this pendant-thingy? And what does writing his own story have to do with anything?”

“And what about the key itself?” said Eddie. “Why would Nathaniel Olmstead have written the code key in this book and then buried it in his basement?”

“He obviously didn’t want anyone to find it,” Maggie said.

“I have a question about the code too,” said Harris. “What about the symbol on the first page, the one that’s carved onto the statue in the woods? Pi is part of the Greek alphabet, not ours.”

Maggie shook her head. “That’s not pi,” she said, pointing at the first page of The Enigmatic Manuscript. “I think it’s Hebrew.”

“Hebrew?” said Harris. “Do you know what it says?” “It doesn’t say anything,” said Maggie. “It’s only a letter called Chet.”

“Chet?” Eddie repeated. “Why do you think it’s carved onto the statue?”

Maggie shook her head.

Harris thought to himself for a moment before turning to Eddie. “Where did you say your parents found this book?”

“The Black Hood Antiques Fair-a few months ago, I think,” said Eddie. “North of the mountains?”

“I wonder how it got up there?” said Harris. “I mean, doesn’t it seem like Nathaniel Olmstead would have wanted to keep this book down in the basement with all the other ones he wrote by hand?”

“Only one way to find out, I suppose,” said Maggie, pushing the pen and paper toward Harris. “Better hurry, before someone discovers we’re missing.”

“Here,” said Eddie, pulling out a spiral notebook. “We’ll all work at the same time.” He laid The Enigmatic Manuscript on the table so each of them could see it.

They worked for the next two periods. Whenever they heard someone approach, they scattered, hiding in separate aisles of books. Returning to the table, each of them continued to translate a part of the page. When they were done, together, they would read their parts aloud, before going on to the next page. In this manner, they slowly but surely began to piece the story together.

At first, the book was filled with fairly standard autobiographical information. It was interesting, but as he continued to read, Eddie wasn’t sure why Nathaniel felt the need to write his life story in code. Nothing about his reading ghost stories late into the night seemed all that scandalous.

Then Eddie learned something about Nathaniel Olmstead he didn’t already know.

From early on, Nathaniel didn’t think he had enough talent to be a writer. He never thought his ideas were any good. Saving his allowance each week, he sought inspiration at second-run monster movies in his hometown of Coven’s Corner, but afterward, when he went home and took out his notebook, all he could imagine was what he’d seen that afternoon. Nearing high school, he became interested in the ancient mythologies, old cultures, and world histories upon which many of the stories he read or watched were actually based. These interests led him to a degree in English and a minor in history from New Starkham College. After graduation, he spent a year traveling the world. He saw pyramids in Egypt, castles in Ireland, canals in Venice, Aztec ruins in Mexico, glaciers in Alaska, and volcanoes in Hawaii. He thought these sights might inspire him to write-but for some reason, his ideas never solidified into anything more than a glorified diary.

As Maggie began to read her section aloud, Eddie stared at the wavy pattern of the wood grain on the surface of the library table. Listening to the hypnotic sound of her voice, he imagined Nathaniel’s story in his head. After a moment, he felt like he was actually there with him.

Finally, my journey brought me to the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. I stayed with a college friend who was doing research at the university in Bucharest. One day, while seeking a particular antiques shop specializing in vampire protection artifacts, I wandered down an alley and became lost. After walking the labyrinthine byways for nearly an hour, I came upon an old woman selling trinkets out of the doorway behind her house. On a crate, she had set up a small display of what looked like homemade jewelry. I didn’t speak her language, but I understood that she wanted me to buy something. I had budgeted only enough for my exploration of the absent vampire antiques shop, so I tried to refuse her hustle, but she was insistent that I inspect one artifact in particular. She grabbed my hand, pressing a piece of metal into my palm. Attached to a sparkling chain, it was long and silver, about six inches in length, featherlight, and perpetually cold to the touch. Its body was flat and wavy like a wriggling snake. One end was wide and straight like a spoon or small shovel. The other end came to a sharp point like a pen.

I had no idea what it was, but as soon as I held it, I felt I needed to own it. I took out my wallet, but she pushed my money away, shaking her head. She said something to me that I couldn’t understand, then turned around and walked through her darkened doorway, leaving me alone in the alley.