Eric McCormack - Cloud

No, I’d done the right thing sending the book to Soulis. If by some miracle Macbane could have foreseen that over a century later a copy of The Obsidian Cloud would be found a world away from the Uplands in the Bookstore de Mexico, he certainly wouldn’t have wanted the finder to keep it all to himself. His dying words clearly show that. He’d have hoped his book would become known to others, not kept hidden in a vault like some rare painting for a private collector’s unique viewing pleasure.

He’d have applauded my decision to bring it to the attention of a man like Soulis, and maybe through him to a wider audience than he’d found in his life.

Anyway, one thing would always be mine alone: the experience of discovering The Obsidian Cloud . When I opened that old quarto for the first time and saw there on the title page the word “Duncairn,” I could almost have believed the book had been waiting for me, had somehow chosen me — a man with his own private mystery in Duncairn — to bring its mysteries to light.

Of course, I’m aware that the very idea of a book having such powers is just romantic nonsense. Yet even to this day, thinking about that moment causes the little hairs on the back of my neck to rise, just as they once did in the oddly named Bookstore de Mexico in the sweltering heat of La Verdad.

Everything might have ended, as endings go, on that relatively pleasing note.

I say “relatively,” for though my curiosity about the mystery of The Obsidian Cloud had been satisfied, along with it came the awful news of how Macbane had died. Likewise, though I now understood Miriam’s reason for having rejected me, I’d always regret having missed so many years of my new-found daughter’s life.

Ah well. I consoled myself with the thought that, outside of romantic fiction, completely happy endings are scarce, no matter how much one might wish for them.

I’d no idea something disturbing was still in store for me.

A YEAR PASSED before Sarah and her fiancé were finally able to come over to Canada to meet Frank. They had such busy work schedules that they could arrange to be away for only five days in July. They stayed at the Walner for the duration of their visit. Frank and I were able to show them the sights of Camberloo and the surrounding countryside at its summer best, and take them to several of our favourite restaurants. And we talked, talked, talked.

I’d dearly hoped Sarah and Frank would hit it off, though I’d been a little uneasy. After all, who knows how people will get along? Even our own minds can be quite a mystery to us, so I certainly couldn’t take it for granted that two siblings who’d never met — never even known about each other’s existence— would instantly find in the other some quality they were drawn to. On the other hand, surely it wasn’t quite as improbable as, for instance, the appearance of a huge black mirror hovering over the Uplands sky.

As it turned out, my worries were needless. They did get along tremendously well together right from the start. I think they were both determined to like each other. She seemed to find everything about him quite charming, especially after a visit to the Emporium, which she obviously thought revealed a lot about him. Probably because of her profession, she wasn’t at all shy about asking him the kinds of questions I’d never have dreamt of asking. For example, what did he think was the driving force behind his mania for collecting? Was he some kind of weird historical adventurer who needed, for some reason, to make physical contact with the past through these outlandish artifacts? And so on.

Frank answered that he just enjoyed building around himself a private world that interested him. Wasn’t that what everyone did in their own way? Mightn’t it be spoiled by overanalyzing the motivations behind it?

They both laughed. I could see that Frank already had complete faith in her. Like me, he enjoyed her earnestness, her aura of being in command of herself, though not in any forbidding way. Quite unconsciously, she took on the big sisterly role and he loved her for it, as though it was something he’d always needed.

Not only was I happy at that, but there was a spinoff for me, too. Sarah was obviously very fond of me because she’d found her real father. And that rubbed off noticeably on Frank. It was one of those incremental things. Seeing me through the eyes of someone he liked, who liked me, seemed to make him like me all the more, too.

As for Sarah’s fiancé, he made a good impression on us. He was a tall, quiet man, a lawyer from Edinburgh, with a dry sense of humour. At one point, for instance, I was updating Sarah on the curator’s latest discoveries about The Obsidian Cloud . Her fiancé was especially interested in the legal aspects of the trial of Macbane’s wife. When I got to the part about the Chief Justice’s regret over the abolition of gibbeting, he nodded his head.

“Even today in Edinburgh, a public gibbeting would be guaranteed to draw a big crowd,” he said.

We all laughed at that. If Sarah had needed our approval of him, she could see she had it.

OVER THE WEEKEND, Dupont’s name came up several times in our conversations.

Sarah remembered I’d mentioned him at Eildon House and asked more about his work. I was evasive — I wouldn’t like to say too much about it, for it was top secret. Of course, I would have invited him to meet her, but there was no way of contacting him. I’d tried the phone directory but was told that, if such an institute existed, its number must be unlisted.

From the way she looked at me, I’m not sure she was convinced by that excuse. But she left it at that, saying only that she was sorry Dupont didn’t live nearer Camberloo — she’d have loved to talk to him. I amused myself thinking of the two of them engrossed in their own private debate on which would be the better way of modifying a damaged psyche — talk therapy, or an ice pick through the forehead? Sarah would assume that my old friend’s passionate advocacy of the surgical route must only be for the sake of argument.

The truth was, I was glad I hadn’t made any attempt to invite Dupont. With her astuteness, she might have got him talking about Griffin, and even about my own involvement with her, too.

JUST LAST NIGHT, this all-too-brief visit by Sarah and her fiancé came to an end. Frank drove us all to the airport. Before they left us at the security check, Sarah invited us to come to Edinburgh for their wedding, in the fall. We said we’d be delighted. In the meantime, we’d all miss one another.

From the airport, Frank dropped me off home around midnight. He then headed for his own apartment beside the park.

The disturbing thing I mentioned was about to happen.

I SAT ON THE DECK for a half hour with a glass of scotch to help me relax, enjoying the warm summer night and the sky full of stars. When I eventually got to bed, I left the bedside lamp on, for I thought I might glance through the latest issue of Pumps International for a while. It was on the nightstand, lying on top of Soulis’s letter, which I’d gone over so many times since the day it arrived I almost had the pages by heart.

I soon gave up trying to read my Pumps International —I just couldn’t concentrate on it. My mind was still full of Sarah’s visit and the fact that she’d got along so well with Frank. I also wondered if I’d tried hard enough to locate Dupont. And that got me to thinking, once more, about the Griffin episode and the frightening words he’d used when he realized she’d shared my bed that night at Institute 77. “She was the most dangerous lover you’ve ever had,” he’d said. I’d congratulated myself on surviving whatever menace he believed her capable of.