The Book (34 page)

“Thanks.”

They walked further into the cellar and found a tall man dressed all in black sitting at the desk, reading a book where the letters of the title on the cover were arranged on shelves, leaning and crooked, like a series of books. Holden read the title quickly before the man noticed them. It was called
If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller
by someone named Calvino. Holden was amazed at how long it took for the man dressed in black to turn and notice them. He had been so gentle with each page and so engulfed in the writing that when he finally saw them standing nearby, he hastily closed the book and stumbled over his words.

“Sorry, Marion. I’ll…give you some privacy.”

The man rose, ducked under the pipes along the vaulted cellar ceiling and walked to the stairs. Marion didn’t respond as he left. She allowed him to believe that she had brought a newcomer, possibly an Unfortunate, downstairs for their usual eighteen minute ritual. As Holden watched the man’s lengthy legs disappear from view, he nodded in the direction of the desk to ask, without a word, who the self-appointedly formal man had been.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Marion leaned in to whisper, although everyone in the house other than Holden and his new friends had known. “His name is Finch. About a year ago, that guy came to the bar asking me if he could buy the book pages from the walls.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He gave me his name and number and told me to call him when I was willing to sell. I assumed Finch was a collector or something…but apparently he was involved in some black market for books.”

She was right. He couldn’t believe it. “How did you find him again?”

“I didn’t have to. After you vanished, Ephraim and I were talking and he told me that he used the Finch all the time. Sold the stuff he didn’t like right out of the antique store. Even went with him to a few estate sales. Finch was the go-to guy for selling and buying anything that had to do with books.”

“Wow. You trust him down here?”

“Holden, you don’t understand.” Marion broke, clearly arriving at the most exciting part of the story. “Finch isn’t a reader. Never owned a copy of The Book and never bothered to check out the ones he sold for other people. Not even the more expensive editions. That man feels the most guilt out of all of us. He walks around here ashamed all day, as if he invented The Book. He was the one person who could have figured it all out first and saved books that were close to destruction. And he didn’t.” Marion tilted her head to look up at the cellar door, still whispering as if he were there. “But although Finch has never read a word, he knows more about the condition of books and how to protect them than all of us combined. That was his livelihood. He cared about the spine, who the author was, the title on the cover, if there were pages dog-eared, torn or missing, but never the content. He couldn’t care less about the words. He was just concerned with profit. So Ephraim and I reached out and Finch has been here ever since. In fact, he’s the reason our list on the wall is so large. The man’s a gold mine of information. If there’s anyone in this lonely world who would know where to find books, it’s Finch.”

“Marion, that’s so wonderful.”

“No, what’s even more wonderful is this little green log book he brought with. Inside it are all the people he has ever sold to.” She paused, waiting for him to understand the magnitude of it. “A list of people who are looking for books, Holden. People like us. We haven’t even reached out to them, yet. But Winston is like a little kid, he’s so excited.”

“Well, it really seems like you guys have a lot of things going for you. Oh, hey…I could use one of those,” he blurted arbitrarily, reaching into a bowl of fingernail clippers.

“No, don’t. I’ll find you another pair.”

“Marion. Check out these bad boys.” Holden turned his hand around so she could see how badly he needed them. “One of the many comforts that have been unavailable over the past few months.”

She smirked and handed one of the clippers to him. “Flip up the metal handle.”

Holden followed her instructions reluctantly, only to understand the purpose of the bowl when the handle spun gently into the light. Engraved into the shiny, metal lip were the words,
Ex Libris
. The bowl was there for the ceremony of it all. The clippers were a right-of-passage for people who were leaving The Book behind. That was why Holden couldn’t use them. The one he had reached for was meant for someone else. As Marion took Holden by the hand and led him over to the reading nook, he tried to remember where he had seen those words before and what, at all, they had meant. It came to him when he saw the new art piece that was hanging over the high-backed couch in the corner.

For those raised in a sustainable world, it was hard to break the mindset of reduce, reuse and recycle, but the artist had done so without selling out to the man. The elaborate piece was painted in shades of brown and cream on strips of remnant shelving from Winston’s bookcase. Sheathed by a border of painted garland was a man standing in a meadow, gripping a book and holding it triumphantly to the sky. Below him was an open, empty rectangle and guarding the entire image, rising high above the book, were the same two words:

EX LIBRIS

Holden recognized the painting instantly. He had seen that exact image on the day he finally held his favorite book,
The Catcher in the Rye
. In fact, he had been standing in that very spot. The painting was a replica of the bookplate from the inside cover of Winston’s copy. And it was beautiful.

“What does it mean?” Holden asked, studying a piece of art for the first time in his life. In such calm curiosity, he repeated himself. “
Ex Libris.
What does it mean, Marion?”

She turned and kissed his cheek before speaking the words with tears in her eyes. “It’s Latin. It means:
out of the book
.”

“Out of The Book?” he confirmed, hearing the meaning.

“Yeah,” Marion turned and gazed up at the painting once more. Smiling proudly, she added, “Whenever anyone sees this painting…they think that man holding the book is you. Holden, don’t you realize…this is all because of you. We’ve only grown strong because we wanted to make you proud.”

He didn’t know what to say. He had come there ready to lay a harsh reality on them, but the group had grown stronger and they still thought they could win. They believed in what they were doing. They believed in him, of all people. And knowing what he had been preparing to tell them, thinking on it each day as he made his way home, Holden felt a knot of grief engorge his throat.

“I feel so…proud. I just…” he stopped, and gazed up at the victory displayed on the painting before him. He was a statue in oil, immortalized as a hero for something he felt he hadn’t even done. “I just hope you guys feel the same way after you hear what I have to say.”

“Okay,” she hummed, discerning the deep disparity on his face. “What do you want me to do?”

His voice was war-torn and temperate as he laid out a very simple request. “Round people up, Marion. I don’t know how, but get them all into one place. As many as you can.”

“Alright,” she agreed. “But first…you need a bath.”

* * * * *

029-80752

There was a chapel in Wilmette that sat itself within the crooked fingers of several tiny avenues. Most days, it was lonely and empty inside. That afternoon, however, there were nearly fifty people congregating anxiously in expectation of the good news. Among the stillness and between the rows of fugitive readers waiting ardently for their unseen leader to address them, was an unstated atmosphere of sanctity and righteousness that was lost on no one.

At the apse of the small chapel was a sitting room. In the corner of the sitting room sat an ornate wooden chair without a cushion and a table where goblets and other holy paraphernalia were arranged. Holden Clifford had grown accustomed to sitting on the hardened concrete of the world over the past months and he found the cushionless discomfort comforting. He cracked his knuckles and ran a hand over his still-bearded face. It felt good to be clean. Old clothes. Same look. New mind. It also felt good to be alone before giving his proclamation. He didn’t have to be alone; he just thought it was smarter. So many people would be vying for his attention to introduce themselves and tell him what they were reading and why they had moved from South Dakota to join his group. Holden wanted to be there for them, but he needed to think.

The people in that room, the courageous
Ex Libris
, were different than what he had been expecting to come home to. More importantly, they didn’t really know him. Holden needed time to prepare the exact way he would explain everything so they would understand and not think that he had been brainwashed or recycled or was just plain batty. Of course, he
had
shown up at the house all helter-skelter, but Marion made sure that few people saw him before his bath.

While Holden had been changing in Winston’s bedroom, Marion popped in to tell him that the group was thrilled to hear what he had to say and that they would meet down the block at a tiny chapel. One of Winston’s neighbors had reached out to the minister there because they knew the man had strong feelings against The Book. Just like every other church in the world, there were small, inexpensive copies of the digital reading device lining the aisles. Simple, small editions that held only enough space for the Bible. The Holy Book, as it was called, was wrapped in green linen and printed with the seal of a golden cross over a recycling icon that, when placed together, resembled an ancient, Celtic headstone.

The minister, Trent Osgood, was eager to join their cause because he had felt betrayed by the government and the publishers of The Book for almost as long as Winston. It was an outlandish thought, but Trent felt that they were trying to change his faith. Again, with subtlety. They weren’t so bold as to alter the quotations of Jesus or come up with an alternate ending or remove a commandment. The Bible was the one book in the world that they could never erase. No, instead they decided that new books, a collection called the Apocrypha, would be added to the original text. When the Bible was released digitally as The Holy Book, there were twelve letters from completely different authors between the Old Testament and the New. Most of the world believed that they weren’t inspired by God. Most did not adhere to the words within them. But when the Publishing House created the single, uniform edition of The Holy Book, the Apocryphal books were added. Because, as the claim goes, some people believed.

The minister saw the addition of those books as a way for the church (and apparently the government) to enact more control over their flock because they included rules and laws that couldn’t be found in the original books of the Bible. When Trent Osgood arrived to their group, he not only brought a much needed location for them to have large meetings with additional facilities, storage space and more, but he also brought with him a well-cultured wisdom and viewpoint that they hadn’t anticipated.

When Holden walked down the stairs to find his way to the church, he noticed another painting on the wall of Winston’s estate where, within multiple planes of life, were the words:
The Bereans of Bedlam
. It didn’t make much sense at the time, but Marion explained it to him as she walked him to the church.

The first thing the minister had shared with the group upon his arrival was a verse from the Bible – a collection of books that they knew were the most widely read of all time. It didn’t matter what religion each of the
Ex Libris
had been, the words Trent read sang of a belief in the discovery of truth that they forever wanted to uphold. The passage was from the Book of Acts.

The few teenagers of the group began calling themselves
The
Bereans of Bedlam
because the Bereans were the ‘fair-minded’ people from the verse that had taken the time to confirm that what they had been told was the truth. The
Ex Libris
were so fired up about their movement. Each of them were a proclamation of honesty and free speech. And this was the group, with their convictions about fact in the face of fiction, that Holden met at the front of the chapel with the most implausible message.

Clearing his throat, Holden stood from the comfortless chair and stepped into the apse of the chapel. Amid the riotous applause that he attempted to slay with a lower hand, a child said, “That’s him, Mom! I know that’s him!”

Holden approached the pulpit, emaciated and mild, “Please, you guys.” He laughed. “Please, just let me talk. You may not like me very much by the end of this and I just want to make sure that you all have the right outlook on things before I begin.” A murmur of questioning wound through the group, but it was stunted the moment he continued.

“Most of you don’t know me other than by name. I am a pipe fitter. I am an ex-husband. I’m a dad. I am a reader…” At this, applause erupted and he fought to stifle it by raising his hands in peace. Someone shouted
Ex Libris
from the back and the wave of praise only increased. “Please. This is not a time to be joyful. Our children’s children will have that opportunity. Not us. We’re in a war. And if I hear anymore clapping, I’m going to be upset.”

“This all began because I read the writing on the wall and disagreed. Over the course of the past weeks, I’ve learned a lot about The Book from people on the road. And you need to know what I know.” Holden took a breather before stepping up to something he knew would be taken the wrong way. “The technology itself, although it’s corrupted and controlling, is really quite beautiful and when it was created, it was created in love,” Holden witnessed the shift toward uncertainty on their faces and he fought hard to remain steadfast in his telling of the story. “See, our planet was in trouble and we were on the verge of technological breakthroughs every day. People longed for something new and a way to save future generations like ours. All that hard work was warped because of The Book. Most of you don’t even know how it had gotten so centralized. When this all began, there were libraries and used bookstores scattered throughout the world overstocked with decrepit, rotting reminders of our misused resources. And while I would love to have those back right now, at the time it didn’t make sense. I know you don’t want to hear any of this, but when The Book came out, it was a good thing. Actually, let me rephrase that,” he paused, nodding as he found the right words.