The Book Chapter 45

The room around Alice was silent. The air mauled her with unseen hands, pressing against her like the weight of history curling at the edges of her consciousness. The book sat open, but there were no shifting pages or mocking flutter of ink rearranging before her eyes. It waited.

She hovered over the edge of the cover, barely grazing the leather. It was warm. Not in the way paper should be, but warm with something deep, a living thing—flesh. The texture beneath her hands had changed; the leather was softer. It didn’t feel as old, and something about it felt disturbingly human. Feminine.

She yanked her hand away.

Mick gripped the arms of the chair. He locked his gaze on the book, his expression unreadable, but his jaw was clenched tight. Alice had never seen him like this. He reminded her of a gladiator.

‘Too late if this is a mistake,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it. It’s leading us where it wants and playing with us. So let’s take control and end this once and for all.’

Alice’s voice came out in a whisper. ‘I agree.’

She opened the cover of the book.

Game on: Turn another page. I dare you…

Words lingered in her mind, twisting and sinking their barbed hooks into her thoughts. Tristan is waiting. Who was Tristan?

He could be another victim, somebody else in the same mess. Tristan, another fool. Or something worse? Somebody in the book with her?

The room felt too small, the walls claustrophobic in their closeness, and what had always been cosy suffocated her. The silence bit against her ears until all she could hear was her heartbeat and the rustle of pages turning. They watched it select the page it wanted.

A game.

One final game.

Alice swallowed hard. ‘What are the rules?’

The book’s pages fluttered like wings, with ink shifting and reforming, alive beneath the surface. Alice and Mick held hands, waiting. They’d played its games before—but never like this.

Three tasks.

The book murmured the words in Alice’s head, while at the same time they, appeared across the page in fresh ink. Complete them, and you may destroy me. Fail and you are mine.

Alice looked at Mick and nodded. They’d talked it through every which way and were resolute. Do or die. ‘How do we know you’ll keep your word?’ Mick asked.

The ink bled across the page, forming a single sentence: You don’t.

Mick cursed under his breath.

 Insult my integrity again and I won’t bother keeping my word at all.

Alice traced the words with her eyes. They had no choice but to trust it.

But the book was never straightforward. The rules would be written in riddles and layered in manipulation. With a labyrinth of tricks designed to ensnare them, they had to watch out for landmines. But they had no choice.

The first task.

The words vanished. New ones replaced them, spreading like poisonous vines across the parchment:

Tristan walks forgotten,

where the dead men wait.

His pieces and hers, forever tied.

Return what was stolen, or seal your fate.

Alice’s mouth dried and she had trouble swallowing.

In a sleepy village made of glass,

Closer than the Cornish Mark.

The raven knows what needs to be.

But no nameplate made of brass.

 ‘Tristan,’ she said. Her fingers ghosted over Mick’s chest, where the name had been carved into his skin.

‘Who is he?’ Mick asked. ‘And what the hell was stolen?’

The book didn’t answer.

‘Let me try something,’ Mick said, pulling out his phone. ‘Hey, Google, who is Tristan?’

‘Well, what do you know? This looks promising.’ He moved the screen to show Alice.

Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century.

‘St Eustace Priory dates from the twelfth century, too. It can’t be a coincidence. This must be it,’ Alice said. Excitement tinged her voice, and she squeezed Mick’s hand.

What else can you find out about it?

Alice was already searching on the laptop. Her eyes flicked across the screen as she read, ‘Okay, so the abridged version. In the legend, Tristan is a noble knight, and he’s sent to Ireland to bring back Isolde, who’s marrying the king. King Mark.’

‘Of England? I didn’t know there was a King Mark.’

‘Nor me, I’ve never heard of him. He can’t have been up to much. So on the way back Tristan and Isolde accidentally drink a love potion intended for her and the king on their wedding night.’

‘Careless,’ Mick said.

‘They fall in love and have a secret affair continuing after the marriage. This is where it gets weird. Tristan marries another woman, also called Isolde. Go figure. This one’s Isolde of the white hands.’

‘Clever dude, only one name to remember. Though I wouldn’t think hands were the most important thing to differentiate between two partners.’

‘Quite. Anyway, Tristan is wounded in battle and calls for Isolde number one, who’s the only one who can save him. Jealous old hag, Isolde number two—’

‘With white hands,’ Mick said.

‘My sympathies lie with her. Well, she says Isolde number one won’t come, and  Tristan dies of his injuries just as the golden girl—who doesn’t have white hands—arrives. He pops off, and she dies of a broken heart beside him,’ Alice said.

‘All very tragic, but I don’t see what it’s got to do with anything.’

‘Forewarned is forearmed. Let’s see what else we can find.’

Alice grabbed the old maps from the table. ‘We know Tristan is connected to Isolde—he mattered to her. But where the dead men wait? That could be anywhere.’

‘A cemetery. A battlefield. Catacombs. The priory crypt?’

Alice shook her head. ‘Been there, done that. No, I don’t think it would send us back there. The game has moved forward. I feel it wants us somewhere new.’

She grabbed an old book on medieval folklore, flipping the fragile pages, searching. ‘Look at this.’ She turned the book toward him, pointing at a passage.

Among the forgotten dead, in a sleepy North Country village, there lies a grave with no name. Local legend speaks of a knight who was denied a resting place in hallowed ground. His sin unknown, his soul cursed to wander. He died with the name of his love on his lips.

Mick frowned. ‘A grave with no name and a knight? Could it be Tristan?’

Alice read on. ‘It says he was buried where the lost find no rest. That sounds like an unmarked grave, but there’s more.’ She skimmed on. ‘It says his body was exhumed and taken to a churchyard at Ravenswood. It was meant to be reburied, but records claim the bones vanished before they reached the consecrated ground.’

Mick’s eyes darkened. ‘Where’s Ravenswood.’

‘According to this, it’s where Tristan’s story took place. But this King Mark dude was based in Cornwall.’

‘Oh, Christ, no. Now it’s really taking the piss. First London, now Cornwall. Has it seen the price of diesel?’

‘Wait, though. Tristan was a travelling knight doing the king’s deeds far and wide. It says here, he travelled three weeks to the North where the weather was inhospitable and the people were primitive and bore a strange dialect. Rude.’

‘I don’t know of any Ravenswood in Cumbria.’

‘No. But we do have a Ravenglass. The raven knows what needs to be. In a sleepy village made of glass. Remember? And then it says, Closer than the Cornish Mark. It all adds up. It must be  Ravenglass.’

‘Clever. Here we go again. The task says we need to return something. We have to find those bones.’

The first task was sending them to a graveyard in Ravenglass. And something was waiting for them there.

They arrived at Ravenglass Churchyard at dusk, expecting to find graves with no names. The skeletal trees extended their fingers, pointing them towards the overgrown tombs. The place had been abandoned for decades. Stones tilted and crumbled, and vines reclaimed their territory. The dead were swallowed by the earth, and nature had grown wild on their fertiliser.

A chilling wind slithered between the tombstones. Something was wrong. Alice shuddered. ‘It’s too quiet.’

Mick pointed to the farthest row of graves, where a single, uneven marker jutted from the earth. ‘That’s the one.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Look closer.’

Alice couldn’t believe her eyes. The way the branches of the overhead trees met made them cast the shadow of a perfect raven onto the ancient marker.

‘The bastard’s getting artsy,’ Mick said.

The stone was eroded beyond recognition, whatever name it did have was erased by time. But recently, somebody had disturbed the soil.

Mick bent down and let some of it fall through his fingers. ‘It’s been dug up. Recently.’

Alice’s stomach churned. ‘If the bones have already been stolen, how can we return them? And are you really prepared to sign up for grave robbing?’

‘Well, my beautiful Burke, the way I see it, we don’t have much choice.’

‘All right. I only asked.’

‘No. I wasn’t calling you a berk. Hare and Burke, the infamous grave robbers.’

‘Isn’t it illegal?’

‘Probably, but we have to see this through. Whatever it takes.’  

The book pulsed under her arm. She opened it and watched as ink twisted across the page.

Dig.

Mick swore. ‘You bloody dig. You have got to be kidding.’

Alice didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a rusted spade leaning against the fence—too convenient not to have been left for them—and drove it into the damp earth.

The first scoop was hilarious. Despite their tension, Mick laughed at her as she struggled and he took the spade off her. The soil was fine and not compacted. He made short work of it but there was nothing there. ‘A grave shouldn’t be this deep,’ he said.

They felt the earth shift under them, and Alice stumbled backwards as the ground collapsed inward, revealing a yawning hole of darkness. Mick dropped the spade and steadied her. ‘Are you all right?’ She’d almost fallen into the chasm, and it left them shaken.

It was the book’s turn to laugh. No. They aren’t in here. Fooled you. A whisper rose from the hole, curling around them like breath against skin. Return him.

Alice gripped Mick’s arm. ‘Stop being a pussy. We need to find those bones.’

Mick turned in a circle, scanning the graveyard. Seconds later, he screamed. His body lurched, and he wrenched the clothes from his chest as it burned. He lifted his shirt, and the letters spelling Tristan flared white-hot and rose like welts on his skin. He staggered, gasping. Something unseen was pulling him.

Alice grabbed him, holding him upright. ‘Mick. Talk to me.’

His eyes were wild with pain as he clutched his chest. ‘It’s here. The bones are close. I can feel it.’

Alice caught up. The attack on him hadn’t been a random gesture. The book had marked him for a reason. The answer was inside him. ‘Mick, focus. Where are they?’

His eyes snapped to a mausoleum at the edge of the graveyard. ‘There. That one.’ Alice hauled him forward and a wind struck up, howling around them as they reached the stone crypt. The doors were rusted shut, and it had thick vines across the entrance. But the book hummed in her grip, and with a touch, the doors creaked open.

The air inside was damp. Shelves lined the walls, some filled with ancient, rotted coffins, others empty and gaping.

From the dirt in the centre, a skeletal hand protruded from the floor.

Mick inhaled. ‘Tristan.’

Alice’s knees buckled. ‘We found him.’

The book’s pages shifted, revealing the final instruction:

Place him where he belongs.

‘I knew it. I bloody knew it would send us to Cornwall,’ Mick said.

‘I don’t think so. I think the deep tomb is his.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘The raven guided us there. And anyway, I just feel it,’ Alice said.

‘I hope you’re right.’

Alice gagged, and Mick wiped his hands on his jeans often as they gathered the bones. Tristan had come apart at the seams, and they had no idea if they had all of him. But they’d found the essentials. Then they argued about whether it was respectful to transport him in an old wheelbarrow they found. ‘Just hurry up, will you?’ Mick hissed. ‘If somebody comes, we’ll both be sent to prison.’

The moment Tristan’s remains were returned to the grave, the earth stilled. The howling wind stopped. The air seemed lighter as if something had exhaled after centuries of being gagged.

The book snapped shut.

The first task was complete.

And somewhere in the depths of its pages, Alice knew ink writhed and twisted, forming the next command.

Two more to go.

 

The Book. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F2J7QYCQ