Chapter 13: The Council

  At the conclusion of their impromptu meeting in the library’s basement, Amanda, Mae, and Lester had decided it would be Mae’s job to research fate demons.  Utilizing her considerable skills in tracking down the odd and unexplained, she would comb through the damp and dusty archives for anything that might prove helpful.  Meanwhile, Lester and Amanda would leverage their family connections to snoop around for information on The Council.  A task that was proving to be more challenging than Lester had initially imagined.

  The obvious place to start was his father’s home office.  However, this meant Lester needed to wait for a time when he was alone in the house, which he now realized almost never happened.  Mornings were out, as was after school when without his parents around the house became Bernard’s domain.  Usually, this wouldn’t have mattered, but given his brother’s newfound love of responsibility, Lester decided he dared not risk it.  Evenings his father was apt to be home.  And to complicate matters further, his mother’s volunteer schedule meant he was never sure where or when she might turn up.  

  “Mom?” Lester called, stepping through his front door.  “Are you home?”

  He remained still in the entryway and listened.  The only sounds he could hear were the familiar creaking of the old house and the rise and fall of his own slightly accelerated breathing.  His mother’s car wasn’t in the garage, but he needed to be sure.

  Living within walking distance of the school had its advantages.  A forgotten textbook or homework assignment was easily retrieved.  Additionally, like the time Bernard and his crew had boobytrapped Lester’s locker, being able to grab a change of clothes was preferable to spending the rest of the day covered in sour-smelling yellow mustard.  Technically, students were never allowed to leave the school’s grounds without an adult, but Lester could usually get home and back before anyone became aware of his absence.  Today, he’d slipped unnoticed out of the chaos of the cafeteria.

  Hearing nothing from inside, Lester dropped his backpack and closed the door.

  His father’s office was located on the third floor in a sloped ceiling attic room at the back of the house.  Several generations ago, it had functioned as sleeping quarters for a cook, with its own narrow stairway winding down into the kitchen.  This had long ago been sealed off, and the room converted into a small study.

  None of the North children were ever foolish enough to bother their father when he was working.  But even when he wasn’t, Lester had always viewed the cave-like space, with its dark corners and clanging pipes, as a place to be avoided.  This meant, without its alternate entrance, there was no practical reason for anyone to venture near, allowing the room to exist apart from the rest of the house.  So it became a forgotten fold within the walls and hallways for all but Mr. North.

  The antique glass knob turned in Lester’s hand, and he let the door swing open as he reached inside for the light switch.  The bare bulb hanging from the ceiling did little to illuminate the small room.

  While the original footprint of the North’s ancestral home remained unchanged from the time of its construction, there had been many improvements over the years.  Electricity was added once Edison’s power lines finally reached the remote village, and modern insulation, along with airtight windows, now stood against frigid New England winters.  Inside, countless layers of paint bore witness to each generation’s attempt to keep the interior color scheme abreast with the times.  Yet, as Lester looked around the study, he felt confident that the narrow room had changed little since its creation.

  The exposed beams in the ceiling and wide boards that lined the floor were almost black with age.  A small window set into the far wall looked out over the backyard and the rolling pastures beyond.  To its left, several shelves sagged under the weight of dozens of haphazardly stacked books, while an ornate wooden desk filled the corner to the right.  

  Lester thumbed his way along the spines of historical biographies, world atlases, and stacks of outdated copies of the Giles Hollow Mosquito, all collecting dust on the bookcase.  While some of the editions were old enough to possibly be valuable, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t have found in the library.  He checked his watch and moved across the room.

  The top of the desk was neat and clean.  A few pens sat next to a stack of unused yellow notepads, a box of envelopes, and a stapler that looked like it belonged in a museum.  Above these were framed photographs of Lester, Bernard, and one of their mother that must have been taken well before they were born.  It was a warm summer’s day, and she was sitting on the grass next to another young woman Lester didn’t recognize.  Their arms were around each other, and his mother was laughing.   She couldn’t have been more than eighteen.  

  Dropping into his father’s chair, Lester started opening drawers.  The top one contained more office supplies, while the second held files full of old bills, warranty paperwork, and manuals for various household appliances.  None of it was even remotely unusual, and like the rest of the items in the study, appeared to have no obvious connection to The Council.  What if whatever was going on didn’t involve the family business after all?  A possibility that didn’t necessarily make Lester feel any better.

  He was hoping Amanda and Mae were having better luck than he was when he pulled on the third and final drawer, and it didn’t open.  Running his finger over the smooth brass keyhole set into its face, Lester quickly determined that his lock picking skills, being none, would be of no help.  

  He sat back and stared at the desk.  What could be inside?  Pushing off the floor with his foot, he slowly spun the old office chair around, absentmindedly rubbing his chin as it revolved.  It had to be something important enough to keep under lock and key.  He thought about using the letter opener he’d seen in the top drawer as a lever to pry at it, but he was sure that would leave telltale marks.  If his father felt the need to hide whatever was in there, he’d be likely to notice if someone had attempted to get inside.     

  Lester was about to give up and head back to school when the image of a wooden puzzle box popped into his head.  Snapping his fingers, he stopped the chair and leaned forward.  He reached, not for the locked drawer, but for the one above it.  He pulled it all the way out until it caught on the frame.  Then, sliding his fingers along its sides, he felt two wooden levers protruding from the bottom and pressed.  There was an audible click, and it came free in his hands.

  The drawer’s absence left a dark empty rectangle, as though the desk were missing a tooth.  Lester hesitated for a moment, then put an arm through the hole and reached down into the locked drawer.

  Sitting on the floor, he spread the contents out in front of him.  There were more yellow notepads, but unlike the others, these were full of his father’s tight neat handwriting.  Each line had a date, followed by symbols Lester didn’t recognize, then two sets of numbers.  Was it some sort of code?  Lester had read about techniques used to relay secret information during the American Civil War and even had a replica cipher wheel in his room, but this didn’t look like any of those.

  Underneath the pads, he found a navy blue United States passport.  He opened it and was surprised to see his father’s face staring back at him.  No one in their family had a passport.  As far as he knew, none of them had ever been out of the country.  Puzzled, Lester flipped through the pages.  There were stamps from all over the world, Ireland, Russia, India, and Egypt.  Each one had a matching work visa from a company called C. Consulting.  It couldn’t be a coincidence.  Scanning the dates on the stamps, Lester noticed the last one was just a few months before his birth.  His father did sometimes travel for The Council but never for more than a night or two.  What could he have been doing that would have taken him out of the country for nearly five years?  And why had it stopped so abruptly?

  Setting the passport aside, Lester picked up the final item, a brown leather journal.  It was tied closed with a fraying strap, and its cover was faded and worn smooth from use.  He turned it over and found the word RIN stamped onto the back.  What did that mean?  He was reaching for the fat dictionary sitting among the books on the shelves when he paused at the sound of car wheels crunching on gravel.  This was followed by the familiar clunking of the garage door.

  Lester jumped to his feet.  He quickly stuffed the pads and passport back through the hole in the desk and replaced the drawer.  Sprinting through the house, he was in mid-air, leaping over the final four steps of the staircase, when the front door opened.

  His mother screamed in surprise and dropped the two bags of groceries she was carrying as Lester landed in the entryway next to her.  

  “Oh, Lester, it’s you!” she said, collecting herself.  Her hands were clutched to her chest.  “You scared me half to death.”

  “Sorry,” Lester replied, a bit winded himself.

  A sudden look of concern crossed his mother’s face.  “Wait.  What are you doing at home?  Are you sick?”

  “No,” said Lester.  “I just forgot something.”

  “Okay.  Good.”

  Lester bent down and began gathering up several oranges that had spilled across the floor.  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s all right,” his mother said.  “No harm done.  At least I didn’t buy eggs today.”  She righted one of the bags and began checking its contents.  “What do we have here?” she said, picking up the tattered journal.  “Lester, is this yours?”

  Lester froze.  “Um — not really.”

  “What do you mean, not really?” his mother asked.  “It’s either yours or it isn’t.”

  “W-w-well,” Lester stuttered.

  His mind raced for a plausible excuse as to why he would be carrying around an old journal, which was difficult to do because he had no idea what was inside.  Sweat formed on his forehead, and his mouth went dry.  He was going to get caught.  What would happen if his mother told his father he’d been snooping through his things?

  “I mean,” Lester started again.  “It’s kind of — ”

  “Kind of what?” his mother asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “Mine,” said a voice. 

  Lester and his mother turned to see Mae standing just outside the still-open front door.  She was wearing a skirt embroidered with tiny flying saucers and a shirt with the image of a smiling man in a red sweater above the words won’t you be my neighbor. 

  “And who might you be?” asked Mrs. North.

  “Mom, this is Maeko Chase, from school,” said Lester, quickly joining Mae at the door.

  “Oh?”  Mrs. North looked the strange girl up and down.  “Are you new?”

  “No, ma’am.  I’m fourteen,” Mae replied with just a hint of a southern accent.

  “Excuse me?” said Mrs. North.

  “She’s kidding,” Lester said with a nervous laugh.  “Mae’s family moved to town over the summer.”

  “Is that so?  And this is your book Lester forgot at home?” asked Mrs. North, holding up the journal.

  Lester considered giving Mae a nudge with his elbow to signal that she should play along, but he was afraid his mother would see.  So instead, he had to content himself with crossing his fingers behind his back.

  “Yes, it is,” Mae said, smiling and holding out her hand.

  Mrs. North looked at the journal but did not immediately pass it over.  “It seems pretty old.”

  “I know, right?” Mae said with excitement.  “I bought it from a cryptids site on the internet.”

  “Cryptids?”

  “It’s from the Greek, meaning to hide.  Don’t you love words and their origins?  Take your name, North, for example.  Did you know it originated from the word ner, meaning left or below?”

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  Lester’s mother gave him a sideways glance.  He could tell she wasn’t sure what to make of the direction this odd girl was taking their conversation.  Lester moved to interrupt, but Mae was not to be deterred.

  “Cryptids are creatures whose elusiveness causes foolish people to doubt their existence,” she continued.  “You know, like Yetis, the Loch Ness Monster, or Bigfoot.  What you’re holding is documented proof that those people are wrong.  In fact, there’s a detailed drawing of a rare Mongolian Death Worm towards the back.  It’s a bit gruesome, but I can find it for you if you’re interested?”

  Mrs. North’s face went slightly pale.  “No, thank you.  That won’t be necessary, dear,” she said, passing the book to Mae.  Then she wiped her hands on her pants as though slime from the death worm might have seeped out.

  “Okay,” Mae said, sounding disappointed.  “Maybe next time.”

  Lester breathed a sigh of relief.  From his mother’s expression, he could tell that she had already forgotten about the journal and was currently wondering what Mae meant by next time.

  Lester and Mae helped gather the rest of the groceries, said goodbye to Mrs. North, and headed back to school.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Lester excitedly unwound the journal’s leather strap.  His enthusiasm was quickly dampened, however, as he flipped through the first few pages.  Instead of the dark tome revealing the innermost secrets of The Council he had hoped, it appeared to be no more than a simple diary.  Still determined that something useful should come from the risk he’d taken to obtain it, Lester labored through the barely legible handwriting to read the first few entries.  Upon discovering nothing more compelling than dry descriptions of inclement weather, he gave up and handed the journal to Mae.

  “So,” Lester asked, deflated, “what does your name mean?” 

  “What?” said Mae absentmindedly as they continued walking.  She was studiously examining the journal, apparently having much less trouble deciphering the old penmanship than he had.  Again, Lester marveled at her ability to find even the most mundane things related to Giles Hollow interesting.

  “You were saying that North meant to the left and down.  What does Maeko mean?”

  “Oh, that,” Mae said, her attention already back on her reading.  “In Japanese, Maeko means truth child.”

The afternoon classes took Lester’s mind off of his disappointment, helped considerably by a difficult pop-quiz given by Mrs. Q.  So much so that he nearly walked right past Amanda standing at the bottom of the school steps, his thoughts still on several questions he was sure he’d gotten wrong.

  “Hey, there you are,” he said, stopping next to her.  “I haven’t seen you since lunch.”   

  “Well, it’s not like I’ve been hiding,” Amanda said.  She shot him an annoyed look, then went back to scanning the crowd of excited kids pouring out of the building.  

   The end of the school day was a joyful buzz of activity.  Students who just moments before had slowly plodded to class were now full of energy as they ran towards waiting cars, large yellow buses, or along the path that led to the lower fields for athletic practice.  

  “I wanted to tell you what happened,” Lester said, carefully watching Amanda’s face as she stared at the front of the school.  “A bunch of centipedes got loose from the science lab.  You know the really big ones from South America that hiss?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Amanda said, distracted.

  “Anyway, they’re recommending everyone tuck their pants into their socks.  And it’s probably not a bad idea to check your bag before reaching inside.  Just to be safe.”

  “Wait.  What?” Amanda asked, finally turning to look at him.  “Centipedes?  Really?  How many do they think escaped?”

  She quickly dropped her backpack to the ground and gave it a suspicious scowl.  Then she began shaking out her pant legs and spinning around rapidly to try and get a look at her back.

  “Is there one on me?” she practically screamed, combing her hands through her hair.  “Lester!  There’s one on me, isn’t there!”  

  Lester let her panic for a few seconds longer before smiling.  “Relax,” he laughed.  “Nothing’s escaped.”

  “Then why would you say that?  You know how I feel about things with — too — many — legs!” she glared, punctuating each word with a hard punch to Lester’s arm.

  “Ow!” he cried, swinging his own bag around to ward off more blows.  “I was trying to prove a point.”

  “By making up gross bug stories?  Very mature.”

  Lester was about to say that based on what he’d seen of Bernard’s recent behavior, perhaps maturity was overrated when he was interrupted.

  “Hello!” the new kid, Thomas, called, waving down at them from atop the busy stairs.  As usual, he was impeccably dressed.

  Lester didn’t think the animosity he felt towards Thomas was jealousy, but it was hard not to notice his flashy watch that cost more than Lester’s paper route made in a year.  Then again, perhaps his dislike of Thomas stemmed from the expensive-looking black gloves he regularly wore that reminded Lester strongly of his father.

  “What?” Amanda asked, out of the corner of her mouth, as she waved back to Thomas.  “I told him I’d show him around.  He’s new.”  When Lester didn’t respond, she rolled her eyes.  “See, this is why I didn’t tell you, because I knew you’d be weird about it.”

  “I’m not being weird,” said Lester.  “You can hang out with whoever you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean, the guy hates me for no reason, but whatever.”

  “He doesn’t hate you,” Amanda said.  “He doesn’t even know you.”

  “That would explain why he can't get my name right no matter how many times I correct him.”

  “Lester North, are you jealous?”

  “Of Thomas?”

  “Word is he’s quite a good student.”

  “More like the teacher’s pet,” mumbled Lester.

  “Now, where have I heard that before?” asked Amanda.

  Lester cringed and felt his face get hot.  Over the years, he’d been called many things for being smart and hard-working.  It had always been Amanda who’d threatened the other kids and encouraged him to ignore them.  If he was being honest, Lester was a bit envious of Thomas and how easily he’d ingratiated himself at their school.  Every time Lester passed the new boy in the hall, he was surrounded by popular kids who seemed to hang on his every word.  Thomas was smooth and charming with students and adults alike, in a way Lester felt he never could be.  

  “My apologies, Amanda,” Thomas said, strolling up to them.  “Mrs. Q wanted a word after class.  I hope we still have time for a tour of your little town.”

  “Yes, of course,” Amanda said, her mood suddenly improving.

  Lester cleared his throat.

  “Oh.  Hello, Leon,” Thomas said casually.

  “Do you need to tell your parents before we go?” Amanda asked Thomas, ignoring Lester’s glare.

  “I already did.  That’s them driving off now.”

  Lester followed Thomas’s gesture but could only see the sheriff department’s cruiser heading out to make its meals-on-wheels deliveries.

  “Shall we?”  Thomas gave a bow and an exaggerated wave of his hand.

  “We shall,” giggled Amanda.

   Lester watched them walk away.  Thomas was gesticulating wildly at something Lester was sure wasn’t half as interesting as Amanda was pretending it to be.  Maybe, Lester thought, there are some people you just can’t like, no matter how hard you try.

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