Chapter 7
"Cursed object?" Ben folded his arms across his broad chest. He tilted his head towards Matthias' book. "That's from a movie. We're going with a theory from a book about movies?"
Matthias wanted to argue "movies and books" but kept his mouth shut and drew his lips tight.
"Has anyone found anything promising in our other research?" Penny asked.
Ruby shook her head, closing a slim, green book on her lap. "Nothing."
"Trav, what did the thing you bought look like?" Matthias asked, setting his book on the coffee table beside Cas' phone, the pages open on an image of a doll with an unsettling stare. He was pretty sure he had seen her in some cheesy horror film, but didn't bring that up either.
"Yes, could to draw it?" Penny slipped from her chair and hurried to a drawer which clattered open, no doubt full of more knickknacks. She extracted a tablet of lined paper and a pencil, passing them to Trav.
"I'm not a great artist," Trav warned, eyeing the blank page.
"Just do your best, babe," Ruby nudged his shoulder with hers.
Ben rolled his eyes and picked up one of the books still on the pile. "You have fun with this idea, I'll try to figure out what's really going on."
Matthias wasn't sure what to do with himself now that Trav was focused on drawing. This was, after all, his theory, so he figured he should supervise it, though he had no idea what they could do if it did turn out to be a cursed item. He ran through a list of horror movies in his head. Most of the ones remembered involved unstoppable murderers, but he remembered famous ones like Chuckie. His mother hadn't been keen on horror movies when he was growing up. What had the characters done to eliminate the threat? Demons could be exorcised, ghosts banished, but what did you do about a hunk of gold that wanted you dead? It wasn't as if they had a volcano handy to pitch it into.
"Why not just run down and throw it out a window?" Cas asked as though she'd read Matthias' mind, though her eyes were on the open pages of the book.
"Wouldn't it just keep being evil, but in the street?" Ruby raised her head.
"I don't know." Cas frowned at her pages before letting out a huff and flipping ahead. "It seems like it took that thing a while to get a foothold here. Maybe if we just got rid of it... we don't have a Mount Doom to toss it into."
Matthias gave Cas a little, comradely smile, which she returned even though she might not understand why. Bookish people, people who understood words, whether written or read, always seemed like instant potential friends and Matthias realized he desperately wanted a Fellowship now, rather than a group of almost-strangers.
"Alright... I think I got it right." The scratching of Trav's pencil ceased and everyone leaned in so far their heads nearly touched. Only Amber and Cheese stood at the outside, watching with obvious confusion.
"That is actually really good, Trav," Cas said, brows rising as she took in the sketch.
Matthias tended to agree. He'd assumed a "I'm not a very good artist" entailed an inability to draw anything but stick figures. Trav had managed a confident circle complete with symbols and designs around the rim. Within the circle Matthias made out several human figures. They stood around it in a ring, hands linked. In the middle of the human hoop was a second, smaller ring.
Ruby, who was on Matthias' right, swatted his shoulder and he jumped. "Wait! Wait I think I've seen this!" She rapidly swatted Matthias' shoulder several more times. He let her, glad someone seemed to finally have an answer.
"You've seen this before?" Ben asked, pulling back from the drawing. He spread his arms to Amber, who took her cue and scrambled onto his lap. Cheese followed her and soon Ben had an armful of squirming daughter and cat. He didn't seem to notice, even as Amber began playing with the zipper of his coat.
Ruby stopped smacking. "Wasn't it in that book you showed me, Penny? When I was doing that essay on fairy tales?"
"Maybe." Penny hesitated for a thoughtful moment, then shuffled across the room. For a moment Matthias lost her in a sea of tall furniture and strange statuary. Her voice rang out from the other side of a fleet of bookshelves that created a pseudo library in one corner. "Matt, I need your help."
Matthias managed to follow her path with minimal destruction and found her standing before a shelf with her fists on her hips. "It's time for the Private Collection." she said.
"The what?"
She pointed and Matthias followed her gesture to a high shelf covered in thick, brown -spined books that looked decidedly older than the romance paperbacks surrounding them. "Second from the left. I can't reach it, but what does that matter when I have a tall friend?"
Matthias slid the requested book free. The cover, while initially matching the aging spines that surrounded it, actually seemed to be newer. The design clearly meant to emulate the older books. He slid his hand over a synthetic cover, not leather like its fellows.
They returned to the group, Penny climbed into her chair, and Matthias set the book ceremoniously on her lap. The book further attempted to mimic the older books around it with an unadorned front. The title was etched in gold on the spine. The Golden Brook and Other True Tales. The collected works of Miriam Dotherty. Matthias squinted. A bell rang somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn't put a finger on it.
Penny through the pages and Matthias leaned down to watch the paper blur past. He caught a glimpse of several brightly colored illustrations.
"Is that the book?" Ruby asked. When Matthias met her eyes she shrugged. "I only looked at it once. I didn't end up using anything from it for my essay."
"It's a children's story book." Penny explained without looking up from her flipping.
"So we're looking for the solution to a fictional problem in a story book?" Ben asked.
"Maybe that's the best place to look to solve a "fictional problem"" Ruby pointed out, making air quotes before folding her arms.
Ben rolled his eyes and returned to studying his own book, resting his chin on the top of Amber's head.
"Here we go!" Penny jammed her finger between two pages, halting their progress. She held the book open for Matthias as he leaned against the high back of her chair.
"The Princess and Her Crown. I don't think I've read it." Matthias was reasonably familiar with children's literature, having been a well read child himself, and having taken a class on it in college. He couldn't shake the feeling that he should at least know the author. His hand itched to reach for a phone he didn't have so he could google. Lacking that he tried to force his mind to do its own search to track down that pesky memory on its own. "I never wrote much kid lit though." He said, more to himself than anyone else, trying to jump-start his recollection.
Matthias peered at the illustration that accompanied the chapter. Skillfully drawn with precise ink lines it depicted a delicate blond girl – presumably the titular princess – walking down a dusty road with an eclectic group of friends. A man cavorted beside her wearing a full jester's getup, flanked by a stoic man in shining plate armor. A meek looking handmaiden stuck close at the princess' other side and a man with a full white beard took up the rear, head low over a piece of parchment on-which he appeared to be writing.
As Matthias' eyes traced the image they were drawn up and away from the little party of adventurers and towards a structure at the end of their road. A tower, tall an imposing. Though the day in the illustration was bright and cheery, Matthias could easily envisioned the top of the tower struck by a forking bolt of lightning. A shiver lanced between his shoulder blades and he nearly flinched back from the picture.
As if Trav sensed Matthias' distress, he finally raised his head, pale eyes meeting Matthias' dark ones from under a fringe of blonde bangs. "What are we looking at?"
"A story from a collection that only sold a few hundred copies." Penny said. "I suppose it wasn't terribly popular. I've heard the author was a... difficult person." Penny licked her thumb and leafed to the back of the book, keeping her other hand in their spot. He found the author photograph on the inside of the back cover. An older woman, with a halo of white curls and a stern glare that made Matthias feel like he was in trouble with a parent. Not the face he would associate with someone who wrote stories for kids.
Matthias winced and tried not to think about his own book getting a limited release and dying in obscurity. Then it struck him. He involuntarily snapped his fingers. Everyone looked up. "I know where I know this author from. It wasn't class. We didn't talk about her at school. I heard about her when I was researching publishing options for my books."
"You wrote a book?" Cas asked.
"Yeah." Matthias dismissed the topic that normally would have subjected Cas to a synopsis of his novel, at the very least. Screwing his eyes shut he tried to envision the website where he had read about Miriam Dotherty. One of his online writer friends had linked him calling her a 'Diva', among some other, less savory titles. Matthias snapped his fingers three more times. "She was...she... She was one of those difficult authors who think they deserve extra. That their work is more worthy than other people's." He shook his head, brows so creased it almost hurt. He put a thumb to his forehead. "She got published with a small company. Not one of the big names. But she still insisted they were supposed to treat her like royalty. She wanted merch for all her stories. I heard she even made some herself and told her publishers to sell it. They dropped her after her first printing and she vanished as far as the author-sphere is concerned. Where did you find this book, Penny? I didn't think any stores would have it."
"It's a pity she was a terrible person." said Penny. "Her stories are actually quite good. I found this copy at an estate auction. I used to go all the time when I was more mobile."
"What's the story?" Cas asked.
"Cas," Ben scolded. "This is ridiculous."
"Yes, Benjamin, it is. But here we are. Maybe a ridiculous situation calls for a ridiculous solution." Cas' voice wasn't harsh, but Matthias knew the meaning of using someone's full name. Ben, for his part, shot his wife a short lived glare and dipped his head again, at least pretending to return his focus to his own pages.
"What's the story?" Cas urged. Amber crawled from her father's lap, evidently understanding that he was not about to read to her from his book, but maybe her mother had a lead on a story.
Penny leafed through a few illustrations as Matthias watched over her shoulder. The princess seemed to be collecting her eclectic retinue, Matthias suspected for some kind of quest, though he couldn't imagine why she would need a man dressed in blue who appeared to be playing a lute and had tied cymbals to his knees. "The Princess begins the story by having her crown stolen by an evil wizard." Penny squinted at the page. "And in most stories she would have to go on a quest to defeat that wizard, but here she dealt with him quickly. He's dead on the first page, killed by The Princess' loyal knight. The only trouble is that before they could kill him, the wizard melted down the crown into a disk of gold. Useless to The Princess. Apparently in their kingdom, proof of royalty is very crown based." Penny chuckled. "The Princess had to go a quest to prove herself, and as she traveled she collected friends. But she couldn't seem to find a worthy adventure to complete." Penny's expression changed. Her wrinkled features grew more intense, her posture stiffened. Matthias saw why. She had turned the page into an illustration of the princess and her party standing in a field, looking towards the reader while behind them loomed a grey-stone tower.
Matthias shuddered, rattling Penny's chair. She looked up, her browns knit. "Matt?"
"I'm fine," He waved her off. "How does the story end?"
Penny watched Matthias' face a moment longer, then turned back to the book. "The princess and her new retinue finally realized that the tower was following them. Every time they turned around, there it was on the horizon."
"A tower? They were being followed by a tower?" Ben had abandoned the pretense of reading his own book, letting it fall onto his lap.
Penny ignored him and went on. "Eventually the princess realized that when the old wizard had melted down her crown he had placed a curse on it."
"A bizarre curse involving a moving tower." Ben snorted.
"It's a fairy tale." Cas pointed out.
"And not a very good one," Ruby added, "if the sales are to be believed."
Penny cleared her throat and everyone fell silent. "The Princess and her people knew they would either have to break the curse and banish the tower, or spend their lives on the move, hiding from the curse. So they turned and faced the tower, and with the talisman that had been the crown in hand the princess and her followers entered the tower. Inside they set the cursed talisman on the floor and all stood around it, chanting the words that would break the spell."
"How did they know what words to say?" This time it was Trav who spoke.
"I don't know." Penny admitted. "The story doesn't say. I suppose it's one of those things where the characters just knew what to do. The point of the story is that the princess was weak and scared when she was alone, but with her friends she was brave. It didn't matter what they said in the end."
"Uh huh." Ben leaned back in his chair, which gave a nervous squeak. "This is what we're going with? A poorly written fairy tale that somehow came to life and now we're trapped in it?"
"Not exactly." Matthias' voice was quiet, laced with consideration as he tapped a knuckle to his chin. "The fairy tale didn't come to life out of the book, but maybe the author did something... I remember reading about her obsession with merchandising, and getting as much fame and fortune from her book as possible. Maybe that greed somehow translated? When she had 'amulets' from her princess story made, maybe they were... imbued with the same curse." Matthias felt ridiculous as he said it, and at the same time imagined himself as the author. He pictured himself passing out merch for his own book. Little models of his favorite ship, The Lancer, lined up in rows as fans eagerly clamored to scoop up their own. However the image of himself sitting alone at a table stacked with books awaiting his signature, and untouched models, was pushing its way in. He pressed his fingernails into his palms to shake himself free of those unhelpful thoughts.
"Do you hear yourself?" Ben asked, locking eyes with Matthias.
Matthias sighed and gave a dismissive shrug. "Yeah. I know. Straight from the brain of a fiction writer, huh?"
"Things is," Ruby leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "There's black gunk creeping all over the building and slowly transforming it into something else. Maybe it isn't from that particular story, but maybe we're just that unlucky."
"You mean I'm that unlucky," Trav said. Everyone fell silent, Matthias wished he could speak up and contradict his new friend, but Trav was right. If this was truly the situation they were in, Trav had to be one of the unluckiest people on the planet. Then again, if he hadn't bought the talisman, someone else might have just as easily.
"So what now? Are we going to go ahead and assume that what's happening to us is the same as in the story? And if so, what do we do about it?" Ben's voice was remarkably fearless and commanding.
"If we operate under that idea, what then?" Cas said, moving back to stand beside her husband. She put her hand on his shoulder and looked to her daughter, still seated on the floor playing with her barbie. "We're already inside the tower, but we don't have a knight or whatever other people the princess in the story gathered. We don't know what they chanted to break the curse."
Matthias ached to take to the internet. Certainly, somewhere, on some obscure forum, he could find someone talking about this book. A diehard fan who would have the answers. Instead he just looked from face to face, person to person, some of which he had only met a few hours before, and was struck with the sudden urge to collapse in on himself.
Amber broke the uneasy silence. "Can I have a cookie?"
Penny seemed to snap out of a dream. "Of course, sweet heart. In fact, why don't we have a little meal. No good pondering this on an empty stomach."
Matthias couldn't help but agree as he reached down and swept the book from Penny's lap. He cradled it in an elbow, open across his arm, as Penny retreated to her kitchen.
"Cookie!" cheered Amber, following the old woman, brandishing her barbie whose hair was a wild tangle.
"I-I'll help." Trav offered. He pushed himself up from the couch and folded back down with a hiss. "Shit."
"Babe you don't have your crutch," Ruby reminded him gently.
"I want to do something useful," he said, so low Matthias almost didn't hear him. "Just get me into the kitchen and I can lean on he counter."
Ruby didn't look happy about it, but she put her shoulder under Trav's arm and hoisted him to his feet. Matthias was impressed with her easy motion.
Once Ruby had limped Trav to the kitchen area, where Penny had already gotten out her step-stool and was gathering bread and fixings, Matthias made eye contact with Ben. The big man sighed and set aside his demon book gesturing Matthias over. "Alright, let's have a look at this shit and see what we've got."
"Language please," Cas said, though her tone lacked commitment.
"It's probably the end of the world, hun."
"Well your daughter is still here so for the moment-"
Matthias interjected himself into the conversation before it could escalate. He may not have been a parent, but he had seen his parents interacting enough to know when something small was likely to become big. He passed the fairytale book to Ben and then turned to scoop up the picture Trav had drawn of the amulet. He set the drawing on top of the pages and all three stared down at the book and sketch as though some answer would spring off the page. The familiar sounds of the kitchen were punctuated by the harsh reminder of their situation, still playing on Cas's phone.
"If we're going with this crazy idea of a cursed object and an author who is, shall we say, a little extra-" Cas leaned in and scooted the drawing aside to see the illustration below it, "we should try to figure out what the characters did to deal with it, as best we can."
"Right, but we still don't know the chant." Ben pointed out.
"We'll get to the chant," Cas said. Matthias appreciated her steady, reassuring tone. It reminded him of a grade school teacher he'd had who had found him crying in frustration once because someone had told him he sucked at writing. "Let's figure out these characters."
"Do you think we're supposed to be the characters?" Matthias asked, drawing a chair closer to their little huddle and perching on it, leaned forward like the skinny crow he imagined he resembled. "How many are there?"
Ben flipped through the story, counting off every time the princess encountered someone new. "There's here knight to begin with." He indicated the first picture of the princess and a man dressed all in gleaming armor, sword at his hip. He flipped a page. "Do you think the evil wizard counts?"
"I don't think so." Cas shook her head. From the kitchen Amber giggle loudly. "The wizard isn't that important. He gets killed off right away."
"Okay so the knight, then 'the fool'" Ben read on, gesturing to a brightly garbed figure. "And a seer? What's that?"
"Like a psychic?" Matthias supplied.
"Right. So next the seer. Then she meets a virgin. Okay, that's just mean. This girl comes to join the group in their time of need and the only title she gets is 'virgin'?" Ben scoffed. "Like the only thing she has to offer is whether she's had sex or not."
Matthias raised his eyebrows.
Cas laughed and rolled her eyes. "It's a classic trope, back then and today."
"That's messed up." Ben turned the page on the delicate maiden with soulful blue eyes to am image of the princess meeting an older woman garbed in mostly green with a cross on the front of her tunic and a pack on her back from which several sprigs of herbs sprouted. "Then she meets a healer. That sounds way more useful than a random virgin with no apparent skills, I guess." Ben said. "There's a 'scribe' whatever that is, and last is a bard." He indicated a man garbed in pale blue and enthusiastically strumming a lute.
"I think I can see why this author didn't get very far," Cas sat back, folding her arms. "It's almost all men, and most of the female characters are regressive stereotypes. A princess, a vigin, and a healer. What's next, a barefoot cook?" She laughed lightly at her own joke.
Matthias smiled at her, but decided now was not the time to launch into a discussion of damaging archetypes in fiction. "So what do we do with these characters?"
"Maybe nothing. Maybe it doesn't matter. Like the chant?" Ben shrugged.
"Or maybe it does matter..." Matthias frowned at the open page. The tower looming, seeming to be mere seconds away from being struck by lightning even if it was an illustration. He reached for Trav's drawing and sure enough, around the perimeter of the amulet stood the figures holding hands. Matthias looked from the pencil drawing to the book and back. "Yeah... see?" he pointed at one of the sketched figures. "I'm pretty sure this is the princess." He turned the paper, going around the circle. "Here's her knight. Trav, this drawing is really good!" Matthias leaned back to call to his friend.
Trav, behind Penny's kitchen island, flashed a smile as he arranged several sandwiches. "Thanks. At least I'm good for something I guess."
Ben snorted and Matthias heard him mutter under his breath, "Make a mistake, throw a pity party. Typical."
Cas must have heard him too because she lightly smacked her husband's arm.
Amber bounced out from behind the kitchen island, alternately waving and biting a turkey sandwich. Cheese trailed behind her, nibbling the bits and crumbs that fell in her wake. Her dress flounced as she skipped over to her parents. "Mom, Dad, c'n we go home?"
"Not yet, baby." Cas petted her daughter's head.
Matthias hoped she would have a home to go back to. Maybe it was already half taken over by the spreading black like aggressive mold.
"So what are we thinking?" Penny came around into the living space again, bearing a plate of sandwiches. Ruby trailed behind her, bearing another plate. Trav leaned on the counter and watched. "Did you guys come up with a plan?"
"Maybe," Matthias said, trying to keep his voice light.
"Maybe not." Ben counted on his fingers. "If you're right about this, and we have to fit these "archetypes", then we have a problem."
"What's that?" Cas leaned against Ben's chair and peered over his shoulder at the book and sketch in his lap.
"The problem is that this story has eight characters in this group... and there are only seven of us."