Jordin Yu's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Jordin drove out of his godson's neighborhood with both pages in his coat and one hand shaking on the wheel. He knew the second author now. He still could not read the first section. The ritual language on the top half of the page was English shaped wrong, letters pinched into a hand three hundred years dead. He had already learned that guessing at the words made the ink on the copy shiver. Whatever the page warned about, it was listening. He needed someone who spoke that century. He called Dontae first. Dontae was his best friend in the real world and his secret boyfriend, three thousand miles away at Howard. Dontae studied history. Dontae picked up on the second ring. "You sound bad," Dontae said. "I have a page. 1692. Puritan hand. I can't read the ritual parts and I can't ask Google." "Send me a photo." "I can't photograph it. It reacts." Dontae was quiet. Then he said, "Then you need a primary source translator, not me. Find a Puritan lexicon. Old church one. Something a minister used. Not a modern reprint." "Where." "Somewhere that keeps old things and doesn't advertise. You know that town better than I do." Jordin thanked him and hung up. He knew one place. A bodega on the edge of Marshwood run by a woman his friends whispered about — Aleia Dalton-Romano, back in town after years away, asking careful questions about the soil. Chul Li had said she was descended from a woman burned here in 1692. He crossed into Marshwood and parked in front of the striped awning. The bell above the door rang flat. Aleia was behind the counter, sleeves pushed up, sorting salt into small jars. She looked at him once and knew. "You have something you shouldn't," she said. "I need to read it. Without setting it off." "Show me your hands." He held them out. She studied the ink stains and the cut on his palm from the memory machine. "Basement," she said. "Now." She led him through a curtain and down narrow steps. On a low shelf sat a dark leather book, brass-cornered, its spine cracked. A translation codex. Puritan. She set it between them and did not open it. "Read only what I point to," she said. "Out loud only what I say out loud. Hold something you trust." Jordin pulled the rosary from his pocket. His mother had given it to him at twelve. He wrapped the beads around his knuckles. Aleia opened the codex and the copied page side by side. Her finger moved. She translated the first line flat, no music in it. "Bind the name. Bury the name. The town forgets what the name did." She stopped. Her mouth tightened. "The crossed-out names," she said. "They're not victims. They're what the town agreed to forget. And one of them is Pitch." Jordin's stomach dropped. Blake. He had told Blake everything. He had not known he was handing the truth to a name on this page.