The Fountain Pen

I made a last-minute adjustment to my plot tonight, rather spur of the moment. As I’ve known all along I’m discovering and exploring this novel as I’m writing it. I only have a skeleton in mind, and some times I don’t even have that clear. Tonight I realized that Mission Mill was not overtly related to our tale. It’s there, and hopefully my little twist will be developed greater during revision. What this allowed me to do is add in an extra scene (or two), and so our trio find themselves at Deepwood Estate tonight.

Tomorrow being Thanksgiving, and given that I am 2,000 words ahead of schedule today, I may not get any writing done. I want to spend time with family, and while I expect I will have some time to myself before going to bed, I don’t want to push myself if I don’t have to. So with that thought in mind, may these words tie you over:

Joe waited as patiently as he could, but the site of a grown man groping the foundation of a building, while a young woman leaned on his shoulder was too conspicuous. Joe worried that at any minute someone would see them, and Joe didn’t know how to answer the inevitable questions. “Not to interrupt, but could you two look a little less out-of-place?” Joe hissed. They both shushed him.

“I can’t quite make it out,” Ignatius said. “It’s too faint, almost like it’s deep within the foundation.” He stood up from the foundation.

“Let’s keep trying,” Katarina said, leading them into the museum. “They have kept the original water wheel turbine. Perhaps there is something there,” she suggested, walking up to an impressive display of vintage mechanical technology.

Ignatius walked up to the turbine and looked at it. There were some visitors touring the museum, and not wanting to draw attention to himself he refrained from closer inspection. “I can’t be certain,” he whispered. “Perhaps once the room clears out I’ll be able to do a better inspection.”

Deciding not to loiter too long near the turbine they casually walked through the museum, reading the plaques and playing the part of the interested tourist. The museum boasted to have some of the original equipment from when the woolen mill was operational, as well as various artifacts of the time and trade. By itself the museum was far from boring, and listening to Ignatius whisper comments about his recollections of the era preserved in memory by the museum was fascinating. “I still remember the first time I saw a factory,” he was saying. “The thing both impressed and frightened me.”

“Why’s that,” Joe asked quietly.

“Well my boy, for one thing the speed at which they worked, and the amount of work they got done in a day was astounding. The potential to change the pace of life was astounding. But the place was soulless, and inhuman. In a way it felt like it was dehumanizing people.”

“You mean having machines replace humans?” Joe pressed.

“Something like that. Looking back now I see that in some ways it did make life worse, but in many ways it made life much better.”

“And we still have that tension of losing jobs to machines,” Joe chimed in sardonically.

“True, true. But you yourself should know, dear boy, being the designer that you are, that there has been a growing trend of people returning to hand crafted goods and products,” Ignatius countered.

Joe shrugged. “It’s inconsequential. It’s just a few people hawking their wares on the Internet, that’s all. By and large we still consume mass produced goods.” Joe looked up from reading a display and looked over at Ignatius, “But we’ll never manage to mass produce good design,” he said with a grin.

The number of people milling about dwindled and the three of them nonchalantly made their way back to the water wheel and the turbine. As there was no one in the immediate vicinity Ignatius endeavored to take a closer look.

“Careful,” Katarina whispered as Ignatius moved to touch the casing on the turbine.

Ignatius grunted. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to lose my hand any more than you want me to.” He leaned in and let his hand over over the assembly, closed his eyes and concentrated. He shook his head. “I’m still not getting anything.”

“Here, let me,” Katarina said, laying her arm on his shoulder.

Ignatius cocked his head to one side, as if listening for something, then finally pulled his arm back and sighed. “Nothing.”

“So what does that mean?” Joe asked.

“Nothing,” Ignatius said. “It means nothing, except that we’ve wasted time.”

“Humor me,” Katarina said with a knowing smile. “We’ll find something else here. Why don’t we try the waterways, or one of the other buildings.”

They shuffled out of the building and into the waning daylight. Katarina led them across a bridge and toward a collection of old period houses. As they grew closer Joe spotted a giant mass of black metal sitting in a frame on a concrete pad. “Hey, what’s that over there?”

They walked over to it and discovered it was the original turbine. Without prompting Ignatius walked up to it, examining it. He ran his hands over the black outer casing while looking intently at it. He even crouched down and stuck his head inside the turbine inspecting the inside. Being sure that no one was watching he closed his eyes, leaned in, and rested his ear on it. “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle… .” he exclaimed, and then raised his head enough to lick the turbine. Pulling back smacking his lips he gave a worried look to Katarina. “You were right. This is a binding, but its signature is different from any other that I’ve come across.”

Katarina raised an eyebrow. “Different how?” she asked, resting her hand on the turbine.

“For starters, it has a unique taste.”

“You sure that’s not just the metal?” Joe asked.

Ignatius turned and glared at Joe until he realized the question was genuine. “No. Each technique of binding has it’s own signature that some of us can actually taste. This one is different. It’s strikingly similar to Sikander’s signature, but distinct enough that it cannot be his. Furthermore, I can say with certainty that this binding differs from the one I felt in the foundations of the building.”

“Is there any way you can gauge how old the binding is?” Katarina asked.

Ignatius shook his head. “No. But I can tell you it’s never been used.”

“So what are we saying?” Joe asked. “Are you suggesting someone other than Sikander has been here and worked an impossible set of bindings?”

“That’s exactly what we’re suggesting,” Katarina replied. “Furthermore, I’m willing to bet that someone is Helmut himself.”

Joe did some quick math in his head. “I thought you said he died a long time ago.”

“Disappeared,” corrected Ignatius.

“Fine disappeared. Either way there is now way this is near old enough for him to have done it when he was known to be alive. So are we saying that Helmut is alive today?”

“Not necessarily,” Katarina cautioned. “He was here at some point in Salem’s history, that much we can deduce. But as to his fate after that, well …” she shrugged.

“I take it we can assume that we won’t find anything of my binding here?”

“I’m afraid not my boy. There’s just no possible way Sikander would even try.”

“Where to now? What is next on our list?” Joe asked tiredly.

“The nearest one is Deepwood,” Ignatius replied. “Though that’ll still be a bit of a walk.”

“Do we have a choice?” sighed Joe.

“Not really,” Katarina said, placing a hand on Joe’s shoulder.

“Let’s get going then,” Joe said.

There was no time for conversation as they hurried to the Deepwood Estate, Katarina setting a grueling pace that had Joe wincing from the sharp pain in his side. When they arrived at the entrance to the estate Joe had to pause for breath, leaning over with his hands on his knees. When he righted himself once again he beheld the house for which the estate was known. Before him stood an exquisite nineteenth century victorian home, right out of a storybook. The house was painted a cool white, which accented its many windows, and served as a relief to show off the curves, arches, and angles otherwise hidden in its frame. Off the center of the house rose tower, serving as the only third story window Joe could see, but the views from that room must have been magnificent. Joe stood and marveled that something so beautiful could exist in such a modern city, in what used to be a frontier of the wild west.

“Joe?” Katarina called turning back looking for him.

“This … this is amazing. This is a Queen Anne Victorian house, right here in the middle of the city.”

“I know,” Katarina said. “Any other day and I would arrange for you to have a tour, but… .”

“What is this town?” Joe asked, still leaning on his knees. “On the one hand it appears to be a modern city, but the deeper you look the more things start popping out at you.”

“This is a town, like many others,” Katarina assured him.

“But how many have all manner of historical sites like these?”

“Many, Joe.” She walked over and laid a hand on his arm. “Come on. The sun is nearly down, and we’ll need what little remains to find what we are looking for.”

Joe stood up and allowed Katarina to lead him around the back of the house and into the formal gardens, whereupon Joe was impressed once again. The care and attention paid to the gardens was evident, as plants were arranged to form paths, and patterns. The grass was kept short, but lush, inviting people to walk and even lounge on it. Small boxwood were precisely trimmed and served to line peat gravel walkways and create borders between sections of the garden. There was not a section of the gardens that had not been given careful attention. It was, in a word: manicured.

Katarina led him through the gardens, around the house, back to the front. They passed through an old tennis court, not yet restored to working order, and ended up meeting Ignatius in a tiny green gazebo tucked away into the side of the hill at the front of the house. Joe could look up and into the windows of the house, and hear cars driving by behind him. “Oh what I wouldn’t give to have seen this place when Salem was young,” Joe uttered.

“It was a sight to behold, to be sure,” Katarina replied.

Joe eyed her curiously and was about to ask a question when Ignatius let out a quite exclamation. “It’s here, and it is Sikander’s.”

“Good news?” Joe asked hopefully.

Ignatius gave Joe a look of commiseration. “Not exactly I’m afraid. I can now confirm that this location and the church are both part of an active binding. I can also confirm that we are dealing with a complex binding with many parts. The thing is distributed throughout the city.”

Joe slumped onto the wooden bench in the gazebo. “Got any other good news?” he asked sarcastically.

Ignatius looked at Katarina and back to Joe. “Just one other thing. I can’t be certain, but it appears this binding is configured to target a specific individual.”

“How is that news?”

“What I mean,” Ignatius leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, “from the beginning this binding was set to only trigger when a particular individual set foot within its bounds.”

Joe sat up a straight. “Are you saying this trap was laid specifically for me, decades, even centuries ago?” he hissed.

Ignatius shook his head. “Not as such. Like I said, I cannot be certain. What I do know is there are certain indicators that only a particular person could spring the trap.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying it was no accident you were sent here, to Salem.”

“Can you determine any of the criteria the binding is using to keep Joe here?” Katarina asked.

Ignatius shook his head. “I don’t have enough of the binding. But knowing Sikander, if he were targeting a specific individual he would use something of theirs in creating it, like a strand of hair, or a fingernail.”

“Which brings me back to my point. If that were true how could he be targeting me before I was even born?”

Katarina looked at Joe with a measure of pity. Joe caught on. “Wait. No. No, we’re not back to that.”

“It would make sense Joe.”

“No it wouldn’t. Let’s say Sikander used a piece of Helmut’s hair for this binding, and let’s assume I am his descendant. That doesn’t explain why the trap would trigger for me. I’m not an exact copy of Helmut, and before you go thinking it, I’m not Helmut himself pretending to be some kid named Joe.”

“I can assure you we were not thinking that,” Katarina said soothingly.

“The binding may not be so specific that it would trigger for only Helmut,” Ignatius chimed in. “It may only look for certain genetic characteristics. Look, what it means is you were singled out. Sikander thinks you are a threat to him, and whether or not we can get you free of this binding doesn’t mean you should rashly return to your life in Springfield. As long as he thinks you are a threat to him he will come after you.”

Joe wiped his brow. “Nevertheless I need to get back home. I need some kind of normalcy right now.”