The thin, oily skins flipped easily from page to page. The texture was new to Tom. It was at once too smooth and too heavy. He was used to paper, to its crinkly lightness. Whatever these pages were made from—there was a certain reticence in Tom which shied away from asking that question—they turned with an alacrity that made Tom shiver. The pages flipped as if they were almost alive in his hands, wanting only his touch for them to move.
He had been warned, of course, about reading this book, and if his masters’ remonstrances had been negligent, he still had had to wade through the scattered bones and ancient corpses whose whispering ghosts had urged him to find another path. But there was no other path, that much Tom was sure of, had made sure of, before he’d descended into the pit.
He did not know all that he saw. There was very little time if he was to return to his hall without notice. Not time enough to really read any of it, but time enough to flip through, maybe, and for the memorization spell to etch every page deep into his memory. He’d have to review it all later. What his conscious mind did gleam from the few sketches which caught his eye, terrified and thrilled him.
There was, and it surprised him, a certain pleasure in the horrors, in the secret. He was getting one over on his peers, on his teachers—even, in some sense, on that sniveling coward he hated so much, himself. He had never let himself do anything like this, and the romance of disobedience was utterly novel. He was surprised by how much fun he was having.
Finally, the book closed, and Tom stood there a moment, staring blankly at the back cover. Shaking himself, he replaced the book as he’d found it so that the demonic face of the front cover snarled up at him.
He turned to go, and already, the new, undigested knowledge was at work in him. He saw how the shadows swirled around him, their darkness like unlatched doors waiting for a hand to push them open.
But what, he wondered, would he find, and who?
Tale Told 