Burning Books Read online

  “Let’s go there.”

  She leaned forward, bracing her arm on the back of the seat. “Let’s not waste our time. I already told you, the rare bookshop is gone. It’s a modern bookseller now.”

  He leaned forward as well, resting his arm over hers. “Let’s go, anyway. It’s a puzzle to be solved. I’m intrigued by puzzles.” One finger lazily brushed her hair off her shoulder. “It’ll be fun.”

  Her willpower, as always, turned to slush in his presence. It wasn’t just his charisma but her own desire for his company that made her capitulate with a heavy mental sigh. You’re sickeningly easy to manipulate, Molly, she berated herself silently. Brace up that backbone.

  His smile, that weapon of mass seduction, went through her resolve like a nuclear blast.

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  “Excellent.” He made no immediate move to straighten in his seat and head toward Beemer Lane. “There’s still the matter of the article I found.”

  “Oh, I’d completely forgotten.”

  He drew his arm away, trailing his fingers over her shoulder before he dipped his hand into his inside jacket pocket. The papers he pulled out were folded into a square. “I was scouring the Internet last night after you left, looking for anything to do with the solar storm prior to the actual event.”

  “The whole world’s been looking for more than a year, Cary. What did you think you would find?”

  “The whole world must have missed this. Or maybe they dismissed it because it reads like a conspiracy-theory tabloid.” He unfolded the pages, bent them backward over the folds to make them lay flatter, and handed them over to her.

  She scanned the first page briefly, her eyes going back to the headline. Solar Superstorm or Conspiracy of Magick?

  “Magick?” she said, giving the last consonant extra emphasis.

  “With a k, even.” He grinned. “Read, Molly.”

  She went back to the article, the arcane spelling of the word magic flaring her skepticism.

  Solar Superstorm or Conspiracy of Magick?

  By Kevin Kincaid

  Amid ever-dwindling trust in government, a new suspicion raises its ugly head. Have we, the citizens of the world, been duped yet again by a conspiracy of governments? Have we been fed a story so skillfully that we never thought to question it? Because no one actually knows exactly what caused the catastrophic event that unleashed chaos across the entire planet.

  We’ll break it down point-by-point, and let you be the judge!

  What we know about the solar storm last year:

  The electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from the superstorm erased electronic-storage devices worldwide. The ultraviolet radiation, as well as the EMP, caused memory loss worldwide.

  That’s it. We’ve scoured the Internet, the deep web, the dark web. There is literally no mention of an impending superstorm, predicted to hit Earth, in March of last year. Why is this unusual?

  Molly frowned thoughtfully and lowered the papers. “Why would that be unusual? I thought they could only predict with any certainty a few days in advance.”

  “I’m no physicist, but it seems to me they would be aware of solar activity in a certain region that could affect Earth several years in advance. My understanding is that predicting when the flare is actually going to happen can only be done when the activity reaches a peak, hence the few days in advance.”

  “I guess it would help if I were more knowledgeable on the subject,” she admitted, “but it seems to me they’re making a conspiracy where there is none.”

  Cary lifted the papers up from her lap. “Keep reading.”

  Keep reading this load of bunk? To what purpose? But she found her place and continued, only because he’d asked her to and he seemed so excited by it.

  For starters, let’s break down some facts we know about solar storms:

  A solar superstorm is comprised of a solar flare, a coronal mass ejection, and a solar EMP.

  Solar flares—eruptions in active regions of the sun known as sunspots—tend to follow an eleven-year cycle, which is closely tracked by both NASA and the Space Weather Prediction Center.

  The charged particles in our atmosphere, from a coronal mass ejection that has reached the vicinity of Earth, create auroras that have been recorded as far south as the Caribbean.

  Solar storms aimed at Earth can cause extensive destruction of electronics and power grids, and can disrupt satellite and radio transmissions.

  Now let’s go a little deeper into last year’s event.

  The next paragraph detailed the lack of research predicting the solar superstorm; there should have been documentation of the sunspot’s activity and estimation of the trajectory of the coronal mass ejection that predated the thirteen months of radiation-induced amnesia by years. Likewise, there was no discoverable data to indicate there had indeed been a superstorm, something they should have been able to detect in the aftermath of such an event. No auroras, interrupted radio and satellite transmissions, power-grid failures, or blown transformers. Finally, the strangest anomaly of this event was that the only things effected were the electronic data and the memories of every person on the planet for a period of roughly thirteen months.

  Granted, electronic data was erased in the alleged EMP, making research following the event near impossible for several months. And what data may have been collected in the human brain in the weeks and days prior to the event appears to have been erased as well. These two things by themselves are not adequate proof of the world governments’ honesty—or lack thereof.

  A memory niggled at the back of Molly’s mind. Who had talked to her about electronic data recently, something about a common lie to keep panic from spreading? She couldn’t put her finger on it, so she went back to reading, hoping something in the article would spark her memory.

  All this conjecture does not a conspiracy make. So let’s consider two primary examples of solar storms capable of affecting life on Earth.

  The solar superstorm of September 1859, called the Carrington Event. Northern and southern lights were visible around the world. Telegraphs malfunctioned, giving some operators electrical shocks. Telegraph pylons caught fire. Telegraphs unhooked from power supplies could still transmit messages over electrical currents caused by the auroras. Newspapers could be read by the light of the auroras, which were so bright that gold miners awoke and began preparing breakfast, thinking it was daybreak.

  The solar event of 1989, a much smaller storm than the Carrington Event, left a large portion of Quebec without power for half a day, and disrupted satellite and shortwave-radio communications. Aurorae were reported as far south as Florida.

  Now let’s examine our recent superstorm. The only power grids affected were ones whose systems had been upgraded during what we now call the Missing Year, which in actuality is approximately thirteen months and four days. Those grids were brought back online by rolling back to previous software.

  Read that sentence again. Those grids were brought back online by rolling back to previous software. Software that should have been erased from any device requiring a magnet to read it. On computers whose hard drives should have been completely erased but instead are intact with a few unreadable sectors—sectors that just happen to contain thirteen months and four days’ worth of electronic information. While safe to say that a certain percentage of Earth’s electronic data was stored on solid-state drives (SSDs), which would be unaffected by an EMP, that in no way explains why data on electromechanical magnetic disks such as hard-drive disks (HDDs) is intact, or why data for that only specific period of time is inaccessible on both SSD and HDD devices. We had our disks analyzed; the data is still there. It’s just inaccessible. It can be assumed that this is the case with the entire world.

  An electromagnetic pulse is not adequate to describe the peculiarities of last year’s calamity. Only one thing can explain it: an act of magick so catastrophically powerful, it locked thirteen months of memories inside our brains and electronic device
s. And on the heels of this conclusion, we must ask ourselves: who did this to us? Who stands at the epicenter of this worldwide magickal disaster?

  The last line resonated in her mind, an echo that grew in decibel and proportion, drowning out every other thought until her focus rested solely upon it.

  Who stands at the epicenter of this worldwide magickal disaster?

  Her gaze bore into her purse, which held the impossible book wrapped in silk. A book, imprinted with her name, that presumably would burn like its two predecessors when she read that printed name aloud. Her eyes traveled up to Cary’s face, still stamped with excitement and anticipation. Cary, who’d examined the books and declared them magical (magickal?) objects, whose own eyes had watched the last volume self-immolate. She thought of Magnus, whose mental state deteriorated every time she finished a book and ignited its self-destruction. Who stood at the epicenter of the magic?

  She did.

  It came to her in a flash, the memory she’d futilely grasped at while she’d been reading the article.

  “Harvey Cohen,” she said aloud. “He’s a police detective. He told me the data is still in the computers, but it’s inaccessible. Even the most skilled hackers can’t unlock it, he said.” She looked up at him. His face had gone white, and his mouth hung open in shock. “Cary, what’s wrong?”

  “You know Harvey Cohen?”

  “Not really. I met him once, when I found a scrap of article mentioning both our names but no details to indicate what case brought us together. I went to see him two days ago.”

  “What article?”

  “Just two lines, incomplete. Really, it wasn’t much. I think I have it in my wallet.” She snatched up her purse and rummaged inside for her wallet, extracting the bit of newsprint and handing it over to him.

  He read it twice and handed it back, confusion and incredulity replacing the shock on his face. “It’s too great a coincidence to be a coincidence,” he murmured, almost to himself.

  “What is it? Do you know this detective?”

  “Molly, Harvey Cohen is my father-in-law.”

  ∞1∞

  Molly spent the ride to Gerard’s Rare Books in thoughtful silence except to give Cary directions. Somehow, the knowledge that Harvey Cohen was his father-in-law brought her unconstrained fantasies under immediate governance, perhaps because of the detective’s sad eyes or his defeated demeanor. Either way, it seemed indecent to lust after Cary Welch, knowing his missing wife was Cohen’s daughter.

  “Turn left here.” She motioned to the next intersection. “It’s in the farthest warehouse on the right, at this end.”

  He guided the car past a metal sign strung between two heavy wooden posts—721 Beemer Lane—and into the parking lot, gazing at the dilapidated building doubtfully. “A rare bookshop in this building?”

  “I didn’t hold out much hope for it, either, but it was very pleasant inside. Both times.” And very different the second time she’d visited. How could a bookstore experience a complete transformation in just twenty-four hours?

  Cary popped open his door, and Molly followed suit. The shop door was around the corner on the adjacent side. He approached cautiously, as though advancing on a skittish animal. Apprehensive, she fell back a step, letting him lead. The store had gone from rare books to new books overnight. What awaited her this time?

  He stopped with one foot on the first crumbling step. “I don’t think there’s anything here.”

  She halted beside him, staring in dismay at the blank wall beside a battered metal door bearing patchy crops of rust. The building showed no evidence of the quaint wooden sign hung from the wrought-iron bracket, nor of the modern square of metal bolted to the side of the building that she’d seen on her previous visit. She would have thought she’d brought him to the wrong place but for the address sign they’d passed.

  Without speaking, he took the steps in three strides and wrenched the doorknob. It was locked, but the door wasn’t secure; it popped open just from the pressure of his hand turning the knob. He peered inside for a long moment, then motioned to her.

  “Molly, come here a minute.”

  She climbed the steps one at a time slowly, dreading what she would see inside the warehouse this time. Cary moved out of the way, edging her in front of him. Like him, she stared in silence for a good while.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.” His hand came down on her shoulder. Molly leaned into him despite her earlier urge to keep distance between them. Comfort in the face of her sudden foreboding seemed more paramount than propriety.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Something bigger than you or me.”

  The bare cement floors were water-stained, cracked, and crumbling in spots. Most of the drywall had been torn away from the wooden frames, revealing outer metal siding rusting from the inside out. Copper wiring had been torn out, leaving behind useless outlets and switches. The few remaining scraps of drywall sported crops of odorous mildew. At the far end, where the sales counter had been when Molly had last been here, a battered service desk had been toppled over. Its chipped and scarred Formica top had disconnected and skidded a few feet away. Other than drywall debris and the remains of the desk, the warehouse was utterly bare.

  What unnerved Molly the most wasn’t the empty, gutted room or the thick layer of dust that lay over everything, indicating years of vacancy. It was the trail of fresh footsteps through the grime, leading to the right, where the stacks had been that held the books bearing her name, then across the room to the left, where the sales desk was, then back to the door: two pairs, one small and one large. Another small set crisscrossed to the service desk, intersecting with another larger pair with a different tread pattern.

  Both her trips here—first with Magnus, and then alone—were documented in the heavy dust coating the floor.

  “Who does the other set of footprints belong to? The ones with the circle-and-line treads.”

  “Magnus. He was wearing sneakers that day.”

  “Then this other set—”

  “There was a man.” Molly had forgotten all about him. The man who had huddled into himself, clutching his paper-wrapped book for dear life, looking fearful of being seen. “He didn’t seem like he appreciated being seen here.”

  “And the other two sets are yours? You said you came here twice.”

  “Yes. But . . .” She trailed off, staring around the room for a moment longer, then backed away to the steps. Cary pulled the door closed and stopped beside her, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

  “Does Magnus remember being here?”

  “I can ask him when he comes back from his friend’s house.” She made a face. “I just don’t understand, Cary. There were shelves full of books. And walls. Carpet. Lights.”

  “And both times, the interior was different,” he reminded her.

  “You think I hallucinated both the shops.”

  “I think your mind was fooled into seeing something that wasn’t there.”

  She shivered. “Can we go back to the car now? This place is creeping me out.”

  Molly huddled into her coat, following Cary around the end of the building, her head bowed against the chill wind as she considered the possibilities of a magical scenario, as proposed by the tabloid article. Magic answered so many more questions than did a catastrophic space event. But magic didn’t exist. Even if it did, why would she—skeptic and pragmatist that she was—be its catalyst?

  She smacked into Cary’s back as he stopped abruptly. She peered around him. He held out an arm to keep her behind the protective barrier of his body. A short, squat man, made more rotund by the thick Dickies work jacket he wore, was waddling toward them. He huffed to a stop a few feet away.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He glanced at Molly. “I’ve seen you here a couple of times and wondered if you were buying the building.”

  She opened her mouth. Cary answered first. “We’re considering it. It’s in a l
ot worse condition that we anticipated.”

  “Been empty since 1982. No one really takes care of it. The owners don’t seem to care that it’s falling to rack and ruin.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with the owners?” Molly ducked under Cary’s left arm, which he let circle her shoulders. The pressure of his fingers kept her from approaching the man.

  The man stuck out his hand. Cary shook it warily. “Milton Spurlick. I work at the print shop yonder.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “No one knows who really owns it. A company called the Augury Group. Just try researching that. Comes up with all kinds of weird stuff, but nothing about a corporation or business.”

  Cary’s fingers clenched painfully over her shoulder. “The Augury Group,” he repeated. It meant something to him, but Molly had never heard of them.

  “Yep. We don’t see hide nor hair of them, but people come to look at the warehouse every now and then. No one ever buys it, though. Not even sure it’s up for sale, for that matter.” He scratched his balding head thoughtfully. “Don’t even see how it’s still standing. Almost like magic.”

  “Yes, like magic,” Cary echoed faintly. “Thank you for coming out to talk to us. Your information will be great help in our decision whether or not to buy.”

  “Don’t mention it. Would be nice to see it either fixed up or torn down. It’s the eyesore of Elliot Avenue, that’s for sure.” He reached up as though to tip his cap, realized he wasn’t wearing one, and nodded respectfully. “You folks have a nice day.”

  They watched him waddle away. When she estimated he was out of earshot, she said, “Cary, he said Elliot Av—”

  He cut her off. “In the car.” Without waiting to see if she followed him, he strode the short distance to the car, unlocking the doors with the remote as he walked. Molly slid into the passenger seat and closed her door, reveling in the residual warmth the car held.