Book of Names Read online

  The Book of Names

  David Michael Slater

  Children’s Brains are Yummy Books

  Dallas, Texas

  For Heidi, the reason for my good name

  Children’s Brains are Yummy Books

  www.cbaybooks.com

  The Book of Names

  Sacred Books, Volume V

  Copyright © 2014 David Michael Slater

  eISBN: 978-1-933767-09-3

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form without express written permission. For more information write to:

  Rights Department

  CBAY Books

  PO Box 670296

  Dallas, TX 75367

  A book is not an isolated being; it is a relationship,

  an axis of innumerable relationships.

  — Jorge Luis Borges —

  PROLOGUE

  one clean stroke

  Tiny beads of sweat trickled down the young man’s forehead as he hurried through the dark with a book clenched under his arm. There were no streetlights on the little horseshoe-shaped road.

  It was one a.m.

  He stopped several times to check behind him, but continued on each time, however haltingly. Fortunately, the houses’ address plaques all had lights trained on them.

  The moment he spotted the one he was looking for, he froze.

  Directly in front of the house—it was the largest one by far—a vehicle quietly idled, a black Cadillac SUV, nearly invisible in the night. With his heart seizing, the young man bolted behind a car parked across the street. Quickly, but carefully, he laid his book open on the hood, then crouched down to conceal himself.

  The SUV’s engine cut out, and then the driver’s door opened. A figure got out, a silhouette scarcely differentiated from the darkness.

  The young man peered over the hood, placing a trembling hand on one of the pages of his book.

  The figure approached the house, but hesitated at the front door. It appeared to look up at the windows of the second floor. It put a hand in its pocket. Then it turned away, moving stealthily toward the garage.

  “No!” the young man cried, leaping to his feet. With one clean stroke, he swept his free hand across the page he’d been marking.

  The figure vanished.

  CHAPTER 1

  a better place (part i)

  “‘Penelope Posey,’” Daphna read, leaning over the newspaper with an unpeeled hardboiled egg in her hand, “seven pounds, five ounces.’ I like that name. Has a nice ring to it.”

  Dex ignored this. He was chewing on a yolk, looking around at the fancy kitchen they were sitting in: the giant stainless steel stove and sub-zero fridge, the hanging racks of expensive-looking pots and pans, the gleaming hardwood floors. It was all stuff right out of a glossy magazine. There was a pool in the basement that made waves you could swim against, and a rec room with ping-pong and pool tables. Dr. Fludd even had a giant flat-screen with a game system installed for them in the den. It was like they’d won the lottery or something.

  On the grand tour last night, Dex had done his best to act like it was all so wonderful.

  “‘Zachary Kaplan: seven pounds, seven ounces,’” Daphna read, setting her egg back in the shiny yellow goblet-sort-of-thing with the others. Despite the alarming way her T-shirt and jeans hung on her this morning, she just couldn’t muster any kind of appetite. “‘Gino Palantonio: nine pounds, nine ounces,’” was the next one on the list.

  Dex continued to ignore his sister. He was focusing now on all the high-tech gizmos and gadgets on the granite countertops—soda maker, juicer, blender, rice cooker—wishing a bit that he could disassemble them. There was even a door in the wall with one of those elevators that lifts food to the upper floors.

  As he conducted these inspections, Dex absently massaged his arm, which was still tender from the seemingly endless cycle of giving blood and getting it back. They’d done it every day for the last four weeks, four draining weeks he and his sister had endured up at Oregon Health Sciences University.

  The upshot of it all was that the cure and the vaccine, both based on a unique protein extracted from the twins’ blood, were everywhere now. It had been barely a month and the plague was completely wiped out. It was as if the panic on the streets of the Northwest had never happened.

  Dex probably ought to care.

  “‘Justin Blake: eleven pounds, four ounces.’ Ooof, poor woman.”

  “Fine,” Dex sighed. He popped what was left of an egg white into his mouth. “What’s with the birth announcements?” Daphna had spent most of her time in the hospital with her head in a newspaper. He’d sometimes wake up at night to find her poring over one or another from a growing pile. Of course there was nothing much else to do up there. He’d been bored out of his mind doing nothing the whole time, but he’d not once asked what she was up to.

  Daphna looked at him. Those flecks in her green eyes always seemed like charged particles when she got emotional. Dex wondered if his matching eyes did the same when he got worked up. Daphna’s eyes still had dark circles underneath them, too. Not sleeping well in those lumpy hospital beds was understandable, but how she couldn’t get rest on their new supersoft mattresses last night was beyond him. He’d slept like the dead. And she was losing weight.

  Daphna took a deep breath. Now was the time to end this charade, to make her brother admit that, plague or no plague, a disaster of epic proportions was going to strike at any moment.

  Dex wouldn’t talk about it at all in the hospital. He wouldn’t talk about anything, really—nothing important, anyway. He’d acted how he used to act: brooding and withdrawn. But things were supposed to be different now! After all they’d gone through together it was painful to endure. But she’d respected his need to process things alone, if that’s what he was doing. What galled her the most was his acting like they weren’t in the slightest bit of danger.

  But now that they were out of the hospital, Dexter needed to start facing reality again. He needed to start facing it now. Daphna set the paper down.

  “Dex,” she said very carefully, as if simply saying his name wrong would set him off, “you know all the other Lamed Vavniks were killed. So any of these newborns could be one of the new ones.” As she said this, Daphna unconsciously touched the raised skin on her scalp above her ear in the shape of those two Hebrew letters, Lamed and Vav.

  Then, in the face of the incredulous look her brother was giving her, she said, “I’ve been thinking about it—how it must work. See, so, there’s thirty-six of us at any given time, right? With the extra ribs that can produce life on their own, even after we die. You know that, I know—but I think they can only do that—create new life after we die—until we’re replaced by a new Lamed Vavnik, a new baby—otherwise there’d be a growing pile of these buried special ribs waiting to start life again. There’d be millions of them eventually. See what I mean? No one would have to worry about humans going extinct. For this myth really to be something to worry about protecting, I’ve concluded that there’s only ever thirty-six ribs with the stem cells capable of engendering life. They are either in a living person or in the ground, but there are only thirty-six—I’m sure of it.”

  Dex opened his mouth to speak, but Daphna kept rambling.

  “Now, I know the odds of any of the thirty-four new ones being born around here and listed in The Oregonian is, well—it’s obviously pretty unlikely. And even if some are being born in Portland, how would we know? It’s not like they’d have an asterisk next to their name. Unless we could check every newborn in town for the birthmark, which might not even be visible right away—in fact, I’m sure they’re not. Babies are born bald, obviously, so it would be easy to identify—”

  �
��Daphna,” Dex said, shaking his head.

  “I know. I know,” Daphna admitted. She knew she’d been obsessing. “It’s just,” she tried to explain, “those names—” She picked up the paper and showed it to Dex as if it explained everything. “Imagining those little babies, wherever they are, with their tiny little extra ribs—they’re the only other people on the planet like us, Dex. They’re family in a way, real family. People we could count on some day.”

  “Daphna!”

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know very well there are no new Lamed Vavniks being born.”

  “But—”

  “You know the others’ ribs were permanently destroyed—as in forever. You know we’re the last two.”

  “But—”

  “Face it, Daphna: It’s just us!”

  Daphna felt boiling tears rising up. The real reason she hadn’t pressed her brother to have this conversation until now was obvious: she didn’t want to face the truth.

  “I don’t want us to be the last ones,” she whispered, her voice cracking. The thought made her want to heave up her insides. “If we are,” she choked, “then all human life depends on us staying alive! Don’t you see, Dex? Risking our lives means risking the end of the world!”

  “It’s not like everyone would just die if we get—”

  “Yes, but if our ribs get destroyed, too, life wouldn’t come back after a catastrophe, like a plague—”

  “Well, they won’t get destroyed,” Dex said, flatly. “I’m pretty sure no one’s going to throw them into that volcano. They’ll re-enter the earth one way or another, and eventually life would be re—”

  “What if there are other ways to destroy them, or they just get kept from re-entering the earth? What if we get blown up? What if they get sealed in plastic?”

  “Neither of those are perm—”

  “What if they get shot into space?”

  To this, Dex simply shrugged. Daphna could go on like this forever.

  “What if, when we find a way back into Heaven, we get stuck there!”

  Dex sighed. He knew this was where they were heading all along. It was what he’d been trying to avoid by pretty much refusing to talk to Daphna for the last month. But he’d been resigned to things getting ugly when they got “home.”

  “What do you want to do?” he asked. “Go climb one of those goofy towers to pass through a gate that isn’t even there? There’s no point, Daphna. There’s no way back.”

  “But we have to find a way. Otherwise—”

  “Wait,” Dex interrupted, noting again the dark circles under Daphna’s eyes. They were the worst he’d seen now that he thought about it. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’ve been up all night scouring the Internet for ways into Heaven.”

  Daphna looked down at the marbled top of the circular island they were seated at. She didn’t need to say it had been a waste of time, but last night was the first chance she’d had to do anything productive in so long.

  “But,” she said, “that book up there in the Light—with the key hole—the fire that came out—the panic—”

  While she spoke these words, her mind drifted to another book, the book she’d opened in Heaven herself, the book with blank pages that felt so profoundly hers somehow. The experience of looking into it felt so personal that she’d not mentioned it to her brother. She’d thought about it a lot, though. She’d dreamed about it the few moments she’d actually slept. In her dreams, the pages weren’t blank. They were flowing with letters like the other book she’d opened, the one with T’s and G’s and A’s. Or at least those were the letters she remembered.

  And then yet another book came to mind.

  “And the missing book,” she added, “on that shelf that angel was singing so sadly at. I don’t think I should have seen that. But I’m positive that whatever book belongs there is what all the angels are searching the shelves for. Don’t you care what’s happening up there?”

  There, she’d said it.

  “Of course, I care!” Dex snapped. He’d been expecting to hear this for a few weeks now. It was almost a relief to have it finally said. “But, Daphna,” he added, “Mom and Evelyn destroyed the Aleph. They don’t want us coming back, probably because they know we’re the last Lamed Vavniks and don’t want us risking the entire world, just like you said!”

  “But—!“

  “Or maybe they destroyed it because people who aren’t dead don’t belong in Heaven!”

  “But—!“

  “I don’t want to think about problems we can’t fix, Daphna! Why is everything always up to us? It’s been a month and nothing bad has happened. I’m sure they handled the fire and solved whatever crisis there was.”

  Daphna believed the crisis had been solved as much as she believed the Church had forgotten them—that is, not at all. And something told her Dexter didn’t either. But she didn’t have the strength to fight anymore right now.

  “Hey,” she said, looking at the oven-clock. “We need to get going.” It was 6:20, which meant they had an hour before First Bell. “We can’t be late for our first day of high school.”

  “You’re right!” Dex said, thrilled the conversation was over, but unable to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Because that would be the end of the world.”

  CHAPTER 2

  no more than two steps

  “Should we say good-bye to Dr. Fludd?” Dex asked. He was actually feeling grateful to see this recognizably insane part of his sister. It meant she hadn’t completely lost her mind.

  “Oh,” Daphna said. “She’s not here. I heard her leave. It was, I don’t know, way past midnight, I think.”

  “I thought she said she was going to stop working twenty hours a day.”

  “And I’m sure she will, when things are officially calmed down.” Daphna re-folded the newspaper and returned the eggs to the fridge. She’d have to figure out the high-speed dishwasher later. With all the madness, she hadn’t even had time to wonder about the house they were moving into. During the ride last night in Dr. Fludd’s Cadillac, she’d been listening to the radio talk about how the towers in the Middle East—“Stairways to Heaven” people were calling them—were increasing the usual tensions there when they pulled up to the gorgeous house, which was as nice as any Pops’. It looked like it wouldn’t matter if all the confusion about their inheritance never got worked out. Daphna now had everything she could ever want, except for her family photographs of course, which were lost in the destruction of their house. She’d trade it all for them in a second.

  The only thing Dr. Fludd had forgotten to do for them was to make extra keys, but it didn’t matter since they could open and close the garage from outside with a code. After Dex cleared his plate, the twins grabbed their new backpacks from the floor and stepped into the garage. A massive yellow Hummer greeted them there. The gargantuan beast of a thing looked like it could smash Dr. Fludd’s Caddy flat without even noticing.

  “Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Dex cheered.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Daphna warned, though she couldn’t help allowing a smile at the memory of their driving adventures, harrowing though they’d been.

  “Only in an emergency,” Dex agreed, grinning. But then he added, “Which means we should go ahead and buckle up, right?”

  “Ha ha,” Daphna said. She put her hand on the button to raise the garage door, but took it off and put in on her brother’s arm instead.

  “Dex,” she said, “I know the teachers at Wilson were told all about your Scotopic Sensitivity, but I’m sure you can’t rely on them, not with so many students. I’ve decided that I’m going to help you. I’ll read you everything this year if those colored overlays or whatever other tricks they try don’t keep the words still for you. You don’t even have to go for extra help. I’m sure you hate that. I just want you to—I don’t know—I just really want both of us to st
art living. I feel like we’ve been given a fresh start. After losing Mom and then Evelyn, to have found Dr. Fludd—”

  “Do you think she’ll adopt us, too?” Dex asked.

  Daphna shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “But what do you think about me helping—?”

  “You don’t really like her, do you?”

  “No, I do,” Daphna protested. “I do. It’s just—we need to get to know her first, to make sure her intentions are good.”

  “You don’t trust her?”

  “I—I don’t know. I guess not totally. Not yet.”

  “Anyway,” Dex said, “I guess we better go.”

  “Dex,” Daphna said, looking at him closely, “are you sure you’re okay with school starting and all?”

  “Daphna,” Dex sighed, “a monster older than time almost ripped my guts out. I’ve been nearly asphyxiated, almost burned alive, and I’ve been shot. I’ve been to Heaven and back, for crying out loud. I’m supposed to be afraid of high school?” It was true he wasn’t afraid of high school, but for Daphna’s sake, he didn’t mention that he saw no reason to go, other than maybe to escape her wrath. Now that, he was afraid of.

  Despite these rather compelling points, Daphna wasn’t so sure Dex was telling the truth. “Speaking of all those pleasantries,” she said, “I did find something interesting last night. I can’t believe Dr. Fludd got us computers. And cell phones!” Daphna padded her pocket to make sure hers was there. Dex did the same, she was happy to see. It was another good sign that he hadn’t refused to try to read its little screen. Anyway, he only had to hit one button to call her after she put her number in.

  “What did you find?” Dex asked, though only to be polite.