Ex Codice Horae (Ch30)

Harold Evora's journal is all but destroyed, but with the exception of a letter he never meant for Theda to read.

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Six steps to the flashlight. Eight to the door.

The call of the nightbirds faded with the morning stars, their melancholy songs ceasing to penetrate the drafty cabin walls until the fragile silence of pre-dawn held steady. The actual time was unknown to Theda, but the silver tinge in the warped window glass indicated that the darkest hour was over. The yellow flame of the now-dry oil lamp was extinguished, and the fireplace flames had withered to ash taking the thin heat with it, and the cabin temperature was somewhere between ice and near-ice. She willed her vision to adjust as she lay motionless in the uncomfortable cot, the sounds of the three men’s deep sleep breathing surrounding her.

It was time to make her move.

Last night she had calculated the number of steps to the flashlight on the table, then the angle she needed to turn to exit the cabin, knowing that she’d have to sneak outside in the pitch dark to read her father’s journal in private. Still wearing her coat, she felt the journal through the fabric and next to her heart. The self-discipline it had taken not to find a way to read it after finding it on the floor of the General Building’s basement was now rapidly fading. She needed to read it. Now.

She rose slowly to a seated position and pushed off the moldy horse blanket, the damp cold a miserable addition to her situation: separated from her family and in the company of the most bizarre group of near-strangers that she never in a thousand years could have imagined. Last night, she feigned sleep and breathed in tandem with Van Horn’s deep inhales so she could listen to the conversation between Jackson and Conlin. And the conclusion she came to made everything worse.

Jackson was just as crazy as Conlin. Discovering that they knew each other was bad enough, but that both bantered over the ridiculous notion that they were from a different time was mind-blowing. Absurd. All of it. Something terrible was happening at Fort Riley, that was certain. She had seen it with her own eyes and there was no denying it. Photographs of dead men with identical dark marks on their faces. Jackson and Van Horn held prisoner in the cellar of the General Building. It was the stuff of penny dreadfuls. But whatever was at the bottom of this had to do with two things only: human evil and science. Individuals traveling from one time to another was ludicrous.

But something nagged at her, pulling at a thread in her mind that she couldn’t yet grasp. She shut down the train of thought when it arose but the worm of doubt kept burrowing into her thoughts. What is it? She didn’t yet know. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with insane fantasies and belief in unreality.

She slowly moved her legs out from under the scratchy blanket and felt the weight of something else over her. She grabbed a handful of cloth and brought it to her face. It was Jackson’s army overcoat. It smelled like hair oil and damp wool and him. He must have thrown it over her after she had fallen into a fitful sleep where crippled dreams couldn’t take root.

Her stocking feet touched the dirt floor and turned immediately to ice, but donning the combat boots would make unnecessary noise and she had to get out fast. She took six shaking steps forward toward the table with the flashlight. At the sixth step, she reached her hand out and felt the rough wood table that smelled like old cigarettes and pine. Her heart thumped and she resisted the urge to hurry, knowing that speed would sacrifice silence. Her bare hand reached into the frigid void and proved her step calculations correct. She wrapped her long fingers around the flashlight.

Theda turned left. One…two…three.. On the eight step, she slid her hand down the splintery door, and gripped the knob, her palm burning. She grimaced as she turned it, expecting a chorus of creaks and groans but the door separated from the frame with surprising smoothness and a moment later she was outside, the door closed safely behind her.

She trotted into the woods, stockings snagging on little fallen branches and rocks. She stopped behind a towering coniferous tree, her back on the sappy bark. Her hands shook in rhythm with chattering teeth and her thumb tried three times before the flashlight clicked on. She pulled out the journal and opened it in the circle of light.

The pages were gone, but not with the ragged rips of someone intent on destroying a book. No, the pages were cut out as if someone had taken a very sharp razor and cut the writing out of each page and only leaving the outline of the paper. If the journal were laying on a table, it would have looked like a full book instead of the hollow one she held in her hands. Her heart sank, and she thrust her fist into the hollow space and wanted to yell.

Her fingers closed onto a square shape. She pulled it out. It was paper, folded. She put the flashlight under her chin, the light shaking with her teeth, and unfolded it.

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My Dearest Theda,

I have never asked the universe for much, and indeed, whatever God has designed this earthly existence had bestowed on me a highly satisfying life through His cosmic machinations. However, I am praying that the last turn of the lever spares you from ever reading this letter. In my mind, you, your mother and Violet are traveling by train to our wonderful home where you will begin another life, one without me to guide you through life’s tribulations. Because, dear Theda, if you are reading this letter, it means that you’ve discovered a knowledge that I would never have had enter your mind. It means that, despite all I tried to do to prevent a horrible outcome, the men I’ve encountered here have decided that I should follow the same fate as Dr. Collins, never to be seen again.

As despairing as this is to you, know that as the days ticked by in this place, and our “mission,” something that at first glance was supposed to save lives, took a dark turn, I have always held steady to our principles. Now, the path is littered with destruction and devilry. Soon, if not already, I will go to the place a soul travels to once the body has been left behind, but with a clear conscience.

The photographs you found were evidence of a covert operation that has been conducted both in secret and in plain sight at the General Building. Those men in the photographs were taken from this world to be forced into the most despicable of all medical compromises: They were living experiments. The doctors created a virus, one that will fell its victims in a short time. It started with animals and took a horrendous turn when Dr. Harris decided that humans would make better test subjects. In short, one of the prisoners from Leavenworth fell into his hands. With your intelligence, I do not have to spell out the rest. You already know.

You see, my dear, these men think that instead of the terrible bombs, flame throwers and gas that will come to define the worst war the world has ever witnessed, a virus would do better. A virus, an invisible, ancient killer that man has never found a way to beat since the dawn of our consciousness, would do the job better than a million soldiers. Why should one American soldier fall if this invisible enemy could be unleashed behind enemy lines? The logic, frankly, is difficult to argue with. Difficult to want our boys safe and our enemies eliminated. The means to achieve this, however, are an abomination. I’ve conducted my entire career with only one goal front of mind: to save lives. To heal illness. To uphold the promise of the greatness of the human mind that never ceases to wonder, to innovate, to explore possibilities. Remember what I used to say to you? Seek the possibilities.

Now, I’ve crossed the Rubicon, and I leave it up to you to look after your mother and sister. I realize that you are the younger of them, but you have the fortitude and smarts to be the head of the family. My memories of you will be the most precious of the days I have left. Do you remember that 13^th of July in 1914? The time you and I walked through South Cape May, sand at our feet, the soft and salty breeze like a sacred promise. You were still so young, but you could hold a conversation better than almost any adult I’ve ever known. It’s one of my most sacred memories.

My darling daughter, do your best in life. Do the right thing. Always. Do not ever waver, even if it means confronting those to whom the right action is contingent on their own desires. Tell your mother and sister, please, that this is my lasting legacy. Tell them today.

Forever your father,

YMJ LTI TK MTLX

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She ran her fingers over the letters. What did they mean? She turned the light toward the journal again. There was nothing else in the space where the pages had been.

But there was something on the bottom right corner that was so faded she hadn’t seen it at first. In pencil was the letter E, so light it was almost invisible. She flipped the page. There was another letter on the second page, an X. The following pages all had letters and she turned them like it was a child’s novelty store book, one of the ones that you flipped the pages rapidly and saw a child ice skating a figure eight on a frozen lake.

E

X

C

O

D

I

C

E

H

O

R

A

E

Ex Codice Horae

The Code of Hours.

“What are you doing?”

Theda screamed and dropped the flashlight. Jackson scooped it up with one swift move to the ground. He plucked the letter from her hand.

“Give it to me!” She tried to snatch it but he held it high over his head and out of her reach. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gently but firmly held her at arm’s length and lowered the letter until it was in front of his face. In the short time Theda had been outside, the light had grown in the east. His blue eyes moved back and forth like a darting insect.

“A letter from papa, is it?” He glanced down. “And where did you find this?”

“None of your damn business! Let me go!” She tried to pry his fingers from her shoulder, but her hands were swelling from the cold and didn’t want to do what her brain asked of them. Jackson tightened his grip.

“We should get something straight right now. Everything is my damn business. Especially anything to do with those doctors who almost killed me. And where’s daddy now, pray tell?”

“I don’t know!”

“It’s an interesting letter. Full of his steel moral code. Seek the possibilities. Truly a towering intellect to watch innocent men die a slow and preventable death.”

“His own life is in danger! That’s why he’s missing. Did you miss that part, or are you as slow as you appear?” She could barely get the words out. He released her shoulder and handed the letter to her. She tried to fold it with one shaking hand.

His eyes softened. He said in the country accent, “No, ma’am, I reckon I’m not as slow as you think.”

“You don’t speak like that, so quit the charade! I knew it from the moment I met you, as a matter of fact.” She shoved the letter into the journal.

“Guess I’m not as clever as I thought,” he said and smiled. Theda wanted to belt him.

The sound of the door being thrown open and slamming against the side of the cabin turned both of their heads.

“Hey!” Conlin shouted from the cabin. “He’s gone!”

“What?” Jackson called back.

“What the hell do you think? Van Horn is gone. He’s not here.” Conlin tied the belt of his coat with one quick pull and ran toward the river.

Jackson started for the cabin then turned back and pointed at her feet. “Want me to carry you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why the hell would he just leave on his own?” He muttered.

“Because his father thinks he’s dead and he’s alive. Wouldn’t you want to tell your father that?”

Jackson stopped. “Not if it meant giving others a deadly disease.”

“And if you weren’t sick?” She held his gaze.

“Let’s go. We gotta find him before he finds anyone else.”

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