Cryptic Spaces Read online

  Curio Creative

  American Fork, UT USA

  Cryptic Spaces

  Book One: Foresight

  by Deen Ferrell

  Copyright © 2013 Deen Ferrell

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  First Printing – May 2013

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013938392

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN

  ANY FORM, BY PHOTOCOPYING OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS, INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER/AUTHOR

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  01234567

  As with most journeys, there are many I wish to thank for their invaluable help along the way. From English teachers who told me words were my friends, to parents who, while they may not have always understood my need to write, were always there to support and encourage, I have been richly blessed. My wife was my springboard and steadying rock. My children listened, read, gave suggestions, and put up with endless hours of writing and rewriting, always cheering me on. Without the on-going support of my brother and creative partner, Jon, this book would never have been possible. My agent, Whitney Lee (Fielding Agency), was my first advocate to the publishing world at large. My editor, Sherry Wilson, became a professional partner and a friend. Numerous other friends and family took the time to read, edit, give suggestions, and share encouragement. Each, in their way, added a piece of themselves to the work, making the story richer. I offer to all a sincere thanks.

  Awards for Cryptic Spaces Series

  Foresight

  2013 The Book Pick, BookBundlz

  2014 Honorable Mention, Reader’s Favorites Book Awards

  2014 First Place, SciFi/Timetravel Category, Dante Rossetti Young Adult Awards

  Eight Queens

  2015 Shortlisted in Cygnus Science Fiction Awards

  Dark Edge Rising

  2017 First in Category, Chanticleer International Book Awards

  Contents

  Frozen in Time

  Wasted Space

  Streetlight Meeting

  Secrets of the Certus Grove

  Hidden Space

  Window of Wonder

  Nessie

  Havana at the Hills

  Sydney

  Shipmates

  Donuts and Diphtheria

  Setting Sail

  Mark of the Menace

  Morning Swim

  Nostradamus

  Golden is the Song of the Sea

  Blonde over Blue

  Hickory, Dickory, Dock

  Cabin Fright

  The Shaft

  Cedar Chest

  Navigating the Vents

  Numbers on Air

  Snake in a Basket

  The Cave of Horrors

  Pink Shores

  Nomad’s Land

  Bones of the Alchemist

  The Blind Eye

  Time Fusion

  Foresight

  The Requiem

  Life Section; London Times

  Senoya Shines

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19th: Sydney Senoya, one of the finest concert violinists in the world, lit up the London stage last night with an eclectic mix of haunting music and theatrical bravado. Verging on cult status, the young virtuoso left a spellbound audience in Paris for a midnight flight to Heathrow Airport. After a short morning’s rest, she was on the move again, winding her way to a sold-out performance at the London Palladium. Hidden behind the tinted windows of a black hearse, she reportedly ignored the frenzied crowd, who followed her to the Palladium steps chanting “Sydney! Sydney! Sydney!” A dozen or so hooded monks waited at the base of the steps in silence.

  The monks surrounded the hearse as it slowed. They held the passenger door open, forcing the crowd back with gently swaying incense burners. Miss Senoya emerged sporting a stunning maroon and black evening gown. The crowd erupted. She let her shimmering cloak fall back and smiled as the burly monks whisked her away. In one hand she held an odd, wooden staff. In the other, she cradled her precious Stradivarius.

  Once inside the concert hall, the mood changed to one of intense anticipation. Sydney strode purposefully down the main aisle, her concentration riveted on the stage. Within inches of the orchestra pit, she spun, facing the packed house with eyes crackling. One thing was perfectly clear—this girl enjoys keeping her fans off balance. A hush fell over the audience. With calm, deliberate gestures, Sydney unclasped her cloak, pushed back her silver hood, and twirled the garment like a matador, letting it flutter to the floor. She shook loose her silken hair, raised the wooden staff high above her head, and slammed it down. The hall plunged into blackness. Drums rang out. Copper braziers to either side of the stage burst into flame. A ghostly, uneven light grew, finding Sydney poised, staring out from center stage. The whites of a dozen eyes flicked in the dimness around her. She stooped to place her staff on a low, polished pedestal, raised her Stradivarius, and cried in perfect Gaelic, “Sisters! We take the night!”

  In a flurry of movement, her violin began to sing. The bow strings seemed almost possessed. Music, the likes of which this reviewer has never heard, crashed over the audience like a tidal wave. The violin cried like a bird, then called like a wolf, sending dancing sprites scattering like a cloud of locusts. Sydney commanded the stage, her shining hair a river of black amid the twitter of fluttering fairy wings. Pools of white light filtered like moonlight onto the meticulously crafted set. The dark forest was alive with creatures of night and beings of pure imagination. The young prodigy wove a melody that seemed to question the raw mystery of nature itself.

  The audience barely breathed, stunned by the spectacle.

  Outside, remnants of the earlier crowd jockeyed for position. They fought for glimpses inside the dark windows of Sydney’s hearse. Rumor has it that the tinted windows hide skeletal remains—human remains dating to the early 16th century. Two young hikers are said to have located the bones in a cave near the township of Oban, Scotland. They brought them to the attention of the town mayor. No sooner had the find hit the press than Ms. Senoya was in contact with Oban. She bought the bones, along with an ancient wooden staff and a rusted gold chain, also found in the cave. The sum was purportedly large enough to set the town mayor dancing a Scottish jig.

  What next, Ms. Senoya? Will gold doubloons mark the magic of your Dublin debut?

  1

  Frozen in Time

  Winter trees, framed against cold glass, hold more than emptiness in their dark-fingered branches. They hold precise geometry—angles not always easy to calculate or to see. Willoughby Von Brahmer liked observing the trees, rooted in lonely clumps along the boulevard. Looking from each branch to its reflection in the wide-paned windows of local shops kept him thinking.

  His interest was not in the branches. It was in the spaces between them. Empty spaces, you see, fascinated him. You can’t study empty space by just staring at it. You have to observe the details around the space. You observe the footprint of its reflection. You study the visible edges that frame it. Supposed emptiness has substance even if it can’t be seen clearly. It has weight, even if its heaviness is felt only within the depths of the soul. He sniffed, walking on more crisply. He did not accept the existence of real emptiness. Every supposedly empty space had to hold something. It was merely a matter of discovering what this something was.

  Pursing his lips, he scanned the street. Somethi
ng was different about the day. He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly. The closest he could come to describing how he felt was to say that something or someone was watching him. Watching him from where? The street was empty.

  He stopped, turning slowly with a nervous eye.

  Was something watching from the emptiness? He began down the sidewalk again, almost at a run. The street he was following was known by the locals as the Sixteenth Street Corridor. It was an odd street, busy at some parts of the day and quiet at others. He could easily imagine early mornings on the corridor beginning with the tap-tap-tapping of joggers. Soon, a sprinkle of shopkeepers mixed in, each protecting a private coffee steam, or a bagel bagged in the crook of a clenched arm. An hour or so later, the first of the nameless pedestrians appeared. Some came in search of the grand buildings, such as the Foundry Methodist Church, host to U.S. Presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, and more recently, Bill Clinton, and the infamous Ford Theater on 10th street, the very theater where Lincoln was shot. Others came for the eclectic shops.

  Willoughby had interest in one particular shop. It rested on a corner. It had a single large window and an angled, green door, which these days stood resolute and quiet against the deepening blues of an October sky. Printed in gold letters across the large front window were the words, “Antonio’s Corner Barber.” He loved to hear the rhythm in the words as they rolled off the tongue.

  The shop proprietor, one Antonio Santanos Eldoro Chavez, was no mere acquaintance. This tall, unusual man, who seemed so well suited to the Corridor, was Willoughby’s personal barber and friend. His voice was heavily accented and words flowed from him in a constant, almost unbroken stream, punctuated only by the snip, snip of his scissors.

  “See how the shop anchors the intersection of Sixteenth Street and Gales?” he asked Willoughby when they had last met. “Sixteen is a lucky number, I tell you. Think, too, on the name Gales. Does it not remind you of the great sea winds ancient mariners would ride to discover adventure, love, and good fortune?” He had given Willoughby a sly wink. “You turn sixteen in only a few months, my friend. Perhaps it is time to think of unfurling your own sails. You are about to embark on the greatest adventure of all time—the discovery of who you are, and what is your place in this most humble world.”

  What was his place in the world? Willoughby had no clue.

  He breezed past Delia’s Book Emporium, where “Cupcakes and Crumpets” still held the coveted front window spot and gave a quick glance at The Merry Mystic. Its curtained window sported a slow-blinking neon sign that flashed, “Open,” and a weather-worn slate with chalked words that read, “To unlock your heart, I need only to hold your hand.” Tucked around a shallow alcove, a wooden sign in the shape of bent salami proclaimed, “Wiengart’s Meats: We make a leaner Wiener!”

  Willoughby crossed the intersection to Antonio’s shop. He stopped in front of the door, turning to look behind him. Once again, he had that feeling—that someone was watching. A tingle began at the back of his neck. It wasn’t uncommon for the corridor to have moments of quiet, but this quiet? It wasn’t even five o’clock and the sidewalks were vacant. There wasn’t a soul in sight in either direction. It felt like the world had become suddenly abandoned, and he, alone, had been left to watch the heartbeat of traffic lights as they pulsed in slow progression, first red, then green, then yellow.

  He was about to turn back to the door when something caused him to stop. His eye had caught a brief glimmer. He stared. At the corner of Antonio’s large window, he could swear that he saw a glowing string of numbers. For the briefest of moments, it appeared as if the numbers were running along the upper edge of the shop window. Were they forming equations? One blink and the numbers were gone. Had they really been there at all—flaring in a ghostly glow out of mid-air? Had he imagined it? He stared at the large window for a long time. When the numbers did not reappear, he turned back to the door, spun the brass knob, and pushed the door open.

  A brief wind scuttled dry leaves along the sidewalk. Before stepping into the shop, Willoughby let his eyes drift up to the flat stone that hung directly over the barbershop door. They locked on a sequence of markings across the stone. Antonio called it his “calling card.” He seemed quite proud of the symbol. Carved into a slab of rough limestone, it had been the first thing to attract Willoughby to the shop. Now, there was the glowing numbers at the edge of the window. Had they been a reflection from some other shop?

  He shook his head and stepped into the shop, making sure to jangle the service bell. He always jangled the service bell, but his wiry barber friend seldom noticed. As usual, the man’s eyes were riveted to the pages of an old Architectural Digest magazine. Willoughby stood, twitching the bell in the doorway. His eyebrows projected impatience. When there was still no response, he cleared his throat. At this, the man looked up.

  “Saints and Angels!” he declared, dropping the magazine to the floor. “You are a man who has come on time!” He swung up out of the barber chair and slapped its cracked leather. “Heavens forbid that I should impede the process of teen vanity—please!” He held out an arm as if to steady a teetering toddler.

  Willoughby rolled his eyes, staying well clear of the arm. “Yeah, teen vanity that keeps you in business. By the way, I’m always on time. Not that it does me any good, because you usually have your nose in a magazine. If you glanced at that oh-so-fancy Rolex Mariner I bought you last year, you would see that, as usual, I’m exactly on time. It is precisely 4:45 pm. I pride myself on punctuality.”

  “Ah,” Antonio shrugged, glancing at his watch. “It’s good you pride yourself on something!” He spoke in a heavy Spanish-American accent. “This copy of a Rolex keeps very good time. A real Rolex, of course, would be far too generous a gift for so humble a barber as me! We have discussed this before.”

  Willoughby sighed. “Whatever,” he mumbled. He bit back a frown and dropped his backpack. Antonio had been more than happy to take the watch when he had given it as a Christmas gift, but now, he seemed embarrassed by it. His friend knew that money was no issue. Why did he have to act this way? Glancing down at the magazine still on the floor, Willoughby decided to let the issue go. Understanding people was not a particular specialty of his.

  “So where was the great barber-architect wandering tonight?”

  Antonio followed his gaze to the magazine. His face lit up. “India! Tonight I was exploring the Coco Palace Resort in Rawai to be exact. Ah, you should have been there! It had beautiful curling tipped gables with distinctive Asian highlights. The guest rooms, adorned with fall foliage, elephant heads, and Bombay-style wood highlights are accented by the most unique triangular windows. The place is absolutely magnificent!”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  Antonio paused to take a breath. “No, of course not. I just said that to waste my breath.” He surveyed Willoughby’s wild hair. “You ask me to brave this Medusa of matted curls?” He turned Willoughby’s head this way, and then that. “You are a cruel man, Master Willoughby!” With a sudden spin, the tall barber stepped back and slapped the leather of his barber chair; “but, my friend, I am up to the challenge tonight! As Mr. Holmes would say, the game is not to cut a foot!”

  “I don’t think that’s what Mr. Holmes said,” Willoughby countered, picking up the dropped magazine with a grin. He handed it to Antonio, who simply tossed it toward a small stack of similar magazines on the counter behind the chair.

  “Well, he might have,” Antonio mused, “if he was a barber and the hair on your toes is as matted as the hair on your head.”

  “You cut toe hairs?” Willoughby gave a mock gag.

  “No,” Antonio sighed. “I do not cut toe hairs. I was only speaking hypothetically.”

  “Okay, so, hypothetically, do you cut nose hairs?”

  “Yes—hypothetically. It would depend on the state of the nose. And where is this leading?”

&nb
sp; “Some old men even have long hairs sticking out of their ears—hypothetically, of course.”

  “This may be true. You seem to know a lot about hypothetical hairs.”

  Willoughby threw down his backpack and slid into the chair. “From now on,” he mumbled, “I think I want you using a new pair of scissors each time you cut my hair.”

  Antonio barked a laugh. “And, hypothetically, you will pay for all these new scissors?” The barber twirled a crisp cloth around Willoughby’s neck with a flourish and clipped it.

  Willoughby smiled. “Hypothetically.” He sank back into the chair, letting the conversation turn back to the Coco Palace. Antonio was particularly fascinated with the use of bamboo in the works of Asian architects. As he clipped well-oiled scissors merrily, Willoughby stared at the gleaming silver and the red of Antonio’s prized barber chair. Usually, Antonio’s up-beat mood cheered him up, but tonight he couldn’t shake his feeling of unease. What had he seen outside? This wasn’t the first time he thought he had glimpsed numbers floating on air. He had a similar flash of equation once before—the morning after the dream that helped him solve The Riemann Hypothesis, a puzzle that had stumped mathematicians for hundreds of years. The dream changed his young life forever. Now, he was seeing floating numbers again. What did it mean?

  He fidgeted, looking away impatiently. Antonio turned his chatter to a recent soccer match. The local team he supported did, indeed, mount a valiant effort, but (he put great emphasis on the word but), in the end, they lost. Of course, it was the fault of a devastatingly incorrect call by the officials.

  Willoughby half listened. His eyes were roaming the interior of the narrow shop, calculating the empty spaces. As usual, he was Antonio’s only customer. He couldn’t remember ever having to wait while Antonio finished another client’s hair. This led him to wonder how Antonio stayed in business. His eyes flicked to the small TV against the far wall. It was turned off. That was unusual. Antonio almost always had the picture running, though he would turn down the sound or drown it out with his favorite music. He loved to torture Willoughby with opera or mariachi music, mixing in a little classical and even hip-hop or folk to add contrast. In truth, Willoughby’s own musical tastes were rather varied, so he didn’t really mind. Today, however, no music was playing.