The Book of 21 by Todd Ohl

The thing had just about every application or utility he would need. He just wished he could find the command to make the thing vibrate instead of ring.
    The computer beeped at him once, capturing his attention and letting him know it had successfully booted up. Digging Dunglison’s disk out of his coat, he used a pair of tweezers to remove it from the bag and stick the disk into the drive slot.
     He decided to open the .rtf file, since it might be easier to read than the unformatted text. The title page came up on the screen: “Paranormal Pennsylvania: Folk Tales of Witchcraft and Hauntings in Southeastern Colonial Pennsylvania.” Instead of presenting Spartan double-spaced text, the document looked as if it was digital copy of a fancy book.
    John scrolled down to the introduction and started to read:
     
While many scholars have taken time to study the folklore around Salem witchcraft (Jones, 1956; Mendelson, 1966; Pierre, 1967; Scholworth, 1971; Smith, 1972; Tauperson, 1976; White, 1982), only Johnerson (1985) has sought out the folklore and tales around witchcraft in southeastern Pennsylvania during the same period. In the folklore of Johnerson’s book, one can find tales relating to several groups in southeastern Pennsylvania. However, Tutbridge (1992) has claimed that Johnerson’s work is at best a good start to the field…
     
    At this point, the words on the page turned into, “Blah, blah, blah.” John rubbed his eyes, and thought, “Who cares?” He scrolled down until he saw the first group that Dunglison mentioned in his death note.
     
The Brethren of Roxborough were one of Johnerson’s (1985) primary groups of interest. In his account, they were a group that quietly lived near the Wissahickon Creek and met at a waterfall along that body of water. Several folk tales of this group meeting late at night populated Johnerson’s work. Johnerson also made the strong assertion that the council of fourteen, which led the group, guarded a book. Johnerson referred to this book as The Book of 21 , or Le Coeur Codex . None of Johnerson’s claims were corroborated by this researcher, since the original documents he cited as sources could not be found.
     
    John rolled his eyes. “So he made the crap up to get published: big deal. Shut up about him and get on with it.”
    He scanned the rest of the article. Apparently, an elderly woman had donated a bunch of old papers to Penn Commonwealth. One of the papers was a letter from William Penn to a man named Jan Hanstitch. In Penn’s letter, he stated that Hanstitch’s group was welcome to worship as they pleased in the Commonwealth. Penn also had made a request of the group, as “remuneration” for their freedom, that they help him on a certain matter. It seemed that William Penn wanted to keep Salem’s witchcraft frenzy out of Philadelphia. He asked for their help as “learned and educated gentlemen” in examining claims of witchcraft in the colony. Dunglison referred the reader to “Appendix K” for a full copy of the letter. Hanstitch’s group later became known as the Brethren of Roxborough.
    John wondered how many appendices the book had. He scrolled back to “Appendix K” and found the letter. Dunglison’s interpretation seemed faithful to the message of the original letter. Of course, the letter in the manuscript was a typed reproduction and not a photocopy, so John wondered if Dunglison had made simply the stuff up.
    John returned to the section on the Brethren, and found that they ceased to be visible to the public around 1706, when Hanstitch was killed by his wife’s lover. Dunglison then discussed several poems and folktales about the “Brethren of the Rocks.” These seemed boring and verbose ghost stories. John decided to move on to the next item in Dunglison’s letter.
    He scrolled down to the section on the Jonas Farm. The farm burned to the ground during the American Revolution; patriots set it ablaze because it sheltered munitions for