The Book of Old Houses by Sarah Graves Page B

And that’s one of the things experts look for when beginning to assess a volume’s possible authenticity.”
    â€œLike mine was,” I said. “In the cellar for two centuries.”
    â€œYes,” he replied. “If in fact it
was
there all that time.”
    As we got up from the table the candles guttered out, leaving only the fire’s red glow until Wade reached over to turn on the sideboard lamps. In that instant of darkness it was on the tip of my tongue again to ask about the weapon. Only the memory of the many times I’d learned more by keeping my mouth shut than by opening it restrained me.
    When the light returned, DiMaio stood just inches from me. I drew in a startled breath; something about his story, finished by leaping firelight in a two-hundred-year-old room, had unexpectedly unnerved me.
    That and what he hadn’t said. “But if it was? If it’s
not
a forgery?” I asked quietly as the others went on into the kitchen.
    â€œMy old book,” I said to DiMaio . “What if it’s not a fake? What if it’s as old as the house, and written in—”
    I stopped, swallowing hard. Somehow in the dim-lit old room with the fire glowing red and the candles dead stubs, the idea seemed much worse than it had in the daylight.
    Worse, and more possible. “Written in blood?” Dave DiMaio finished for me.
    He continued. “Horace had already sent it out to several places. As I said, a laser spectrometer isn’t the kind of tool he kept in his own old-book-and-manuscript shop.”
    What about guns,
I wanted to ask,
did he keep those?
    But before I could, Dave was speaking again. “Horace had reports on the ink, paper, and the threads used for sewing the pages. The ink,” he told me gently, “was indeed blood.”
    He was looking levelly at me, the low light throwing his eyes into shadow and the fire’s flames reflecting in them. “Human blood,” he added tactfully as if informing me of a disease I’d unfortunately gotten.
    â€œOh.” My mouth went dry. “And what about the binding? Oh, please tell me it’s not . . .”
    As I spoke I could practically feel the book’s smooth old leather cover under my fingers. Too smooth, as if . . .
    A book written in blood,
I thought.
Why shouldn’t it also be covered in—
    â€œNo,” he said firmly, and I let my breath out. “Ordinary cowhide. Very fine, but nothing else.”
    Nothing worse,
he meant, and that knowledge should have been a comfort. But his face said more.
    His face expressed doubt, as if perhaps he weren’t quite as sure as he’d sounded about the thing being a forgery. And if it wasn’t a forgery—
    If it wasn’t, Dave DiMaio ’s expression said clearly, then even without human skin for a cover the old book was bad enough.

    Later that night, upstairs with Wade in our big bed in the dark: “Of course it’s fake,” I declared, wide awake. “How could it not be?”
    Wade nodded in silent assent.
    â€œA book of names, listing all the people who would live in this house,” I said. “How could it be anything but a trick of some kind?”
    â€œUh-huh. Speaking of tricks, why didn’t you ask him about his?” Wade inquired.
    The gun, he meant. But before I could answer he drew me down and wrapped his arms around me, smelling like toothpaste, fresh air, and harsh soap from his shower at the freighter terminal.
    His breath when he spoke again was warm in my ear. “Jake?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I replied. “I guess because it’s his. I don’t like the way he went about it one bit, and I still intend to call him on that, once I’ve found out a little more about what’s going on. But much as I wish it were, it’s not up to me to decide who gets to have a gun at all.”
    I went up on one elbow. “Did you see the fuss Prill made over