In sum, I’m very confident that there’s much yet to be uncovered. In my profession we tend to be optimistic. These recent findings show precisely why a curator must never give up.
Now, on a final, related note, I venture once more to beg you to consider donating your copy of The Obsidian Cloud to our permanent collection. I regret that we don’t have suf ficient funds for any kind of remuneration, especially since you’ve already been most generous. But we would certainly issue a tax receipt to you for an appropriate amount, if it would be of any use to you in Canada.
My plan for the book would be to have it installed in one of our special book display boxes in the exhibit area of the centre. These boxes are generally used to show off the works of the great luminaries of Scottish literature: first editions of Hume, Scott, and Stevenson are in one of the boxes right now. But we pride ourselves on showcasing less well-known literary curiosities we feel are deserving of special attention. The Obsidian Cloud would certainly fill that bill.
I myself will be writing a detailed account of our discoveries regarding Macbane in the feature article of the spring issue of Archivists Quarterly. Naturally, you will be fully credited there for your involvement. I am certain the book will become a subject of great interest to scholars of the period. In the not too distant future, I fully expect to see new editions of it in print.
Again, thank you on behalf of the National Cultural Centre for having put The Obsidian Cloud into our hands in the first place. I do look forward to hearing your intentions regarding its ultimate disposal and hope you will consider this institution a worthy recipient.
Yours, etc.
Soulis.
4
I was as appalled at Soulis’s findings as he was elated.
From his point of view as a curator, it was a job well done. He and his assistant had managed to unearth some key answers to what had at first looked like an insoluble mystery. Most importantly they’d established that a man called Revon Macbane really had once existed, and that this man was indeed the author of The Obsidian Cloud.
In his letter, Soulis barely mentioned Macbane’s brutal death. For him the murderers’ truly unforgivable action seemed to be the incinerating of Macbane’s other papers, which would have been invaluable for scholars.
BUT I WAS NO CURATOR. My link to Macbane and his book was an intimate matter — I’d come to think of him as my author, my discovery. For me, the revelation of how he’d died was as shocking as if I’d just heard that a close friend had been sadistically tortured and murdered.
Indeed, reading the letter only strengthened the feeling that my relationship with Macbane was a special one. I’d always thought it curious enough that Mexico, of all places, was where I’d stumbled on the weird old book that evoked a moment in my own past in Scotland. Now, to find out that Macbane himself had had an actual, physical link — if only in the form of this Señora Vasquez — with Mexico!
Nor could I ever forget the most important way in which Macbane’s life intersected with my own — that, but for him, I’d probably never have known of Sarah’s existence. I owed him a profound debt of gratitude. Which made it all the harder to bear the thought that his brutal murder meant he’d never hold what might be his own child in his arms.
In my frame of mind, Soulis’s letter really was appalling. If I’d even remotely guessed what his research would uncover, I wouldn’t have considered putting the book into his hands. It was almost as though, by making that research possible, I myself had murdered Macbane.
SO THAT WAS my first reaction — regret that I’d ever sent The Obsidian Cloud to Soulis in the first place. By letting the book out of my safekeeping, I’d betrayed Macbane. Because of my curiosity, he’d been dragged into a callous world of “facts” where his weird book and his mutilated body would qualify equally as grist for the scholarly mill.
BUT IN TIME, when I calmed down, I realized that my instinctive response to Soulis’s letter was just a selfish whim. Book lovers naturally do feel a kind of possessiveness and protectiveness in how they relate to certain authors and books, as though they were pets.
No, I’d done the right thing sending the book to Soulis. If by some miracle Macbane could have foreseen that over a century later a copy of The Obsidian Cloud would be found a world away from the Uplands in the Bookstore de Mexico, he certainly wouldn’t have wanted the finder to keep it all to himself. His dying words clearly show that. He’d have hoped his book would become known to others, not kept hidden in a vault like some rare painting for a private collector’s unique viewing pleasure.
He’d have applauded my decision to bring it to the attention of a man like Soulis, and maybe through him to a wider audience than he’d found in his life.
Anyway, one thing would always be mine alone: the experience of discovering The Obsidian Cloud. When I opened that old quarto for the first time and saw there on the title page the word “Duncairn,” I could almost have believed the book had been waiting for me, had somehow chosen me — a man with his own private mystery in Duncairn — to bring its mysteries to light.
Of course, I’m aware that the very idea of a book having such powers is just romantic nonsense. Yet even to this day, thinking about that moment causes the little hairs on the back of my neck to rise, just as they once did in the oddly named Bookstore de Mexico in the sweltering heat of La Verdad.
EPILOGUE
Everything might have ended, as endings go, on that relatively pleasing note.
I say “relatively,” for though my curiosity about the mystery of The Obsidian Cloud had been satisfied, along with it came the awful news of how Macbane had died. Likewise, though I now understood Miriam’s reason for having rejected me, I’d always regret having missed so many years of my new-found daughter’s life.
Ah well. I consoled myself with the thought that, outside of romantic fiction, completely happy endings are scarce, no matter how much one might wish for them.
I’d no idea something disturbing was still in store for me.
A YEAR PASSED before Sarah and her fiancé were finally able to come over to Canada to meet Frank. They had such busy work schedules that they could arrange to be away for only five days in July. They stayed at the Walner for the duration of their visit. Frank and I were able to show them the sights of Camberloo and the surrounding countryside at its summer best, and take them to several of our favourite restaurants. And we talked, talked, talked.
I’d dearly hoped Sarah and Frank would hit it off, though I’d been a little uneasy. After all, who knows how people will get along? Even our own minds can be quite a mystery to us, so I certainly couldn’t take it for granted that two siblings who’d never met — never even known about each other’s existence— would instantly find in the other some quality they were drawn to. On the other hand, surely it wasn’t quite as improbable as, for instance, the appearance of a huge black mirror hovering over the Uplands sky.