Book of Days_ A Novel - James L. Rubart [117]
"You're telling me the Stories of Time truly do tell the future?"
Taylor nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me the truth?"
"I wanted to tell you. I did." Taylor rubbed his face and sighed. "I did try to tell you in my own way."
"When?"
"In the park, when I showed you the arrowhead shadow pointing the way to the book. I've wanted you to find it for a while now."
Oh, wow. The memory swished through his mind. That's right. Taylor had tried to show him.
"But I couldn't go any further than that. I swore I wouldn't ever put someone in the position to go through the regret I've lived with for thirty-three years."
"It all comes back to Annie, doesn't it?"
"I found the book when we'd been married for two years. We had the same type of relationship you and Jessie had." Taylor shook his head. "Perfect. Even after we were married, I loved backpacking through the mountains around here by myself for days at a time. A part of me has always been built for solitude.
"One early morning in July over thirty years ago, I explored an area of the mountains I'd never been to. I came to an opening in the rocks and somehow I stumbled through them to the prettiest slice of earth you'll ever find.
"There it was lying out in front of me like a mirror. As I gazed at it I saw the past, saw the present, then I saw the future. A future where my dad would lose his legs in a logging accident the next afternoon.
"Annie was out of town and I couldn't reach her so I came home and told my sister-in-law about what I'd seen and she never doubted me."
"Ann's mom?"
"Yes."
"She told me I had to save my dad. I agreed." Taylor rubbed his face with both hands. "I was supposed to wait for Annie to get home the next afternoon, but I left her a note saying I'd gone to see my dad.
"So I tried to stop the accident. And I did; my dad never lost his legs. People wondered for years how I knew that tree would fall the wrong way. But what I set in motion . . ."
Taylor stopped and swallowed as tears seeped onto his cheeks. "What I did caused Annie's death in the moments after my father lived."
"Because she didn't go to Bend with you."
Taylor nodded.
"So you made a book and created a series of clues—"
"I realized if I could create something that people would have to work to find, I could end it right there. In the case of Jason, it worked. I don't think he'll ever figure out . . . But you, it seems you're one of the chosen."
Cameron didn't know what to believe. Was it real? Was it another part of Taylor's game?
Taylor turned to him. "You didn't tell me your wife asked you to use the stone to find the book."
Cameron frowned at him.
"You're wondering how I knew?" Taylor said. "Grange told me."
Taylor tossed a rock into the river. "Don't you think it's time to come clean?"
"About what?"
"About why you're forgetting pieces of conversations. About why you didn't start your search for the book right after Jessie died. About why you didn't think her story was more than the jumbled thoughts of a dying woman until three weeks ago."
"Because . . ." There was no spin he could put on an answer that would satisfy Taylor.
"Why didn't you remember what Grange told you?"
Cameron watched the river rush around and over the rocks, as if it knew exactly where it wanted to go. Where it needed to go.
"I'm losing my mind. My memories flit in and out of my brain like sparrows. Eight years ago my dad died of the disease, and the last thing he asked me to do was to find the book for him. His dying wish. I thought he was talking nonsense.
"Then two years ago I started noticing my memory wasn't as sharp as it had been. Little things like reading notes I'd just written and reading them as if for the first time. Not remembering if I'd brushed my teeth or not. Telling my partner the same thing three times in one morning.
"Then I started losing memories of Jessie. What we'd done, where we'd gone, important conversations we'd had."
"I'm sorry." Taylor looked at the sky. "Okay, God, I get it."
He turned and stared at Cameron for a long time before nodding