4 Chapter 4

He picked up the book at the top of the pile on the floor by the armchair. It was large, and leather-bound and heavy, with rough-cut pages and bits of paper in Arthur’s neat hand sticking out from between them as bookmarks or notes. Idly he opened it. It was well-thumbed. It fell open at one of the pages Arthur had marked.

It was in a language he didn’t immediately recognise. Latin? Looking closer, it wasn’t Latin—he had learned at school—it was in an archaic form of English. Handwritten in thick cursive, with notation and diagrams. It looked like someone’s diary or a book of notes. Arthur had added his own, on the paper he had slipped between the pages.

Tried salt across door and window frames and around edges of room, no good.

Smell of burning oil.

Push back. The energy follows thoughts.

They can hear me thinking.

Cut the line.

Matty stared at the page thoughtfully and sipped some more brandy.

* * * *