A Destiny Found

CHAPTER 1 Robin

CHAPTER 1 Robin

Brrr!

Even though it was April and the sun was out, spring felt late this year, which did nothing to help my troubled spirits. The Montreal snow made everything slushy, but flowers sprang up anyway, as if playing peekaboo with the winter.

By the time I arrived at our second-floor apartment in an old house just off Sherbrooke, my cheeks were numb. I paused to look at them in the mirror in the foyer to make sure I didn’t have any tell-tale white patches of frostbite and was happy to see they were still rosy.

After taking my gloves off, I placed the backs of my hands against them in an attempt to warm myself as I continued into the house, dropping my bag on the floor next to the door and latching it before walking into the kitchen to hit the kettle.

I was in my last year of Music and finals were looming, but I could hardly focus due to other concerns, specifically for my dad. He'd gone on what was supposed to be a routine business trip to France a few days ago and hadn’t replied since a short text on landing. I generally gave him a day to get back to me, as he was the stereotypical absentminded professor, but it wasn’t like him not to respond to any of my texts or emails.

I was in full-on, quiet panic mode now. This was beyond simple forgetting.

We were supposed to meet in two days in Paris, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I hated not knowing the most. I had slowly assumed the role of his reminder as I’d grown, going as far as checking his schedule daily. We both spent most of our time at McGill University, which made it easier to keep track of things, even though I was a student in the Music department and he was a professor in the English department.

When I’d bagged my first European audition in time for finals and he’d gotten the job in Paris, it seemed like fate had stepped in to give us a nice trip together. But now that I couldn't contact him, I was more anxious something had happened to him than about the audition itself, something I hadn’t thought possible.

I stood in the kitchen for a minute, tapping my fingers against my leg and tried to think. Maybe I was overreacting. It had only been a couple of days, after all. But still, it wasn’t like him. Even though he was absentminded, he’d never been out of touch for this long, no matter how wrapped up in a book he was.

Which was good, seeing as how we’d only had each other since my mother died when I was little. Once I understood she wasn't coming home, I’d taken it upon myself to help around the house. To this day, I wasn’t entirely sure who’d raised whom.

I chuckled, wondering how much extra work I’d caused him due to my early disastrous efforts, but despite my “help,” somehow by the end of that first year, we’d been an unbeatable team. I'd always made sure he ate when he became absorbed in his work, and he'd opened my eyes to the world of wonder that existed in books and in music. And, when I finished high school, he'd supported me in my crazy plans to be an opera singer, never once doubting I could succeed if I wanted to and worked hard enough.

When the kettle clicked off, I poured boiling water over the lonely teabag I'd scrounged up from inside the cupboard. I hadn't gone shopping in a while, knowing we’d both be gone for a few weeks and having more important things on my check list. Now, I mentally added fresh tea to my grocery list as I let it steep. When it was ready, I carried it to my dad’s study.

Although hardly grand by library standards, it was a cozy den off the living room where he'd made a nest of sorts and was my favorite room in the house. The glass French doors were kept open most of the time, framing the entrance and adding a certain ambience. There was a large bookshelf taking up most of the back wall, and in the center of the room was an old wooden roll top desk he used to do his paperwork. Tiffany lamp shades were in each corner on side tables, adding extra light for a reader next to plush armchairs my father had found at an antique store.

He liked everything old, not just books.

I headed to the desk, knowing it was the most likely place to find answers. I usually left it alone, knowing full well touching his papers would disrupt his “system,” whatever that was. Looking at them now, it would be a stretch to say his system was anything another human would recognize.

Stacks of paper were piled haphazardly on top of each other. I spotted what appeared to be the crust of the sandwich peeking out from the middle. I wrinkled my nose and gingerly pulled it out. Yup, old sandwich. I was lucky there were no mice in here. At that horrifying thought, I paused, scanning the room while listening for any ominous rustling or squeaking noises.

When nothing stirred, I exhaled and began to sort through the stack, steeling myself for other gross food findings as a precaution. Next, I removed a mishmash of bills from student term papers. Thankfully, I’d set up automated payments for most things, so I knew the bills were statements and not past due notices. Then I pulled out the student papers he’d printed out, noting some were graded and others weren’t.

I squinted, wincing when I saw one poor student’s name next to a date in January. Hopefully they didn’t need this mark to graduate. It took time, but slowly I made my way through the mess, sorting the items into broad categories I hoped wouldn’t get me in trouble on his return. Bills, junk, term papers, essays, and finally what I was hoping to find—my dad’s notes.

That was when things got weird.

I reached out for a folded piece of paper and noticed my hand was shaking. Why was it shaking? Even as I inspected the quivering appendage though, a sickening sense of premonition settled in my gut.

Dammit.

It wasn't something I liked to admit, even to myself, that whenever I got that particular feeling something momentous was about to happen. I didn't have a name for the eerie premonitions—maybe they would have been easier to deal with if I did. Perhaps it was a form of untapped intuition, but it thankfully didn’t happen often. When it did though, I always listened.

It usually presented as a sudden, intense, and overwhelming anxiety. It was so powerful I was able to distinguish it instantly from my own emotions; almost like I was picking up on the universe’s energy and getting a glimpse through a window into something I shouldn’t. When I’d moved the paper, the sensation practically punched me, and that anxiety became firmly fixed upon the item in my hand.

Exhaling a deep, shuddering breath that seemed to echo in the quiet room, I opened the innocent, cream-colored rectangle. It was a letter addressed to me in my dad’s handwriting.

Frowning, I looked at the paper then at the stack I’d retrieved it from. Was he that forgetful he’d tucked it into the middle? Or had he been hiding it? And hiding it from whom?

Looking around the room with narrowed eyes, I searched for signs anyone had been here. It hadn’t crossed my mind before now, and I couldn't think of any reason someone would want to search the office. Nothing appeared to have been moved since my dad had flown to Paris, and the desk was undisturbed from this morning when I’d left for school.

Trying to shake off the weird paranoia gripping me, more because I didn’t want to believe I was alone with someone in the house than for any other reason, I turned back to examine the paper. It was only a few paragraphs long, but more difficult to read than usual due to his handwriting, which looked as if he'd written in a rush.

Recognizing the date on top as the day he’d caught his flight, I wrinkled my nose. Strange. He hadn’t mentioned leaving a letter for me. It wasn’t something he usually did.

Dear Robin,

If you’ve found this letter, it means you're worried and something has happened to make me not reply to your other avenues of contact. For that, I'm deeply sorry. As far as I could predict, this was another routine book acquisition trip; although I debated whether to accept the commission due to the increased level of risk.

You see, the trip I am on right now isn't for the university, but a private buyer, Mr. Lavallee. Normally, I would've turned him down, given who he is and the way people who work for him seem to end up worse for the wear in his employ, but the book he wanted me to find was so intriguing I couldn't say no.

He has information which leads me to believe I would find the book in question located in rural France. Everything about the trip otherwise, I expect to be the usual, other than the prize I am hoping to find at the end is a book I have been searching for since you were a child. I am hoping it will be just another adventure for me to purchase a treasure from a willing seller before experiencing the highlight of my life; watching my little songbird achieve her goal of singing onstage at the Paris Opera.

But, if you are reading this letter now, it means things have not turned out the way I’d hoped, and the niggling concerns I had were well-founded.

The book I am searching for is known by many names. Most scholars don't believe it even exists. Of course, you know I couldn't resist the chance to see who’s right. If it does exist and you haven’t heard from me, please don’t come looking. I could bear almost anything except knowing my little girl was injured, or worse, noticed by the man who hired me.

The letter drifted to the floor as my mind went blank. Mr. Lavallee? It couldn’t be. There were many Lavallee's in Montreal. After all, it was Québec. It was as common a name as Smith or Jones in an English-speaking area. But the cryptic note made the anxiety inside me tighten and grow larger, causing it to move from my stomach to encase my heart in an icy shell of panic.

Could my dad have accepted a commission from Guy Lavallee? The same Guy Lavallee who headed the most notorious chapter of bikers in Montreal?

I looked around the empty study, swallowing hard. Had my father unwittingly put himself in the middle of something gang-related? Why would he be so reckless? It wasn't like him. But even as I tried to convince myself it was just my imagination, something else he’d mentioned percolated through my fear.

The book he was searching for.

He hadn't mentioned its name, but the way he’d described it made me wonder if other forces were at work. I’d interrupted him several times in the month prior to his trip. He’d been researching something which had absorbed all his attention. He’d commented more than once it was ‘the secret to finally decoding the Voynich manuscript,’ but had been secretive with other details.

I didn’t know nearly as much as he did about rare books, but if he’d found a book with a translation for the Voynich manuscript, he’d have more to worry about than just a biker gang. People had been searching for the key to that puzzle for decades. Some thought it was a book on how to use magic, an instruction manual for medicine, and some particularly crazy bibliophiles even thought it was an alien tome dropped on Earth by some long-lost visitors when Stonehenge or the pyramids were built.

Decoding the Voynich manuscript was as important to historians as finding a spell that would turn lead to gold had been for alchemists. Come to think of it, some people thought that was one of the secrets it held, adding treasure hunters into the mix of people looking to translate the manuscript.

The tingle of anxiety loosened slightly. As I’d learned to do over the years, I allowed myself to listen with my inner ear. The logic felt right, even if the idea was completely ludicrous. If my dad had been on his way to find a translation text for the Voynich manuscript, I knew the starting point, what he’d been after, and who was backing his trip. But none of that explained where he was now, or why he wasn't responding to my calls.

I looked at my watch, finding it was almost seven, and sent another text. I didn’t expect an answer and put my phone away without waiting for one. I hoped he would be able to see my message where ever he was, and know I understood the danger.

I'm coming Dad.

Love you,

xoxo

R