Read Online The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jeff VanderMeer
Tags: Fiction, dark fantasy
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European - Romania? - and it was true he still had trouble identifying the former Soviet republics, but it still sounded false to him. He stared at the picture on the stamp again, shivered a little as if a breeze blew across the grassy plains surrounding the river. Something about the image stirred some deeply buried recognition.
Carefully, as if the precision were important, he picked up the stamp using the tweezers and placed it back in the envelope, in the same position, with the front facing inward. Then he walked over to the map of the world framed in his bedroom, and he looked for Sonoria. First, he tried Eastern Europe, then Central Asia, then random places, then systematically from left to right. No Sonoria in Asia, Europe, South America. No island named Sonoria. No isthmus. No province. No state. No city. Nothing. Unless it was so small it wouldn't show up on a map? Or it was one of those countries that had disappeared into the maw of another country?
Then he stood back, gazing at the map. It was probably a fake stamp someone had stuck in there as a joke. That's what Grace would've said. Just a joke. Why should he waste his time with it?
But that night, as Crake tried to get to sleep, he recalled the weathered quality of the stamp, the yellowish stain on the back, the high quality of the image on the front, and something about it worried at him, made him restless. He felt hot and out of sorts. When he did finally get to sleep, he dreamed he stood in front of a huge rendering of the stamp that blotted out the sky. The image in the stamp was composed of huge dots, but the dots began to bleed together, and then swirled into a photograph that became a living, moving scene. On the plains, strange animals were moving. Over the wide and roiling river, kingfishers dove and reappeared, bills thick with fish. The mountains in the distance were wreathed with cloud. A smell came to him, of mint and chocolate and fresh air far from the exhaust and haze of cities. Then the stars came up in a sky of purest black and blotted it all out, and he woke gasping for breath, afraid, so afraid, that he might forget this glimpse, this door into the Republic of Sonoria.
Bolger had heard none of this from Crake, of course, but had managed in his rough but uncanny way to intuit a narrow vein of madness in Crake's words during their initial meeting. It hadn't hurt that he'd bugged Crake's phone, though, and learned that Crake continued to call the post office about "Sonoria" and to make other calls that suggested Bolger could've charged much more than fifty dollars an hour.
He had also talked to a few of Crake's friends from the surveyor's department as well as the neighbors. Bolger had ruled out the stamp as a prank as a result. Everybody said Crake was a straight arrow - so straight it was ridiculous.
Truth was, Bolger still thought the joke might be on him. Sonoria. Was Crake in cahoots with the state senator, trying to make him look stupid? The whole story sounded like one of Bolger's mother's stories. He always knew the stories were bullshit, but at night, lying in bed with the sounds of his father knocking things over in the garage, he'd liked them anyway.
Bolger had a color photo of the stamp that he kept on the bed stand in his room at the Murat by-the-hour motel. It was the last thing he saw when he went to bed at night, and the first thing he saw when he woke up. When he had a hooker come by, they almost always noticed the damn stamp, maybe because it was the only thing in the place with any color to it.
At first, Bolger's own dreams focused on the councilman, and how this Sonoria assignment was all a big hoax to harass him. He saw a headline in his dreams: DISCOUNT DETECTIVE LOOKS FOR IMAGINARY COUNTRY.
But then the dreams began to change. The Republic of Sonoria. Where might that be? He didn't know, but he did know that in his dreams he had drawn his hand across the surface of a mighty river and felt the thick wet weight
Carefully, as if the precision were important, he picked up the stamp using the tweezers and placed it back in the envelope, in the same position, with the front facing inward. Then he walked over to the map of the world framed in his bedroom, and he looked for Sonoria. First, he tried Eastern Europe, then Central Asia, then random places, then systematically from left to right. No Sonoria in Asia, Europe, South America. No island named Sonoria. No isthmus. No province. No state. No city. Nothing. Unless it was so small it wouldn't show up on a map? Or it was one of those countries that had disappeared into the maw of another country?
Then he stood back, gazing at the map. It was probably a fake stamp someone had stuck in there as a joke. That's what Grace would've said. Just a joke. Why should he waste his time with it?
But that night, as Crake tried to get to sleep, he recalled the weathered quality of the stamp, the yellowish stain on the back, the high quality of the image on the front, and something about it worried at him, made him restless. He felt hot and out of sorts. When he did finally get to sleep, he dreamed he stood in front of a huge rendering of the stamp that blotted out the sky. The image in the stamp was composed of huge dots, but the dots began to bleed together, and then swirled into a photograph that became a living, moving scene. On the plains, strange animals were moving. Over the wide and roiling river, kingfishers dove and reappeared, bills thick with fish. The mountains in the distance were wreathed with cloud. A smell came to him, of mint and chocolate and fresh air far from the exhaust and haze of cities. Then the stars came up in a sky of purest black and blotted it all out, and he woke gasping for breath, afraid, so afraid, that he might forget this glimpse, this door into the Republic of Sonoria.
Bolger had heard none of this from Crake, of course, but had managed in his rough but uncanny way to intuit a narrow vein of madness in Crake's words during their initial meeting. It hadn't hurt that he'd bugged Crake's phone, though, and learned that Crake continued to call the post office about "Sonoria" and to make other calls that suggested Bolger could've charged much more than fifty dollars an hour.
He had also talked to a few of Crake's friends from the surveyor's department as well as the neighbors. Bolger had ruled out the stamp as a prank as a result. Everybody said Crake was a straight arrow - so straight it was ridiculous.
Truth was, Bolger still thought the joke might be on him. Sonoria. Was Crake in cahoots with the state senator, trying to make him look stupid? The whole story sounded like one of Bolger's mother's stories. He always knew the stories were bullshit, but at night, lying in bed with the sounds of his father knocking things over in the garage, he'd liked them anyway.
Bolger had a color photo of the stamp that he kept on the bed stand in his room at the Murat by-the-hour motel. It was the last thing he saw when he went to bed at night, and the first thing he saw when he woke up. When he had a hooker come by, they almost always noticed the damn stamp, maybe because it was the only thing in the place with any color to it.
At first, Bolger's own dreams focused on the councilman, and how this Sonoria assignment was all a big hoax to harass him. He saw a headline in his dreams: DISCOUNT DETECTIVE LOOKS FOR IMAGINARY COUNTRY.
But then the dreams began to change. The Republic of Sonoria. Where might that be? He didn't know, but he did know that in his dreams he had drawn his hand across the surface of a mighty river and felt the thick wet weight
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