A Year in Haven

Prologue: The World Between

Renold Graves stood in the middle of a library. It seemed to be a personal library; that much became obvious to him instantly. Every wall was covered in books stacked to the ceiling in their shelves. The longer Renold stood in the room, the less it seemed to have a defined shape and size. It was always changing, in subtle ways that were near impossible for Renold’s mind to process. And none of this disturbed him. It all seemed so natural. All of a sudden, his hand moved quickly to feel his chest. He felt the cloth underneath his finger tips. Standing there, Renold was confused. Was he feeling for a heartbeat? Was something missing? Everything seemed to haze away from him as he stood in the middle of the library.

His fingers moved slowly to his neck and felt the metal chain that hung there. He looked down as he pulled the necklace from underneath the white shirt he was wearing, the top button undone. It was a simple silver cross. He held the pendant tight, holding onto the only thing that for that minute seemed real. It came to him that he wasn’t wearing shoes, but despite this, the tile floor wasn’t cold.

Renold walked to the nearest book shelf and looked them over for a moment. They were famous works by famous authors. Books one would find  in any personal library. The books came in all sizes, and editions. Some carefully maintained old hard backs, other’s paperbacks that had their spines repeatedly broken, a sign of being well used.

He took a step back from the shelves and looked around again. It seemed to change as he looked over it. It changed in ways that made him doubt if anything had changed at all. Several tall wing backed chairs populated a corner of the personal library. They were positioned to surround a fireplace. The fire burning hot and strong, were even Renold could feel the heat from across the room.

A man sat in the closest chair to the fire. He wore a black cloak that hid his body from Renold’s sight, the hood pulled over the man’s face, casting most of it into shadow. Only things visible were the man’s hands, and the lower half of his face. Renold took a careful step forward, looking the man over. Something about him was familiar to Renold, but he couldn’t place how. The man’s left hand was scared badly, as if it had been in a fire long ago. The book in the man’s hands was of Asian origin, the script on the cover meaning nothing to Renold.

Renold’s eyes drifted from the book to the only other thing about the man he could discern. What little of the man’s face that could be seen was striking. It was an old face, the right side of it being old and wrinkled, showing man years of passage. The left was still taught, because of scar tissue marring the man’s facial features. What Renold found most strange was the break between the scars and the normal part of the man’s face was a perfect line. It went down the center of his face.

For a brief moment Renold wondered why the man wasn’t moving, why he didn’t react to the inspection. He wondered if the man in the chair was dead. But as he took a few steps back from the man, those thoughts didn’t bother him anymore. It just seemed as if this was how it was meant to be. It seemed right in its purpose and meaning, and something in Renold knew that.

As Renold walked back to the shelves of books, he started to wonder how he arrived in the room. He wondered why he was now wearing clothes he had never worn before, but clearly fit him properly. He wondered even more why he hadn’t asked himself these questions while he was looking down at himself. These questions buzzed in his head for a few moments, and slowly started to form into a mist and fade from him.

Renold place his fingers onto the books in the shelves. He let his fingers run along the embossed titles, reading them with his finger times, rather than his eyes. The old special editions with leather covers, immaculately preserved, or the used, and partially abused, paper backs, with their cracked and battered spines. It came to him over time that these were books he knew. Not all of them had he read, but he heard of them all. These were books that he felt he’d have kept in a library, if he had the need of one.

His fingers stopped at an old leather bound book. It had no title, but Renold could tell it from the others. It was his father’s journal, the book that kept his life’s story. Renold had never read it. He had seen it several times, and could imagine it in his father’s hands, or on the desk, as his father would scribble into it. Somehow Renold had believed it have been burned, lost forever to time. And yet here it was, the leather bound journal, which must have been several centuries old by now. Why did he think it was destroyed? Did he only imagine his father throwing it to the fire? It must be all in his mind. It was the journal he remembered so vividly.

It felt so real in his hands right now. Renold held the book carefully and with no thought of the world around him walked to one of the wingback chairs by the fireplace. He flipped open to the front page, and started to read.

He wasn’t sure how long he spent on the book, it was longer than the size of the journal made it seem. After some time, minutes, hours, days, Renold closed the book and laid it to rest on his knee. Renold shut his eyes and let the crackle of the fire fill his mind. He let his mind wander once more to think of what he had read. Had everything he believed of his father been so off the mark. It shouldn’t have surprised him. The men you knew as a child were seldom the men you’d know as an adult.

When he opened his eyes the old man was now sitting across from him. Between the two identical chairs was a chessboard. Renold looked down at the black pieces before him. His eyes then noticed the journal was gone. None of this really disturbed him, at least not as much as he thought it should. Everything that was happening to him felt natural, like it was meant to be.

“Hello, Mister Graves. Did you enjoy your book?”

“It was,” Renold paused, “interesting. Was it real?”

“Possibly.” The old man responded. “It is as real as your mind will let it be. That is the nature of this place”

“And what is this place?”

“This is the World Between.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Renold said, his eyes searching the darkness of the hood for the old man’s eyes.

“It doesn’t?” the old man seemed to laugh without moving his lips. “It means something to me.” The old man’s hands wandered down and gently rest a finger on the top of the king before him. “You are interesting. But I guess I already knew that.”

“How do you know me?”

Again the laugh that didn’t change the man’s features. “I know all about you, mister Graves. You are a legend. And you are very composed.”

“Should I not be?” Renold Graves didn’t move, and continued to search the darkness for the old man’s eyes.

“Well, you arrived here without knowing how you could have gotten here. This place has changed before you without you seeming to notice or care. And most of all, an old man you have never met seems to know you. It seems to me, that being composed is last thing you would be.”

Renold turned his head to look around the library once more, and it seemed to have changed again. “I see.” He looked back to the man. “I am dead.” It was a simple statement.

This time the man’s lips did move, and a loud laugh burst forth. “I must confess, I was expecting something else.” For a brief moment, Renold could swear he could see the man’s eyes beneath the hood. “You are so different than how I knew you.”

“I suppose you aren’t going to tell me, how you knew me.”

“I, unfortunately, cannot. But to put your mind at ease, you aren’t dead. You wouldn’t be in this place if you were. The World Between is the gateway, but only those who are still tied to the mortal world stay here.”

“So you are still alive.”

“I am.” It was the only answer that Renold could feel coming from the man.

The silence became heavy. It felt as if a physical weight now sat on Renold’s shoulders.

“You may move first.” The old man said gesturing to the board before him.

“Chess was never my game, but I believe that traditionally, white moves first.”

The old man just smiled. “This is a casual game, mister Graves. It should not matter who moves first.” He gestured once again to the board. “It only matters who moves last.”

Renold looked back down at the board and sighed. He knew the rules, of course, but had never mastered the complexities. His fore finger gently rolled the piece in its space, before finally pushing it forward.

“So why are you here?” Renold asked, leaning back, watching the board.

“I am here because you are.” The old man leaned forward, letting the hood of his cloak cover more of his face in shadow. His fingers slid together and Renold got the feeling that the old man’s eyes ran over the board. “I am here because you were a legend. What you did in Haven is shrouded in that legend, and I want to know the truth.”

“You could ask Death.” Renold said, watching, and waiting. “Death should know as good as anyone else.”

“I could. But there is a cold objectivism there. I want to know the emotions, and deeper meanings.” The old man finally moved.

“So, tell me what you do know, and I can fill in the rest.” Renold leaned forward again to look the board over once more.

“I know that you are not human, a vampire to be precise. You live amongst humans, like most of your kind. You live off animal blood, or whatever is bought through donation drives. You are particularly antagonistic towards the Council.”

“Seems you don’t know that much about what happened.” Renold moved his next piece.

“I know quite a bit, actually. I’ve spoken to a lot of those who were a part of that.”

“What?” Renold looked up at the old man.

“Time has no real meaning here. To you, you have just arrived, but to those who were alive when you last saw them may have been long passed by the time you arrived here.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Again, it makes sense to me.” The old man laughed and moved a piece. “But like I said, I know what they saw. I just don’t know why you did what you did.”

“I see.” Renold wanted to say more. He wanted to argue that this didn’t make sense, but something in him said it did. More and more Renold wondered if that voice was his or someone else’s. “So where should I begin?”

“Oh begin at the beginning. The murder of Ralph Jackson.”

Renold just nodded. “I suppose that was the beginning. I can tell you what I know.”

“No!” the old man’s voice was sharp for that brief moment, and then faded into a chuckle. “I already know the facts. I want to know what you felt, what you experienced.”

“If you say so.” Renold moved his next piece.

“And for that, I’ll fill in some of the gaps. What your allies were up to while you had your back turned.”

“Okay…” He watched as the old man moved his next piece. “It all started on the train ride to Haven…”

Chapter 1: Renold Graves