Errantry: Strange Stories Read Free Page B

them to form a dizzying grid, held together with fine gold thread and monofilament and what looked like human hair. Every bit of it was painted in brilliant shades of violet and emerald, scarlet and fuchsia and gold, and here and there shining objects were set into the glossy surface: minute shards of mirror or colored glass; a beetle carapace; flecks of mica.
    Above it all, springing from the fuselage like the cap of an immense toadstool, was a feathery parasol made of curved bamboo and multicolored silk.
    It was like gazing at the Wright Flyer through a kaleidoscope.
    “That’s incredible!” Robbie exclaimed. “How’d you do that?”
    “Now we just have to see if it flies,” said Leonard.
    Robbie straightened. “How the hell can that thing fly?”
    “The original flew.” Leonard leaned against the wall. “My theory is, if we can replicate the same conditions—the exact same conditions—it will work.”
    “But.” Robbie glanced at Emery. “The original didn’t fly. It crashed. I mean, presumably.”
    Emery nodded. “Plus there was a guy in it. McCartney—”
    “McCauley,” said Leonard.
    “Right, McCauley. And you know, Leonard, no one’s gonna fit in that, right?” Emery shot him an alarmed look. “You’re not thinking of making a full-scale model, are you? Because that would be completely insane.”
    “No.” Leonard fingered the skull plug in his earlobe. “I’m going to make another film—I’m going to replicate the original, and I’m going to do it so perfectly that Maggie won’t even realize it’s not the original. I’ve got it all worked out.” He looked at Emery. “I can shoot it on digital, if you’ll lend me a camera. That way I can edit it on my laptop. And then I’m going to bring it down to Fayetteville so she can see it.”
    Robbie and Emery glanced at each other.
    “Well, it’s not completely insane,” said Robbie.
    “But Maggie knows the original was destroyed,” said Emery. “I mean, I was there, I remember—she saw it. We all saw it. She has cancer, right? Not Alzheimer’s or dementia or, I dunno, amnesia.”
    “Why don’t you just Photoshop something?” asked Robbie. “You could tell her it was an homage. That way—”
    Leonard’s glare grew icy. “It is not an homage. I am going to Cowana Island, just like McCauley did, and I am going to recreate the maiden flight of the Bellerophon . I am going to film it, I am going to edit it. And when it’s completed, I’m going to tell Maggie that I found a dupe in the archives. Her heart broke when that footage burned up. I’m going to give it back to her.”
    Robbie stared at his shoe, so Leonard wouldn’t see his expression. After a moment he said, “When Anna was sick, I wanted to do that. Go back to this place by Mount Washington where we stayed before Zach was born. We had all these great photos of us canoeing there, it was so beautiful. But it was winter, and I said we should wait and go in the summer.”
    “I’m not waiting.” Leonard sifted through the papers on his desk. “I have these—”
    He opened a manila envelope and withdrew several glassine sleeves. He examined one, then handed it to Emery.
    “This is what survived of the original footage, which in fact was not the original footage—the original was shot in 1901, on cellulose nitrate film. That’s what Maggie and I found when we first started going through the Nut Files. Only of course nitrate stock is like a ticking time bomb. So the Photo Lab duped it onto safety film, which is what you’re looking at.”
    Emery held the film to the light. Robbie stood beside him, squinting. Five frames, in shades of amber and tortoiseshell, with blurred images that might have been bushes or clouds or smoke damage, for all Robbie could see.
    Emery asked, “How many frames do you have?”
    “Total? Seventy-two.”
    Emery shook his head. “Not much, is it? What was it, fifteen seconds?”
    “Seventeen seconds.”
    “Times twenty-four frames per