The Writings in the Wall

Thud.

She had just taken out the last panel of rotten timber from the crumbling old wall when something heavy fell out from behind her. The sound disturbed her from the meditative state in which she would do this work.

It was in a place of shock and grief when she had, two months before, signed up for the Workaway scheme. Her father had died unexpectedly, leaving her alone in the world, as her mother had left them when she was a baby. She was an only child, so she had inherited everything. She didn't know what to do with the money or the house and her heart was shattered, she felt completely alone. So she decided instead to do something impulsive in order to distract herself from the intolerable pain she felt. If truth be told, she was running away.

She had picked southern France and was told she would be hosted by and helping an eccentric owner of a 14th century dilapidated castle. Her work would include gardening, maintenance and some simple repairs. It suited her well as she was a dextrous person; able to look at something deconstructed, broken even, and put it together again without so much as looking at a manual. Her dad had always nurtured this talent. At home they had their own workshop together, where they would upholster and fix antique furniture. She found fixing things to be the best therapy.

The owner; ‘Wally,’ as he called himself (although for some reason, she suspected this wasn’t his real name) had put her to work in the solar room, where the medieval family who lived there would have spent the majority of their time. It was a bright room with two large windows facing the gardens and an enormous stone fireplace in the centre wall.

She was working to the left of this stone fireplace, removing wood that had been damaged by several centuries worth of damp and beetle infestation. As she had forcefully pulled out one of the panels, another two had disintegrated, leaving behind them a cloud of thick dust and an unpleasant trail of dead creatures. From behind those decayed pieces of wood, a large black book had fallen. The movement of the panels must have dislodged it from its hiding place. She shuffled over on her knees and picked it up, carefully wiping the dirt and dust away, spluttering as she inhaled those ancient particles. It was certainly old, you could tell from the earthy smell it had, but surely it couldn't be medieval, could it? It had a thick, textured leather cover and was bound tightly with a tired looking leather strap. As she carefully began to untie the strap, she heard a gruff voice coming from downstairs; "Comment ça se passe là-dedans?”

She could hear Wally approaching down the hall now. You could perceive his heavy strides from the other end of the castle. Wally stood at 6ft 5inches tall, he would be taller still if it weren’t for his kyphosis. He was certainly a striking person, with disheveled snow-white hair and a long white beard and eyebrows, long limbs and a surprisingly strong physique for an old man. He was also somewhat of a mystery; she wondered why he had chosen such a vast place to live in, all alone. He had hardly told her anything about himself, other than that he was originally German but had spent a great deal of time in Italy and moved to France in the 1970’s. She wasn’t sure of his age, but she guessed he must be somewhere between 75 and 80.

They had spent most evenings together, in mostly silent harmony. They would sit in the courtyard drinking Armagnac, dwarfed by the stone walls of the castle and surrounded by immense, captivating history. He had planted apple trees in the courtyard, and one could often hear a song thrush singing happily amongst the leaves. Wally didn’t talk much but she didn’t mind, as she was a quiet, contemplative person herself and since her father died, often found she had little energy left to make conversation. But the old man intrigued her.

When she first arrived, he had shown her around most of the castle, except for a few 'dangerous' rooms he said should be ignored. His study was a marvel. It housed row after row of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, (bearing in mind the ceilings in his study were 15 feet tall). The ceiling was imposing with its thick, dark timber beams overhead. There were two large French windows leading out to the garden, framed with heavy wooden shutters, a worn red carpet and a beautiful mahogany table centred in the middle of the room. There were neat piles of manuscripts and articles piled on Wally’s desk, which was to the side of another giant stone fireplace. She had noticed many of the books were in Latin, Greek, Arabic and Mandarin. Wally had made a career in translating texts and articles and had fleetingly mentioned once that he was currently translating a copy of Euripides' Medea into Mandarin. It was then that she realised that he must be some sort of genius.

The old man now approached her, smiling kindly as he always did, but his face changed when he saw the book. His white eyebrows frowned, and then a look of madness came over him. His eyes looked wide and strained. “Uh, je... l'ai trouvé... um, dans le mur.” She tried to explain to him in her broken French. He stepped closer to get a better look at the dusty thing she was holding, stooping over her and anxiously stroking his beard. His eyes then filled with water and he grumbled something incomprehensible. His frown turned then, to a beaming smile. She offered him the book. With both of his long, wrinkled hands he took it, delicately from her, as if gratefully receiving an offering. He looked at it tenderly; lovingly admiring it like some treasured memory he thought he’d lost. His long body swayed as he held it, taking a deep breath in, he exhaled an; “ohhhhhaahh.” He appeared overwhelmed. Tears started rolling down his cheeks.

It was undoubtedly an extraordinary thing to have found a book behind a wall in a medieval castle. Of course. But Wally was behaving quite oddly, she thought. She wondered how he could have an affiliation with a book that must have been stored away for at least a couple of centuries; did he recognize it? Did he know what it was? She stood up; her heart was pumping with anticipation. But her movement jolted him into action. He practically ran out of the room yelling; “Ma chérie tu ne croiras pas ce que tu as trouvé!”

Stumped by this. She stood for a moment alone in the dust. Then she crouched back down and peered into the vacant space in the wall. Examining more closely where the book had been stored, checking the area to see if there were any clues as to where it had come from. There was nothing there. Now she could hear a commotion coming from downstairs.

She brushed the dust off from her overalls and made her way along the hall and down the spiral staircase, then walked toward his office. She entered his study; he wasn't there but he had been. The usually immaculate room lay in some disarray. Books and documents were scattered on the tables and floors. Pens and pencils littered the floor. She went over to his desk and noticed the drawers were all open. A huge green catalogue lay open on the desk, she read the title; ‘Rare Books and Manuscripts.’ She tiptoed around the glass of a shattered decanter of Armagnac, avoiding the sticky amber pool on the flagstone floor. What was he looking for?

Approaching the window, she saw him. Panic struck her when she saw the way he was lying, motionless on the grass. She hurriedly opened the French windows and ran over to him. She thought he had had a heart attack, but when she got there, she found him crying- with laughter. He had the book clutched to his chest. Concerned, she asked him; “Qu'est ce qui c'est passé?”

Now sitting up straight with the book on his lap, he flung his arms in the air, and through hysterical tears he said in English; "I knew it was in this castle somewhere! For sixty years I have dreamed of this moment! Do you know what that is?! Oh, how tremendous life... ç'est extraordinaire... mon Dieu, mon Dieu."

An almost-manic Wally then proceeded to explain to her that he was looking in his office for an Auction catalogue, in which he had first discovered the providence of this extraordinary book.

She sat on the grass beside him; he opened it and placed it in her lap.

Strange symbols and drawings filled the brownish page. She touched the paper lightly. Gliding her fingers across it, she noticed it was not paper at all, but vellum, a parchment made from calf skin. The book was, undeniably, very old. A sharp tingle of excitement moved up her spine. She took it all in. There were alien flowers painted in bright blues and reds. Naked people bathed in a green pond surrounded by unusual plants and trees. People appeared out of tentacle-like plants. Animals were painted in the centre of circular diagrams, surrounded by people spiraling around them. There were helixes and stars and moons and ancient equations. There were psychedelic patterns. All with vibrant colours and detail. But it was the unfamiliar writing, the peculiar language that most fascinated her; the way it flowed, chaotically across the thick sheets. From a glance it looked like old-English, but with closer attention it seemed the letters were not letters at all, but symbols, similar to hieroglyphics.

Wally said what they were looking at, was an unknown language. A language, or code, no one throughout history has ever been able to decrypt. A book that was purchased in 1912 by a Polish book dealer, by the name of Wilfrid Voynich. Wally looked at her now, with such intensity; she felt she couldn’t breathe. There was a certain magic in his expression, the pure emotion that came over him. She took it all in.

“My dear girl, I am going to decipher the undecipherable, I am going to solve the puzzle of six hundred years.”