The Voynich Incident

"Sharon..." I called, projecting my voice behind me while I stared, wide eyed, at the body in my living room. He appeared to have crumpled dramatically into a pool of his own blood, a tangle of limbs wrapped in a loose robe or cloak. His face was obscured, but he was definitely dead. There was a mangled, gaping cave in his back, exposing parts of his innards that I had only ever read about in text books.

"What is it babe?" Sharon emerged from our bedroom stretching and shuffling her feet. She froze.

I had stepped carefully around to try to get a look at his face. His whole torso was curled protectively around something he clutched firmly against his chest. "I think he's got something here..." I said.

But Sharon was already donning her professional mantle. "Don't touch anything," she hissed. "Call the police."

I eyed her. "You are the police," I said, grinning.

She scowled at me. "I'm getting my camera to take some photos. Just call 911 and get some deputies over."

She disappeared into our room. My phone was by the bed, but I couldn't help myself. Quickly I rolled the body over and reached for the man's precious cargo. It was a large leather-bound book. I pried it free and rushed to the bedroom to retrieve my phone, holding the book under my arm and shielding it from Sharon with my body. She left the bedroom, still fitting a lens onto her Nikon.

"911, what's your emergency?" The young man's voice was clear and calm.

"We've got a dead body in our living room," I said.

"OK, what's the address?" he asked, as though preparing to dispatch a pizza.

"Adam?" Sharon called from the living room. She sounded distraught.

I rattled off my address while wandering back toward the body.

"Did you move the body?" She asked frantically.

"Uhhh..." I stalled, wondering how I could hide my guilt. But there was no need. The body was gone.

Sharon stared at me, her mouth agape.

"Alright," the operator said. "I have officers and an ambulance on the way. Do you need me to stay on the line with you?"

"Uh... cancel the ambulance," I said, dazed.

"Excuse me?"

"Adam!" Sharon hissed. "What happened?"

"You're the detective!" I cried, rapidly scanning the scene. It wasn't just the body that was gone. A large swath of our carpet was missing, removing all traces of blood.

"Sir?" The voice on the phone insisted. "Have the police arrived already?"

"Uh, no..." I breathed, trying to work my way through this sudden development. "But we may not be alone in the house. I hope they'll hurry."

"Do you want me to stay on the line?"

"No thank you," I said. "Have a nice evening." I hung up, my head in a fog. "How?" It was all I could manage to say. I got on my knees by where the body had been, closely examining the line where the carpet had been cut. The line was remarkably clean. Even the padding under the carpet had been removed, but the plywood beneath didn't show any signs of a blade running along the cut.

I still had the book under my arm. It was heavy and thick, difficult to hold while crouching.

Sharon had run back to the bedroom for her service pistol, which she was now brandishing while performing a thorough search of the house.

I turned my attention to the book, taking a seat on the couch and gingerly peeling back the top cover. The pages were an ancient, thick paper covered with colorful drawings scattered around blocks of black, angular text. I recognized several Greek letters, but my eyes were drawn to the images. They had a vague familiarity about them, but they were entirely alien and bizarre. There were fantastical but detailed images depicting strange plants, non-existent beasts, and humans engaged in all manner of unusual or even illicit acts of copulation and intimacy.

"The house is empty," Sharon said, flopping down on the couch by my side. She stared at the book. "Where did you get that?"

The images were tickling the back of my mind like a sneeze that wouldn't come. I had seen them before... but where? There was something wrong with what I was seeing, but I couldn't quite place it...

"Where did you get that book?" Sharon asked more urgently.

I glanced at her, then back at the book. "The man had it," I said.

"The man? You mean the body? You touched the crime scene?" She rolled her eyes and collapsed further into the couch, throwing her head back and staring up at the ceiling.

A familiar but uncomfortable light show began pulsing in our living room. Red and blue, brightly flickering and flashing. Someone knocked on the door.

"Don't tell them about the book!" I whispered, rushing it to our bedroom.

Sharon shot me a disapproving glance but went to open the door.

"Detective Jefferson!" I heard the officer exclaim.

***

"Alright," Sharon said impatiently. We were seated together across from Dr. Johansson. "I'm going to need you to explain that again but keeping in mind that it's literally all Greek to me."

Dr. Johansson smiled politely. "What we have here in this leather book is truly remarkable," he said, glancing between the two of us. "It is a page by page copy of the Voynich manuscript, but the text has been translated into a different language."

"Right," I said excitedly. "That's why it didn't look right! The Voynich manuscript is written in a curly kind of script with round letters that nobody can make any sense of. This one looked like it was written in Greek!" I rubbed my hands together. "Does this mean we can finally translate the Voynich manuscript and find out what it's all about?"

The professor smiled weakly. "Unfortunately, though the characters are Greek, the language itself is almost as elusive as the original text of the Voynich manuscript. I have forwarded your samples to a colleague in Erlangen, Germany, and we believe the text is Thracian, an ancient dead language from Southeast Europe before the Roman empire invaded."

I stared at him, my face contorted and scrunched.

"So..." Sharon began. "What does that mean?"

"Well," he said. "This is huge. The book you brought me is probably the largest single sample of Thracian text in existence, and it's the only one I am aware of that includes spaces between the words. This suggests several possibilities, including the alluring theory that the language didn't die out when the Thracians were assimilated into Roman culture. It also suggests that the Voynich manuscript may be much older than originally assumed. I'm having some of the ink and paper dated. Those results promise to be most illuminating." He grinned. "I don't know if we'll be able to read the contents any time soon, but I have no doubt this book will be studied extensively by linguists all over the world for many years to come." He smiled and folded his hands on his desk with finality.

I shifted in my seat. "So how does that help us identify the body we found in our house?"

The professor's face twisted and his eyebrows lifted. "Excuse me?"

"I got the book off a dead body in our house last night," I reminded him. "Did you read the email I sent you?"

He laughed uncomfortably. "I'm afraid my excitement over the photos you sent must have caused me to overlook the rest of the email." His eyes settled on his computer screen where he clicked around for a moment while he put on some reading glasses.

Sharon met my gaze and rolled her eyes. I smiled and shrugged.

"Ah," he said, peering at the screen through the glasses. "I see..." His voice trailed off. "I'm afraid I can't offer any insight into the identity of your missing body. The cloak suggests some kind of occult organization, as does their possession of a book written in a dead language containing mysterious, supernatural illustrations."

"That's it?" Sharon asked patiently. "You don't have any more thoughts or ideas for us to go on?"

"Well," he said, taking off his glasses. "I suppose once I've got the carbon dating results back I might have something more. Let me digitize the book and get linguists around the world working on a translation. That, too, may be instructive."

***

"Wow," Sharon sighed, scrolling through headlines. "You see this headline? The FAU campus in Erlangen burned to the ground last night." She glanced over at me and paused. "What's the matter?"

I glared at my phone. "Dr. Johansson hasn't answered my latest email."

"Did you try calling?"

"Goes straight to voicemail but it won't let me leave a message. Says it's full."

She tapped around her phone. "Oh my," she breathed.

"What is it?"

"I just thought I'd check my work email real quick, and take a look at this..." She extended her phone to show me.

"The whole department?" I gasped.

"Seems the chief has every available detective working on different leads. This is huge."

"Just the linguistics staff are missing? Nobody else?"

"Just that department," she sighed, her eyes rapidly scanning the rest of the email. "They're all just... gone."

"Do you think they got around to scanning and uploading the book?"

She looked at me with wide eyes and shook her head. "No, it happened almost immediately after we left Dr. Johansson's office."

My heart was racing. I pulled up my phone's photo album. I still had a couple photos of some of the pages. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I quickly locked my phone, glancing around nervously.

"So, first there was the body holding the book," I said.

Sharon nodded slowly, staring intently at my pale face.

"I took the book and brought it to Dr. Johansson. He and his department have disappeared."

She nodded.

"So why haven't we..."

I blacked out.

***

I came to with a throbbing headache. Even with my eyes open they felt closed. I reached up and touched my face, expecting to find a blindfold or something. Nothing. The darkness around me was complete. The air was musky and thick with dust. I was lying on a bare stone floor. My throat was dry and stinging. I rolled onto my back and the sound of rattling chains startled me. I sat up, my heart pounding, and the chains clinked loudly again. I sat in utter silence, holding completely still, but there was no sound. I moved my foot and the chains chimed again. I let out a sigh and reached down to feel my right ankle. A thick metal bracelet was clamped just above the foot. I tried to pull free, but the metal dug sharply into my heel. I sighed and felt around for a wall to lean against.

"Sharon?" I called out. My voice echoed dramatically, giving the impression that I was in a large, cavernous space.

Once the echoes died down though, I was plunged back into black silence.

Time slipped away from me at an immeasurable rate. I mapped out the reach of my chain, finding just one nearly featureless wall. There was, near my chain's anchor point, a small door in the wall just big enough to fit a bucket or a box. I assumed my meals might appear there, should I be so fortunate.

Then the questions consumed me. Who was the man who had died in my living room? How had he gotten there? How had he disappeared so quickly? Where had he come from? Where was I now? Where was Sharon? An endless stream of impossible questions. I enjoyed a good mystery. Sharon and I had talked about running a private investigation service, but to solve a mystery you need clues. And I didn't feel like I had any solid clues to work with.

Anyone who had seen the book was dead or missing. Would I be permitted to live? Why hadn't they killed me yet?

I shook my head and tried to focus on what I did know. A feeling of dread overwhelmed me. I knew nothing. I could feel myself breaking into a cold sweat. I squirmed against the hard stone wall and ground. I fidgeted and adjusted restlessly. I couldn't tell whether I was tired or full of energy. I had no reference for the passing of time. I dozed off, woke up, slept again. My stomach growled, then it hurt, then it felt fine. I woke up feeling as though I was turning inside out, then I was fine again. How long had it been? My dry throat was killing me.

I was startled awake by the small door in the wall. It slammed shut directly next to me. I felt around carefully and found a clay mug. Plunging my fingers inside I felt cool liquid which I eagerly drank. At last my thirst was quenched, but once again my stomach churned painfully.

So they would let me rot away on nothing but water? How long had I been held prisoner? My grasp of reality faltered as I realized that I could not distinguish between hours and days. Frustration and anguish boiled up within me, and I began to cry.