Later that night when everybody was fast asleep, I got out of my bed grabbed a jacket, and flashlight and quietly headed out of the door. We weren’t allowed to leave the dorm after dark, it’s the dorms curfew time. Anyone caught leaving or arriving late at night might result to severe punishments. I walked up to James room as quiet as I could possibly could.
‘Where is it’ I whispered under my breath searching for James’s car keys.
I saw something shining from under James’s pillow, and it was indeed the car keys.
I paused to think on how I would get my hands on those keys.
James tossed and turned and I had an open opportunity to grab the keys from under his pillow before he could turn aside again, and I did. I managed to grab the keys in a nick of time before he could turn aside again.
I turned towards the door ready to do what I planned.
‘You really think you could get away that easy?’ James said behind me.
A lump formed in my throat, preventing me to swallow. I was shaking, but I forced myself to turn expecting the worst.
James was sitting on his bed, and he was also in his army pants and jacket.
‘There’s no way I’m letting you go alone’ he said.
‘You don’t even know where I’m going’ I replied.
‘Oh yeah?’ he said, standing up ‘you’re going back to that cathedral’.
‘What made you think that?’
‘Come on Dominic, seriously?’ he said.
‘Okay fine!’ I said ‘I’m going back to the cathedral, and I’ll do it alone’.
‘Nope’ James said walking towards me, and snatched the keys from my hand.
‘Hey’ I exclaimed.
‘My car, my rules’ he said.
‘Okay, you can come’ I sighed ‘but we must hurry, I bet getting out of this place will take hours. Those surveillance cams aren’t gonna shut themselves off’.
‘Or, we could just use the key to the back door’ James said, pulling another key from his pocket.
‘Wow’ I replied impressed ‘glad I woke you up’.
We headed downstairs and successfully got out of the dorm through the back door, hopped on James’s car and drove away in the dead of night.
‘What exactly are you looking for?’ James asked me.
‘I think I found the Grimm Book’ I said to him.
‘What?’ James sounded surprised ‘how?’
‘I’m not for sure, but remember those letters you deciphered?’
He nodded.
‘I had an idea that maybe the Grimm Book was hidden on the cathedrals tabernacle’.
‘And we’re going after it?’
‘Yup, I need to stop these hallucinations I’m having about that book’.
‘Okay’ James said ‘just be honest and tell me the reason’.
I told James about the dream I had last night. When I finished he looked as if an anchor pulled his jaw down and he just stared at me, but I managed to convince him.
He stepped on the pedal, and zoomed on the road. It took us a while to retrace the route towards the cathedral. But it eventually led us back there.
The place was dark, and eerie. All we could hear was the sound of our own heartbeats pounding in our chests.
‘Are you sure about this Dom?’ James hesitated.
I admit I was having second thoughts about doing this stakeout either.
‘We’re already here’ I muttered ‘so, let’s just get on with it’.
I turned the knob of the door, and it creaked and squeaked loudly turning and twisting bolts. The door opened, and we were greeted by a large bat scaring the crap out of us. The bat lunged itself towards us, screeching madly that someone interrupted its beauty sleep.
‘Okay, I officially hate bats!’ James said thrashing wildly.
‘Let’s go’ I said to him, and he shot me a murderous look.
The inside of the cathedral was even more nauseating. It was obviously abandoned; dust shrouded the ceiling, ruptures and cobwebs we’re all over the place, and the most bizarre thing about this place was it looked exactly the painting I did.
'This was fun and all but...’ I heard James said behind me ‘let’s get out of here this place gives me the creeps’.
I didn’t seem to listen attentively to what James said because my attention was caught by a gold hollow box at the end of the hall on the center of the altar.
I walked towards it almost like it was pulling me.
‘Dominic, what are you doing?’ James said behind me, but I was so focused on what I was doing I completely ignored him.
I reached the altar and a lump formed in my throat seeing the gold box at the center of it. The tabernacle was just small but it was hard to miss the letters that was engraved on it.
It seemed impossible. I walked closer to it, having a closer look. I could hear James shouting behind me. Beads of sweat trickled down my chin, and I could feel the pulse of my own heartbeat pounding in my chest.
What I saw was totally bizarre. It was the same letters James and I deciphered IPTUJFMTPISFJM, which was deciphered as hostienschrein that means tabernacle in German. I stood there in front of the tabernacle just staring at it. Anxiety was filling my mind with thoughts of what happened that night I dreamt of Jacob dying in front me, when a man called Hans impaled him with shards of glass.
The tabernacle didn’t seem to have a knob. All that was in its door was the engraved letters and below it was an array of the alphabet.
I tried to push every single letter hoping if it could trigger some sort of lock opening the tabernacle but it was useless. Then I tried to push IPTUJFMTPISFJM individually if that will work and it didn’t work as well.
My face was covered in sweat. My hands began to shake every time I tried another sequence of letters. Distraction already took the best of me. When I was about to give up, I suddenly remembered the reason James and I deciphered the code. I pushed letter H first, and a loud click echoed throughout the cathedral. Then I pushed the rest of the letters forming the word hostienschrein and one by one the door of the tabernacle was starting to collapse. I pushed the last letter of the word and the tabernacle door fell over, luckily I managed to back away just in time before the three hundred pound marble fell over me.
James and I coughed heavily brushing off dust that caked our clothes. The marble door that concealed the tabernacle lay shattered on the floor. I fixed my eyes on the hollow compartment in front of us. James was cursing silently beside me, saying things that he regrets talking about the Grimm Book in the first place. Then I remembered the reason why we’re here. It was not to calm my mind of giving me such hallucinations, driving me crazy. It was more than that, the dream, the painting, the urge to come back to this place. It was all connected somehow. What if the Grimm Book was real?
