Chapter 10

Amy eyed the freezer carefully, as though it might suddenly pounce. It did not pounce, but it still lacked the bottled frappuccinos she sought. After enough time had passed that it she was confident the situation was unlikely to change in the near future, she resigned herself to taking three cartons of coffee-flavored Häagen-Dazs.
Amy carried the cartons in a teetering stack to the checkout counter of Tyler Student Union Grill, where a striking girl with spiked platinum blond hair was working the counter.

“Hey, McKenzie.”

“Hey you.” McKenzie gave Amy a sharp smile. “Nice stack.”

“Uh, yeah. I’ve got some big projects due tomorrow, and so I’m going to need the caffeine.”

“There are better ways to get caffeine. Coffee, perhaps?”

“Yeah, but coffee is too acidic. I need to balance it out with dairy, and the sugar will keep my blood sugar levels up.”

“Hey, okay. Can I get you anything else?”

“Double burger, onion, pickle, mustard, mozzarella sticks.”

McKenzie gave Amy an appraising look. “And how does that fit into the biochemical balance?”

“Hey, got me. Make it two things of mozzarella sticks.”

She passed over a twenty, and McKenzie returned her change with a smile. Amy was pleased to note that this time the smile reached McKenzie’s eyes.

The grill was fairly empty this late at night. Amy picked a seat at a table not far from the counter, and watched the grey-looking cook grill her burger and throw the frozen cheese sticks into the frying basket. Something about the way he slouched through the procedure made him look like he ought to have a limp cigarette dangling from his mouth. If anyone was praying for him, they needed to start pulling extra shifts.

She let her eyes drift out of focus. At first she listened to the chatter of the room. Three boys were discussing which alcohols had made them the most sick, and their voices began merge into those of the small group discussing a sociology project as her mind wandered over the story she’d heard from the kids from Pullyblank Hall. It didn’t seem right that a professor could do something like that. He’d be fired. No, if he had tenure, he couldn’t be fired. But there would be some kind of disciplining, of that she was sure.

She suddenly realized that she was staring at McKenzie. The older girl was moving things around behind the counter, bending over to sort something in a lower drawer. She stood up, and turned her head to see Amy staring. Amy, embarrassed, pretended to be looking at the jar of spoons nearby, and then turned her head to look out the window.
The cook called out her number, and she went to get her food from the counter. McKenzie was gone. The food smelled delicious, in that thick, greasy way. She juggled the three plastic baskets of food back to her table.

Amy started with the mozzarella sticks, first dipping them in the plastic container of marinara-ish red goo. When she realized that the goo just made the sticks feel wet and taste like they’d left out for a while she finished the basket plain. She had just turned her attention to the burger, when she noticed a shape in her peripheral vision.

“I love to see a good feast. Mind if I join you?” McKenzie set down a Styrofoam cup of what looked like coffee before pulling out a chair and sitting.

“Mmph,” Amy acquiesced through a mouthful of burger.

“I’ve seen you run for the track team, right? You look good out there.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Amy laughed. “Thanks. I hope you didn’t see my last meet. I was really off my game.”

“Up late having too much fun the night before?” McKenzie gave a slow wink as she swirled a plastic stirrer in her cup.

“No! Drinking before the night of a meet is against the rules of the athletics program. They’d kick me out.”

“Not what I was talking about. Though what I’m talking is also against athletics program rules the night before a game, according to the student handbook. It’s some hold-over from a more repressed time, but it’s still on the books.” She sipped her drink.

Amy wasn’t sure what to say, so she seized on the part that surprised her the most. “You read through the student handbook? I didn’t think anyone read that all the way through, and you don’t seem like . . . ”

“Oh, you have to read documents that proscribe your behavior. It’s how you find out what you can get away with. ‘Everything which is not forbidden is allowed.’”

“’Everything which is not forbidden is allowed,” Amy repeated. The phrase was almost tautological, but there was something oddly compelling about it. At this moment, in the wreckage of the greasy feast, it seemed full of promise.

“So, what don’t I seem like?”

Amy wasn’t sure how she had planned to end the sentence. McKenzie sipped her coffee. “I don’t know. You just seem like you’d be doing something more fun than that,” Amy eventually said. It sounded lame to her as she said it.

McKenzie grinned. “Hey, your coffee surrogate is melting. I’ll help you carry it back. But I might take a little as a delivery charge.”

Amy smiled. It seemed fair.

* * *

Though it had been a warm day, the night air had a crisp edge to it that suggested leaves changing colors, harvest beers, and lederhosen. The chill of the ice cream on Amy’s hands augmented the feeling. Walking beside her carrying ice cream in one hand and the presumed coffee in the other, McKenzie was telling a story about a Habitat for Humanity trip she’d taken.

“. . . so I told him his hair looked awesome, and that I’d trade him my shirt for it. He said deal, as long as I gave it to him up front. So, I took off my shirt, and we got a razor to shave his head . . .”

“I can just picture you shaving some hipster’s head just in a bra–”

“– Wasn’t wearing one.” Amy flushed. “So, there he is leaning over the sink, grinning like a fool –” McKenzie broke off, her eyes tracking something above Amy.

Amy looked up and gasped. There was a dim light in the branches of the oak above her, picking out a wrinkled, bulbous face from the foliage. A couple yards below, a pair of weathered but formal black shoes appeared to be dangling from a branch. As she stared, there was a motion in the branches above, and she was able to distinguish the shape of an elderly man sitting in the tree, lighting a pipe. The match gave a brief glimpse of a gobliny face. The old man got the pipe lit and took a couple puffs.

“Good evening, Professor Kincaid,” McKenzie said with surprising aplomb.

This weird apparition was the Kincaid of legend and lore? He was so undignified, and so old. There was something very upsetting about the old man in the tree, and Amy desperately wanted him to get down. She cleared her throat nervously. “I believe it’s against school policy to climb campus trees, Professor.

“For students, yes,” Kincaid replied. “It’s been the prerogative of all faculty to scale any such trees as they feel fit, and to lecture from trees in as many as but no more than three-fourths of their lecture periods ever since the glorious tenure of Professor Van Der Meer. He spent so much time in the trees of this campus that many mistook him for a large monkey.”

He left off there. After some expectant goggling, Amy began to speak, only to be cut off by Kinkaid. “Of course, that’s a very common and reprehensible taxonomy error. The good professor was actually a large chimpanzee, which is, of course, in the ape branch, no pun intended. It’s sad that the spectacle has gone out of higher learning.”

Amy turned to look at McKenzie, wondering how this seemingly unflappable girl would deal with the strange, arborial professor. Her expression strode the fence between amused and bored.

“So, what brings you to this part of the campus this evening, Professor?” McKenzie asked, voice cool and even.

“I had been in my office taking care of some light misanthropy when it occurred to me that you would need my aid to live through the night.” With that, Kincaid tossed something glinting at McKenzie, who moved to catch it, realized both hands were encumbered, and instead let it carom off her head while wincing slightly. She passed the ice cream back to Amy, before stooping to retrieve the object. Amy, feeling lost, mumbled apologetically without being sure what she was apologizing for.

McKenzie stood and held something up the dusty light of the nearest lamppost. It looked like a worm-eaten mahogany ball with metal inlaid. The noticeable red bump on McKenzie’s forehead where it had struck her made her seem somewhat less invincible. The professor had said . . .

“Did you say we’re in danger? What do you mean?”

Kincaid’s head turned in her direction, but he didn’t answer.

McKenzie stopped turning the object over in the light. “Looks like an artifact of suspicious origin to me,” she said.

“That depends on what you suspect me of.” McKenzie and Kinkaid seemed to know each other from somewhere, but neither of them seemed to be talking directly to the other. It felt like part of a game, one to which Amy hadn’t been told the rules.

“Of course, Professor, it’s my duty to turn this over to the nearest professor for safekeeping, as the student handbook quite clearly prohibits student possession of any antiquities, curios, or artifacts of suspicious origin.”

Amy started at this. “Hey, you were right!”

McKenzie turned to Amy. “You mean I am right.”

“I mean about how useful it is to read the handbook. That’s still in the past.”

“Indeed it does, Miss Fuselage –”

“That’s not my name –”

“– However, since the nearest professor delivered it into your possession, and returning it to him (hereafter referred to as me) would just cause me to relinquish it back to you again, the prohibition collapses in order to prevent an infinite loop which would cost the college its most important faculty member and its fourth-most important student in one blow.” With that Kincaid shifted, and seemed to disappear into the tree.

“Fourth-most?” McKenzie seemed indignant.

“Is he still in the tree?”

McKenzie shook her head. “Probably not.” She resumed walking.

Amy caught up to her, ice cream stack teetering. “It seemed like you two knew each other. Does he do this sort of thing often?”

McKenzie shrugged, seeming distracted. “He’s my advisor. Well, not really. But he claims to be.”

“So, are you worried about what he said?”

“You can’t listen to him too carefully. Most of what he says is designed to confuse you. But hey, now I’m carrying too much to help with the ice cream, and I’d better run,” McKenzie said, abruptly heading off across the green. She turned, walking backwards for a moment, and shot back, “There’s a thing on Friday. You should come. I’ll email you.” She turned again, and strode across the dark quad, her pale hair like a distant torch.

Amy stood dumbstruck. “Thanks for walking with me,” she called out. “It was nice . . . ” she finished in a mumble. She felt very alone suddenly.

Part 2 – Prologue

— In the midnight depths of the earth beneath the elder college, there is a fissure. This fissure is not in the ancient stone that forms the world’s bones, but rather between the infinite infinitesimal distances within the very substance of the stone. It is hiding behind the sizzling electrons, always occluded from every direction. It is hiding in front of everything we have ever known, and thereby entirely invisible. Something is moving through the fissure; or maybe it is the fissure itself moving. It is moving with a purpose full of the endless patience of endings. Presumably it has no intelligence guiding it, for it is not alive. No, certainly not alive. And though it is deep, still very deep below, it is moving, drawn towards the college’s very mortar by means unknowable.
— And then the fire alarm went off, and I woke up. And that was my dream.
— Then we agree that it was a portent that drunk people still shouldn’t be microwaving popcorn?
— Agreed. On a related topic, the sodium lights out here make that old towel and pajama bottoms combination you’re sporting look quite fetchingly . . . ancient.
— Why thank you! And may I say that the cold is bringing out the color in your cheeks in a way which quite sets you apart from the deeply ill famine victim that your shivering would otherwise suggest.
— Touche, my friend.
— Well, now those kindly firemen are leaving, and I suggest that we return to our dear dormitory at once.

Chapter Nine

Five minutes later Tess and Maya were walking again. Maya’s hands were thrust deep in her pockets and her eyes were focused on the ground. Tess looked at her face in profile.

“Maya –– what happened back there?”

“Nothing, I was just kidding.”

“Kidding? You were screaming. That guy nearly beat me into a jelly because he thought I was trying to attack you.”

“I guess you kind of had to be there.”

“I was there. He threatened to club me to death with my own kidneys.”

Maya turned and hugged him suddenly.

“I know, I’m sorry about that. I just … I just thought I saw something I shouldn’t have…”

“What? I don’t get it…”

“Well, let me answer your question with another question. What’s the deal with the flag?”

She pointed across the quad to the sandstone gatehouse framing the entrance to the campus. Atop the structure were two flags: one, the American flag, the other bearing the school crest (a shield bearing three crosses and a blue boar, trippant, to the dexter –– although boars aren’t usually quite so menacing or misshapen). The latter flag was at half-mast.

“What about it?”

“Why’s it down like that?”

“I think they do it when somebody attached to the school dies.”

“But sometimes it’s the school flag, sometimes the other flag, and sometimes both. They’re really random. And I didn’t hear about anyone dying…”

“Why else would they do it?”

She laughed. “Maybe they’re sending messages in semaphore.”

“Yeah. SOS –– Send more corn!”

“Defend Minas Tirith…and SAVE!”

“Learn at Joe’s.”

“No shirt, no shoes, no Schopenhauer.”

“Trespassers will be educated on sight.”

Maya laughed again. “Thanks again for keeping me from getting squished at the party,” she said. She squeezed his arm and sat herself on the edge of the pedestal to the Obelisk for the Once and Future Student, the bronze art-deco pillar devoted to archetypal student nicknacks and gewgaws. Tess seated himself next to Maya.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk…”

“I love this thing,” she said, quickly.

“I’ve never really looked at that closely before,” Tess admitted.

“You can learn a lot. For example,” she said, glancing at the small plaque fixed to the pedestal, “that TU apparently hasn’t changed its dorm furniture since at least 1935.”

“Holy shit, you’re right.”

“Oh, it’s just great,” she went on. “And the details are amazing. I always find new little things in the nooks and crannies. Like, there are little bronze chess pieces all over the place. And look at this funny lopsided little pot. I wonder who ‘Emily’ was?”

Tess, who had been trying to determine whether the substance he was sitting on was gum or merely gummy, was startled to find a question suddenly come his way.

“Wait,” he said. “Emily who?”

“That is the question, yes.”

“No, I mean, where do you see an Emily?”

“Well, it’s pretty dark now but on the pot it says ‘Emily.”’

Tess looked where she indicated, leaned in closer, saw what he could not possibly be seeing, and staggered back onto his feet, flummoxed at the sheer, bloody-minded, insane, infuriating impossibility of it all.

“Maya,” he said, “that’s my pot!”

“No it’s not. It’s Emily’s.”

“No, Emily made it and gave it to me! It was a gift –– it’s lopsided because she has low-grade narcolepsy and she fell asleep at the pottery wheel and then she said left it that way because suddenly falling asleep while she’s being nice to me is kind of her signature and anyhow what’s it doing bronzed?”

Maya had at first been laughing at this outburst but slowly trailed off as she saw he was serious. Tess held his head in his hands as he staggered farther back to stare at the tower in its full height –– regarding it now, for the first time, as it truly was: a majestic, towering, artistic, exquisite middle finger, delivered express to him from the universe.

“Maya! That statue is made out of all the stuff from my room.”

***

The following morning Tess, Maya, Al, and Clear were assembled before the Obelisk. Al approached it, examined it from several angles, and returned to the group with his hands in his pockets. He rocked on his heels.

“Well, shit,” he said after a time. “It is an impressive prank.”

Clear, for once, was speechless. She nodded her silent agreement.

“Tess and I talked about it last night,” said Maya.

“Yes, I imagine you would,” said Al.

“We don’t have a lot of good explanations,” said Maya. “One; a shadowy conspiracy –– possibly under the direction of the mafia, the Freemasons, the RAND Corporation, reverse vampires or the Bavarian Illuminati and including your friends and family –– has been working for years to maneuver you to into acquiring all the things in this statue and then taking those things and only those things to college with you. Once at college you are prevented from ever examining the statue closely until all of your things are stolen from you. Two; the obelisk, although here all along, has somehow been modified recently to correspond perfectly to your stuff. Three; the obelisk was constructed by time traveling pranksters or possibly it ages backwards like Merlin the Magician. Four; there is always witchery. Finally; Kincaid, who may fall under any or all of the above.”

Al glanced at Tess, who nodded at him with a kind of weary, resigned madness.

“I wonder,” said Al levelly, “how they managed the bronzing. Like, whether this is a replica of all of our belongings, whether they have actually been coated in bronze, or whether they were transmogrified somehow. I imagine that any of those options would require a not insubstantial investment of both time and energy, either of which would seem to rule out most students.”

“Yes, but why? Seems like a lot of work for a prank.”

Clear had recovered her élan at this point and was at her most gung-ho. Evidently deciding that the conversation was unlikely to lead anywhere especially interesting, she set to climbing the offending tower.

“It might be a warning,” expounded Maya, ticking off her fingers, “a message, a joke, or something not meant for us at all, although that seems a bit unlikely, considering…”

Tess winced as Clear seemed to slip on the dew-slicked tower at about the nine foot mark but she righted herself and continued upward.

“At this point,” he offered, “I’d be happy to say the hell with explanations and just have my pillow and underwear back.”

Maya cheered: “Hey! Clear made it. Nice job.”

Clear waved back with one arm. “Al! I found your boxers. Also your retainer case and your ‘curves’ book.”

“That is joyous news about the boxers, ephemeral though they may be,” he called back. “But what book did you say it was?”

“It says Stable Closed Timelike Curves on the cover.”

“Not mine –– smacks of attachment to the sensual. Must belong to Tess.”

Tess shook his head slowly. There was a pregnant pause. Maya thrust her fist into the air like a general marshaling her troops: “to the book depository!”

***

The library was empty of all but the most earnestly type-A brainboxes of the student population that morning. After considerable looking they found the book wedged behind several others, three shelves above where it should have been. The slim volume, which appeared to have been rebound at some point, bore no title and they only found it by referring to the call number. Maya opened it at random and inserted her nose between the pages.

“Yup, smells like a library.”

They retreated to a group study room on the second floor, and all gathered around Maya –– all, that is, except for Clear, who took up a dry-erase marker and set about illustrating herself on the whiteboard shooting dinosaurs with a tommy gun. Maya thumbed quickly through the book.

“Well, fancy that. Stable Closed Timelike Curves,” she read. “By J.E. Sterne, Tyler University Press, 1937.”

“Ha,” called out Clear over her shoulder, as she adjusted the illustration to show herself shitting a rainbow. “The TU connection strikes again. What’s it about?”

“Math. It’s all just graphs and equations,” Maya said. “No, wait. Here’s something at the end. There’s an appendix.”

“What’s it say,” hollered Clear, causing passersby in the hallway to look through the long windows at them. She made horns of her fingers and stuck out her tongue at them until they moved on.

“‘The unique conditions that obtain in the Pocker’s Bluff region, first noted by resident Jedediah Scratch in 1839,’” –– here Clear commenced drawing a smiling farmer on a hill wielding a nasty-looking pitchfork –– “‘appear to permit the establishment and maintenance of the exotic energy (C.f., weak energy condition) necessary for the creation of a stable, closed timelike curve of the sort posited by Ludwig Flamm as a solution to the Einstein field equation (Sterne, 1932; Flamm, 1916; Einstein 1929; Rosen 1927). They likewise appear to shield the curve from the difficulties that have hitherto plagued comparable constructs elsewhere.’ And then somebody’s written ‘quantum vacuum fluctuations’ with a bunch of question marks in the margin here.”

Al rose from the table and used another marker to add little devil horns and a pointy tail to Clear’s farmer. Maya continued:

“‘A closed timelike curve of this sort will consist of an alpha terminus and a beta terminus of stable mutual temporal distance and stable relative spatial difference (i.e., the termini remain coterminous). Resultingly the termini will not age relative to one another but will rather age pari passu with their respective local temporal reference frames. A consequence of this is that the subject cannot travel to a point preceding the creation of the alpha terminus nor can she in subsequent trips access termini contemporary with or preceding the previous terminus.’”

Clear adjusted her non-tommy-gun hand so that it was hurling bombs at Al’s devil farmer, who now wore suspenders and a straw hat, and was riding a unicorn with a “soy bomb” tattoo on its flank. Maya soldiered on:

“‘Transit of a closed timelike curve in order to alter, revise, or edit one’s own causal antecedents causes the primary universe to split at the moment of transition into a set of subsidiary or satellite universes defined by ratios / probabilities determined by solutions to the probability waveform.’ Ok. Now someone else has written ‘Copenhagen, Everett, DeWitt, Wheeler’ in blue pen here. It goes on: ‘Self-contradictory chronological paradoxes’ (‘Echeverria, Klinkhammer’ in the margin here. Also ‘matricide paradox’) ‘are thereby prevented, in that the subject cannot access her own causal antecedents but merely gains access to her corollary temporal antecedents created ex post facto in the subsidiary universe(s). Ergo, the subject’s personal chronology remains pristine, as do all (subsidiary) local chronologies.’ That’s it. There just a bibliography afterward.”

“Sure it’s gripping,” said Clear, who was just applying the finishing touches to a flock of aliens gang-probing the devil farmer, “but does it get us anywhere?”

“I think I remember hearing a bit of that in the lyrics to a Violent Femmes song,” Al offered.

“As clues go,” said Maya, “this one could use some improvement.”

Tess picked up the book and started paging from the beginning. A few pages in he stopped.

“These two are stuck together,” he said, mostly to himself.

“Clearly somebody really likes math,” Al observed. There was a pause of seven seconds, after which Clear laughed and Maya wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes. Tess separated the offending pages.

“I really have to stop being shocked by this kind of thing,” he said, “but what the hell. It’s the dedication page: ‘For Tess and the gang. Perhaps you should all consider visiting your closet.’”

“To the coat depository!”

They shut off the lights as they left, leaving whiteboard Clear, the devil farmer, the aliens, the unicorn, and about twenty angry cavemen to resolve their differences in darkness.

***

The room was bare, as it had been left. Tess found it looked unnervingly like an empty eye socket. They assembled around the closet door and Clear removed her right shoe, which she held over her head like a bludgeon. Tess swung open the door, and they all exhaled.

“Nothing here but dust bunnies, two coat hangers, and a fuse box,” Maya said. Clear grunted thoughtfully and rooted in her pocket, finally pulling out a pocket knife, which she flipped open with a flourish.

Maya’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to hunt us for sport, are you?”

“It’s a big world out there –– a girl needs to protect herself.”

Clear inserted the point of the blade into a small keyhole on the face of the box and jabbed it around for a few moments until there was a click and the door to the box opened slightly.

“Well,” she said, swinging the box open, “there you have it.”

Carved in the back of the box was a horizontal groove with notches cut downward at both ends, like a square bracket rotated ninety degrees. The left notch was marked with an α and the right notch with a β. There was a small slider with a nob resting at the right notch. Tess stepped into the closet with Clear.

“What happens when you move that?” he asked. Clear moved the slider up from its notch but midway along the groove there was a metallic clank and she stopped.

“Something’s blocking it.”

“That thing’s about level with the doorknob,” said Maya from outside the closet.

Tess pulled the door shut and turned the deadbolt –– odd thing for a closet to have –– and the small space was dark, but only for a moment. There was a tinkling and then Tess found his face illuminated by the small penlight on Clear’s keychain. She tried the slider again. Still blocked. She played the light around the closet. At the base of the rear wall was a small handle that had not previously been visible. She pulled upward and the entire wall lifted upward into the ceiling, while behind Tess a similar partition lowered to block the door through which they had entered. Where the rear wall had been was a new door, identical to the first, while the first was now hidden. It was as though the closet had been inverted around them. Clear twisted the new knob and found it would not turn. Tess tried the slider and found it was now unblocked. He moved the rest of the way and it came to rest with a click in the α notch on the far left. For just  a moment Tess tasted licorice and cedar. He shook his head.

“Try the new knob again,” he suggested. Clear did this and the door swung open freely.

It was Tess’ room, but not as it had been.

HERE ENDS PART ONE

Chapter Eight

“Well, that takes care of some attachments,” Al offered.
Tess stared into the room which had once contained all of his most prized possessions. The framed photo of his family, the hand-made and lopsided clay teapot Emily had made him, the alabaster-and-onyx chess set, all gone. Everything which was important to him (and which could be fit into the back seat of a small station wagon) had been in this room, and now it was . . . where? Not here, at any rate.
“This nicely bookends a long day,” Tess said, when he had collected himself. Somehow the room looked even smaller without any furniture.
“Good for the soul,” Al replied.
“Moving all that furniture out must have made a lot of noise. Maybe someone knows who took our stuff. I’ll go ask the RA.”
“Oh. Good luck with that.”
Tess gave Al a quizzical look.
“No one’s ever talked to the RA on this floor,” Al explained. “I’ve never even met him. Some say he goes by another name when he’s not in his room, and comes and goes via the window so that no one can ask him to do anything. Others say he’s hideously scarred, and won’t let anyone see his features because he hates the screaming.”
“Great, so we’ve been here all of a month and already the guy has skip-rope rhymes made up about him? I don’t care, I’m going to ask him.”
Tess marched down the soggy dormitory corridor, his already ample frustration growing with each step. He stopped in front of the cheap plywood door of room 237, decorated with nothing but a name plate bearing the words “Residence Assistant.” Like most of the dorm doors, there was a gap between it and the floor which allowed for the easy interchange of noise within and without. Someone had made an addition to this door, though – an extra piece of plywood had been nailed to the inside to narrow the gap, and tape had been added below to prevent any light from escaping.
Tess knocked. After a moment, there was a creak from within. It could possibly have been someone hiding alone in the darkness shifting their weight as they pondered breaking their self-imposed exile. It could also have been a window sliding along its track, to allow egress to a fleeing slacker. Tess knocked again, louder. As he waited for a response, he looked up and down the hall, and saw no signs of life. Frustrated, he flung himself at the door, battering the door with both hands, and giving it a kick for good measure. Still, there was nothing from within. The RA was presumably out doing whatever the normal students were doing. His outburst left him feeling foolish, and he had hurt his left foot. He retreated to his room.
“So, who won the fight?” Al asked him when he returned to their empty room.
“Door.”
“They’re a fierce breed, and quick to anger.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m thinking I’ll sleep over at Clear’s tonight. I’ll make sure to ask if she took all our stuff.”
“Where am I going to sleep?”
“You could sleep on the floor. Or, if you think that doesn’t sound like fun, you’ll have to come up with a friend who can help you out.”

* * *

Tess was alone in the coffee shop, save for the student working the counter, who had a spread of chemistry problems open on the counter. Tess was nursing a small Earl Grey while he waited for the place to close, so that he could sleep on the overstuffed couch. Time passed. He surveyed the battered board games, and the shelf full of books that had been left behind by generations of previous students. Most of them featured muscular men holding swooning women or else shooting spies on the cover. They seemed to represent two distinct genres, and yet there were a number of visual similarities. Some of the books were quite old.
One in particular caught his eye. The ancient-looking leather cover claimed to be a history of the founding of the university. He flipped it open to a random page. He read:

“The Hall of Philosophy, John Tyler University’s first Building, Erected in March of Annus Dominem 1941 upon Pocker’s Bluff. Students and Faculty alike Studied and Slept in the Building. Food was Provided by a small Kitchen Staff, who Took daily Oxcart Trips to the neighboring Farms. This State of Arrangement Maintained until Annus Dominem 1854, when the Hall was Destroyed by Tornado, Fire and Earthquake. The Majority of the Faculty, Students, and Staff Were Sadly Sent to Their Maker in the Course of the Tragedy. At the Time, This was Blamed upon Eminent Industrialist Philip Crowley, whom the Farmfolk Accused of Making Use of the University for Unsavory Dealings and Congress in the Dark Arts.
“Such Crack-Pots and Fancy-Merchants Were Dismissed, as Finances Were Provided for the Restoration and Expansion of the Fine University!”

Tess was interrupted here by a shadow falling over the book. He looked up.
“Hi Tess,” Maya said.
“Oh, hi,” Tess replied.
“Can’t sleep? Me neither. I guess I must still be surging with adrenaline thanks to my brush with Ford.” She gave a little laugh at her own joke.
“I don’t know. Someone stole all my stuff, so I haven’t had a chance to try yet.”
“They even took your bed?” Maya asked, incredulous.
“Yeah. When Al and I got home, there was nothing left at all. It’s nice to know we have such industrious pranksters around.”
“Oh yeah. You don’t want to be the victim of a half-assed prank. For example, once my brother decided to pull the classic bucket-full-of-water-on-the-door trick on me. He only had a large metal bucket, and he decided the bucket with the water was too heavy to bother lifting up on the door, and he was too lazy to buy a smaller plastic bucket, so he just put the bucket up there. End result, I got a heavy metal bucket to the head, and had to get stitches.”
“Wow. What happened next?”
“He was grounded for about a month, and I got a Brain Candy video for my birthday.”
“And you got this story out of the bargain. I call that a decent trade.”
“Well, sure, discount my pain. Anyway, whatcha reading? Looks old.”
“It’s a history of the university. I don’t know when it was written, but it’s old enough that they’re capitalizing all the nouns and verbs.” After a pause, Tess added, “or maybe it isn’t that old, but they were just that pretentious.”
“Neat. Who would have thought there would be something like that in the coffee shop?”
“Speaking of which, why are you here if you can’t sleep? Coffee usually doesn’t help with things like that.”
“Oh, yeah, well, I thought I would get some herbal tea. They have natural teas that say things like ‘soothing, sleepy-time remedy.’ Seems worth a try. And hey, why are you here, then? If all your stuff is missing, shouldn’t you be looking for it?”
“Uh, I was gonna sleep on the couch after the coffeemaster leaves for the night,” Tess admitted.
“That’s . . . Well, that’s kinda sad. No offense.”
“No, that’s fair.”
“Sorry anyway,” she said, looking contrite. “Hey, why don’t you come hang out with me? My room has furniture and everything, and my roommate’s not coming back tonight. If we’re not sleeping, we might as well not sleep together . . . uh, I don’t mean that. No, wait, I do. Er, what did I just say?” She looked confused and little embarrassed.
“Hanging out with you sounds great,” Tess said charitably.

* * *

They walked down the cracked paths through the grounds accompanied by the sodium-orange light from sporadic path lights. The night was a cloudy one, and the moon’s presence was felt only by a slight lightening visible in one patch of sky. One of the lights buzzed and went out as they drew near, deepening the darkness. The dormitory buildings they passed were like oases of light, quickly passed. In the distance, someone was playing Rock Lobster too loudly.
A wind was coming up in fits and starts. It stirred up the bushes, and made the trees shudder. A particularly heavy gust brought an empty Budweiser can rolling by like a tacky tumbleweed. It served to remind Tess of his alcohol-fueled embarrassment at the party earlier – though perhaps not alcohol-fueled in the traditional sense. His shirt was still stained rainbow colors from the legendary Skittlebrau, and he suddenly felt very uncomfortable to be spending the midnight hours with a relatively new acquaintance while soaked in Kahlua or ambrosia or whatever and Red Dye #5.
He looked over at Maya, and she looked back. She smiled. He saw her eyes dart over to something behind him, and then he saw her mouth begin to scream.

Chapter Seven

“Just then, Tess whipped off his wet T-shirt revealing his undulating pecs, and McKenzie fell into a dead-swoon. He cradled her in his glinting man-arms and…”

“Now wait just one cotton-picking minute, Clear –– who made you the narrator? Also, ‘man-arms?’ For that matter, when did McKenzie swoon? She sounds like an antebellum plantation-owner’s daughter.”

“Tess wasn’t telling it right,” Clear replied to Al. “What’s antebellum mean, anyhow?”

“It means ‘before-the-bellum.’ So, anyhow, there Tess was with something cold and sticky splashed over his front and onto his pants. I believe it was rum.”

“Kahlúa,” Clear corrected him.

“I know my drinks and it was rum.”

“Gummi berry juice,” said Maya, mostly to herself.

“Ambrosia,” said Amy.

“Phlogiston,” said Maya, and Amy laughed.

“Well, that explains the discolored patch,” said Milo, “but why all the little rainbow streaks?”

Tess leaned toward him across the table: “She told me it was Skittlebräu.” Milo shrugged uncertainly. “You know, vodka with skittles floating in it?”

Milo recoiled in disgust. “Oh sweet Jesus …”

Maya’s eyes went large. “So the legends are true!”

Clear elbowed Amy in the ribs. “You see what you miss by not drinking?”

“I do drink! I had two beers.”

“I meant all the time.”

Milo rolled his eyes. “So anyhow, Tess, what happened next?”

“There wasn’t really a ‘next’ –– I said ‘woozle wuzzle’ at her, she knotted her shirt at the navel, and went down to the basement where everyone was dancing. I’m pretty sure she hates me now.”

“You can do a ton better than her anyhow,” said Maya. Clear grinned like the Cheshire Cat but said nothing.

“Wait,” said Amy, turning to Milo. “Why are you only getting here now anyhow?”

“Funny you should ask. I ducked into the closet to get a sweater and felt snow beneath my feet. Pushing forward, I found the coats around me transformed into fir trees and I emerged into a highly allegorical fantasy world where I spent centuries righting wrongs, foiling the machinations of evil witches, and bringing peace to the realm. My exploits were recounted in song with lute and drum in moonlit glens and the very mountains bowed to my heroism. I was monarch of all I surveyed. Then, one day, while pursuing a wounded hart I had felled while hunting I entered that fateful stand of firs and in a flash was back in my room, the years melted away as though the merest residue of a dream. I walked over to the party and they said you guys came here for pizza. I explained this all ten minutes ago.”

“The girls were in the bathroom,” explained Al. “Doing … girl things.”

“Yes,” said Amy. “Beautifying ourselves.”

“Discussing our feelings,” added Maya.

“Menstruating in unison,” Clear concluded sweetly.

“Well, that solves the mystery of the stained shirt,” said Milo. Everybody looked at him. Al raised his eyebrows and took a long sip of water. “His stained shirt,” Milo said, pointing at Tess.

“You still haven’t asked about the cops, though,” said Clear.

“I figured some townie didn’t like hearing Green Day through their bedroom window at 115 decibels of quadraphonic sound and complained.”

Tess shifted in his seat and Maya shifted her weight minutely toward him as though she was leaning into a turn on a bicycle.

“Well,” said Clear, “there we were on the front lawn…”

“Driveway,” Al corrected.

“Anyhow, there we were, standing in front of the house, when out of nowhere Mike Branstetter nearly ran over Maya in his Ford Tempo. Tess came tearing over like a bat out of hell and totally body-checked her into the leaf pile.”

“C’mon,” said Milo, “tell it right.”

“Actually she is,” said Maya, and pulled at the collar of her shirt to reveal a prune-colored bruise the size of a fried egg flowering on her right shoulder.

“Holy shit! Is Mike Ok?”

“That’s the weird thing. The cops wanted to talk to him but he wasn’t anywhere. He went off with these two girls who said they were med students.”

“I figure they go to school two towns over or something,” said Amy.

“Did you not pay attention during that four hour drive from the airport?” asked Clear, staring at her in disbelief. “There is no ‘two towns over’––it’s like corn for six towns in every direction.”

Just then their server placed a bubbling pie the size of a Conestoga wagon wheel between them, commanding the attention of all present in much the same that a cage dancer in monastery might. Everyone grabbed slices. Milo and Amy dabbed at theirs with folded paper napkins while Al sawed off sections of his pizza with knife and fork and placed them into his mouth at regular intervals. Maya reached across the table for a stout glass jar and shook it vigorously upside-down over her slice, producing a dense flurry of parmesan cheese. Clear folded her slice in half and inserted it into her mouth as a sword swallower would. Tess looked up from his plate.

“Did something about those girls seem weird to anyone?” he asked.

“Wrmm,” said Clear with her mouth full. “Nao dat u meshun i, dey di see uh li weer.”

Al set down his knife and fork and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin. “It was like,” he said and paused. He propped his chin on his interwoven fingers and cast his eyes upward. “It doesn’t make any sense but it was like they were talking in unison, only they never talked at the same time. Do you know what I mean?”

“Right,” said Tess, “that’s a good way to put it.”

“That’s a borderline autistic way to put it,” said Clear after swallowing, “but I can’t think of a better way.”

“What?” said Milo. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

“No argument here,” said Al. “It was like their brains were synched up, like when one was talking the other was thinking the same words loudly.”

“You know,” said Tess, “I didn’t say anything before because everything was kind of crazy back there but I only noticed the car coming after Kincaid dropped a coin on my head and said Maya was about to be run over.”

Clear and Al looked at him, startled.

“Yeah, he was up in that big oak tree in front of the house.”

“Wait,” said Amy. “The guy from matriculation?”

“Well,” said Tess, “it’s like this. A couple of weeks ago Kincaid broke into my dorm room, told me I have to find out something about some teacher named Sterne and drugged me.”

Al raised his hand from the table and said “yo.”

“Oh yeah, he drugged Al too.”

“Thank you.”

“So I stalked…”

“Wait just one minute,” interjected Amy. “Do you mean to say that a professor broke into your room, drugged the both of you, and you were just fine with it?”

“Well, not ‘fine,’ exactly. But in all fairness he didn’t actually break anything so near as we can tell,” said Al.

At this point Amy’s eyebrows seemed to be locked in a battle to see which could look most incredulous.

“That is not the point, Al. A professor actually assaulted you guys! Why wouldn’t you just go to the police?”

“There was some talk of mushrooms and drywall,” said Tess.

“Yeah,” chimed in Clear. “Apparently this one kid crossed Kincaid and, like…”

“No, just stop,” said Amy. “Seriously, we’re at a school, not some compound in Texas here. It’s not like they can declare martial law or something.”

“I think they can in Harry Potter,” said Maya.

“Lord give me strength,” muttered Amy, burying her head in her hands. She looked up again. “This is real life, not Harry Potter. Really, someone give me a serious answer: why wouldn’t you just call the police?”

“I thought about it,” said Tess. “I really did. But why would they believe me? I was the only person awake for it. And it’s not like he actually broke anything when he broke in. It’s more like he kind of limboed under the door or magically climbed through the keyhole or something. I was starting to think I dreamt the whole thing until the stuff with him and the tree and all.”

Amy rested the side of her head on her hand and stared at him quizzically.

“You don’t actually believe that do you?” she asked.

“Wait,” said Maya. “Don’t you believe in angels and things?”

“Hey, yeah,” said Clear.

“They’re metaphors, for Christ’s sake,” said Amy, extravagantly rolling her eyes. She paused before adding, “Well, for the most part.”

“Well, anyhow,” said Tess. “That’s why I didn’t do anything.”

Amy sighed. “It’s your life, I suppose. So, what happened next?”

“Huh? Oh, well, I stalked Professor Sterne for a while…”

Amy reburied her head in her hands.

“So hot!” interjected Clear.

“So British!” agreed Maya.

“He’s from Idaho,” said Al.

“Yeah, but he went to school in England,” said Clear and then made a “rowr” noise.

“And then I got a key…”

“Two keys,” corrected Clear.

“Right, two keys in the mail and used one to get into Colbert hall. The other one opened up a classroom named after a different Sterne who used to work here in the thirties.”

“We think there was guano,” added Clear. “Bat guano!” Al nodded sagely.

“But no clues?” asked Amy.

Tess shook his head. “That was just a little while ago and here we are.”

Maya looked as though something was bothering her and Milo turned to face her.

“What?”

“Do you think Professor Kincaid was in cahoots with Mike or those girls or something?”

“Huh?”

“What did he say?”

“In the tree? I think he said something like ‘Tess, my boy, it looks like your friend Maya’s about to be run over.’”

“He said my name?”

“I think so. I guess I’m not sure.”

“How did he know my name?”

“You don’t know him?”

“Tess, I’ve never met him before in my life.”

* * *

“You know, Tess,” said Al. “I think Maya likes you.”

“Have you ever actually met our RA?” asked Tess, looking back down the hallway they had just traversed and not paying him any attention. “It’s like he never leaves his room. Maybe somebody slides him flat foods under his door or something.”

“I only mention it,” continued Al, fishing his key ring out from the side pocket of his jeans, “because Buddha teaches us that attachments like that only…” he swung the door to their dorm room open. “Oh my.”

“What?” asked Tess, looking over his shoulder into the room. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

Chapter Six

Tess whirled around, worn coin clutched tight in his hand. His eyes jumped first to Maya, who was arguing passionately with another girl. Tess’s feet were already moving by the time his eyes had registered the dark blue Ford swerving off the street toward Maya. His feet left the ground entirely as the wheels of the car bounced over the curb. He felt an impact as he hurtled into Maya. After that a flash of lights, a blur of scenery, and another impact.

He found himself on the ground, arms around a wincing Maya. His arms and chest hurt, and it took a moment before he remembered why. Maya seemed stunned, but okay, though she would probably have some bruises.

“Whoa, jeez,” Maya sputtered. “I, uh, you — so, here we are . . . “

“Uh, sorry,” Tess wheezed. “The car, and I guess I tackled you, and I hope that’s okay.”

“Uh, yeah.”

A moment passed. Tess began awkwardly disentangling himself from Maya, and they both stumbled to their feet.

The car had plowed into the tree in which Tess distinctly remembered seeing the ancient professor, though he was not in evidence now. Tess stormed over to the car and pulled open the driver’s side door. “What the hell are you . . .” Tess trailed off. The driver, a tall, skinny kid with a baseball cap stared straight ahead, both hands gripping the steering wheel. His knuckles were white, even in the yellow glow of the car’s roof light. His eyes were huge and glassy. He didn’t move at all. Behind him, Maya was singing softly to herself, “Simpson, Homer Simpson, he’s the greatest guy in history. From the town of Springfield, he’s about to hit that chestnut tree . . . “

Tess became aware of the yelling from the house as the news of the swerve propagated through the house, and those within spilled out onto the dusk lawn.

“Hey, what’s your deal,” Tess growled at the driver. The driver didn’t move. “Hey!” Tess repeated, shaking his shoulder.

“You nearly hit me, you jackass!” Maya called from over his shoulder.

Suddenly the driver’s body gave a massive shudder, and he sucked in a huge breath. Startled, Tess let go of his shoulder. The driver’s eyes came into focus, and began to dart around to take in the scene.

“WhatthehellamI where the wuh . . .” he exclaimed all in one breath. The crowd from the party was starting to converge around them. Calls of “what’s happening,” and “who is that?” were coming from the crowd. Maya started to explain that she was just telling some freshman why Kids in the Hall was a more relevant parody of society than South Park (“Is not!” came a call back from the crowd) when some drunken jackass swerved off the street and nearly killed her. Meanwhile, the driver stared around him with eyes full of confusion and fear, apparently too overwhelmed to speak.

Maya’s explanation was cut short by a firm, sweet voice saying “Please move out of our way. We’re medical students.” The voice belonged to one of two very tall, dark-haired women emerging from the crowd. One wore a dark olive high-necked dress and the other a pale yellow dress in the same cut. Each wore their hair long, in a style which concealed half of their faces. They could be twins, Tess thought. They were staring directly at him. He felt a strange, tight sensation in his chest under their cool gaze.

After a long moment, the two women turned their attention to the driver. They leaned into the car, and then Olive Dress withdrew and announced, “This man has had a stroke. Please move away. We will ensure he is given proper medical attention.” The two women lifted the driver easily from the car, and started to walk him away.

“Who are you?” Tess heard the driver mumble as they left. Tess and Maya’s turned to look at each other, each searching for confirmation of what had just happened. Tess discovered his left hand was clenched tight. He relaxed it, and found that he was still holding the worn coin. He slipped it into his pocket.

* * *

As the crowd dispersed from around the two of them, Al, Clear, and Amy approached. “Hey, Mr. Hero!” Clear shouted, jumping up and down a little, while Al chimed in with “Tackling people is a terrible way to show affection!” At this, Maya turned away, looking a little red, and Clear tackled Al.

“That was awfully brave of you,” Amy said as Tess joined the group.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Maya in an embarrassed voice.

Al lay on the ground impassively as Clear tickled him from head to foot. “Stop not being irritated!” Clear shouted at Al while straddling his chest. She then turned to Tess. “You idiot, why would you nearly kill yourself like that?”

“He was striving to be helpful, Clear,” Al contributed. “Of course, striving is the root of all unhappiness. Tess, you really should consider striving less.”

“Hey,” Tess slipped in edgewise, “don’t any of you want to know what just happened?”

“Of course!” Amy said, at the same time as Clear shouted “No!”

Tess told them about Kincaid in the tree and the strange driver and the two med students. By the time he finished, Al looked puzzled, Amy looked scared, and Clear looked irritated because no one was paying enough attention to her.

Al cleared his throat. “That driver looked like Mike Branstetter. He lives upstairs here. Marissa told me that she sent him out for party supplies since he kept eating her Kit-Kats.”

“Did he look drunk?” Amy asked, putting a little emphasis on drunk that sounded half-way between disapproving and excited.

“No, like I said, he was more . . . well, he looked like he was paralyzed with fear.”

Clear did her best ghost moan, and Tess smacked her arm.

“Oh, it’s on,” she yelled, rubbing her arm. “I’ll paralyze you,” and she threw herself at Tess.

“You’ll paralyze me? Is that supposed to be some kind of threat or something?” Maya said in her best Lisa Simpson voice. “Er, I guess it is,” she concluded lamely.

“Look out for her left jab,” Al said as he watched the two tussle.

“Isn’t anyone else curious about the medical students?” Maya said over the Clear’s battle-cries. “I mean, we don’t even have a medical program, and I’ve never seen them before.”

Al shrugged. “Maybe they’re someone’s friends from the city.”

“Man, they came a long way just to visit a small house party at ol’ JTU,” said Amy.

“Well, good thing they were here,” said Al.

Maya looked dubious.

Al began to pry Clear off of Tess. “Well, at least everyone’s safe and sound,” began Amy.

“—except Tess,” Clear interrupted in a satisfied voice.

“Ow,” Tess confirmed.

“—so let’s celebrate our aliveness with a party!” Amy concluded.

“Well, lucky for us, there’s one right here.” Clear replied.

* * *

Inside the little white house the stereo was loud enough that Tess doubted any of the horde inside had even noticed the adventure outside. The inside of the house was segmented into a number of small rooms, so that it ended up being much smaller than it looked outside. It reminded Tess of stories of tiny huts that turned out to be, on the inside,  spacious magical palaces, because it was so exactly the opposite.

There were sofas against two of the walls, and it sounded like the drinks were located in the kitchen. Buckets of Kit-Kats were suspended around the room more or less at random, along with crepe paper in Kit-Kat red and black. The whole effect came off as “hobo chic,” and the baskets made it even harder to navigate through the packed room.

“Come on, Tess, get out of the doorway,” Clear said, prodding him in the back.

“Look, I’ll go in when I’m good and ready,” Tess snarked back as he stepped inside. It was hot. He hoped he wouldn’t start sweating.

“Since you’re already half-way there, could you get me a drink,” Al called from outside.

“Me, too!” Amy chimed in.

“What do you mean? You’re about a foot behind me,” Tess grumbled.

“Fine, break out the measuring tape instead of getting me a drink.”

“Okay, okay,” Tess surrendered, and started to push his way through the crowd toward the kitchen. As he neared the kitchen a sudden shout from somewhere near the back made him snap his head around, and he stumbled forward into someone coming around the corner. He bashed his forehead into a sharp chin, and nearly bowled his victim over. Something cold and sticky splashed over his front and onto his pants.

“My fault, my fault, sorry—” he started to apologize as he straightened up and started patting at the wet patch on his front. Then he froze, for in front of him, looking very unimpressed and rubbing her chin, stood Kim McKenzie.

Author’s Note

This project now has a profile with the blog website Technorati.

Technorati Profile

Chapter Five

“Which is how we wound up in Bat Central with Tess staring lovingly into my ass,” Clear concluded. Tess rolled his eyes at this and got up to fetch some peach cobbler. As he stood from the table Al clucked his tongue sadly and gazed at him the way Tess reckoned a Christ figure would gaze at a self-confessed chronic masturbator figure. When he returned a few moments later Maya was asking a rare question.

“I’m a little confused here,” she said. “You said Professor Sterne did occult stuff, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But didn’t these guys just say that her plaque-thingie had her teaching math?”

“Hey yeah,” Clear interjected. “Explain that with your precious logic.”

“Ok,” said Milo. “Actually, she taught both. It used to be The Department of Mathematical and Theosophical Inquiry until like the forties when they changed it to just ‘math.’”

“But it just talked about math on the plaque,” said Tess.

“Maybe sign makers charge by the word,” said Maya.

“Strange stuff,” said Clear.

Al shrugged. “Strange school.”

“It is at that,” said Milo, taking a sip of water. “It is at that.”

“Is it?” asked Maya, who seemed genuinely surprised.

Tess looked at her over a spoonful of cobbler. “Well, yeah. Didn’t you think all the stuff with the drugging and skulking around and skullduggery was a little weird?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “But I just kind of assumed it was, like, a college thing or something. Like in Animal House.”

Everyone present at the table quietly reflected on this. Finally, Milo broke the silence.

“You know, there is something else I’m not clear on. Didn’t Kincaid describe Sterne as ‘young’ or ‘new’ or something like that?”

“New,” said Tess. “He said there was ‘a new professor at the school’ right before he, err, drugged me.”

“So,” continued Milo. “Obviously if Sterne’s been dead for like fifty years then she’s not that new.”

Clear wiped her spoon clean, breathed heavily on its concave side, and hung it on her nose. “The current theories,” she said in a level tone, “are that he’s senile or crazy.” The spoon fell to the floor. “Possibly both,” she added.

“He might just be screwing with me for some reason,” suggested Tess.

“Which doesn’t exactly preclude his being senile or crazy. Or both,” said Al with a nod to Clear.

“I suppose,” said Maya in the manner of one trying to solve a logic puzzle in her head, “he might just be really, really old. Or want us to think he is.”

“How old could he be?” asked Tess. “If Sterne started here in 1911 then Kincaid would have to have been here for like eighty years at least.”

“Yeah,” said Clear, “but he wouldn’t have to be a professor here all that time. What if he went to school here or grew up in town or something?”
Maya shivered suddenly.

“Too cold in here for the Canadjun?” asked Milo.

“No,” said Maya. “I was just picturing Kincaid wearing little school kid shorts.”

“I’ve got it,” said Al serenely. “In Tibet every time the Dalai Lama dies he gets reincarnated somewhere, so the monks just go off to find the new Lama to take the old one’s place. Show him the old Lama’s dentures and thermal underwear such. What if our Kincaid’s like the fifth or sixth version and when the old one dies he gets replaced by a new Kincaid without anyone knowing?”

“That may be,” said Clear, “ the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

Without changing expression, Al poured a half-full glass of water over Clear’s head, who shrieked and jumped into his lap.

“Hey, we all getting wet here or just my girl Clearie?”

Clear looked up at the speaker over Tess’ shoulder. “Hey hey! I thought I felt my sexy-sense tingling.”

Tess turned in his seat to find Kim McKenzie standing behind him. She stood with her legs apart like a compass and her hands were propped on her hips. Her downy platinum blonde hair stood straight up, adding a good three or four inches to her height, leaving Tess with the distinct impression that he was gazing up at an extremely alluring colossus. She smiled like a porcelain wolf holding a machine gun.

“Por supuesto,” she replied. “There’s a party at the little white house tonight–you guys should come.” She pulled a wristwatch out of her pocket and glanced at it.

“Oh, shit. I’ve gotta run to anthro; I’ve got a bet with my lab partner to see how drunk Miller’s going to be today. See you guys later.”

* * *

That evening Tess, Maya, Al, Clear, and Clear’s roommate Amy were passing under the ornate archway and down the broad stone steps that led from Tyler University to the surrounding Mapleville and beyond that, a sea of night-darkened cornfields. Flanking the path were wrought-iron lampposts, whose pools of yellowy light gave the grounds a slightly lunar quality. Milo had begged off joining them; Tess presumed he was running in his hamster wheel.

As they strolled through the cool autumn night Amy’s brown ponytail was bobbing lightly against her wiry shoulders as she mused on the challenges of excelling at intramural sports while still staying on Christ’s good side.

“Of course,” she said, “you wouldn’t want to trip someone intentionally in a race or anything like that but what if your foot just happens to be there and they fall over it on their own, well, isn’t that really like Jesus tripping them? Now, the way I see it . . .”

Tess wasn’t really listening to what Amy had to say. He barely knew her but had concluded that while she was nice enough, and even cute in a wholesome, athletic sort of way, she vaguely reminded him of his ex-girlfriend, who had unceremoniously dumped him two months prior. That was bad enough but the truth was, if he honestly acknowledged the tiny persistent voice that lurked in the shadowy background of his thoughts, more than anything else Amy reminded Tess of a high school version of himself: the resolute good humor, her joining of all the right clubs, and on, and on…

The group strolled down a brightly lit University Avenue and passed by various middlebrow restaurants and boutiques whose high brick facades had been preserved to lend the shopping district a certain “Anytown USA”-ish 1950s charm. They rounded a corner at the perimeter of Memorial City Park (which, Tess faintly recalled from a tour some months ago, had been established to preserve the memory of three of Mapleville’s plucky native sons who’d been tragically exploded during the Spanish American War) and continued down a quiet residential side street wreathed in tall trees and long shadows. For a moment the sound of distant screeching tires carried faintly through the night air.

Midway down the block on their right was a small white house set some ways back on the property. Two tall, dark trees stood on the lawn and an airy porch extended some ways beyond the front door. The porch was covered with throngs of young people in animated conversation and Tess could hear the sound of loud music throbbing from somewhere deep within the house. A girl with blonde dreadlocks ran up to them in the driveway and started distributing candy bars.

“Hi guys –– have some Kit-Kat bars. I was cleaning up last week and found, like, fifty pounds of them in the crawl space –– that’s why we’re having a party . . .”

While the rest of the group stood in the driveway to enter into what promised to be a lengthy discussion of the properties of magic (or at least serendipitous) candy, Tess withdrew into the shadow of a nearby tree to compose his thoughts. He reckoned McKenzie must be in there by now and he wanted to have a good line worked up so that he could sound witty and spontaneous when he ran into her. (“That sweater’s very becoming on you…) As he stood in thought something small and hard landed on his head and fell to the ground at his feet. For a moment he thought it was just an acorn but when he leaned over to pick it up, he found that it was actually an extremely tarnished coin with features that had nearly been wiped smooth.

He looked up into the tree and could just barely see a dark figure perched on one of the lower branches. He was just about to demand what the hell was going on when he heard a familiar chuckle wafting down from on high.

“Thesius, my boy,” said Erasmus Kincaid from his tree, “you really ought to see to your friend Maya, oh my, yes. It rather looks as though she’s about to be run over, hmm?”

Chapter Four

The heavy, wooden door made a small, startled noise as the key turned in the lock. Tess thought he heard something inside, the sound of something scuffling, followed by a whoosh of air. He opened the door cautiously, only to find the room pitch black.

“Oh, come on, don’t just stand there.” Clear pushed Tess into the room, and flicked on the lights behind her. The room was lit by four offensively powerful florescent lights in downward-turned fixtures, which took a moment to flicker to life. The lecture hall was one of the older ones – irregular sides, a high ceiling with a legacy of crisscrossing rafters overhead. Wrought-iron windows lined the far wall of the room, with tied-back dark red curtains on either side. The seats were all wooden, and looked as though they would creak when sat on. The room smelled like old wood and cloth, with a weird hint of something Tess couldn’t identify.

Tess was relieved to see that there was no one inside.

“I thought you said we were investigating new faculty,” Clear said.

“Um, I thought I did, too.”

Their words echoed back at them from high above.

“Well, this is neither new nor faculty.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to investigate the woman this was named after.”

“She’s not new, either! She stopped teaching here nearly sixty years ago!”

“I am so confused,” Tess admitted, flopping down in one of the wooden seats. The reverberating creak startled him back onto his feet.

“No one ever accused Professor Kincaid of being too sane,” Clear offered as she wandered through the hall. “Maybe he’s gone senile,” she added, examining the chalkboard.

“I suppose we may as well look around, just in case,” Tess sighed. He would rather just go home, but he didn’t want all this chasing around to be for nothing.

“Hey, did you just hear something?” Clear asked, looking up from the drawer she was rifling through.

“Um, I was a bit preoccupied.”

“Preoccupied, my ass. You were just staring off into space. Or maybe you were just checking me out.”

Tess made a face at her.

“No, seriously, I think I heard something moving up there.”

Tess looked up at the ceiling. The shades on the light fixtures kept the bulbs from bringing much light into the upper regions of the room. Tess thought a marching band might be able to hide in the rafters if they kept real still.

“It’s probably just bats,” Clear said confidently. “This would be a great place for bats.”

“Yeah.”

There was a moment of silence as the two looked up into the darkness. Clear closed the desk drawer carefully.

“You know,” she ventured, “I don’t think there’s anything to find here. Let’s head back.”

Tess agreed.

****

The next day, Tess was eating lunch with Clear and Al in the Risibel Memorial Cafeteria. Tess was spooning some jambalaya into his mouth, as Clear recounted last night’s break-in to Al.

“—so while I’m searching for info on this woman or hall or whatever we’re looking for, I hear this noise. Tess was too busy checking me out to notice—”

“I wasn’t checking you out,” Tess tried to interject, with a mouth full of jambalaya. It came out as more of a mumbly-splashy noise.

“Great defense. Anyway, Sterne Hall is full of bats. Hundreds of them. Can you believe this university lets bats just live wherever? Before you know it, the whole place is going to be full of guano.”

“We didn’t see any—”

“Guano means bat shit,” Clear added in a stage whisper.

“We didn’t see any bats, Clear. And I wasn’t checking you out, anyway – I wasn’t checking her out,” he added to Al, who nodded sagaciously. “I was just trying to figure out who we’re trying to find out about.”

“There were so bats, probably.”

“We didn’t see any bat poop.”

“You mean guano,” Al suggested.

“You mean bat shit,” Clear suggested.

“Look, all I’m saying is maybe it wasn’t bats, because we didn’t see any bat sh—any guano.”

“Or maybe they’re very clean bats. I mean, this is a university,” Clear teased.

“Or perhaps the professors collect it for biology experiments,” Al added.

“Ok, I give up.” Tess took another bite of his jambalaya and made a face, half at his friends, and half at the food.

“Hey, look who’s spotted us,” Clear said, prodding Tess. “It’s that girl you said loves cheese stakes yesterday, and that guy she hangs out with.”

Tess mumbled something, embarrassed.

“You know, she’s not bad-looking. You might have had a chance with her, if you hadn’t made such a fool of yourself. Oh my, oh my.”

“Look, I’m not interested in her, okay?” An image of McKenzie, the beautiful, confident girl from his geology class pranced through a summer field in his mind. His first thought was how much he wanted to impress her, and his second was how much he wanted to keep Clear from finding out.

“You cad! What’s she ever done to you?”

“Hey, what’s the deal with that guy she hangs out with?” Tess asked quickly to change the subject.

“No one seems to know,” Al answered, “but I’ve heard they go everywhere together.”

“Are they – ‘together’?” Tess asked.

“Oh no,” Clear said with a giggle. “Oh no no no. Milo is what we women like to call ‘gay’. That means, attracted to other men.”

“I—” Tess started to say.

“Not women. Just men,” Clear interrupted.

Tess glared at her. “Ha ha, the greek kid doesn’t know what gay means. You’re a stitch, you are.”

“You’re from Greece?” Maya said, having just arrived at the table. “That is so cool. There’s a really good Greek restaurant near here. I went there with my parents the first night we were here.” Maya suddenly stopped talking and looked down at her tray, her cheeks reddening.

“What my associate means to say is that the Greek culture is quite fascinating, and we’d like to join you for lunch, if you don’t mind,” Milo said, coming to Maya’s rescue. “I’m taking a class on ancient Greece right now, and I feel they were very forward thinking.” Milo gave a little laugh.

Clear laughed too, but Tess wasn’t sure why.

“Seriously, though, what’s really interesting is this class on paganism I’m taking with Professor Wheeler. Did you know that this is one of the few pagan-founded universities in the country?”

“I did not know that,” Clear said a little too seriously, while Al just nodded.

“It’s true. Philip Crowley, one of the founders, was into spiritualism, geomancy, and all sorts of interesting things.”

“That’s your hobby, right?” Tess said. “You’re into séances and pictures of faeries and stuff.”

“Well, not so much the faeries. But as far as historical information about séances is concerned, this class is great. Professor Wheeler studied under Professor Sterne – the old one, not the new one.”

Tess, Al, and Clear exchanged glances.

“What did I say?” Milo said, looking around at the three.

“How much do you know about Professor Sterne?” Tess asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. A little of this, a little of that. She was considered the foremost professor of occult religion in her time. Well, the foremost at a liberal arts institution, anyway. That’s why Wheeler is so good for information on spiritualism and the like. Why?”

“Well, it’s like this . . .” Tess began to explain.

Chapter Three

“You know, for someone who’s obsessed with being a stalker, you sure don’t seem to be trying very hard–shouldn’t you be going through a certain someone’s garbage right now?”

“I’m not obsessed, Clear; I just can’t think about anything else. And did he tell you about the mushrooms?”

“Yeah, he said you weren’t into them. You know, in the version I heard, the kid has to drink soy sauce and gnaw on the drywall.”

“I’m not sure this a productive area of discussion.”

Tess, Al and Clear were piling their jackets in a corner of the Rosebrough Student Center cloakroom. The cafeteria dated back to a time when and linoleum was king and architects never met a bit of stainless steel they didn’t like. Tess and friends passed into the adjoining room, where a long line of students was pushing through a turnstile.

“Well, maybe it is, Tess,” Clear persisted. “If you’re going to be drinking soy sauce for like a year maybe you should try to get a taste for it now.”

“Yeah,” added Al. “Start with a few drops and go slow until you build up an immunity.”

Tess scowled. “That’s poison you’re thinking of.” Al shrugged in a maybe-it-is-maybe-it-isn’t sort of way. Tess pressed on: “Anyhow, the soy sauce isn’t the issue. I mean, following this guy around, going through his stuff. It’s all so illegal…. What if I get caught?”

“I don’t believe in laws,” said Clear, prompting Al to reach over and tousle her hair affectionately. “They’re totally against human nature and they just cause more problems than they solve. If people were just allowed to do whatever it would all just sort itself out. See? Watch what happens if I punch Al here.” Clear took a swing at Al’s nose that entirely failed to connect as he blandly held her at arm’s length with his palm on her forehead. “There, see? It works itself out.”

“And if that weren’t enough,” Tess persisted, “what’s with the whole ‘show your work’ thing?”

“Maybe there are different formats,” Clear offered. “You know, like CIA style?”

“Brilliant,” Tess muttered as he pushed through the turnstile. He walked another few paces and joined the line for hot food while his companions went on into the dining room in search of a free table.

He was rocking back and forth on his heels with his hands in his pockets when a wisp of a girl with a halo of short, curly, red hair made passing eye contact.

“Hey,” said Tess brightly. “Don’t I know you?” The girl looked genuinely surprised.

“Yes! You’re Tess.”

“Right. Ma . . . Maggie?”

“Maya.”

“Oh. Weren’t we in the same tour in New Student Week?” She pushed her glasses up her nose and smiled faintly at this.

“Actually we have three classes together.”

“Oh.”

“And we live in the same building.”

“Oh.”

A little alarmed at how badly he was doing, Tess struggled to dredge up some factoid to show that he was not in fact as clueless about this person as he apparently was.

“You must be in line for the cheese steaks, right? Because you’re from Pennsylvania,” he finished triumphantly. He crossed his arms on his chest heroically. Maya looked almost embarrassed, although it was unclear for whom.

“Toronto. I usually just have cereal but I was in line with my friend Milo.”

The Milo presumably in question spun around at this. He was of average height but looked a fair bit taller than he actually was because he stood with an immaculate posture that bespoke extensive training in ballet, modern dance, and tap. Additionally, he seemed to exude an air of hyperkinetic omnidirectional bonhomie that extended well beyond the physical confines of his body. He grabbed Tess’ hand and pumped it up and down.

“Oh hi,” Milo enthused. “I’ve seen you all over the place. Weren’t you in the bushes the other day? I love the fatigues.” Tess felt startled at how well-known he was turning out to be.

“I . . .”

“And look at your hair!” He grabbed a curl of Tess’ hair and tugged at in exuberantly, watching it spring back into place. Tess took a half-step back and looked around in wide-eyed semi-panic.

“Have we…?”

“You might have read something of mine in the school paper.”

Tess realized he had and managed to recompose himself a bit.

“Yeah…didn’t you write a three-page article for the New Student edition about how séances are the next big thing…or something?”

“They are!” Milo hit him on the shoulder here, causing him to ladle gravy all over his cafeteria tray. “They’re a great way to pick up people; in the article I called them ‘the new Twister.’ They totally are. Did you know the guy who founded TU used do them? He was really famous for them. I read he used to do daguerreotypes of fairies too. And goblins. I was thinking of doing some for an art project. Want to be in one? All you have to do is hold really still for two hours.”

“Yeah, sure.”

On walking into the dining hall they were greeted by a hearty din: laughing students, the noise of clattering cutlery, chairs scraping across the floor, and the occasional dropped tray (followed by polite applause) formed a wall of sound. Volleys of bread rolls and some of the smaller root vegetables were flying back and forth across the room at regular intervals. Tess pointed to Al and Clear in a far corner of the room. “That’s my roommate and his girlfriend if you want to join us.”

Maya looked up from the Fruit Loops dispenser. “You mean the kind of average-looking guy and the really small Indian girl with hair like Liza Minnelli in Cabaret?”

“Yeah, that’s them. That’s them exactly.”

***

The five of them were walking back across the residential quad after dinner. It was a cool night but not uncomfortably so and the stars shone brightly between a few wisps of cloud. They cheered on a couple energetically canoodling on the plinth of the Obelisk for the Once and Future Student, a twelve foot tall bronze edifice crafted to resemble a tower of haphazardly piled books, desks, mattresses, and other student essentials. For the last six decades or so it had been a favorite venue for drunken make-out sessions, impromptu free climbing competitions, and other such youthful bacchanalian shenanigans.

“So what are you going to do about professor Sterne?” asked Clear as they approached their dorm, the stately and squat Pulleyblank Hall. Tess, who was momentarily distracted by the sight of shadowy figures cast on the blinds in his residence advisor’s window, shook his head.

“Have any of you guys–huh?”

“Sterne.”

Clear mrowr-ed to herself.

“Who?” Milo asked.

“You know,” Maya answered him. “The archaeology professor. The one with hair like Patrick Stewart in Next Generation.”

“Do you know anyone who doesn’t have hair like someone on TV?” Milo quipped at her. Maya looked quietly down at her toes. After an uncomfortable moment Milo suddenly lunged forward, lifted her by the midsection, and swung her in a tight circle, her legs flying outward, until she was laughing for him to stop.

Meanwhile, Tess was trying to remember the combination to his mailbox in the lobby. “I don’t know,” he said, finally opening the mailbox and pulling out a manila campus mail envelope. “I don’t suppose anyone wants to–”

“Nope,” Al cut in with surprising conviction. “Simpsons.” Maya brightened noticeably at this and followed him downstairs with Milo in hot pursuit, leaving just Tess and Clear.

“Sure.”

“What?”

“You were going to ask if anyone wanted to help you break into Stern’s office, right?” Tess winced and looked around to see if anyone had heard but the lobby was empty for the moment.

“Yeah . . .”

“Sure, I’ll help.”

“Well, that’s great but I still don’t know how we’re going to get in.”

“Sneak in, I guess,” said Clear as Tess ripped open the envelope and looked inside.

“How? It’s not like we have–oh.”

“What?”

Tess emptied the contents of the envelope into his hand. There were two keys.

***

Tess and Clear agreed to meet behind the Colbert Hall bushes at midnight. Tess had arrived early in jeans and a black turtleneck and was crouching in his usual spot. The bushes seemed pointier at night.

Tess felt annoyed. Bending to teachers’ every whim, hiding in shrubbery while everyone else was having a good time: that was the old Tess. Where was the new college Tess he’d promised himself? It was Monday night –– shouldn’t he be at a party now?

Clear walked up noisily behind him. “Looking sharp!” she announced. Tess flashed the whites of his eyes and shushed her.

“Oh, relax,” she said. “Nobody’s here but us and that couple back there making out in the archway. C’mon.”

She strode up the stairs to Colbert hall as he scrambled behind her. She rapped her flashlight in the palm of her hand as he fished the two keys he’d received out of his pocket. He inserted the larger of the two keys into the keyhole. With a smooth click the door unlocked and they quietly slipped into the building.

“Ooh, this is just awesome!” enthused Clear as she played her flashlight over the walls of the darkened hallway. “In the sixties my parents used to break into stuff on their campus all the time, you know. That’s how they met –– they broke into the chancellor’s office on the same night. It’s so romantic.”

“Yeah,” said Tess, not really listening. “I think his office is down this hall here.”

“And then Dad proposed while they were taking a dump on the provost’s desk . . .” Clear continued.

“We’re here.”

Sterne’s door was covered in yellowing Far Side comics and Onion articles (“Archaeologists Discover Ancient Race of Skeleton People!”). Clear perched on a nearby table between stacks of papers covered with red marginalia.

Tess took the smaller of the two keys out of his pocket, swallowed, and inserted it into the knob on Sterne’s door. It didn’t turn. He pulled it out, stuck it in again, and rattled the knob. Still nothing.

“What? It doesn’t work?” asked Clear. “Try the other one.”

Tess did, without success. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why would Kincaid give me a key to the building but not his office?”

“You’re sure they’re from Kincaid?”

“Pretty sure–his name was crossed out before mine on the envelope.”

Clear furrowed her brow and appeared to think for a second or two. “I’ve been in this building before. My roommate has a class in here. I wonder . . .” She took off at a brisk pace down the hall and Tess chased after her.

“What?” he asked as they jogged down a flight of stairs and around a corner. They were now standing in front of the door to Colbert 100, a large lecture hall that Tess had walked past before.

“Here. Give me that key.”

Tess handed her the key. She stuck it into the locked knob and the door swung open.

“How did you . . .?”

“Maybe you have the wrong Sterne,” she said quietly and pointed his flashlight at a small brass plaque affixed to the wall next to the door. It read: “STERNE LECTURE HALL. In honor of exemplary service given to the university by Julia Sterne, alumna, Professor of Mathematics, 1911-1939.”