“Why’s he the only one speaking it but none of us understand? Don’t we need it now? Why can’t we understand if we were all once mechanics?”
“I don’t know, Dean. I don’t know the answer. Maybe because obviously we don’t have it all back yet—all the knowledge and abilities mechanics have and need to do their job. Every one of us seems to be on a different level of awareness. Jane has the best understanding but she can’t put it all together. You say you remember nothing about being a mechanic. Vanessa only knew what an Aurora Cobb was. And I recognize Crebold’s speaking the Fourth Language but don’t understand it. Like recognizing when someone’s speaking German even though you don’t know the language. I think he’s being blocked from telling us things only mechanics are supposed to know.”
Edmonds raised his arm like a student in class who knows the correct answer. “I understood him. I mean, I understood maybe every third or fourth word he was saying.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, but like I said, not everything.”
“What did he say?”
Crebold spoke again. Edmonds listened to his fast spew of incomprehensible words, craning his head forward, trying to follow everything. Finally he held up a hand to stop Crebold from saying more.
“I believe he’s saying it’s partly your fault.” Edmonds pointed at Kaspar. “He says you knew your whole life you were a mechanic, right?”
Kaspar didn’t move or respond. The others looked at him with varying degrees of curiosity.
“He says you knew this thing, this Somersault, was coming so you should have prepared everybody for it.”
Kaspar shot back, “No, not true! I didn’t know about it until recently. Anyway Crebold, you know there’s no way to prepare. It’s Chaos; you can’t prepare for chaos or know how to handle it when it comes.” Kaspar turned to the others. “I have known all my life I was once a mechanic. But that’s irrelevant because I had none of the powers. I couldn’t have done anything to stop or fix what’s happening to us now. Neither can Crebold and he is a mechanic.”
“Kaspar, what is a Somersault? You said it’s Chaos?”
“You know Halley’s Comet? It’s visible to Earth every seventy-five years or so. Travels on an elliptical, two-hundred-year-long orbit toward and then away from the sun. They call it a ‘short period comet’ in contrast to long period comets whose orbits last thousands of years.
“Somersaults are like comets, only instead of being made up of ice and dust like dirty snowballs, they consist of only one thing—chaos. Because of that, their orbits are wildly unpredictable. We never know until the last minute when they’re approaching and it can be eons between appearances.”
Still pissed off at Crebold’s slight, Vanessa asked belligerently, “What’s an eon?”
“Technically, a million years. But if you want to be poetic—eternity. In other words an eternity can elapse between one Somersault and another. Or it can be a lot shorter, you never know.”
“What do they do when they come?”
Before Kaspar could answer, Crebold started speaking the strange language again. Edmonds leaned in and put a hand behind his ear to catch every word of the bizarre language. He thought the more he heard, the better chance he had of understanding.
Kaspar was glad for the interruption because he really didn’t know how to answer the question without causing even greater alarm. What do Somersaults do? As far as he knew (and had heard from those who’d witnessed the last one), they were like tornadoes the size of Jupiter that tear everything in their path into the smallest confetti and toss it indifferently in the air.
Chaos doesn’t do, it undoes.
What was a moment ago now isn’t when Chaos comes to town. What was solid is now liquid or soft or gas or gone. Things that were a hundred percent certain, definite, or guaranteed become instantly suspect once chaos arrives.
“He says chaos doesn’t do, it undoes.”
It took Kaspar a beat or two to come out of his mind-cave and register what Edmonds said. “What—what did he just say?”
Bill repeated the mechanic’s words. “He said ‘chaos doesn’t do, it undoes.’”
“Crebold, I thought the same thing! Two seconds ago I thought those exact words—the exact same ones.”
Jane heard the urgency in Kaspar’s voice. “Is it important? Does it mean something?”
Kaspar and Crebold stared at each other knowing damned well it was very important, although neither wanted to explain why to the others.
But Kaspar knew it was his responsibility. “We need to be straight with each other now and hold nothing back. No bullshitting around or mincing words. I don’t know when the next flip will come. As Dean said, it’s likely to send us off in different directions. We might not ever be together again. So if we can brainstorm right now, maybe we’ll come up with valuable and helpful things.
“What Crebold and I just experienced is something you could call ‘same-ing.’ We thought exactly the same thing at the same moment and used identical words to describe it: ‘Chaos doesn’t do, it undoes.’ Same-ing is a method mechanics use to fix certain problems, but neither of us used it this time—it was used on us. Right?” Kaspar looked at Crebold, who nodded.
Jane asked, “What does it mean—it was used on you?”
“This is the first time it’s ever happened to either of us. If it continues it could mean all of us are soon going to be thinking the same things, as if we have exactly the same mind. Six people, one brain.”
Crebold spoke again. Everyone looked at Edmonds for a translation. It was obvious from the stressed expression on his face he was having real trouble keeping up with the words. “He says the things mechanics do, like making those flips happen, understanding the Fourth Language, or this same-ing—it might be out of their control now. Like maybe the powers of mechanics have been taken away from them and are controlled by something else.” Edmonds looked at Crebold, who wiggled a hand back and forth to indicate Edmonds had gotten the gist of what he said right but not exactly.
“Controlled by what?”
Kaspar said, “This Somersault would be my guess. It’s Chaos. Wherever Chaos goes it causes havoc. Look at the craziness of what’s happened to us today: five people have the same dream. That in itself is insane—the same dream, five people? Then we’re all flipped and end up back here in the dream again, plus Crebold. But from one moment to the next he can only speak in the Fourth, which no one understands except—”
Crebold interrupted Kaspar. Edmonds listened to his babble a while before putting up both hands and almost yelling, “Slow down, man! It’s hard for me to understand; when you talk so fast I can’t get any of it. Slow down—just slow down.”
“Dean, look, it’s Muba.”
Dean Corbin faced away from his wife when she spoke so he had to turn around to see what she was talking about. Down the road the giant red elephant walked toward them. It clumped along at a slow steady pace until stopping twenty feet away. Crebold froze the moment he saw the beast. The expression in his eyes looked like he’d just been electrocuted.
“Look for the map on its side again. Maybe we’ll understand it now. Remember before we each saw a different one? Maybe something’s changed.”
Panicked, Crebold grabbed Edmonds’s arm and spoke quickly again. Bill shook his head and said, “Don’t worry—it’s okay, it’s safe. We saw it before and it’s friendly. You don’t have to be scared. Just don’t touch it.” Bill looked at Dean and smiled, remembering how he’d been hit in the face by the elephant’s trunk before.
Kaspar looked at the mechanic. “Oh right—you hate animals, don’t you? I remember once—”
Crebold glared and put his hands together as if praying or begging the other man to shut up. Kaspar stopped, despite a mean glint in his eye. He waggled an “I’ve got the goods on you” finger at his onetime colleague. “I own a dog now, Crebold. Did you know? A gray pit bull named D Train. Wait till you meet him—you two will get along great
.”
Crebold gave him the finger.
“Kaspar, could you come here?” Vanessa stood with the others near Muba. The others were looking intently at the map on the side of the elephant. It swung its trunk lazily back and forth but otherwise stood still. Vanessa pointed to something on the map for Dean to see. A few steps away Edmonds and Jane watched. While Kaspar walked over, Crebold slowly took as many steps backward as he could without being too conspicuous in his retreat from the elephant.
“Yes, yes there! Now I see it! Kaspar, come and look at this.” Dean pointed to a spot on the map, although careful not to actually touch the elephant’s red hide.
Kaspar got up close but not before looking to see if Muba was okay with that—he remembered it whacking Dean in the face.
The Corbins and Kaspar Benn stood together, Jane and Edmonds just behind, all five of them studying the distinct markings on the animal’s side.
“There! Do you see that?”
“No, show me.”
Dean stabbed a stiff finger at different parts of the map.
Kaspar nodded slowly.
“Vanessa saw it first. She’s the one who pointed it out.”
“What? What is it?” Jane went up on tiptoes for a better look.
“Yes! I see it too.” Edmonds’s voice was high with excitement.
Whatever “it” was on the map, everyone saw it now but Jane. Distraught, she wailed, “See what? What do you see?”
FOUR
The next thing she knew, Jane was perched on one of the leather stools back at her bar. The place was very hot, packed with people, full of movement, and loud. It looked like it usually did on a weekend night, filled mostly with lively couples laughing and flirting. Some were dancing to a Billy Joel song on the sound system playing in the background. The few singles in the thick crowd scanned the room with faces full of high hope and desire while at the same time trying to look as cool and removed as actors in a French New Wave film.
Naturally after this latest flip Jane had no idea what day or year it was in her past. But it had to be fairly recent if she was in the bar and everything around her looked familiar. As casually as possible, she asked Tiko the beautiful bartender what the date was today. Tiko glanced at her hefty black rubber wristwatch. “Friday the twelfth.”
“The twelfth of what? I’m really out of it today.”
“September. Do you want anything to drink, Jane? Something to clear your head?”
“Yes, a very good idea. Could I have a large glass of that Ardbeg single malt please?”
“Wow, sure.” Tiko smiled because Ardbeg was their most expensive whisky and her boss usually drank only club soda.
Jane wore the black ski parka she had on in the dream. It was so hot in the room that she quickly took it off and draped it over her lap. But first she slid her hand into the pockets. In the left was a large folded piece of paper. She felt it a moment to see if touch alone would stir a memory of what it was but nothing came to her. She thought it was the list she’d just been reading to the others. Pulling it out, she unfolded it on the bar. Her fingers had lied—there was not one but two folded sheets.
The first was filled with detailed precise drawings of mysterious figures and what looked like machines, single numbers underlined several times, symbols, and abstruse-looking scientific formulas. Also strings of words and sentences written in several languages Jane didn’t recognize except for one in Cyrillic and several in Greek. As a whole, the paper looked like some kind of recondite illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages.
She did not know it but this was the first drawing Kaspar Benn had done on the airplane after he woke up from last night’s shared dream.
The second page was covered with seventy-two identically rendered glass ink bottles. The pencil drawings were done in photo-realistic detail. It was uncanny how much they looked like the real thing. The only thing distinguishing one from the other were lettered labels on each bottle naming the color of ink contained inside—celadon, cerise, burnt sienna, periwinkle … It was the drawing Kaspar had done on the cab ride in from the Vienna airport.
Tiko brought the whisky and lingered to see how her boss was going to drink the liquid gold. Only one customer had ordered it in all the time she’d worked there and he was reputed to be one of the richest men in the state. Jane ignored the glass and kept smoothing the drawings on the bar as if she could eliminate all the wrinkles if she just kept sweeping her hand across the two papers.
“What are those?”
So intent was Jane on studying Kaspar’s papers that she glanced up and peered at Tiko as if she were a stranger. “Oh, um, I don’t know. But they’re really interesting, don’t you think? I found them in my pocket.”
“How weird, Jane—you don’t know how they got in your pocket? Did someone put them there?”
Jane reached for the whisky. “Dunno—maybe.” She took a swig of the Ardbeg and pouted as it slid strong smoky spices down her throat. Then she went back to examining the wrinkled papers. Tiko walked off to serve a customer, gesturing to her from the other end of the bar.
A few minutes later someone nearby asked in a fast rat-a-tat voice, “Are you doing your homework?”
Jane turned and was almost nose to nose with Marlena Salloum peering shamelessly over her shoulder at the papers. A bar regular and casual friend, Marley was a professor of religion at the college. She had a good heart but was skittery as a hummingbird and just as easily distracted. She was also a big snoop who always wanted to know what was going on in your life.
“Marley, look at this paper and tell me if you see anything on it that makes sense to you.” Jane slid the first Kaspar sheet with the numbers, enigmatic figures, and unrecognizable words on it down the bar to her friend, who now sat on an adjacent stool.
The professor dug a pair of glasses out of her faded jean jacket and slid them on. Immediately she pointed to three figures near the middle of the paper. “These three are letters from the Phoenician alphabet used around 1,400 BC. This letter is a zayin, which the Greeks called ‘zeta.’ It was also commonly used to represent a weapon of some sort, like a sword. The middle letter is a kaph, the eleventh letter of that alphabet. It also represents the palm of your hand. And this last one is a daleth, which means a door or a portal. The Greeks turned it into ‘delta.’” Marley spent more time looking over the paper before sliding it back. “I don’t recognize anything else there. Have you taken up the study of ancient scripts? I’m impressed. You should enroll in one of my classes.”
Jane smiled and tipped her head from side to side. “Do those three letters or signs or whatever they are together mean anything in that specific order?”
Marley took off her glasses. “You mean in between the mishmash of all the other stuff on the page? Not necessarily. But looking at them with modern eyes I might construe it as some kind of manic, three-thousand-year-old suicide note or last will and testament.
“Oh, there’s Dru and Ryder. I’ve got to go over and say hello to them. See you later, honey.” Marley bustled off across the room to her next meet-and-greet.
Jane sipped whisky and continued studying the two papers, her eyes constantly moving back and forth between them. Where had they come from? Had one of the other dreamers put them in her pocket? If so, for what reason?
The bar grew louder and more raucous until it finally overwhelmed her. She decided to go outside for fresh air and silence. Maybe it would be easier to think and make connections out there. On her way an idea slid into her head. Jane said a loud “Yes!” and pumped her fist. Veering left she went into the office. Beneath the desk in there were her Rollerblades and they were exactly what she sought.
If it was September outside and not winter with its snow-covered streets, she would go rollerblading through town and maybe a ways into the countryside. It was the best method she knew to clear her brain and let it take long deep breaths of clean air, which was exactly the tonic it needed right now.
Toting the blades
, she exited via the back door, which opened onto a small parking lot. Next to the door out there was a lovely old maple wood bench Felice bought at a church yard sale, had refinished and weatherproofed, then given Jane on the first anniversary of her bar. Jane had workmen set bolts deep into the ground to anchor it and keep the bench from being stolen. Surprisingly little graffiti had been written or carved on it since she had it installed there for bar employees to use when they took a break. Felice said it was because the bench was a gift of love, thus it held special magical powers to keep vandals and evildoers away.
The night was the kind of not-quite-chilly that lives during mid-September. A tricky cold, you can’t decide whether to go out in just a sweater or throw on a coat just in case. It was perfect skating weather because you’d start out cold but soon the physical exertion warmed every bit of you to a perfectly toasty temperature.
Jane lay her jacket down on Felice’s bench after making sure the drawings were zipped safely inside one of the pockets. She needed both hands free to put on the Rollerblades. They were a professional model with a complicated system of lacings and clips, which required both dexterity and concentration to do up. Sometimes it took her two or three tries to get it right. She was always so eager to start zooming down the street on her blades that she often left patience and caution in her street shoes after slipping them off.
While changing now she kept thinking about the comment Marley had made about the figures on one of the papers possibly being a last will or suicide note. Jane wondered if there were other things on the papers that, if she were able to translate them, would shed further light on what it all meant.
Bathing the Lion Page 19
