Chairman Molmer says, “Professor Finnley, I’m afraid you’ve not produced the kind of research we have requested, nor have you used the administered funds under the agreed upon requisites. What you have given us is yet another wild chase into rewriting history. Wyn Avuqua and the city of immortals, like Atlantis, like Camelot, like the face on Mars, should be left where they belong: in the fantasy section at the library—”
“This man is said to have had the inscription placed,” Astrid interrupts, turning to the screen and pointing. She advances to the next slide. It is another split screen with two photographs. On the right a sepia toned, grainy picture of a man’s face. Behind him is London at what looks like the turn of the nineteenth century. The other photo is the same face, in crisp color. Behind is the sparkling skyline of modern London. “His name is Albion Ravis—”
A board member blurts out, “You’re not saying that he’s one of your fabled immortals, are you?”
“Not exactly,” Astrid replies, “but there is evidence to suggest that he or his family is in some way involved in—”
“As a professor of mythology and linguistics, you surprise me by your effort to blur the lines of what is real and what is not.”
Astrid feels her face scowl. She then relaxes and tries to smile, “Isn’t that what mythology is?”
The board member waves his hand, “Come now, you know what I mean. Wyn Avuqua is not Delphi. It is not Troy. It is not the Giza Plateau. Not Jerusalem. Those are real places and real cultures with substantial historical relevance—with realities that have had an impact on human history. Please, do not enter the invented ancient city of immortals into the canon of established giants. It is simply insulting, Dr. Finnley.”
Another of the panel says, “And especially after what happened up there, Professor.” He waves randomly toward the ceiling, clears his throat and shifts his tone, “While you have our sympathies, I cannot help but think that these revelations that you outline here aren’t in some way associated with your boating accident at Priest Lake…”
Astrid can still feel the ache in her knee and the chill of the icy water. The deep thunk of the hull crashing into a deadhead. The headache is still there, too. The headache that never seems to fade—and a wall. A wall she placed back there.
No one speaks for a moment. The panel member’s comment hovers in the air for an uncomfortable few seconds. Someone coughs.
“Professor, I apologize,” Molmer says finally.
Astrid shakes her head. Tears of frustration rise. Her voice quavers, “It was a long time ago. I’m fine now—so if you’ll let me finish—there, there’s more to the story. Of course I’ve been through a lot.”
“And you’ve made great progress,” Molmer offers.
“Yes,” she nods. “I still have my moments, but I have come a long way—”
“Indeed you have, Professor. But I’m afraid your personal trials are not the reason we meet here this morning. What is under scrutiny is your work. I move that Dr. Finnley’s manuscript be rejected and that litigation be implemented for breach of contract,” Dr. Charlotte Tuzass states.
The motion is seconded.
Molmer asks, “All in favor?”
The entire board replies, “Aye.”
Molmer gives a slight nod at the papers on his desk and looks up at Astrid.
Astrid Finnley closes her notebook and stares at the cover. On it is a faded image that she had sketched the day she began her research, some eight years ago—the image of a solitary eye.
The Water’s Eye #2
November 11, this year
Terciera Island, Azores, Portugal
1:45pm AZOT
Helen holds the spike of her finger at his throat and pauses. Loche can see her struggling—her pupils flitting—seeking some reason not to murder.
Loche closes his eyes and wonders if his death would be the best option. And what better way than at the hand of his estranged wife, a woman he never truly knew. Was it his fault for not understanding her, or has she deceived him all these years? Why did he make her a god-killer?
Then, Edwin fills his mind. His only son. His eyes snap open and he feels flame stabbing out. For a split second Loche sees that his anger causes Helen to tremble and fall back. And to his surprise the sharp nail drops down and away, and Helen cries as if the wind had been knocked from her lungs. Her chin drops and her legs weaken. She catches herself by grasping Loche’s arms.
Loche, shocked at this sudden turn, catches her waist and lowers her to the floor.
“What, what is the matter?” Loche asks.
“It’s Rathinalya,” she manages to breathe out. “I’ve never —never felt it so powerful. I cannot stand. You—you are a god after all.”
“What are you talking about?”
The Rathinalya. Loche recalls the sensation described as an immortal’s innate dexterity. But also, their instinctive reaction to a celestial on earth. William Greenhame had told of overwhelming chills, like a thousand needles pricking the skin, a cascade of ice crystals ticking down the spine. This is how an immortal knows a god had bridged—how an immortal knows that a god is near—the purpose of their existence—god killer.
Loche positions her so that she can lean her body against the wall of glass. Her breathing is heavy. Sweat mats the hair around her face. Her hands are still clamped to Loche’s upper arms.
“I’ve never… felt it like this… even with Cythe… this can’t be possible… you…”
“I don’t understand, Helen,” Loche says. “It is not me you’re sensing.” She raises her face to his and searches.
“Albion, Nicholas Cythe—Rearden—they must be right. You’re…” She breaks off again, unable to breathe. Fear blackens the grey of her irises. Her hands grip tighter. “I didn’t want to believe it.”
Loche studies her. He is confused. She is clinging to him, and he cannot decide if she is yearning to hold him for comfort, or to raise her hands to his throat and strangle the life from him.
“Make it stop, Loche. Make it stop!” she cries.
“It is not me,” Loche tells her. “It must be something else.”
Heavy, uneven footsteps thump behind him. Loche turns and sees Julia Iris leaning unsteadily in the passageway. She is grappling for the door frame and the wall to balance herself. Like Helen, Julia’s face is blurred by fear.
“Loche,” she cries. “Edwin! Edwin is—” Loche pulls away from Helen and rushes to Julia. He catches her as her legs give way. “He’s outside, Loche.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“Edwin! Stop Edwin!” Julia raises her arm and points. Loche follows the line of her arm to the huge window, out across the green to the sea. “Edwin! Stop him!” she cries again.
With an awkward, feeble push, Helen turns her body and looks out the window. She then slaps her hand to the glass and screams, “Edwin! Edwin!”
Loche rushes to the window and scans the lawn. The afternoon is a flat metal wash. A small figure is running across the center of the grass plot toward the sea—toward the cliff. It is six-year-old Edwin Newirth.
Loche’s fist beats repeatedly against the glass as his voice screams “Edwin! Edwin!”
The little boy stops in the middle of the green field, turns around and looks up. He waves at his father. Silence. Despite the distance of fifty meters and the grey light, Loche can see a grin upon his son’s face. Edwin lowers his hand, looks back toward the sea and then back to Loche. He waves one more time, and as if he were being called, he spins his little body toward the sea and runs.
“Edwin! Stop!” The glass walls clatter. Loche knocks harder. “What are you doing?”
“Go after him! Bring him back!” Helen cries. Loche looks down at her and then to Julia. Both are overcome and crippled with some power he can only guess at. He lunges for the door, through the hall and vaults himself down three floors of stairs.
Near the exit, two armed Orathom Wis are visibly struggling with the powerful Rathinal
ya. They note Loche but say nothing as he rushes through. One is slumped in his chair, the other is on his knees just outside with his hands over his mouth. Looking over his shoulder as he passes, Loche identifies the same shadow of horror in their faces that he saw on Helen—upon Julia. He squints, dashing out under the steel sky. He trains his eyes on his son. In his periphery a puff of white birds swirl down below the cliff line. The raw chill in the air cuts into his chest. A quickening throb booms in his ears.
“Edwin!” He yells. The sound is muffled in the stillness. His breath is an icy fume. The boy is running far ahead. His legs running to the cliff. “Edwin!”
Distance is closing between them. Behind, Helen’s weakened voice is calling, “Edwin! Loche!” He glances back. Both his wife and Julia are staggering out of the building, trying to follow.
When he faces forward again, he sees Edwin stopped at the cliff edge. He turns toward his father and smiles. The smile is genuine and beautiful, as if the boy has rediscovered a loved missing toy. Loche tries to run faster. “Careful, son!” he manages to blurt between heaves. Edwin’s grin grows, then he turns away and looks down.
When the little boy’s body disappears, dropping fast below the cliff-line, Loche is nearly an arms reach. Helen’s defeated scream scrapes at Loche’s soul. Loche leaps forward and lands on his chest, arms stretched out and down, his hands splayed wide, but empty. He watches helplessly as his son plunges from the high cliff to the mirrored water below.
Then he understands.
Spreading out upon the surface of the water beneath Edwin, like spilled black ink, is a massive, widening pupil. Around its diameter an ice blue iris forms. Loche’s breathing halts. Edwin tumbles down. He descends well below the waterline but there is no splash. The surface does not cover over him. Loche sees him plummet to a tiny speck then disappear into the black.
Helen and Julia drop to their knees beside Loche. Helen is shrieking, “No! No! No!” Julia attempts to peer down into the eye; then cries out as if in pain. She covers her face with her hands.
Loche stands, takes three steps backward and then rushes forward, hurling himself out into the sky above the sea. Arms rotate and thread through the air to keep his body from tumbling head over foot—he keeps his glare latched to the massive eye.
He does not look away.
He does not blink.
This time he will make it blink.
He will drive a lance through it.
This time it will fear him.
Silence.
Flash.
Gone.
An Apology
November 11, this year
Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA
8:45am PST
Astrid Finnley is a forty-seven-year-old professor of mythology and linguistics at Whitworth University in Washington State. She has shoulder-length, dark brown hair with a thick swathe of grey draping over her left eye, full shapely lips, crisp blue eyes and too-much-time-in-the-library pale skin. Striking. She’s not overweight and yet she’s not athletic. Maybe a little exercise would be good, she often thinks. She’s been called gorgeous, mostly by her mother and a few friends, but she does not believe it. Or more accurately, she doesn’t give two shits. She’s smart, thorough and has a tireless insistence on follow-through. Her father had given her a copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology when she was twelve. And that damn book started it all. The telling of human truth through gods and goddesses, through heroes and monsters, from Olympus veiled in the clouds above to the pits of Pluto and the underworld of Hell—and humans trapped between. Myth obsessed her. She received her doctoral degree in May of her 29th year. A month later she stood on the Giza Plateau in Egypt in the bright sun with a pencil behind her ear, a book under her arm and a whining British tour guide describing the medieval punishments for those caught trying to climb the Great Pyramid without permission. (Astrid ended up hiring a short, brown skinned Egyptian tout to guide her to the top later that night.) The year that followed was a tour through antiquity. She visited as many ancient sites and known mythological attractions as she could. The places that filled her days. The stories that haunted her dreams.
Professor Finnley’s expertise is primarily focused on Greek and Roman myths. But she has discovered folk-tales, whether Asian, Middle Eastern or, of late, the legends and beliefs of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. She even loves some of the invented mythologies from her favorite authors such as Tolkien, King and many others. Game of Thrones, not so much— too needlessly peaceful.
Astrid closes the door behind her and turns toward the stairs. She imagines the Washington Grant Board continuing to scoff at her research. Tears threaten to appear. Cold air drafts through the hall and she’s reminded of wearing three layers during her time here as an undergrad. The place still needs to be insulated, she thinks. Gonzaga’s administration building, or more recently renamed College Hall, was built in 1898. Old, in relative terms. The Pacific Northwest of the United States isn’t particularly known for its ancient cathedrals or centuries of culture. Certainly the indigenous tribes of the Northwest Plateau left behind a wealth of artifacts and tradition, but no Great Pyramid, or cliff dwellings like those found in the American Southwest. So a hundred-plus-year-old building in the center of Spokane, Washington is kind of a big deal. As long as Astrid could remember, she wanted to go to a school that had the feel of something solid. Halls with ghosts in the walls. Stone, mortar, old. A structure that possessed character—a living past. Beyond the brick building on all sides, in this young part of the world, is urban sprawl, strip malls and structures devoid of art.
She pauses a moment and allows the familiar atmosphere of the hallway to fill her head with memories—hot coffee, early morning hunger pangs, chilled to the bone, sleepy from late night study group. Fletcher Cowling, musician, the college boyfriend enters her thought. She put an expiration date on him moments after their first kiss. Though they were together for nearly two years, and the sex was knee-weakening-magnificent (the conversation not so much), she knew he would never outlast her academic ambition. Besides, he was too pretty—tall, athletic, angelic face, and she always felt she did not match up to his aesthetic, especially in social settings. She wasn’t fond of makeup and the latest fashion. Better stated, she did not want to try. She knew he loved her, perhaps too much. Astrid recognized his sincerity, but even back then she was all too aware of his limited understanding of her—of even himself—never mind love. She nicknamed him Pothos after one of the Greek gods of love. Fletcher considered the title both sweet and appropriate. After all, what boyfriend wouldn’t appreciate being elevated to god status by his beloved. Astrid shakes her head. Pothos in Greek means desire, but more accurately, the god represented man’s yearning beyond what he is capable of—beyond understanding. Astrid smiles sadly, hoping that he never looked further into myth and discovered her sardonic irony. Perhaps he is, to this day, still delighted with the thought of the short and nerdy lover-girl in college who proclaimed him a god.
She misses him. Ghosts. This building has ghosts indeed.
And today—today must be her punishment for her overly pedantic, far reaching aspirations—for using her head and not her heart. Years of research into an ancient culture that the world has not recognized—and could very well change the direction of humankind—and she’s branded a fool. Sacrificing her personal happiness for the expansion of her learning, all for what? Today it ended.
Midway down the stairs she hears the tap of footsteps above and then her name, “Professor Finnley? Professor, may I have a word?”
Chairman Molmer.
Astrid stops and without turning she says, “Dr. Molmer, I think I’ve had enough embarrassment for today.”
“I dare say you have,” he replies, his voice almost a whisper. “And for good reason.”
Astrid still does not look at him. An angry smile, then, “Fuck you, Chairman. You people are sheep.” She turns and glares, giving up on holding back her tears, “Thank you for funding my project
and the opportunity to study a world-changing culture, but you and your board can remain in the dark and ignorant. I’m through for today.” Astrid straightens the strap of her heavy bag on her shoulder and begins to descend again.
Molmer says, “Professor Finnley, please, don’t mistake me—there is much more to share with you.” His voice is urgent and quiet. He takes a few steps down the stairs toward her. “I know you’ve been through a lot over the last few years while working on this project. I don’t know how you managed to keep going after the horrible accident.” He pauses. His expression winces slightly, as if he wishes he had not mentioned the event. “Please forgive me, Professor. Won’t you please accompany me to my office?” Astrid stops and looks up. Molmer’s plaid blue bow tie is crooked. His coat is the color of weak coffee. Astrid’s manuscript is under his arm. “The day is still young and there’s much to share.” She looks at his greying beard and horn-rimmed glasses. Molmer then whispers with a gentle smile, “Please, a few short minutes. And an apology.”
Only Begotten Son
November 11, this year
Terciera Island, Azores, Portugal
1:52pm AZOT
Loche bursts through the surface. His lungs suck in the cold air, salt, fear. Limbs are numb.
Circling, Loche scans the surface. Edwin is not there.
Crowding into Loche’s mind is an overwhelming déjà vu. Several meters away, a hand shoots up. His son’s hand. It reaches for some hold in the air that does not exist. Then, his face appears, his mouth agape, struggling for breath. Loche swings his arms through the water, lugging his body toward the boy. When he grabs hold of the hand, it goes limp. Edwin floats up on his back, face skyward, eyes closed—he is not breathing.
Two heavy splashes thump and mist beside him. As Loche pulls the little boy toward the shore, Helen’s face appears to his right. She lays hold of his shoulder. Julia grasps his other shoulder. The three kick and pull through the freezing water.
The Shape of Rain Page 4
