by C. W. Trisef
“Never mind, Ivan,” Paige told him, confirming Ret’s assumption as to the identity of the attendant. “Ret is one of my friends.” The gate unlocked and slowly started to swing open. “Come in, Ret. Come in!” Ret started up the winding walkway that led to the majestic front entry. Even from far away, he could faintly see Paige standing on the threshold, her silhouette dwarfed by the exceptionally tall double doors.
“Hi, Paige,” Ret greeted her as he reached the top of the front steps. “I’m here to ask you to Winter Formal.”
“Wonderful!” she said excitedly. “Let me go and get my dad.” She turned and skipped away, disappearing through one of the many passageways that led away from the entrance hall. “Make yourself at home.”
Ret feebly stepped through the doorway. The sound of his footsteps echoed against silent walls as he tiptoed on the tiles that covered the floor, each one a different size and material than the next. The foyer was semicircular in shape with dozens of doorways along its arc. Surveying his surroundings, Ret’s gaze turned upward to examine with awe the dome ceiling. The cylindrical shaft stretched into the heavens before culminating in its glass dome top, which allowed the midday sunlight to pour into the room. Distracted by this architectural feat, Ret’s slow advance toward the center of the room was halted when his foot struck something. He didn’t see anything in his path, but he could hear something wobbling back and forth as if it was about to fall over. No sooner had he instinctively extended his arms to catch whatever was teetering than a stone bust appeared in front of him and fell into his arms. Ret fumbled with the sculpture, which included the head and shoulders of an old woman.
“Ah, Mr. Cooper, I see you’ve met Mom.” The firm voice of Mr. Coy filled the air as he emerged from the shadows of one of the many doorways. Paige followed close behind her father as they strode toward a nervous Ret, still clutching the bust.
“A fine catch,” Mr. Coy continued, adjusting the cuffs of his designer suit.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Ret apologized, “but I didn’t even see it—”
“I know,” Mr. Coy said with seriousness, suddenly looking at Ret. “That’s why I put it there.” Paige reached to relieve Ret of her grandmother’s head. As she returned it to the place where it had previously fallen from, Ret watched in disbelief as the entire bust and Paige’s hands disappeared from view. They heard the sculpture come to rest on some surface and then, as Paige stepped back, her hands reappeared.
Speechless, Ret stared at Paige incredulously. Grinning, she turned to her father.
“Father, Ret’s come to ask me to the Winter Formal dance next month.”
Mr. Coy stared searchingly at Ret, his dark eyes overshadowed by his narrowing brow. “Come with me,” he ordered like an executioner. Then, turning on his heels, he marched through one of the doorways where he was swallowed by the shadows. Confused and slightly alarmed, Ret looked at Paige. She gave him a playful nudge, and he darted after her father.
As Ret proceeded down the corridor, he could not see Mr. Coy, but he certainly could hear him, which was fortunate for Ret since he had very little idea where he was going. The hallway seemed to stretch on for miles, and its décor seemed to span the centuries. One portion was draped in as many fabrics as you would see hanging at some international bazaar; another was lit by flaming torches and guarded by armored knights; and yet another was all windows but made dim by dense, jungle-like vegetation through which Mr. Coy had apparently just cut a fresh trail, which helped Ret to know that he wasn’t too far behind his guide. After rounding one corner, Ret nearly plunged into a deep pool of clear water, which could only be crossed by use of stepping stones. The staircases proved to be unexpectedly challenging: one stairway’s steps each differed in height and width from the next, so much, in fact, that Ret had to jump several feet at times; a separate staircase was, well, quite maddening, for Ret had never known a set of descending stairs to return you halfway up before getting you all the way down. When Ret shouted a time or two to get Mr. Coy’s attention, the response was only the authoritative clash of his heels or the grunt of his efforts or the splash of some water or the sound of whatever lay ahead. The corridors snaked every which way, twisting and turning as if they were the veins and arteries of this labyrinth’s very own circulatory system. Ret was finding this quest to be quite ridiculous (and Mr. Coy’s behavior altogether rude) just to ask his daughter to a dance that he didn’t really want to attend.
Reaching the top of another flight of stairs, Ret spotted Mr. Coy for the first time since starting his wild goose chase. Though only slightly out of breath himself, Ret assumed that Mr. Coy was truly as physically fit as the middle-aged man looked, for he hardly seemed winded at all. He was standing perfectly still with his back towards Ret in a large room at the end of another hallway. Ret staggered through the hall until he reached the doorway of the room where Mr. Coy stood staring at a painting on the wall.
Ret leaned against the door frame and said, “I’m here, sir.” No sooner had the words escaped his lips than Mr. Coy spun around and hurled a machete in Ret’s direction, driving it into the wall just inches from Ret’s face. His eyes lunged to the side of their sockets, examining the weapon whose blade still bore bits of shredded vegetation from its recent use in one of the previous corridors.
“I told you he’d whip out a machete, Ana,” Ret whispered to himself, wishing she were present to observe the sorry state of things. Ret vowed that, in the future, he would play suitor only to daughters of widows or otherwise single mothers.
“I traveled to Naples, once,” Mr. Coy stated, not at all interested in Ret’s wellbeing, “because I was hungry—hungry for pizza.” He slowly paced away from the painting on the wall. “But I was disappointed when I received my order,” he continued, “because all of the slices were square.” His gaze was fixed on the floor. “And I was hungry for—for a different shape.” Ret listened politely, though very alert.
“I thought I’d try Paris,” he went on, changing the direction of his footsteps, “to satisfy my sweet tooth.” Ret doubted that Mr. Coy’s perceived austerity permitted such indulgence. “The ice-cream was delicious, yes,” he said, “but the cone was quite unsatisfactory. You see, all they had were waffle cones, and I was craving one of a different—of a different design.” Ret visually scanned Mr. Coy to see if he had any more surprises in store for him.
“I journeyed all over Eurasia,” Mr. Coy continued his travelogue, “visiting this world’s most acclaimed libraries and universities.” He had slowly gravitated near the window now. “I retraced the steps of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Newton—all the greatest minds this planet has ever known.” He raised his head to gaze out the window. “I learned many things, to be sure,” he admitted, “but not the one, little piece that I was looking for.”
“So I changed my approach.” He turned and stared into Ret’s eyes. Ret braced for flying weapons, but Mr. Coy only spoke to him, though directly for the first time, asking, “How do you catch a Swedish fish?” Ret’s poise gave way to bewilderment. “How do you harpoon a baby’s wail?” Mr. Coy took a step toward Ret with each question. “How do you hook a loan shark?” Ret felt his back against the wall. “How do you get a handle on an elusive urchin?”
Mr. Coy paused, as if waiting for Ret’s solution to his paradoxes. With a hint of fear in his voice, Ret answered, “I don’t know, sir.”
“He doesn’t know!” Mr. Coy shouted, turning around and stomping away from Ret. “He doesn’t know, folks.” His showy reaction made it seem like he was on stage in front of a live audience, and Ret glanced around the room to see if any onlookers were peeping through the windows or staring down from the shadows of the ceiling. “You know, Ret,” Mr. Coy said, suddenly very casual, “neither do I.” He plopped down on a couch on the other side of the room.
Ret glanced at the machete, still wedged in the wall. It was the only thing preventing him from darting down the straight and narrow corridor and out of this madness back into the real world. He studi
ed Mr. Coy as he lounged, feet up, on the sofa, the covering of which had been made from the hides of two spotted leopards whose heads now sat on both ends as armrests. Rumor always spoke of Mr. Coy as an odd duck, and you can imagine the kinds of myths that would circulate about someone who had never before been seen or heard in public. The truth is, no one knew anything about Mr. Coy, except that he had a daughter and lived in “that dreadful mansion across the creek on (what used to be) our beautiful preserve.” Ret was now convinced that the rumors were true, and, what with all of the things he had witnessed in the last hour, he knew that he could have the islanders and reporters in an uproar for weeks—that is, if he made it out of Coy Manor alive.
Mr. Coy was humming and mumbling contentedly to himself as he rubbed his hand over the soft leopard skin. His person seemed to have completely changed from just moments ago. He still had the meticulously slicked, black hair and fine-twined apparel of a high-power mogul, but something about his countenance now made him more approachable—more, well, normal.
With Mr. Coy finally distracted and momentarily unthreatening, Ret unclenched his right hand and looked down to inspect his scar, which he had wanted to do ever since his close encounter with the machete. To his utter surprise, the scar was not illuminated, as it had been the other times when he was near danger, and he couldn’t entertain the idea that he might possibly be safe.
Ret had scarcely glanced at his scar when, without any warning at all, Mr. Coy lunged to his feet and started pacing toward Ret from across the room. The furrowed brow and intimidating demeanor of Mr. Coy had returned, his face now entirely void of cheer. Ret pulled the machete from its wedge and held it in defense as Mr. Coy drew near.
“I knew it!” he said with emotion, still advancing toward Ret. “How unbelievable—after traveling the world—to find, residing a hop, skip, and a jump away from me—across the measly creek, no doubt—,” he was now only a few steps away from Ret, “would I be able to find the hook—and the triangle—in the palm of your hand.” Like lightning, Mr. Coy grabbed Ret’s wrist. He squeezed it until the scarred hand rolled open and an elated expression grew on his face. Mr. Coy’s joy slackened, however, when he felt the cold, wet blade of the machete on his throat.
“Not bad,” he told Ret, impressed by the young man’s self-defense, though obviously not worried about it.
“What do you want from me?” Ret demanded through his teeth.
Mr. Coy’s thrilled smile waned until it turned into a devilish grin, like a crook when everything is going his way. He released Ret’s wrist and stared into his eyes.
“My boy,” he rasped, his voice low and steady. Mr. Coy slowly reached into his pocket, careful not to make any sudden moves. Ret dug the machete deeper into his skin, fearing what trick his captive had up his sleeve.
“My dear boy,” Mr. Coy repeated. Ret would not be fooled by any feigned tenderness. Mr. Coy’s hand emerged from his pocket, holding a small, spherical object, no bigger than an orange. Ret stared at it curiously and then with shocked amazement when he saw, etched in the surface of the sphere and identical to the scar on his hand, the design of the hook inside the triangle, as well as five other designs.
“The real question is, Mr. Cooper,” said Coy, “what do you want from me?”
CHAPTER 6
COY MANNER
“Now put the knife down, boy,” Mr. Coy said. “I won’t hurt you.” Ret lowered the machete, dropping it on the floor as his attention turned to his sudden surge of questions.
“What…what is,” Ret stammered, “—where did you…” His mouth couldn’t keep up with his spinning head. “How come I…”
“…can’t speak in complete sentences? I haven’t the foggiest, but it’s driving me mad,” Mr. Coy said, returning the sphere to his pocket and taking a few steps to the center of the room. “Allow me to introduce myself.” He turned sharply on his heels to face Ret, cocked his head upward with a very dignified expression like a person of high rank, and cleared his throat.
“I am Sir Benjamin Coy I,” he said loudly and proudly, “professor of global diversity, doctor of mechanical engineering, former Admiral of the U.S. navy…”
Ret’s jaw was beginning to drop in both awe and disbelief. Mr. Coy continued to toot his own horn: “…Master of my soul, captain of my ship, maker of my own destiny…”
Ret was almost certain he was exaggerating. “…Owner of the world’s largest collection of oven mitts; fluent in twelve languages and seven dialects, including English; voted by my sophomore class as most likely to circle the globe in a hot air balloon, which I did later that summer, I might add…”
Ret, rolling his eyes, added, “How about father of Paige Coy?”
“Ah, yes,” Mr. Coy acknowledged. “I always forget about that one.”
“Anything else?” Ret asked, obviously perturbed. Mr. Coy, who would have liked to continue with his resume, noticed his listener’s disinterest.
“Why yes, just one more…” he said, reaching back into his pocket. “…Possessor of this curious-looking, round-shaped, hard-as-a-rock ball thingamabob.”
Ret stared at the sphere in silence for a few moments. “May I see it?” he asked sheepishly, reaching to take it from Mr. Coy.
“We see with our eyes, not with our hands, Mr. Cooper,” Coy replied. “But, seeing as your hands might be the only source for opening our eyes to this mystery, here you go.” He pitched it to Ret, who caught it as delicately as he would an egg, not knowing what to expect.
Whatever it was, the sphere was perfectly round, and it fit quite snugly in Ret’s cupped hands. At first, Ret thought it was made of glass, and although it was completely transparent, it felt too durable and heavy to be made of something as fragile and light as glass. Still, the substance was so intensely clear that Ret could see perfectly through it, except for six translucent areas where the markings were inscribed on the surface. Ret examined the designs more closely. Though obviously distinct from each other, they were all about the same size, spread out and lined up along the center of the sphere, like how the equator wraps around the earth. Ret could only fully identify one of the sphere’s inscriptions: the hook and triangle. The remaining five were too difficult to decipher, as the crystal-clear background did little to outline their unique sort of milky opaqueness. Ret had always encountered a similar problem when trying to examine the scars on his hands: there was not enough variation between the color of the scars and the pigment of his hands to render a detailed description of each scar. Only until recently, when the hook and triangle had become illuminated, could Ret clearly discern the scar’s distinguishing features.
The sphere hadn’t been in Ret’s possession very long at all when it suddenly seemed to come to life. It gently lifted off Ret’s palms until it hovered in his bowl-shaped hands, as the like poles of two magnets would repel each other. Still levitating, the sphere rotated until its inscription of the hook and triangle lined up directly across from that same scar on Ret’s right hand. Quite involuntarily, Ret’s entire being was enveloped in the profound connection between him and the sphere; his ears fell silent, his eyes zoomed in, and his mind became astonishingly clear.
Mr. Coy suddenly chimed in, moving his mouth like a ventriloquist: “Say, Mr. Coy, how did you come to possess a thing like this?” Ret, breaking free from his trance, shot him a confused look, though not entirely surprised to find Mr. Coy talking to himself. “Why, Ret, I thought you’d never ask!”
“I was in Cambodia for the day, on assignment to save an endangered herd of wild water buffalo from that country’s peskiest group of poachers. I had nearly nabbed those eggheads when the United States government gave me a ring and proposed a new engagement—a unique mission in which my expertise was desperately needed.” Mr. Coy turned his back to Ret and slowly paced aimlessly around the room. Ret’s studious gaze remained transfixed on the curious sphere still cradled in his hands.
“They told me, in what turned out to be a rather lengthy briefing,”
Mr. Coy continued, “that there had been a shipwreck—and an unusual one, at that—in the Western Atlantic. The vessel had gone up in flames and down in waves before being completely dispersed by an oncoming hurricane.” Mr. Coy’s story grabbed Ret’s attention, whose ears perked up like a dog in pursuit. He watched as Mr. Coy strolled from one side of the room to the other, deliberately taking irregular strides near the center of the room as if not to step on something that was lying on the floor.
“There was mention, too,” said Coy, “of some sort of widespread bubbling—a kind of wondrous effervescence, if you will—that covered the sea and, regrettably, burst the bubble of a smaller craft that had come to the rescue, taking the life of its captain, if I remember correctly.”
“That’s correct,” Ret interjected, wishing to honor Jaret by removing from the narrative any uncertainty about his brave attempt.
“Ah,” said Mr. Coy, “so you have been briefed as well, I see. No doubt the abridged version…”
“So there’s more?” Ret eagerly asked.
“Well of course there’s more, boy,” Mr. Coy replied. “Even if no one knows what it is, there’s still more. Unfortunately, it is highly confidential information, which is why I’m going to tell you all about it.” Mr. Coy began another jaunt across the room, once again intentionally avoiding the same two spots of the floor. Ret, noticing the spots to be slightly indented, assumed the pair of potholes to be nothing more than the squeaky victims of weak floor joists.
“First, the wrecked ship,” Mr. Coy proceeded. “In distress—despite never signaling so? Set ablaze—a freak accident or ignited by mutinous freaks? Foolishly afore a hurricane—out of time-strapped desperation or the assurance of untraceably marooned evidence?”
“And what of the fatal rescue mission, eh?” The direction of Mr. Coy’s footing changed with the altered path of his train of thought. “The media swarmed the heroic military man’s tragedy, finding it to be the bee’s knees of the entire ordeal. Jaret’s disappearing act took such prominence on stage, in fact, that all the other gigs remained behind curtain. For instance, which section of the international audience had assembled to mourn the casualties aboard the wrecked ship?” Ret stood puzzled, the thought having never crossed his mind.
