Path of Smoke

by Bailey Cunningham

  Sam was staring at her coffee. Finally, she looked up. “We should meet with Ingrid tonight. We have to figure out our next move.”

  “Big cheese lady is obviously on to us,” Carl added. “It’s not like that silenus was going for a brisk jog, and we happened to cross paths. Patty Lapona must have sent her.”

  Sam laughed. “God, Shelby, that was the worst lie I’ve ever heard.”

  “I was trying to be creative. I didn’t exactly have a lot to work with.”

  “What if Andrew starts asking questions around the ed department? It won’t take him long to realize that they didn’t just hire a famous Broadway luminary.”

  “Ingrid will have to run some kind of interference.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to investigate,” Carl said.

  Shelby gave him a look. “Have you two met? The first time my mom invited him to dinner, he came over with a marked-up copy of her dissertation.”

  “He’s preoccupied.” Carl’s voice was neutral, but his eyes told a different story.

  “With what?”

  “Nothing. Just weird dreams.”

  “Carl.”

  “What? I don’t know much, okay? He barely said anything.”

  “Define weird.”

  “At this point, it would be easier to list the stuff in our lives that wouldn’t qualify as the next Guillermo del Toro film.”

  “I dream about park things all the time,” Sam said. “Even if he’s technically cut off from that world, it stands to reason that he’s still got memories. I mean, do they really just go poof? That doesn’t even seem possible.”

  “He told me that salamanders were following him. In his dreams.”

  Shelby reached for her tumbler but found it already empty. “That can’t be a sign for the good.”

  “Why not?” Carl’s look of hope was slightly devastating. “Wouldn’t that mean some small part of Roldan had survived?”

  “No. It means that the lares don’t want to let go of him.”

  “They could lead him back to the park.”

  “Or drive him insane.”

  “He saw an undina in Ingrid’s bathroom,” Shelby said.

  Sam blinked. “How is that possible?”

  “We don’t know, but there’s some kind of deep shit happening. Latona said it herself. The walls between the worlds are thinning. Stuff is getting through.”

  “Unless it was always here to begin with.”

  Carl glanced at his phone. “I have to go to campus. I’ve got an appointment with one of the student counselors.”

  “Are salamanders chasing you, as well?”

  “No. I just figured out that you can request an emergency loan, which they take out of your student loan before it arrives. I need new pants.”

  “That seems financially sound.”

  “Pants are expensive.”

  “It’s fine. I have to meet with my supervisor. I’ll take the bus with you.”

  “I’m staying in,” Sam said. “After hitting a silenus with my truck, I’d rather not leave the apartment for a while. Text me later tonight, though.”

  “Will do.” Shelby grabbed her clothes. “Hey, check us out. Sounding like a company.”

  “I haven’t decided yet if we’re a real company or just a bunch of idiots.”

  “We applied to graduate studies.” Carl grinned. “Who says we can’t be both?”

  They made their way downstairs. Sam’s apartment was on Rose Street, in a respectable brick building with its own courtyard. Shelby was reminded, not for the first time, that she lived above a vegetarian restaurant. Access to falafel was nice, but she would have preferred a more adult living arrangement.

  “How do you think she affords that rent?”

  Carl kicked a stone. “Trust fund? Second job?”

  “Maybe she figured out your emergency loan trick.”

  “It’s only five hundred dollars.”

  “That’s an awfully expensive pair of pants.”

  “It’s going toward groceries, as well. I’m not a monster.”

  “Do you think she’s acting funny?”

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah. Before, she was all, I’m not in this, we’re not a company. She didn’t trust us. Now she’s talking about strategy meetings.”

  “Last I checked, we’re all in the same shitstorm.”

  “But she had an out. She could have bailed, and she didn’t.”

  “You’re shocked that she’s acting human?”

  “No. Never mind. Now I’m the monster.”

  “You’re skeptical. That’s not the same thing.”

  She sighed. “It always turns into Donna Green.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. That’s our bus—come on.”

  The university bus was only half full, since most of the city drove. In a place where nothing was more than ten minutes away, Shelby couldn’t figure out why everyone had to clog the roads. Her students found it inconceivable that she used public transit, but parking her truck at school cost a small fortune. She’d seen people crying in front of Parking Services because they’d been assigned to Z-lot, which was practically in the bush. Their bus idled outside the Rehabilitation Centre. Carl played Brick Breaker on his phone.

  Shelby tried to go over her notes for the meeting with her supervisor, but they no longer made any sense. She’d written Good research, with Good underlined twice, and then in the corner, she’d added, Find that article from JSTOR about female husbands. Above that, she’d scrawled, Search terms for EEBO, but the only term that she could make out was women. What women? Women what? Obviously, she’d had more context at four in the morning, just before falling asleep. She’d just have to wing it. Dr. Marsden could be stern, but she had a soft spot for her graduate students. People who studied the eighteenth century had to stick together, because they knew that it was secretly the best period.

  “How’s that article coming along?” Shelby asked, desperate to escape the black hole of her own imposter syndrome.

  “Huh?” Carl tilted his phone. “What article?”

  “The one you’ve been working on all year.”

  “Oh. It’s done.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course not. It’s awful, and I hate everything about it, even the font.”

  “You could always change that. I hear Comic Sans is making a comeback.”

  “Thanks. I’m sure that’ll make the difference.”

  “Maybe you need to simplify. That’s what Marsden is always telling me. ‘Just simplify, Shelby. You’re trying to make too many connections.’”

  “I thought we were supposed to make connections.”

  “As it turns out, they were all made in 2007.”

  “I keep using the word gesture in my argument. Like, allow me to gesture toward this point, without actually saying dick about it.” He made a waving motion with his free hand. “Look, Shel, this is me gesturing. What do you think?”

  “Impressive.”

  The bus pulled up in front of the Innovation Centre, and everyone filed off slowly, still texting as they blindly groped for the door. Carl was invested in beating his high score and nearly stepped into the path of an oncoming car; Shelby managed to steer him away, just in time. The air-conditioning flooded over her as she stepped through the doors. People queued in front of Tim Horton’s, quietly losing their minds as they waited for pastry. Athena’s was already full, and she could hear fragments of neurotic conversation emerging from the bar. Keywords included funding and fracking midterms. A beer would have been nice, but she was afraid that Dr. Marsden might smell it on her and be disappointed. There was nothing worse than being pitied by someone who dressed like an adult.

  “I’m off to the Student Success Centre,” Carl said. “Do I look like a mess? I
find it always goes better if I’m puffy and unshaven.”

  “You look sufficiently desperate.”

  “Great. Text me when you’re done getting yelled at.”

  Unexpectedly, he squeezed her hand.

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  The Department of Literature and Cultural Studies was quiet today. Most of the professors had their doors only slightly ajar, which translated into: Don’t knock unless it involves an emergency reference letter. She imagined them all sitting at their computers, fingers dancing across the keyboard as they produced something real, with footnotes and a two-part title separated by an ironic colon. Or perhaps they were sweating like her, unable to come up with anything that seemed useful. She couldn’t imagine her supervisor glaring at the screen in frustration or squeezing a stress ball. Her mother never seemed stressed, either. She was always listening to her headphones, or autographing a stack of green forms. Her signature was elegant. Shelby’s looked childish, as if she’d only just learned how to spell her own name.

  Someone had put up an oversized poster of Audre Lorde. Hers was the only black face in a sea of white academics, blown up to frightening proportions. Beneath her was a quotation: The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. But how could one avoid using the preassigned tool belts? Where were the sonic screwdrivers? Her mother would know the answer. She had a bookshelf full of radical literature and was always ready for a fight.

  Shelby had tried to be like her, but it never came out right. She knew that she was out of touch with her traditions, that she barely spoke a word of Plains Cree. Her grandmother was fluent, but her efforts to teach Shelby had been frustrating and short-lived. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to learn. It would have been nice to understand what they were saying behind her back. She always got frustrated. It was the same as learning to drive. She knew that what her mother was shouting made perfect sense, but in the heat of the moment, her instinct was to slam on the brakes and get out of the car.

  She took a deep breath and approached Dr. Marsden’s door. Her notes were in order, even if they happened to be indecipherable. Her tiredness could be mistaken for late-night cramming rather than a poor sleep on someone’s couch. As long as she asked random questions that circumnavigated her own lack of experience, she’d at least appear curious. That was better than staring blankly at her supervisor.

  There was a note affixed to the door, announcing that Dr. Marsden was sick. There was no indication of when she might return. Shelby’s relief was so intense, she nearly pumped her fist in the air. Then she felt terrible about feeling good and resolved to purchase a suitable get-well-soon card from the bookstore. Something with a nature scene, but no animals.

  “Saved by the sign.”

  She turned in surprise. Andrew was standing in the hallway. He offered her a half-smile.

  “Hey. I didn’t see you there.”

  “I was sidling.”

  “Good job.”

  “It was a tricky throw, but I managed it.”

  She thought of her own die—or Morgan’s, rather—and what she’d done with it. The fan of green blood as the silenus collapsed in a heap. Pulcheria’s screams. The power of a roll to change everyone’s fate. And she remembered what she’d wagered. How she’d bet their lives. For Andrew, it must have seemed like a dream, fading every day. He was losing his old life without alarm, in the same way that you let go of a nightmare, until it was nothing but the memory of some ancient, irrecoverable panic. The same thing you’d felt in the first grade when you were the only person who didn’t know how to use the trampoline. But Carl remembered. He understood the choice that she’d made. He wouldn’t be surprised if she made the same choice again. Every day, they rolled with their lives. That was magic’s price.

  It would be so much easier if rolling worked outside the park. If she could somehow offset those sacred numbers that, like some combination of stars, had shaped her since birth. Fortuna’s double-edged gifts. Her thick hair, which never did anything that she wanted. Her chest. Her tuneless voice. Her impatience, which must have come from her father, because her mother was so serene that it hurt. If only she could toss the dice and change it all. Smudge out the stats on the character sheet and start over.

  “What are you up to?” Shelby asked.

  “Printing. I’m done now.”

  She glanced at her meaningless notes. “I have to type something up that makes sense. Otherwise, my supervisor will probably never speak to me again.”

  “There’s nobody in the TA office.”

  “Want to keep me company?”

  He nodded. “I’ll get us coffee.”

  The office smelled like smoke, with traces of anxiety. Someone had left a pair of shoes in one corner. The ficus was near death but hadn’t yet given up. Shelby moved it toward the light and gave it some water. Andrew returned with two travel mugs.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking one.

  “You haven’t tasted it yet.”

  “The goal is to stay conscious. This should do the trick.”

  He pulled out a copy of Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader. “I can amuse myself until you’re done on the computer.”

  “How’s Wulf doing? Still cryptic?”

  “That’s his best quality.”

  “It baffles me that English used to sound that way. All thorns and yoghs.”

  “Every poem has its thorns.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I walked right into that.”

  Shelby booted up the old computer, which muttered its disapproval. Like an aging cat, it just wanted to sleep. The keyboard was stained with sweat and nicotine. The Internet connection was dial-up, but it didn’t annoy her. Something about it made her nostalgic. She remembered having to wait this long for everything. Watching a progress bar with growing frustration. Waiting for the moment when she’d be told to insert the next disc.

  She fleshed out the notes into a brief report. It didn’t say all that much, but it was better than nothing. She added several declarative statements that used the verb intend. Maybe the report knew something that she didn’t. Andrew looked it over once she was done.

  “You seem confident.”

  “Good. That’s what I was going for.”

  “Are you really going to read John Evelyn’s diary? I think it’s pretty long.”

  “She’ll see right through that, won’t she?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Well, what’s your question? That’s what we’re always asking our students, right? What question are you asking about Restoration drama?”

  “Why . . . is it so awesome?”

  “I’m not sure that’s going to attract funding.”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  He smiled. “I think she’ll like it.”

  Shelby looked out the window to the narrow patio beyond. “Remember when we first met? We ate Swedish meatballs out there, and Nanaimo bars.”

  “We did clean up after that candidate’s interview.”

  “Were we so different, then?”

  He looked at her oddly. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Have we changed? Are we wiser?”

  “We’re further in debt.”

  She sighed. “Are you coming to Ingrid’s tonight?”

  “I think I’ll just stay in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He wasn’t looking at her. “Yeah. I’ve got some reading. I don’t really feel like playing Carl’s RPG. It’s fun and all, but sometimes I just want to get away from the fantasy.”

  “You love fantasy.”

  He shrugged. “I can’t live there forever.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Of course.” He stood up. “Are you taking the bus home?”

 
She blinked. “Yeah. Carl’s coming too. I just have to drop off this report, and then I’ll text him. Be right back.”

  “Sounds good.” He opened up Sweet’s. “I’ll decline while I wait.”

  “I don’t think the chair is that fancy.”

  “I meant nouns.”

  Shelby walked out of the TA office. Her stomach was churning from the coffee. A part of her kept saying, Go back, tell him everything, lay it all bare. It was impossible, though. The park had its rules, messed up as they were. He couldn’t know. Carl had managed to stay quiet this long, which was a miracle. Shelby had never thought she’d be the one to crack. But she could feel herself mouthing the words, rehearsing the conversation that would bring it all crashing down on them. Your shadow died. The one who spoke to salamanders. Now we need you to come back. We need your peripheral vision, and your sense of hearing, and that beautiful knife that you never had the chance to use. We don’t know what we’re doing.

  What really dug at her, though, was the possibility that they might be okay. That they actually didn’t need him. The auditor was gone, but their company had survived. They’d come this far without the help of invisible spirits. Their shadows were alive and well, and nobody was looking back to see if he’d followed them. All she could think of was how pale he’d been, floating like a bleached bone in the water. The moonlight silvering his hair, and the strange look of relief on his empty face. He’d made a deal with the waves. Perhaps he’d always wanted it this way. It was his decision, and they had no right to drag him back into the game.

  Shelby walked into the main office. A row of mail cubes stood against the far wall. She slipped the report into Dr. Marsden’s cube, which was already overflowing.

  “You might want to give that to me.”

  Tom, the departmental advisor, was peering at her from his desk. Normally, he didn’t look up from the computer. His full attention made Shelby feel awkward, as if she’d just wandered naked into someone else’s classroom.

  “What’s up?”

  “Dr. Marsden might be away for a while.”

  Shelby handed him the report. “Did she come down with something serious?”