by LE Barbant
Elijah pulled a magnifying glass from his bag. It was a trusty tool of the historian, as archival photos, more often than not, lacked clarity.
Staring into faces from the past, Elijah felt strangely nostalgic. He could hear the sounds of the mill, feel the heat coming off the furnace, and taste the carbon soot in his mouth. He felt a kinship with the workers. While his research failed to knock loose any of the previous night’s details, it did fill him with emotions unfamiliar to him—homesickness and loss.
Thirty pages later, he felt only anxiousness. His concentration waned and his fingers fidgeted with the pen. Unusual for a man who spent his nights and days focused on dense reading. After five minutes scanning pages that his brain didn’t absorb, he decided it was time to take a break.
Rising from the desk, he remembered just how sore his body was. It had tightened during his time in the study carrel. He worked his way down to the main floor of the library, cringing all the way, and stepped through the front doors.
As usual, a huddled group of smokers stood twenty feet from the entrance. Elijah always threw a smug, judgmental glance their way. He could think of a thousand more enjoyable ways for a human to kill himself—nearly all of them cheaper. His first and only experience with tobacco was as an undergrad. It involved a cigar, vomit, and laughter from his peers. Nearly a decade later the memory still filled him with shame.
He walked past the group, drawing second-hand smoke into his lungs. He didn’t experience his usual revulsion, but rather satisfaction—as if a little edge of his anxiety was sanded smooth. He took a step closer, intentionally drawing from their thick clouds.
Three of the four students left the crowd, leaving a girl alone, fishing her second cigarette from the pack.
American Spirits—of course.
The co-ed had dyed blonde hair and a heavily made-up face. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her. That didn’t matter. She had what he needed.
Elijah ambled over, his hands pushed in his pockets. “Can I, um, bum one of those?” That line usually worked in the movies.
The girl looked up. “Oh, hey, Dr. Branton.” She paused, waiting for a response. “It’s Julie, from Research Methods.”
Elijah’s face broke into a grin. Toe to toe with his admiring student, he said, “Of course. Sorry. You know, out of context and all.”
She nodded. “What happened to your face?”
His eyes kept dropping to the pack of cigarettes. A reasonable lie would be helpful—but he could barely focus on standing, let alone subterfuge. He shrugged, nonchalantly. “Don’t know.”
The girl’s lips curled into a mischievous grin. “Must have been a crazy night—I’ve had a few of those.”
She pulled a smoke from the hard pack and passed it over. Elijah smelled it, as though it were the last thing on earth. He accepted the lighter. The butt between his lips felt oddly familiar. He drew deeply. While his brain thanked him for the nicotine it craved, Elijah’s virgin lungs were angry. He nearly doubled over coughing.
“Easy there, Professor,” the girl said, putting her gloved hand on his shoulder. She let it linger there until Elijah regained his composure.
Julie was the kind of girl that got people in trouble—especially lonely adjunct professors. Those girls spent too much time reading “how to seduce professors” on Reddit or Gawker. Elaborate plans were hatched with their roommates late into the night. Elijah knew her type. He took a step back, as his mind urged him forward.
“I have been meaning to tell you,” the girl said, pausing to draw on her cigarette, “your lecture that opened the semester was amazing. Jimmy, one of those guys in the back, talked about how terrible you were. But he’s a douche. Everyone knows it. I went back to that room, laid on my bed, and just couldn’t get my mind off you.” She giggled. “Well, your lecture, I mean.”
“Thanks, Jen.”
“Julie.”
“What?” the professor asked, paying far more attention to the nicotine coursing through his veins.
“My name. It’s Julie.”
“Oh, right, sorry.”
The phone in his pocket buzzed. Elijah pulled it out and unlocked the screen. Chem.
“I’m sorry…”
“Julie.” She smiled.
“Right. I need to take care of this.” He motioned to his phone. “I’ll see you in class.”
“No problem. And take care of your face. You should rub some vitamin E on that thing, it will help it not to scar. Not to mention you could…”
Julie continued talking at the empty space that Elijah left behind him.
Yeah. No problem. I was just taking care of some things. Let me know what you need.
Great, he typed with his left hand, his right hanging limp at his side. You know, with the adjunct health benefits. :)
He drew on the cigarette, smoking it down to the filter. Tapping his foot, he waited for a response. The sun sank over the tree line to the southwest; he’d have just enough time to make it over to the failed doctor before needing to text Rex for a ride.
I’m at the lab. Just give me a buzz when you get here.
****
“Day-um, man.”
“You should see the other guy,” Elijah said, contorting his body to remove his shirt with as little pain as possible. The pain kept him from drawing in his stomach—as was his custom since grad school.
“Looks like you are the other guy.” Chem pulled a pair of gloves out of an open doctor’s bag balanced on a lab stool. “You’re not allergic to latex, are you?” the chemist asked.
“Is that a pickup line?” Elijah asked, drawing a laugh from Chem. “You always carry that thing around with you?” Elijah’s eyes cut to the open bag.
“Never know when you need to play Good Samaritan. Though this wasn’t quite what I expected when you said you had a personal problem.”
The historian winced as Chem pressed on his side.
“Hurts, don’t it?” The man gave a grin as he continued up and down Elijah’s side. “Just one little crunchy spot, right here.”
Something between a scream and a yelp emerged from the patient’s throat. He bit his lip and tried to regain his composure. Chem moved from the rib cage to Elijah’s lacerated cheek.
“Yikes. This thing looks like a cat took a dump in there.”
“Think I need stitches?”
“I think you needed stitches,” he said. “After eight hours it’s no use. Let me clean it up. Then I’m going to have you take these for the pain.” He turned to his medical bag and pulled out a prescription bottle. “You didn’t get these from me, right?”
“Who are you? I feel like I’m in a mob movie.”
“Let’s not go overboard. But it was a safe move calling me. I don’t ask as many questions as the hospital.”
The chemist cleaned the wound and pulled it together with butterfly closures. “These will do just about nothing at this point. They kind of make you look badass though.”
“I get that a lot. You have a lot of stuff in that bag, Mary Poppins. You play doctor a lot?”
“Ever since little Susie Swanson in the second grade.” Chem inspected his handiwork. “I have a lot of clumsy friends. How’d this happen, anyway?”
Elijah shook his head. “You’re going to find this hard to believe, but I have no idea. I woke up this way.”
“Hard to believe?” Chem asked. “Hell, forgotten battle wounds are an Oakland specialty. I didn’t take you as the Jagershots kind of guy.”
He reached into his bag and pulled out a needle and an empty vial. “When was your last tetanus shot?”
“Five years ago. But I’ve been saying that for ten years.” Elijah hated needles.
“Alright, since you’re on the Adjuncts United Health Plan, I’m going to take some blood and run it for you. Let’s make sure your cholesterol is good and all that shit.”
“You’ve got some bedside manner.”
“Yeah. Shocking they threw me to the curb, right?
”
After watching Chem draw his blood, Elijah wiggled back into his shirt. “Hey, man, thanks. I have a dinner to run to. Let’s hang out, though—you know, with my shirt on.”
“Cool. Drop me a text. Nights like yours seem like a wild time.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Adjunct professors were in an odd line of work. An integral part of the modern university, the part-time teacher derived their significance mainly by being cost effective. So, despite the fact that almost every institution of higher learning relied upon adjuncts—in fact could not survive without them—they were given the lowest possible wages and accommodations. The office shared by several of the university’s adjuncts reflected their station.
Several years earlier, after the high-profile death of a local adjunct at a neighboring institution who couldn’t afford health insurance, Willa’s university tried to make significant changes. Her hope was that the decision was not just a public relations move, but one filled with care, and maybe even appreciation for the work of these part-time warriors. But after a few months, the news cycle shifted, and the reforms came to a standstill.
Willa sat in a cubicle in the sardine-can office as far from her colleagues as possible. Not that she didn’t like her fellow adjuncts, but the claustrophobic environment made grading nearly impossible and they distracted her from her work.
Bose headphones swallowed her ears. She couldn’t listen to anything with lyrics, since they distracted from her trade. Reznor’s score for “The Social Network” provided the day’s soundtrack. Its driving bars muffled the other worker bees and gave a certain rhythm to her production.
She moved her green pen with diligence and grace over a paper that had likely been written after a six-pack with “The Expendables” on in the background. Her students’ level of effort never affected her own. The work required care. The poetry demanded it. And despite the crowded office and the unenthusiastic students she remained pleased to be a part of the guild. Her calling was a joy.
Absorbed in her efforts, Willa jumped when a hand found her shoulder. Spinning, she knocked the headphones from her ears. “Sean?” She looked up at her best student.
“Um, I need to talk to you, Dr. Weil.” His hands trembled.
“Okay, but I need to get these graded before class.” Willa drew her hands over a stack of papers that rose impossibly high. “Are you available for my office hours tomorrow?”
Sean’s eyes darted around the room. He barked at her. “No. I need to talk to you now.”
Willa stood from her desk. She was three full inches taller than the student. “Sean, you can’t talk to me like that.” She took her position seriously. Her students were treated with respect, and she demanded the same respect in return. Willa liked Sean, but deemed his response inappropriate.
Sean glanced over his shoulder again. “You don’t understand. I know. I know who you are, what you can do.” Sean said, little louder than a whisper.
Frustrated, she responded in an uncharacteristically patronizing manner. “Sean, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your powers. I know about your powers.”
Willa’s face flushed, and her eyes told him to be silent. “Follow me.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the hall.
****
“I, um, I want to be in.”
Willa stared across a round coffee table at Sean Moretti. The student’s eyes were on fire.
“In what?”
The boy laughed. “You don’t have to do this. I know already. I can’t not know. I can see.”
Willa leaned in and wrung her hands. “See what, exactly?”
Sean had started taking her classes a year and a half ago, or that’s what she guessed. In adjunct world, the faces, names, and grades all blurred together. But he had always been a standout, an excellent student. It was not uncommon for him to seek her out after class to continue the discussion. She assumed he had a crush on her, which explained his normal enthusiasm. But this, this was something different.
His smile dissolved. Sean leaned back and said, “I have an ability. I don’t know much about it yet, but I’m learning. I, like, see people differently. Everybody. But it’s more pronounced with some people. I’ve been seeing them more the last few months. They show up in all different colors—red, blue, and, ah, green mostly. I don’t know what these colors mean yet, but there’s a connection—some sort of power. You’re a blue. I see blue all around you all the time, and when you speak the words, the words that have power, the blue, like, gets darker and starts to move all around your body…it changes things. I feel differently when you speak. It affects the others too; they just don’t notice it like I do. You’re, like, casting a spell, aren’t you?”
Willa stayed silent for a moment, the quiet thick around them. For the first time she wished she was on the fortieth floor of the Cathedral of Learning. The magician needed her grandfather’s wisdom. “Sean, I am…I’m just a failed poet, who needs to make a living. So I teach.”
Sean’s face changed from impatience to anger. “You can’t do this to me. Don’t shut me out. Something is going on here, and we’re going to have to do something about it.”
“Sean, have you been taking anything?”
“You’re not listening to me. I know you have powers. I do too. And I’m seeing other people popping up all over Oakland with powers—strong ones. I’m not crazy, or high, or, or, anything else. The other night it happened again.”
“What happened?” Willa asked.
Sean leaned in and placed his forearms on his knees. His gaze was intense; she felt chills. “I was outside Hillman, waiting for an Uber. The aura was so powerful—strong and wild. I saw it before I even saw him. But then he, or it, was standing there.”
Willa had grown up in the guild of magic, even though her father tried to protect her from that world. She’d seen so many strange things in her life it was hard not to believe that Sean might be telling the truth. Experiencing the paranormal since childhood prepared one for conversations like these.
“Go on,” she said.
“I’m not sure if I would call it a monster or demon or what. It was enormous, probably seven or eight feet tall. Shaped like a man, but different. His face was all distorted, like he was melting. You know those pictures—photos of the rock around a volcano just before it explodes?”
Willa nodded.
“He was almost like that. Nearly rocky, with fire inside. When he walked the, ah, surface of his body moved. He was liquid or something, but thick. He left bits of smoldering metal in his path.”
Willa uncrossed her legs and then re-crossed them. She was at a loss. If these things were in fact true, she would want Sean to stay as far away as possible. He was young. Too young.
“That’s quite a story,” Willa said.
“There’s something else…I think your friend is connected somehow.”
“What friend?”
“The new history professor, the one with the, um, beard. I saw him today, and he was all beat up, with a huge cut on his face. And I felt the same aura within him. It wasn’t as strong as the other night, but it was definitely there. His aura was brighter than yours, Dr. W.” Sean stared at her intensely. “He’s dangerous. You’re going to need me. I can help.”
Willa’s mind raced. Elijah Branton was just an academic—normal in every way, mundane even. But if half of what Sean said was true, then maybe Elijah was in danger.
****
As she slid the key into the slot on the elevator panel, Willa realized she had never gone to the fortieth floor uninvited. Her grandfather was a complex man. Many people are smart; he was wise. But he was also rigid and intimidating. He had an authority that was not easily denied. While he didn’t show care the way she always hoped he would, the magician knew that he loved her. But that love seemed to have boundaries, and Willa was now pushing at one of them.
When she chose to move east her father was beside himself. He tried flattery, money
, and finally guilt, but she had made up her mind. Even at a young age, she had accepted her dual calling. She knew that Pittsburgh was the best place to pursue both. Chatham had an MFA, Duquesne had a PhD, and the Cathedral had her grandfather.
The knot in her stomach got tighter as her altitude increased. Over the past decade, she struggled to discern precisely why she was so anxious around him. Only recently, she realized they shared the same three vocations: teacher, poet, and magician. Edwin Weil was a master of all. Willa considered herself average, at best. It was insecurity with a capital insecure. The crafts that they practiced required discipline, and her Master demanded excellence. She feared what failure would mean.
The lift dinged and the doors slid open. Part of her wondered if he’d be in his office, but mostly she knew he would be. Where else would he go?
Willa stood in front of the door. Before she even knocked, the gravelly voice shouted, “Come in already.”
****
Just like every other time, the old man held an index finger in her direction. “Sit,” he said.
His eyes scanned the page of a book that looked as if it was written before the Persian War.
Willa sighed in relief, seeing that the rickety old chair was clear of books. Its surface felt familiar. As usual, her eyes fell on the bookshelves. Impossibly, he had rearranged them since her last visit. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what exactly was the schema this time. She came up empty.
Her grandfather took the book placed on his lap, smoothed the pages, and inserted the bookmark. He closed it and set it on the table. She felt like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day” every time she came.
“I didn’t call or text,” her grandfather said. “To what do I owe the honor?”
Willa tried to read his face. It wasn’t derision or frustration, but it held a hint of both—as if she were interrupting something of the utmost importance. “Can’t I just come visit my grandfather?”
