Elizabeth Webster and the Portal of Doom

by William Lashner

  “Nice lamb, Melinda,” said Stephen. “Very tasty. Gosh, it’s almost too tasty.”

  “It’s not lamb, dear,” said my mother. “It’s mutton. I thought Keir would appreciate a tastier meat.”

  “And I do, Mrs. Scali, more than you could imagine,” said Keir, chewing and chewing. I think he would have spit out the piece in his mouth, but my mom was smiling at him and his napkin was already full.

  “At least the potatoes are good,” said Petey. “And the kale. Yum.”

  “Since when do you like kale?” I said.

  “Since Mom started making mutton,” said my brother. “What’s mutton, anyway?”

  “It’s a lamb all grown up,” said my mother. “Like you will be if you eat your kale.”

  “No more kale, then,” said my brother. “Ever.”

  “Elizabeth,” said my stepfather as he cut his mutton, working so hard he would have been better off with a hacksaw, “I think I found something of yours in my briefcase. While searching for a patent application, I picked up a file that contained an agreement between someone named Ina Brathwaite and what must be a company called Azibeth-something-or-other. I have no idea what it’s about, but it seems to be right up your alley. Do you want it back?”

  As my throat tightened, I looked at Keir. He was moving mutton around on his plate. I looked at my mother. She was holding the kale dish, offering it to my brother. I looked at my brother. He was pushing away the kale. It seemed that no one understood what my stepfather was talking about. But I did. And you do, too, I know. How did something like that get in there?

  “My grandfather’s secretary must have put it in the briefcase,” I said, trying to act like it was nothing. “Thanks, I’ll bring it back to her. My grandfather is sure to be looking for it.”

  “Good,” said my stepfather. “So, Keir, now that you’ve won your case, what are your plans?”

  “Don’t know yet, sir,” said Keir. “I’m still trying to work it out.”

  “Can’t Keir stay here, Mom?” asked Petey. “He’s like the perfect roommate because he plays video games with me but he doesn’t stay in my room.”

  “I think I’ll be moving on, Petey,” said Keir. “It’s been grand here, it has, but I’ve put your folks out too much already.”

  “You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” said Stephen. “Gee, it’s been fun having you.”

  “Where will you move on to?” said my mother.

  “I’ll figure it out as I go,” said Keir. “There is so much I haven’t seen. The ocean. The mountains. And what about Ohio? I hear wonderful things about Ohio.”

  “From who?” I said.

  “At least that means you’ll be done with school,” said Petey. “I don’t know much about Ohio, but I bet it beats school.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” I said.

  “I rather liked school,” said Keir. “I’ll miss it almost as much as I’ll miss you people. In fact, before I leave school I have one more thing I need to do.”

  “What’s that?” said Stephen.

  “My oral report. For Mr. Armbruster. It’s due tomorrow and I wouldn’t want to disappoint him. Have you got it worked out for me yet, Elizabeth?”

  “Uh, no,” I said. “I’ve been a little busy with, like, things.”

  “Well, you have all night,” said Keir. “If we want to be done on time, you’d best get cracking.”

  Funny, huh? But even though Keir was pretty persuasive for a hundred-year-old vampire, I didn’t crack.

  “Mr. Armbruster is going to explode,” I whispered to Natalie. “I mean, Keir’s got nothing. He didn’t read one Wikipedia page. Nothing.”

  “He’ll come up with something,” said Natalie. “He’s Keir.”

  “Then why was he begging me to prepare his oral report for him?”

  “Because he’s Keir,” said Natalie.

  “And to think I almost felt guilty!” I said.

  It was report week in Mr. Armbruster’s social studies class. Which meant you were bored to tears except on the day you had to give your report, when you were a bundle of nerves, worrying about your hair, your teeth, your pronunciation of the term laissez-faire, which was some sort of economic thing that nobody knew how to say. Lazy fairy? Lasso furry? You tell me.

  Juwan stood in front of the class and did a little slide presentation on a rich guy named Carnegie who gave out libraries like they were dimes. We all clapped.

  And Prisha did a slide show on a reporter named Ida B. Wells who wrote about injustice to African-Americans and once said, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” We all clapped.

  And Natalie stood up and spoke about Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and his book. She said he fought for the North in the Civil War and that his Supreme Court decisions protected workers’ health, freedom of speech, and due process rights. She also talked about how pretty his wife was and how all his clerks were like his children, which she got from watching an old movie called The Magnificent Yankee, which was funny because I didn’t even know he played baseball. But most of all she talked about his mustache. It was quite the mustache. We all clapped.

  And then Mr. Armbruster called on Keir.

  Keir stood up at his desk. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a slide show prepared for our class today,” he said.

  I gave Natalie a wide-eyed look, waiting for the explosion.

  “I’m disappointed,” said Mr. Armbruster, hands now on his hips. “What happened to your slide show, Keir?”

  “Elizabeth ran out of time,” said Keir.

  There was the sound of chair legs scraping the floor as everyone and their mothers turned and looked at me with accusing glares. I lowered my head onto my desktop but misjudged the distance and banged the desk loudly with my forehead. When my head jerked back up from the pain, the eruption of laughter made me feel just perfect. And was there a red spot on my forehead? I was pretty sure there was a red spot on my forehead.

  “But if it’s all right with you, sir,” continued Keir over the laughter, “I could say a few words about a very special parade that happened during that Great War we’ve been talking so much about.”

  “That would be fine, Keir,” said Mr. Armbruster. “Who doesn’t love a parade?”

  While Keir took his time sauntering to the front of the class, I rubbed at my forehead. “Is there a spot?”

  “Of course there’s a spot,” said Natalie. “You look like you’ve been hit by a bus.”

  “Probably the one I was just thrown under. I really need to work on my face plant.”

  “Leave it to the experts,” said Natalie.

  “Class,” said Mr. Armbruster, meaning Natalie and me, “quiet down, please. Let’s all pay attention while Keir tells us about his parade.”

  Keir stood now in front of the class. He was wearing his plaid coat and blue baseball cap. He took the cap off, pressed it against his heart, and looked down for a bit, like he was trying to remember the words. Or maybe the thing itself.

  “It was in September of 1918,” he said finally, “and we were winning the war, that was clear, and my father, somewhere in the trenches over there, would soon be coming home. So my mam made sure I was dressed fine and then we took the train into Philadelphia to see the great parade. The parade was partly to celebrate our men in uniform, like my father, but mainly to sell more Liberty Bonds. When there’s a war, the two things they’re always looking for are men and money.

  “They expected ten thousand would show up for the parade, but twenty times that shoved themselves onto Broad Street as the soldiers marched and the bands played and boats on wheels floated by. And whenever the parade halted, the men came out huckstering for their Liberty Bonds. One of them asked our part of the crowd who had a husband overseas and my mam raised her hand and he pointed at her and said, ‘This woman gave her all. What will you give?’ Mam blushed from the attention, and then there was a bayonet drill, and then the marching continued.

  “At
the end of the parade, we all pushed together on the south side of City Hall, where a model of the Statue of Liberty stood, and the muckety-mucks talked about winning the war. Planes flew overhead and giant guns fired shells into the air and we did a lot of cheering, jammed so close we were cheering into each other’s faces. On the train ride home my mam kept saying, ‘Wasn’t that something, Keir? Wasn’t that something?’ ‘Aye,’ I replied, ‘it was something.’

  “Within two weeks, seven hundred were dead in the city. The next week, over two thousand more. It was the flu, the Spanish Lady, they called it. She moved quick and killed fast. The following week, the Spanish Lady claimed another forty-five hundred souls. It seemed as if the whole of the city was sick. The funeral bells kept ringing and ringing until all you wanted to do was rip the iron things straight out of their steeples and toss them into the river.

  “And then the Spanish Lady came for us.

  “My mam, she caught it first, but I got sicker faster. It started with a chill, and then a fever, and then so much pain you couldn’t stand, you couldn’t eat, all you could do was cry, but then you couldn’t even cry because your lungs were already filling up with something wetter than air. And your ears turned blue, and then your whole face. My mam could barely sit up, but she cared for me like an angel even as she grew sicker herself. The doctor signed the certificate of my death three weeks after that parade. My mam died the very next day. I still cry for her. And though we didn’t know it, my father was already dead, killed by a bullet in the throat on the Somme. It was a grand autumn, it was, for the McGoogan clan.

  “And you want to know the kicker? The city fathers, they knew the flu was in the city, brought in by a bunch of navy men come south from Boston. The papers the very day of the parade reported a policeman dead from the flu. They were warned that bringing so many people together could lead to disaster. But there was a war to finance, and quotas to meet, and the rich couldn’t be bothered to pay their fair share, and the Liberty Bonds, the Liberty Bonds weren’t going to sell themselves.

  “Ah, but it was a grand parade, it was. The best I ever saw. The end.”

  We didn’t clap after Keir’s little speech. We didn’t say a word. We just sat there, a little dazed. What just had happened?

  As Keir sauntered back to his seat, I checked out the room. We had all been through something similar in our own time, so his big parade story hit the room like a storm of sadness. Natalie was wiping a tear. The other kids were looking down or around, sniffling. Mr. Armbruster was staring, like the mystery of Keir McGoogan was all coming clear to him. And why wouldn’t it be, considering Keir had just told the true story of his almost-death a hundred years ago?

  How fast would Mr. Armbruster get on the phone to the FBI, to the CIA? He was Mr. Armbruster, after all, he could get the president on the phone if he wanted. Didn’t I tell you he went to Harvard? How soon would agents in black suits and sunglasses come swarming? Talk about a mess.

  When Keir sat down, he leaned toward me. “I think that went over,” he said.

  I didn’t have time to respond before the bell rang, which was a good thing. I mean, what was I going to say: I’m sorry for your loss?

  And then Mr. Armbruster, above the ringing silence of the still-quiet class, said, “Keir, could you see me for a moment before you leave?”

  Of course he did.

  Keir gave me a sad smile, like he knew the jig was up. And then he leaned toward me and said, “Elizabeth? Can you do me a favor?”

  “Bring you a spoon in the prison they’re going to throw you into?”

  “Why would they send me to prison? And why would I need a spoon?”

  “To eat your pudding?”

  “What I need is to see my dead mam again,” he said. “Can you arrange that?”

  “What? No. I don’t know.”

  “Please try,” he said. “I suddenly miss her like a missing hand. I have a choice to make and I need to see her before the decision comes due.”

  A LONG STARE

  Is my grandfather in?” I said to Avis when I stepped into the offices of Webster & Spawn that afternoon. “I really need to talk to him.”

  Avis stopped the peck-and-hunt, hunt-and-peck of her typing. “He’s seeing a client right now, dearie, and… and maybe it’s not the best time to disturb him.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, a little weirded out by her hesitation. Avis never hesitated. “Is my father in?”

  “No, dearie, he’s still on the other side. Very important business, he says.”

  “Keeping away from me?” I asked. “Ha ha, just joking.”

  But was I? Was I wrong to think my father’s disappointment in me was so great that he had run through the Portal of Doom to get away from me?

  “No, dearie, your father loves working with you. There was just something he had to do. Maybe Barnabas can help you.”

  I looked over at Barnabas sitting at his tall desk. “I’m sure he can,” I said.

  As I walked toward Barnabas I had to pass through the waiting clients. Sandy, with the blond hair growing like weeds all over her body, gave me a bright smile.

  “We heard about Keir,” she said. “We’re all so happy for him. And it’s so encouraging. It gives us hope.”

  “I’m all for hope,” said Mildred, the young girl in red shoes who was not young and not a girl. “I’m hoping for a cigarette.”

  “Is he happy?” said Sandy. “Keir, I mean. Free at last, right?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “I also think he’s scared.”

  “Of course he’s scared,” said Mildred. “There’s nothing easy about being free. Too many choices. I had six husbands.”

  “Six?” I said

  “Too many choices,” said Mildred.

  Barnabas put down his feather pen and stared mournfully at me when I finally reached his desk. “It is especially gratifying to see you this afternoon, Mistress Elizabeth. The broom in the storage room was getting lonely.”

  “The broom’s going to have to wait,” I said. “I have a bigger issue.”

  “Bigger than sweeping the office?” said Barnabas, raising an eyebrow. “I daresay you exaggerate.”

  “Keir wants to see his mother again,” I said.

  “Ahh, how tender. I expect the banshee will show herself to her son any day now.” Barnabas’s eyes grew blurry and he looked off into the distance. “Such reunions between the two sides are sweet and much desired.”

  “But it was the contract that allowed her to come over once a month,” I said. “Because of us, the contract’s been declared void by the judge.”

  Barnabas shook his head, as if shaking the image of his fiancée, Isabel, from his mind. “Interesting point, Mistress Elizabeth. Quite astute of you. By following our client’s directives, we might have blocked her access to her son. It’s just such a shame about your gremlin case. Mr. Topper would have been much more amenable to allowing a parental visit than Portal Keeper Brathwaite. But the verdict in Moss v. Topper, I’m sad to say, was quite damaging to his candidacy. He’s discussing his options right now with your grandfather.”

  “So that’s why Avis was acting so weird.”

  “We all thought it best not to include you. Feelings are still a bit raw. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Believe me, I do,” I said before looking around, leaning forward, and lowering my voice. “But what would happen if I had proof of an improper agreement between Portal Keeper Brathwaite and Redwing?”

  “That type of scandal would change everything,” said Barnabas. “But such a thing certainly wouldn’t exist in writing.”

  I opened my backpack, took out the file my stepfather had found, and reached high to place it on Barnabas’s desktop. “Voilà,” I said.

  “Voilà?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Voilà.”

  “How did you get hold of this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, though I had a pretty good idea. And you do, too, probably. I mean, when did I ever leav
e my stepfather’s briefcase alone, even for a moment? But I decided just then to keep my suspicions to myself. “It just showed up.”

  “Astonishing,” Barnabas said as he opened the file.

  It took only a few moments for Barnabas to read over the entire document before he snatched the file from his desktop and started hurrying to my grandfather’s office. He was at my grandfather’s door when he stopped and turned to me.

  “Well?” he said.

  “I’ll stay right here while you tell them,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly, Mistress Elizabeth,” said Barnabas. “It is your find. You must present it to your client. Come, come. We all must face our defeats head-on. Hurry now, I won’t go in without you, and time is of the essence.”

  I slumped my way over to the office door as Barnabas knocked. When the door was flung open, my grandfather stood in the doorway.

  “What is the matter? What?” said my grandfather, before he saw me standing nervously to the side. “Oh, Elizabeth. Maybe we can meet later—”

  “Elizabeth found something of great importance regarding Mr. Topper’s candidacy for the position of Portal Keeper,” said Barnabas. “May we come in?”

  “I’d like to say yes,” said my grandfather before glancing behind him, where I could see Mr. Topper sitting on a chair in front of the fireplace. Then my grandfather said in a whisper, “But now is not the time.”

  “Trust me on this, Mr. Webster,” said Barnabas. “Now is absolutely the time. Mr. Topper will be quite pleased by what Mistress Elizabeth has discovered, and he’ll know exactly whom to thank.”

  “And whom will that be?”

  “Why, Mistress Elizabeth, of course.”

  “Ah yes,” said my grandfather. “Well then, Barnabas, your say-so is always good enough for me. Come in, both of you, and let us hear the news.”

  As Barnabas and my grandfather stood inside my grandfather’s office and discussed the written agreement between the current Portal Keeper and Redwing, Mr. Topper stared at me.