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“Can you guess why Miss Fay quit law school?”
“Because she got sick.”
He shook his head disapprovingly. “Don’t you listen? The prion was still dormant at that time.”
“She decided she didn’t like it? Her grades weren’t good enough?”
“Neither.” He turned to me and gave his eyebrows an old roué’s waggle. “Mary Fay is that heroine of the modern age, a single mother. The child, a boy named Victor, is now seven years old. I’ve never met him—Mary didn’t want that—but she showed me many pictures of him while we were discussing his future. He reminded me of my own little boy.”
We had reached the door to the loading dock, but I didn’t push it open. “Does the kid have what she has?”
“No. Not now, at least.”
“Will he?”
“Impossible to be entirely sure, but he’s tested negative for the C-J prion. So far, at least.” More thunder boomed. The wind had begun to pick up, rattling the door and making a momentary low howling beneath the eaves. “Come on, Jamie. We really must go.”
• • •
The loading dock stairs were too steep for him to negotiate with his cane, so I carried him. He was shockingly light. I deposited him in the passenger seat of the golf cart and got behind the wheel. As we drove across the gravel and onto the downward-sloping expanse of lawn behind the resort, there was another clap of thunder. The clouds to the west of us were purple-black stacks. As I looked, lightning forked down from their distended bellies in three different places. Any possibility of the storm missing us was gone, and when it hit, it was going to rock our world.
Charlie said, “Many years ago I told you about how the iron rod on Skytop attracts the lightning. Much more than an ordinary lightning rod would. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever come here and see for yourself?”
“No.” I told this lie without hesitation. What had happened at Skytop in the summer of 1974 was between me and Astrid. I suppose I might have told Bree, if she’d ever asked about my first time, but not Charlie Jacobs. Never him.
“In De Vermis Mysteriis, Pri
“Potestas magnum universum,” I said.
He stared at me, bushy eyebrows hiked to what had once been his hairline. “I was wrong about you. You’re not stupid at all.”
The wind gusted. Ripples raced across grass that hadn’t been cut in weeks. The speeding air was still warm against my cheek. When it turned cold, the rain would come.
“It’s lightning, isn’t it?” I said. “That’s the potestas magnum universum.”
“No, Jamie.” He spoke almost gently. “For all its voltage, lightning is a mere trickle of power, one of many such that feed what I call the secret electricity. But that secret electricity, awesome though it may be, is itself only a tributary. It feeds something much greater, a power beyond the ability of human beings to comprehend. That is the potestas magnum universum of which Pri
We passed into the trees, following the path Je
“If you’re pla
A small one, I thought. Covered with dead ivy.
“Calm yourself,” he said. “Yes, there’s a doorway—Pri
“In God’s name, why?”
He looked at me then with a species of wild contempt. “Are you a fool, after all? What would you call a door that’s closed against all of humankind?”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
He sighed as if I were hopeless. “Drive on, Jamie.”
“And if I won’t?”
“Then I’ll walk, and when my legs won’t carry me any further, I’ll crawl.”
He was bluffing, of course. He couldn’t have gone on without me. But I didn’t know that then, and so I drove on.
• • •
The cabin where I’d made love to Astrid was gone. Where it had stood—swaybacked, slumping in on itself, tagged with graffiti—was a nifty little cottage, white with green trim. There was a square plot of lawn, and showy summer flowers that would be gone by day’s end, stripped clean by the storm. East of the cottage, the paved road gave way to the gravel I remembered from my trips to Skytop with Astrid. It ended at that bulging dome of granite, where the iron pole jutted toward the black sky.
Je
“Thank God you’re here!” She had to shout to be heard over the rising wind. The pines and spruces were bending and bowing before it. “I thought you weren’t coming, after all!” Thunder rolled, and when a flash of lightning followed it, she cringed.
“Inside!” I yelled at her. “Right now!” The wind had turned chill, and my sweaty skin was as good as a thermometer, registering the change in the air. The storm was only minutes away.
We got Jacobs up the steps, one on each side. The wind spun the thin remnants of his hair around his skull in whirlpools. He still had his cane, and hugged the mahogany box protectively against his chest. I heard a rattling sound, looked toward Skytop, and saw bits of scree, smashed out of the granite by the lightning strikes of previous storms, being tumbled down the slope by the wind and off the edge of the drop.
Once we were inside, Je
“There’s half a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen.” Jacobs sounded out of breath but otherwise calm. “Unless you’ve polished it off, Miss Knowlton?”
She shook her head. Her face was pale, her eyes large and shining—not with tears, but with terror. She jumped at every clap of thunder.
“Bring me a small taste,” Jacobs told me. “One finger will be plenty. And pour one for yourself and Miss Knowlton. We’ll toast to the success of our endeavor.”
“I don’t want a drink, and I don’t want to toast anything,” Je
“Go on, Jamie,” Jacobs said. “Bring three. And speedily. Tempus fugit.”
The bottle was on the counter next to the sink. I set out three juice glasses and poured a splash into each. I very rarely drank, fearing booze might lead me back to dope, but I needed this one.
When I returned to the living room, Je
“She needed to see to our patient,” Jacobs said. “I’ll drink hers. Unless you want it, that is.”
“Did you send me to the kitchen so you could talk to her, Charlie?”
“Nonsense.” Smiling on the good half of his face; the other half remaining grave and watchful. You know I’m lying, that half seemed to say, but it’s too late now. Isn’t it?