The Probing: Leviathan, The Mind Pirates, Hybrids, The Village Read online

  Even though the logical part of my brain understood that scenario and even appreciated that the professor hadn’t killed himself in my grandparents’ house, something else in me refused to accept that idea. Reason protested that James McKinney was about as likely to kill himself as he was to sprout a fish’s tail. Impossible. Unlikely. Categorically out of the question.

  “Ummm.” Tank paused as if he were fishing for words. “What do we do now?”

  I shrugged and blinked up at the rain. “Beats me.”

  “Do you think we’ll keep going . . . as a group, I mean? Whoever’s been sending us plane tickets and invitations, do you think they’ll keep doing it?”

  “I don’t know, Tank. I don’t know any more than you do.” My words came out harsher than I’d intended, and my conscience smacked me when I saw the hurt on Tank’s face. “Listen.” I turned and took his hands. “I’m sorry. But I’m as confused as you—maybe even more. I’ve not only lost my boss, I’ve lost . . . part of who I am. I was his assistant, his right hand, and I could have kept being his right hand forever. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do for a job, for a career, for . . . anything.”

  My voice broke. I started to turn away, but Tank drew me close and patted my back. “It’s gonna be okay, Andi,” he said, his voice a reassuring growl in my ear. “Though what the cops said made no sense, I guess maybe suicide never makes much sense. No matter how well you think you know a person, nobody can ever really know what’s going on inside someone else’s head—”

  “But I did know,” I insisted, pulling away. “I knew him better than anyone! I knew he was fixated on his studies into other dimensions, that he was all excited about that presentation. He kept saying that if we could find a way to bend time, we could go back and repair all the damage we’d done in our past, that we could start over. He wasn’t finished with his work, but our encounters with those different universes had given him new ideas and he was just beginning a new phase of—”

  I halted as a shard of memory sliced into my thoughts. I have made many regrettable choices on my journey along the path of life. I have therefore decided to end this path.

  What if the professor hadn’t been writing about suicide at all?

  “Holy cats.” I pulled away from Tank and ran for the house.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Andi, what are you doing?”

  “I think—” I pressed my hands to the side of my head in an effort to still my spinning thoughts. “I think he was talking about dimensions, not death. He wanted to end a third-dimension path, that’s all. Where’s that darn letter?”

  Brenda dropped her magazine and searched the room, then pointed to the coffee table. I snatched up the letter and reread the so-called suicide note. No doubt, the letter had been written in the professor’s language and style, all except the ending—

  “Here.” I took the letter and sat at my grandmother’s desk, then pulled a highlighter from the drawer. “This paragraph, the one where he talks about his apartment. Notice how it doesn’t flow like the rest of the paragraphs?”

  Tank peered over my left shoulder as Brenda looked over my right. “Yeah, so? The cop said the professor was losing it at that point.”

  I snickered. “Have you ever seen the professor lose it? Ever?”

  The corner of Brenda’s mouth dipped. “Good point.”

  “It’s gotta be a message. Something . . . encrypted. A pattern.”

  I stared at the page, highlighter in hand, then focused on the paragraphs addressed to me.

  Andrea—first, dear girl, please accept my apology for any worry or trouble this has caused you, especially considering that I am writing this in your home. But though you have never pried or queried, you surely must know that I have made many regrettable choices on my journey along the path of life. I have therefore decided to end this path. I have learned all I need to know.

  I digress. So sorry. I am giving my old apartment the boot—key inside ceramic ant. Landlord has been busy traveling so don’t expect him to repaint. Rent due on seventh. File speech copy under “dimension,” please, for others may wish to read. Remember—unlike me, you never needed help. Godspeed.

  “By the way,” Brenda drawled, “I can’t say that I was pleased to read his comments about me. Even a man who’s planning to check out should have better manners.”

  “He wants people to think this is a suicide note,” I said. “Because . . .” I waited for an answer to pop into my head.

  “Because why?” Brenda asked.

  I sighed. “I got nothin’.”

  “What’s that about a ceramic ant?” Tank said, pointing to the paragraph that was nothing like the others. “Some kind of garden statue?”

  “He’s not a gardener,” I said, focusing on that line. “And his landlord isn’t a person, it’s the university. And he doesn’t pay rent, the apartment is faculty housing, provided for tenured professors in residence. . . .” I caught my breath. “That entire paragraph is bogus, but no one who reads this letter would know that except . . . me.”

  “So—” Brenda twirled one of her dreadlocks around her finger—“what’s he trying to tell you?”

  I grinned as the light came on. “It’s a code, probably a numbered sequence. So what number would he use?”

  We looked at each other. “The year?” Brenda suggested.

  “His birthday?” Tank said.

  “It’s gotta be a smaller number,” I said, reading the paragraph again. “A number small enough to repeat in this paragraph.”

  “Five.” Daniel appeared beside Brenda. He lifted his hand and counted, pointing to each of us: “One, two, three, four, and”—he pointed to the letter—“five.”

  “Five of us—makes as much sense as anything. So I’m keeping every fifth word, starting with my name.”

  Andrea—first, dear girl, please accept my apology for any worry or trouble this has caused you. But though you have never pried or queried, you surely must know that I have made many regrettable choices on my journey along the path of life. I have therefore decided to end this path.

  “Andrea accept worry caused have you I choices the have this,” Brenda read. “Makes no sense at all.”

  “So let’s try the second paragraph.”

  I digress. So sorry. I am giving my old apartment the boot—key inside ceramic ant. Landlord has been busy traveling so don’t expect him to repaint. Rent due on seventh. File speech copy under “dimension,” please, for others may wish to read. Remember—unlike me, you never needed help. Godspeed.

  “‘I am the ant,’” Tank read, “‘traveling to seventh dimension wish me Godspeed.’” He blinked. “That doesn’t make any sense, either.”

  “Oh, yes it does.” I brought my hand to my mouth as the pieces fell into place. “The ant, remember? The sugar ant from his speech, the ant traveling on the thin piece of paper. If you twist the paper, the ant can move from one dimension to another. The professor—somehow—found a way to move into the seventh dimension!”

  “‘Wish me Godspeed,’” Brenda whispered, her eyes widening. “How in the world did the old fart manage to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, laughter rising from my throat, “and no one is going to believe us if we try to tell them where he is. But he’s not dead. He has only . . . moved.”

  Tank stepped backward and rubbed his brow. “I still don’t get it.”

  “You don’t have to.” I threw him a reassuring smile. “You know how Littlefoot came from another universe? It’s kind of like that. The professor’s just gonna be out of touch for a while.”

  “But everyone’s going to think he’s dead,” Brenda pointed out. “And face it, maybe he is. Maybe his technique or whatever he used to zap himself out of here didn’t work. Maybe he got to the seventh dimension and a monster ate him. Maybe he transported himself to a Flatland kind of world where he doesn’t fit, so he imploded. So many things could have gone wrong—”

  “Maybe it
doesn’t matter,” I said. “All of that stuff is out of our control—even out of his control. But at least we know he’s not floating out in the Gulf. He’s not being eaten by sharks. He’s . . . he’s like an explorer in the new world, conquering unexplored territories.”

  “He wanted to correct his mistakes,” Tank said, his eyes softening. “I get that. And if he can find a way to do it—” He shrugged. “I’d love to hear all about it sometime.”

  “So what do we do now?” Brenda asked. She glanced toward the empty bedroom. “The man ain’t comin’ back.”

  “I guess”—I made a face—“as distasteful as it will be, I guess we have to go along with the suicide scenario. That’s how the professor set it up, so I guess that’s what he wanted.”

  “Roger that,” Tank said.

  “Okay,” Brenda echoed.

  Daniel just stared at the watch dangling from his wrist.

  CHAPTER

  13

  As the black-clad mourners milled around the empty coffin, I lifted my gaze to the low-hanging clouds and wondered if the professor had found a way to peel back the curtain and spy on his former dimension. Probably not, considering it had taken him a lifetime to figure out how to engineer a path to wherever he was now.

  He would have been pleased by the turnout at his graveside—lots of faculty, the university president, and dozens of students who had either loved his lectures or hated them, depending on their point of view. Someone in his family had sprung for an expensive spray of roses on the casket. As per the wishes expressed in the professor’s will, there had been no funeral or memorial service. There would be no wake, but I knew that most of the university faculty would soon head over to the Thirsty Scholar, where they’d lift a glass in his memory.

  I stood in respectful silence as the funeral director murmured, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and the casket lowered into the grave, accompanied by the whine of an electric motor. A couple of mourners tossed carnations into the dark space, then most people wandered away.

  I remained, feeling it my duty to see this charade through to the end.

  I wasn’t the only one who lingered. A woman in a black hat and veil stood on the other side of the open grave. She pressed a tissue to her eyes, and sniffed as she wiped away tears.

  Who was she, and where had she been during the professor’s final years? She must have loved him, because her tears were genuine. . . .

  I stepped closer so I might better see her. Silver hair brushed her shoulders, and when she lifted her head I saw a lovely face marked by the passing of more than a few years. She might have been the professor’s age, or even a little younger, and she was still a beautiful woman. Was she one of the professor’s regrets? Had he found a way back to her . . . and his younger self?

  I was working up the courage to speak to her when the gravediggers approached. One of them lowered his shovel and nodded at me, then he and his partner removed the fake grass that served to disguise the mound of dirt that would fill in the grave. Time to go.

  I drew a deep breath and looked up, but the woman had already left the graveside. I saw her walking, not toward the parking lot, but another section of the cemetery. Did she know someone else buried here?

  I strode forward, intending to hurry and catch her, but turned my ankle when I stepped in a patch of soft dirt. “Ooof!” I sank to the ground as gracefully as I could, and the gravediggers dropped their shovels and hurried to help.

  “Watch your step,” one said with a crooked smile. “We wouldn’t want you to fall in.”

  I managed a smile in return. “It’s these heels. I don’t usually wear shoes this high.”

  I brushed dirt off my knees and tucked my purse under my arm, intent on catching the dark figure moving through the tombstones and mausoleums.

  “Ma’am?” I called, hobbling forward. My ankle was beginning to throb, and if I pushed it, I wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow. I stopped and pulled off my shoes, then hop-skipped forward, lurching left to right as I searched for the woman in black.

  I stopped and waved one of my shoes. “Hey, lady!”

  She turned and looked at me, and the expression on her face was so heartrending that I nearly wept. My mind supplied a hundred reasons why she would be standing at the professor’s grave: she was a former lover, a long-lost sister, an ex-wife, a fellow teacher, a nun he’d known in his days as a priest—and she had loved him, but time and circumstance had kept them apart. But now she’d come here to mourn him . . .

  “Will you wait, please?”

  The woman didn’t answer, but moved behind a wall of marble that blocked my view.

  I hurried on. Finally I reached the spot where the woman had disappeared, but when I looked around, I saw nothing but a marble tombstone etched

  Marissa Lorena Longworth

  1958–1999

  She walks in beauty.

  No sign of the woman. Only a fence at the eastern boundary of the cemetery and a path that led back to the entrance.

  I followed the path, taking my time and placing as little weight on my injured ankle as I could. When I got back to my apartment, I’d put my leg up, cover the ankle with a bag of ice, and call Tank and Brenda. They had wanted to fly up for the graveside service, but I had talked them out of it, promising a full postmortem report.

  Knowing that I had my hands full with cleaning out the professor’s apartment and office, Tank had volunteered to be my go-to guy for reports on BEKs. He had set up a Google search and was trolling the Internet for new reports of BEK sightings, which, he told me unhappily, were on the rise. Black-eyed kids were being reported in every country, on every continent. A guard at an Arctic outpost had even opened his door one night to find two black-eyed kids outside.

  At least the Diaz family had their baby again. While the baby had been confirmed as theirs, according to my grandmother’s latest report, the doctors had not yet been able to remove the mysterious implant.

  I got to my car, leaned heavily on the back passenger door, and managed to get my door unlocked and opened. Thankfully, I didn’t have to use my injured ankle to drive, so I slid in, carefully placed my left leg in a safe position, and pulled my car door closed.

  And then, in the side mirror, I saw the professor, as clear as stark reality. I turned, expecting to see him standing beside the car, but I was alone. I looked at the mirror again. The professor still flickered there, then he pulled something from a coat he wore and held it up—the printed photo, the selfie of our group.

  My smile cracked into a sob. The professor’s smile softened, and he pressed the photo to his chest and covered it with his hand.

  And then he was gone.

  Caught in a place between laughter and tears, I leaned my head against the steering wheel and struggled to get a grip on my emotions. He was alive. He was okay. He was just . . . somewhere else.

  Contents

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  8

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  11

  12

  13

  14

  Epilogue

  CHAPTER

  1

  Arrival

  The sun was blinking.

  Well, not really blinking. That would be a sign that the end of the world was about to arrive. What it was doing was flashing in my eyes as I did my best to drive the Ford SUV up the narrow mountain road. The real culprits were the trees. It was about an hour from sunset and dogwood trees kept blocking the sun, making it look like it was flickering. Truth be told, it was kinda annoying. Still the forest, the mountains, the clear sky were all very beautiful.

  I wished it were that peaceful inside the car.

  I shot a glance at Andi sitting in the passenger’s seat next to me, then stole a quick look at the back seat. Brenda sat behind Andi, gazing out the window on her right just as she had been doing since we left the airport in Asheville. She ha
dn’t said more than twenty words since we arrived in North Carolina. If you knew Brenda, then you know how this was not normal for her. Not a single snide remark. Odd, I found myself missing her occasional barbs. Just as well. She hasn’t been all that warm and cuddly since—

  Well, no need to get into that now.

  Seated behind me was Daniel, my ten-year-old buddy. He wasn’t himself. I expected to see his young face hovering over the screen of his handheld video game like usual. I hadn’t heard a single digital beep out of that game—or a word out of him.

  Of course, I had no right to expect anything to be normal.

  My friends and I have been living in a “new normal.” That’s what Andi called it. She’s good with words, and the Internet, and research, and just about everything else. She is really good at keeping me on pins and needles. Anyway, she’s especially good at seeing patterns no one else can see. She can look at ten unrelated things and see what connects them all. That’s our Andi. Now that the professor is gone, Andi Goldstein is the smart one of our group. If I said that out loud I’m sure she’d show me the back of her hand. Brenda might show me the front of her fist.

  That’s not to say that Brenda Barnick is any kind of dummy. She’s smart in a different kinda way. Street-smart is the best way to describe her. She’s a gifted artist, although most of her art decorates people’s skin. No one can ink a tat like Brenda. She’s dynamite with pen and paper, too. The strange thing—not so strange to us these days—is that her drawings somehow show a bit of the future.

  Me? Well, if we haven’t already met, then all you need to know is that my name is Bjorn Christensen but I go by Tank. It’s easier to say. At six-foot-three and 260 pounds, I’ve been gaining weight, so no one asks, “Why do they call you Tank?” My size is why Daniel sat behind me while I drove. He didn’t need as much leg room as Andi and Brenda.

  “Much farther?”

  Whoo-hoo. Two words from Brenda.

  Andi kept her eyes on her smartphone. “GPS says about five minutes, but it’s been on-again, off-again. Cell coverage up here is abysmal.”