Doorways to Infinity (51 page)

“Makes sense.” Jamie took one more glance at the ceiling and said, “I don’t hear any shouting from my parents’ bedroom, so maybe my mom has cooled off.”

“Your mom doesn’t yell at your dad, does she?”

“Not really, but I thought she might this time. But I guess she won’t.” Then he stood and offered Fred his hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to Cullowhee.”

Chapter 23

Jamie and Fred got a text from Terry, and they agreed to meet with her after lunch near the campus clock tower. Even though it was still February, it wasn’t too cold to sit outside, so they found a bench that was far enough away from passing students for them to talk discretely.

They settled onto the concrete seat, and Terry pulled off her backpack and placed it between her feet. “This thing is heavy.” She rolled her shoulders and grimaced. “Gives me a backache.”

“Want some healing jelly for that? Or maybe we could pop over to Rivershire and visit the healer?” Fred said. “She’ll fix you up.”

“It’s not
that
bad. I’m tough.” She gazed across the grounds at a flowerbed, where purple crocuses were already blooming and daffodils had pushed up through the pine straw mulch, anxious to show their own color. “I talked to Eric this morning. He’s up in Langley. He put in his resignation this morning.”

“What’s he going to do now?” Jamie said.

“He’s going to work for your grandfather. He’s moving his family to Hendersonville to start a new career.”

“What will his wife think of that?” Fred asked.

“She won’t mind. She hates living in Langley. I think part of the deal is that she gets to work part time as an accountant for your grandfather.”

“He could use the help,” Jamie said. “He’s been swamped ever since we signed the new mining deal.”

“I didn’t know Dr. Tindall finished her environmental impact study already.”

“She did that a few weeks ago. But she wants to see me this afternoon about something else. Don’t know what, though.”

Fred nudged Terry with her elbow. “How about you? What are you going to do, now that you quit the agency?”

“Well….” Terry took a deep breath. “I’m going to finish this semester, because it’s already paid for. Then I’m going to try to sell my house in Langley. I’ve got a little bit of equity in it, and it may be enough for me to finish school. I’ll probably have to get a part-time job, though.”

“What about your mom and your daughter?”

“They’ll come down here with me. I talked to my mom about it, and she’s okay with that. She can look after Stacey while I go to school and work.” The corners of her mouth turned down. “Wish I didn’t have to do it that way. I could finish up in a year if I went full-time, but I don’t see how I can do that. I still haven’t paid off all of Stacey’s medical bills.”

Fred turned to Jamie and lifted her eyebrows, and he knew what she was thinking. “Uh….” Jamie bit the end of his tongue for a moment. “Terry? What if, uh…what if I make you a deal? We’ll give you the money to finish school, but once you do, you have to work for us for a while.”

“I don’t want to work security.”

“No, as a teacher. At the Rivershire School. My Gramma is always telling me that we need more, and you already know about the magic and the doorways and stuff.”

“For real? I might be willing to do that.” Her face brightened. “What would you need me to teach?”

“Could you be a phys ed teacher? We’re building an all-purpose facility soon, which will serve as our gym.”

She smiled and nodded. “And I’d get to play with kids all day long? And get paid for it? That sounds good.”

“Oh, uh, do you know anything about soccer?”

“I played all the way through high school. My club team won State Cup.”

“Let me guess. You played defender.”

“Center back. Led the team in red cards three years in a row.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Fred poked her playfully on the thigh.

Jamie chuckled and said, “Okay, then. Here’s my offer. We give you enough money to live on and pay your tuition while you finish school, and on Saturdays when the weather’s good, you have to go to Rivershire to coach soccer. That can be your part-time job. You can even take Stacey with you. When you get your teaching certificate, you have to work for us full-time for two years.”

“What if I want to work longer than that?”

“That’d be great. But you’ll have to move to Hendersonville.”

“That’s fine. Stacey will be ready to start kindergarten then. Seems like a good town to live in. Maybe your mom could be her teacher.” She wrinkled her brow. “We’d probably have to tell my mom about the magic and Rivershire and everything, though. Get her to do the oath and all that. I don’t think I can keep it a secret if I’m working on another planet.”

“We’ll give her the oath right away, if you want.”

“But don’t you have to clear all this with your grandfather, first?”

“Nah. He’ll go along with it. He goes along with just about all of my decisions. And I’m sure we’ll have enough money.”

“So it’s a deal? You give me the money for school and I work for your company, or whatever? What do you call it now?”

“Rivershire Enterprises. That wasn’t my choice. My granddaddy came up with that. He said I can change it if I want to.”

“I kinda like it.” She smiled faintly and nodded. “Rivershire Enterprises.” Then she giggled, which sounded strange, coming from her. “I can’t wait to tell Stacey and my mom.”

* * *

Jamie took the empty seat in Dr. Tindall’s small office as she sat across from him at her desk and tapped her fingers on the armrest of her chair. Her mouth twitched for a second before she started the conversation with small talk. “So, Jamie, how’s everything?”

“Pretty good. I just saw Terry a while ago, and I think she’s going to work for us, as a teacher at the school.”

“The Rivershire School?” Her brow dropped sharply. “As the science teacher?”

“No, probably phys ed. We could use one, and that seems like a good fit for her.”

“So…the position is still open?”

“For the science teacher? Sure. You want it?” he said half-jokingly.

She put both hands flat on her desk and leaned toward Jamie. “Yes.” She dipped her chin forcefully on the last word.

“Really? What made you change your mind?”

“Well, you know I’ve been spending a lot of time there lately with Dr. Westbrook, and I’ve really come to love it. I love the people, especially Leora’s family, because they treat me like one of their own. They’re just so nice to me. Everybody is.”

“You’ve got some major cred with the Rivershire folks, since you’re a scientist and all. A professor of higher learning, as they call it. That impresses them.”

“Maybe, but I feel like they have a different attitude over there.” She frowned for a moment. “And I’m getting
tired
of the academic grind of university work. Grading papers and endless meetings. Groveling and begging for grant money, which is getting harder and harder to get. It’s degrading. It’s not what I envisioned when I decided to get my PhD.”

“I can see how that could stink.”

“Plus, I’ve been talking with Mr. Bass at the school, and he’s convinced me that I should do what he did and take early retirement and work in Rivershire instead. I’ve been doing some checking, and I can manage it. I’ll make enough to get by on my pension, even if you don’t pay me.”

“Oh, we’ll pay you. Definitely. We have the money, especially with this new mining deal.”

“I guess you’ll be bringing in big bucks now, huh?” She widened her eyes momentarily, then held up one finger. “I have one condition, though, before I accept your offer. When you build your research facility, I get to work there, even if it’s only part-time. I’m not ready to give up research altogether.”

“You mean,
if
we build it.”

“No, when. I’m certain that you will. You want it very badly, I know. Your gramma and I have been talking about it. You have a scientist’s soul. It’s in your DNA. You want to study the world around you, or worlds, I should say. You want to know the
how
and
why
of things. I believe that you won’t be happy doing anything else. I can’t see you as a middle manager at some corporation.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “You’re right. I really want to build a research institute. I think about it all the time. But it’ll be hard to pull it off. I believe we’ll have the funds, but…
man
. It’s overwhelming just thinking about what’s involved with putting something like that together. Even if I could do it without giving myself away as a sorcerer, I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“I can help you. I know a lot about the bureaucracy of the science profession, and believe me, it’s just as bad as any other. I can help you with the process of getting the right people together, and contacting other universities and research facilities. All that.”

“Great.” Jamie smiled. “I guess I should call my grandfather and tell him that you’ve accepted the job. We’ll need to begin construction on the science wing of the school, soon. Can you start this fall?”

“I’m counting on it.”

“Then it’s a deal.” Jamie stood, leaned across the desk, and shook her hand.

* * *

Jamie carefully inspected the lawn chair Uncle Charlie offered him before settling into it.

“It’s still fixed,” Uncle Charlie said. “Nobody’s sat in it since the last time you were here.”

Jamie was visiting the old Cherokee again at his mobile home in Hendersonville, and they were outside, where Uncle Charlie seemed to be the happiest. He was carving another walking stick, and even though it was early March and the air was comfortable, he had a fire going in the rock circle nearby.

Jamie sat down next to him, both of them facing the back of Annie’s house. Uncle Charlie sliced a strip of bark from the rough wood in his left hand. “So, Magic Man, what’s on your mind? You never seem to visit me unless you have something important to talk about.”

“Uh, sorry, I should come by more often. Been kinda busy lately. But I do have something important to discuss.”

“It must have something to do with your decision concerning whether or not to go public about the other worlds.”

“The doorways, yeah. I’m getting close to settling on something. That is, if I can figure out a way to spread the word to the press without ruining my life, and the lives of my family and friends.”

“You will find a way.” He nodded slowly. “You are a smart young man, and you have smart friends.”

“Well, thanks but…
unh
.” He grimaced as he sank lower in his chair and stretched his feet out so that they nearly reached the fire pit. “I’m not totally convinced that it’s the right thing to do, even if I can do it without giving up my privacy. I mean, Las Vegas is suffering through a bad drought. Should I make a doorway for them to an uninhabited world so they can tap one of its rivers, and continue wasting water, just like they always have? Or make a doorway for another big city so they can pipe their toxic emissions to another planet, or use it as a garbage dump?”

“That bothers me, and not just because I’m an Indian.” Uncle Charlie hacked a chunk from the stick and it fluttered to the ground. “It would be wrong to do those things.”

“I know, but that’s what some people will want. Probably a lot of people. And there will be a lot of pressure from huge, politically powerful corporations and big mining companies, demanding access to some of these worlds so they can exploit them. How do I fight that? They’ll have boatloads of lawyers and lobbyists, and I could end up getting bankrupted from lawsuits.”

“Do not give in to them. They will ruin everything. Besides, if they gain access, it will cut into the revenue you are getting from your mining deals. If ore becomes too plentiful, the price will drop and so will the money you are earning.”

“But is that selfish of me, to be the only one who can make money that way?”

Uncle Charlie held his knife blade upright and turned his head so that he faced Jamie. “I don’t think that anything you do is selfish. You seem to only have good intentions for the money you make.”

“Thanks, but that’s just because of my oath.”

“You swore an oath, too?”

“When I was eight years old. Fred and Rollie made me do it when they found out about my magic. Rollie was scared because he thought it had something to do with the Devil and all that, so they made me swear to only use my powers to help people, and to never enrich myself with my magic. That’s the only reason I’m not spending all that money on myself, probably.”

“No, it’s not. I know your family. They would never have raised you to be that way. The oath has nothing to do with it.” He rapped his chest with his fist. “It is because you have a good heart.”

Jamie felt his ears grow warm and he tried to think of a rebuttal, but only managed another grunt. He leaned back in his chair and gazed through the tree branches overhead, tiny buds sprouting from every stem, a constellation of little green promises. He sighed heavily and said, “I don’t even know if I’m the right person to make this choice.”

“About whether or not to open up the other worlds to the rest of us?”

“Yeah, I mean…who am I to make that choice? It’s a really big one, like…
huge
. It’ll change everything, if you think about it. Can you imagine what the newspaper headlines will be? Or the TV news? It’ll be insane.”

“I believe that it is a pivotal point in our history, and I’m glad I’ll be around to see it.” Uncle Charlie shrugged. “I trust you to make the right decision.”

“But I’m just a young guy, still a teenager, making a decision that could affect everybody. I don’t know if I’m the right guy to do that.”

Uncle Charlie folded his knife closed and rested it in his lap. Then he dropped the stick on the ground beside him and took a deep breath. “I think you are the right guy to make this choice. I think the universe has made you for this purpose.” He nodded firmly. “That is what I think.”

“What?”

Uncle Charlie paused and pressed his mouth to one side, so that the deep wrinkles on his face shifted in that direction. “Are you familiar with the idea that history has a way of producing just the right leader during a time of great crisis, like Roosevelt and Churchill during World War II, or Gandhi during India’s independence movement? Or even Jonas Salk during the polio epidemic, or Joan of Arc, or any of the other great women?”