Timepiece: An Hourglass Novel (10 page)

Chapter 19

I

n the end, Michael went to bat for all of us. He hit a home run. Of course.

I packed while Dad argued.

“I might not be able to stop Emerson and Michael, but you’re my son. I could stop Lily, since she’s about to skip school—”

“But you won’t. Lily’s calling this a college visit, which is not a lie, and Em can’t go unless she has a chaperone.” I threw my shaving kit in my bag with my already folded clothes, figuring I’d go with the scruffy look in the morning. Maybe it would make me look older.

Nate and Dune agreed that Em, Michael, Lily, and I should be the ones to go to Memphis. They’d stay behind and keep an eye on things. Including Ava.

I dropped my travel toothbrush into my open suitcase and faced him. “I’m going to be eighteen soon. What are you going to do then?”

“Drink.”

Family trait.

I raised my hands. “I’m only packing in case we don’t find what we need in time to drive back. I’ll probably be home tomorrow night.”

“You’ll be home all day because you aren’t going.”

I turned around to get a hold on myself and to make sure my flask was covered. I zipped up my suitcase for good measure. “Dune found Jack’s information from high school. And since the university is still in the process of computerizing old student records, we have to physically go there to see what we can find.” I kept the part about tracking Jack’s pocket watch to myself. “This is the next logical step. You know you can’t go without drawing attention.”

“Then let Michael handle it.”

I ignored the drop my stomach did, but only because I really wanted to get my way instead of getting in a fight. “Michael might be Superman, but even Superman had Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane.”

Dad tapped his chin with two fingers, a sure sign he was about to cave.

He shoots, he scores.

“I still don’t like it,” he said, but he relented. “You’re checking in. Every hour.”

“Dad.”

“You can take turns.”

“I’m positive Michael will make sure you’re in the know.” I pulled my candy stash out of my bedside drawer. An open box of Hot Tamales spilled and skittered across my hardwood floor, and I bent over to pick them up. “Dammit.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Dad said, backpedaling.

I stared at his scratched-up black boots, with mud crusted and flaking around the heels. Mom would’ve freaked that he had them on in the house. “But you trust him more.”

“You are my son—”

“Glad you noticed,” I said, standing up straight. Even in his boots, I had an inch of height on him.

“My job is to protect you.”

Super heartwarming.

“It’s … Your mother was the one who handled the nurturing part. I’m not …” He stopped, his wide shoulders dropping, and attempted to explain himself. “I’m trying. I may not show it the way she did, but I do love you.”

“Why do you refer to her in past tense?” The candy went sticky in my tightly closed fist. “‘Was.’ ‘Did.’”

His whisper hurt me worse than a scream. “There’s been no improvement; in fact, she’s declining. You’d know that if you’d go see her.”

“Are you saying it’s my fault she’s getting worse?”

“No, but hearing her son’s voice, feeling his touch, that couldn’t hurt her. You know how much she loved—”

“Loves.
Loves
. She loves me. I sat with her when you were dead. I did everything I could. I even tried—” I broke off just in time. “I know what my mistakes are; I don’t need a list from you. I’ll make sure Michael checks in with you while we’re all in Memphis. There’s nothing else to say.”

I stared at him until he shut the door behind him, and bitterness curled around my rib cage until I couldn’t breathe.

I dropped the candy into the trash and dug my flask out of my suitcase.

Chapter 20

“M

y ass is gonna be so flat by the time we get out of this car, I’m going to have to blow it up with a bicycle pump.” Lily leaned forward to rub her lower back.

I bit my tongue to keep from telling her that nothing would make her ass less than perfect. It was too early to get coldcocked, especially by a hot girl.

Instead, I fished for my hat on Em’s floorboard, retrieved it, and pulled it down over my eyes. My sunglasses weren’t doing enough to fight the remnants of last night’s poor choices.

Dru had a college friend who worked at the Peabody Hotel, and she’d comped a suite for us. Em made us leave at the crack of dawn so we could go straight to the school. It was still early when we parked outside the administration building. Bennett University sat on the eastern outskirts of Memphis, and the boundary surrounded almost a hundred acres of forest and academia.

“It’s like I’m in the English countryside,” Lily said as we drove through the open iron gates that led onto the property. The campus was more fairy-tale village than college. Gothic arches, dark patches of forest, cobblestone sidewalks. Everything was green, gold, and shades of red.

I slid out of my seat and walked around to open Lily’s door. She managed to tear her eyes away from the scenery. “What is this? Chivalry?”

“No. You have the Hot Tamales.” I held out my hand. “I need a hit.”

She shoved the box into my stomach and the connection made a loud crushing noise. “Hot Tamales. Atomic Fireballs. Sizzling Cinnamon Jelly Bellys. Red Hots. I’m surprised you have any taste buds left. Or teeth.”

“Do I make the obvious hot-stuff joke here, or refrain?”

“Refrain.”

She grabbed a square, padded canvas bag from the glove box and slid out of the car. After unzipping the bag, she took out her camera, unscrewed the lens cap, and started snapping.

“Shouldn’t we be thinking about what we need to do next?” I asked Em, watching Lily walk away.

“No. Let her go,” Em said from beside me. Michael was still in the car. Checking in with Dad, I was sure. “She’ll get the buzz out of her system in a minute or two.”

“Is she always like this?”

“Yep. She gets kind of possessed. Or obsessed.”

Even though she was in earshot of the conversation, Lily never wavered, focusing her attention on a single yellow leaf hanging on to the end of a tree branch. She lay flat on her back in the grass to take a shot from below, and then climbed halfway up the trunk to take one from above.

“She’ll catch a glimpse of something she wants to shoot and she’s gone. If not physically, like hanging off the edge of a building or scaling the side of a mountain for a perfect shot, then mentally. She frames shots and fiddles with depth of field and apertures and generally does her thing until she realizes a world exists outside her pictures.”

“Is she good?”

“Unbelievable.” Em smiled like a proud parent. “You’ve seen the photographs in Murphy’s Law.”

“Those are hers?” I asked, remembering how amazing they were. “Those photos are masterpieces.”

“Yes, they are.”

Finally, Lily walked toward us, shaking bits of leaves and grass from her hair, grinning from ear to ear. Her joy was contagious. I was smiling, too.

“I could spend days here. All those curves and lines and shadows. How did I not know about this place before now?” She shoved her camera into her bag, pulled out a tangerine, and made an apologetic face at Em. “I’m sorry. You know how I get excited.”

“And that’s why we love you,” Em said.

“You okay?” Michael stepped out of the car, shut the door, and approached Em. He massaged her shoulders and neck. “I wish you’d let me drive part of the way.”

“Driving helped me focus on something besides what we’re about to do.” She relaxed under his touch.

“Can we go over the plan?” Lily tossed the tangerine peel, which she’d pulled off in a perfect, complete spiral, into the woods. The calm she’d managed to maintain in the car was fading. “I assume we’re still looking for
information
about Jack first, rather than Jack.”

“Do you still know where he is?” Em asked, tension entering her voice again. “Or where the pocket watch is?”

Lily popped a section of tangerine into her mouth and nodded. She’d held the atlas open the whole way in the car, her hands constantly returning to the page. “By the river. I think I’ll know exactly where, once we get closer.”

“Lily and I will go check in with the admissions office, and then try to find Jack’s paperwork.” Michael held up the key card Dune had made for him. It was supposed to guarantee entrance to the file storage room. “Kaleb, I think you and Em should go to the physics department to see if you can get any information about Jack and his time here and, if the opportunity presents itself, maybe get some information on Teague and Chronos.”

“Why are Kaleb and I going together instead of you and me?” Em leaned back on his chest and looked up at him.

That didn’t burn.

“Because if I go with you, we can both ask questions, and that’s it. Kaleb’s perception is invaluable in a situation like this.”

“Aww, thanks for noticing,” I said.

“As long as Lily’s cool with it.” Em shrugged.

Lily nodded. “Fine.”

“Okay.” Michael sounded relieved. “The head of the physics department is named Gerald Turner. He’s on campus today, and he has office hours right now.”

All the curves and lines and shadows Lily was so excited about became even more evident as we crossed the campus to the science building.

Gothic architecture, pointed archways, and cool gray stone made me feel like I was in another place and time instead of five minutes away from downtown Memphis. “Hey,” I said, pointing up. “There’s a bell tower. Where’s Quasimodo?”

“Look,” Em said, also pointing up. “It’s a flying buttress!”

“A what?” I cocked my head to the side.

“Never mind.”

We entered the building and approached the science department. I took Em’s arm. “Walk behind me.”

“Kaleb Ballard. That hurts me in my feminism.”

“It has nothing to do with feminism, and everything to do with the fact that a girl is sitting behind the counter,” I whispered, reaching for the doorknob.

“How do you know you’re her type?” Em asked doubtfully.

“I’m every girl’s type.” I ignored Em’s snicker, since I’d totally set myself up for it, and opened the door.

We made it past the gatekeeper in record time. Em’s snicker turned into an eye roll.

The bluesy sound of Muddy Waters poured into the hallway as we approached, along with the faint scent of pipe tobacco. We paused outside the cracked door, jumping when we heard a gruff voice.

“I can hear you lurking. Don’t just stand out there. Come on in. Office hours are posted; you’re well within the time frame.” The voice was deep, that of a lifelong smoker, or possibly James Earl Jones’s younger brother. “Twenty years in this department, and students still think my office hours are some kind of cosmic joke.”

Twenty years in this department meant he’d been here when my dad and Teague were here, and when they left. It also meant he’d been one of those who’d chosen to stay behind.

“Well?” he barked out.

I looked back at Em for visual confirmation and then pushed the door open. I was immediately assaulted by shiny black leather, Art Deco prints, and a giant moose head on the far left wall. A tiny placard hung underneath it, with one word, Freddy. A fedora hung on the topmost point of each antler. One of the hats had a cheetah print hatband.

A man with a head full of white hair, and a black goatee sprinkled with silver, sat behind a desk. His skin, the same color as cocoa powder, sported deep wrinkles in his smile lines. His gaze lingered on Em when she stepped into the doorway beside me. “Can I help you?”

I felt out his emotions.
Curiosity. Mild impatience tempered with tolerance.

“Are you Dr. Turner?” Em asked, not crossing the threshold. Waiting to be invited in, like a vampire.

“That depends. Are you two ghost chasers?” He considered us over his bifocals as he pulled a bag of pipe tobacco out of his top desk drawer.

“No, sir,” I answered, frowning at Em. “We aren’t ghost chasers.”

“Good. Reality television has created way too many amateurs, if you ask me. None of them ever finds a damn thing. It’s because they’re looking in all the wrong places.”

“I’m Emerson, by the way.” She pointed to herself and then to me, as if the professor might have a hard time coming to the conclusion himself. “This is Kaleb.”

This time, he looked at me a little bit too long.

“I’m Dr. Turner. Head of the physics department. Nice to meet you both.”

In an un-vampire-like fashion, I stepped into the room without being asked. “We were wondering if we could talk to you.”

“Certainly. As long as you were telling me the truth about the ghost chasing.” He spun his chair around to turn down an ancient-looking record player. The scratchy sound of the blues faded away and he faced us again, waving his hand at Em. “Come in.”

He wore a bow tie, and a pink carnation hung haphazardly from a buttonhole in his vest. When he pulled his pipe from an inside pocket, the flower fell on his desk. He picked it up and twirled it between his fingers.

“Had a visit from the grands this morning. Youngest girl brought me a gift.” He smiled, tucked it into a leather pencil holder on the corner of his desk, and gestured with his pipe. “May I?”

“Sure.” Em nodded. “I like the smell of pipe tobacco. My granddad smoked one.”

“Good, then.” He scooped tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, the movement habitual. He was going through the motions, but it felt like a thinly veiled distraction. “Have a seat.”

Em chose a leather wingback, studded around the edges with brass tacks. The only other chair in the office looked like it might crumble into a heap if I touched it, so I leaned my shoulder against the bookshelves built into the wall, taking note of the many family pictures as well as the titles on the shelves.
Quantum Physics for Dummies, Holographic Man, The Tao of Physics
, and a decent collection of what looked like first-edition Twain.

“How can I help you, children?”
Direct but kind.

“We had some questions.” Em bounced slightly in her seat. It was either exceptionally springy or her nerves were getting the best of her.

“About the physics program?”

“No,” Em said, drawing the word out, looking at me for backup.

“No,” I said, wishing we’d discussed a plan. “We were talking about the … um …”

“About the parapsychology department,” he said, like he’d said it a million times before. “You discovered it on the Internet.”

“Um, yeah,” Em said, smiling in a slightly unbalanced way. “That’s it.”

I could feel his hesitation. Still, somehow, he miraculously asked, “What do you want to know?”

“We were just interested in … the basics about the department.” Em looked up at me for confirmation.

“The basics.” I nodded. We sucked at subterfuge.

“We’re doing … a school project?” Em said. It came out sounding like a question.

Dr. Turner pressed down on the contents of the pipe bowl with his thumb and looked at Em from the corner of his eye. “First of all, it was never truly a department, not an acknowledged one, anyway. It fell under engineering and physics. Started as a graduate project on random event generators and machines. Spun off into all kinds of fantastical research.”

“What kind of fantastical research?” I asked.

“Life beyond our airspace, remote viewing.” He took out another pinch of tobacco, placed it in the pipe with practiced ease, and then closed the bag. “Archeocoustics, dowsing.”

“I’ve never even heard the word
archeocoustics
.” Em perched eagerly on the edge of her chair, her toes barely touching the floor.

“Tricky theory, that. Idea is that objects record sound. Memories of conversation.” He shrugged. “And a perfect example of one of the things that drove the traditionalists here crazy.”

“And the university made the grad students stop?”

“They did.” His fingers tightened on the pipe bowl. “The department was shut down.”

“But the research continued.” Em wasn’t reading his body language, or she didn’t care. “Right?”

“There were certain things everyone was curious about.” He spoke carefully, as if everything he’d said up until this point had been canned, and now we were approaching unknown territory.

“Like what?” Em pushed.

His spike of irritation made me wonder if we’d gone too far.

Keeping my eyes on Dr. Turner, I moved to stand beside Em, my arm on the back of her chair. He stared at me for a moment, as if he were weighing something. Then he seemed to make a decision.

“Most specifically, they were curious about the manipulation of the space time continuum.”

Em gasped, then tried to cover it with a cough.

Dr. Turner didn’t take his eyes away from me. “Not solely in the realm of physics, but in the realm of something … beyond.”