by Deen Ferrell
“No. They just referred to me as a boy, or kid.”
Dr. J threw a shaky hand up to catch the side of the boat. “L-l-little, h-h-help!”
Antonio dropped the oars and he and Willoughby struggled to pull James Arthur into the back of the boat. It wasn’t easy as Dr. J was weak and shaking violently. They finally got him on board and seated on the back bench. Antonio moved up to the middle bench and Willoughby took up the bench in the bow.
“Sorry, James Arthur,” Antonio called over his shoulder. “This was n-not such a good idea.”
James Arthur gave a quick nod, throwing his shirt back on and trying to catch his breath while controlling his shivers. “N-need w-w-warm sh-shower,” he managed, forcing a weak smile.
Antonio threw his shirt on as well, picked up the oars, and started rowing back toward the ship. Willoughby pulled his t-shirt on. He sat facing Antonio and Dr. J with his back toward the bow. Antonio bent down so that only Willoughby could hear his whisper.
“I w-want you to make your w-way down to the wall of symbols. Y-you seem to have abilities beyond me—beyond any of us. You c-can s-sense equations, m-maybe even s-see openings in the time flow. We n-need to kn-now how to use that d-doorway if things go badly. If anyone s-sees you, say you are looking f-for my barbershop. Make sure you are alone before you l-look at the wall. Tell me what you m-make of the equations.”
“S-s-strange,” James Arthur called from the back of the boat. “C-c-can swim a-a good mile at home, in c-cold water. M-m-must be the choppy seas.” Antonio looked back. “N-not this cold,” he said. Dr. J again gave a curt nod and forced a grin. Antonio’s gaze turned toward the Absconditus as he increased the intensity of his rowing. He spoke softly, almost to himself, “Good fishing they told me, yet I see no one catching a fish.”
James Arthur and Willoughby both followed his gaze. Dr. J’s eyebrows rose slightly. It was true. The few lifeless lines dropped over the boat seemed abandoned.
15
Nostradamus
After a hot shower, Willoughby was finally able to stop shivering. He grabbed a quick breakfast and picked up a couple more books on Nostradamus from the chart room. Finding a small bank of lounge chairs on the starboard side of the ship, he settled in and began to read. Sails had been raised and the speed of the ship had increased to a steady clip. Willoughby breathed in the tangy air. The sunlight and fresh breeze raised his spirits a bit, but only a bit. He thought of Antonio’s description of the time door on the ship. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the odd revelation. On the one hand, he was glad they were going ahead with the adventure. On the other hand, they faced more intrigue and danger than he had ever imagined. He felt a tense knot at the pit of his stomach—like the feeling you get when you reach the top of a really high rollercoaster. He tried to ignore his stomach and turned back to his reading.
Nostradamus, he found, was a fascinating character. Some scholars called him a crackpot. They claimed that he wrote so obscurely that his writings could mean anything. Others launched into long defenses, trying to prove that the man had an amazing gift. Whatever your opinion, it was hard to escape the uncanny accuracy of some of his predictions.
In one quatrain, for example, he predicted the death of King Henry II of France:
The young lion overcomes the older one,
On the field of combat, they fight a single battle;
He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage,
Two wounds are made one; he dies a cruel death.
(Century 1, Quatrain 35)
The quatrain, published in 1555, certainly seemed accurate judging from history. King Henry II, of France, died in a jousting accident in June of 1559. He was competing in a tournament against the Comte de Montgomery, who was several years younger. Both men used shields embossed with lions. During the final bout, Montgomery failed to lower his lance in time, and it shattered against the king’s helmet, sending a large splinter through King Henry’s gilded visor. There were two major wounds, one to the eye, and the other to the temple. Both wounds pierced the brain, leaving Henry II to die a cruel death after ten days of agony.
Other quatrains also seemed to accurately reflect historic events:
The French Revolution:
From the enslaved people, songs, chants and demands.
The princes and lords are held captive in prisons.
In the future by such headless idiots,
These will be taken as divine utterances.
(Century 1, Quatrain 14)
President Kennedy’s assassination:
The ancient work will be accomplished,
And from the roof evil ruin will fall on the great man.
They will accuse an innocent, being dead, of the deed.
The guilty one is hidden in the misty copse.
(Century 6, Quatrain 37)
Willoughby remembered reading a book about the Kennedy assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald had been accused of the murder, but was killed in prison before he could come to trial. Some claim that modern forensics evidence pointed toward two assassins, one on the roof, and the one who fired the fatal bullet in a row of bushes to the side of the Texas School Book Depository.
Willoughby read on. Some quatrains were so vague that people claimed them to foretell everything from space aliens invading the earth, to knowledge of the computer revolution, to the collapse of the Trade Towers on 9/11 and the untimely death of Princess Diana. He was so fascinated with his reading that he almost missed lunch. After a quick sandwich, he grabbed two additional volumes from the chartroom, and went back to his chair on the deck.
In skimming the books, his eye lit upon a fascinating letter that Nostradamus wrote to his son, Caesar, in March of 1555. The letter was different from the one H.S. had referred to that mentioned the Cult of the Mark and the mathematician, but it was still fascinating. It spoke about how the seer learned his secrets. At one point, Nostradamus states: “...by means of harmonizing divine and supernatural inspiration with astronomical computations, one can accurately name places and specific times... Through this, the cycles of time (past, present, and future) become incorporated into one eternity.”
Was this a description of using stars to chart the appearance of time holes? What was meant by “harmonize divine and supernatural inspiration with astronomical computations?”
The key to this puzzle seemed to be a line written earlier in the letter: “For human understanding, being intellectual, cannot see hidden things unless aided by a voice coming from limbo, by means of the slender flame showing what direction future events will incline toward.”
Voice coming from limbo? The words seemed to indicate that Nostradamus did not act alone. Slender flame? Willoughby thought about the brilliant arc, dancing amid the dark gasses above H.S.’s electromagnetic pyramid…
The afternoon passed quietly. Willoughby’s eyes drooped. When he awoke, he found Sydney next to him, sunning. He tried not to notice the striking figure beneath her bathing suit.
“So, are you coming to my concert tonight?” she asked.
“I guess so,” he replied, sitting up.
“It’s at 8:00 sharp—don’t be late. I think you’ll enjoy it.” Sydney rolled onto her stomach and rested her cheek on top of her clasped hands. Willoughby gathered his books and stood to leave. “I’ve, uh, I’ve got to stop by the chartroom,” he said. “See you at 8:00, then.” His eyes lingered a moment on Sydney’s taut curves.
“See you,” Sydney said, noticing the attention and smiling. “8:00 sharp.”
16
Golden is the
Song of the Sea
The concert was on deck. The night was starlit and cool with only a half-moon. Willoughby saw Dr. J and Dr. O’Grady sitting a little way down from the Captain’s officers, forming a wide semi-circle that faced a small band of Polynesian musicians. A brass tub, standing in the center of the
musicians, held a fire that flared in the faint sea breeze. The musicians chatted quietly. They had a variety of traditional instruments—gourd drums, hand drums, bamboo sticks, conch shells, and ukuleles. Willoughby wondered when they had come on board. He was sure they hadn’t been on board when the ship left Boston Harbor. The mystery was solved when he noticed a medium-sized ship being towed behind the Absconditus. These musicians must be paid a lot to make such a long jaunt for a single performance, he thought. He looked across the rest of the deck, trying to find Antonio.
He had tried to go below like Antonio instructed twice now, determined to find the wall Antonio had told him about. Both times, he had been turned back by beefy sailors with Brooklyn accents. They wanted to know what he was doing roaming around down there. He used the excuse Antonio suggested—that he was looking for Antonio’s shop. Both times, he had been directed to the shop, but it was closed. The way the brutish sailors patrolled the floor, and the fact that they were obviously not accustomed to mundane concerns like politeness or customer service worried him. Had H.S. requested extra bodyguards to beef up security, or was Antonio right and someone already infiltrated the Absconditus?
He saw Antonio across the deck of the ship. His friend was talking quietly with the Captain. He started to approach, but Antonio, looking over the Captain’s shoulder, purposely caught his eye and motioned him away with a slight flick of his hand. His face looked grave and he did not seem in a mood to talk. The Captain put a hand on his shoulder, leaned forward, and whispered something quickly in his ear. Antonio gave a curt nod of his head. The Captain then turned and strode toward the concert area. Antonio paused a moment, and then slipped away down the darkened stairway that led to the lower decks. For a moment, Willoughby was torn. Should he go after his friend? Then he remembered his promise to Sydney, and how Antonio had motioned him away. He turned back toward the concert group and made his way to a space next to Dr. J. The doctor looked up with a smile and opened his mouth to speak, but his words were drowned out by a loud booming.
All eyes turned toward a massive, bare-chested man who had suddenly jumped to his feet and begun beating on the largest of the drums. A woman wailed and shook a small hand-drum. Willoughby saw Sydney approach from the flickering shadows. A grass skirt adorned her narrow hips, and a delicate, flower-print tank top hung on her lightly-tanned shoulders. Ankle bracelets jangled against her bare feet, and a fresh lei hung loosely around her neck. A delicate ring of flowers crowned her head and wrists. She held up a coconut bowl, her head slightly bowed. She stopped and lifted a radiant, smiling face.
“Greetings, honored guests. Before we begin, I would like to share with you a ceremonial dance of my people. It will invite the spirits to bless our performance. I will ask one of you to drink kava from the ceremonial bowl. It will honor our ancestors.” The music grew louder as additional chanters and instruments joined in.
Sydney began to dance. Willoughby was immediately entranced. He knew she was a famous musician, but he hadn’t expected such grace as a dancer. He had never seen anything so beautiful as the way she moved—with such precision, her footwork soft and swaying. She switched the bowl from hand to hand, twirling it before the fire. Her delicate frame wove in and out of shadows in a hypnotic spell. At the height of the music, she swooped suddenly to kneel in front of him, her head bowed, her arms extended toward him holding the coconut bowl. His heart raced as he stared at her trembling body, silhouetted by firelight, only an arm’s reach away. He suddenly realized that the music had stopped and all eyes were on him. A surge of panic welled in his chest. What was he supposed to do? Take the bowl and drink the gooey, white stuff inside it?
“Drink it, please,” Sydney whispered. “It’s kava. I promise it won’t hurt you.”
Willoughby took the bowl, closed his eyes, and in one quick motion, gulped down the liquid. It had a heavy, chalky taste, but was warm and felt soothing as it went down. He handed the bowl back to Sydney and wiped his mouth. She flashed a quick smile, then stood, and danced away. The chanters began again. Everyone in the circle clapped politely.
James Arthur leaned over. “It was already worth the whole evening just to see Sydney bowing to someone! And did I hear her beg?”
Willoughby didn’t say anything. He just gave the good doctor a quirky smile. He was suddenly feeling very relaxed and particularly good about himself. It almost seemed as if he weren’t really sitting on the cold deck, but floating. Sydney picked up her violin.
“We would like to thank Willoughby for inviting the spirits of the night and the sea to bless our performance,” she began. Everyone clapped again. “Now,” she continued, “I will perform an original composition, weaving traditional chants into a classical work titled ‘Island Dream.’ Of course, the violin is not a traditional island instrument, so this is a bit of a bridge between the world of my island heritage, and the world of my classical training. There will be no breaks in the performance. The concert will last approximately 30 minutes.” Sydney raised her instrument and stood poised.
The music began with a long, slow chant from one of the older Polynesian women. Though he could not understand the language, Willoughby heard things in the woman’s voice. He heard the voice of the restless wind—whistling over ancient rocks against a far-away island cliff. He could see the cliff clearly in his mind.
Sydney began to play. Her violin melded seamlessly with the cadence of the chant, adding a forlorn wail that was at once sad and hopeful. A soft counter chant began, building slowly, like an approaching storm. The drums rolled. Discord pierced the blackness as Sydney’s violin wailed with anger at the thundering drums. She moved around the circle as she played, at one with the music, every particle of her absorbed in the passion of the melody.
Willoughby felt the intensity of the music swirl around him. It seemed to gnaw at his skin. He could see the storm in his mind as if each note carried a piece of the story. The winds raged violently. Sydney’s body twisted and spun, jerking in odd contortions. Flames leapt high into the air, eclipsing what was earlier only the flicker of a modest blaze. Blood pounded in his ears. His throat tightened. Suddenly, the air was alive with numbers, with equations. It was as if he were reading the weather, as if the music somehow unlocked his mind to the very essence of the world around him and he could see it now, all in mathematical expression. He jumped to his feet. “Wait!” he cried out. Flames roared higher and some of the numbers turned red, like glowing coals. He felt a pang of fear; the sails, the wood—they could catch fire! He had to warn Sydney. He had to slow the growing violence; to silence her violin.
His words were swallowed by the deluge. Waves of number and music crashed over him until he felt as if he were drowning in them. He yelled, but no one heard him. What could they do to help, anyway? The storm raged on, drowning out his protests, the flames from the fire pit grew higher, being shaped and structured by streams of glowing coal equation. It lapped around the sails, the ship, the flow of Sydney’s lithe form, like a hungry dog chasing its tail, but never able to catch it.
As he watched, Sydney’s feet completely left the deck. She no longer played the music; she had become the music. She spilled rivers and bridges of number in cascading waves and climbed atop them. Willoughby followed, rising from the deck as well. His feet swayed to the strange tune, the pulsing equations. Then the sails, the ship were completely gone. There was only the fire, and the storm, and Sydney spinning her web of magic equation. The fire curled before him into a perfect golden spiral. He looked down. He had a bird’s eye view of the violent sea.
Sydney’s music became high and haunting, transcending the fury of the storm, calling outward. Voices from afar answered and began to take shape in the mathematical mists. People—island people of all sorts—approached. They seemed to represent distant times and distant places. He saw distinctly their different styles of ships: flat boats, outrigger canoes, ocean-going basket-style boats, long barges. They sailed into the
maelstrom from a haze of churning equation, each ghost-like craft weaving in and out of the whirlpool tide.
The music faded, replaced by a grand chorus of voices and chants calling up from the ships and bubbling up from the sea. The numbers shrank into mist and sea spray. Still drifting, Willoughby spun to find Sydney swirling in a tight arc above him. She had become the center of the storm, of the slow spiral that drew her people on. She had become translucent, glowing with a luminescence like the full moon.
“Look,” her voice echoed in the wind, strong and deep, “blood of the very heart. Here is my life, my line.” Her arms spun outward. “I offer it all to you, Willoughby. Come to know who I am.”
Her radiance engulfed him, bursting upon him like a downpour. It melted his skin. For a brief moment, he was time. He was at one with the voices, his fingertips extending as he spanned the vast eons, as he truly understood the massive infinity of time’s equations. When the sensation faded, he was alone, descending, floating light as a feather, floating, floating, like a lone gull, kiting in the breeze …
17
Blonde over Blue
He didn’t know how long it had been when he finally opened his eyes. He felt the solid deck beneath him. He heard the soft creak of timbers, the lap of waves. He tried to focus and found himself staring directly into eyes of rich, soft blue. He tried to push away, to speak, but no words came. His head was swimming, and the jumble of images surrounding him made no sense. Then, his brain began to kick in and the fog cleared a little. T.K., the cabin girl, was bending over him. He was laid out on blankets somewhere near the stern of the ship.
“How,” he said in a forced mumble. He listened for music. There was none. The breeze had picked up. He could feel the ship rocking in a heavier sea.
“Feeling better?” T.K. grinned.