by Cote Smith
Max bowed. “You’re most welcome. Now get the hell out of here. This is private property.”
* * *
They had the rest of the day to kill. Emile could tell Jacob didn’t like Max, but since they had no other leads, not to mention nowhere else to go, he had tacitly agreed to meet him that night. They would need hiking boots, so they drove downtown. Tourist season had yet to begin. The streets lay dormant, the kitschy shops empty of everyone but employees and lonely regulars. They bought the cheapest boots they could find, which weren’t that cheap and caused Jacob’s mind to churn with worry. Emile worried in turn. What if she wasn’t here? What if they were wasting their time? What hope to find any answers would Emile have then?
Emile found comfort walking around the carefully cultivated downtown. He couldn’t explain it exactly, why he found solace in such an artificial setting. The old-time barbershop, the tiny movie theater, the soda shop. All had the makings of a Hollywood set, some corny show where everything went right, where the conflicts were simple and easy to resolve, and in the end, things would always return to the way they should be.
Later that afternoon, they slept in their car, and after they slept, they ate cheaply at the pizza place. Emile didn’t finish his meal.
“You going to eat that?” Jacob asked.
“I’m not that hungry. I think it’s the elevation.” Emile pushed his half-eaten slice across the table, but Jacob shoved it right back.
“Well, you might want to save it for later. Cuz we’re about broke.”
“We are?”
“Yes, Emile. Things cost money. Gas, pizza. We’re going to need someplace to stay too.”
“I know that.”
Jacob got up to pay the cashier with the last of their money. Emile followed him out to the car, where Jacob sat with the keys in the ignition, but the engine off.
“Okay, I know that you’re mad. You don’t like Max. You’re worried this isn’t going to work. You won’t make it back in time to finish school. You’ll never go to coll—”
“Don’t do that,” Jacob said. “Don’t tell me what I’m thinking.” He stared out the windshield for a long moment, and Emile felt his brother’s mind swirl, thoughts flowing to meet opposing currents. There was hope and skepticism, bitterness and worry, desire and duty. “I’m going to help you,” Jacob finally said. “I said I would help you. But have you considered what will happen if we don’t find her? Or, if we do and something really is wrong with her?”
Emile didn’t say anything. He had asked himself those questions but hadn’t worried about the answers. It was one of the perks of growing up a younger brother, he supposed. He could let Jacob do most of the worrying.
Jacob started the car and turned the radio up. “Never mind,” he said. “Let’s just forget it.”
They drove to the Eldridge. It was dark by then, but they put on their hiking boots anyway and snuck behind the hotel to the employee dorms. The gate was left open. Max and several other workers were gathered around the bench. They were all around Max’s age, maybe a little younger, and were dressed in street clothes and sneakers.
Jacob didn’t say hello. “I thought we were going hiking.”
“I never said that,” Max said. “I asked you if you like hiking. You need to work on your deductive reasoning, my man.” A few of the workers laughed. “Cool boots, though.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jacob said.
“No,” Max said, “I really like your boots.”
Jacob walked away. Emile let him. “So what are we doing?”
“We’re going drinking.”
“And then you’ll help us?”
“Of course. I believe it was Brother Epp of the Capuchin order who once said, ‘Because without beer, things do not seem to go as well.’ ”
Emile grew impatient. Maybe it was Jacob rubbing off on him. He looked inside Max and felt an excitement, a whirring. But he could get no further.
Max stood on top of the bench and raised his hand. “My fellow Mensa, we are gathered here to celebrate the sacrament of holy matrimony between mankind and alcohol. As the Good Book says, what bottle of booze God places in our hand and joins with our stomachs, let no man put asunder. Also, we have some special guests tonight, so let’s show them what it looks like when brilliant minds drink too much and make questionable decisions. To the hooch!” And with that he jumped down and began marching the workers toward the gate. “Come, my brothers!” he shouted behind him. “All will be revealed!”
He led them to the chapel. Emile followed, trying to regain hope, though he could feel Jacob’s doubt and annoyance dragging slowly behind. They entered through a hidden door on the side. The lights were off, but the pews and altar glowed with a rainbow moonlight that snuck in through stained glass windows.
Max led everyone down the aisle. “Now, if you pay close attention, you’ll notice an equal amount of windows, pews, and doors on each side of the chapel.” He spoke loudly, not worried at all about sneaking around after hours. “That’s because Shalor Eldridge, the founder of this here hotel, was obsessed with Georgian architecture, the defining characteristic of which, as we all know, is symmetry. In fact, Eldridge applied this idea of symmetry to everything he could think of. Perhaps you noticed that in the hotel, the Eldridge library is opposite the Eldridge gymnasium. This is no accident. ‘He who balances his life properly will never have his life hang in the balance,’ Mr. Eldridge famously said.” Max grinned widely. “This, of course, was right before he hung himself.”
Emile glanced at Jacob, to see what he was thinking. He looked more annoyed than anything. Emile was unsure how much more Jacob would put up with, how much either of them could endure before admitting they were wasting their time here. The workers splintered into small groups, drinking and laughing in different corners of the church. Max stayed near Jacob and Emile, who felt tired already and wanted nothing more than to lie down in a pew and sleep forever.
“What exactly are we accomplishing here?” Jacob said.
“We’re not accomplishing anything, Haddocks. We’re waiting.”
“For what?”
“For the Minister. This is a church, isn’t it?”
He walked away, joining some of his coworkers, who toasted Max.
“She’s not here,” Jacob said. “This is stupid.”
Emile felt nauseous. “I need to lie down.”
“We should leave.”
“Wait,” Emile said. “Let me sit for a bit.”
Just for a moment, he thought. I only need a moment. He reclined in the pew and shut his eyes. But when he opened them he could tell that more than a moment had passed. The light had changed. Or, it had left completely.
“There he is,” Max said. He offered his hand and helped Emile sit up. “See, he just needed a change of scenery.”
The scenery had indeed changed. They had removed him from the church. Gone were the pews, the stained glass windows, and the altar. In their place was the cold slab he currently sat on, yellow work lights, and walls made of stone. A few faces came into focus. Max’s. Jacob’s. But there was a new face as well, older, someone Emile didn’t recognize.
Max patted Emile on the shoulder. “Emile, the Minister. Minister, Emile.”
The Minister stuck out his hand. “Please, my name is Vince,” he said. He was in his early thirties maybe, though sprigs of white had already begun to sprout in his black hair.
It took Emile a moment to get his bearings. He had passed out, Max said, keeled over just like that. “Your brother wanted to take you to the hospital, but I knew better. Same thing happened to me when I first came here. The other workers too. My theory is that because we’re all geniuses, because we use a larger percentage of our brains, we need more oxygen. So while the elevation is bad for everyone, it’s particularly problematic for people like me and you. Your brother, well, not so much.” Jacob didn’t laugh, nor Vince. “Anyway, all we needed was to get you somewhere a little lower. This is where we work bes
t.”
Emile wondered where exactly they were.
“We are beneath the hotel,” Vince said.
They were more than one hundred feet below the earth’s surface, Max explained. Fifty feet above them was a series of tunnels, and above that was the basement. On the basic tour, you could visit the basement, where Eldridge made and stored his moonshine, a watered-down version of which was now available in the gift shop. But if you went on the premium tour, twice the price of the basic, Max would take you even farther down, into the treacherous tunnels, which, if the rumors are to be believed, once served as the western leg of the Underground Railroad. It was in this spirit of freedom that Eldridge chose the location for his family home and hotel, a place where people of all creeds and colors were welcome to stay and breathe in the mountain air.
Here, Max winked at Emile. “But that’s not the whole story.” For while Eldridge was indeed a fan of history, he was more interested in what lay below the tunnels.
“What was that?”
“Limestone.”
“Limestone,” Emile repeated.
“That’s right,” Max said. He explained that Eldridge, like himself, was from the West Coast. He only came to Colorado after a falling out with his father, a gold miner in California who struck it rich. Anyway, the story goes that on his way east to these here mountains, Eldridge fell ill. Probably dysentery, typhoid, or some other disease he picked up on the Oregon Trail. The point is he was in bad shape. Ready to call it, when his second wife brought in some Eastern medicine witch doctor claiming he could cure any ill through the magic of crystals. What did Eldridge have to lose? So the doctor worked his voodoo and voilà, a week later he’d gone from waiting outside death’s door to ding-dong ditching the Grim Reaper himself.
The only catch, the doctor told him, was that if he wanted to stay among the living, he needed to find a place where the air and water were as clear as crystals, and where minerals flowed in abundance, untouched by the impure hands of man.
“And here we are,” Max said.
“And you believe that,” Jacob said, speaking up for the first time since Emile’s revival.
“Of course not. It’s complete bullshit. Limestones aren’t crystals. Eldridge probably just had a bad fever that finally broke. But that doesn’t mean this underground is completely devoid of scientific value. Plus, it’s a great place to bring a girl.”
Emile wanted to laugh. In some ways, Max reminded him of Austin, but that made him remember how he had left Austin, unconscious and covered in his own blood. Even though Emile had defended his friend that night, he still felt guilty for leaving him there alone.
“You’re not drinking,” Max said. He was already on his third beer. “You need to drink. It’ll make what I have to say easier to swallow.”
“You haven’t told them?” Vince asked.
“He hasn’t told us anything,” Jacob said.
“I thought they should imbibe some of the sacrament first. Easier to get them out of the fold and into the flock, if you know what I mean.”
Vince asked Jacob to sit down next to his brother. “Max should have told you before inviting you here. I apologize.”
Jacob ignored Max and spoke to Vince. “We’re looking for our mother. Her name is Elizabeth Haddock. She might’ve worked here. We wondered if she came back here around ten years ago.”
Vince rubbed his clean-shaven face, combing his memory. “Haddock,” he said, his mind pulling up fleeting images of various women he’d worked with. In one image, he walked a woman down a long, dark hall, his hand on her shoulder. In another, he sat with a different woman on a small bed, his hand trying to steady her trembling knee. “I’m sorry. That was before my time. Why is it you think she came here?”
Jacob thought of the book, his mother pointing and reading to him. It had seemed so important. “Just a hunch.”
“I see,” Vince said. “Well, the Eldridge has been home to some very gifted young women in its time. From all over.”
“She wasn’t gifted,” Jacob said. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“Oh. Well, in that case there’s no reason she would have stayed here,” Vince said, matter-of-factly. “Unless . . . perhaps it wasn’t about her.” Vince smiled for the first time, revealing off-white teeth. “There must be something about you two, otherwise Max wouldn’t have brought you here.”
Emile glanced at Max. “What can I say?” Max said. “I have an eye for talent.”
“Indeed you do,” Vince said. “Max here is the best recruiter we have. Aren’t you, Max?”
“Well.”
“Go on, Mr. Tour Guide. Tell them what you do. What we do. Perhaps it is something they’re interested in.”
“This isn’t why we came here,” Jacob said.
“Then perhaps this doesn’t pertain to you,” Vince said.
Jacob went quiet. Emile could tell his brother wanted to leave, but that he would stay out of pride. And for Emile, whose interest had been piqued slightly. No one before had suggested that he was talented—just different.
“I don’t want another history lesson,” Jacob said.
Max pretended to brush his hair, straighten an imaginary tie. He stood up straighter, and looked more like a magician than a tour guide, ready to dazzle his audience with a trick they’d never seen before.
“This isn’t about the past,” he said. “It’s about the future.”
* * *
“The Eldridge is not a hotel,” Max began. “I am not a tour guide, Vince is not a minister, and if you stayed here, you might look like a bellhop, but you would become so much more.” He continued with a caveat. “There is only so much I can tell,” he explained. “The rest has to be shown. But only if you say yes. We don’t want hotel secrets getting out, should you pass up the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“What opportunity?” Emile asked.
Max held up his hand. There would be time for questions at the end. But first, “The human mind is a mystery,” he said. “Take my own. I am a genius, self- and board-certified, but I have no idea why. My parents didn’t know either. They never understood me, had no idea what to do with me. Used to fight about it all the time, until—”
As he spoke, Emile saw a living room, a fight, a falling glass.
Vince cleared his throat.
“Right,” Max said. “Let me put it another way. We’ve all heard stories about the extraordinary things the mind can do. Whispers about people with ‘special powers.’ A friend had a cousin who could talk to the dead. So and so’s late great grandma could zing a spoon at your head just by looking at it. But no one takes them seriously.” Emile felt his face flush, and was glad that no one noticed him redden. “But not here. Not us. The Eldridge welcomes those who claim to be gifted. We don’t judge or mock. We listen to what they have to say.”
Emile and Jacob exchanged glances.
“You listen,” Jacob said. “That’s it.”
“To create the future, listen to the present. That’s our motto,” Max said. “I know, it’s kind of derivative—we’re still workshopping it. Anyway, we, the interviewers, put each subject through a series of tests. All us baby faces might look like we just popped out of a test tube, but we’re actually some of the finest scientific minds in the world today. Or, we will be.”
Jacob stared blankly. Emile felt the mistiness of his brother’s brain as he tried to work out what Max had revealed, simultaneously wanting to know more and to find a reason to dismiss what Max was saying. “Don’t tell me you don’t understand,” Max said. He ran his hands over his face. “Okay. Listen. We are trying to figure out what the mind can do. If we hear about someone special, we find them, invite them here, and study them. That’s it. For now, anyway.”
“Do you mean . . .” Emile paused before he said the word. He had never used it before, “. . . you study people who are psychic?”
“Sure, I guess you could call them that. ”
“You listen to them,” Jacob said. �
��What does that mean?”
“We verify,” Max said. “At this stage we’re most interested in separating the fact from the fiction.”
“Why you? Why are all the workers so young?” Emile asked.
“I told you, Haddocks. We’re geniuses. We might not have any psychic powers like our subjects, but we’re very good at thinking outside of the box, pushing the envelope of scientific study, or whatever cliché floats your boat. The age thing’s just some dumb rule.”
“Max,” Vince said.
“Well it is. One of the bigwigs read an article that said the human brain peaks at twenty. To tell you the truth, I think they like that we’re very impressionable at this age. It means we’ll do whatever they want, without asking too many questions.”
Vince stepped forward from the shadow, where he had been quietly listening.
“We just came here to find our mother,” Emile said, even as he wondered about what exactly they were proposing.
“Is that right?” Vince said. “In that case, you should have little trouble saying no to what I’m about to offer.”
* * *
Emile could hear his brother’s mind turning along with his body, which rustled at the over-starched sheets. Max put them up on the Eldridge’s top floor, in one of the haunted rooms. They had yet to discuss what Max and Vince proposed. A job, working at the Eldridge, as one of the listeners/scientists. Even though Emile had been adamant that he wasn’t a genius. In high school he was an above average student at best. But Vince disagreed. He said that Max wouldn’t have brought Emile here if he weren’t special.
“You can’t seriously be considering it,” Jacob said. Emile didn’t answer. He folded his arms behind him and gazed at the ceiling, Max’s words echoing in his head. “I’m not sure I believe a thing he said,” Jacob continued. But of course he did. That was what was so exciting, what was keeping Jacob awake.
Emile sat up. On the wall opposite his bed there was a wide mirror hanging above an empty dresser.
“I mean, you just met these guys,” Jacob said. “They’re taking advantage of you.”