by Sharon McKay
“Where to now?” said Goddess Girl.
“The Grand Canyon,” cried Pax.
In the blink of an eye they were there. They glided through the canyon, the soaring red walls on either side creating a cradle. And then Goddess Girl swooped down and perched at the highest point and gazed down into the canyon’s great crevasses. For many moments they took in Earth’s glory.
“They are mountains that go down!” laughed Pax.
“Aggggggh,” he cried. The pain in his side was sudden, like a knife carving up his insides.
“Help,” he cried. “Help me.”
“I am here, Pax.” Ezat dabbed his forehead with a cloth.
“Where is here?” Pax spoke in short, labored breaths.
“You are in prison. You are delirious. The doctor has come many times. You were given some drugs for the pain. They will not last. Close your eyes. I will not leave you.”
Ezat appeared above Pax like a ghost, his body wavering in the shadows.
“Can you hear me, Pax? Squeeze my hand if you understand me.”
Pax felt Ezat’s hand in his. He forced his fingers to curl around Ezat’s hand.
“The government has made a decision.” Ezat paused.
“Yes?” Speech was difficult but he could still think.
“They will execute you tomorrow morning.”
Pax felt Ezat’s touch.
“Pax, it is me, Dr. Aria. Your appendix is inflamed. It will burst any time.” Pax turned his head. The drugs were wearing off. A searing arrow of pain exploded in his head. In a flash everything turned white.
“Can you hear me? If you can, blink twice,” said the doctor.
Pax blinked twice. “If your appendix bursts, you will die in great pain, worse pain than you have now. If you live until morning, they will hang you. We have a drug. It will put you to sleep but you will not wake up. You have to tell us what to do. It must be your decision.”
Pax could see the faces of both men clearly. He wanted to say thank-you. “How?” The word came out in a puff.
“How, what? How did we get the drugs? Is that what you are asking? They were smuggled in.”
“Ezat? Hanging . . . not good for children . . . to see . . .”
“Pax, it is no failure to take destiny into your own hands.”
“Yes,” Pax whispered. “I will take the drug.”
The doctor slipped a needle into a vein in Pax’s arm. Pax could feel Ezat leaning over him, his ear resting just above Pax’s mouth.
Pax’s words were gurgles, little more than sputters. “Kai, find Kai . . . the boy . . . Tell him. Please, find him. Tell him . . . he has his own destiny . . . I have mine.” It took everything, everything he had to say those simple words.
He breathed in and out. In. Out. Life in, life out. Which is the last breath? In. Out.
Goddess Girl stood behind the doctor in the far corner of the cell.
“You have done your best. You are brave and true.” Her words surrounded him like birdsong.
Goddess Girl grew and grew. She held her wings aloft as if welcoming him home.
“Ezat, see. Look behind you!” Pax gasped.
Ezat followed the direction of Pax’s gaze. He took a minute, turned back, and said, “Yes, she is beautiful. The world may never know, but we know, you have fought well, my young friend. You have betrayed no one.” Ezat lowered his head and let tears roll down his face.
“Dr. Ezat, don’t cry.”
“What is this?” Stink Boy filled the doorway. He looked at Pax, Ezat, the doctor, the needle. “What have you done?” Stink Boy screamed as he kicked the empty syringe out of the doctor’s hand. There was a great pause.
The curl in Stink Boy’s lip softened. He waited, unsure. Ezat looked up into Stink Boy’s eyes. Stink Boy’s face emptied. He turned away and shuffled down the hall.
“He’s a boy,” whispered Pax.
“Just a boy . . .” Ezat touched Pax’s forehead. “Go now, my young friend. May all that you have learned in this life help you in your continuing journey. Godspeed.”
Pax’s hand opened and out rolled a tiny bread sculpture. It was the image of Kai.
“Come, Young King,” said Goddess Girl.
Pax floated up to the top of the cell and gazed down at Ezat and the doctor. A long, cool breath left him, and with it went pain. He could no longer feel his body, no longer move a leg, or an arm, or a finger. He spoke, but his mouth did not move. He said, “I love you all,” but the words were not heard.
“Don’t look back. Just come.” Her voice was full of song.
Pax climbed on the back of Goddess Girl and in an instant they were soaring up into the clouds. The wind cleaned him and the sun warmed him.
“Where are we going?”
“To Beauty.”
“Where is Beauty?” he cried into the wind.
“It is a place fit for a king.”
The sea vanished. The earth released its mighty hold. Above the clouds was the sun, above the sun was darkness, above darkness were shafts of brilliant light. And then he saw her. Beauty, in all her glory.
Chapter 31
Ten years later – Oxford University
High above, birds perched on spires, pinnacles, and peaks, and there were thousands to choose from. Oxford, England, was called “the city of dreaming spires” for a reason.
Two young students ran across the green grass of Christ Church, a college of Oxford University, then disappeared through the great wooden doors of an ancient building.
Henry Ainsworth-Smith opened Kai’s inside door, burst into Kai’s room, and flopped down on the only chair not piled with books and clothes. The outside door to Kai’s room, called “the oak,” was open, which at Christ Church meant “I am home and receiving.”
“Hey, Kai, your mobile is off. The Bulldogs are trying to call you from the gate.”
The Bulldogs were neither dogs nor police. And they were no longer officially called Bulldogs. They were now called “Proctors’ Officers,” defenders of the gate and all things orderly, but given that Oxford University did not change traditions easily, the ancient nickname stuck.
Albert Wang, puffing from the three-story climb, stomped up the stairs behind Henry and leaned against the doorframe.
“In or out. Don’t stand there like an empty bottle,” said Kai.
Henry shook his head. “You sound like my grandmother.”
Albert gazed over at Kai’s unmade bed. “You need a bedder.”
Kai pulled a face. Bed-makers for students had not been around for years, but Albert lived in another decade . . . or century, maybe.
“Haven’t you packed up yet?” Henry put his hands on his hips and looked around. It was end of term. All of Oxford was emptying, only to be refilled shortly by conference attendees who would pay to stay in the vacant rooms. Men and women from all over the world would soon walk the grounds wearing name badges.
“I’m not leaving until next week.” Kai stood in his boxer briefs, his hands holding a pair of pants.
Kai had upper-floor rooms in Peckwater Quadrangle, Christ Church. The rooms were paneled in oak with high ceilings. He’d scored a corner room, the best of the best.
Of course he could have lived out like Henry and Albert, but he liked living in Peck. Anyway, even though he was finishing his final year, he was the same age as the first-year students who lived there, eighteen. Except for Henry, Albert, and Althea, of course, everyone in his graduating year was twenty-one or older.
“What do they want?” Kai pulled on his pants, then yanked a jumper over his head.
“Who?” asked Henry as he flipped through one of Kai’s final essays.
“The Bulldogs.”
“There is a man wanting to see you at the gate.” Henry tossed the paper aside and ducked into a small alcove off Kai’s room. It was a tiny kitchen that held a small fridge, a kettle, and a shelf stacked with energy bars. Henry opened Kai’s fridge and pulled out a bottle of something green. He peered at
the bottle’s label, his mouth pursed, his forehead crumpled.
Kai glanced at Henry and grinned. They had shared a room in their first year. Albert had lived across the hall back then. They had all been admitted to Christ Church, Oxford, when they were fourteen years old. They were gifted, brilliant perhaps. Althea was smarter than all of them put together.
“It’s here somewhere.” Kai tossed around books and clothes in search of his mobile. He pulled back the covers on his bed, then peered into his garbage bin. He’d just had it! He had already texted Althea today telling her that he could meet for lunch.
Henry twisted the cap off the bottle and sniffed. “It smells like compost.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Albert, are you sitting on my mobile?” Kai looked over at Albert, who picked up the paper Henry had tossed aside.
“No.” He didn’t look up.
Henry took a swig of the juice. “Mother of . . . it’s disgusting.” His face curled up like a cooked shrimp.
“It’s a vitamin drink. It’s expensive,” said Kai.
“Shades of Mummy doting on her baby boy. What’s next? Daddy coming to pack you up? You know the Yanks would call your mater a helicopter-mom.”
“His mother is more like a drone,” mumbled Albert. “You know—zzzzzzzzzz—watching from afar.”
“I thought the whole point of drones was that they were silent. Henry, ring my mobile.” Kai tossed the pillows back on his bed.
“It’s the only-child thing. Thank God I have three brothers. Did I tell you my little brother just got expelled from Harrow? The parents are so upset they don’t know that I’m alive. It’s lovely. God bless idiot brothers.”
Albert and Kai exchanged knowing looks. Henry himself was nearly sent down from Christ Church after getting mixed up with some much older boys—drinking and carrying on.
“Never mind. Here it is.” Kai unearthed his phone from a pile of laundry and peered at the screen. “It’s dead. Did you see who it was?”
Kai went to the window and looked out over the quad. From his room, third floor, upper right, he could see Christ Church Library on the south side of the quad. To the southeast was Canterbury Quadrangle, to the southeast Oriel Square and Canterbury Gate.
“Who?” Albert flipped to the end of Kai’s final paper on string theory.
“Who what?” said Henry.
“The guy at the gate. Did you get a look at him?” Kai plugged in his phone.
“I don’t know. He looked foreign,” said Henry.
Albert waved Kai’s paper around. “I get the part about string theory being a hypothetical outline in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings, but—”
“Then you’re doing pretty well for a philosophy student. You’ll notice I don’t mention Kierkegaard even once. But it’s not hypothetical, it’s theoretical. Just skip to the conclusion,” said Kai. “And what do you mean by ‘He looked foreign’?” Kai asked Henry.
Albert’s parents were Chinese but he’d grown up in London, in a neighborhood called Golders Green. Henry was born in Northern Ireland, moved to India, grew up in Russia, spent two years in Indonesia, and then three years in Texas, which, according to Henry, was not really part of America but a country in its own right.
“What does foreign look like?” said Kai.
“He means artsy,” Albert said. “Next week we will practice political correctness in Western society.” Albert rolled up Kai’s paper and used it to bat a fly.
Henry left the energy drink on the desk and went back into Kai’s fridge.
“Albert, pass me your mobile,” said Kai.
Albert whipped it at his head. Kai snapped it out of the air like a salamander catching a fly. Kai was a wicket keeper for his college cricket squad.
Kai punched in the code for the front gate and announced himself. “Is there a guest there for me? . . . Who? . . . Dr. Ampior from Cairo University? He must have the wrong person. Can you make sure he wants to meet me?”
Kai looked out the window. He could see students, dons, and professors walking to and from classes, a few in gowns, several on bicycles.
“Kai, what’s wrong? You look very vampire-ish, deathly white,” said Albert, in a ghoulish tone.
Kai brushed him away. “Yes. Tell him that I will meet him downstairs. Thank you.” Kai hung up.
“Who is he?” asked Henry.
“Just . . . someone who knows . . . my father.” Kai was not a good liar at the best of times. “Out, I have to tidy.” He tossed the mobile back to Albert and pushed the two out of the room.
“I thought we were going out.” Henry popped open a can of ice tea.
“I’ll catch up with you later.” Kai slammed the doors.
“We love you too,” cried Henry from the hallway.
Kai moved around the room at lightning speed. Whoever he was, he knew Pax. Cairo University, Egypt—that part didn’t make sense. How would Pax know someone from Egypt? Maybe it was a friend of Bell’s . . . ? There was no reason to be nervous, but his heart was thumping all the same.
Kai tossed last night’s pizza crust in the bin and kicked his laundry under the bed. The cricket bat and bag were stuffed into the closet. He snapped shut his laptop. His desk was covered in papers, and there was something else, the photograph taken on the porch at the Pink House with Bell, Pax—all of them. He opened the top drawer and, with one long sweep of his arm, tried to push as much mess as possible, computer too, into the drawer. The photograph did not fit. He looked around for a spot to hide it and then noticed white boxers on the bedpost. He dropped the photo and stuffed the underwear under his pillow, then took another look out the window.
There were dozens of people milling around the quad and yet Kai spotted him right off, walking on the curvy paths towards Peck. He was tall, thin, and walked with a halting gate. He used a walking stick. It was hard to tell what he looked like from a distance but he did not look artsy exactly. More like exotic.
Kai glanced around his room. A disaster. Maybe they would go for a coffee.
He bolted out the door, but even as his feet thumped down the steps, his thoughts, memories, overwhelmed him. It was hard to breathe. He stopped on the stairs, leaned against the wall, and rubbed his face with the back of his hand. He was sweating. He tried not to think about Pax, Bell, Mega, or any of them. He pushed his thoughts into a box and slammed the lid shut—like the door in the prison. It was a forever sound, a final sound.
It was if he had been born on the day the wheels of the plane touched down at Heathrow Airport outside London. Peter had sat on one side of him and Nadia on the other. His new life had begun that day. Parents. Home. School.
What did this man want?
Kai took one deep breath, then another, before continuing down the stairs. He swung open Peck’s great wooden doors. He held out his hand to the tall, thin man in front of him.
“I’m Kai.”
“How do you do. My name is Dr. Ezat Ampior. You are, I believe, the friend of Pax’s.”
Kai nodded.
“You were a hard young man to find.” Ezat Ampior looped the crook of his cane over his arm and extended his hand.
Chapter 32
“How did you find me?” asked Kai. They stood facing each other in the doorway.
The man, Dr. Ezat Ampior, was white-haired, sharp-featured, gaunt yet stately, like a military man, except crooked—he favored the right side of his body. But, for all his presence, he was as delicate as bird.
“I came upon a journal that mentioned you as one of the up-and-coming talents of the physics world. Your name, Kai, is unusual, but also your last name, Bennett, caught my attention. I had heard of a Peter Bennett. He is a man I admire, a man of great courage. Among other things, he had medicine smuggled into the prison . . . but I am getting ahead of myself.”
A thousand questions were tumbling around Kai’s head. Where to start? He was vaguely aware that he was breathing hard.
&nbs
p; “Where are you from?”
“I teach at Cairo University.”
“Are you a professor?” asked Kai.
“Poetry, English, Arabic studies,” said Dr. Ampior. “Perhaps we could sit? Standing for any length of time is troublesome. A park bench, perhaps?”
The doctor’s voice was quiet, more of a hum. There was a depth to his eyes that was both mesmerizing and sad. What would make a man look like that? But the question Kai had yet to ask out loud was, Why are you here?
“We could go out for coffee, or I could make you tea or coffee in my rooms. It’s instant, I’m afraid. I’m on the third floor.” Kai was sure this frail man would not want to climb three sets of stairs.
“If you don’t mind climbing slowly, I would welcome a cup of tea.”
Dr. Ampior climbed the stairs like a child. One hand clutched the rail, the other his cane. He took a step, rested both feet on the same step, and then took another step. Kai could hear the man’s breathing—slow, labored, like someone who was a heavy smoker or suffered from lung disease. It took an age to reach the third floor.
Kai’s name, Kai Bennett, written in white lettering, was above the doorframe. Kai swung open the first door, “the oak,” and then the inside door. His heart was pounding.
“May I?” The doctor pointed to a chair between Kai’s desk and bookshelf.
“Yes, please.” Kai lurched ahead to clear off the chair.
“Perhaps a glass of water?” asked the doctor. Kai rinsed a glass in the alcove sink, poured some water in it, and plugged in the kettle.
The doctor sipped the water slowly, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every swallow.
“Why were you looking for me?” Finally, the question came out.
The doctor put the glass on Kai’s desk, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a handkerchief. Kai thought he would use it to dab his forehead but instead he peeled back the folds as though he were peeling a banana.
“I made a promise to a brave young man. He asked me to find you. I believe he would have wanted you to have this.” He held out his hand.
Kai peered at a strange little object in the doctor’s palm. It was a sculpture of a child.