Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  "Professor van Houten?" Jennie called through the closed door. "Please let us in. We want to help!"

  Lynette was busy rotating the tea cups.

  "Spinning tea cups," she muttered, and in her over-worked, sleep-deprived state, she giggled to herself, then stopped short. Professor Lynette van Houten never giggled. Perhaps it was time to accept some assistance after all.

  "Green and herbal teas disappear with the same regularity as black teas," she explained to them after they'd all filed in, "though chai seems to have a slightly lower likelihood."

  "What can we do to help?" Jennie asked.

  "The cups only disappear when unwatched," Lynette said, ignoring the interruption, "so I've had to vary the amount of time I spend in my office, ranging from one to twenty minute intervals, though I'm beginning to suspect that time of day may also be a factor, since more disappearances seem to take place at night. Now, I was just coming to check on the room's thermostat again; I'd only started making note of that two days ago, so I'm not certain it makes a difference, but we need to look into all possibilities if we want to find out what happened with subject #1…that is, Christopher McCoy. Any questions?"

  ***

  The Tea Club worked tirelessly over the next few weeks, skipping classes and meals in order to help compile the data. When the head of the physics department heard of their research, he joined in, helping Lynette and her students analyze the information, and the math department teachers offered their help as well. Frank Gardner stuck his head in the door one day and—after a bit of awkward small talk—Lynette asked if he wanted to help. Much to her surprise, he did.

  Finally, four weeks after Christopher's disappearance, they had a breakthrough. Massive equations in black dry-erase marker filled the whiteboard. The number of mugs had been reduced to twelve as they eliminated variable after variable.

  Lynette waited until spring break, when the students had gone home, to call in her colleagues.

  "I've thought it over, and you're not going to talk me out of it." She held up the index card on which she'd copied down the equations from the whiteboards. "I have the information I need now."

  "That's just numbers and figures," Frank Gardner said. His frown caused his mustache to bunch up and protrude, giving him the appearance of a preening walrus. "Even if it's true that the tea and the boy ended up in some alternate dimension, you have no idea what you'll find there. Or if you'll be able to make it back."

  "Well, if I don't, please make certain to water my hydrangeas."

  "Lynette," the calculus professor said, "Frank has a very good point. Let us do some more research first."

  "Will your research be able to tell me precisely where the tea went, or what happened to Christopher McCoy, or what it's like wherever he is?"

  "Well, no."

  "Well, that's what I want to know." Lynette squared her shoulders and nodded to the table where a single mug of cinnamon tea sat, steaming hot and ready to go. "Now. I need you all to leave, so that in precisely…ninety-two seconds, I can touch the mug and, if my calculations are correct, join Christopher McCoy, wherever he is."

  "You can't leave like this!" Frank scowled and looked to the others for help.

  "She knows the risks," one muttered.

  Lynette, irritated at their lack of enthusiasm, shooed them all from the classroom. She watched the seconds count down on her digital watch.

  Five…She stood beside the table, body angled away from the mug so that she wouldn't inadvertently glance at it.

  Four…She wet her lips and let her hand graze the edge of the table.

  Three…She closed her eyes.

  Two…She began moving her fingers back to meet the ceramic mug.

  One…Just as her fingers closed around the handle, the air conditioning kicked on, whipping the index card from her hand.

  ***

  When the world stopped spinning, Lynette opened her eyes.

  She didn't know which she found more troubling: the fact that she'd lost the equation, or the fact that she was standing face-to-face with a woman whose expression looked quite irate. They were in a room with shining obsidian tables, and the discordant twangs of some stringed instrument echoed through the air, seeming to come from everywhere all at once. A deep red curtain encircled the full circumference of the room.

  "Who are you?" the woman demanded.

  "Who am I? Who are you? And where am I?"

  "Why, I'm Madame Chari, and I did not authorize any direct teleport into my tea house! I ought to call the authorities!"

  "Your tea house?" Lynette looked around, noticing for the first time a couple at one of the tables, sipping from mix-matched mugs and paying no mind at all to the sudden appearance of a college professor at their dining establishment.

  "Thank goodness, at least the tea showed up." Madame Chari leaned across Lynette and snatched up the mug of tea with which she'd been transported.

  "What do you mean, the tea showed up? I made that tea!"

  Madame Chari scoffed. "You can't make tea. What'd you do, go back in time to harvest extinct Camellia sinensis varieties? Bah!"

  "No, I came with it. Are you saying that you…ordered the tea here somehow?"

  Madame Chari raised an eyebrow and pointed to a device on the table beside her. "I materialized it, of course—pulled it piping hot, straight from the past. Can't run a tea shop without a materializer, now could I?"

  Lynette stuttered. "I'm just looking for a student of mine. He might have—what did you say, teleport?—he might have teleported into your tea house recently. Have you seen him?"

  "Nope. Sorry. We've never had anyone transport in with a cup of tea before. You're the first. What kind of tea was it?"

  "Green tea."

  "Well, green tea's not real popular around here. It's not even on our regular menu, but you're welcome to order a cup or two…" Madame Chari nodded toward the materializer. "See if he transports with one of those."

  Lynette turned the materializer over in her hands. "But then I'd be the cause of his disappearance, wouldn't I?"

  Madame Chari shrugged a shoulder and turned to leave. "Hey, don't ask me," she said. "You're the time traveler."

  The Book of Futures(Short story)

  by Wendy Nikel

  Originally published by Broken Eye Books

  On a seaside cliff on the far edge of town, a single gas lamp sent Dr. Lucia Crosswire's thin shadow cowering into the tangled pines. Her heels crunched steadily along the winding cobblestones, and a well-fed rat darted across the path, screeching at the disturbance to its nocturnal traipsing.

  Nighttime strolls along the outskirts of Clifton weren't generally advisable for an unaccompanied lady, but Lucia wasn't concerned. With her pistol securely in its strap upon her leather tool belt and her newly invented electroshock weapon at her other hip, she was confident that she'd come out ahead in any altercation. Besides, the townsfolk of Clifton were highly superstitious when it came to the reclusive monks of Mont Saint-Vogel. Rarely did young ne'er-do-wells trespass on the monastery's hallowed ground and certainly never after dusk.

  Even the forest itself seemed to cower from the expansive hilltop monastery, its pines bending outward from the stone pillars and walls. Far above the arched entrance, an angel held a balance, its trays askew. Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.

  Lucia pulled her cloak tightly to herself, her tools and instruments clanking in the many pockets.

  A red cord hung beside the massive door. When Lucia tugged it, the iron cogs surrounding the doorframe shifted and clicked into place, a discordant clatter in the night's placid silence. After a still moment, a mournful bell tolled somewhere deep within the stone walls.

  The door opened. A figure blocked the way, clad in a hooded gown of rough brown cloth that obscured his features and form. Its only adornment was a dull medallion, engraved with the image of a bird. Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

  Preferring to err on the side of wisdom, L
ucia rested her fingertips on the tiny clockwork mechanisms of her electroshock weapon. "Are you Brother Primicerius?"

  "I am." The figure stepped backward, fading into the monastery's inky recesses. "Please, come in so that we may more discreetly address the events of late."

  Lucia narrowed her eyes and gripped her device more tightly but didn't back away. She'd come this far based solely on a strangely whispered message emanating from a wind-up bird delivered to her investigative offices in the town far below. "Trouble. Please come. 10 o'clock tonight," it'd repeated each time its key was wound. The only other clue to its origin had been the return address on its packaging, indicating that the sender was a Brother Primicerius at the Mont Saint-Vogel monastery.

  Lucia stepped inside. The door closed with a dissonant clank.

  "Forgive me the request of your presence at such an hour." The voice in the dark seemed to come from everywhere, nowhere, somewhere within Lucia's own head. A spark flared, a match lit, and the shadowy hood of Brother Primicerius hovered before her as if disembodied by the night. "The brothers of this sacred place have sworn a vow of seclusion from the outside world. Therefore, I felt it best to wait until the hours of rest for this meeting so that your presence here would not be a distraction. This way."

  He turned, momentarily blocking the candle's light and plunging Lucia into cold darkness. Her heart thudded in her chest like the measured strokes of a pendulum, but she followed, matching him step for step. Around a corner, at the end of another long, silent corridor, a gentle light glowed from beneath a closed door.

  "You must swear to me," Brother Primicerius said, "that never, though you suffer a thousand years of torture, will you reveal the contents of this room."

  Though the people of Clifton often whispered and gossiped about the mysterious goings-on upon the hill, Lucia had never heard of anyone being tortured for this information, so she replied confidently, "I swear I will not reveal the secrets of your order."

  Brother Primicerius nodded grimly. "My brother is the vicar in village below. He's assured me that he's confided in you in the past and that you are worthy of this great trust."

  "Yes, he called upon me last spring to investigate some thefts at the cathedral. Has there been a burglary here?" Even as she said it, she knew it was unlikely, for who would climb all the way up this hill to steal from those who'd taken a vow of poverty?

  The door had no handle, but Brother Primicerius pressed a series of springs on one side as deftly as an organist playing a chord, and after a moment of shifting and clicking within, the door slid to one side, revealing the chamber.

  "A library?" Lucia gazed in awe at the rows after rows of books. Their spines stacked upon one another until they reached the top of the domed ceiling where an elaborate wrought-iron chandelier hung, dark and unmoving. This was the great secret of the monks of Mont Saint-Vogel? Books?

  "These are not ordinary books," Brother Primicerius said as if reading her mind. He walked among the tomes, touching one and then another with awed reverence. "These books contain prophecies from the beginning of time, from every man who walked the earth and claimed to have some deeper insight into the future. It is our sacred duty to weigh each line, study each prediction, and determine which prophets were true, which visions are yet to come."

  A library of prophecies…Lucia looked with new appreciation on the rows of shelves. "But what do you want of me?"

  On a table in the center of the room stood a bronze case with intricate carvings on the lid. Brother Primicerius unlocked it. The case unfolded like the blooming of a mechanical flower, revealing a heavy black tome. In blood-red letters upon the cover was the title: Liber Futures.

  "The Book of Futures," Lucia translated.

  "In the holy book of Acts, we are told that Paul drove a demon out of a female slave whose owner had been earning a great deal of money through her fortune-telling. This book is whispered to contain all her predictions of the future."

  "Wars and rumors of wars…" Lucia recited.

  "That and so much more." He snapped shut the bronze case, enclosing the book once more. "It arrived at the monastery a fortnight ago. It is also my belief that this particular relic brought with it some sinister force."

  "Sinister force?" Lucia's keen eyes darted about the room where each flicker of the candle and turn of her head made it seem as though shapes were moving among the bookshelves. Her voice came out louder than she intended, its tone barely concealing her skepticism. "Demons, you mean?"

  "Perhaps the very one which the apostle drove from the slave girl."

  "I don't know what you've heard of my investigations," Lucia said, taking a step toward the door, "but my expertise is in human crimes with human wrongdoers. The spirit world is entirely unknown to me."

  The monk's hood bobbed in acknowledgement. "That is precisely why I summoned you. For our expertise is in the spirit world, yet none of our attempts—no prayers or chants or exorcisms—have had the slightest effect. My brothers have asked that I put aside my own convictions and consider the possibility, however small, that these crimes have a more…natural cause."

  "And what are these crimes?" Lucia asked with some relief at her new understanding of the situation. How strange it must be to live like these monks in a society where demons are the first accused and human culprits only considered when no other explanation can be found.

  "Each night," he said, "as the brothers take their rest, this library is locked. Its door, you may have gleaned, is unique. The combination is known solely to me, and I consider it my sacred duty to alter the code each Sabbath. Were any man to apply the wrong combination of levers, the mechanisms within would release a poison to kill him in an instant.

  "As you can see, there are no other entrances to this chamber, yet every morning, the brothers discover that their books have been misplaced, picked up and set elsewhere. Also, each night, one book—one each night—is missing entirely, and the one from the previous day is returned, as though it had been there all along.

  "To a demon this would be but a mischievous prank." He paused, deep in thought. "But if the culprit is, indeed, of flesh and blood, his motives may be far more devious. With the words these pages contain, you can see why we guard them so carefully, why their disappearance causes us such distress. If someone else were to be taking these pages and using them for their own purposes—"

  "Yes, I see what you mean." Lucia wandered about the library, noting the orderliness of each table, the meticulous nature by which these monks arranged their books. She touched the cover of one, careful not to move it from its current position. "The books in this library—would they have monetary value? Perhaps to collectors?"

  "Oh, yes. Even the books whose prophecies have been deemed false would still be deemed priceless for their rarity. Except, of course, the books on the history of Mont Saint-Vogel itself, there, on the northern wall."

  Lucia studied the shelf indicated, reaching up to straighten an ancient leather-bound book that stuck out further than the rest: An Accounting of the Property Deeds, Construction, and Dedication of the Most Blessed Monastery of Mont Saint-Vogel, the thick spine declared.

  "Were any of these record books stolen?" she asked.

  "No, of course not. They're just tedious accounts of feast day celebrations. Ordinations, deaths, and burials. Money given to the poor or spent to procure the other books. They'd be of no value to man or demon. I've compiled a list of the books taken."

  He held out a scrap of parchment upon which had been written a list in elaborate calligraphy of a dozen books, ranging in subject from the biblical prophet Samuel to a girl in an impoverished island country whose visions dated back only three years from the current day.

  Lucia pocketed the list and circled about the room, peering into each darkened nook and tugging gently upon each shelf. She stopped suddenly. "Have you had any visitors to the monastery recently?"

  "No."

  "And when you received the Book of Futures, was it brought her
e, or did one of your monks fetch it from elsewhere?"

  "It came from the Ottoman Empire, relayed via airship to the New Breckinridge port."

  "Highly guarded?"

  "On the contrary, sent as inconspicuously as possible. The bishop of New Breckinridge paid a boy three coins to deliver it, claiming it to be a particularly thick prayer book."

  Lucia pulled a magnifying glass from a pocket in her cloak and snapped it open. She inspected the lock mechanisms of the door, which bore no sign of forced entry.

  "Did anyone else in the town know of its arrival?"

  "No, not a living soul."

  "And what lies beyond the walls of this room?"

  "The chapel and the dining hall, both locked."

  "And below?" Lucia stomped her heeled boot on a tile, which held firm.

  "The catacombs, I'd assume. Please, Dr. Crosswire, based on what you've seen, you must agree that this is an impossible crime. There could be no temporal explanation."

  Lucia looked about the room. "It certainly is strange, but before I say for certain, I'd like to test one theory, and for that, I will need you to trust me with the combination to that door."

  ***

  Five minutes later, Dr. Lucia Crosswire bid the monk a polite adieu and set off back down the winding path toward town.

  Twenty minutes later, she emerged silently from the shadows of the pines and crept to the monastery's eastern side where the hooded monk had unlatched a window before saying his evening prayers and laying his head upon his small, unpadded cot.

  The corridors were black and cold as a crypt, but Lucia found her way to the library by the light of her small, hand-cranked lantern. At the door, she carefully studied the set of springs and pressed the ones which Brother Primicerius had indicated. The door slid open with a wisp of cool air.