The Fifth Harmonic

by F. Paul Wilson

  She turned and hurried toward the others in the courtyard, leaving him alone in the dark under the tree. Will looked up at the glowing crescent grinning down at him, and remembered Maya's parting words.

  . . . the All-Mother . . . will give you a sign. Watch for it. She will smile on you to let you know that she wants you to be saved.

  This was crazy. Had she known he was coming to France? Had she known there'd be a partial eclipse? Possible, sure, but . . . damn!

  “Too much to drink?” he muttered, locating his empty glass and picking up the bottle of Graves. “Oh, no. I haven't had anywhere near enough to drink.”

  With a trembling hand he poured himself half a glass and wandered farther away from Mouchac. He stopped at the edge of the vineyard and leaned on one of the vine row end posts, careful to avoid the thorns of the traditional rose bush planted there.

  Calm down, he told himself. This eclipse didn't just happen out of the blue—it was expected, scheduled. Catherine had read about it in the paper. This was a regular phenomenon. Nothing supernatural about it. Certainly no All-Mother smiling down at him.

  And yet, it looked exactly like a smile. He realized that if he were back in the States now instead of here, he wouldn't have seen a damn thing—it was mid-afternoon on the East Coast.

  But I am here, he thought. And I've been asking myself why.

  Against his will, his thoughts gravitated to Maya and her proposal.

  Will already had an irrevocable trust set up for Kelly, so she was taken care of. Annie would have no financial problems after she remarried. So he could see no reason why he couldn't liquidate his assets, give half away to, say, cancer research, and stick the rest in a trust set up as Maya had described.

  He had no illusions: Before year's end, Kelly would wind up with the contents of that trust as well.

  And then what? Head off with Maya into the wilds of Latin America—what she'd called “Mesoamerica”—and search for a cure?

  Yeah, right.

  Then again, hadn't he wanted to spend what little time he had left traveling? Why not do the traveling in “Mesoamerica”?

  Will poured some more wine.

  Yes, really . . . why not? Why the hell not?

  Not in search of a cure, but just for the sheer damn bloody hell of it. A truly crazy, futile, wrongheaded gesture, but in some perverse way its very craziness, futility, and wrongheadedness appealed to him.

  In his entire life, when had he ever done anything on impulse? Never. If he was ever going to act on a reckless urge, this was the time. Because soon he'd be unable to act, and not too long after that, he'd have no more impulses, reckless or otherwise.

  Yes, Will Burleigh, he thought. Why not choose something utterly foolish as the last grand gesture of your otherwise safe, sane, staid, straight-laced, predictable life? Go off with a New Age healer, go through all the motions, perform every ritual she prescribes, all without one shred of hope of a cure.

  But who knows? he thought. Maybe I'll be surprised.

  He'd lived his whole life believing that the universe functioned according to the physical laws of matter and energy set down by human science. He'd always believed those laws to be right.

  But now he realized that a small desperate part of him ached for them to be wrong.

  He lifted his glass and toasted the grin in the sky, growing lopsided now as earth's shadow moved on.

  “Mesoamerica, here I come!”

  5

  Westchester County, NY

  What had seemed like such an easy, straightforward decision in France turned out to be a complicated process back home.

  Will had broken off from the tour and returned to the U.S. the day after the eclipse, but he didn't contact Maya immediately. Before he became involved with this woman, he wanted to know more about her. So he got in touch with Max Eppinger, his long-time lawyer and an old friend. Max put him on to a private investigator named Vincent Terziski.

  Will met with Terziski, a heavyset man with a florid complexion, and hired him to check out the mysterious woman “healer” with the shop in Katonah.

  The detective stopped by Will's apartment two days later. He was sweating, wheezing, and smelled like an ashtray. Will wondered about the man's blood pressure and the state of his coronary arteries, but said nothing. He'd learned the hard way that some people don't appreciate unsolicited medical advice.

  He listened to Terziski's initial report.

  “Don't have much,” he said, “and most of what I've got is from secondary sources.”

  “Meaning?”

  “From applications to open her business, stuff like that. I mean, I know where she says she got a degree, but I haven't checked with the school itself yet. Anyway, your gal's full name's Maya Quennell, which made my job a helluva lot easier since there aren't a whole lot of people with either name. She was born thirtyfour years ago in Oran, Algeria, of a French father and a Mayan mother. Grew up in Paris, attended the Sorbonne—don't know if she ever graduated—and supposedly has a philosophy degree from Berkeley.”

  Berkeley, Will thought. Why am I not surprised?

  “She's got a checking account with roughly eighteen thousand on deposit, but no other tangible assets, not even a car. She lives in the apartment above her storefront. No arrest record for fraud or anything else; and not a single consumer complaint against her.”

  So far, so good, Will thought.

  “That's all?”

  “So far, yeah. I did find a Maya Quennell who was arrested during a logging site protest back in 1972, but that can't be the same girl—she's not old enough. Like I said before, I'll be checking out the schools and such for confirmation, but all in all I'd say your gal looks pretty clean right now. Wouldn't mind having a set of her fingerprints, though. Any chance—?

  “I don't think so,” Will said quickly.

  Scenes from old movies about pocketing a cocktail glass to secure a set of prints flashed behind his eyes.

  “She didn't happen to give you a crystal or anything like that, did she?”

  And then Will remembered: “She did give me a business card.”

  He went to his bedroom and found it on the dresser. He picked it up by the corner and brought it to the detective.

  “That might do it,” Terziski said, inspecting the glossy surface as he held it by the edges. “Now give me something with a set of your prints on it so I'll know which is which.”

  Although he told Terziski to go ahead with the next phase, Will was fairly satisfied that Maya wasn't a bunco artist. He stopped by her storefront that afternoon.

  “Dr. Burleigh,” she said, her tone cautious, her expression hopeful. “You are back so soon from your trip?”

  “France wasn't what I needed,” he said, and left it at that. No way was he going to tell her about the eclipse. “I decided I wanted something a little more exotic. Like Mexico, maybe?”

  “This is true?” she said, her eyes widening. Was that elation in her voice? “This is what you wish?”

  “I think so . . . if your offer is still open.”

  “Yes, it is. Yes, it most certainly is. What happened? How did the Mother change your mind?”

  “This has nothing to do with your All-Mother. This is my own decision.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.”

  But Will didn't think she believed him.

  “How soon can we leave?” he said.

  “As soon as I make arrangements for other people I am caring for, and you liquidate your assets, as we discussed.”

  “You still think that's necessary?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Will began liquidating. He'd already sold his practice; he sold off his collection of old sixties rock to a collector's store in Manhattan called Fynyl Vynyl, and donated all his western videotapes to the Mt. Kisco branch of the public library.

  As for his rented townhouse, the complex had a waiting list of prospective tenants and Will had no problem finding someone to take over th
e balance of his lease.

  The rest wasn't so easy, mainly because Max Eppinger became convinced that Will had lost his mind. Max was almost seventy now and refused to retire; his body was wizened, his back stooped, but his mind remained as sharp as ever. Max had handled all Will's legal affairs since he arrived in Westchester—everything from house closings to incorporating his medical practice.

  Max ranted about how much money Will would lose in penalties and taxes by prematurely emptying his pension funds, but when he learned the details of the trust, about how the contents would go to a stranger if Will were alive two years from now, he urged Will to have himself committed.

  At times Will wondered if that truly might not be a bad idea. Usually those wonderings occurred when he was lying awake in the bed of the townhouse he'd be vacating in a week. When he considered that he'd soon be homeless and penniless, that he'd be leaving his country and traveling with a strange woman into the heart of a land where he knew only a smattering of the language, a worm of doubt and unease would begin wriggling through his gut. Maybe Max was right. Maybe the stress of having a terminal illness had unhinged him.

  But Will managed to struggle through those moments. He'd made up his mind about this and he was going through with it: Will Burleigh was going to have a goddamn adventure before he died.

  He went so far as to buy a laptop computer to keep a record of the trip. He backfilled to his first meeting with Maya, then vowed to keep a daily record.

  Maybe if he didn't get back, his story would.

  Finally, it was done: he had a few thousand in the bank for travel expenses, and the rest—half had gone to cancer research, and half lay in a trust that would go to Kelly upon his death, or to Maya Quennell if he was still alive two years from now. Only Max knew about the trusts.

  As for the trip, he told Annie simply that he was going to Mexico, never hinting as to why, or with whom.

  Then came the really hard part: telling Kelly.

  “What's the matter with your voice, Daddy?” she said. They were lunching at Coming or Going, a little country French place in midtown. Kelly looked so much like her mother Will could almost believe he was sitting with Annie half a lifetime ago. “You sound hoarse.”

  He did sound hoarse. Could it be . . . ?

  No, the tumor couldn't have progressed that far already.

  “Just a little cold,” he said, not wanting to worry her. “And maybe a lot of regret.”

  “For what?”

  “For not being a better father.”

  He'd promised himself on the way in to the city that he wasn't going to get maudlin, but here he was, feeling bad about all those missed opportunities.

  “Now please don't start that again,” Kelly said, reaching across the table and taking his hand. “You're much too hard on yourself. Even when you weren't around in person, you were there in spirit. And it's not as if you were with another woman, or hanging out at a bar shooting pool and getting loaded. I always knew where you were, always knew you were doing good. You inspired me, Dad. If you hadn't, would I be in med school now? But the most important thing you gave to me is honesty. You never lied, never were a hypocrite. You always lived your values, Dad. That's incredibly precious; it's an example I'll try to live up to my entire life.”

  Will felt a pressure in his chest, an unbearable tightness in his throat. He blinked back tears as he held up his hand.

  “Stop,” he whispered. “You'll have me bawling like a newborn in a second.”

  “Well, it's true. You have nothing to ask forgiveness for . . . except for not treating that tumor.”

  He saw that Kelly was puddling up now. Will squeezed her hand. “Kelly, honey, we've been over—”

  “I know, I know,” she said quickly, wiping her eyes with her napkin, “but I can't help feeling that you're leaving me instead of being taken away. It's . . . it's almost . . . selfish.”

  Is it? Will wondered. Am I being selfish?

  But it was his life, wasn't it? If he couldn't decide how his own life would end, what did he have? Was there a more fundamental human right?

  He promised Kelly he'd keep in touch from Mexico by phone or e-mail, and he left wondering if he'd ever see his daughter again.

  The hoarseness worried him. He thought he felt a fullness in the back of his throat when he swallowed. And when he checked his neck that night he discovered another enlarging node on the left side.

  The next day he paid a visit to Dave who blanched when he reexamined Will's throat. He scheduled another MRI that afternoon and they reviewed the results immediately after.

  “Shit!” Dave said. “I told you it was aggressive, Will, but it's beyond that—it's spreading like wildfire. My God, if you don't want the surgery, at least throw some rads into that thing to slow it down.”

  Will fought a surge of nausea as he stared at the images. He was no radiologist, but even he could see the rampant progress of the tumor . . . the “traitorous tissue,” as Maya had called it.

  “Captain Carcinoma,” Will said as the name struck him.

  Dave looked at him. “What?”

  “The tumor . . . that's its name. It's leading a mutiny and trying to take over the ship.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. Forget it. Look—not a word of this to Annie, right? At least not until I come back from Mexico.”

  “Mexico?” Dave's expression was a mixture of anger and incredulity. “You're not seriously thinking of traveling?” He pointed at the films. “You could be heading for a carotid blowout!”

  Carotid blowout . . . Will hadn't considered that. The tumor could erode through the wall of one of the frankfurter-caliber arteries running up each side of his throat. If that happened, the resulting massive hemorrhage would drain away his life in minutes.

  He could think of worse ways to go.

  “Just for a couple of weeks.”

  “Christ, Will! If you don't have a blowout, in a couple of weeks you'll be on IV's because you won't be able to swallow!”

  That hit hard. Will leaned back and closed his eyes.

  A couple of weeks?

  Maya was getting ready to leave ahead of him—“To prepare the way,” she'd said. He was to link up with her in Mexico a few days later. But how could he risk leaving the country if . . . ?

  This changed nothing, damn it. The tumor had taken charge of the rest of his life, but it wasn't taking charge of this.

  And if he was going to die, maybe Maya's Mesoamerica was the place to do it. No one to watch him suffer, no one to take over and stick him on life support if he became too weak to protest.

  Yes, now more than ever he wanted to leave on his adventure.

  But he had to ask Dave a big favor first. . . .

  6

  Mesoamerica

  Where are we?

  Will stared out the window of the battered Cessna two-seater at the lush beer-bottle green terrain sliding by below. He felt as if he'd been flying over Mexico for days. The trip had started early in the morning at JFK. A few hours ago his DC-10 had dropped through the ochre haze that passed for air in Mexico City. He'd gone through customs and hopped a jet to Villahermosa Aeropuerto where this singleprop rattletrap had been waiting for him. So now, after his third takeoff of the day, he was in the air again.

  Conversation was hopeless. Even if he could make himself heard over the deafening roar and bone-rattling vibrations of the plane, his rudimentary Spanish wouldn't get him too far with Diego, the pilot.

  That he'd learned at the airport when he tried to pry some information out of the young Mexican. Will was able to establish that Diego was indeed the pilot Maya had hired for him, but as for where Diego was taking him, the best Will could learn was, “South . . . we go south.”

  So Will spent the flight gazing out the window.

  Like France, where he'd expected the whole country to look like Paris, Mexico surprised him. He'd assumed he would see the desert settings of The Magnificent Seven
or The Wild Bunch. Instead, it looked more like Ireland. All he'd seen since arriving were endless stretches of green mountains. Now the mountains were giving way to jungles, but the pervasive green rolled on below as they headed farther and farther south.

  South. Villahermosa was in Tabasco, already pretty far into the tail end of the country. Not much more of Mexico south of there. After that, they'd be in Belize or Guatemala. Will didn't know much about Guatemala, but didn't like what he did know: guerrillas, military patrols, checkpoints, death squads, the whole banana republic thing. He wanted no part of that.

  The worm of unease, the worm with whom Will had formed a close personal relationship during the past few weeks, began its familiar wriggle through his gut.

  Things had moved so quickly after his meeting with Dave. When he'd called Maya to tell her he had to leave right away or not at all, she'd sounded almost panicked. Timing was everything, she'd said. She would have to leave immediately. She'd called his travel agent and detailed the arrangements to make for him, and told him she'd link up with him down here . . . in Mesoamerica.

  A tap on his shoulder drew Will from his reverie. Diego was saying something unintelligible over the noise and pointing to a long valley dead ahead. Will saw an oblong clearing in the jungle.

  What? Was he saying they were going to land? There? God, it wasn't a landing strip—it was barely even a field. He couldn't be serious.

  When the Cessna banked into a descending turn, Will decided Diego was indeed serious. He looked around—anywhere but below. Off to the west he spotted a low bank of storm clouds, chugging along just above the jungle like a great gray frigate plowing through a sea of green, but it seemed to be moving away.

  Nowhere did he see a sign of civilization. Wasn't there a town nearby? Or even a village?

  Diego dropped his plane into a long, low glide, just inches from the tree tops, and brought the Cessna in for a brain-jarringly bumpy landing on the rutted, puddled soup of red mud and grass. When they finally slalomed to a stop less than fifty feet from the trees, Diego idled the engine and slapped Will on the thigh.