A Hideous Beauty Kingdom Wars I Part 26

We had fun with it.

"It's a blockbuster, I tell ya! Think G.o.dzilla meets Scarlett O'Hara!"

The conversation came to mind as I tried to think of what I'd say to the professor about his ma.n.u.script. It's Screwtape Letters meets Lord of the Rings, I thought, referring to two popular books on college campuses. Think Screwtape and his nephew Wormwood in an adventure with a band of Hobbits. The emphasis, of course, was that both of these works were entertaining, but fictional.

The trick would be to tell him this without sounding derogatory.

On the other hand, some religious writers were finding success publis.h.i.+ng their particular brand of theology as fiction. Some of the books were even bestsellers. If the professor was interested in having his ma.n.u.script published, I was prepared to offer to write a letter of introduction to my publisher's fiction editor.

It was still early when I arrived at Heritage College. Cla.s.ses hadn't yet started. A few students milled about half asleep and carrying coffee cups as I made my way to the library. The sign in the library window indicated it wouldn't be open for another thirty minutes. I found the door ajar.

The scene that awaited me was reminiscent of my first meeting with Professor Forsythe. He was seated in the back at a table next to the wall of windows overlooking a desert garden. He sat at the end of the table in his wheelchair. He wasn't alone. A figure with broad shoulders sat with his back to me, just as he had that first day. The two men were hunched over the table, their heads together, speaking in whispers.

As I approached them another figure off to the side caught my attention. Sue Ling stood alone between the bookshelves, her arms folded as though she was cold, or afraid. The room was warm.

Since neither of the men had paid any attention to me, I altered my course to greet her first. She shook her head, directing me toward the professor. The look in her eyes disturbed me. It was all business with a touch of fear, the same look you'd see on the face of a person called to a meeting with IRS auditors.

The professor noticed me. He looked up. Didn't smile.

Without turning to look at me, the man with the broad shoulders stiffened noticeably.

"You're expecting me?" I said.

The professor spoke to the other man. "Abdiel, I apologize for the deception, but I feel it's important that Grant meets you."

It was clear this wasn't the meeting I thought it would be. Was the ma.n.u.script just a ruse to get me to the library? I shot a glance at Sue Ling. It was she who insisted I read the ma.n.u.script. It was she who had set up this meeting.

Her eyes were wide with fear.

"I told you no!" the man thundered.

"Abdiel-"

"NO!"

His chair tumbled backward as he stood. His voice made the ground s.h.i.+ver, books fall from shelves, tables tremble.

"NO!"

A surge of energy rippled through me, like the force of an earthquake through solid rock, and he was gone. Not walking-out-the-door gone, but gone gone. One second he was there. The next, he wasn't.

The professor shrugged apologetically. "We need to talk," he said.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. All I could do was look at the empty s.p.a.ce that moments before had been filled with a man the size of a professional football lineman.

A hand touched my shoulder. Sue. She put her arms around me and laid her head against my chest and held me. I don't know which of us needed the hug more.

This wasn't the Sue Ling I knew yesterday. This was a different Sue. Something had happened to change her. She was trembling.

She stepped away and looked up at me, and that's when I really became frightened. She had the same look in her eyes that she had had earlier-the look of fear.

She was afraid of me. Or for me. But her fear was unmistakable.

"Students will be coming in soon," the professor said. "Walk with me."

On any other day I would have found humor in a man in a wheelchair saying, Walk with me. But at the moment, nothing was funny.

"Did you feel that?" I exclaimed. "That jolt of energy when he . . . when he . . ."

Two coeds pa.s.sed us walking in the opposite direction. They greeted the professor. Their perfume billowed around them like a cloud, a nice scent, but definitely overdone.

With other students within earshot, I whispered, ". . . when he disappeared."

The professor led me on a circuitous route through campus hallways so that I had no idea where we were until we emerged in a s.p.a.cious quad with a desert garden at one end. We had come a complete circle and were on the outside of the library windows. "We can talk here," the professor said, pulling to a stop in front of a slatted wooden bench.

I sat facing him. In spite of the events in the library, the morning showed promise. Everything was fresh. The sky. Spring colors. The air. It was shaping up to be a nice day.

"Tell me you felt it," I said, "that surge of energy, wasn't that something?" I felt invigorated, like I could run a marathon and not be winded. And I hated jogging.

The professor looked at me with sad eyes. "No, Grant, I didn't feel it." I must have looked at his paralyzed legs, because he added, "And neither did Sue Ling. Only you."

"What are you saying? How could you miss it? It's like saying you didn't feel an 8.0 earthquake."

It took him a moment to find the words. "Do you remember when you first came here, and you told me what you'd experienced in that teacher's office . . ."

"Myles Shepherd's office."

"Do you recall what I said then? I said, 'Why you?' "

I remembered, and I told him so.

"I know the answer to the question now," he said.

Why did I think this wasn't going to be a good thing? Possibly because good news is shouted, it isn't something shared in some out-of-the-way garden by someone with the expression of an undertaker.

"From that look on your face I wasn't selected because of my natural wit and charm."

Despite himself and the apparent weight of the news, the professor smiled. "Grant, you were selected because you're one of them."

I waited for the punch line.

There wasn't one.

I said, "Professor, I don't even believe in angels."

"Despite what you just saw? What you just felt?"

He had me there. I just saw a grown man vanish. I just felt the equivalent of a carton of energy drinks.

"To put it in understandable terms, you have angel blood in you. You're part angel. One quarter to be exact. Your grandfather was . . ."

I was on my feet but didn't remember standing up. "I don't know what you're trying to do here, but you're not going to pull me into your fantasy world. What is this? Some kind of variation of Dungeons & Dragons where we each a.s.sume mystical powers? Or are we pretending this is Middle Earth? Let me guess . . . you're Gandalf, right? You look like you'd be a Gandalf."

I was rambling. I couldn't help myself. I was scared.

Sue Ling stood solemnly in the library window watching us.

"You told her, didn't you? That's why she acted like she did. You told her I was some sort of freak. Part human, part ED. Isn't that what she calls them? Extradimensionals? Well, you're wrong, Professor. I have trouble enough with three dimensions, I don't need more."

The professor persisted. "The extreme reaction you had to Semyaza when he revealed himself to you, the charge of energy you felt just now . . . Grant, a part of you vibrates in tune with heavenly-"

"Shut up!" I shouted. "Just . . . just . . . shut up, will you? I need to think."

Only I couldn't. This was so utterly ridiculous . . . so far out in left field . . . so crazy . . . I should be laughing at the absurdity of it all. But I wasn't. Why wasn't I laughing?

"I'm outta here," I said.

I didn't want to hear any more. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't even want to look at him any longer. All I wanted was to get away from here, from him, from all this talk of supernatural beings, or extradimensionals, or whatever you wanted to call them.

I just wanted to be left alone.

I stopped running when I couldn't run any farther. It was either that or start swimming.

The sh.o.r.es at La Jolla have always been a place of solace for me. There's something seductive about the rhythm of the sea, it calms me and calls to me. The cras.h.i.+ng of waves against the rocks, the colorful sea life in the tide pools, the ocean spray on my skin, these have always relaxed me, and they didn't fail me now.

As I drove out here over the Grossmont Summit my cell phone rang. I turned it off without looking to see who was calling. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to talk to anyone. When you talk to people you hear things you don't want to hear, so I did the mature thing. I decided I would never talk to anyone ever again.

"Who is feeding him this stuff?" I shouted at the waves. "That vanis.h.i.+ng linebacker? I don't know about you, but it's been my experience you can't believe a word a vanis.h.i.+ng linebacker says."

The waves pummeled the rocky sh.o.r.eline. Maybe that's why they were soothing. They took your anger and aggression and slammed them against the rocks.

Part angel. Big joke.

Well, I knew one person who could set the record straight. My mother. Mothers know where their children come from.

Thirty minutes later I was back in El Cajon on Mulgrew Street, where I grew up. The house looked uninhabited. The front yard was dead and parched, not even weeds were growing in it. The exterior paint was as weathered as Doc Palmer's barn. A half-dozen newspapers had yellowed in the sun. The bedroom window facing the street was lined with tinfoil. There was no car in the driveway, only oil spots.

I didn't know what kind of reception to expect. Mother and I weren't close. Her choice. We had barely spoken a dozen words to each other since I graduated from high school and moved out of the house. When I called to tell her I'd won the Pulitzer Prize, she hung up on me before I could say Pulitzer. When I was invited to speak at Singing Hills, I sent her an invitation. She didn't respond. Didn't attend.

Even as I was knocking on the door, I hadn't decided how I was going to broach the subject. How do you ask your mother if your grandfather was an angel?

As it turned out, it didn't matter.

I never got the chance.

The door opened just a crack, stopped by the security chain. Bleary eyes over sagging cheeks labored to focus. I almost didn't recognize her at first, my own mother. Her hair was disheveled. She was still in her housecoat. Musty odors of a house shut up too long combined with whiskey poured through the opening.

The first words out of my mother's mouth when she recognized me was a curse, followed by, "What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you," I said.

"Got nothing to say."

She started to close the door. I stopped it with my hand.

"It'll just take a moment. It's about Grandpa Tall."

At the sound of my grandfather's name her unfocused eyes quickened. She looked past me, as though she expected to see someone behind me.

Tall Mann was my grandfather's stage name. Born Ulysses William Austin, he made a living as an extra and stuntman. At six feet five he was an imposing figure and was often cast in the role of the Tall Man in the credits. It became a joke on the film lot, one he apparently didn't mind because he began using it as his stage name, adding an extra n. So if you're watching an old black-and-white western and you see in the credits, " 'Tall Man' played by Tall Mann," that's my grandfather.

I never knew him. Shortly after I was born, he drank himself to death-six months before my father committed suicide.

"I need to talk to you about Grandpa," I repeated, since she hadn't answered me the first time.

Her eyes darted wildly, not only behind me, but above me, searching the sky. "You brought them with you, didn't you?" she cried. She was beginning to panic.

"I came alone, Mom," I a.s.sured her. "I just want to talk to you."

"Go away!" she shouted.

"Mom . . ."

"Go away! Go away! Go away!" She leaned her shoulder against the door and tried to force it shut. The lack of weight she was able to put behind the effort was alarming.

"Go away!" she sobbed.

"Grandpa Tall," I said. "Is there something I should know about him?"

"Go away! Please, go away!"

She was hysterical, pounding the door first with her fists to get it to close, then with her forehead, all the while weeping.

I've seen her stinking drunk. I've seen her pa.s.sed out on the sofa in her own mess. But I had never seen her like this.

She slumped to the floor, her mouth twisted with grief. "Go away," she pleaded.

"Can I get you anything?" I asked. "Can I call someone?"

"Go away . . ."

"All right. I'm going."

I eased the door shut and heard her lock it and the dead bolt.

For several minutes I stood on the doorstep. I didn't want to leave her like this, but we didn't have any relatives in the area I could call and I didn't know her neighbors or friends.

Making my way to the car, I determined I'd get the phone number of a local church and see if they had someone they could send to check up on her, possibly take her some food.