Doorways to Infinity (17 page)

Terry came over after dinner on Tuesday night, and she and Jamie pulled the two chairs over to Fred’s desk, while Fred sat on her bed, propped up against the corner, her back supported by two pillows. Melanie played it smart and retreated to the library to study with Bryce.

Fred pretended to text on her cell phone while Jamie and Terry studied, but mostly she watched them to make sure Terry didn’t try anything with him. Fred was determined not to like her, even though Terry had made it clear that her intentions were purely professional. But Fred had seen Terry flirting with him that day in front of the classroom building, and she couldn’t get that scene out of her mind, CIA cover or not.

It reminded Fred of how she used to feel about Melanie.
Boy, I hated her
, she remembered. Fred had seen her kiss Jamie, on the lips, at Bryce’s party over a year ago, which was the worst transgression imaginable. Never mind that Fred was there with another boy.
I didn’t want to be
.

So Melanie had found Jamie nearly alone and kissed him, and Fred had witnessed it. A few hours later, Jamie had finally admitted to Fred that he loved her. And eventually, she and Melanie had become best friends.
Strange how that worked out
.

Now Fred was sitting on her bed and watching another girl who’d flirted with Jamie.
Woman, actually
, Fred reminded herself.
She’s nine years older than us, and she’s a mom
. Fred was looking for any little sign — a batted eyelash, a demure smile, a light touch on Jamie’s arm — that would justify Fred’s distrust of the CIA agent, but she gave none. Her body language was completely neutral.

Terry seemed sincere about wanting to learn the material, too.
What for?
Fred wondered as she looked over the top of her phone.
She’s already got a college degree. Why is she worrying about a grade in a class that’s meaningless to her?

Jamie was earnestly trying to help Terry. There were no hints that he was attracted to her, but Fred could tell he was totally engaged with the subject matter.
That’s because he loves to talk about science
.

By nine thirty, Jamie and Terry decided to wrap things up. She stood and faced Fred with a vague smile. “Thank you so much for letting us study here. It really means a lot to me to do well in this class, and I think I have a better chance now.”

“Why do you care about it?” Fred asked, “if it’s just a ruse?”

“Because. I just do.”

Fred waited for Terry to tell her more, but seeing that she wouldn’t, Fred asked about something else that had been on her mind. “When we had our meeting the other day at the Rivershire School, why were you so concerned about Sammi?”

“Because she seems like such a sweet little girl. I’d hate for anything bad to happen to her.”

“Well, she’s sweet all right.” Fred scratched her cheek with one red-lacquered fingernail and said, “Didn’t you say that you have a daughter? What’s her name?”

“Stacey.”

Again, Fred waited for Terry to say more, but she didn’t. “Uh…she’s four, isn’t she?”

Terry only nodded, so Fred said, “What’s she like?”

Still, nothing.
She doesn’t want to talk about her, I guess
. “Well, all right. I suppose you’ll contact us if you have anything new to tell us about Mr. Cage.”

“You’ll get a text from me that’ll say ‘let’s hang out.’ Then Jamie will get you and your friends together to meet Eric and me at the house we’re renting.”

“And that’s safe? No electronic bugs or anything?”

“Of course not.”

“Are you going to be okay walking back to your car in the dark?”

“I can handle myself,” Terry said. “I’ve had the training.”

“If it’s ever a problem, I’ve got something for that.” She tapped the fairy pendant that hung at her neck. “It’s a Stupefyin’ necklace. Twirl this at any attacker and they’ll be too confused to find their belly button.”

“I prefer martial arts. It’s more fun.” She thanked them again and left.

“Well,” Jamie said when the door closed behind Terry, “are you still jealous?”

“I guess not. I wonder why she doesn’t want to talk about her daughter.”

“It’s odd. I thought all young mothers loved to yak about their adorable kids.”

“Maybe she doesn’t have custody and she’s sensitive about that. Terry said her mom is looking after Stacey.”

“Maybe. Terry sure seems determined to pass this class. I don’t think she’s dumb. I just think she’s rusty and doesn’t remember how to study properly. Once I showed her what to focus on in her class notes and the textbook, she seemed like she was getting the hang of it.”

“I sure wouldn’t worry about it if it were me. Why bust your butt for a grade that doesn’t matter?”

“Who knows? Maybe it’s a personal thing.” Then Jamie gave her a sly smile and raised his eyebrows, and Fred knew what was coming. “Does that mean you’re ready for a goodnight kiss?” she said.

“Thought you’d never ask.” He put his arms around her waist as she put hers around his neck, and he pulled her close to him and pressed his lips to hers, gently at first, then with a slight touch of urgency.

She felt the tingle, that special magical sensation that she and Jamie shared. A feeling like no other. It filled her lips, pleasantly electric and warm, and spread into her mouth, through her head and neck and down into her body, until she had goose bumps on every square inch of her skin. Even her toes quivered. She could almost catch on fire right then, but it wouldn’t hurt.

After a long moment, he pulled back and took a deep breath. “That was a good one.”

“Are you saying some of them aren’t?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I was just teasing.” She bit one corner of her lip as their eyes met, her emerald greens on his glittering blues. “I don’t know why I would ever be jealous of Terry, or any other girl, for that matter.”

“You shouldn’t be. Nobody could ever kiss me like that. I don’t know how regular people stand it, just plain ordinary kissing. Seems bland to me.”

“Melanie and Bryce seem to enjoy it.”

“Rollie and Nova, too.”

“But not as much as we do,” she said with a confident nod.

“Nope. But maybe we should try one more, just to be sure.”

Chapter 8

Jamie sat on the edge of the bed in his dorm room and rolled his walking stick gently between his fingers. He loved the way it felt in his hands. Even though Uncle Charlie had carved symbols extensively up and down its length, it was smooth to the touch, silky and cool.

He inhaled deeply through his nostrils and admired the still-lingering smell of wood stain and oil that served as the finish. The color was a gorgeous golden brown, like Sugar, and images of the amazing horse circled the thicker end that formed the handle.

But what he liked most about it was what he could do with it.

He closed his eyes and gripped the slender staff firmly with both hands, then, instead of making a portal, he only thought about the necessary spell, and his mind instantly filled with countless glowing lines that stretched away from him into the unimaginable distance.

“Beautiful,” he murmured.

He was like a spider at the center of a colossal web, with threads formed in all dimensions. He could put a mental finger on each strand and feel its pulse, its individual song that hummed through it, that sang of its destination, its place in the universe, or multi-verse. Jamie didn’t know which it was.

When he first tried out the stick and experienced the immense connection of lines, he had been overwhelmed, but now, after hours of familiarity with it, he found that he could manipulate the glowing strands.

My map
. He smiled to himself and found the lines that stretched to the planets he was most familiar with — Eddan’s world and the three moon world. Jamie could change the colors of the threads, assigning different hues to them as markers. The line to Eddan’s world was now bright green, and the three moon world was brilliant white. Jamie had read somewhere that the human eye could detect as many as ten million different colors.
Even that won’t be enough. There are too many lines, too many worlds
.

But that was a good thing, to him. Jamie could determine differences between the threads in ways beyond touch and vision. He had another sense, a gift from the magic stick, which enabled him to pick out any of them, all of them.
There could be billions
. He suddenly heard Carl Sagan’s voice in his head.
Beel-yuns
.
I wish he were alive to see this. He’d be in Astrophysicists’ Heaven. The Super-Cosmos
. Jamie gripped the stick tighter and sent his consciousness out into the vastness of the lines.
Here’s to you Carl. I know you would appreciate this
.

Jamie’s concentration was broken and the image vanished when he heard his door open and Bryce poked his head inside. “Dude,” he said, “you playin’ with your stick again?”

“Yeah. A little.”

“You ready to head over to the dining hall? I’m starving.”

“I suppose.” Jamie laid his stick on the bed and stood.

“Why don’t you make us a doorway to it? My legs are tired.”

“It’s not even two hundred yards from here.”

“Still, it’d be nice. Those sprints we ran at practice wore me out.”

“Me too.” Jamie joined him in the short corridor that connected their two rooms. “But we gotta walk anyway. Besides, where would I put the doorway? Too many people around. They’d notice.”

“We could get Fred and she could lead the way through it with her Stupefyin’ pendant, then no one would know.”

“Too complicated. It’s easier to walk.”

Bryce put his hand on the door that led out to the hall. “What’s the point of having magic if you can’t do stuff like that?”

“I ask myself that all the time. But we still gotta walk.”

* * *

Track practice ended late the next day, and it was nearly dark by the time Jamie and Bryce walked across campus back to their dorm. The sky was made gloomier by the cold, misting rain that cloaked the air in a muffled stillness.

Jamie carried his athletic bag in one hand and used his other to pull his hood up over his head. “Man, this weather stinks.”

“It’s supposed to get worse,” Bryce said. “It’s going to turn into a steady rain that’s supposed to last for several days. Maybe even a week.” A musical tone sounded from Bryce’s athletic bag and he stopped and reached into one of the side pockets. “Hold on. Let’s see who this is.”

Bryce checked the display on his phone and said, “It’s a text from Fred. She wants to know why you aren’t answering your phone.”

“Left it in my room.”

“She said Terry texted her and wants to hang out.”

Jamie glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot. He and Bryce had the sidewalk all to themselves, the other students driven indoors by the rain. “Hang out, as in the big hang out?”

“All caps HANG OUT.”

“That’s supposed to be secret-agent subtle? All caps?”

“I guess that means right now. It must be important.”

“Can’t it wait ’till after we shower and eat?”

“Your call, dude. I’ll go now if we have to.”

“All right, but let’s drop our bags off first.”

Jamie and his friends met in Fred’s dorm room and prepared to go meet Eric and Terry. Melanie turned her laptop so that Jamie could see the screen and said, “Here it is on satellite view.” She touched the display. “That little house right there. Can you get us to it?”

Jamie closed his eyes briefly while he oriented the location in his magic sense of space. “Where exactly should we come in? I can’t make a doorway inside the house until I get familiar with it firsthand, or make a peephole. That’s tedious, if I don’t get it right the first time.”

“Terry said go to the backyard. It’s screened by overgrown shrubs.”

Fred patted her hair and frowned. “We’ll have to walk through the rain.”

“Poor baby!” Nova poked out her lower lip. “Her pretty red curls might get wet.”

Fred scowled at her. “They won’t be pretty after that. I’ll look like Frizzy Miss Lizzy.”

“I’ll put us as close to the back door as I can,” Jamie said. “Melanie, text her and tell her we’re on our way.”

Jamie outlined a portal and pushed it open to reveal a dark, single-story house, with water dripping from an awning over a stoop. He and his friends went through the magic opening and onto the wet grass, and someone swung the back door wide. Jamie and the others rushed to it and stepped inside to a small, warm kitchen.

“That was fast.” Terry flipped on the overhead light.

“We took the express portal.” Rollie brushed the water from his short hair with one hand and looked around. “This is your place?”

“Fabulous, isn’t it?” Terry said. “Martha Stewart would be proud.”

The kitchen had old cabinets that had been painted yellow sometime in the last century and the linoleum on the floor was badly scuffed. The avocado-green appliances looked like they were purchased in 1970.

“Looks like typical off-campus housing, to me,” Bryce said. “The rest of the place like this?”

“All the rooms are dumpy, but I’ve been stuck in worse places while on assignment. At least the heat works, there’s hot water, and it’s furnished. Sort of. It’s all yard-sale style.”

She led them into the living room, where the curtains were drawn over the windows and a single table lamp was lit, over by the mismatched sofa and recliner. Something smelled vaguely of old dog, an odor Jamie was familiar with from his years of working at the veterinary clinic. Rollie seemed to notice it too, with a wrinkled nose and a frown.

Eric sat at what must’ve been the dining table, though it was barely recognizable, buried under stacks of electronic equipment, wires running everywhere like tangled spaghetti. He wore his business-like dark slacks and long sleeved white shirt, and black headphones covered his ears. He slipped them from his head when he saw them and he rose from his seat. “Glad you’re here,” he said without smiling.

“You listenin’ to some tunes, Agent Eric?” Nova snapped her fingers and waggled her head. “Some rap or some reggae? No, let me guess…you’re probably into golden oldies and Elvis. Right?”