Max and Tobias headed toward the dining room and I followed them; maybe Mehri was there. Instead, I found my parents. My mother rushed forward and hugged me. She turned to my dad and made a disapproving sound.
“He smells fine, Gord,” she said. “So what if he looks like he busted out of a mental hospital? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look – he’s drinking a beer.”
“I took a shower. Evie made me.” I finished the beer and self-consciously leaned over to put the empty can on a shelf. Dad took a close look and handed me another can, already opened.
“Your mother and I,” he started, “we want you to know we’re trying to …”
“… work things out,” my mother finished. “The separation is hard; ten years is hard. Look at your dad. He’s old!”
“Well, being old is kind of relative,” Dad said. “Your mum was already four years younger than me. Now, I feel like I robbed the cradle.”
“We’re still the same people,” my mother said. “Our backgrounds are still the same. But …”
“Mine isn’t,” Dad said. “I spent ten years trying to raise our kid on my own. Believe me, it wasn’t always easy.”
My mother shook her head.
“Look how great I turned out.” I grinned.
My mother was silent. She didn’t want to start something.
“When are you guys heading home?” I asked. “I’m pooping out.”
“Are you kidding?” my mother said. “This is the first good time we’ve had together in ten years.”
“More like eleven,” Dad said. If this was their idea of a good time, I hoped they could make it last all night. He looked at his watch. “And it’s early. We’re just getting started.”
“Have you guys seen any of, uh, the Shirazis?”
My mother raised her eyebrows. Dad said, “You know, the Iranian family Nate’s best friends with. Sam Senior, Maryam, a good buncha kids.”
“Sure. Mehri,” my mother said. “She’s part of the group Meghan calls the Furies. We’re in touch all the time. By now, I’m practically an honorary Fury.”
“Me too,” I said. “They’re basically all-female. But committed to diversity.”
“You’ve got some good friends,” she said. “Meghan, Mehri, Evie, Sam. People like you.”
“You sound amazed.”
“Even Max. He’s this early-twentieth-century snooty upper-class German engineer, but he talks about you like you’re some kind of ninja. The thing is, Nate, people seem to think you’re a good person, and believe me it’s not easy. Being a good person.” She looked at my dad. “I’m proud of our boy.” Her voice broke. Was she going to cry? I looked around for an escape.
“Well, uh … you must have done something right. I guess.”
My dad hugged her. My god, this whole thing was excruciating. I sipped on the beer.
“The great thing about Meghan’s parties,” I said, “is that everyone smells so nice.” I don’t know why I said something that stupid, but it was better than saying I’m going to die if you two don’t shut up.
“The only Shirazi I’ve seen so far,” Dad said, “is that girl, Mehri. I think I saw her go out back.”
Meghan’s backyard was a square of concrete bordered with a high wooden fence and narrow bands of garden. The raggedy-looking herbs and flowers, already marginal under Meghan’s care, looked about to tip into extinction after being trampled and sat on by the excited party crowd. Sam and Mehri were by the fence and I walked down the porch. While I was threading in their direction, Mehri shot out of the crowd and wrapped herself around me.
“We were so worried.” As always, just being around Mehri was like, the greatest thing. I wondered if I should kiss her, then remembered Ben. Then Sam appeared and put his arm around my shoulders. “Hey, man. You’re back.”
“I guess.” We stood there and looked at each other. All of us a bit older, a bit more beat-up, I guess. I didn’t want to say “wiser” because I thought that as you learned more about life, it was supposed to bring peace and serenity. Not hurt, like it actually did. At least, if we were no further ahead, we could say that through all this craziness we’d done the right thing, or tried to.
“Everyone’s here,” Sam said. “But I haven’t seen your buddy Howard.”
“Howard’s okay,” I said. “But he won’t be coming to the party.” I looked around. “Is Ben here?”
“He was a while ago,” Sam said. “I need something to eat. I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”
“Oh no, that’s okay, I’m not really …” But Sam was already up the steps and into the kitchen.
“You look tired,” Mehri said.
“Like everybody else, I guess. Let’s sit down for a minute.” A couple of people next to us got up and went inside, leaving a space on the edge of the porch. Mehri and I grabbed it while we had the chance.
“I’m in better shape than I was an hour or so ago. We … that is, Howard and I … were on board Sorcerer –”
“I’m not going back to school,” Mehri said.
“What?” This I could not believe. “Come off it. You’re, like, the high school superstar. What are you going to do? Work in construction with Ben?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not dropping out of school. I’m doing something better. There’s this organization on the west coast – maybe you’ve heard about them – the Pacific Institute for Paranormal Sciences.”
“That place?”
Mehri ignored me. “You can get your high school credits through them. Nate, they’re looking for students who’ve had contact with the Great Old Ones and can help with further research …”
I put my beer down on the concrete pad. “I know the lady who runs it,” I said.
I didn’t mention that I was there when her husband died, killed by Nyarlathotep in its sea-monster form, or that we’d gone from being enemies to a sort of mutual standoff, or that she’d marooned herself on a planet where she’d have to wait a very long time to be rescued, if ever.
“Cynthia, isn’t she great? When she interviewed me, she was so knowledgeable. And had a real plan of action. Did she interview you? You going to go?”
“She’s sure …” My mind was racing to say the right thing. “… serious. About what she’s doing.”
“You’ve been off … on Sorcerer? Thank goodness you’re back in one piece. But I don’t know if your mum told you –”
“I don’t really know if PIPS is my thing.”
“– that since Cynthia’s taking a break, she’s been hired to run the place.”
“My mother?”
“PIPS has their headquarters on a west coast island. Have you been there? I don’t quite get the connection with the Great Old Ones, when so much has happened here, but …”
“So … is Ben going to go out too?”
Mehri laughed. “No way. Ben wants to build houses and make money. His dad’s construction business is taking off. You couldn’t get him out of Hamilton for a million bucks.”
“But you guys are like …”
“Nate, we’re just seeing each other. It’s no big deal.”
I realized I’d never told Mehri about my grandfather, the Mary Maquinna, the Medusa Deep, Nyarlathotep and where it had come from, about how it got here, none of it. That’s life. Everything happens so fast.
“This is so exciting!” Mehri put her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “The fascinating thing I think, about the Great Old Ones, and our experiences with the Church, is how they manage …”
Now I was conflicted. I’d planned to take a stand about retreating from this whole Great Old Ones business and concentrating on high school – real high school, that is, right here at home, not stupid … but if Mehri was going to PIPS? One thing about Mehri, her judgment was first-class. If she wanted to go to PIPS, then maybe … and then, there was the thing about being back out on the coast. Mehri and I on a remote island …
“Nate? Nate!”
I opened my eyes. My head was on Mehri’s shoulder. Ben was looking down at me, an indulgent grin on his face. Mehri poked my shoulder and I sat up.
“Sorry, Nate. You passed out like ten minutes ago.”
“What?”
“My back’s getting sore.”
“Rise and shine, little buddy.” Ben helped me to my feet. Evie had appeared beside him. Everyone looked at me in my oversize pyjamas and had a good laugh.
“You look how I feel, dude,” Ben said. “Time for us all to take a break. Mehri and I’ve got to hit the road.”
“Um. What?”
“I don’t think young Nathan should go anywhere,” Evie said. “Not tonight. I was trying to get his folks to take him, but they seem to be having a second honeymoon.”
I looked at Mehri and Ben, gave them a wave. I wanted to say something clever, something that showed I understood, that no matter how I felt about Mehri I accepted their relationship. That I was, even though heroic, modest. That I was cool. I came up with: “Hey. You all take care.”
Evie started to lead me through the kitchen, but I turned. “Mehri, I just want to say that you’re … Well, I just want to say that, for me, you’re like a light. A bright light, I guess, a beacon. A beacon in all this …” Everyone was looking at me with big grins.
“A beacon in …” Mehri said. “All this what?”
“You know …” I gestured stupidly, there was no fighting it. “All this. The great outer dark.”
I let Evie lead me through the kitchen. I stopped to say goodnight to Sam, a few other familiar faces, my parents. “You guys hanging in here?”
“Yes,” Dad said. “In fact, your mother …”
“I hate to say it, but I’ve got to do some networking before I go,” my mother said. “First, I have to talk to you about something.”
“About me not going back to high school here, but going to PIPS? I don’t think so. I’ve kind of had it with Resurrection Church fanboys and acid monsters and flying demons and Great Old Ones. Enough. All that stuff almost killed me. Plus I miss Westmount. I need to stay here and catch up.”
My mother sighed exasperatedly. “Listen to me, young man.”
“I am a young man. Not a little kid. I can make up my own mind.”
“Then don’t talk like a little kid,” my mother said. “You are scared to death of PIPS, not because it’s a waste of your precious time, but because it’s a challenge. A challenge to get away from all this” – my mother gestured at the walls and ceiling – “and into a bigger world where you can work and study and discover new things, and some of those things will be dangerous.
“You know this about yourself because you’ve stared these things in the face, and survived. Nate, so have I. But the Great Old Ones aren’t going away. Those monsters, and what they want with this planet. And look, Nate, now we’ve got people like Leslie Chung-James on our side, and all the resources that PIPS has.”
I noticed that Tobias, smiling to himself and wobbling as he walked, had appeared out of the din and was beside us listening.
My mother leaned closely and looked into my eyes. “Don’t tell me you want a life where the best you’ve got is thirty-five hours a week at the plant and a jug of Steely Dan with your homeboys on Friday night. You’ve seen stuff none of your buddies have seen. Don’t tell me you’re not changed.”
“That’s none of your business. For sure, I’m not ever going back to R’lyhnygoth. Even if Max can put the Raumspalter back together again.”
“I don’t believe you, Nathan Silva,” my mother said. “You and I have both seen things that are fantastic and mind-blowing and dangerous. God knows I’m glad to be home, but soon I’ll need to see what’s next. So will you.”
“You can’t say that. You don’t know.”
“Honey, I know what I’m talking about is dangerous, and I know our relationship’s in the dumpster, but when I say I want you to come west I mean I need you to come west.”
“Wait a minute,” Dad said. “I thought you were going to stay here and rebuild our relationship.”
“What do you mean ‘put the Raumspalter back together’?” Tobias said. “I thought it was a puddle of slag. I quote: ‘The burnt-up bits are still burning.’”
I told him what had happened. “It’s not slag. But it was tossed out of an airship a few hundred metres up.”
“My god.” Tobias turned and disappeared.
“Nate,” my mother continued, “this is what’s called a window of opportunity. It’s called that for a reason: Windows open. But then they close. So you have to make up your mind.”
I yawned. “Maybe we can talk about this in the morning? Will you still be here then?”
“Nate.” Tobias was back. “Tell Max what you told me. About the Raumspalter.”
Max, holding a shot glass of something amber, was giving some explanation to a young man who leaned forward, eager not to miss a word.
“The thing is,” Max was saying, “it’s very unwise to breach a continuum threshold at high speed. You can’t be sure what’s at the other end. With an airship, however … Oh, Nate. You’re back! What’s this Tobias is telling me?”
“Nate says the Raumspalter may still be out there,” Tobias reminded him.
“It’s not going to be in very good shape,” I said.
“But where is it?”
“Lovecraft tossed it out somewhere, I’d say, on a straight line between your hangar and the Oracle building.”
My dad said, “It better not have landed on our house.”
“It probably landed on somebody’s house,” I said. “You might not be too eager to claim it. But now that I think about it, we were almost downtown. So it won’t be far.”
“We can find it!” Max was sobering. “I’ve rigged my cellphone – it’s a Motorola V70 – so that if there’s still a spark of life in the Raumspalter, we can …”
“I thought you guys didn’t want to have anything to do with …”
But Max and Tobias hustled off toward the front door, trailing a small entourage of Nordfeld/Edenshaw enthusiasts. I looked around. Suddenly none of the faces were familiar. But Evie was back and leading me away.
“Hey you there, Evie!” It was a woman’s voice, one I didn’t know. “We hafta talk.” We kept going, but in a moment she was in front of us, grey-haired, heavyset and haggard, with such a sad look that even Evie, who had quickened her pace when she heard her, was forced to stop out of sheer pity.
“It’s my boy Darien. He’s having the dreams,” the woman said in a loud whisper. “You know they started even before the takeover, before Oracle. He dreams that there’s something … something coming for ’im.”
“Adele my love, let me show this young gentleman where he can put his feet up, and I’ll be happy to talk to you.”
“It’s this Cuh-thoo-loo – who or what the hell is that? Darien has this dream again and again, and I heard that Oracle crew talk about it too. Cuh-thoo-loo.”
“I’ve heard enough about that guy to last me a lifetime,” Evie said. “Cthulhu.”
“Me too,” I contributed.
“That’s him. Cthulhu. I hear that name from Darien again and again. Dead Cthulhu lies dreaming. In his house at R’lyeh. At the heart of the world, he says.”
Evie brushed past Adele and we went upstairs, past a knot of people waiting for the bathroom, to a side bedroom. Just enough space in there for an old brass double bed, an armchair with mangy velour upholstery, a frayed ottoman facing a flat screen TV.
“What’s she on about?” I yawned “That lady?”
“She’s talked to me before about her son’s dreams. Huge old cities underground and underwater, and the thing that built them still alive there. I feel for Darien – all the stuff the Resurrection Church boasts about, it scares him. He’s a mental and emotional wreck, but it’s because he pushed back. The Church tried to get him, and Oracle tried him, like they tried other people, and he pushed back. But it’s taken its toll.”
Evie fussed with making up the bed. As I waited, standing up started to seem like a lot of effort. I threw some clothes off the seat of the armchair and fell back into it, my feet up on the ottoman covered with sections of the Hamilton Spectator.
“The bed is made up.” Evie pointed. “Go ahead. You cleaned up pretty well, but you still look like death warmed over.”
“I’m good right here.” I leaned back. Everything did feel awfully comfy.
“Suit yourself, hon.” She lifted my feet, pulled out the newspapers, put my feet back on the stool.
“Thanks, Evie. If I can just sit here, I’ll be good.” To tell the truth, I didn’t have the energy to stand up, turn around and get into bed. Dozing on Mehri’s shoulder, you’d think I’d have caught a second wind. Nope.
I thought, If I can just close my eyes for a few minutes.
In the meantime, I was perfectly happy here. What a great party. People were glad to see me. I got to take a shower. I got to sit with Mehri, her arm around me. And now, this armchair. So great. I hadn’t felt this happy in, like, forever.
I heard the click of a light switch. Through my closed eyelids the world went from light to dark, and images appeared, shapes made of light and dark that were alive and fought for my attention. They waved and danced and mouthed silent words. The door closed, and I was alone. I opened my eyes, seeing Evie’s shadow break the line of light under the door and then, before she could take a step, another shadow joined her there in the hall.
I was an empty jug filling up with sleep. I lay back and eavesdropped on Evie’s conversation with Adele outside the door.
“Evie, lemme have my say, then I’ll let ya alone.”
“It’s quite the night,” Evie said. “We were going to have a powwow about the Resurrection Church and what to do about it. Then all of a sudden it turned into a party.”
“The dreams.” Adele was slurring a bit. Her voice, her accent, the way she talked, she could be anyone from the neighbourhood I’d grown up in. She sounded worried. “And I know that the monster is dead, that Yog-Sothoth thing. I felt it die, it’s gone, and the way it made people feel and act and the things they’d do … that’s gone, but the dreams, both me and Darien … what if they don’t go away?”
“A lot of us have been having bad dreams, hon,” Evie said, “and will continue to do so. That’s just life. But the Church took a real blow tonight. I have a feeling it’s not coming back, not anytime soon.”
“That may be,” the woman echoed. “But this thing – Cthulhu – what is it? Why do we dream about it? And what is ‘R’lyeh’? I tried to look it up in the atlas. There’s no such place. We never heard of such a place, until these dreams …”
“Adele, why don’t you come for a walk with me,” Evie began, “I’ve got to pick up Nate’s clothes at the laundromat.”
“The entrance to this place,” Adele continued, “it’s guarded by a woman with snakes for hair. My son says the dreams are calling him there …”
Snakes for hair? Forget it, I thought. She is not talking about the Medusa Deep.
“… and outside our house, at night it’s as if something is hunting him. Coming for him. For us. People tell me that our best bet is this so-called ‘sorcerer’ thing. Sorcerer can help. But I can’t figure out who or what it is or isn’t or what it or they might be. I need to know about ‘sorcerer.’”
Good luck with that, lady. I smiled as I drifted off. Sorcerer’s gone. It’s toast.
It felt like so many years ago (actually, last October) when I’d asked Evie the same question. At the time, I hadn’t understood her answer. Anyway, now Sorcerer was just a pillar of smoke, a flake of ash blowing apart in the night air. Lady, good luck looking for Sorcerer, I thought. You will get nowhere.
But now Adele was asking all the same questions that I’d asked months ago, for the same reasons. She was desperate and needed help.
“The thing about the sorcerer is, the sorcerer moves between worlds,” Evie said. “It’s a kind of a border creature, always needing to cross over. One way or another.”
“So what is this sorcerer? Can it help me? Can I see him or her … or them or it … jeez, we talkin’ animal, vegetable or mineral?”
“Sorcerer,” Evie said, “can be a somebody or a nobody. Always in those border spaces, those unnamed, uncertain islands between neighbourhoods or nations or planets. The thing about the sorcerer is …” Her voice caught for a moment before she carried on. “A sorcerer can help others to cross over, help others to a safe place – and then the sorcerer goes back again. Sometimes a sorcerer can retire, and live out the rest of their time in peace, but it’s more likely that, sooner or later, a sorcerer goes down in flames. That’s all they’ve got – their destiny.”
“So this ‘sorcerer’ business,” Adele said, “it’s kind of a mixed blessing?”
“To say the least.” Evie chuckled. “The thing about the sorcerer is, it can be a lonely existence. But the sorcerer finds the people they need to find. They connect. Because one way or another, all the worlds are linked up. The space between them is everything, and nothing. The feelings we have that make us fight and hate, the emotions we bottle up, the loyalties we fuss over and worry about and make up and screw up and give up – love, hate, joy, pain, wonder, disappointment – if you move between worlds, you always bring something with you whether you want to or not. Sorcerers can choose what they bring. The Great Old Ones, what do they bring? Misery, slavery, suffering. They’re like big stupid moths drawn to power. They suck a place dry and move on. But the sorcerer chooses something else. They can undercut the powerful, and share some of that power with people who need it, who need it in the worst way.”
“The power of the …” Adele sputtered. “Dammit, Evie, you do go on, don’t you? This BS doesn’t help me at all.”
I smiled in my near-sleep – for sure, I knew that Evie could talk when she got going.
“These word games are getting me nowhere. I need a where or a who or a what. People tell me this sorcerer-thing can help. Will this ‘sorcerer’ listen to me? I’m at my wit’s end here. What is this sorcerer? Can they help me? Can I see this sorcerer, can I talk to ’em?”
“Talk to him? Why of course you can, hon, though your timing sucks,” Evie said. “We just got him to bed. Come by in the morning and we’ll put our heads together. If you ask me, he’s a real good kid. But I think he’s had a long day.”