Melody and the Pier to Forever
Shawn Michel de Montaigne
Copyright 2011 by Shawn Michel de Montaigne
Smashwords Edition
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~~*~~
The
manuscript to
Melody and
the Pier to Forever
has
been time-stamped.
All Rights Reserved.
All
characters in this novel are entirely fictional.
Any resemblance
to real-life individuals is purely coincidental.
All
illustrations and photography
are by Shawn Michel de Montaigne or
Kyla Cardinalis,
and are copyrighted (2004—2011) to both.
Cover designed by Shawn Michel de Montaigne, Kyla Cardinalis, and Feeriee13.
Visit
http://www.ThePiertoForever.webs.com
for
more information about the novel and me, the author.
A Special Note to Those Reading This Edition
Melody and the Pier to Forever is split into Parts. Parts I, III, and V have introductory prologues, which you might miss if you simply click the chapter links.
For those who post a review of Melody and the Pier to Forever online, send me an e-mail (ThePiertoForever –at- gmail.com) with a link to the review, and I’ll send you “I Am the Answer,” a wonderful short story about Clockwise—Saeire Insu Supreme Commander Guptaamaq Jelignite—written by Kyla Cardinalis. And if your review is really nice, I’ll send you a full novelette about another Saeire Insu hero, one you haven’t heard of yet, who goes by the name of Kaza of Theseus.
Dedicated to Mom, who always loved my stories.
Melody and the Pier to Forever
Part
I:
The Proof
Prologue
i
Seeing
Things
Twenty-two
Years
Maggie
Singleton
Dinner
On the Pier
Mysteries
Part
II: The Young Master
Twin
Angels
A
New, Forgotten Life
Painting
With Sound
Adele
D. Hoffman
Beer
Coaster
Fiddling
With Eternity
A
Different Reality
Part
III: Aecxis
Prologue
iii
Exponential
Growth
Suspicion
of Danger
Red
and Black
The
Prayer of Ammalinaeus
Emptying
Into the Sea
Recognition
Infinitely
Larger Than Infinitely Large
Part
IV: Transcendental Reality
Suspension
of Belief
Ye
Scurvy Dog
The
River to the Sankyan
Between
Two Monoliths
The
Eleysian Teardrop
We
Are One
Part
V: The Legend of the Red Talon
Prologue
v
The
Last King of Vanerrincourt
The
Procession of Roses
The
Temple Kentein Intersectum
Eleysius
and His Mighty Talisman
Three
More Charges and a Bedtime Story
Stars
The
Lizard and the Snake
Rendan
Mortalis
Faster
Than Fear
Parade
At King’s Perch
The
Keeper and the Storm
Origin
Satelemark
Riparius
The
Wheel and the Call
The
Day of Fire and Ice
The
Tangent
Part
VI: Apparent Reality
Home
Tachyon
The
Kathlin Rory Carrick Castle
Jim
Snelly
Sea
Angels
A
Warm Touch
The
Serig
Of
Remembrances and Sacrifices
Epilogue
i
—Begin Transmission—
For me, there is only the traveling on
paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I
travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full
length, and there I travel,
looking, looking breathlessly ...
--Carlos
Castaneda
~the proof~
The greatness of a man’s power is the
measure of his surrender.
--William
Booth
The
difference in men does not lie in the size of their hands, nor in the
perfection of their bodies, but in this one sublime ability of
concentration: to throw the weight with the blow, to live an eternity
in an hour.
--Elbert
Hubbard
On a quiet, cool January day in 1983, a hurricane roared suddenly to life off the extreme southern coast of California, slamming into the tiny seaside community of Imperial Beach less than an hour later. Weather forecasters never saw the freak storm coming: within mere minutes it had simply materialized over calm Pacific seas, as if by magic. There was no warning: by the time they realized what was happening, it was too late. The swirling tempest had blown ashore. Hundreds of people would lose their lives.
In its relentless fury, the hurricane completely destroyed the Imperial Beach Pier. Forty-foot-tall waves rushed in, pounding the mighty structure mercilessly until it shuddered and collapsed into the boiling, triumphant sea. Two men died on the doomed Pier; one yelled into his walkie-talkie in his final moments that a terrible shadow was moving towards him over the long walkway, a shadow that had materialized abruptly through the heavy veil of driving rain; a shadow like Death itself. Then he screamed: a high-pitched, spine-tingling shriek—and then … only the eerie crackling of radio static. His body, and the body of his coworker, was never found.
And then, as suddenly as it had formed, the hurricane dissipated, spinning apart into airy nothingness.
One night not long after the storm had passed, a small boat materialized as though from nowhere a mile out in the calm open water. The boat carried a man. He was large, with short black hair just starting to gray, intense green eyes, devilish eyebrows, and a strong chin covered in a neatly trimmed beard. He wore the garb of a different place and a separate time: the regal clothing of a ruler. He made his way confidently towards shore, rowing strongly, the ghostly silver orb of the moon lighting his way, the water beneath him black and insubstantial, as if he were rowing through timeless space. Pieces of the shattered Pier still floated way out here; he watched them ruefully as they drifted by. Some time later he caught the incoming surf, riding it expertly, the roaring foam under his hull pale and translucent, like liquid diamonds. Once he had pulled the skiff securely upon the soft wide band of beach sand, he gazed about himself; at the muted yellow lights from the homes lining the beach; up at the silver circle of the rising moon; and then back out over the water, where once stood a great Pier. At this last, he stared for a long time, his countenance drawn and severe.
When morning came, there was no sign of him or the boat.
Eight years passed.
It was now 1991. San Diego’s Port Authority had rebuilt the Imperial Beach Pier; and it was on this day, the fourteenth of March, that they had chosen to christen it. And as the champagne flowed and the dignitaries shook hands and the cameras flashed along its fifteen hundred foot length, just a few blocks away, within the darkened bedroom of a small pink home nestled peacefully under the sleepy shade of ocean pine and sycamore, a couple lay in bed. They had just made love. They were lying close together, holding each other, trying to catch their breath. Their eyes, unfocused and soft, were not upon each other, but upturned towards the ceiling. They were listening intently; listening to the most beautiful music they had ever heard. Music without sound or source, but played within the being of each, having come to them at the same surprising moment, at the same time: as though the impassioned act that for a brief moment had merged their souls had been the catalyst by which the melody could come to life and realize itself.
And so, when a small, pink bundle of joy arrived nine months later, the happy couple had already decided what they were going to name her: Melody.
Melody was a quiet girl from the start, with large, dark eyes like the shade under that ocean pine and sycamore; pretty eyes that belied a piercing yet humble intelligence; eyes that reflected the flaming western skies perfectly as her mother held her while sitting on the beach near the newly rebuilt Pier, watching the brilliant, squashed orange orb of the sun set over the blue Pacific Ocean.
When Melody was two she began humming a song. They were just fragments, pieces really, but enough to leave her mother in stunned silence; for put together they became the very song “heard” that quiet March day nearly three years ago. Melody’s mom would often ask her: What song are you humming, Bug? But her little girl would only smile and reply: I don’t know, Momma. Her mother would ask: Did you hear it on the radio? The television? But Melody was sure she hadn’t heard it any of those places. And despite several lengthy and exhaustive searches, Melody’s mother could never identify the song or its composer. She eventually gave up her search, content to feel the sense of the miraculous every time she heard her daughter humming it.
When Melody was five she began taking a strong interest in her mother’s college Algebra textbook, staring at the cryptic symbols for hours at a time, asking her mom what they meant and how could they be one thing and yet reveal another? To stoke her curiosity, Melody’s mother bought her books as soon as she could read: books on simple mathematics that Melody would devour in mere days. Melody’s mom loved to watch her daughter as she struggled over this math problem or that: not so much because Melody was learning mathematics, but because she’d absentmindedly hum that very precious song while doing so.
Melody’s quiet demeanor and keen intelligence, as well as her fierce stubborn streak, left her very lonely as she grew up. She was often teased cruelly at school, where her classmates called her “nerd” and laughed derisively at her behind her back as she passed by. She was always alone on the playground during recess, always found to be walking quietly around, her hands in her pockets, simply observing the other kids as they played.
One sleepy late afternoon Melody, aged twelve, took a lonesome walk to the end of the Pier, which she did often. She was even unhappier on this particular trek, however, because she had just had an argument with her mother—the one person she felt who even bothered to acknowledge her existence. But as Melody stood there, leaning against the wooden guardrail at Pier’s end, watching the sun set, she found herself unable to stew over her troubles, because at that very moment she could hear a violin playing: a violin that seemed to call to her very soul, as if it knew everything about her and shared in her unending private anguish—and yet one that challenged her to lift her chin and face her days with joy and strength. It was music that brought ready tears to her eyes, eyes that Melody closed tightly to the monotonous reality around her, wishing upon wish that the violin could take the place of her five senses, for its hopeful reality was far and away more pleasant than hers. But then the music stopped, and after holding her eyes shut for a few more cherished moments, Melody sighed heavily and reluctantly blinked them open, her cheeks streaked and red.
To her right, just feet away, a pretty Japanese girl sat in a wheelchair, a violin case in the chair’s back pouch. She was gazing rapturously about herself, as if seeing the world for the first time.
And that is how Melody Singleton met Yaeko Mitsaki, her best friend; and how Melody’s—and Yaeko’s—loneliness thus ended once and for all. It would prove a powerful friendship, so much so that it would eventually inspire a dispossessed kingdom to go to war against a fearsome and evil oppressor, a dark sorcerer of untold power who twenty years earlier had conjured a hurricane out of thin air to destroy that kingdom—and its king.
In the meantime, Melody hasn’t noticed that a new mathematics teacher is working at her middle school: a large man, with graying hair, intense green eyes, devilish eyebrows, and a close-cropped beard over a strong chin.
A man who has been searching for Melody for over twenty years.
And now, a new, devastating hurricane is brewing, one far more powerful than the wicked tempest that destroyed the Imperial Beach Pier and took hundreds of lives so long ago. This storm, however, is not gathering over the waves of a vast blue ocean, but behind the inquisitive brown eyes of Melody Singleton herself. For a strange, magical new symbol keeps appearing when Melody opens her Algebra textbook, one beautifully compelling and entrancing; a mysterious symbol that wields enormous power to she who can see and understand it; a symbol with equal abilities to mend and heal—or divide and destroy.
Melody is staring at that very symbol right now, unaware of its latent potential or its lurking dangers; she’s staring and humming softly to herself, endeavoring to make it do her bidding….
Chapter
1
Seeing
Things
Melody concentrated.
She was bent over her mathematics textbook, lost in effort, humming very softly to herself. Her dark brown eyes would occasionally squint, her brow creasing, as she focused on the Algebra problem. Problem thirty-nine on page four hundred five. She had long since forgotten the page or the problem number: this particular problem she had focused on for three weeks straight now. The page the problem was on had been since partially torn and dog-eared, to go with the brown half-moon sliver of a soda can stain on it. All Melody’s doing.
The rest of the class was working on problem fourteen, on page one thirty-three. Melody didn’t hear when the teacher, Mrs. Lilywhite, called her name.
She stared at the math problem. It was a normal problem, an expression containing x’s and y’s and z’s, coupled with several integers, two of which were negative; it was a normal mathematics problem save for one symbol, one that, prior to several weeks ago, Melody had never seen before and struggled to believe actually existed, a symbol that was intensely sharp and radiant when first apprehended, startling her such, but one that would then quickly fade in and out of focus, as if seen through a liquid curtain of burning tears. But right now, as she gawked at it, the symbol was piercingly clear. A symbol like a question mark, but without the period—and with an odd, pleasantly compelling curly-Q at its top. The first time Melody saw the symbol she feared she was going crazy, was seeing things that just weren’t there.
In a mild panic, she had drawn the symbol (as best she could) as it appeared to her and had shown it to her best friend Yaeko Mitsaki. But Yaeko had never seen anything like it. Still not sure she wasn’t going insane, Melody faked symptoms of illness so her mother would take her to the doctor, who promptly pronounced her in the prime of health. Then it was the eye doctor, who later bragged to her mother that Melody actually had slightly better than 20:20 vision. Melody didn’t have the courage to fake outright lunacy in order to get her mother to schedule a visit to the psychiatrist. But it no longer seemed necessary: the only time she saw this symbol was here, in this Algebra textbook, and with this problem. And even then it took massive amounts of concentration….
As she focused the alien symbol began moving, changing shape, changing color even … even seemingly growing out of the page as a three-dimensional character, appearing wooden, then metallic, then clear and green as an emerald, an object created by some magical woodworker or jeweler, from a remote, faraway time and place. She smiled absentmindedly even as she tried to grasp the symbol with her mind, to try to make it do her bidding—
A large, beefy hand slammed down on her desk. “Miss Singleton!”
Melody’s head snapped up. Mrs. Lilywhite loomed over her, her round fat face tight and red, an angry tomato threatening to burst. “When I ask you a question, young lady, you had better respond!”
Several of her classmates giggled nervously. Several others started whispering. Melody thought she could hear “freak” and “weirdo” and “dork” among the silenced hissing. Her heart pounded with fear. This wasn’t the first time she had been caught like this, focusing on another problem, oblivious to the class—or the lesson. Mrs. Lilywhite leaned back, bringing her hands to her enormous cup-holder hips. “The answer, Miss Singleton?” Her self-righteous glare, coupled with the very slightest of sneers, told Melody that Mrs. Lilywhite already knew that asking the question was unnecessary.
She heard from a corner of the classroom: “It isn’t Melody Singleton, but Melody Simpleton.” Mrs. Lilywhite did nothing to quiet the harassers or the laughter that followed.
Melody swallowed hard, looking down and away from that oppressive glare, her face flushing with embarrassment. In a voice half whisper, half plea, she said, “I … Which problem are we working on?”
The classroom erupted with much louder laughter. A fat boy, Tommy Heffledorf, who sat directly in front of her, slapped his hand on his desk. “Put her in special ed!” he roared.
“I think she already is!” another shot back.
A third remarked, “She’s too stupid to be here, Mrs. Lilywhite. Can’t you just move her to another classroom?”
Mrs. Lilywhite shook her head with professional disdain, her eyes fixed downward on the girl before her, pinning her like a butterfly to corkboard. Finally, after another minute of hostile noise, the volume of which was climbing by the second, she raised a hand and quieted her students, most of whom were eagerly awaiting the punishment coming for this shy, introspective middle school girl who wouldn’t pay attention. Mrs. Lilywhite eyed Melody down a wide, bulbous nose, on which a pair of old black cat glasses sat halfway, giving her a sharp, studied appearance, despite her considerable wide heft.
Melody softly closed her book. She knew what was coming: she had been warned a week ago—no, wait: three days ago—that if she was caught “napping” again in this advanced mathematics classroom she’d be moved to a lesser one. She had no doubt the boom was about to be lowered. Her face burned. She felt not an inch tall, but miles long, as if her body had been stretched painfully, unmercifully for all to see and laugh at. Her hands felt too large, her forehead too broad; her clothes clung to her, suddenly threadbare and too tight and woefully out of style.
Mrs. Lilywhite held her teacherly pose for two seconds longer than Melody thought she could bear. Melody stared down at her desk, waiting. Finally she heard: “This is a GATE class, young lady: Gifted and Talented Education. There is no time to wait for you to get your act together! Gather your belongings and come with me, please.”
Melody stood clumsily, jamming her Algebra text into her backpack, which was already stuffed full. She didn’t wait to zip it shut, but hurried after Mrs. Lilywhite, who was already walking out the classroom door. Melody’s legs wobbled. She wanted desperately to disappear, to simply vanish. As she passed the front row, someone reached out and yanked hard on the open flap of the backpack. Her books spilled out, one after the other, falling loudly on the nearest desk, falling open on the floor. Her pencils and pens tumbled out as well. The closest students kicked them away from her as she went to grab them. The pages of several texts had been crushed; one page had torn down the middle.
“Melody Singleton, right this instant!”
The kids laughed louder. Melody came up—and bumped her head hard against the corner of the desk she was under while groping for her mathematics text—the most important one of all to her. More raucous laughing. She heard: “Loser!” “Look at her—she’s an idiot!” “Du-u-h!” “Buh-bye, freakazoid!” She stood, her head throbbing in pain, fighting back the tears. She hadn’t grabbed all her books, or even most of them, but she had a death grip on her math text, and that was enough for her. She hurried out the door to an impatiently waiting Mrs. Lilywhite. A wad of white notebook paper flew in a wide arc over her shoulder, bouncing ahead of teacher and student alike. Mrs. Lilywhite looked sternly back into the classroom. “The rest of you will do problems thirteen through thirty-seven, odds, on page one thirty-three. I will collect the work when I return to the room! Now get to work!”
The classroom groaned in frustration. Mrs. Lilywhite grabbed Melody’s arm. “Off to the principal. Let’s go—now.”
The wide hallway they walked down was empty, and very quiet, save the classrooms they passed. The doors to those classrooms were closed, but still the muffled sounds of children talking or teachers lecturing would filter out to greet them. Mrs. Lilywhite grunted in disapproval any time she heard children talking or laughing behind the doors of a classroom. It was an involuntary grunt, one that she was completely unaware of. Mrs. Lilywhite walked with a limp, the result of hip replacement surgery the year before, and Melody, now in the middle of a months-long growing spurt that had seen her add four inches to her lanky frame in a single year, had to shorten her stride to keep from walking ahead of her. Mrs. Lilywhite's limp made her look like a very well-fed zombie from Dawn of the Dead as she hobbled up and down the tomb-like depths of the school’s hallways, her pasty white features and perpetual frown only complementing the effect. Mrs. Lilywhite released Melody’s arm; and now, between disapproving grunts, lectured her:
-grunt- “I’m sorry, my dear, this is the only way. I suspected all along you weren’t cut out for this class; I tried talking reason into Mr. Jefferson, I truly did, but he just wouldn’t back down. Thought you were the brightest thing since sunrise. Now I’m forced to have a word with him as well….”
-grunt- “It’s Sally Armitage’s Pre-Algebra for you, that’s where you’re headed next. I’ve done all I can …”
-grunt- “You are not allowed to daydream in GATE, young lady, though I suppose this is a moot point now. Yes, this will reflect poorly on you, Miss Singleton. Very poorly. Your mother will no doubt be quite disappointed….”
-grunt- “I know the kids can be harsh with you. But it’s for your own good. The real world is harsh. Get used to it. The sooner you realize that the sooner you’ll be able to succeed in it. In the meantime I am going to have the school counselor evaluate you for learning disorders. It’s way past time, in my professional opinion….”
-grunt- “... Lord, lord, lord …”
Mrs. Lilywhite stopped lumbering and lurching. She grunted again. Then again. Both grunts were much more authoritative than the others.
She was glaring into an oddity: a classroom whose door was wide open. The children inside were in groups and working on some project that involved large sheets of variously colored construction paper, cutting an assortment of shapes out of them, which were then pasted on large white pieces of cardboard for more work and eventual display. Other kids colored the shapes or drew interesting designs on them. The students laughed and talked as they worked; they laughed and talked freely, without fear of reprisal or humiliation. They weren’t unruly, but neither were they being perfect little angels. Every now and then Melody heard a deep, gentle male voice direct his charges back to work; a voice with an accent, though Melody didn’t know the accent’s culture of origin. English, perhaps? The noise level would drop temporarily before rising slowly once again. And—was that classical music she could barely hear? To Melody, the workings inside the classroom looked like heaven on Earth—what she always imagined school to be like. It even looked bright and cheery. She cautiously craned her head to look closer.
At that moment the teacher appeared. He was a tall man, and broad, his green eyes immediately intense and penetrating. His hair was graying and short, still peppered with the remnants of a youth long since passed. He wore a closely cropped beard, also gray, attentively kept, that framed strong cheeks, making his eyes appear even more powerful. His eyebrows arched sharply over those eyes, giving him a devilish appearance, conveying a mocking disdain of all things petty and mortal. A sardonic smile formed on his lips as he gazed at the girl in the grasp of another teacher; he peered directly into Melody’s soul and held the glance like twin magnetic beams, useless to resist against. His grin seemed to say: Ah. Caught you kissing that boy behind the backstop again, did she? When he shifted his gaze to Mrs. Lilywhite the grin stayed, but was now colored with the slightest edge of contempt. “Is there a problem?” he said. His voice was a low rumble, and that accent—English? Irish? He glanced back at Melody. “Who have we here?”
“Mr. Conor,” said Mrs. Lilywhite tersely. “We didn’t mean to disturb you. It seems you have problems enough in your own room—” Her frown increased.
Mr. Conor looked over his shoulder at his students, then back into the hallway. His brow wrinkled in amused confusion. “No problems here, Mrs. Lilywhite,” he smiled. “Is the noise bothering you?”
The colossal round mass next to Melody stiffened. “You are still somewhat new here, so I’ll remind you that disciplinary policies clearly state that classroom doors are to remain closed during class time. I realize this is different than in the high school where you taught; do you not remember the meeting where this was agreed upon?”
Mr. Conor shook his head indifferently, crossed his arms, and leaned against the doorjamb, his solid form now blocking Melody’s view inside. It was quite clear: Mrs. Lilywhite didn’t intimidate him, not at all. This pleased Melody, who listened as he replied, “No. I must’ve missed that meeting.”
Mrs. Lilywhite tugged heavily on Melody’s shoulder, grunting, “Come along, Miss Singleton.” As she limped away, Melody firmly in tow, she retorted without looking back, “It looks as if some teachers are like students and have no regard for rules. Another thing to chat with Principal Mayfield about.”
From behind her came that deep male voice with an accent: “Have a nice day, Mrs. Lilywhite … and you too, my friend.”
Melody turned to smile at Mr. Conor, but was jerked so hard by the angry bulbous mass next to her that she nearly fell over. Behind her she could hear the happy noises inside Mr. Conor’s classroom fading …
… fading like the joy inside her soul.
~~*~~
“No, this is no good. No good at all!”
Mrs. Lilywhite sat straight, her meaty hands on her broad fleshy knees, her great spherical mass threatening to spill her off her chair. She sat at its very edge (as far as Melody could tell, that is), and had at times in the past half hour pounded the large desk before her. The desk belonged to the vice principal, Mr. Jefferson, a kindly, tired older man with thick black-framed glasses and reddish hair dyed with Grecian Formula, who always wore white short-sleeved button-down shirts with far too many items stuffed into the lone pocket over his heart. Mr. Jefferson, Melody knew, was the man responsible for setting the students’ schedules—or changing them, as the case may be. Melody also knew he liked her, and had taken special pains to get her admitted into the GATE program. He sat back in his chair now and adjusted his spectacles. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lilywhite, but Ms. Armitage’s Pre-Algebra class is not where this young lady belongs. Her skills are quite clearly superior—”
“She is a continuing nuisance and rarely if ever listens in class!” Mrs. Lilywhite interrupted. “The other students don’t like her; and quite frankly, I’ve lost my patience. Her behavior is too odd, too extreme. She needs counseling.”
Mr. Jefferson leaned forward, looking at Melody, who stared at her feet, silent. He asked, “Melody, do you feel you need counseling?”
Mrs. Lilywhite retorted, “What does she know? She’s just a teen—”
“Please. You’ve had your say, Mrs. Lilywhite. Let Melody speak for herself. Melody?”
Melody’s guts twisted inside her. She hated being here more than anything else in the world; she felt totally alone. After a long time, and without looking up, she said, “I already know everything they’re learning in the book. I know all the answers, even those in the last chapters—”
“This is ridiculous,” said Mrs. Lilywhite, slapping her knee. It sounded like a slab of tuna smacking a side of bacon.
“Shh!” gestured Mr. Jefferson. Mrs. Lilywhite glared at him, and then leaned back in her chair, making it creak and groan ominously under the strain. She crossed her arms impatiently over her barrel-sized chest and glared at the girl next to her. After another uncomfortable pause, Melody said, “The kids don’t like me—and I don’t like them. They’re mean. I want to go to another class.”
“You’d be bored stiff in Pre-Algebra, Melody,” Mr. Jefferson said gently. “And there are no other GATE classes here. We’d have to place you somewhere else. The work might be too easy for you. Is that okay?”
Melody swallowed hard. It would be now or never. “I—I want … I want to go to Mr. Conor’s class.”
Mrs. Lilywhite snorted. “Absolutely not. Ridiculous.”
Mr. Jefferson smiled, nodded. “Do you like Mr. Conor?”
“She doesn’t even know him—”
“Shh!”
Melody, looking up slightly, quietly said, “He seems like a nice man. A nice teacher. I want a nice teacher.”
“His classroom is a zoo, I’ll have you know, Donald. And since I am the department Chairwoman, I’ll also have you know I’m having Mr. Conor reprimanded for refusing to follow adopted disciplinary procedures concerning open classroom doors during class time. That’s where our young lady here came up with this preposterous idea. She saw the mayhem inside and thought she’d fit right in.”
“I’ve observed Mr. Conor twice now, Mrs. Lilywhite,” sighed Mr. Jefferson. “He runs a lovely classroom. It’s certainly within your purview to reprimand him, but I think Melody might just be better off with him. That and we won’t have to radically change Melody’s schedule. We can do an easy and direct transfer: from your period two class to his. Works for me....”
“To Geometry? Rid—”
“But you just got done telling me she’s not worthy of GATE, did you not? And Geometry is the class just below the GATE curriculum. Or do you simply want to punish this girl?”
Mrs. Lilywhite grunted and came to her feet, her face crimson with anger. “I will not sit here and be belittled in front of a student!” she bellowed. “Put this … this … girl”—she pointed convulsively towards Melody, whose neck stung from being continually shamed—“wherever you want to. I’m washing my hands of her. And you can call her Wiccan mother, or whatever godless faith she practices, as well! I’m through here!”
And with that Mrs. Lilywhite stormed from the small office, lurching away, slamming the door behind her.
Mr. Jefferson shook his head, sighing again. He gazed at Melody, whose eyes were focused on her knees. After a time he asked, “It’s none of my business, Melody, but—your mother is Wiccan?”
“No,” Melody whispered. “She’s a vegetarian.”
“Ah.” And Mr. Jefferson chuckled. Melody felt the sting slowly leave her neck. She glanced up at the vice principal, who was smiling gently at her. “You’ll have to forgive Mrs. Lilywhite,” he said consolingly. “She’s got her … beliefs, and she isn’t always comfortable with those she deems … how shall I say it? … different?” Then he shrugged, as if to say, Oh, well.
Melody said quietly, “I really do know all the answers in the book …”
Mr. Jefferson nodded. “I have no doubts about that, Melody. Your entrance scores into the GATE program were remarkable. It’s incredible it took so long for anybody to figure out just how bright you really are. I mean—you started Mrs. Lilywhite’s class after half a school year had already passed!” He took his glasses off and began cleaning them with a white hanky lying nearby. “But Melody,” he continued, “Mr. Conor’s class could be quite a step down for you. It most likely will be. And I haven’t even cleared this with your mother yet—”
Melody leaned forward. “She won’t mind; really. She doesn’t like Mrs. Lilywhite either. Please don’t send me back there, please …”
Mr. Jefferson shook his head. “Don’t worry. You won’t be going back to Mrs. Lilywhite’s classroom. I’ll send you to your next class a little early—it’s Principles of Aquatics, right? I’m sure Mr. Michaels won’t mind—and I’ll go have a chat with Mr. Conor. His classroom is quite full, but I think I could persuade him to take on one more student. Does this sound acceptable to you?”
Melody smiled uneasily. Her face no longer felt flushed; the back of her neck no longer stung with shame.
Mr. Jefferson finished cleaning his thick glasses and put them on. “Mr. Conor is … well, he’s a different teacher, Melody. Ultimately you may be as uncomfortable in his classroom as you were in Mrs. Lilywhite’s. He won’t yell at you, but he just may challenge you more than you may be ready for, outstanding GATE scores notwithstanding. Do you still want to give his class a try?”
Melody nodded silently.
“Then consider it a done deal. You may report to Mr. Conor’s class tomorrow morning. In the meantime, let me write you a pass to Aquatics. Oh—and”—he pointed at her backpack—“I’ll need your math textbook before you leave.”
Melody’s heart sank to her feet. But what if she couldn’t see the odd, fantastic symbol anymore? What if it could only be seen in this book, over problem thirty-nine on page four hundred five? She hesitated as she reached inside her pack. Mr. Jefferson sensed her reluctance. He said, “It’s okay. Like I said, Mr. Conor will likely challenge you just as rigorously as Mrs. Lilywhite, Melody. Maybe even more.”
Melody handed the book over to the vice principal, feeling intense frustration and worry. “Thank you,” he said, standing. “Now—off to swimming with you. Did you know Mr. Michael’s Advanced Aquatics class swims around the Pier for their final exam?”
Melody absentmindedly shook her head as she trudged to the closed office door. Mr. Jefferson patted her shoulder as he opened it to excuse her. “Maybe someday you’ll swim around the Pier, you think?” And not waiting for her answer, said, “I’ll call your mother and inform her of this change. See you soon, Melody....”
As Melody walked towards the natatorium, she let herself smile just a tiny little bit. Despite her sour mood, she felt a sudden sensation—an affirmation, really—when, in her imagination, she placed the weird symbol seen in her now-confiscated Algebra book with an image of the Pier. It felt so natural to do so, like the pleasant sensation one gets when a puzzle piece fits perfectly with another.
Melody thought: I sure hope I see it again.
Chapter
2
Twenty-two
Years
He cocked a devilish eyebrow at her as she approached the open door of his classroom. He leaned against the doorjamb as before, arms crossed over a wide and imposing chest. The first bell had rung four minutes earlier; the tardy bell was just moments from sounding. Melody had hung back as long as she could, terrified that she had set herself upon an irreversible course of humiliation and expulsion, humiliation and expulsion…. Every teacher smiles the first day, she thought glumly. Smiles the first day—angry outbursts every day until the last. And kids laughing in my face the entire time. A new classmate pushed past Melody, hurrying to get into the room before the bell. Mr. Conor moved out of the student’s way without looking at her, his eyes pinning Melody to the hallway carpet. She took two uneasy steps towards him and forced herself to look up, hoping her advance would also move his large mass out of the way so she could enter the classroom as anonymously as that girl did just a second ago. No such luck. Mr. Conor didn’t budge an inch.
Humiliation and expulsion. Here we go again….
The final bell sounded. It rang loudly, with the ominous feel of a dinner bell at a death camp run by starving cannibals. The hallway fell silent as a tomb.
“Miss Singleton …” Mr. Conor said with his pleasantly odd accent.
Melody nodded meekly, painfully conscious of her every movement, of her very breath.
“…welcome to my Geometry class.” He bowed his head slightly.
She waited, peering up at him ...
“I see that your name is Melody.”
Melody again nodded shyly.
“Interesting name,” said Mr. Conor, regarding her. “Pretty name, too.”
Melody didn’t respond to the compliment, merely looking down and away for a second.
Her new teacher cleared his throat. Then he said: “I think you’ll find my classroom a little different than … others.” He waited for her to get the message underneath his words, but when it wasn’t apparent she had, continued, “This is your third maths class in a single year, I’ve discovered. Interesting …” He scratched his bearded chin absentmindedly, studying her. “... interesting indeed…. And yet I am sure you are anything but the troublemaker other, er, professionals here might make you out to be. That said, your abilities are quite clearly superior to the requirements of this class—”
Melody was glancing furtively past his form and into the brightly lit room where the students sat quietly. Some were trying to listen in, casting curious glances towards the door and the new student just outside it, waiting to be admitted.
“—and so for now—and not for disciplinary reasons, let’s be very clear on the matter—you will sit with me.”
Melody abruptly brought her gaze back up to his, her face flashing silent dismay. Mr. Conor turned and motioned towards his desk. “Your seat is next to mine, Miss Melody Singleton….”
Melody saw that a student’s desk had been placed next to the teacher’s desk. It faced the classroom and her peers, apart from them, obviously special. Melody felt her hopes spiral downward like an airliner suddenly shorn of its wings.
Mr. Conor’s laser-like stare intensified even further. “You have said nothing, my dear,” he observed with an amused smile forming on his lips, “and yet I can sense your despair already.” Then he said: “It won’t be what you’re thinking. And”—he held up a stern finger—“no one in this classroom will ever tease you without severe consequences from me. I fully intend to challenge you, Miss Melody. This will be no free ride for you. I need to know just how bright you are. And you will of course still take part in most activities. Fair enough?”
Melody said nothing. She forced a single nod of her head and thought: Let’s get this over with. Mr. Conor once again motioned into his classroom, this time with an overdone flourish, saying, “My New Student with the Interesting and Lovely Name, your true maths training awaits you …”
Melody hefted her oversized purple backpack resignedly over her right shoulder and stepped past the large man and into the classroom, urgently wishing she could disappear. Her new classmates stared openly at her. Melody chanced a very quick glance at the seated crowd watching her before fixing her eyes down on her own feet, hurrying to the sole remaining desk next to Mr. Conor’s at the front of the class. She sat in it as quickly and coolly as possible without looking as though she was rushing. Melody chanced another glance at the class. Some students Melody had seen before: there was Tanya from her gym class and Ryan from Spanish, and that cute, quiet boy from History. He sat in the back and when their eyes met a very brief smile lighted his face before he looked quickly away. She didn’t know his name. She sat in her desk just as Mr. Conor strode in.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced loudly, “this is Melody Singleton. Some of you may already know her. She is what they call at university a ‘T.A.’—a ‘teacher’s assistant,’ which means she’ll be treated with the same respect that I get. Understand?”
The students continued looking at her. Some nodded.
“Melody will be assisting me in my teaching duties—grading, projects, planning, etcetera. She is very bright and so if you have a question and I’m busy with another, you may ask her. That’s one of her duties here. Follow?”
More nods. But no one sneered; no one snickered. One or two may have even smiled! Melody had taken note of these things, but almost unconsciously. Her first overriding concern was to try to hide within herself, praying that Mr. Conor would stop talking about her already and move on with his lesson. The announcement of her teacher’s assistant duties was a complete surprise to her, but not an entirely unwelcome one. True, she’d much rather be left to her own devices, were that possible; yet she knew that this idiocy known as middle school was an inescapable part of her daily misery, as were her ever-present feelings of being a total outsider, an alien. No doubt Mr. Conor had done some homework of his own regarding his new student before admitting her into his classroom. And deep inside Melody felt grateful for that, even if at this moment she felt like she were going to die of embarrassment.
“Now”—Mr. Conor clapped his hands together once in anticipation—“let’s talk about your projects….” And with that the class was off and running. Her new classmates were designing their own homes: first on notebook and construction paper, which they were doing now, using the geometry text assigned to them as a guide; then, much later, advancing to other materials such as toothpicks, tiles, tongue depressors, egg cartons, even Leggos. Many of the students were struggling over the math involved. And as much as Melody wanted to be cool and detached and apathetic, behaving just like the popular kids, she found herself thinking quite against her adolescent social sensibilities, I know how to do that … I can help with that! … She suddenly flashed back to the odd, mystical symbol she was focusing so hard upon when Ms. Lilywhite so rudely interrupted her efforts—the mysterious question mark with the curly-Q top. It seemed so natural to consider it here, in this classroom, and in the context of this particular discussion, though she didn’t know why.
“Here you go, my dear …” A thick pile of lined white paper suddenly plopped in front of her. Melody jumped in her seat, startled, her reverie extinguished. Mr. Conor pulled up an empty student’s desk next to hers and sat heavily in it. “I want you to grade these today.” He tossed a thin red pen on top of the pile. “Simple stuff, really: a proof of similarity: ten points if correct, five if partially correct, zero if no work attempted or you can’t follow. Okay?”
Melody considered how she, a seventh-grader, would be hated even more now, now that she would be grading her peers’ work—and that many of her classmates were in eighth grade, an entire year ahead of her! She’d be lucky to survive her daily walk home! She’d be given swirlies! She’d be stuffed in a locker and forgotten until the janitors show up in mid-summer to discover her skeleton clutching desperately at the air vents! But again Mr. Conor seemed to be able to read her mind, and the panicked thoughts galloping through it. He considered her in silence for a moment, and then rose, gently patting her shoulder. “Nobody will trouble you—here or anywhere else. And if they do, do not hesitate to come see me. The ongoing threat they live with is this: behave poorly and I’ll not hesitate to move ye to Ms. Lilywhite’s afternoon Applied Math class. I haven’t heard a peep from them. Maybe it’s because they know I’m sincere.” Then he chuckled.
Despite herself, Melody smiled.
Mr. Conor started walking away, hesitated, took two more steps, then turned around. He nodded towards the pile of paper. “One more thing. You have an assignment on the bottom of the stack. A … proof. Much more difficult than what you’ll be grading. If it makes no sense to you just disregard it and I’ll come up with something more … conventional.” He stared at her oddly for a moment, as if trying to decide if he’d said the right thing or not. He held her glance for a second longer, and in the next had turned away and was off helping his Geometry class.
~~*~~
She had completely forgotten about her assignment, the proof, in the grading of her new classmates’. After a long while the grading became somewhat fun: she enjoyed trying to understand the thinking processes of others, of trying to unravel their logic and sometimes rather indecipherable drawings. She had taken the time to write corrections where appropriate, feeling hugely self-conscious initially, but then relaxing more and more as she became increasingly comfortable marking on papers not her own. Most of the class did really well: she gave lots of 10s. But the period was ending soon and she had only graded perhaps half of the stack. Mr. Conor hardly seemed disappointed by this: in fact, he nodded at her progress approvingly. “Take them home, Melody,” he said. “Finish them there. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He looked at her oddly again, as he had earlier.
And now, with the homework from her other classes completed, she sat on her bed in her blue pajamas and leafed through the remaining geometry waiting to be graded. She had pulled her long brown hair back into a ponytail and was absentmindedly playing with its end, brushing it back and forth across her chin. Earlier at dinner her mother had smiled and said, “Aedan Conor sure thinks a lot of you, Bug. I spoke with him on the phone today. He says you’re quiet and shy and brilliant. Those were his words.” Melody nodded silently, not looking up from her meal. Her mother smiled wistfully at her daughter and added, “Middle school sucks, I know, I know. I was just like you—quiet and feeling clumsy and totally alone. But you’re not, Mellow Yellow. Just remember that everybody there is struggling with similar issues, in their own peculiar way….”
She stared at the homework she was grading. Similar issues … similar triangles. Maybe we’re all just similar triangles having similar three-sided issues.
She finished grading half an hour later. At the bottom of the stack was her assignment, the proof, the one Mr. Conor had included with her classmates’. She had completely forgotten about it. It took her a long time to realize what she was looking at. She snatched at it and brought it to her face, her eyes wide with disbelief. She let go of her ponytail and clutched the paper with both hands, as though to keep it from flying away from her. For a long time she couldn’t make herself believe that what she was gawking at was real.
Drawn on a plain sheet of lined notebook paper was a broken triangle. The ends of each segment of the triangle didn’t quite meet; one line segment seemed to be drawn farther from the others, as if it were set drifting away on the page; and another segment seemed … dented. It was actually split into two segments, one half again as long as the other, as though Mr. Conor had penciled it while driving over a bump on the way to school. The words at the bottom, in inch-high capital letters, read, “SOLVE THIS.” But Melody barely noticed them. She was staring, open-mouthed, at the neatly drawn symbol at one of the broken vertices: a periodless question mark with a curly-Q top.
~~*~~
Melody gaped at the diagram.
The magical symbol in her Algebra book from just yesterday, before Mrs. Lilywhite had loomed over her like a lard mountain, the symbol she once thought was merely a figment of a young teenage mind gone mad stared back at her, rendered perfectly in pencil—a symbol another human being had seen too! Melody traced it with her index finger, as if doing so would confirm and solidify its reality.
Mr. Conor has seen it too!
A knock on her bedroom door.
Her mother cracked it open slightly and spoke from behind it, her voice muffled. “Sweetheart? It’s bedtime. Are you about ready?”
“Sure … sure, Momma. Another half hour?”
“That’s fine. I let Sara out. Will you let her back in before you crash? I’m going to bed.”
“Okay.”
“Love you, Bug.”
“Love you, Momma.”
“Oh—” her mother cracked the door open again—“going to spend the night at Yaeko’s tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure,” Melody shook her head without realizing it. “I’ll see her tomorrow morning at violin practice and ask.”
“Okay, love …”
Melody heard the door quietly click shut. She had not taken her eyes off the diagram and ten seconds later had completely forgotten the entire exchange. For the magical symbol beneath the drawing of the broken triangle had astonishingly come alive, flowing, shifting, changing shape …
~~*~~
When she looked up again, the clock on her nightstand read one-twenty. Just like that, three hours had passed. And she still had no idea what the symbol meant or how to manipulate it. She’d look away for a second, less than a second, and there it was, a static pencil-drawn shape, flat, dead.
She heard muffled whimpering. Sara. Sara scratching at the back screen door. Then: the sounds of movement. Her mother. Her mother opening the sliding glass door to let the old black lab in. The low rumble and click as the door was closed. Then—sounds of tired shuffling footsteps down the hallway—towards her, Melody’s, room.
Melody dropped the paper and lay back on her bed as quickly and quietly as she could. If her mother caught her awake at this hour, she’d be upset. Just as the bedroom door cracked open, Melody closed her eyes.
She heard her approach the bed. She heard her take the stack of graded papers at the foot of her bed and place them on her desk. Then her mother took the magical proof Melody had stared at the past three hours and set it next to the graded stack. Or … that’s what Melody guessed was happening….
Her mom reapproached Melody’s bed quietly. She leaned over, kissing Melody’s forehead gently, before switching off the overhead lamp attached to the headboard. Seconds later, Melody heard the door to her bedroom close slowly and quietly.
Melody’s heart sank. She knew without opening her eyes that her room would now be as black as a cavern—a quality she normally loved, since it made her feel protected and cocooned. Now she cursed that darkness. Momma is a light sleeper, she thought. She’ll know if I switch the lamp on again. She’ll see the light under the door—and I’ll never get past that creaky kitchen floor to get the flashlight under the sink. Gah.
She rose and inched her way across the room until she reached her desk. She fumbled about on it until she felt the stack. She grabbed the first paper next to it—the proof? —and held it to her face. No good. She might as well be blind. The blackness was thick as tar.
She sighed and frustratingly groped her way back to bed. She flopped down, kicking the covers away angrily.
It took her a long time to get to sleep.
~~*~~
Mr. Conor’s emerald eyes regarded her like a hawk as Melody approached his classroom.
With a very frustrated sigh, she said, “I couldn’t understand it….”
Mr. Conor’s face fell. It was his turn to sigh, it seemed; and he was in the middle of a great big one, as though he was giving up on some heroic lifelong pursuit in abject failure, when Melody completed the thought: “I mean … I can see it change and flow into other shapes, but I can’t make it do anything.”
Her teacher’s countenance came back to life slowly, like sunshine after a passing thunderstorm. He raised his head gradually, his eyes widening slowly, cautiously, brightening until twin green laser beams once again plumbed the depths of her soul. His voice was low, even guarded, but barely within his control as he asked very quietly, leaning over her: “Did you just say … you saw it … the aecxis … you saw it change? flow? Did I hear that right?”
Melody scarcely noticed the enormous transformation in the spirit of the man towering over her. Her eyes were bloodshot; she hadn’t slept well last night at all; and she had already gotten into trouble for studying this odd “proof” instead of Spanish in the preceding period. In fact, the proof was all Melody could think of. She groused, “Yeah, it—the aecxis, or whatever it’s called—changes shape and color and even … texture … does that make sense? And it seems to float off the page too. But it does nothing else…. I mean—how is it part of a proof? I’m so lost…. Is this some sort of new math? Why am I the only one who can see it doing these things? Am I going crazy or something?”
Mr. Conor was studying her very intently. Melody sensed an odd mixture in him: great, unbounded joy colliding with a terrible sense of foreboding, a high-altitude adventurer peering over a rickety makeshift bridge across a deep and treacherous gorge. The silence between them became heavy with tension. Conor broke his stare. Then he chuckled, whispering, “Twenty-two bloody years …”
“Mr. Conor?”
He blinked, glancing at her as if just noticing her presence. “I’m sorry, Melody. I’m a little … distracted. Tell me: the proof: have you shown it to anyone?”
“Just my best friend Yaeko. She had no idea what it was and teased me and told me I probably just needed glasses. But I don’t … do I?”
Mr. Conor gathered her small hand between his own huge ones and patted it reassuringly. “No, no, no, my dear. Not at all. Nor are you going crazy. But”—he stood tall, releasing her hand, towering over her—“don’t share the proof with others, not even your best friend Yaeko. Understood?”
She nodded.
“You have a gift, Melody. You have no idea how long I’ve—” He stopped himself abruptly; Melody sensed self-reproach in the interruption. He said, “Again, share this with no one. Not yet, at least. Not even your mother. She wouldn’t understand…. You have—” he chuckled knowingly and without humor—“you have an ability with the potential to wield great power. But that ability is in its very infancy. You have much to learn.”
Students were filing into the classroom, hurrying past Melody and her Geometry teacher. The room was three-fourths full now and growing noisy. Melody said, clearly frustrated, “But … Mr. Conor … the aecxis won’t move for me, no matter what I try to do! It’s like … like it’s alive or something! How do I get it to ‘solve’ the broken triangle?”
Mr. Conor snorted. “You have no idea how ‘alive’ it is!” he said. “But it will respond only to a mind—to a soul—sufficiently strong enough. This is your first task—to learn just how strong you are. Keep trying to manipulate it. You have my permission to do that during class today. Just keep trying to manipulate it. Work on your focus. Unfortunately, for now that is all the instruction I can give you.” He noted her frustration and added, “Don’t give up, Melody.”
The tardy bell rang at that moment. Class had begun. As Melody sat, Mr. Conor patted her shoulder. She extracted the stack of graded homework assignments from her purple backpack and handed it to him. He didn’t even glance at it. Instead he gave a single silent chuckle as he regarded her curiously. “ ... like a spring melody ...” he said in a near whisper. “I should have bloody well guessed.” He noted her puzzled expression; pointing down at the broken triangle, he repeated his encouragement, his voice much stronger: “Don’t give up. Okay?” And without waiting for her to respond, he turned his attention to the class seated in neat rows under his watchful stare.
Melody didn’t pay attention at all to the lesson that day. Her eyes were glued instead to the flowing, twisting, magical symbol on the single sheet of paper beneath her chin.
Chapter
3
Maggie
Singleton
Aedan Conor worked in the dark of his classroom, a desk lamp illuminating his efforts. He held a red pen in his right hand and occasionally made marks on the papers below him, his head over the desk and bent down in concentration, his elbows like heavy supports under him. He’d finish grading a paper every minute or so and swiftly replace it with another; but his efforts were strained and halting, as though some unseen electrical outlet powering him was short-circuiting. Many times he’d find himself not grading at all, but drumming his fingers absentmindedly on his desk, completely lost in thought. He was doing that now. He stopped at the realization.
He studied his fingernails abstractedly for a moment before slamming his hand on the desk, cursing under his breath. He had three stacks of homework to grade by tomorrow—and he couldn’t concentrate. The beginnings of a headache throbbed dully over his eyes. He rubbed them, and then gave a long, unsatisfying yawn. He scratched his itchy beard, and then leaned back in his chair, placing his hands on his stomach, interlacing his fingers.
This was at least the fifth time he had gone through the very same process. Except now, he thought self-consciously. Now the headache was clearly worse—and it was fifty minutes later. And the stacks seemed bloody endless.
The stacks …
Pre-Algebra to his left. Two problem sets, a dozen problems in each. Status: untouched.
The middle stack was Algebra. A ten-question quiz. Status: half graded. He squinted. And crap results thus far. Summer break was still a month away and already the little monkeys were behaving as though the holiday had already started.
The right stack was Geometry. It was also the largest. The assignment involved difficult calculations concerning their house projects. Some beginning trigonometry; some notes on basic physics; three proofs. Most of the students had consumed two or more pages of notebook paper completing the assignment; he had them staple the pages together before handing them in. The stack’s status: barely a quarter of it was graded.
It took him a minute or so to realize he had been staring at it and drumming his fingers on the desk again, his head bent once more in a pained effort to concentrate, his elbows once again propping his head up.
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