The Unskillful Thaumaturge

XVII

"One week," Lillian muttered aloud to no one in particular. "One week since anyone came to my door, one week since I had anything pressing to think about other than schoolwork and thaumaturgy problems. But it seems so much longer." She grabbed her thaum homework off the desk and slid it into one of her folders. "How can so much happen in one week?"

Lillian was interested in both where the investigation seemed to be going and where it might end up, but she was also interested in the path it was taking and how she could help move it along. She wanted to be a part of the investigation. She wanted to find out who this person was that had come to her door and what their objective had been. She wanted to learn how someone who was apparently dead could seemingly be present forty years ago, fifteen years ago, and now with barely any physical change and no clear motivation for being present at any of the events.

Lillian knew, from the way he had acted at the door, that he had at least wanted to tell her something, but she was fairly sure he wouldn't be coming back to the dorm and telling her whatever he had wanted to. No, "they", she corrected herself. The DIAO didn't know who was behind the illusion- it could be "a man or a woman or a potted plant," she seemed to recall Rolf saying.

Lillian wanted to know who the potted plant was and what they wanted with her.

☙❧

Dakota slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out the key, holding it up to the light.

Just go do it.

"I'm worried-"

Forget being worried. Go do it.

Dakota conceded, walking over to the file cabinet and bending down to unlock the cupboard at the very bottom. He opened it to reveal a small, battered, rather old computer with wires running into a box in the corner of the cabinet. Ever so carefully, Dakota reached into the corner and slowly flipped a switch atop the box. Static briefly ran across the computer screen and then cleared. Dakota looked toward the door of his office, making sure it was locked, then turned his full attention back to the screen.

A small, dark blue dot bloomed in the center of the screen and spread like a blot of ink all the way towards the edges until the entire screen was filled with the color. Slowly it began to dim and shapes resolved out of the sea of blue. Dakota was first able to make out cars whizzing by the picture, then a snow-covered sidewalk, and then a bus stop sign before the picture cleared almost entirely. Even so, the picture still shifted infinitesimally back and forth like it was being shown by an old film projector, and flecks of white flitted across the screen. A woman approached from the side of the screen, a woman with dark, gray-streaked hair and wide green eyes, a woman that Dakota recognized.

She stood still when she came to the bus stop sign, waiting for several minutes before a bus pulled up. But this wasn't one of the navy blue city buses. This was a white bus- the bus line that took passengers back and forth between Eugene, Dorena, and Roseburg.

The bus that would be taking Ashley away from the city.

☙❧

At the moment, Ashley was packing. She tossed a few shirts haphazardly into the suitcase, then added a pair of socks and a glass-blown object that Galena snatched out of the suitcase. "Hey, you can't take that, that's mine."

"Oh, is it?" Ashley muttered under her breath. "I liked it."

"Yeah, well, you can't just randomly steal stuff that you like!" Galena dug through the bag, ignoring her mother's seemingly nonexistent packing system, to ensure that no more trinkets or paperweights were hiding among Ashley's hat collection. When she was satisfied, she walked over to the pile of clothes on the floor and began flinging items into the suitcase, finally shutting it when everything on the floor was gone. "There you go, Mom, all packed."

"Thanks, Galena," Ashley said affectionately, rubbing her on the head and mussing up her hair. Galena disentangled herself from her mother's grasp and heaved the suitcase upright. "What do you have in here?"

Her mother shrugged. "I don't know. Doesn't matter on a bus anyway."

"Whether it matters or not, you had better be fast. I'm taking the first half of my work day off so I can drive you over there and drop you off. You coming for nine days was pretty surprising and I want to make the most of it, you know? Even with how annoying you can be." Galena allowed herself a half-smile. "Now go out to the car and load up."

☙❧

"I have the security system all figured out. They're going to come and install it on Friday."

"Thanks, Diane," Rolf muttered into his desk.

"So how'd the yearbooks go?" she asked, trying to get him to look up. Finally his glance traveled up to her eyes. "We found nothing. He's not in there."

"Huh," she replied quizzically. "I was hoping we might find at least some clue."

Rolf shook his head. "That kid had all kinds of weird stuff going on, as far as I can tell. The flip flops in November? That weird accent that supposedly sounded like his T's were missing? I don't think he would have been going to high school in Eugene. It just seems too strange."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Diane shrugged. "I just don't know where he would have lived or any of that without going to school. Then again, this entire business is proving to be somewhat ridiculous."

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Just look at the clues." Diane laughed. "A dead boy from forty years ago has fingerprints on a key that was recently stolen in a break-in by someone who looked exactly like him? That person also appeared at the site of the Thaumatogenesis and nearly sixteen years later at the door of the one other person we know definitively was present at the Thaumatogenesis or at least right afterwards. It's perfectly ridiculous!"

"I guess you're right..." Rolf leaned back in his chair. "I just want to know what's going on, you know? It's really driving me a little crazy at this point, you're right, none of it makes any sense, even with thaumaturgy..."