The Unskillful Thaumaturge

XXIV

Lillian bit into a piece of bread, watching Brandon and Daria's muttered, supposedly private conversation across the table and wondering whether she wanted to know what they were saying. Stealing another glance over at their side of the table, she contemplated how uniquely exasperating it was to go to lunch with two friends in a relationship, and whether she would feel this left out if and when any of her other friends started dating.

And so, for lack of anything better to do, she set down her slice of bread, muttering a vague excuse, rose, weaving through the crowd, and walked out the café door.

Strolling along the pathway towards the center of the park, Lillian raised her head and gazed towards the top of the obelisk, wondering for the umpteenth time what those symbols atop the monument could possibly mean. Nobody seemed to know how long the obelisk had existed or who had first discovered it, and the presence of a security camera in the area, originally intended by the landowner to identify trespassers, had been a stroke of pure luck. Lillian imagined the obelisk poking out above the forest skyline. As she walked toward the park's central plaza, she noticed with a chuckle the sign that Daria had mentioned not long ago. "Do not read the sign or sit on the letter J," she read aloud. "Well, that's a bit pointless; I've already read the sign."

The plaza surrounding the obelisk was thronged with tourists. Lillian groaned- she should have known better than to visit the obelisk at one o'clock on a Saturday. Almost a hundred people were milling around the plaza, some packed tightly around the obelisk, others eagerly snapping pictures of the park. As a popular national monument and tourist destination not more than an hour's drive out of Eugene, the obelisk attracted tourists that annoyed not just Lillian but also many of the other Dorena residents. She spotted a small cluster of people gazing toward the ground nearby and walked over to take a look.

A plaque in the shape of an infant's outline rested on the stone plaza floor. Next to the baby shape, a second plaque proclaimed that the infant had been found at this spot on the day of the Thaumatogenesis. Lillian grinned and raised her phone to take a selfie.

As she stared upwards, she noticed a sculpture of a security camera on a pedestal at the edge of the plaza. A plaque near the base of the pedestal explained that the statue represented the actual location of the security camera which had recorded the Thaumatogenesis. She noticed a real security camera panning back and forth from between the branches of a tree. It would have been well hidden during the summer but, given that it was still January, was clearly visible to the tourists. Lillian noticed a small group nearby frowning at the camera uncomfortably.

She finished taking her picture and stepped away from the plaques, walking toward the center of the plaza, gazing toward the obelisk. Constructed out of a sleek light gray material which, as far as Lillian knew, hadn't been identified, the nine-sided monument rose high into the air over the plaza. Lillian estimated that it would take three or four people linking hands to surround it and three or four flights of stairs to climb to the top. The plaque, located on the side facing due south, gleamed in the sunlight.

Her attention was suddenly diverted by a commotion across the plaza. An intrepid tourist had dared to bring his dog into the park, and one of the park employees was scolding him for venturing onto the plaza with the dog. Lillian laughed softly and started walking toward the annoyed tourist, not noticing when her foot caught on the edge of an elevated plaque and she slammed into the side of the obelisk, her right ankle twisting painfully under her weight. She struggled awkwardly to her feet, grimacing as her ankle attempted to support her weight. Oddly, the side of her body which had slammed into the obelisk only tingled painlessly, but Lillian was too preoccupied with her twisted ankle and scraped knee to worry about anything else. Several tourists examining the obelisk were scowling at her, and Lillian smirked, imagining the kind of treatment she'd receive here if anyone else knew who she really was.