Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel) (23 page)

Kevin turned to look out over the venue as if in slow motion. “I’ll do it for you, Anthony. Because I think you’re right.”

“Don’t do it for me, or anyone else, do it for you. You deserve it. You’ve earned it.” Anthony frowned. “What? You’re worried about what Brandon will think?”

Yes, he was. Brandon had given him incredible support, so why was Kevin worried? Because he knew Brandon better than almost anyone. And while Brandon wanted him to succeed, he didn’t want it to come at the expense of losing Kevin as his manager.

As he drove home that night, two questions wrestled for his attention. How soon should he tell Brandon, and how would Brandon react?

TWENTY-NINE

M
ARCUS FINISHED UP HIS LAST CLASS ON
M
ONDAY
afternoon and called Simon’s cell phone again. This would be the third message without a callback, but Marcus didn’t care. He wanted to talk to the magician again. Simon hadn’t been on campus for the past three weeks, or if he had, Marcus hadn’t seen him. The magician had implied they’d talk again but it hadn’t happened.

He wanted to ask Simon why the switching had stopped and why it had happened in the first place. And he wanted to talk about the Wolf. How did Simon know about that? What part was God going to have the magician play in this game?

Marcus didn’t trust him, but the conjurer had at least some kind of answers, of that Marcus had no doubt. And more than anyone else could offer. As Marcus walked toward Red Square, the call went to voice mail.
“Simon here. Do you believe in magic? The Lovin’ Spoonful did. I do too. Leave a message.”

Marcus smiled. Reece would love that message.

“Simon, it’s Marcus. I’d like to talk again. Call me. You have the number from my previous calls. I apologize for the persistence, but I want to continue our discussion from before.”

Marcus trudged across the bricks that made up Red Square toward the parking garage but on a whim turned left and headed toward Drumheller Fountain. It’s where he’d last seen Simon. Why not?

When he was still one hundred yards from the fountain, Marcus spotted what looked like Simon. It had to be the magician. Who else would be balancing on one leg, the other in the air along with his arms, reaching for the sky? And doing it up on the concrete ring of the fountain dressed in all black. When Marcus was still twenty-five yards away, Simon turned and hopped onto the ground like a cat.

“Professor of time and all it contains, what do you do when realities rain down all around you like lightning and snow, and when the bough breaks, where do you go?”

Simon hadn’t mentioned his ability to look more than a little crazy while spouting his somehow-ingratiating rhymes. The magician’s gaze darted from the fountain to Marcus to the sky to the ground back to the fountain.

“It’s good to see you, Simon.”

“Is it?” Simon blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Good to be seen in this reality. It is real, isn’t it? I’m choosing to believe so.”

“Did you receive my cell phone messages?”

Simon rubbed his head as if he were scrubbing one-hundred-year-old grease spot off a silver chalice. “I’ve been having a tough few days. Not sure if I have a cell phone here. Can’t remember.”

“Here? As opposed to where?”

“Other places, the other places, the other places. Stop asking about it. I don’t want to go there. Got free of that finally. Never going back.”

Simon bent over and squeezed and unsqueezed his fists like pistons working overtime. “What do you want to say today, and hear with ears that might not listen, to flashes and glistens, that take your mind, to many lives of another kind?”

If this was the result of Simon’s tough days, the days must have been difficult indeed.

“Are you with me here, Simon?”

“Most assuredly, yes. Ask me, ask me anything.”

“I want to discuss my supposed forays into other realities. And the Wolf.”

“The Wolf, the Wolf, the Wolf of confusion, he always spins a compelling illusion.”

“Are you all right, Simon?”

“I’m good. I’m fine, really. It’s just that it’s a contusion, this ball of confusion.” Simon straightened and fixed his gaze on the fountain. “Talk? You would, you would, and I think you should. We should, we could, and we should.”

“Simon. Slow down.”

The magician’s head swiveled like his neck was made of rubber, his eyes moving everywhere except to look at Marcus.

“Tell me about the Wolf.”

“Wolf bad. God good. Wolf bad, God is good. The Wolf is very, very bad. God is very, very good.”

“What do you know about the Wolf—the spirit of religion?”

“I used to have cream with my coffee all the time.” Simon paused and blinked again like he was sending a Morse code message with his eyes. “Or did I?” He stared hard at Marcus. “Do you know?” He dropped his gaze and seemed to study his palm. “Hard to keep track of what is real and what isn’t. Too many layers. Hard to keep track. Very difficult to keep track.”

Marcus leaned in. “Simon, are you sure you’re all—?”

“Did you know in some realities they don’t have crème brûlée creamer? How crazy is that? Very challenging to deal with.” He bit his lower lip like a chipmunk trying to crack a nut. “Yes, I’m fine. I know what you’re thinking. But I’m not. I’m not insane. Not. Not. Not. Just having a bad day today. Too many memories to keep track of. Makes me jumpy and talk gibberish. I know that. Don’t you think I don’t know that?” His eyes flashed anger.

“What happened, Simon?”

“Chose the wrong door, you see. No, that’s not right. That’s wrong. Reverse that. Strike that. Didn’t choose the door. Should have gone through it but didn’t. Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t. Want to go back and walk through it, because I think it would be good, but I can’t now. What’s done is done. Over. Finished. I went the other way.
Didn’t even put my hand on the knob.” Simon looked up, his gaze darting back and forth between Marcus and the fountain and his shoes. “Had my chance.”

With a mixture of fascination and horror pinging through his mind, Marcus stared at Simon. This wasn’t the same man he’d watched perform in Red Square the other day.

“You’ll have to make the choice someday, Marcus Amber, professor of physics. The Teacher will need to learn how important choices are. And the most difficult ones will, of course, without doubt, without question, teach him the most important lessons.” Simon stopped fidgeting and his body went stiff. “Don’t you agree?”

“The switching has stopped.”

Simon laughed and clapped Marcus on the shoulder. “Sure. Sure it has. I believe you. It has, certainly. But of course it hasn’t stopped and you know that down there.” The magician jabbed his finger at Marcus’s stomach. “And it won’t stop till you choose.”

“Choose what?”

“Can’t tell you that. No sir, no can do. Not yet.”

Simon rose and pulled a silver coin from his pocket and tossed it in the air. Marcus tried to follow the flight but it had vanished. A second later Simon reached behind Marcus’s head and pulled the coin into view for a quarter second, then slapped it on the back of his wrist.

“Heads or tails?”

“Tails.”

Simon grinned and slowly lifted his hand. The coin was gone, replaced by a small golden ticket. “You’re just like Charlie. Willy Wonka is going to hand you a ticket, but you’ll have to choose to go through the factory door.”

THIRTY

“Y
OU WERE SUPPOSED TO GET ME OUT OF THAT
,
BRO
. Now I’m looking stupid.”

Brandon tapped his sandal against his deck at his home near Snoqualmie Ridge on Thursday afternoon. Sandals in mid-June. Nice. The month was typically full of rainy days. But today was sun and low seventies. Perfect.

Brandon stared at the Douglas fir trees in his backyard and gripped his phone tighter. Ever since Brandon gave him the show at Marymoor Park, Kevin had dropped the proverbial ball multiple times. There’d been complaints from the road crew as well. Nothing big in and of itself, but added all together it bothered Brandon. His manager was slipping and the cause was pretty obvious.

“Get you out of what?”

“I get a phone call this morning from a producer down in LA wanting to know what time I want to meet on Friday to go over what my cameo is going to look like on their TV series. I told you I wasn’t going to do it.”

“But you’re going to be in LA anyway to meet with your label.”

“That’s not the point. I asked you to cancel it. I’m not going on the show.”

“Yeah,” Kevin muttered.

“Yeah what?”

“I spaced.”

“You never space.” Brandon strolled onto his lawn. “And you haven’t exactly been Speed Racer lately with e-mails or phone calls.”

“You mean it takes me more than an hour to respond to an e-mail or voice mail?”

This conversation wasn’t going to end well if Brandon didn’t get off the track, but the road seemed to have rails on it with no place to exit. “Try seven or eight hours.”

“I’m allowed to have a life, right?”

“One hit song and one successful concert and you’re suddenly a superstar copping an attitude.”

“Knock it off, Brandon. I’m trying to keep a million plates spinning.”

“Too many are falling off the poles. I think your brain is in the wrong spot and you need to figure out where you want to be.”

Kevin didn’t respond and Brandon’s gut agreed with what his mind had been telling him for the past five days. “When do you want to leave?”

“What?”

“Become my ex-manager.”

Brandon heard Kevin’s quick breath through the phone. “You’re not ticked—”

“I knew we’d get here someday, didn’t you?”

“No . . . I mean I hoped . . . but I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Brandon wandered back inside and stared at a photo of Kevin and him skiing up at Whistler. “But you have to find me someone as good as or better than you before you ditch me entirely. Which is, of course, an impossible task.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’re looking forward to us going on tour together.”

Kevin laughed. “All the way. That will be the top.”

Brandon switched gears. “Reminder. I’m headed out to see the label tomorrow. Anything going on there you want help me with? Anything you’ve said to them about me I should be aware of?”

“No, it’s all good on all fronts. Just trying to get my album finished.”

“Sweet.”

Brandon hung up and walked toward his home studio. Yeah, Kevin was dropping a few plates only because his dreams were coming true. Brandon needed to relax. But he couldn’t get the feeling out of his mind that one of the larger plates was about to drop on his head.

THIRTY-ONE

R
EECE
’
S CELL PHONE RANG ON
T
UESDAY EVENING WITH
a generic ring, which meant he didn’t know the caller. He’d assigned all his inner circle specific ring tones since he lost his sight, which meant he probably should let the call go to voice mail. But something told him to pick up.

“It’s Reece.”

“Hello, Reece Roth. This is Tristan Barrow.”

Interesting. Brandon’s stalker. The one who had found the Song, the Leader, and the Teacher down at Houghton Beach Park.

“Good morning, Tristan. I understand you’re getting to know some of my friends.”

“Trying, yes.” The tone of Tristan’s voice made it sound like he was smiling. Who was this guy?

“And what is your interest in them?”

“The same as my interest in you.”

“Which is?”

“From what you’ve heard about me from the others, do you believe I’m here to help or here to hinder you in your quest?”

“Why don’t you end the suspense and tell me.”

“If I said I was here to help, would you believe me?”

“I’d like to look into your eyes as you said it.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Roy, but there is purpose in it.”

Reece’s pulse spiked. Roy? How did Tristan know the name
Jesus had given him a year and a half ago? Roy Hobbs from
The Natural
—Roy Hobbs who was washed out but stepped back into the game to fulfill his destiny. Just like Reece. Had one of the other Warriors told Tristan that name? Highly unlikely.

“How do you know about that?”

“Why don’t we meet, Reece Roth, and we can talk about that and other things as well. Always better in person than over the phone.”

The man’s voice was powerful, his tone one of confidence but not cockiness.

Jesus?

The answer from the Spirit was immediate
. Go.

“Will your two friends Jotham and Orson be joining us?”

“No, they have other duties they must attend to.”

“Fine. Maltby Café on Friday morning at eleven o’clock.”

“Excellent.”

“And, Reece?”

“Yes.”

Tristan went silent.

“Do you have something else to say?”

For a few more seconds the only sound was the hum of the phone. “You will see again.”

“Enough. How do you know about the name? What do you know of the proph—?”

“I’ll meet you at the café on Friday. I’d like to ask you a favor when we do.” The line went dead.

THIRTY-TWO

W
HEN
B
RANDON STEPPED THROUGH THE DOORS OF
Windfire Records Friday morning at nine o’clock his stomach said something was wrong. A moment later the receptionist in the lobby confirmed the feeling.

“Take a seat. Audrey is wrapping up a meeting but should be done shortly. As soon as she is, someone will be right down to get you.”

Take a seat? In the fifteen-plus times he’d been in this building over the past six years he’d never had to “take a seat.” Sure, in the early days he’d waited, but that was ages ago. There had always been someone waiting for him and he was escorted immediately to whichever office he was visiting.

Fifteen minutes later Logan Hall stepped out of the elevator and clipped over to him. “Sorry, Brandon. I hate to keep people waiting—especially you.” Logan patted Brandon’s shoulder. “You look good, really good. You’ve been well?”

“Sure, and you?”

“Fine, yes, and tell me, how was your flight? And is your hotel okay? I tried to get you first class but it wasn’t available, and they were booked at the Hilton. Next time it’ll be back to normal, okay?”