Saturday night, Julian, Tess, Ryan, and Hieu gathered again in the library’s study room. One of the few places they could meet indoors that promised privacy, the room made sense, as long as they looked like they were using it for study and weren’t keeping the room from anyone else. Since there was no study hall to worry about on Friday or Saturday, that was unlikely. Julian had stayed up into the early morning hours reading the transcript of the journal, and so had slept a good part of the day. The paper had published their editorial on Friday (“Ackermann didn’t like it, but the rule is that we publish all editorials, unless they are obscene, so she had to allow it!” Tess said with a grin), and they all felt that the time had come for an in-depth conference, for them all to compare notes and decide on their next step. Now that Julian had digested the journal he was ready to talk about it, and also to hear what Ryan had found out about the committee meetings.
As it turned out, if they were going to listen in they would have to act quickly. Ryan had used his dad’s access to the board members’ area of the website to discover that the next meeting of the finance committee was that very Monday evening, in the board room.
“I thought your dad was off the board now,” Tess said.
“He is, but they haven’t deleted his access yet, and Dad is so lame when it comes to passwords. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“So what are we going to do?” Tess asked. “How can we listen in?”
They all looked meaningfully at Hieu, who rolled his eyes.
“Alright, alright. Yes, I figured something out.” Hieu paused for a second, and then opened his laptop.
Hieu tapped the keyboard of the machine to wake it up, and launched the web browser. He typed in an address, entered a username and password in the page that loaded, and suddenly they were looking at Hieu’s room, and listening to the music playing from the computer speakers on his desk.
“I’m glad to see that no one is in my room,” Hieu said.
“Cool!” Ryan said. “How’d you do that?”
Grinning, Hieu said, “It’s really easy. It’s an off the shelf wireless camera and mic, small enough to be hidden. It broadcasts the signal to a receiver wirelessly, and from there it goes out to the Internet. I just logged in to it from here to pick up the feed.”
Ryan snorted, “I’m glad to see you turn off the lights and music when you leave the room.”
“I usually do, Mr. Greener-Than-Thou, but I figured I would need to demonstrate this for you guys.”
“It’s important, actually,” Julian said. “This means that there has to be enough light in the room if we’re to see anything, like who is there. I guess we just have to take our chances. Thanks, Hieu, this is great.”
“Actually,” said Hieu, “it does have infrared capability, though it’s a bit limited. Still, it’s better than nothing.”
“Brilliant!” enthused Tess, grinning. “But how do we know where to put it? And when?”
Ryan bit his lip, considering. “Well, we know the committee meets Monday night, and they almost certainly meet in the boardroom, as that’s the nicest place on campus. And we know they meet at 8:00. So we just have to plant the mic before study hall begins, and then be somewhere where we can watch the feed.”
“What’s the range on this thing?” Tess asked. “We’re not that far from your room right now, but how close do we have to be to pick up the signal?”
“We don’t have to be close to the camera itself. The receiver has to be within 200 feet of the camera with no obstructions. With walls and piping, less. We can actually be anywhere there is Internet access, but we probably need to be in the area in case something goes wrong.”
Ryan said, “It sounds like we could be somewhere in Bishop Bowes and pick it up.”
“How about this room?” Julian suggested. “We can meet here to study for Paulette’s test and listen in.”
“That should work, except that we don’t all have her test,” Ryan said with a wicked grin at Julian and Tess, both in sophomore English. “But we could be helping you all. Groups are in here all the time. As long as we’re not loud, Mrs. Bibfeldt won’t care.”
“But how do we plant the camera?” Tess asked. “We have to get into the boardroom ahead of time.”
Ryan had the solution to that problem, though it was a risky one: “I think I can get a key from Coach. Yates trusts me and I can tell her that I left something up there when we were volunteering. Then I can just slide in during dinner when most people are over in the dining hall.”
“That’s fine,” Julian said. Then, thinking he was geekier than Ryan, and that he did not want to espose Hieu to more risk, he said, “But I need to go with you in case there are technical difficulties.”
Hieu looked relieved. “I can be downstairs monitoring. We’ll need to test the connection and make sure it works before you leave the room.”
They all agreed on the plan, none of them talking about the risk they were taking. If they were caught eavesdropping on a board committee meeting, the penalty would certainly be severe.
Suddenly changing the subject, Ryan turned the conversation to what they were all thinking of: “What about the journal? Julian, fill us in, man.”
Julian took a deep breath and let it out with a rush. He looked at his three friends, friends he had not known very long, but to whom he felt a real connection. Grinning sheepishly, he said, “It’s pretty strange stuff. I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t experienced what the clock does and if Stryker and Ms. Sayers didn’t think it was real. I’m kinda afraid to describe it.”
Tess spoke for them all, saying “Julian, don’t be daft. Clearly this is a big deal, and somehow strange is involved. But we need to know how. Lay it on us.”
So Julian did. He told them about his conversation with Ms. Sayers, as strange as it was. About his great-grandfather’s view of the meaning if life. About (as well as he could explain it) self-transcendence and the lasting meaning found through it, through experiencing the inner unity of all. About how the clock is actually a conduit that brings the sense of peace that comes from meaning to us. About how Dr. Drake had enchanted the clock and placed it at the heart of the campus in order to hold back the corruption that the desire for power brings. And about Dr. Drake’s disappointment and his departure from St. Eligius with the clock.
“I haven’t read the real thing,” Julian went on to say. “It’s in Latin, but Ms. Sayers e-mailed me a translation.” He opened his laptop and after a few moments, found the file. He went on, “a lot of it is hard to read, even in English. It’s full of passages like this:
And so, the struggle between good and evil being what it is, and human desire for power and security strong, I have imbued this clock with the aura of the Great Unity. For those who cannot find it for themselves, who cannot seek the center that leaves the self behind, and so unlock the secret peace that comes of seeing that all is One, this clock will provide it. Its measured pace will outrun the ceaseless stirring of our lives, the empty grasping that leads nowhere. My hope is that this peace will enable those who feel it to simply live, resting in the peace of unity. My hope, too, is that the gift of this clock to St. Eligius School for Boys will help its head masters stay the course of right, by its nature of resistance to the temptations of power and wealth and senseless change.”
“Wow, that’s intense,” said Ryan.
“Yeah, it goes on like that for pages and pages.”
“Now we know why Stryker attacked the clock and hid the journal,” Tess said. “Or Ackermann, I bet she did it for him, that duffer.”
“Yep,” Julian said. “Obviously he sees the clock as a threat to what he is trying to do, and the journal as the secret to the clock.”
Tess looked thoughtful. “How is the journal the secret to the clock?” she asked.
“Well, he doesn’t just talk about the clock, he also writes about magic and how he used it to make the clock.”
“Like, you mean, he tells you how to use magic?!” Ryan asked.
Julian hesitated, and then said, “Yep, he does.”
“Well, are you going to tell us?” Ryan said.
“I guess so. It all has to do with the inner unity stuff. Basically, he says that because at its heart everything in the universe is connected, it’s possible to do things that aren’t normally possible, if you know how to access that unity. He says that you have to reach a state of self-transcendence, where you leave yourself behind, where the division between subject and object starts to dissolve in unity, and once you’re there, you kind of imagine, or as he says, ‘be,’ what it is that you want to have happen. Since everything is really one, connected to everything else, if you’re in touch with that unity, then it happens.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Tess said. “What happens?”
“What you want. That’s why it’s magic. He describes things like moving objects, crossing great distances quickly, slowing time. It’s pretty wild. Basically because you are transcending time and space in the experience of unity, the limitations of time and space can also be broken.”
Hieu spoke up: “It sounds a bit like Buddhist meditation. Except for the magic part. But the idea of transcending the self, the loss of duality, recognizing the identity of all things, that’s very Buddhist. The monks at home go on about that. But you mean, like, you can do anything?”
“Well, no, not anything. He is pretty clear that you can’t use this magic for harm or personal gain because it’s all about transcending the self and desires. And I think the really hard part is that to do this, to actually work magic, you have to approach the state of unity, but you have to balance that with enough sense of yourself to act. And, to get in that state of transcendence, you have to move beyond anger, fear, hatred, desire, basically anything that focuses on your separate self.”
“Sounds Buddhist,” said Hieu.
“Sounds impossible,” said Tess. “Can anyone do it?”
“He talks about that. He says that anyone should be able to do it, but from his study of history and of people, some seem to find it much easier than others.”
“Well, there’s our solution for the committee.” The sound of Ryan’s voice seemed to hang in the air. “All you have to do is figure this out and we can listen in from the comfort of your dorm room.”
“Me?” Julian said. “What makes you think I can do this?”
“It was your great-grandfather who cooked all this up. It must run in the family.”
Julian swallowed, and the familiar pit returned to his stomach. “Look, this is intense stuff. Dr. Drake talks about studying this for years. I can’t learn how to do this. We need to follow our original plan.”
“I think Julian is right about the plan,” Tess said. Small though she was, Tess seemed to have the intensity of a natural leader, and Julian was grateful for that leadership now. “The committee meets Monday, and we have to know what they talk about. The camera will work.” Tess paused. “But, I also think Julian should study up. Somebody’s going to have to know this stuff eventually.”
“Why?” Ryan asked.
“Because Stryker clearly knows about the clock and the magic, and he probably is using some himself. We have to be able to fight that.”
Though he did not want to, Julian found himself nodding and looking intensely at Tess. He swallowed. “I think you’re right. And the journal does talk about dark magic, about the power than can be unleashed for harm, by those who deny the unity of all. He basically says, uh, let me find it here, let’s see, yeah:
The dark abyss of nothingness, of the denial of unity and the corruption of its goodness, can be unleashed as well, by those who would risk the utter dissolution of their souls in the grip of nonbeing. Such risk will bring death, but in the near term those hungry for the power to feed their desires can find it and find the power to hurt and control others to gain their ends.
He doesn’t talk a lot about it beyond that, but clearly he believed there was a threat.”
“OK. So Ryan gets the key, he and Julian plant the camera, we all listen in,” Tess said. “Meanwhile, Julian gets to work learning some magic.”
Julian swallowed again. They were all watching him, and then Tess said, “You can do this, mate.”
“I’ll try.”
~
As it turned out, none of them could have known just how true or how urgent the committee meeting on Monday made Tess’ prediction abou the need for someone to learn more about magic. After practice, Julian noticed that Ryan hung behind to talk to Coach Yates, and when Ryan caught up with him in the middle of Parker’s Piece, he grinned and said, “Got it.”
Once back on the quad, Ryan and Julian stopped by the library, where Julian had left his backpack before practice. Mrs. Bibfeldt grinned at the boys, saying “I was wondering whose pack that was. I’m glad you came by to get it.”
Julian, knowing that he had left the pack there intentionally, so he could get it after practice, felt like a jerk, but tried to grin and mumbled, “Thanks, Mrs. Bibfeldt.”
Taking advantage of the fact that most students and masters were heading to the dining hall, the two left the library and, instead of going down the stairs, began the climb to the fourth floor. When they entered the hallway, they listened quietly for a few moments, and then with a shrug Ryan pulled out Coach Yates’ key, put it into the lock, and turned the knob. Julian was relieved when the lock clicked, and they quickly entered the room.
“Where should we put it?” Ryan asked.
Julian didn’t answer at first. Again, he was overcome with a feeling about the room, about the role it must have played in his great-grandfather’s time at St. Eligius. Knowing now what had happened with the division on the faculty, with Dr. Drake’s decision to leave, it made sense. This room, the site of faculty meetings, most have seen a lot.
Shaking his head to get himself back to the present, Julian squatted down, unzipped his pack, and from an internal pocket drew out the tiny black camera that Hieu had given him, with its separate power supply. The camera itself was barely an inch long and less than an inch wide and thick, and the battery pack about the same, so Julian figured it would not be too hard to hide. But where?
“It’s got to be near the table, so the mic picks up sound and so we get a good view. But how will we be able to see everyone at the meeting?”
“How about up there?” Ryan pointed to the ceiling above the conference table in the middle of one end of the large room.
“Well . . . the ceiling is not tile, so we can’t cut a hole in it. Wait! Could you reach the projector?”
Ryan looked at the LCD projector that hung well down from the vaulted ceiling from a black pipe, balanced so as to aim at a screen that must retract into the ceiling at one end of the room. “I can if I stand on the table.”
Ryan quickly untied his shoes and slipped them off, and then walked over to the table and hopped lightly onto it, shuffled down to the center, under the projector, and reached up with outstretched arms. “Easy, I think. I can put it right up here and the lens can look through one of the holes in the bracket.”
Julian held the camera up to him, and Ryan reached up again, carefully sliding the camera into the space between the projector and its mounting bracket. Fortunately, the bracket was black, and so once Ryan had the camera in place, it was invisible. Checking again to make sure the lens could see down, Ryan hopped back down to the floor. “Done. Let’s get out of here.”
~
After dinner the four met in the library conference room. Once they explained to Mrs. Bibfeldt about Ms. Paulette’s test the next day, she gave them a knowing look and let them be. In the minutes before study hall began at 8:00, the library gradually began to fill, but other than a few disappointed looks that the room was taken, no one gave them a second glance. Making sure that his laptop screen was not facing the window of the room, Hieu woke the machine and launched his browser. After a few clicks, a dim vision of the board room conference table, seen from above, appeared on the screen.
“I don’t think any lights are on yet up there. We’ll have to wait and see.”
The other three tried not to look too obviously interested in Hieu’s screen, and tried to look like they were studying, as hard as it was to do so. Fortunately, they did not have long to wait. At 7:55, the picture on the screen suddenly lit up, and they heard the tinny speakers of the laptop transmitting the sound of voices and moving chairs. Unfortunately, as the participants in the meeting began taking their seats, they realized that they would not be able to see them all. While the camera gave a good view of the table, it showed only its center, and the most they could see were four board members, two on each side of the table. None of them were Mr. Stryker.
Glancing at each other, they listened carefully. At first the conversation was routine chatting, but then at 8:00 one of the board members, invisible to them, called the meeting to order. The first topic was approval of minutes from the last meeting, and since no one read them out, the listeners learned nothing. Next was a discussion of the date of the next meeting. After a few minutes the members settled on a Monday evening four weeks away. The four of them again looked at each other, and Julian knew they would be listening in again. The voice at the end of the table then brought up the question of the budget for the coming school year.
“For the benefit of our new members, it might be useful to go over the process we use. Typically, at this time of year, the Headmaster begins preparation of a budget for the coming school year, to be presented to the board for approval at the April meeting. Right now, this committee needs to think about any issues that we feel the Headmaster should take into consideration when he begins that planning process.”
Another voice, this time from one of the members in view, asked: “Dr. Stephens, are there any issues you already have in mind that will influence your budget planning?”
The boys realized with a start that Dr. Stephens was in the meeting. His calm voice answered, “Beyond the normal concerns to present a balanced budget and provide for an adequate program, no, sir.”
“I find that hard to believe.” Julian stiffened, knowing the voice instantly.
“That’s him! That’s Stryker,” Julian said to the others.
“Put a sock in it!” urged Tess. “Listen!”
Dr. Stephens was responding: “Can you explain, please, Mr. Stryker?”
There was a pause, one that seemed to stretch to eternity, and then Stryker’s voice came through the speakers: “I find it hard to believe simply because you make no reference to long-term planning for the school.” The voice, though it was critical of Dr. Stephens, seemed to drip honey.
“Long-term planning is something we are doing continuously, sir. We hope to launch a capital campaign, a fundraising drive for the school, in two years, but we believe that in the current economic climate it would be imprudent to rush that.” Dr. Stephens voice seemed strangely hesitant, as if he lacked confidence in what he was saying.
Mr. Stryker replied, again in a voice that seemed almost to distort the air around it with its attractive sound, “But are there no other funding sources? It seems to me that the school is living very close to the edge, close to financial ruin in fact, and submitting just one more budget won’t change that. What we need is more progressive thinking, new ways of looking at these questions.”
There were murmurs of agreement around the table. The boys looked at each other again. “That can’t be right!” said Julian.
Ryan agreed: “My dad always told me that Dr. Stephens ran a tight ship, and that he was always impressed with the financial planning the school did.”
“There’s something going on here . . . something’s not right. He’s talking about selling Parker’s Piece!” Julian said.
As if to underline Julian’s statement, the camera’s window on the computer suddenly went dark, the sound cut out, and an error dialogue box popped up saying “Signal lost.”
“Hey!” Tess and Julian said together. Hieu was already trying to get the signal back.
“It’s no use,” he said after a few minutes. He had tried everything he could think of, but kept getting an error message. “I don’t get it. I put a fresh battery in the camera; it should last for a long time, and the signal was perfect. The camera’s on, but it simply isn’t sending any images.”
“Someone’s stopping it.”
“What do you mean, Julian?” Tess asked.
“It was Stryker. I know it. He must have detected the camera and blocked it out.”
“How?”
“Magic.”
Ryan frowned. “Couldn’t it just be a coincidence?”
It was Hieu’s turn to frown now: “There’s nothing wrong with my setup. I’m detecting the camera, it’s on, but I’m getting nothing. It’s weird.”
“It’s more than weird,” Julian said, “it’s magic. Didn’t you guys hear his voice? I think he’s using magic to control the group. Didn’t you notice how Dr. Stephens sounded like a fool and Stryker sounded all wise and like someone you want to agree with? He’s figured out how to use magic, and he’s influencing the group, and he must have realized we were watching and shut us down.”
Ryan looked intently at Julian. “But if he knows we were watching, could he know where we are now?”
“Yes, I think he does,” Tess said. “Look who’s coming.”
Looking out the room’s window, Julian felt his stomach lurch. Mrs. Ackermann, her wrinkled face twisted in a frown, was walking as fast as her dignity allowed her toward the room.
“She never pulls evening duty! What’s she doing here?” Ryan asked.
Mrs. Ackermann’s arrival at the door prevented any speculation on the answer to the question. It was all too obvious, anyway.
When she opened the door, she found the four studying English. Ryan and Hieu were calling our review questions to Tess and Julian, who apparently were struggling to answer.
“Let me see your laptops!” Mrs. Ackermann snarled. A short, but still somehow large, woman, she had short, grey hair, a face that always seemed unhappy, and a tendency to wear polyester.
“Why?” Julian asked.
“I don’t need a reason why. As you well know, part of the laptop program at this school is that students must relinquish their laptops to a faculty member for inspection upon request. Well, I’m requesting.”
Hieu shrugged his shoulders. “OK, no problem. Here you go,” he said, sliding his open laptop across the table. The others looked at him in barely concealed amazement and then turned theirs over as well.
With a derisive snort, Mrs. Ackermann looked at Hieu’s machine and then Ryan’s, ignoring the other two since they were turned off. She then turned and without a word walked out of the room.
“Wow,” Julian breathed. “That was close.”
“Not really,” said Hieu. “I have multiple desktops on my machine, and I know Ackermann doesn’t know how to get to them all.” With the tap of a key, he brought the camera feed back up, confirmed that it was still blank, and then closed the window.
“Well,” said Tess. “This tells us one thing: Julian’s got to get to work, or else we’ll never find out the full truth of what’s going on. I mean, we know Stryker wants to sell Parker’s piece, but why? Why the theft, the magic?”
“Yeah,” Ryan echoed, “What’s in it for him?”
Julian looked at the other two and swallowed. “OK, I’ll try it. I’m not saying I can do it, but I’ll try.”
Copyright 2021, Alfred Reeves Wissen