Thus began the strangest, and most difficult, month of Julian’s life. Classes, practice, meals, all the routine of boarding school life went on as usual. But beneath it all, on Sunday afternoons and in the evenings after study hall, late at night and early in the morning, Julian followed in his great-grandfather’s footsteps. He began by turning to the journal. There he found passages that were helpful, at least in theory. In practice, they weren’t of much use because Julian had to work hard without guidance. It was like trying to follow a lab manual without having a teacher there to help. But, he reflected, at least he had the manual. He had found one passage in particular to be helpful, a passage in which he felt that Dr. Drake was almost speaking to him directly:
Here are the steps that I have followed, and which must be followed, in order to manifest the power of the Great Unity. The most important is the first: your motive. It must be pure and not selfish, as transcendence of the self is the key to this magic. The second is to move into a state of self-transcendence, a kind of prayer or Eastern meditation. The goal is a hard-won tension, a tension between an awareness of the unity of all things (and so of the loss of the distinct self) and an awareness of the self and its pure goals. Finally, if this is achieved, with the part of the self that remains self-aware, you must be what you seek to achieve, you must bring to mind the state that should be. If your goal is pure, and if you have truly transcended the self, then this state will occur . . .
Dr. Drake then went on to describe things happening that seemed impossible: moving objects through space and time, including himself, slowing or stopping time, being in one place yet experiencing another, and the like.
Reading this, Julian felt he should start small and decided to try and move a small object, even though in the journal Dr. Drake said that there was no difference in any of these actions once unity was achieved and space and time transcended. But to Julian, starting with something small was comforting. On a Saturday evening, after watching a crew race and then dinner, Julian walked down to Parker’s Piece and found one of the spreading oak trees. He asked Tess to go with him, finding some comfort in her cheerful enthusiasm and her determination that he could succeed. He sat down cross legged beneath the tree with a flashdrive on his lap in front of him. Tess sat across from him.
“What do you want me do?” she asked.
“Just be here. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Looking upward, Julian saw the many branches of the tree spread outwards and up to the sky, which was orange-purple in the growing dusk as it filtered down through the crowded branches.
“God, it’s beautiful.”
“Lovely indeed.”
Taking a deep breath, Julian said, “OK. Let’s see. I know I need to start with a pure motive.”
“You’ve got that, Julian, that’s easy. You have to learn this to stop Stryker, to find out what he’s up to and to stop it. Whatever lays beneath the things that are happening, it can’t be good. You know that.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s the easy part. But the next step, prayer or meditation, I think that will be really hard. I’ve never prayed in my life, and I haven’t meditated.”
“You can do it. You can. You have to try.” She smiled at him, her tousled hair blowing over her face.
“Well, I did some digging around online. I think the key is to distract the mind from dwelling on itself and its desires and problems. You can do it by focusing on an object, a flower or a drawing, or by counting breaths or by thinking only about someone else. The key is that the mind needs to leave itself behind.”
“OK. What’s it gonna be, then?”
Julian had already decided to try focusing on the tree, that’s why he wanted to come here. Online he had found various images, called mandalas, some Buddhist, intricate circular drawings that drew the mind into them, some Christian, showing images of the cross and Jesus Christ intertwined in a way that also drew the mind in. Julian had looked at these, but in the end had decided on the tree as something physical.
“The tree. That’s why I wanted to come here. I know it shouldn’t matter, but it seems like something physical would be easier.”
“All right, then. Go on. I’ll just be quiet.”
Sitting there, he tried to breathe slowly and regularly, and doing so he looked up into the many intertwining branches of the great tree, trying not to think of anything else. It was extraordinarily difficult. He followed one branch from the trunk, up and out as it dissolved into a riot of green leaves. Then he moved on to another. It took time, a lot of time. It was so hard to stay focused. He was not aware of it, but Tess began to worry as the sun set and Julian remained still, staring up into the branches of the great tree. Gradually Julian realized that though it was one tree, he was experiencing each branch in itself. Or was it that though it was many branches, he was experiencing one tree? Somehow the distinction between tree and branches grew thin, until he could no longer tell them apart, nor that it was he looking at them.
With a gasp Julian realized he was teetering on the brink of losing all sense of himself, of the passage of time, of the difference between him and the tree, between him and the universe, between the tree and the universe which it called to mind with its unity of many disparate branches. Before he did so completely he reached out with his mind, and slowly the flashdrive, that marvel of plastic and silicon and myriad electronic branches, so unlike and yet like the tree above him, began to rise from his lap. With a gasp Julian looked down. The flashdrive tumbled into his lap, and with a rush he was intensely aware of himself and his surroundings and the fact that it was now dark. But his disorientation quickly vanished in the glowing sense that he had done it, and in the overwhelming hug and squeal of delight from Tess.
~
The next day, he tried again, and once under the branches of the tree, he found entering the right state to be just a little easier. This time, once he was there, he was able to raise the flash drive from his lap and to move it slowly across to Tess, where it dropped gently onto her outstretched leg.
“Gor! Impossible! Brilliant! You did it again!”
After that, things went faster but not necessarily easier. Julian now knew that he could do it, and he kept practicing, at first under the tree, and then in other places when Tess wryly pointed out that he wouldn’t be of much use against Stryker if he had to sit under a tree to work magic. He had gradual success, first being able to move the flashdrive higher and a few feet across the meadow, and then across his room. His feelings were a constant challenge. Anytime that he felt anger or frustration or desire, even if these emotions were connected with stopping Stryker, his ability to hold the unity in his consciousness evaporated and he would have to start again or simply give up, sometimes for days. But he continued to make progress.
Milestones included the first time he worked magic in the presence of all three friends and not just in front of Tess, causing the time for the four of them to slow so that the clocks on their laptops registered a change of only a minute while they themselves felt many minutes go by. Or the time when, sitting with Tess in the meadow, Julian was able, after intense concentration, to reach out into the mind of a nearby squirrel. Though afterwards Julian was disturbed by his ability to do this, worrying that he had controlled the mind of the squirrel, he could not deny the feeling of amazement he had when Tess described what had happened. She had seen the squirrel change its direction, jump down from an overhead branch, walk over to her and take an acorn from her hand. During those moments, Julian didn’t see Tess as Tess. Entering into the squirrel, becoming the squirrel, his own self-consciousness was gone, and he felt briefly the simple bliss of being wholly what his nature was, of simply being an animal without the contradictions and cares of humanity. Tess had to describe what happened, and that was a drawback. When Julian really reached out of himself, he had to struggle not only to keep the balance between unity and himself, but also to keep his feelings at bay. The result was that he was quite literally unaware of his surroundings, and Tess was frightened for him, feeling that he needed protection.
After the squirrel incident, Julian felt very self-conscious. They were still sitting under the tree when Julian asked, “Tess, does this bother you? Do you think I’m strange, some kind of monster?”
She looked at him for a minute, her dark eyes intense. Then she spoke: “No, I don’t. I’ve seen this whole thing evolve. I know why you decided to do this. I know how you learned it. It all makes sense. You’re not out beheading roosters or raising the dead. You’re simply—and I know it’s not easy––channeling something, accessing something that I think we all could if we knew how. So no, it doesn’t bother me. I think it’s brilliant. I do think that you need to be careful who sees you do this, or it could cause trouble. But you’re safe with me.” She smiled.
“Thanks. Thanks a lot. You know I don’t like to stand out or be noticed. It’s weird, but I feel like this is something I can do, and I don’t think it’s evil.”
“It’s not evil. You know that. But do you think that you can stop Stryker, who I bet is evil?”
“I dunno. I feel more confident that I can do some of the things Dr. Drake describes. I might even be able to project my consciousness across a distance and listen in on the next committee meeting. But . . .”
“But?”
“Well, I don’t have a weapon. He doesn’t talk about a weapon anywhere. I mean, he talks about the powers of Dark Magic, saying that those who use it cannot circumvent time and space in the same way because their approach denies the unity of all things. Dark Magic releases the power of nonbeing, of destruction. He seemed to scoff at this, but, but, what do I do if I have to face that? I have no idea.”
“Julian?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember in history, when our classes got to the late Middle Ages and we read that short bit from Julian of Norwich? You know, the first woman to write a book in English?”
“Yes. She was the mystic who wrote after the Black Death about the universal love of God, or something like that.”
“Quite. Well, you remember what she said, I know: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’ Julian, she’s your namesake. You will think of something, I know it. And we’ll all help, all of us. Remember that.”
~
The day of the meeting, Julian found himself getting increasingly nervous. Their plan was to use the library conference room again, and they had agreed to meet there at 7:45. The day seemed to drag on forever; neither Algebra II nor English nor even history held any interest for him. Finally dinner was over (though he found he could eat nothing), and he made his way with Ryan to the library. They found Hieu and Tess waiting for them, and they didn’t look happy.
“What’s up?” Ryan asked.
In response, Tess merely inclined her head towards the conference room. Julian looked: Mrs. Ackermann was sitting in the room, apparently hard at work. He couldn’t believe it.
“She’s there on purpose. Has to be,” said Tess.
“Now what do we do?” Julian asked.
“Can’t we go back to dorm?” Hieu threw in.
“No way,” said Tess. “ Julian can’t do this alone, or in the room with John. We’ve got to watch out for him.” Tess had been the most involved with Julian’s trials in magic so far and continued to be anxious for him. She also wasn’t about to be left out.
“It’ll be easier if I’m closer anyway.” said Julian.
“I thought it didn’t matter,” said Ryan.
“Well, yeah, supposedly, but it helps me.”
“Guys, keep it down,” whispered Hieu.
They looked up to see Mrs. Bibfeldt looking at them, her normally kind faced creased in a frown.
“What about one of the classrooms upstairs?” Hieu continued.
“Yeah! We could use Paulette’s room. She lives off campus and is never in her room at night,” said Ryan.
“Alright. Let’s go, but don’t rush, just walk out normally like we’re heading back to dorm,” Tess said.
Mrs. Bibfeldt watched them leave but luckily didn’t say anything. None of the boys liked the idea of lying to her. Once out of the main room of the library they climbed the stairs quietly to the third floor, where the English classrooms were. They padded down the hall and opened the door to Mrs. Paulette’s room, which fortunately was unlocked. Moonlight streamed in the windows, illuminating the room enough to see, though the corners were in shadow. Besides her desk to one side of the room, and the student desks arranged in a circle in the middle of the room, Ms. Paulette kept three armchairs in the room to encourage reading.
Julian said, “I’ll use one of these,” and gingerly settled himself into one of the chairs, trying to clear his mind and not to think about the regular daily events that occurred in the room. Tess nodded. “You guys watch the hall; I’ll stay with Julian.”
Ryan and Hieu headed back toward the door, Ryan slipping into the dark hallway to head for the stairs and Hieu staying by the door. Julian tried not to think about the risks they were all running and began to clear his mind. He had decided to try to project his consciousness into the room upstairs so that they would not be dependent on any device or technology. While his body would remain in the classroom, his consciousness would be upstairs, defying the limitations of space that separated them. At least, that was the idea.
As Julian cleared his mind, he imagined himself in the board room. He tried to let go of his anxieties, his anger, his fear for the school. The room around him grew even dimmer, as if not the light but the very color or substance of the room were being turned down. For a time, how long he had no idea, all he was aware of was darkness. Gradually it receded, in a way just opposite to how the classroom had disappeared. He began to notice light and then color, at first through a fog, and then slowly they became clearer, until he became aware of details. He was in the boardroom, or at least it felt so. And he could hear voices. The committee was deep in discussion. Julian could not see his own body; it was as if his mind simply floated in the room, and so he willed it to float closer to the table, where he could listen to the discussion.
A woman at the end of the table, whom Julian realized must be Ms. Cavenaugh, the chair, was saying, “I still don’t see the connection between selling Parker’s Piece and this proposal to privatize the school.”
Stryker, seated along one side of the table, said, “Selling the meadow will net an estimated twenty million dollars, which would create an immediate boost to the school’s endowment. That, in turn, will make the school much more attractive to companies who are interested in partnering with schools to manage them for profit. So in one move, we become more stable, and open the door to joining the latest movement in education, a movement which has a lot of interest in Washington.”
Another man said “And are we sure there would be a buyer for the land? With the economy the way it is, is anyone buying real estate?”
Stryker responded, “I know for a fact that some firms are thinking ahead to after this recession, and I believe that one, BRC, is very interested and is willing to put up cash.”
“What,” Ms. Cavenaugh said, “would they do with the land?”
“A planned community, built in consultation with the school, which would be architectually in keeping with the campus and which would give us a new supply of day students.”
Julian noticed that Dr. Stephens remained quiet during this exchange, as did others around the table. “Dr. Stephens,” said one, “What do you think of this plan for privatization?”
Dr. Stephens seemed oddly surprised to be addressed and hesitated, as if unsure how to respond. “Um, well, I have never closely studied the idea of corporate education, always believing that our motive is the education of our students, rather than profit.” He paused again, growing more and more unsure of what he was saying. “However, there certainly is new research on the subject, and a lot of discussion of it . . .” Here he suddenly became less vague: “I do think that if that is the course the school takes, then I am not the person to lead the institution.”
This caused some members around the table to lean forward in concern, but others seemed excited at the prospect.
Stryker spoke again. “There is certainly no need to rush to any conclusions,” he said soothingly. “I say that we simply put forward a motion on the sale of the meadow at the coming board meeting and leave questions about privatization to another time. The one does not have to follow the other.”
This seemed welcome around the table, as if Stryker had suddenly rescued them from the brink of a precipice. There were nods from most of those seated there.
“Is there a motion then?” said Ms. Cavenaugh.
Mr. Stryker spoke promptly: “I move that we present the following motion to the full Board of Governors: that the board authorize the finance committee to solicit offers for the sale of Parker’s Piece meadow and that if offers exist which meet or exceed the fair market value, determined by assessment, then the board further authorizes the finance committee to proceed with the sale. Proceeds from the sale should go directly to the St. Eligius’ School Endowment.”
“Is there a second?”
A man sitting next to Mr. Stryker, a small, unpleasant looking man whom Julian recalled talking with Mr. Stryker at the board meeting in January, said “I second the motion.”
“Any further discussion?” Ms. Cavenaugh’s question hung there, but there was no response.
“All in favor?” The “ayes” filled the room. “That is the last item on our agenda. I will type up the motion and get it to the Chair of the Board. We are adjourned.”
As the meeting broke up and members began filing out of the room, Julian realized that Stryker and the small man were whispering together as they approached the door. He focused intently on their conversation.
The small man was saying, “How can you be so sure we will find a buyer? The market is awfully bleak.”
“Leave that to me. I will see to it that BRC makes the offer. They—and I—have a lot to gain by this,” Stryker whispered.
“But you can’t be connected to them, that would be a conflict of interest in violation of the Board’s bylaws.”
Stryker scoffed. “Haven’t you heard of holding companies? It’s done all the time. Besides . . .”
Suddenly, Julian found the room fading, growing dim until it was black, and the outlines of Ms. Paulette’s room were swimming in front of his eyes. Tess had been shaking him and calling his name.
“Hey, whyd’ya do that? Stryker was just revealing the details of his plan!”
“Julian, shut up!” Tess whispered. “You were getting agitated and started to talk out loud, almost shouting, and the board members are coming down the stairs. We’ve got to be quiet.”
Julian saw that Hieu and Ryan were back in the room, and he heard the distant sounds of heels and voices in the stairwell. They all looked worried.
“I can’t believe it,” Julian whispered. “They passed a motion to go to the full board to sell Parker’s Piece. Dr. Stephens was there, and he didn’t protest. Stryker must have had them all under his influence again. They also talked about having the school run by a corporation, but that didn’t make it into the motion. It was all Stryker’s idea. Clearly he wants to get this formally before the board so they can vote on it, and he can control the voting by magic.”
“But why does he want to do this? I still don’t get it.” Ryan whispered.
“That was the part that he was talking about with this other guy, kind of a weasel, as they were walking out. He was saying that he could get a company to buy Parker’s Piece and that he stood to gain a lot from it.”
“Wow,” Ryan whispered. “That’s a conflict of interest.”
“That’s what weasel man said, but Stryker said not to worry about it, something about a holding company. That’s when you brought me back.”
“What’s conflict of interest mean exactly? Tess asked.
“The Board has rules for itself,” Ryan said. “I think they’re called bylaws, and usually they require that any board member who is part of a company doing business with the school recuse himself from votes and discussion of anything having to do with the company, because it is a conflict of that member’s interests. Sometimes board members are not even allowed to serve if they have connections to certain other corporations.”
Julian thought about what he had heard, wishing it hadn’t been cut off. “A holding company must be a company that owns other companies, so there is not a direct connection. Stryker must own a holding company that owns the company that wants to buy Parker’s Piece. He said they, BRC or something, want to build a housing development on the land. Because he is not directly connected to BRC, he thinks that gets him out of the conflict of interest rules.”
“So he’s going to make a pile of money from the sale of Parker’s Piece because one of his companies will sell a bunch of houses on it,” Tess said.
“Now we know why he wants to do this,” said Ryan.
“Yeah, and he’s getting away with it because his magic is making them all idiots and because he makes it sound like this will save the school by increasing the endowment. You should have seen Dr. Stephens; he just sat there.” Julian paused. “He did say that if the school went for this idea of a private corporation running the school for profit, that he could not be the head. And no one seemed to be bothered by that. Idiots. What are we going to do? We have to stop this.”
Copyright 2021, Alfred Reeves Wissen