Doorways to Infinity (5 page)

“We appropriated my wood from the same forest where you got yours.” Mr. Winston lifted his bushy, gray eyebrows. “And it seems to magnify my feeble magic, also. Observe!” He turned to face the wall, the stick grasped in his left hand, and he spread his arms and shouted, “Fire!”

The bookshelf seemed to burst into flames, floor to ceiling, and Dr. Tindall shrieked and flinched back, but Jamie smiled appreciatively. “It’s okay, it’s just an illusion. But a good one.” He nodded. “Nice, Mr. Winston.”

The blaze vanished and Mr. Winston said, “It appears that illusions are all that I can manage, but that is a substantial improvement over my previous magical capabilities.”

“Jamie, how did you know that it wasn’t real?” Dr. Tindall asked.

“I felt the spell. I can sense how much power he’s using, and it would take a lot more than that to start a fire that big, that fast. And I didn’t feel any heat, either.” He stroked his chin and looked at the walking stick, still in Mr. Winston’s hand. “Even so, that was an impressive illusion. How did you figure out that you could do that with it, Mr. Winston?”

“It came to me immediately, as soon as your Cherokee friend handed me the finished work. I’ve been experimenting with it when I have the chance. I think it will augment my stories when I teach my history lessons.”

“No doubt. Try not to scare the kids, though.”

“And take all of the fun out of it?” Mr. Winston grinned. “Would you like to see another illusion?”

“Maybe later, if we have time. I want to show Dr. Tindall the rest of the school.”

Directly behind the library was another building, clamorous with the sounds of construction — hammering, sawing, shouts of workmen. Jamie gestured at it as they passed. “This will be our cafeteria when it’s finished, which should be sometime next month. We’re waiting for the kitchen equipment to come in, the ovens and refrigerators and stuff.”

“How about food supplies?” Dr. Tindall asked. “Will they all come from local sources?”

“As much as possible, because we know they’ll be fresh. The rest will come from Hendersonville, and we’ll cart it through my granddaddy’s warehouse and then through that building across the road, his Rivershire headquarters. That’s one of the reasons we bought that land and had it built over there. It makes it easy to get stuff to the school when I’m not around to make doorways.”

He led her to a square structure at the back of the campus. “This is our new maintenance facility. We hired a guy to take care of all this stuff, because it was becoming too complicated for us.”

“Is he from Earth, too?”

“He’s from Hendersonville, a fellow named Mr. Bass. My granddaddy found him, somehow. He used to be the head engineer at a big industrial complex in Asheville, but he took early retirement to take care of his sick wife.”

“Is she okay now?”

“She passed away about a year ago.”

A couple of bicycles were leaning against the front of the building. Dr. Tindall said, “I take it these aren’t native.”

Jamie groaned and shook his head. “I’m afraid we opened a Pandora’s Box with those. Fred’s mom found one at a garage sale and bought it for one of the girls here, Leora.”

“The girl who caught the flu?”

“Right. Then my gramma got one for this boy named Aiven, because she’s friends with his mother, and now
all
of the kids want one.” Jamie eyed the two bikes. “I think my aunt picked these up from somewhere. I guess Mr. Bass needs to do some work on them.”

“So who gets those? If I were a kid here, I’d want one.”

“Last I heard, they were thinking about giving them to the kids who have been attending school the longest.” He poked one of the tires with his foot. “Kinda like a reward. Stay in school, get a bike.”

“That’s a good idea. Those bikes are probably a huge incentive to a kid who has never had one.”

He held the door open for her and they went inside. It was an open room with a high ceiling, steel cabinets and workbenches full of tools and equipment on one wall, and tall metal shelves on another. Sitting on a stool at a desk was a solidly built man with short dark hair, peppered with gray, who was jotting something down on a piece of paper. He waved when he saw them and held up one finger for them to wait, then quickly finished and stood to greet them.

Jamie made the introductions, and Mr. Bass said with a smile, “So, Dr. Tindall, your first trip to Rivershire, huh? What do you think so far?”

“Um…it’s incredible.” She tittered like a nervous bird. “I’m not sure if I’m dreaming or not, so I’m just going with the flow for right now. I guess I’ll sort it out later.”

“It’s fantastic, though, isn’t it? I was absolutely floored when Jamie’s grandfather brought me here for the first time. It’s a wonderful place. The people are nice and friendly, the kids are great. This is a perfect job for me. Not too stressful but still challenging enough. Sometimes it’s a two-man job, but I think I’ve found an assistant, a local fellow named Stev.”

“Stev Ailesbury?” Jamie said. “Isn’t he the blacksmith’s apprentice?”

“He was, but he finished his apprenticeship. He’s perfect for this job. He’s good with tools and learns fast, and he’s strong as an ox. Your granddaddy said we’ve got the money to hire him.”

“Why doesn’t he want to be a blacksmith?”

“Because his master isn’t ready to retire, and there’s not enough demand for two blacksmiths in this town. Stev wants to marry this young gal, and her folks won’t let him until he can support her.”

“Feather? Is that the girl?” Mr. Bass nodded and Jamie laughed. “She’s one of the teenagers who bought love potions from Fred when we stayed here over spring break. I guess the potion worked.”

“Love potions?” Dr. Bass said. “Real love potions? There’s such a thing?”

“Oh, yeah, and once word got around that Fred’s a witch, we had love-sick girls knocking on the door constantly, wanting to buy them. It got to be annoying after a while.”

“I heard it was for the Founders’ Festival,” Mr. Bass said.

“It’s a big social event, the biggest of the year, and those girls had their sights set on certain boys. They were looking for an edge over the competition, so they wanted love potions.”

Dr. Tindall’s lips turned up in a crooked smile. “That’s so funny.”

“It was serious business to them. Fred could barely keep up with the demand. The only other witch in town is Mrs. Malley, and she wasn’t making potions at the time because her eyes were so bad. She had cataracts, but I fixed them for her, and she’s back in business.”

“You can cure cataracts? How?”

Jamie wiggled his fingers. “With magic.”

“If word got out back home that you could do that, you’d have people lined up on your doorstep.”

“Which is one of the reasons why I don’t want everybody knowing about the magic. That’s why you had to take the oath.”

“Wizards and witches. So interesting,” Dr. Tindall said slowly as if she were measuring each word before she spoke them. “It would be absolutely fascinating to investigate how your magic works. Every scientist I know would give their souls to study that.”

“I wish I could do it someday. I’d have to build my own research facility, probably, and that would take millions of dollars.”

Mr. Bass nodded. “Well, according to your granddaddy, you might have that much pretty soon.”

Wish he hadn’t said that
. Jamie narrowed his eyes at Mr. Bass.
Hope she doesn’t ask what that means
.

Mr. Bass seemed to understand what Jamie was thinking and cringed. “Uh…sorry,” he said. “I have a big mouth sometimes.”

There was an awkward pause in the conversation while Dr. Tindall looked back and forth from Jamie to Mr. Bass, as if she expected them to say more, until she finally cleared her throat and said, “Mr. Bass, do you live here now?”

“I have a home in Hendersonville, about a ten-minute drive from Pete’s warehouse, and then I come through the magic doorway in the building across the road from here.”

“Who’s Pete?”

“He’s my grandfather,” Jamie said. “He’s handling the money and other stuff for all of this. Mr. Bass is sorting out the technical challenges.”

“Please call me Eugene,” Mr. Bass said. “Let me show you what we have here, Dr. Tindall.”

“Call me Nancy, please.”

“All right, Nancy.” Mr. Bass grinned and pointed to a doorway at the back of the building. “That’s our storage room for the batteries for the solar panels. I rewired all of them so they connect in here, then I redistributed the power back to the individual buildings. That way, if one of them has more demand, the rest of the system can pick up the slack. That’ll make a difference when it gets cold.”

“We were going to use gas to heat the classrooms,” Jamie said, “but he talked us into using electric instead.”

“Gas is more efficient,” Mr. Bass said, “but it’s dangerous. These folks aren’t used to it, and all it takes is one person turning a valve on and forgetting about it and
boom!
” He flung his hands out with his fingers spread.

“It’s not cold today,” Dr. Tindall said. “What time of year is it here?”

“November, same as Earth. I hear it won’t get really cold until January.” Mr. Bass gave a satisfied smile. “But we’ll be ready.”

“What else do you have to show us?” Jamie asked. “Is the generator room ready?”

“Almost. It’s back here.” Mr. Bass led them through another door on the rear wall and down a short corridor that opened up to a square room that was mostly empty. He pointed to a pair of rectangular concrete pads on the floor, both slightly bigger than a queen-sized mattress. “This is where the generators will go, soon as they come in.”

“What will you power them with?” Dr. Bass said.

“Methane. We’ve just about finished the gas collection system, which is behind this building.”

“We decided to go for methane because it was the lesser of several evils,” Jamie said. “I don’t want to use gasoline unless we have to, and methane produces less carbon dioxide when burned.”

“I can tell you’ve been paying attention in class,” Dr. Tindall said. “How are these people heating their homes?”

“With wood or coal. I’d like to wean them from that if we can, but it would be expensive.”

“Do any of them have solar panels, besides you?”

“Just a couple friends of ours. I’d love to help everybody get them, since most of them can’t it afford it, but gosh…I’d need a lot of money for that.”

“You might have it,” Mr. Bass said, “if you okay that mining deal.”

“What mining deal?” she asked.

“It’s complicated,” Jamie said quickly. “I’ll explain later.” He turned to Mr. Bass. “Why don’t you show us the methane collection tank?”

Mr. Bass led them outside to a squat metal cylinder that stood behind the building. It had pipes running from it into the ground, and one side of it had a chute with a flap on it. Mr. Bass said, “We put organic waste in there, like grass clippings and such. I just worked out an arrangement with the town to bring us the horse manure that they clean off their streets, and I think some of the parents here at the school will bring us the crop waste from their farms. All that will go into the bottom of the tank, and as it composts it releases methane. That gets siphoned off to another tank behind it, which compresses and stores it. We’ll run pipes from that to the generators, and that should give us enough power.”

“I’m not an engineer,” Dr. Tindall said, “but this seems like overkill.”

“Not if we expand, like I’m hoping to,” Jamie said. “I want to build an all-purpose facility that can serve as a gymnasium and an auditorium, and I want central heat and air for that. Plus, we might need more classrooms by next year, if things keep going well.”

“Your gramma says to count on it,” Mr. Bass said. “You’re gonna need the space.”

“Is she here?” Dr. Bass said. “I’d like to meet her.”

“She’s in the main building, probably.” Jamie nodded in that direction. “I’ll take you there.”

They said goodbye to Mr. Bass and headed toward the long rectangular structure that housed the classrooms. The old barn was directly behind it, and Jamie gestured at it and said, “We’re getting a bus pretty soon, and we’re going to put the shed for it next to that.”

“How are you going to get gasoline for the bus?”

“It’s electric. I’ve never seen one before, but my granddaddy found a company in Atlanta that sells them. The one we’re getting will carry about forty kids or so, which will be enough for now.”

“Where are your students coming from?”

“Some of them come from in town, like the shopkeepers’ kids, and it’s an easy walk for them, but the ones who live on the farms south of here have a pretty long way to go. Almost three miles, for a few of them, and that’s a problem sometimes. Right now, their parents are bringing them in their wagons, and a couple ride horses, but a lot of them walk.”

“That could be rough in bad weather.”

“I think attendance will go up after we get the bus.”

“How many kids do you have now?”

“About fifty, and more parents are stopping by every week to check us out.” He paused and nodded. “We’re almost at capacity. We need at least one more teacher.” He opened the back door of the main building for her and the enetered. “We seem to be growing all the time.”

They passed the two bathrooms in the back hall and stopped by a small classroom on their right, where Jamie heard voices. He whispered, “This is Miss Duffy’s room. She teaches music and art, among other things.”

They slipped inside and found ten children seated at desks, facing the front, where Miss Duffy stood beside her easel. On it was a drawing of a house. When she saw Jamie, she smiled, and her students all turned to look at Jamie with brightened faces.

“Jamie!” Blane said, and others echoed his greeting.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jamie said. “I’m just giving Dr. Tindall a tour of the school. She’s my science teacher at college.”

“Are you going to be our science teacher?” Keela said.

“Uh, no. I’m just here to see what the fuss is all about.”

They said goodbye to Miss Duffy’s class and Jamie showed Dr. Tindall the rest of the facility — the main room, the other two classrooms, and the office — then he took her outside, where they found the rest of the kids playing, some on the big field, and a few more, mostly boys, on the new basketball court made from the special solar panels. Aunt Connie was watching the latter group, and his grandmother was with the kids who were playing dodge ball. Jamie called to her, and she joined them at the picnic table under the big oak tree, now bare of its leaves.