Dreams (14 page)

The scene outside Hutchinson Hall was a merry one. It was the first week of January and snow covered the rolling hills on which the campus of Miskatonic University was situated. The most recent storm had ended, easterly breezes had sent the last heavy clouds scudding into the highlands to the west and a bright winter sun glittered in a perfect azure sky.

Young men and women sported new finery received from their families during the Christmas break. Couples greeted one another, preparing to settle back into their academic routine. A tall girl, bright sunlight dancing in her blond hair, threw a snowball at a boy in a bright red quilted jacket. Nearby a group of students were building a snowman.

Inside Hutchinson Hall's gray stone battlements, in a spacious office, its walls covered with gold-stamped, leather-bound volumes save where space was reserved for oil portraits of academics of past generations, Tivona Sanders, BA, MA, Ph.D., Dean of Admissions, pored over a stack of carefully labeled manila file folders. Each contained the carefully completed application of a high school senior hoping to enroll at Miskatonic for the following fall semester.

Behind Dean Sanders an ancient fireplace fed fragrant wood-smoke into a tall chimney. A fire had been laid by the building's porter and the room was comfortable despite the midwinter chill. From time to time the fire's pleasant crackling was punctuated by a snapping pine knot.

There was the sound of knuckles on wood.

The Dean raised her eyes, her glance passing over a bookshelf that held a row of Miskatonic's yearbooks dating from the university's Seventeenth Century founding to the present. Dean Sanders pressed a button located at the side of her great mahogany desk, releasing the latch on the door of her office.

A tall, gray-haired, bespectacled man entered. The man was smiling. He wore a dark green alpine hat. In one gnarled hand he carried an elaborately carved stick. That this it was not for mere affectation was evidenced by his pronounced limp and the fact that he leaned on the stick with each step.

"I'll bet you love the buzzers as much as I do," he said. He spoke with the nasal twang of a Maine native. Decades of exposure to Massachusetts surroundings had not changed his speech.

"I don't like them a bit," Dean Sanders smiled. She stood and rounded her desk, taking the newcomer's free hand warmly in both of her own. "But ever since the recent series of break-ins, I suppose they can't be helped."

She gestured to a comfortable chair opposite her desk. It was covered in rich maroon leather and studded in brass. The tall man lowered himself gingerly into it, moving with care. He removed his hat and placed it on a corner of the desk, then he leaned his walking stick against the dark stained wood.

Once the newcomer was settled, Dean Sanders returned to her own chair. "Thank you for coming, Doctor Lazarus."

"Bill."

"Of course."

"I'm glad to offer any assistance I can, Dean."

"Please. Tivona. The least you can do is return that favor."

William Lazarus nodded, waiting for her to continue.

"You know I'd rather be in the classroom, teaching my courses in Middle Eastern and Semitic Archaeology. But the President personally asked me to take over Admissions for a year, and Miskatonic has been so good to me, I couldn't refuse."

As Lazarus's speech marked him as a native of Maine, Tivona Sanders's accent was that of a native Hebrew speaker. She sported a modestly stylish sweater and skirt. She still wore her wedding ring, refusing to give up hope that her husband, Riston Sanders, would be found alive.

"When I was a boy we had an expression for that kind of duty," Lazarus said. "Something vulgar involving a barrel."

"I learned that in the army," Tivona Sanders grinned. "Israel can't afford to coddle its delicate flowers of femininity."

She tapped a fingernail on the topmost manila folder near the edge of her desk.

"Most of these are pretty routine," she said. "Of course Miskatonic has recovered from the scandals that hurt us so much under the former administration. We're getting many more applications than we can accept, and the quality of the applicants has risen. We can stand up to the best of the competition, academically."

"That's good news, but not startling."

Lazarus removed his gold-rimmed spectacles, patted his jacket until he located a gray velvet cloth, and polished the lenses. He set the spectacles carefully in place. "This isn't the Miskatonic it was when I was a young instructor of transdimensional geometry. The student body was exclusively male in those days. And exclusively Caucasian. And Christian. I remember the controversy when the Admissions Committee accepted the first Jewish student in—was it 'thirty-one? Poor fellow took a dreadful hazing. People leaving ham sandwiches in his room when he was out, sending him Gospels in the mail. But he stuck it out, I'll give him that. Poor chap enlisted in the Marine Corps after Pearl Harbor and died on Tarawa."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dean. Ah, Tivona. You'll have to forgive an old man for wandering. I think I might retire after the spring semester."

"Don't do that, Bill. Miskatonic needs your wisdom." She closed her eyes, gathering her thoughts, then lifted the folder and extended it toward him. "What do you make of this?"

Lazarus accepted the folder, opened it and studied its contents. After a few moments he raised his eyes to meet Tivona Sanders's.

"I see."

"Indeed."

Tivona Sanders pushed herself back from her desk, turned and stood facing the fire.

Lazarus waited for her to turn back.

"Another Whateley," he muttered.

"I wasn't here when the great scandal occurred. I wasn't even born then, no less in America." Tivona Sanders raised one hand and rubbed her forehead. "Hardly anyone is left at Miskatonic from those days. But you're the most senior faculty member we have, Bill. You were here, weren't you? You knew what happened? You know about the terrible—
thing
—the thing that died in the library? You know about the events up on Sentinel Hill?"

Lazarus nodded. He removed his spectacles, studied them as if some wisdom might be spelled out on their lenses, then donned them once more. "I was on Sentinel Hill that night," he said at last. "But now—it's been so many years. Decades, Tivona. I thought there were no more Whateleys left in Arkham. Nor even in Aylesbury."

"You didn't notice the applicant's address."

Lazarus said, "Sorry." He studied the document once again. "Once I saw the name I'm afraid I stopped reading. All right, give me a few minutes to study this application."

Soon he looked up. "West Athol." He allowed himself a grin. "I played for the West Athol Marauders, did you know that?"

Tivona Sanders said, "Bill, I never heard of the West Athol Marauders."

Lazarus uttered a sound that was mostly a soft, rueful laugh.

"Semi-professional football team. Long gone, now. Professional football wasn't the big business then that it is nowadays. Even the NFL was small potatoes. Most of the players had day jobs, they just played football on Sundays. But that was my ambition. I was a center. I was pretty good, too. Until I got my kneecap shattered."

He looked down at his rough tweed trousers, kneaded his knee as if to work out its soreness, let out a wistful sigh.

Tivona Sanders said, "Football's loss was Miskatonic's gain, Bill. I hope you don't regret your career."

"I'm sorry." He rose partway from his chair, then sank back into it. "You didn't invite me in here to talk about ancient events on a minor-league gridiron. You want to talk about—" he studied the application once more "—Miss Dorcas Whateley, senior valedictorian of West Athol Rural High School. Also senior class president, chairman of the dramatic society, captain of the girls' basketball team, and editor-in-chief of the West Athol
Rustic News.
Tivona, I don't see how you can do other than accept her."

"But she's a Whateley. Do you know what that name means around here?"

Before Lazarus could reply, Tivona Sanders answered her own question. "Of course you do. Of course. When I first came to Miskatonic, mere mention of that name was enough to silence a room full of chattering academics. Now, it's mostly forgotten. But do we want to stir up those ashes again? There are still people who react to the name. Old-timers who insist that they hear rumblings beneath the hills around Arkham, that there are foul odors on certain nights."

"I know, I know."

"Is it just superstition, Bill? Townies don't like Miskatonic much. And to be honest, the university hasn't done a lot to benefit Arkham."

There was a long silence. Lazarus turned his eyes toward mullioned windows. A wind had risen and drifted snow was being lifted and whirled on the campus. Fresh-faced boys and girls—young men and women—were throwing snowballs, playing like children.

"No, Tivona, it is not just superstition. Would that it were. Would that it were."

"Well, then—" The dean left her sentence incomplete.

William Lazarus said, "This is a new era, Tivona. It's a new world. Tradition or no, I would even say, this is a new Miskatonic University. We cannot penalize this young woman for the evils of her ancestors. I don't see how the university can turn her down. Let's hope that she redeems the name Whateley. Give her a chance to eradicate what bad memories remain. She deserves a chance, Tivona. Look at her record. She deserves a chance."

Tivona Sanders retrieved the file folder from William Lazarus. "You're right," she sighed, "I'm sure you're right, Bill. I was hoping you'd tell me to turn her down. Send her a polite letter, tell her we were over-enrolled for the fall semester, even offer to write a letter of recommendation for her to another institution. But no, of course you're right. She'll be here next autumn."

William Lazarus retrieved his walking stick, leaned on it and got to his feet. He picked up his soft hat and pressed it onto his iron-gray hair. "Besides, West Athol would almost certainly be the undecayed branch of the family. Her transcript indicates as much."

Tivona Sanders let out a sigh. "Let us hope."

William Lazarus smiled. "Now that that's settled, Tivona, how about a couple of drinks and a good meal at the Arkham Inn?"

The dean looked at her wristwatch. "I have a lot of work to do. I really shouldn't. I'll probably be here 'til seven or seven-thirty tonight."

"I can wait."

"All right. I'll meet you at the inn. Would eight-thirty be too late? I want to run home and freshen up after work."

"I'll be at the bar." His smile broadened into a grin. "I'll be the tall fellow in the tweed suit with the fancy walking stick in one hand and a brandy snifter in the other." He stood at the window, watching students running and playing. The glass was thick and he couldn't hear their joyful whoops, but in his mind he could hear a long-ago cheering crowd.