Life In The Palace (18 page)

Chapter 14

I
was on my
way to meet Seth at the ghetto Second Cup.

“Hey!” I caught up with Jen just as we went through the school gates. “Going anywhere special?”

“I have to be at the Chapel in forty-five minutes, and I was wondering what to do until then.”

“I’m doing coffee with the boyfriend, want to tag along?”

Jen shrugged, “I won’t be intruding on ‘couple time’?”

“If Seth is sitting there by himself, I’ll buy you a coffee,” I snorted. “Alone time with Seth Wilks is not best achieved by sitting in a public place. There’s always someone who knows him.”

“You don’t get dibs?”

“I do, but when I want to invoke my right to private time, I do it in private.”

I was right. He was sitting at one of the outside tables with Bret.

“Is this a Montreal thing? Sit outside until the snow actually starts to fall?”

“Mrs. Seth, I don’t know what you’re talking about, the weather is positively balmy,” replied Bret in a mock British accent.

Jen chuckled at “Mrs. Seth,” Bret’s favorite name for me. It can be an interesting relationship between the guy’s girlfriend and his best friend, but Bret was a major fan of mine. Apparently, I’d won him over unknowingly with, “He’s growing his own toupee.”

Seth finished putting out his cigarette, “But if you’re feeling the cold we can move inside.” He stood and stroked my cheek with the non-smoking hand.

We found a table next to the window. I held the table while everyone else got coffee.

Seth came back first, “Mochachino, extra foam.” He put the cup down in front of me.

“Black, one sugar,” I replied jerking my head towards his cup.

“Naturally.” He sat down next to me and the weight of his stare created our own private moment. “Good morning?”

“Not bad. Two lectures down, one lab to go. I’m planning on writing up the lab report tonight while you’re jamming. That way I’ll be a free lady tomorrow.”

Seth narrowed his eyes, “Do we have plans? I don’t remember.”

“No, it’s just better when our free time overlaps. Did your morning consist of anything besides sleep, shower, breakfast smoke?”

Seth sat up in his chair, his eyes gleaming. “It did.”

“My goodness, what on earth got you out of bed on a Tuesday?”

“Actually my bladder.”

I cracked up, “That deserved a big announcement?”

He still looked remarkably smug, “No, the big announcement is that after I was woken by the call of nature I got dressed and went out.”

“To buy cigarettes?”

“That as well.” He was enjoying himself way too much.

“The suspense is killing me.”

“I went to the Ghetto Chapel.”

I nearly fell off my chair.

“That joint they keep advertising all over town? I think there’s a poster on every lamp post for a ten block radius,” Bret asked as he sat back down.

Jen shot me a look.

I had still not recovered.

“Was it as lame as it promised to be?” Bret asked Seth.

“Not so much.”

“Because there’s always room for more lameness where Service is involved.” Bret made air quotes for Service.

Seth nodded, “True that, bro. But this was passable. I can’t say I’m going to be running back for more, but I left with my dignity intact.”

“Nice one mate.”

I put my hand up to silence Bret. I knew where this could lead to. I did not need to hear any of the funny things that happened the year their mothers decided to send them to Sunday school or how they outdid each other at camp.

“Why did you go to the Ghetto Chapel?” I asked Seth pronouncing each word exactly.

Seth shrugged and smirked at Bret.

“Would have been rude not to.”

I glared at him and he reverted from being Bret’s best mate to being my boyfriend.

“You keep going on about it. Even Jen over here’s been. Josh was there. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What did you do there?”

“There was this tall dark haired guy… ”

“Gal?” I asked.

“Could be. He made me coffee and gave me some cheesecake. We went out onto the balcony for a smoke.”

“He smoked?” Jen couldn’t help herself.

“No, I smoked, he talked about stuff; where I come from, what’s my major, nothing heavy. Then he asked if I wanted to learn about the Way with him. It wasn’t time to meet you, so I did.”

Jen and I both stared at him.

“How was it?” I asked after a few seconds.

“Not bad. Kind of interesting. Better than at Sunday School.” The last line was for Bret’s benefit.

“Will you go again?” I dared to ask.

“Maybe,” he shrugged.

*

Gal was uncharacteristically bubbly as the others collected for their weekly roundup.

“Is there something you’d like to tell us, Gal?” Cale asked as they were all seated.

“I think I found him!”

He was surrounded by looks of disbelief.

“Him? The actual person we were looking for? We might actually have a chance of closing the sinkhole?” Noy asked, the excitement rising in her voice.

“I think it might be him,” Gal dared to answer.

“What happened?” Tal was at the edge of her chair.

“This guy just walked in off the street. He’s Mr. Cool-Surf-Dude.”

“ ‘Serfer’ dude,” Jov said with a smirk.

“He just walked in?” Dava asked.

“Yeah, he said his girlfriend had said the place was cool, so he came to check it out.”

“Who’s his girlfriend?” Tal looked at Noy.

Noy shrugged, “That girl from Edmonton with the curly hair, maybe? So many of them have boyfriends. There hasn’t exactly been a chance to get to know everyone personally.”

“We’ve got all year,” Dava reminded her.

“What makes this guy the one? That Sven guy with the spiky hair is pretty cool.” Cale was not ready to get worked up over nothing.

“It’s not because he’s cool. He sat here totally calm, picked up a book of the Way. I asked if he wanted to learn it. I didn’t want to be pushy, but he was holding it in his hand. He said he could read the ancient script, and, boom, we’re in the first level.”

“Just like that?” Noy was on the edge of her seat.

“His understanding was amazing. We were only learning for an hour and he commented on how nice the scenery was!”

Cale looked around the circle, “Maybe he has a background.”

“He says he went to Sunday School for one year and did five summers of Reinterpreter camp.”

“That’s hardly a background,” Tal said looking at Cale.

“Yeah, I heard all they teach you in those camps is the hand motions to Kumbayah,” Noy smiled.

“He could be lying,” Cale suggested.

Noy was unimpressed, “What is your problem? Why are you so desperate for this not to be the one?”

Dava made a move to say something, but before she could Cale shot back, “We don’t know who he is. This could be another Interloper plot to shake us off the trail.”

“You could be an Interloper mole to shake us off,” Noy shot back. Jov eyed Cale suspiciously.

Gal interrupted before tensions could run any higher. “Cale is right. We don’t know for sure. We can only work with what we see. If this guy is the one then may it please He Who Knows that we easily identify the area of weakness that is causing the sinkhole.”

“Then what?” Tal asked.

“Then we stop it.”

“That might be the hard part,” Jov mumbled under his breath.

“Or not. We have no idea what this guy might be going through. If he has such a highly developed soul then he might be very thankful to finally be relieved of his burden.”

Dava nodded, “We think the Serfs are having such a good time, but lots of them find entering Service a great relief.”

Cale shrugged, “Let’s just hope that this guy thinks entering the Palace is the best thing that ever happened to him.”

*

There was a handy little nameplate on the door so I didn’t have to worry about disturbing the wrong elderly person in the middle of their nap.

“Come in, Sheri.”

I stuck my head round the door. “I’m not actually Sheri. Do you mind?”

Mrs Hols laughed, “Not at all, you can come in too. But be warned that Sheri might arrive any time.”

“Your granddaughter?”

She nodded.

“I think I’ll take my chances.”

The room was slightly smaller than my bedroom with a bed on one wall, a built-in wardrobe, a small bookshelf under the window and a little table with one chair pulled up to it. The walls were decorated with tasteful floral print wallpaper with matching curtains. Two armchairs stood next to the window. Mrs. Hols sat in one.

“You like my room?” Mrs. Hols asked.

“It’s very Little House on the Prairie.”

She chuckled. “It is. I didn’t decorate it. This is what they think will make the elderly feel the most at home. It’s not bad. My daughter tried getting me a few throw pillows for the bed, but it just gave me more things to move out of the way to get into bed and more things to fall over on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

I nodded sympathetically.

“Did you really come just to admire my décor?”

I loved the way she’s not afraid to get to the point. Since it was Mrs. Hols I was talking to, I didn’t bother with any preamble.

“How do you get into the Palace? What’s the quest? I tried to ask Tal and she just looked uncomfortable and mumbled something about it being very hard. I figured you’d tell me the truth.”

Mrs. Hols waved her hand to the arm chair opposite hers indicating I should sit.

“Practically, you apply to the Council of Guides, you tell them why you want to enter the Palace. If you convince them that you are sincere, then you make the Quest. There are two parts: the Quest in the Palace that you make alone, and in the physical world you learn battle tactics. If you succeed in the Palace, then the Council may elevate you before you complete your studies. But if you’re not victorious in the Palace, then you won’t be elevated no matter how much you’ve learned.”

I nodded silently while I let it all sink in.

“What does the Quest in the Palace consist of?”

Her answer was a wry smile. I waited for a more detailed response.

“No one knows. You make the Quest blind. At the moment, you can only see the Palace if you’re near one of the People, right?”

“Right.”

“To enter the Palace you have to complete the Quest inside the Palace without being able to see the Palace.”

I shut my eyes in disbelief. “How on earth are you supposed to do that?”

“I have no idea,” she answered in a tone that was way to cheery. “It’s really hard. No one can tell you how to do it and you don’t know what you’re doing.”

I just stared at her.

Her tone softened, “On the other hand, many do it. In this generation more than you would imagine. We’re reaching the final battle and throughout the nations of the world brave individuals are being called to Palace. It used to be only one or two per generation that succeeded in the Quest, now it’s much more common.”

“I can’t just ask them how they did it?”

“You can try, for what good it will do you. Each Quest is individual, that’s why there is no prescribed time for how long it takes. I’ve heard of some taking a decade, and others being finished in a year. Very occasionally someone might be able to do it in less than that.”

I looked out the window and saw that snow was beginning to fall. I looked back to Mrs. Hols.

She leaned towards me, “You need to be very, very sure. Once you’re in, there’s no going back to the real world.”

“Once you take the red pill,” I said to myself.

She looked at me quizzically, but I didn’t explain.

“If I decide I want to do it, I just call up this Council of Guides?”

“Essentially, although the first meeting might be smoother if one of the People in Service makes the call for you. It can take a few meetings before you are accepted to even begin the Quest. A good introduction can make that part a little easier.”

“Why wouldn’t Tal or any of them tell me all of this?”

“We don’t encourage Others to make the Quest. It’s long, it’s hard and being in the Palace could result in their deaths. If you’re born to Service then you have to Serve, but if you’re not why would you want to make your life harder?”

I was sure there was something she was leaving out. “Why does anyone do it then?”

“You tell me, lovely.”

She might have been elderly, but I shot her a look.

She chuckled, “Because if you live in the Palace, He Who Knows is your best friend. You are surrounded by a neverending love. Because to live with Grace is worth it.”

She looked me up and down. “I have a friend who made the Quest. She said that once she knew what could be, she felt that she had no choice and she’d have crawled across hot coals to get in.”

It was a feeling I was afraid I recognized.

I didn’t tell Seth about the conversation with Mrs. Hols. I hadn’t decided what I thought about it all. I wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say. I had a suspicion that he’d ask me what took me so long to work it out.

We’d already covered the details of Spike’s Saturday night adventures before I casually asked the question.

“Spike, do you think I should become one of the People?”

Spike chuckled, “Been working up to that long?”

“Not the point. Answer the question.”

“The real question would be why not? Your ‘one true love’ over there is one of them. You think they’re beyond cool. Despite the pamphlet distributing, incense burning connotations, you actually want to serve with Him”

“How do you know that?” I asked suspiciously.

“I’m your best friend. I know everything about you, including the bits you don’t own up to in public. Most of us would have gone all, ‘My study partner Tal is weird and religious’ and given her a wide berth. You were all like, ‘Hey, what if she’s onto something?’ It turns out she was, which is surprising but cool.”

“What about ‘the whole life will never be the same’ issue?” I played with the tassels on the edge of my bedspread.

“Life is always never going to be the same. We wander around thinking that we’re making choices and that we have some sort of control over what happens to us, and it’s total B.S. You thought you had life all worked out and then Stacy went and threw a major spanner in the works. Why worry about what’s around the corner when you won’t ever know? You might as well do something that you really want while you’re waiting for the excrement to hit the cooling device, you know?”