Mazes and Monsters (22 page)

“I really don’t want to go in those caverns tonight,” Kate told Daniel. “Last night is still too close.”

“But this time you have
two
people who know the caverns,” Daniel said.

She forced herself to go in there and the game quickly took over, as she had hoped it would, and then everything was all right. After the game, when they all went back to the dorm, Kate brought her pillow into Daniel’s room, where she was going to spend the night. They hadn’t had to discuss it; they both simply knew that they were going to be together as much as possible. When Jay Jay saw her going into Daniel’s room with the pillow, in her bathrobe, Kate thought she caught him looking sad. He’s jealous, she thought. Poor Jay Jay.

She was relieved that Robbie didn’t seem jealous at all. He didn’t even seem to notice. And anyway, they were good friends now, nothing more.

The next day Kate and Daniel went to the shopping mall after classes and bought a king-size mattress and sheets and a blanket, all of which they brought back to the dorm. The purchase would leave both of them broke for months, but it was worth it. They were dragging the mattress up the stairs when Robbie appeared. Kate had a feeling of déjà vu about that mattress number.

“Oh, let me help you,” Robbie said pleasantly.

He not only helped them with the mattress, but he helped them drag Kate’s bed into Daniel’s room and put the two beds together with the king-size mattress on top. They had to take the desk out and put it into Kate’s room.

“This looks really decadent,” Daniel said, surveying their huge bed with pleasure.

“Perfectly suitable for a future captain of industry,” Kate said. They both laughed.

“Captain of industry?” Robbie said. “I don’t understand.”

“I changed my mind about being a dilettante,” Daniel said.

“Oh,” Robbie said. Then he smiled and raised his hand in a benediction. “Bless you, my children,” he said.

CHAPTER 10

A long time afterward Daniel would look back and think that he should have noticed what was happening, should have anticipated it—he who was so bright, observant, and logical. But he had been in love, and the amazement and joy of this unexpected miracle was the focus of his attention. Besides, perhaps logic had been his downfall. To have been able to anticipate something so mad and strange took a mind that was open to anything.

But it was now; the end of winter, the beginning of love. Kate was everything he had ever wanted. He knew that things between them would keep getting better and better. They planned for her to come home to Brookline with him for the Spring Break. He had told his parents he was bringing a girl who was important to him and they were pleased. His mother said she would have a good excuse to fix up the guest room, a chore she had been putting off. Daniel felt too sanguine to argue with her about sleeping quarters, although he knew that Kate’s mother, from what Kate had told him, would probably have let them stay in the same room.

He hoped Kate wasn’t jealous about all the girls who had been before her. She saw them everywhere; in the dorm, on the campus, at classes. And that was just some of them! None of them had been in this new bed with him though—this was for the two of them and their new life. Those girls had only been physical attraction. He would have had more cause to be jealous—if he were a jealous person—of guys Kate had actually
loved.
He wanted her to love him more than she had ever loved them, and she assured him she did.

He didn’t want to rush things, but at the back of his mind was the idea that if their relationship kept getting better, after they graduated they would live together, and then they might get married. Why not? He wanted to marry, and have children, and he knew he would be perfectly happy to spend the rest of his life with Kate. He couldn’t say anything to her though, because ambitious women panicked if they thought you were trying to tie them down or interfere with their lives. He would have to live where the best job was, and maybe Kate would want to go to New York and get a job in publishing. She worried so much about her writer’s block that if she couldn’t write that novel she was dreaming of, then she would want to go to work in a field where she could learn more about writing. Daniel wondered if the best job offer for him would come from a firm in New York, and then everything would be solved. There was no point in worrying this far in advance. He was astonished at how much he had changed already—he who never wanted to plan for the future was now filled with plans.

She told him one night about the man in the laundry room who had tried to rape her, and Daniel wished he could kill him.

“Why didn’t you tell the school authorities?” he said angrily. “You should have demanded they hire a security guard.”

“Ha,” Kate said. “Somebody has to get raped or killed first, and then all the future victims have to make a petition … guards cost money, you know. People don’t care about other people in this world. You have to take care of yourself.”

He had never heard her sound so bitter. He held her. “I’ll take care of you.”

“I know,” she said. “But I hardly knew you then.”

“I wish I could do something to make it never have happened.”

“It helped a lot that I was able to tell you,” she said. “I never could tell anyone before—at least, no one who mattered to me—and I had to pretend I didn’t care. It was the only way I could handle it. I do feel better now, really.”

He and Kate talked about going to Europe for the summer. They could figure out a really cheap way to go, and maybe their parents would give them the money. Or maybe they could go to San Francisco, stay at Kate’s house, get jobs, and earn enough to go for the last three weeks.

“My father’s going to have an expensive new baby by then,” Kate said. “He might say he can’t afford to send me to Europe, or, on the other hand, he might feel guilty enough to say yes.”

“It would be nice if we could go in June, after my brother’s wedding.”

“But whatever we do,” Kate said, “you and I will do it together, and it will be fun.”

She wrote a poem for him. “It’s kind of dumb,” she said, embarrassed. He didn’t think it was dumb at all. He thought it was marvelous and he kept it in his wallet.

With his life so full now, a life that had been almost too full before with all the things they continued to do, how could he have noticed anything? Even Kate, wary as a rabbit, didn’t notice anything either.

CHAPTER 11

Jay Jay knew that the Kate-Daniel romance was for real, and it made him feel alone again. He couldn’t even fantasize that Kate was giving each one of them a chance and his would be next. He hated being so young. He never wanted the girls who wanted him; they were always little kids. It was March. The grim hateful weather had started to grow softer, but he knew it was tricky. Tomorrow it might snow. April was when everything got better and you knew there was some hope you would see spring again. The Spring Break started the first week in April, and Jay Jay thought that to cheer himself up he might as well give an April Fools’ Day party, to end the Winter Semester properly and send everyone off on their way with a nice hangover.

He made a list of everyone he liked or wanted to know better. The four of them, of course; Perry and his medical friends, Glenna, Tina, the twins … he would invite all of Daniel’s former girl friends just to stir up a little mischief. He had saved his old party lists so he wouldn’t forget anybody. Everyone who was invited could bring friends, so it ought to be big and noisy, just the way he liked parties to be. It would be a normal party—no tricks or gimmicks. He had used up all his tricks on the game. The only thing he did to make the occasion special was teach Merlin to say “April fool,” a whimsical little touch, Jay Jay thought. He would start the party in the afternoon. If it was like all his others it would last far into the night.

Jay Jay was rather looking forward to Spring Vacation this year because his mother, when he phoned to tell her when he’d be home, informed him that she was going to Key West to decorate the house of a new client. She was all excited. Jay Jay didn’t dare ask her if she’d touched
his
room, and she didn’t say anything, but of course she never did. It would be fun to have the whole apartment to himself. He thought of inviting Kate and Daniel and Robbie to visit him, but the thought of having Kate and Daniel behaving like a honeymoon couple in his own apartment was too much; he’d have to be a masochist to inflict that on himself. Besides, his mother was always afraid his friends would scratch some of her precious furniture, or make cigarette burns or spill something, if they stayed over when she wasn’t there. It was tempting to invite them just to bug her, but the pleasure of upsetting her wasn’t worth the other thing. Anyhow, Kate was going to Daniel’s house. Meet the folks. Yuck.

Jay Jay mailed out fifty formal invitations. He would probably ask about a dozen other people when he ran into them—anyone who looked like a good addition to his life. Fifty was the perfect core number for a party.

“Do you need any decorations?” Perry asked him. “A nice pickled embryo?”

“I want them to have a good time, not get sick,” Jay Jay said.

They played the last game of the Winter Semester in the caverns on Saturday night. It was a particularly long session; they were all reluctant to leave things unfinished. But, of course, things were always left unfinished in the game … that was one of the things that was so good about it. You were always in suspense, wanting to go further.

April Fools’ Day was clear and not too cold. By the time the sun disappeared everyone was well into the planned evening of merrymaking in Jay Jay’s room and the hall. Jay Jay was wearing a red cashmere sweater, immaculately pressed jeans, and his World War I German helmet with the spike on top. Daniel and Robbie took turns as disc jockey. The music was loud, the guests were making rash promises they would later regret or forget, and Merlin’s raspy voice seemed to have the authority of a Greek chorus.

“I love you,” Perry said to Tina, whom he had just met.

“April fool!” Merlin said.

Tina laughed. She had metamorphosed into Kim Novak now, and was wearing a plain silk shirt and a tight skirt with a slit. Tiny pearls replaced the safety pins that used to be in her earlobes. Jay Jay decided he was definitely destined to become a starmaker.

“Kate,” Jay Jay demanded, “take pictures!” He had a beautiful twin on either side of him, and he thought he might send the photo in to
The Grant Gazette.
It was the sort of thing they liked: a record of happy college days. Kate ran to get her Polaroid camera, and Cindy and Lyndy smiled their dazzling smiles for publicity.

Jay Jay’s favorite joyful records were blaring from his stereo, a glass of his favorite white wine was in his hand, sexy women were making a fuss over him, and he was in charge of this entire event. He had made all these people happy, enlivened their lives, brought them another terrific evening they would talk about for weeks. He was the instigator, the leader. He felt wonderful. The great Jay Jay had done it again.

“April fool!” Merlin said.

A Greek chorus is more than a commentator on events or an indicator of splendid ironies. Sometimes it also foretells the future.

Often it warns.

CHAPTER 12

Robbie lay on his bed in the dark, listening to the party guests making noise downstairs, the music playing. Moonlight was shining in through his bedroom window. He was thirteen again, and he had gone upstairs to be alone for a while. None of the people down there were his friends, and he couldn’t connect with them at all. He was still dressed because he might want to go back to the party anyway, and he wondered if everyone would be so glad to see him back if he had run away.

He was the Robbie then and the Robbie now, waiting for Hall to come in. Part of it was like a dream, seeing the past and the future—knowing Hall would come in although it had not yet happened, feeling his throat close with the pain of tears because he knew what would happen, needing to see Hall. It was Hall’s sixteenth birthday party, April first, and soon he would come to say good-bye and then he would disappear. It hurt so much to know all of this that he couldn’t bear it.

Pardieu’s hand reached out again to touch the little pouch of spells he always wore tied to his belt. He took out The graven Eye of Timor that had the power to raise the dead, and he stroked it like a touchstone. Every indentation of it was familiar to his fingers so often had he felt it, waiting for the time that he could use it. He waited for The Great Hall, and then he appeared, slipping through the wall, standing all pale and shimmering in the moonlight.

“Now, Pardieu,” The Great Hall said. “You are worthy. You know how to find me.”

The tension flowed out of Pardieu’s body and he sighed with gratitude. “At last …” he whispered.

The Great Hall seemed to dissolve just as he stood there in Pardieu’s sight, but Pardieu was neither afraid nor sad because he knew that soon he would be with The Great Hall again, this time forever. He rose from his bed. He had his sword, his coins, and all of his charms, and he would use these and his wits to be safe from evil. He was worthy. He knew his mission. He would bring back The Great Hall and then everything would be right again.

He slipped out into the dark, away from all Humans and Sprites and other beings who wasted their time with frivolity, and walked along the road, heading east. The landscape was changing with the beginning of spring. Pardieu could smell the flowers under the ground, feel the dampness of the unborn green shoots, all of nature waiting to be reborn. He was a part of this now, and of all things unseen and unknown: the highest level of Holy Man after so long a time of waiting and trial … at last.

On a quiet weekday night nobody paid any attention to the clean-cut college student walking down the dark road in jeans and Windbreaker. He walked so steadily, with such an obvious sense of his destination, that anyone who saw him would simply not notice him at all.

PART FOUR:

THE MAZE