Box Set - Chapter Twenty-Nine

‘Roger’s taken to teaching like a duck to water,’ Tarquin laughs. ‘Hello, children, don’t pay attention to us.’

The children chatter on our arrival. A distraction from the lesson.

‘Come now children, settle down,’says Teague, in a very un-Teague-like voice.

Each child has a stone tablet in front of them, with scratches of writing.

Our shocked faces are clearly a cause of concern for Tarquin. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks. ‘Do you know each other.’

It’s Teague who answers first. ‘I think I’d remember, Tarquin.’ He crosses to the back of the room to stand with us. ‘Keep scribing children, a scribing hand is a happy hand. Such little treasures,’ he smiles, putting a hand to his heart. He makes a face like a doting parent and I think I might be sick.

Elle laughs, but I can tell it’s fake. Tarquin and Sandra don’t pick up on it. ‘Just in awe of a teacher at work,’ she lies.

‘The best person to take you through things here,’ Sandra says. ‘He’s had the children working twice as hard already.’

The pair of them smile and say their goodbyes, leaving us in Teague’s capable hands.

‘Roger?’ I ask. ‘Really?’

‘I felt it was time for a shift in priorities,’ he says. ‘I felt that ‘Roger’ befitted a man who dedicated his life to teaching writing to the young of the after.’

Elle raises her eyebrow so it disappears behind her pink fringe. ‘What are you pulling here, Teague? We’re not stupid.’

‘Don’t let my old ways blind you…’

‘What your old ways of a couple of hours ago?’ I ask.

‘Hours?’he asks. ‘I’ve been here a week, my dear. Time, it appears, does not keep the same company in this place.’

‘So you’re just here for the teaching? No agenda, no evil plots afoot? Nothing.’

‘Got it in one,’ he says. ‘And I’d advise you join me here. It really brings a sense of peace.’

I look into his murky eyes. Can I detect deception? Either he’s completely into his new role or he’s the world’s greatest not-living actor.

He takes us aside from the children. ‘Look, I understand that I might not be trustworthy in your eyes, but see it from my point of view. Robin Thacker, the person I worshipped above all others, betrayed me. Why on earth would I want to go back to that place? Did you hear the singing? The togetherness in music? It brought us through. This place exists like a hive mind. They stand as a herd of humanity. Tell me of one place on earth where you’d find that?’

A part of me agrees with him. It’s the limits of this place that don’t agree with me. The lack of science is an example. It seems to be living for the sake of living and I’ve always wanted to live in support of doing; of making myself and the world better in some small way.

‘Stay with me here a while,’ he says. ‘I’ve got the children writing their own songs in honour of the people here.’

I look at Elle. She shrugs as if to say she’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. We can’t burst out into the square and start rebuking the town’s newest saint.

Elle crouches beside the nearest child and introduces herself.

‘Perhaps you’d like to join me in the pursuit of writing,’ Teague says. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a most noble pursuit.’

‘Do you have to talk like that?’

‘Like what?’ he replies.

‘Like you’re a missionary or something.’

‘But aren’t we all missionaries in our own small way. We were missionaries of science back on earth.’

‘If you want to look at it that way.’ I pause. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t push for the teaching of science here.’

His face goes darker. ‘Science led me down paths I don’t wish to revisit.’

‘Whatever you say, Roger.’ The name sounds strange in my mouth when I’m addressing him. ‘Do you have any idea where Yates might be?’

‘He could be anywhere,’ Teague replies. ‘Out in the vast desert of the mind.’

‘So it is our mind then?’ I ask.

‘We can’t say for certain,’ he replies. ‘We often speak about it at congregation.’

‘Congregation?’

‘Oh we collect after the work day to share tales, laughs, conversation. In the absence of dinner it’s all we can do, and better in a lot of ways.’

‘So our necessity to stay here must be due to mental blocks,’ I explore. ‘Portions of our mind that can be overcome if we really want to. Like how the body won’t willingly hurt itself without a significant amount of force or persuasion?’

‘Such a brilliant mind,’ he says. ‘We could have accomplished wonders together.’

I look at him. An ounce of the old Teague shining through and I don’t know whether that’s a good thing. He quickly recovers. ‘It would do best to ignore such urges to find out why we’re here.’

I hold up my hands. ‘All I want to do is find Yates. You can hold hands and sing camp songs all you want here.’

I instantly regret my rudeness. This place just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I can’t ever imagine just being. Not searching for the whys and the hows and the should we? And a big part of me doesn’t think Teague would ever stop either.

‘Look, I understand your frustration with me, Easton, but you don’t really have a lot of choice here. And helping people isn’t exactly going to hurt.’

It’s the hurting people, which is what holds me back from doing anything Teague wants to do. He is right though. He might stink to high heaven of some form of deception but that prejudice might be my trust issue.

‘How exactly do you find people who are stuck in between the worlds?’ I ask.

‘That’s something else you can do here. People go out into the desert specifically to seek out the people who are stuck. I hear you can feel them like waves of music.’

I always felt like the way I could see music was important. It explains a lot of things, like why music can be a healer. How when you’re down or lost, you can listen to music and it can pick you up. I guess through song, the people here become a part of the people who find themselves stuck in the same way as we seek out our old favourites in times of need.

‘Do you know anything about crossing back over?’ I ask. ‘Tarquin told me that people feared falling into an abyss? And didn’t feel brave enough to cross to the Great Beyond.’

‘It would take enormous faith to step so knowingly into the unknown,’ Teague confirms. ‘I can admit now that I fear the Abyss, more than anything. It took me a long time to conquer a fear of death, but to fall into an unknown place like that?’ He shudders. ‘It’s too much for me to bear.’

Elle returns to us from talking to the children. ‘Some of their work is really beautiful.’ She smiles. ‘I love seeing what children write, it’s always so brilliant and imaginative and intense in a way that adults can never do.’

‘I think you’ve found your calling here then,’ Teague says. ‘You can either take some of my children here, or just down the hall, a lovely lady from India is teaching them music, tempo, cadence, pitch, everything.’

‘Maybe I will,’ Elle says, smiling. Now she’s adopted the lilting, peaceful tone Teague, Tarquin and Sandra seem to insist on conversing in. ‘Easton, do you want to talk outside? Discuss what we’ll go on to do.’

‘Take as much time as you need,’Teague says, holding his hands up. ‘Accept it as my gift of gratitude.’

We nod and walk out into the warm open air. Elle turns to me and whispers urgently, ‘Something is seriously funky in there, Easton.’

‘I think so too,’ I reply. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust him. Problem is we have no proof he’s up to something?’

Elle scrunches up her nose. She looks as though she wants to say something but isn’t sure if she should.

‘What did you notice?’ I ask. ‘I know that look.’

It’s then that I notice how close I am to Elle. Maybe even closer than I ever was to Penny. It was never a romantic thing, I don’t think Elle’s interested in anything like that. But when I look at her sometimes, I know what she’s thinking. Maybe that’s the Edge, letting her thoughts and feelings leak out so much easier than if she was alive, but most of it is the friendship we’ve shared. I’m so happy I bumped into her on that day in Rome. I should tell her more often.

Elle still pauses before she speaks. ‘It’s just, I was looking at what the kids had written and they’re all writing about the same thing. Home.’

‘What how this place is their home?’

‘No, home home. Where they were before they died? One of them was writing about San Francisco, another one about Nairobi?’

‘That’s weird, it’s not the sort of thing Tarquin and that lot seem to like?’

‘No, exactly, it’s quite cruel,’Elle says. ‘He’s teasing them with a place they can’t get to anymore. Unless he has a reason for it?’

‘You mean using them for something?’ I consider the possibility. Is that all Teague needs? Concentrate enough thought on earth and we’ll return to it. Using the children would be his style.

We can’t explore the idea further. Teague bursts into the hallway. ‘Come in, quick. You have to see this.’

We walk back inside. The joy on his face would have been hard to fake. ‘This is why this place is wonderful,’he says.

We watch. One of the boys is standing up. He’s looking at himself like he’s never seen his body before. He must be about nine or ten, still with a boy’s frame and features. Slowly, and then very quickly, he begins to grow. First in height, he sprouts up like a time lapse view of a plant in growth. Then his shoulders square off. Finally his features harden and he takes on the visage of a boy of at least fifteen.

‘Congratulations Jacob!’ Teague cries. The class bursts into applause as me and Elle watch on, dumbfounded.

Teague crosses to the new teenager and claps him on the shoulders. ‘What perfect timing,’ he says. ‘A graduation before our very eyes.’

‘How did that happen?’ I ask. We’d seen it before, but only with Yates. I’d always put it down to his state of mind. A lifetime of torturing himself for committing suicide had left him depressed and unstable. Our helping him returned him to a more confident state. He was prone to relapses though. I think of his frame in Windermere’s dungeon, and of his face sometimes when he thought he did something wrong.

‘Here you are as old as you want to be,’ Teague says. ‘Childhood is such a state of flux as it is, free of our physical forms we can mature in a deeper way than simply growing our physical body. Jacob here has matured in his work, way ahead of his years. So this is how you see him, and how we treat him.’

Jacob beams at us and then at Teague, his happy teacher.

‘Go and see Tarquin with your news,’ Teague says, ‘I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.’

‘There’s no need!’

The deep voice behind us erupts out of nothing. I jump a little. Elle smirks. I wonder how long Tarquin’s been standing there.

‘This is truly wonderful, the fourth child this week!’ Jacob looks at Tarquin a little sheepishly. ‘Report to the town hall, young man, we’ll find a place for you.’

Tarquin looks at the pair of us.‘This is what I hoped you’d see. Now I hope you’ll be a little more convinced of our lives here.’

‘It is remarkable,’ I say. Jacob squeezes past us with a quiet ‘excuse me’ .

‘Teague,’ Tarquin says. ‘I came to talk about your request and I must say it’s an excellent idea.’

I look at Elle and then at Tarquin. Whenever someone says something like this about Teague I’m filled with an enormous sense of dread.

‘Teague here is running a singing recital tomorrow evening,’ he says, proudly. ‘Out in front of the town hall. The whole town will be there.’

‘That sounds wonderful,’ I say, but I hear the doubt in my voice. Tarquin lets it pass unnoticed.

‘So do you think you’d like to teach here with us?’

‘Elle has shown interest in my writing program,’ Teague proclaims, clapping a big hand on her shoulder. She flinches under the weight of it.

‘Well that’s excellent,’ Tarquin says. ‘And you, Easton?’

‘I was thinking literature,’ I reply. I think of Penny, it’s what she would have done. I can remember all of the conversations she had about the books she loved. She made me love them too. I have to do something here while we look for Yates.

‘Fantastic,’ Tarquin says. ‘We’ll start you tomorrow. Come along, I’ll show you to your new home.’

I wonder has he forgotten about Yates. We follow him out of the school. I spare a look back to Teague. Was there a look in his eye? That old glint of maniacal genius? It’s gone in an instant and I’m left to wonder. Maybe we’ll have to stay here just another day, to see whatever plan the Wildman turned teacher has concocted.