Timepiece (Hourglass 2)

“There were certain things everyone was curious about.” He spoke carefully, as if everything he’d said up until this point had been canned, and now we were approaching unknown territory.

“Like what?” Em pushed.

His spike of irritation made me wonder if we’d gone too far.

Keeping my eyes on Dr. Turner, I moved to stand beside Em, my arm on the back of her chair. He stared at me for a moment, as if he were weighing something. Then he seemed to make a decision.

“Most specifically, they were curious about the manipulation of the space time continuum.”

Em gasped, then tried to cover it with a cough.

Dr. Turner didn’t take his eyes away from me. “Not solely in the realm of physics, but in the realm of something … beyond.”

“I thought universities were supposed to encourage free thinking.” I didn’t break the stare. He was either testing us or playing us. Either way, I didn’t intend to lose.

“Testing a hypothesis and getting a concrete result is challenging even when the research can be proven.” He removed a small metal object from his inside jacket pocket. It was flat on the bottom, and a sharp curve of metal arched over a tiny gargoyle— like a handle. He held it carefully as he used it to push the tobacco down. “The abstract idea of a person with preternatural abilities doesn’t fit into pure science. But too many believed the abstract was a possibility.”

“You did,” Em said.

“I believe in the abstract and the concrete.”

I decided to stop wasting time and show my hand. “Then why didn’t you follow Teague when she left for Chronos?”

The smell of sulfur filled the air when he lit a wooden match, touched it to the tobacco, and took a few puffs. “I wondered when that was coming.”

y years in this department meant he’d been here when my dad and Teague were here, and when they left. It also meant he’d been one of those who’d chosen to stay behind.

“Well?” he barked out.

I looked back at Em for visual confirmation and then pushed the door open. I was immediately assaulted by shiny black leather, Art Deco prints, and a giant moose head on the far left wall. A tiny placard hung underneath it, with one word, Freddy. A fedora hung on the topmost point of each antler. One of the hats had a cheetah print hatband.

A man with a head full of white hair, and a black goatee sprinkled with silver, sat behind a desk. His skin, the same color as cocoa powder, sported deep wrinkles in his smile lines. His gaze lingered on Em when she stepped into the doorway beside me. “Can I help you?”

I felt out his emotions. Curiosity. Mild impatience tempered with tolerance.

“Are you Dr. Turner?” Em asked, not crossing the threshold. Waiting to be invited in, like a vampire.

“That depends. Are you two ghost chasers?” He considered us over his bifocals as he pulled a bag of pipe tobacco out of his top desk drawer.

“No, sir,” I answered, frowning at Em. “We aren’t ghost chasers.”

“Good. Reality television has created way too many amateurs, if you ask me. None of them ever finds a damn thing. It’s because they’re looking in all the wrong places.”

“I’m Emerson, by the way.” She pointed to herself and then to me, as if the professor might have a hard time coming to the conclusion himself. “This is Kaleb.”

This time, he looked at me a little bit too long.

“I’m Dr. Turner. Head of the physics department. Nice to meet you both.”

In an un-vampire-like fashion, I stepped into the room without being asked. “We were wondering if we could talk to you.”

“Certainly. As long as you were telling me the truth about the ghost chasing.” He spun his chair around to turn down an ancient-looking record player. The scratchy sound of the blues faded away and he faced us again, waving his hand at Em. “Come in.”

He wore a bow tie, and a pink carnation hung haphazardly from a buttonhole in his vest. When he pulled his pipe from an inside pocket, the flower fell on his desk. He picked it up and twirled it between his fingers.

“Had a visit from the grands this morning. Youngest girl brought me a gift.” He smiled, tucked it into a leather pencil holder on the corner of his desk, and gestured with his pipe. “May I?”

“Sure.” Em nodded. “I like the smell of pipe tobacco. My granddad smoked one.”