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  The feeling gets worse, and I realize that my lauvan is not alone. Other sickly strands join my cable and the nauseating sensation only increases.

  I begin to sense the presence of many cables nearby. A center must be ahead.

  Every human has a central area where all their lauvan gather. There’s been much debate over the centuries about the location of the soul—Egyptians thought it was the heart, Plato philosophized that the tripartite soul sat in the head, chest, and stomach, and modern people in this country, although they don’t use the word “soul,” consider the powerhouse of the body to reside in the brain.

  Actually, it’s none of the above. If lauvan can be considered our souls, our life force, that which drives our inanimate flesh, then they tend to congregate just above the navel.

  Although each living person has a center where the majority of their lauvan coalesce, the Earth is too vast for that. Instead, a multitude of centers dot the globe. Each center helps to both strengthen and control the Earth’s lauvan. The cables stretch across the Earth’s surface and meet at the centers. Sometimes they are places of great physical power, like Iguazu Falls in Brazil. Other times, they are solid and unchanging like Uluru in Australia, but give off such an otherworldly aura that even the least sensitive people can identify them as exceptional. A minor center can be as simple as a crossroads of three cables at a natural spring, usually accompanied by a legend of a sacred well or waters of healing powers.

  I reach the center in an overwhelming surge of power, almost too much sensation to bear. A mixture of thrilling pleasure and actual physical pain runs up my own lauvan to my body. Before I accustom myself to reaching the center I’m hit with overpowering foulness. Imagine a sulfurous, rotting low tide assaulting your nostrils, the bite of earthy toxic mold filling your mouth when you expect fresh bread, a cankerous growth on an otherwise perfect apple.

  The sensation is so disgusting that I pull my mind back to my body and find myself on all fours, retching. I release my grip on the offending lauvan and try to relax my shuddering body. A center that out of balance, that sickening, it shouldn’t be possible. Surely a catastrophe is on its way.

  I fear disaster may be sooner rather than later.

  CHAPTER VI

  I take the road down the mountain more quickly than I should, and pass dawdling tourist cars with plates from Washington and Alberta. My hand won’t stop trembling on the gearshift and my fingers tap the wheel nervously.

  I roll down the driver’s side window and gulp in deep breaths of cool mountain air.

  “Calm down, you idiot.” I grip the wheel firmly to try and stop my finger-tapping. My encounter at the center rattled me. I try to think whether I’ve ever come across a center like that. Nothing comes to mind.

  The fresh air helps, and I pull into traffic at the base of the mountain with more composure than at the top.

  I take a right and wind my way past townhouses and twee shops to the ocean. Of course there’s no parking at my destination, but I slide in at the end of a row of cars anyway. Once out, I surreptitiously bend down as if to check my tires, and spit onto the ground. I grab the lauvan of my saliva and force them to stretch in a long line parallel to my car, and tweak them again.

  A solid white line appears, identical to the others in the parking lot. I smile. Sometimes it’s good to be me.

  My destination is a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop entitled “Bean There,” tucked between a high-class seafood bar and a musty secondhand bookstore. I have no idea how the café manages to pay rent on ocean-side property, and I expect this complex will be torn down shortly to make way for pricey condos. Not much makes me feel older than seeing a forty year-old building slotted for demolition, as is common on this side of the Atlantic. At least in Europe many of the buildings are old enough that even I have a hard time remembering their origin.

  But until this shop winks out of its brief existence, it’s a good place for a coffee.

  The girl behind the counter greets me with a smile of recognition and reaches for the size of mug I always order. I stop her.

  “I’m going to need a larger one today, thanks.”

  She grins at me, showing off the dimple in her left cheek. Her blond ponytail swings when she turns to the coffee machine.

  “Long hike today?” The machine whirs to life and I wait to answer. She beats me to it. “Hey, have you heard about Mt. Linnigan? Scary stuff, eh? You think it’s going to blow?” She grabs a saucer and tucks a chocolate cookie next to the cup. “Wouldn’t want to be living in Wallerton right now.”

  “No,” I say. A thought strikes me, an unwelcome, disturbing thought. “You grew up around here, didn’t you? How far away is Mt. Linnigan?”

  “Well, the news said if it blew it wouldn’t be so bad here, just some ash maybe. Wallerton is probably a four-hour drive from here, heading north up highway one. I went camping there once—there’s a great lake for swimming nearby.”

  “I’ve never been camping around here.” Not in your lifetime, anyway. I smile at her when she hands me the coffee. “Sounds like fun.” Our hands touch on the saucer. She keeps her smiling face steady, but her auburn lauvan squirm. I make eye contact. “I see you’re encouraging my chocolate addiction. Good girl.” I give her a conspiratorial smile. Her cheeks color and she giggles.

  Feeling better already, I weave through the tables to slide into a prime seat in the corner of the balcony. It’s free today, but sometimes I have to persuade interlopers to vacate. Usually a slight increase in the wind does it, although I once had to be particularly aggressive with a young couple who were mooning over each other, oblivious to all else. I made the nearest seagull fly low and take aim. The resulting white smear on the girl’s perfectly curled hair did the trick. Her shrieks of disgust had me biting my tongue to stop myself from laughing out loud. I reasoned that this was an excellent test of their relationship. If it couldn’t survive the shame of seagull excrement, then it wasn’t worth continuing.

  Really, though, I just wanted my seat. Is that too much for an old man to ask?

  Before checking out my hunch, I take a moment to savor the sun, sip my coffee, and let go of the last of the lingering jitters from the mountain.

  The coffee helps. These days it’s strong and smooth, not much relation to the swill they served in the Parisian coffeehouses where I first tasted it. My wife at the time, Celeste, was a real dynamo who was always in the thick of things. She loved the vibrancy and intellectualism that flowed freely in the coffeehouses, much freer than the expensive new drink did.

  I dig out my phone and connect to the café’s Wi-Fi. Only those of us who grew up in a village where the most advanced technology was a three-legged stool can understand how much I love the modern world. I thought I was well-connected all these years, but anyone with fingers and some money can access the world, right here, right now.

  I do a quick search for Mt. Linnigan and get a whole collection of news articles. I open one with a map and study the mountain’s location. It’s suspiciously close to where I think I traveled along the lauvan-cable, to the foulness. Are they connected? I stare out to the ocean, frowning, and sip my coffee.

  In what seems like a few minutes later I feel a hand on my shoulder for a brief moment, like a fluttering bird. I look up, jolted out of my reverie, and see a whole new clientele surrounding me. The coffeeshop girl stands before me looking concerned.

  “Are you okay? You look—” She pauses, as if searching for the word that will least offend. “Lost.”

  “Lost,” I repeat, still a little dazed. My brain is slowly clicking away, and suddenly the word holds more meaning than I’m sure the girl intended. I think I know where to go to figure out where the foulness is. “Yes, I am lost, and—I need a map.” I push back my chair with a sudden motion, and she takes a small step back.

  I reach for her hand, the one that’s not holding my empty mug, and bend over to kiss it.

  “Merci beaucoup, ma cherie,” I say, and leave her pi
nk and smiling.

  ***

  At home, I breeze past Gary in the hall with only a simple “hello” instead of the chat he’s obviously itching for. I need some answers about the foulness. I need to find a map.

  Among the diverse items on my bookshelf are a sheaf of maps drawn on vellum and varied qualities of paper. I pull the sheaf down carefully and cart it to the dining table. My fingers flip through the pile as I go.

  For centuries now, I’ve been following the cables and plotting centers around the world. I did my homeland first, and even today the European maps are the best documented, with almost every center accounted for and all the maps covered in spiderwebs of interconnected lines.

  I put the maps of Europe aside. The South American maps slide out next, the continental sketches covered in far fewer lines. Although I’d heard rumors of the Americas from the Norse, I didn’t make it over to explore until much later, by which time everyone else in Europe had already barged in. I simply haven’t got around to filling in the gaps yet. I go through bouts of industry as my interest waxes. When I’m busy with living a life or am in a funk, my map-making lapses.

  My shuffling has finally produced the map I’m looking for—Western North America. I spread it open and lean over it. Maybe now I can figure out which center has the foulness. If I can just trace the cable from Cypress…

  A sharp rapping on the front door jolts me upright. I rub my face in my hands on my way to the door. I don’t feel like shooting the breeze with Gary right now.

  Jen’s beaming face greets me when I open the door.

  “Hi!” She holds up a bag of sushi takeout. “You bored? I thought it seemed like a good movie night, and my roommate is out of town.”

  I look at Jen’s hopeful face and push my worries to the back of my mind.

  “Mi casa, su casa. I suppose I should be satisfied to be your backup plan? You’re too magnanimous, my lady, gracing me with your presence.”

  “Hey, I brought food.”

  “She doth honor me too much. There’d better be Tobiko Nigiri in there.”

  “Oh, Merry, you act like I don’t know you at all.” Jen shakes her head. I head to the kitchen to grab some plates and drinks. I should really keep looking at the maps, but it’s against my nature to refuse a woman an evening of entertainment, in whatever form. Moments later, a rustling noise emerges from the living room. A sense of foreboding creeps over me and I move to the other room.

  “What’re all these maps?” Jen leans over the table. Her long fingers leaf through my papers. My hands clench on the plates and I rack my brain for an explanation, but outside I remain calm. The best way to distract someone from a secret is to pretend there isn’t one at all.

  “Oh, they’re old maps that the dean wants me to catalog.” I’m a pretty smooth liar. I’ve had a lot of practice.

  “Wow, some of these look ancient.” Jen holds up an early map of Scandinavia I charted in the ninth century on scraped goat hide.

  “Yeah, and I’ll thank you not to paw them with your grubby fingers. I thought you were choosing us a movie.” Jen drops the map and sidles over to the couch. Blame and distract—works a charm.

  Quickly, I bundle the maps into their folder and shove it back on the bookshelf. I’ll figure out the center tomorrow.

  “Do you remember that manuscript you brought in for English 341?” Jen asks.

  “Sure.” I settle onto the couch and start opening containers. “The fragment of Beowulf I sweet-talked the curator of that traveling exhibit for.” The curator was a mild-mannered woman in her early forties with a decidedly and unexpectedly wild approach in the bedroom. It’s always the quiet ones. She had handed over the manuscript in its Plexiglas carrying case with a stern warning to bring it back promptly after my class, her sternness somewhat diluted by her parting ass-squeeze. God, I love women.

  I brought the fragment into class and the students politely examined it, a few even lingering for a closer look. But Jen was drawn to it like a moth to a candle.

  “Scealt nu dædum rof, æðeling anhydig, ealle mægene feorh ealgian; ic ðe fullæstu," Jen pronounces.

  “‘Your deeds are famous, so stay resolute, my lord, defend your life now with the whole of your strength. I shall stand by you.’ Very good.” I’m impressed, but not surprised. “You remember after all this time.”

  Jen leans back into the couch, the remote clutched in her hand.

  “My favorite class! Of course.”

  “Well, I can understand. You did have an exceptional teacher.” Jen nudges me with her knee and flicks on the TV, then pauses. She turns to me.

  “Do you think they were much like us? I mean, physically we’re all humans. But,” she purses her lips and looks pensive. “Did they think like us?”

  “How do you mean?” I say, but I think I know where she’s going.

  “Life was so much more—brutal than today. Everyone in Beowulf knows how to use a sword or ax, and they quite happily chop off heads and arms and whatnot. They must have thought completely differently back then. I have no idea what kind of person I’d be if I’d been born in the past. How different would I be?”

  Part of the reason I love Jen is because she has an old soul. Comments like this elevate her above her peers.

  “Yeah, I suppose they would think a bit differently.” I put my feet up on the coffee table and recline into the couch. “Even if you travel around the modern world you can find hugely different viewpoints. But at the end of the day, everyone wants similar things—life, purpose, community, love. You can find those common threads in any time.”

  Jen ruminates briefly.

  “I guess that makes sense.” She sighs. “I wish more than anything I could meet someone from the past. It would be so amazing, enlightening. I have so many questions.”

  I try to keep a smile off my face, but it’s difficult.

  Jen reaches for the plastic container. She jerks back.

  “Ow!” She holds up her index finger. Blood starts to well along a nasty-looking cut. “The stupid container was broken and sliced me open.” She bites her lip and holds her finger out to me with her eyes closed. “How bad is it?”

  I take her hand and examine her finger. The wound is much deeper than I expect, and blood oozes out swiftly. Jen peeks through her closed eyelids.

  “So? How bad is it?”

  “Close your eyes while Dr. Lytton takes a look. You know you’re no good with blood.” She obediently closes her eyes tightly again. It’s true that Jen tends to gag at the sight of blood, but it’s more for my sake than hers that I make her close her eyes. I bring my other hand to hers and quickly unknot the lauvan entangled above the cut. The wound slides shut and the oozing stops. I leave a small gash for appearance’s sake and dab at the excess blood with a napkin.

  “You big baby.” I stash the napkin in my pocket. “Getting overexcited about a glorified paper cut.”

  Jen examines her finger.

  “Wow, it felt so much worse than this.” She holds her finger up to see it better in the light, frowning. “Thanks, Merry. I’m always so much luckier around you. Remember when we had that terrible fender bender last year?”

  “I don’t need to mention that you were the one behind the wheel, despite your dislike of my driving abilities.”

  “Yeah, yeah, no need to be all smug.” Jen prods my ankle with her foot. “I could have sworn that I banged my head on the sidebar, and fully expected whiplash for the next six months. But we walked away without even a scratch.”

  That’s because I took the opportunity while she was unconscious to unknot all the lauvan that had tangled themselves from her injuries.

  “I guess it wasn’t as bad as all that.”

  “I totaled the car, Merry. My dad was furious with me—he’d bought me that car for my twenty-first birthday.”

  “Well, cars these days are made to crumple.”

  She shakes her head, but turns to the television to flick on the streaming video and select a movie
.

  “Oh, come on, Jen,” I say. “You’re not going to make me watch The Notebook. Again.”

  “I bought dinner, my choice,” she says, staring at the television. I smack the back of my head against the sofa in a gesture of exasperation and defeat. She starts to giggle.

  “You idiot. Of course we’re not watching that. I’m not that cruel. I just wanted to see your face.”

  I snatch the remote from her unresisting fingers.

  “Give me that.”

  CHAPTER VII

  Dreaming

  Guinevere sits upright on the cold stone bench, her feet tucked beneath her skirts. She’s tall enough to look me straight in the eye sitting down, although I still have a handspan on her when standing. Her long braid, blond and gleaming in the afternoon sun, lies across one shoulder and down her front where she twists and fidgets with the end in her lap. She worries her bottom lip. I know she’s searching for the right words.

  “Oh, it’s no use, Merlin!” she bursts out in Saxon, her native tongue. “I can’t think of the words. I’ll never learn this stupid language. Brythonic is impossible.” She presses her hands down onto the bench and leans forward. Her head turns so I can’t see the tears that threaten to fall.

  I reach out a hand and place it on her cheek to make her face me.

  “Look at me, Guinevere,” I say in her own language. Her eyes remain downcast. “No, look at me. You started from nothing, and now we can speak together in Brythonic, and you understand so much when others talk. You’re getting better every day.”

  She gives a small sniff and looks into my eyes with her gray-blue ones. I give her an encouraging grin. After a minute, she gives me a watery smile back.

  “There we are.” I remove my hand from her cheek and drop it to her own hand, which I briefly squeeze. “Take heart. You’re getting there.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Merlin. You’re my only friend now that…” Her voice trails off and she looks down again into her lap. “I just mean, thank you for taking over my lessons. And helping me—with everything.”