Wil had had a difficult week, to be sure. If his initial encounter with Mr. Dinsdale and the Curioddity Museum had rocked his world like a seventies punk rock band might rock a kindergarten music class, then this sidebar maneuver was more akin to farting loudly in the middle of an opera. It took until the fifteenth knock for Barry Morgan to even admit he was inside his hotel room. As Wil rightly assumed, his father was in no mood for a discussion.
“But Dad,” pleaded Wil as Lucy looked on with concern, “I’m just asking you to listen. Please. Just hear me out.”
“I’ve already heard enough for one lifetime, Wil,” replied Barry through the thick panel of the hotel door. “It’s best if you go about your business and let me go about mine for a couple of weeks.”
Wil stood back from the door, knowing that a couple of weeks in “Dad” time would eventually escalate into a couple of years. This was not going to be simple, and neither had he expected it to be. But he somehow knew that if he were to go back inside the Castle Towers in search of Mr. Dinsdale’s saving grace—perhaps never to be seen again—then he needed to make things right with his father first.
Wil shrugged, hoping that Barry might at least peer through the keyhole window. “Look, Dad … I know things went a bit sideways. I said something I shouldn’t have said. And it doesn’t matter if I said it, it just matters if you believe I didn’t mean it.”
“Oh?” replied Barry in the most faux-confrontational manner available to him. “And which one of the things you said was the one you didn’t mean? Because you didn’t confine yourself to just one inappropriate comment, Wilbur.”
Lucy looked at Wil, her eyebrows raised, and mouthed the word “Wilbur” with a questioning look. “My middle name’s Aloysius,” he informed her. “Laugh it up.”
“Who are you talking to out there?” asked Barry from within.
“Dad, listen to me. I may have been wrong to say what I said about you and Mom but I was right about one thing, and we both know it: I can write down on a piece of paper how this is going to go. It’ll be the way it always goes. You’ll pretend everything’s okay but you’re going to take years to forgive me. Even though you’re wrong.”
“Oh, so I’m somehow wrong because you lied to me about your income, your housing situation, your means of employment, and your retirement plan?”
* * *
WIL THOUGHT for a moment in silence, while Lucy watched him, expectantly. She was obviously waiting for his rebuttal but little did she know that rebutting Barry Morgan with common sense was somewhat like playing Led Zeppelin to a walrus and expecting it to sing Stairway to Heaven. It just wasn’t going to happen unless all participants were prepared to experience some setbacks. Wil needed to try a new approach, and do the opposite of what his instincts were telling him.
“You’re right, Dad,” he said softly through the door. “Almost everything I told you about myself was a lie. But I never really wanted to lie, and I don’t want to lie to you now. I want you to know the truth.” Wil found Lucy’s eyes filled with equal parts moisture and concern. And in that moment he found everything he had ever wanted to say. “I’ve found someone, Dad,” he said, gauging Lucy’s eyes as they overflowed with little tears of happiness. “And she’s the one. Her name’s Lucy Price and she’s standing out here with me. All I can say is that this is the first time I ever really understood what you lost, and I’m sorry.”
Lucy’s hand clasped tighter around Wil’s, and she pulled him close. “I’m sorry, too,” she whispered. And then, for a brief moment, she furrowed her brow. “Is it possible to be sorry and happy at the same time?”
“I guess so,” whispered Wil in reply. “It’s probably like sitting in the passenger seat next to you when you’re driving.”
Through the door, Wil could almost feel Barry’s calculated silence losing out to an incalculable resignation. After a moment, Barry slumped down against the wooden frame with a loud thump.
“Dad?” said Wil, nervously. “Are you okay?”
The hotel hallway now slipped into an unearthly silence as Barry Morgan sat against the door frame, presumably trying to decide how to let the years of anguish slip away from his shoulders. “You know I loved your mother, Wil,” he said. “More than anyone should ever be allowed to love someone. Perhaps you really do understand how much it hurt me to lose her. But what you don’t understand is that I lost her before I could tell her all the things I needed to say.”
Wil felt the tears welling up inside him, unbidden. “Neither of us did, Dad. I guess I’ve spent all these years wishing I could still have her around me. But I never really thought she was dead. Not for as long as I kept her alive by being the person she knew.”
“Wil,” said Barry Morgan quietly. “I want you to hear something that I’ve never told you before. As much as you think I never wanted you to be your mother’s son, you’re wrong. And you always have been. It’s not that I didn’t want you to be yourself, to have that ridiculous imagination that cost me thousands of dollars in fire insurance—”
“You’re talking about that thing with the exploding pancakes, aren’t you? I told you I’d pay you back.”
“Yes, I am. But despite the monetary costs and the frequent trips to the hospital, and the unexpected loud noises coming from the garage, I always wanted you and your mom to do the things you did. The truth is, I tried to join in. But I just didn’t have the imagination. I used to listen to all that noise you made, and see all the crazy lights coming from the shed, and all I ever wanted was to be a part of it. I was jealous of the bond you and your mom shared.”
Wil reflected for a moment, unaware that this was only the first of two revelations coming his way. It was certainly heavy enough to warrant its own moment of silence. “Dad,” he said, faltering, “imagination doesn’t belong to people special enough to understand it. It belongs to everyone. Anyone who learns to un-look at things properly can see magic. You just never tried it, and that’s not your fault.”
“Wil,” said Barry with a weight of sadness that only a parent can know, “I tried as hard as I could. Who do you think bought you the Tesla Kit?”
* * *
AND ONLY in this moment—only in the moment when a man listens to his father’s side of events for the very first time as an adult—did Wil Morgan finally, truly understand. For all these years he had assumed his father had closed every door to his imagination. But that wasn’t what had happened at all: his father had simply never known how to open any of those doors to begin with. Barry Morgan had never learned how to un-look at the world, and so the world that stared back at him was a cold and featureless place. His father’s universe was full of numbers and logic; and while those things did not necessarily disqualify the existence of magic, they definitely made the magic more difficult to see.
“Wil,” said Lucy, gently, “we have to go now. I think your dad needs a little time to think it over.”
Wil stepped back from the door and grasped Lucy’s hand, grateful for her wisdom. He silently thanked all the idiot boyfriends she’d ever had for not being able to un-look at her properly to see what he saw. “We’re leaving now,” he said, quietly. “I have to help Mr. Dinsdale at the Curioddity Museum, and we’re running out of time. I wish you wouldn’t go home on the train just yet but if you have to go, I understand why. If everything works out, I hope you and Lucy can meet face-to-face soon enough.”
“Thank you, Wil,” replied Barry Morgan softly. “Thank you for having the sense to come and talk me back into mine. I’ll think about all of this, I promise.”
“Bye, Mr. Morgan!” called Lucy, weakly. “It was nice to meet you!”
“Goodbye, Lucy. I’m sure we’ll meet in person soon—it’s been a difficult couple of days.”
* * *
WIL RETRIEVED the Perpetual Penny from his pocket and slowly bent down to the old wooden flooring in the hotel hallway. He thought of his mother helping him with his ill-conceived experiments in a cold garage. He thought of his fat
her listening to stock market reports on an old-style band radio. He thought of marshmallow, and hot chocolate, and family holidays. He thought of his mom’s beautiful, benevolent smile. And that magical time he’d sat with his dad at the edge of a weir and watched salmon spawning upstream—flashing past, like glistening silver dollars, almost close enough to touch. He thought of all the things his dad meant to him, and realized in that instant those things were exactly the same as his mom. And then he spun.
“Dad,” he said. “There’s something here in the hallway that Mom wanted you to see.” And with that, he and Lucy moved away to the steps leading down to the hotel foyer and descended into silence.
* * *
LEAVING BARRY Morgan with a chance to rediscover the magic for himself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE JOURNEY to the Castle Towers was always going to be uneventful, if potentially volatile. Wil had rarely driven the one-way system in the years he’d lived in the city but he knew it well for all the times he’d trudged along its sidewalks. Sensing his somber mood, Lucy let him take the wheel of her beloved Ford Pinto while she growled at passing pickup trucks. And so, in the ten or so minutes it took to navigate the one-way system and arrive at the base of the Castle Towers, Wil did what he did best and decided to be a pessimist, perhaps for one last time.
“It’s not going to work,” he said to no one in particular, ignoring the fact there was at least one person within earshot.
“What’s not going to work?” replied Lucy.
“My dad. He won’t find the penny. I’m not good at flamboyant gestures. Some random hotel patron picked it up and now my dad’s probably standing outside of his hotel room door, looking at a bare wooden floor and reconsidering.”
Lucy pondered this for a moment. “You kissed me on our first date,” she reminded him. “That was pretty flamboyant.”
“No, I didn’t. You kissed me.”
“Well, I don’t remember you complaining about it!”
“Of course not!”
“Then why are you complaining about this?”
* * *
FOR A moment, Wil wrestled with Lucy’s Dinsdalian logic. He glanced toward her and found her staring out of her passenger-side window, glaring at the city and doing her best not to climb out of either her skin or her car door. Judging by the fingernail scratches on the dashboard and her phantom attempts to apply the brakes at every opportunity, she was not enjoying herself one little bit. But Wil was grateful to her nonetheless; ceding control of her rage-mobile was an early act of generosity in their relationship. He smiled at the thought of such a personable and gregarious soul undergoing this demonic transformation when introduced to the inside of her rusty old Ford Pinto. Piloting Genghis to roadway domination was a far better outlet than tantrums, property damage, or reckless gun ownership. From her anklet to her brown, curly hair, Lucy Price was perfect for him in every way.
As the car closed in on the Castle Towers, Wil took in the world around him, if only for one final time. Pan’s statue loomed large, and from the angle afforded by driving inside the one-way system, his private parts loomed even larger. Wil pondered for a moment on the concept of un-looking, and wondered if it were the same as unseeing. If so, he would have paid good money to unsee Pan’s generous undercarriage.
Gretchen appeared at the front of her shop as they passed. Her flower store now looked like a jungle full of creepers, vines, and purple orchids that reached back inside the door for as far as the eye could see. A little glowing wisp—of the same kind Wil had seen inside the Curioddity Museum—wandered out for a moment and darted back inside. Gretchen looked at her watch, and then looked up at the nearby clock before floating back inside and locking the front door.
Following her gaze, Wil peered up toward the Swiss monstrosity to find its laser-like beam shooting from the top of the tower and up into the night sky, and the dissonant whining sound at full pitch. The air once again seemed charged with electricity, as if the clock were preparing for a storm of some kind—or concocting it, perhaps. According to the actual working part of the clock, the time was three minutes until ten o’clock, give or take any conversion to European metric time. The Castle Towers would be mostly empty apart from Mr. Whatley and a couple of stragglers at this time of night. The bad news was that Wil and Lucy had three minutes to get inside the lobby before the nightly lockdown.
Wil pulled Genghis up to a side street, where he knew there would be one or two free parking spaces.
“Why don’t you park out front?” asked Lucy, trying her best not to sound combative.
“I think it’s best we don’t give anyone a chance to connect your Pinto to whatever we’re about to do,” replied Wil. “Besides, Genghis can look out for this side of the building and kill anyone who tries to interfere.”
Lucy giggled. It was a sound that Wil was getting used to, and one that he hoped he never would. At least some of his jokes were getting through, though he suspected this was only the beginning of a long battle between he and his new girlfriend regarding vehicular activity in particular, and trying to stay alive in general.
At the parking spot, they grabbed as much of Dinsdale’s pile of useless items as they could possibly manage. Wil stood a respectful distance while Lucy gave Genghis a few instructions on how to behave. He took a moment to check his pockets, just to be sure.
In one pocket, the triangular Whatsit beeped occasionally, which gave Wil absolutely no clue whatsoever as to its usefulness. In the other pocket, SARA glowed, wrapped in her charging cord. Wil strapped the Civil War periscope to his back and thought of every ninja movie he had ever watched; unless he had missed something significant, ninjas very rarely carried large lumps of metal on their backs. He and Lucy were beginning their evening activities at a competitive disadvantage. He rummaged through the kit and caboodle container but found nothing of interest and many items of utter pointlessness, such as a lump of bluish clay, some copper wire, two paper clips, and a vacuum bag. The wooden Sequitur glared back at him, making him wish he’d asked for the invisible Non Sequitur device as a backup. Whatever use these items were intended for, he hoped he might decipher it by the end of the evening (or at least before his death at the hands of an angry security guard).
Lucy approached, carrying her half of the pile. She seemed eager, and up for the task of being shot on sight inside a strange building. “Okay, you know the layout of the building. How do we get inside?” she said.
Wil hadn’t really given it much thought, and it showed. “Through the lobby, I guess,” he replied. “I mean I rent an office on the nineteenth floor. I have every right to go inside.”
“Can’t we sneak in?”
“Why?”
“Because I thought we’d be sneaking. It’s not going to look good on my detective résumé if I just sidle up to the front door, wave hello to the heavily armed ninja-bots on guard, and walk inside.”
“We don’t have any ninja-bots.”
“I’m not surprised. They probably all quit. The people who own the building keep letting strangers waltz in through the front door.”
Lucy headed for the front door, trying to look as sullen as possible. Wil watched her for a moment, amused by her ability to make even the most mundane moment seem a little brighter. Having no other choice, he followed her toward the lobby in time to find Mr. Whatley moving to the front door with his master key. The building janitor was the most punctual and unimaginative person Wil had ever met, and he could be relied upon to stick to the most mundane of tasks. Within seconds, Wil was completely overmatched.
“Hello, Mr. Whatley,” he said, cheerily. “I just need to grab something from my office!”
“Wish I could oblige, Mr. Morgan,” said Mr. Whatley, putting the key in the lock. “But I’m under strict instructions to lock the building down at ten tonight. Landlord’s orders.”
“I won’t be a moment. I just have to run up and right back down again.”
“Sorry, sir,” said Mr. Wh
atley, tightening the key in the lock. “Can’t let you in at this late hour. It’s more than my job’s worth.”
Wil narrowed his eyes. If Mr. Dinsdale at the Curioddity Museum were to be believed, this would be the precise moment he should do something entirely random and unexpected. Thus, he found himself asking a question that only two or three days previously he would never have considered in a million years (give or take two or three days): what would Mr. Dinsdale do? He fished the Sequitur from its plastic bag, closed his eyes, and shook his head in his disbelief. Swallowing hard, he held the Sequitur up against the glass door. “How about that game last night?” he said with as much artificial conviction as he could muster. “Did you see that last play?”
“What game?” asked Mr. Whatley, immediately suspicious. “I didn’t see anything on the highlights.”
“You know. They had the highlights on all day.”
There was a brief pause. “Oh. That game.”
Wil looked up, and could barely believe his eyes—Mr. Whatley seemed transfixed by the wooden object being dangled in front of his face. Wil decided to press the advantage. “I can’t believe they missed that shot right at the end of the game, can you?” He took one small step toward the door.
“Oh, right!” exclaimed Lucy, presumably figuring she would go with whatever opportunity seemed to be presenting itself. “That guy is such a choke artist!”
“He is?” replied Mr. Whatley, confused. “Not Patterson again? Please tell me Patterson didn’t blow another game!”
“The very same,” said Wil, as he gently pushed against the door, opening it slightly. He smiled sweetly. “It’s a good job his teammates have his back, though. That play was unbelievable.”
“Righteous!” agreed Lucy, enthusiastically. “Especially number seventeen. He’s a stud.”
“Wilkerson?” exclaimed Mr. Whatley, incredulous. “Wilkerson’s a backup.”
“Not after that final play last night, he’s not,” continued Lucy. Wil could see she was getting lost in the moment. “Best put-back slam dunk I ever saw in my life!”