The Gatekeeper
By
William H. Mezger III
Copyright 2012 William H Mezger III
For Tessa who helped me defy gravity.
Chapter 1
Timing
I
Henry stood at the mirror in his boxers. It was the end of the day and once again he felt ashamed as he looked in the mirror. His body, covered in a dozen or more bruises, was every shade of the rainbow. The bruises were large, most the size of the palm of his hand, the edges over lapping and blending together making it hard to tell where each mark started, and stopped. Every one of them spoke clearly to Henry however, they told a story of adolescent shame.
In his communications class his teacher had told him that every good story contained five elements: what, where, when, how, why and who. Henry placed his hand over the most recent bruise already turning from red to a deep purple. He could tell you all of these elements for each and every mark on his body, everything except why. As he stood in front of the mirror looking at his shame for the thousandth time, tears silently running down his face. He asked the universe the question that he would give anything to know.
“Why me?”
The morning started like many other days in Henry Thomas’s life. Henry knew the outside observer it would think it a bad day. But in the end he had found the garden and that redeemed everything. Henry wiped away his silent tears and as he thought about the garden he found hope for the first time since his Grandfather died six months before.
Henry started his day hiding in a clump of snow-covered bushes on his way to school. This caused his boots and socks to get soaked with wet snow. Thankfully he kept a spare pair of shoes and socks in his locker for such an occasion, because it happened more often then he cared to admit even to himself.
Henry was a senior. He was medium height, with sandy brown hair. He had blue eyes and a slightly pale complexion. He was about to turn 18 in a few weeks, but his more immediate concern was making it through his least favorite periods of the day, Math and English and surviving another day. He was good in Math, and spent his life in one book or another so they should have been his favorite subjects, but the presence of Britney and Victor in Math and Britney, Victor and Paul in English made these subjects truly detestable.
The three of them were responsible for making most of his high school career unpleasant, but a month into the second semester of his senior year things were shaping up to be much worse. Henry was used to the whispers, the snide comments and the dirty looks from other people when he sat near them in the lunchroom. Over the years, he had been taunted, pushed, and tripped in the hallways. He had learned to use obscure hallways in the building in an attempt to avoid his bullies; but what made matters worse this semester was timing. In the past, he had class with them early in the morning before lunch hour. By the time the dismissal bell rang, they had forgotten all about him. This semester, he had them in the last two classes of the day. This changed everything. It meant he had to be extra careful when he walked home, especially if Victor managed to get Paul’s wind up. Some days by taking different ways home he could avoid trouble, but in the end, trouble always found Henry eventually.
Henry was being extra careful today because they got the results of a test on the novel they were reading. Paul was a terrible reader and Victor spent the better part of an hour making fun of his score. Victor was Paul’s second in command. Their parents were best friends. They had practically been raised as brothers. Victor was short, squat and mean, and he had an insult or taunt for everyone. He even teased Paul from time to time, in a way that only a brother can. Victor had made enough enemies with his winning personality that he couldn’t survive with out Paul’s protection. So he walked a fine line when teasing Paul. He would push and poke until Paul started really getting angry, then he would direct that fury onto some innocent bystander. That innocent bystander was often Henry. Victor was sneaky and mean, but not stupid, he knew that Paul already had a dislike for Henry, which made him an easy target.
Paul had gotten his growth spurt early; he was nearly six feet tall, and built like a defensive lineman. He had been on the football team until junior year when he had been thrown off the team for fighting. He had a thing for Britney, and he was very jealous. Today the situation was worse than usual. Britney asked Henry to borrow his paper to correct hers.
Henry did not know much about Britney. Objectively, she was pretty. She was slight of frame with delicate porcelain features. She had green eyes and long blonde hair that hung around her face. She and Paul had been on again, off again since freshman year. Currently they were off, but it had not been for very long. So anything that elevated Henry above Paul, even for a moment, in Britney’s eyes was simply unacceptable.
Henry moved quickly to his locker when the bell rang, hoping to slip out of the building unnoticed. He worked efficiently in the dimly lit hallway. The school was designed so that each of the classrooms had a wall of windows that opened to outdoor courtyards. The top two feet of the hallways were lined with windows meant to let the light from the classrooms into the hallways thereby decreasing the amount of light fixtures needed to light the hallway. Henry thought this was architecturally very cool, but not practical in the Chicago area where the sky was gray and cloudy for most of the school year. The upshot of this design flaw meant that the hallways were often not well-lit places. The school had a zero tolerance policy for bullying on the school grounds, but the policy was hard to enforce in the crowded hallways where visibility was sometimes low.
Henry packed his things into his backpack packing light; leaving books he knew he would need for homework because they were heavy. He was pretty sure he was going to end up running today and figured he could skip lunch to do the rest of his assignments in homeroom.
In the past, he had tried to stay in the building until his bullies got bored waiting for him and went home. He hid in the bathroom claiming to be in one club or another if a janitor caught him and asked questions. He thought about actually joining a club. There were a lot of clubs he was interested in, but he was afraid other kids would make fun of him like Paul and Victor. He was trying to move quickly today because he was almost sure that waiting would be a futile exercise. Between Britney borrowing his test and Victor harassing Paul about it, he could practically feel the beating he was about to get.
He left the building through the front entrance and looked both ways before leaving the front stairs. Henry was immediately struck by the cold. There were things colder than winter in the Chicago land area in February, but he was pretty sure that you had to be crazy to seek them out on purpose. The temperature felt low today magnified by the bitter wind blowing through the streets. The ground covered in the dirty snow you only really see when it has been a few weeks since the last snowfall. The snow was riddled with multiple dirty paths from students walking through it and pockmarked by the black snow thrown up by the tires of the school buses.
The school was Ulysses S Grant High School or U.S.G. for short. It was set back in a residential area. U.S.G. was set all on one level, and provided very little cover from the wind that blew across the property. The building had a large circular drive out front where the busses waited to pick up kids who lived too far to walk. He huddled briefly in the warmth between the buses to appraise his options. In the center of the Circle drive was a large war memorial dedicated to soldiers from the Illinois area that gave their lives for their country.
Henry snuck out the front door so he could mix with the bus kids and was able to make it away from the building without being caught. He knew the fastest way home was also the most dangerous. It passed a convenience store with a large candy collection. Paul was a glutton for sweets. The only good part
was the lack of a stoplight. This meant no crossing guard. If he could get across the four lanes of traffic while Paul and Victor were buying candy, then it was usually clear sailing from there. He knew this was a gamble. If traffic was heavy and he got caught between Latham Avenue and the convenience store, then it usually meant a beating, or at the very least a chase to the crossing guard at the stop lights a block away. Henry was actually pretty fast. If the light was just right, he could get across before Paul and Victor got to the light. They were big, but slow.
It was very cold and the wind had a bitter bite to it, so he decided to take his chances and take the most direct route home. He headed west down 161st street keeping his eyes open for Paul and Victor. He made it to the candy store on the corner. The storeowner only allowed four students in at a time. He had problems with kids stealing when the store was too busy. There were no kids waiting because of the cold. He did not see Paul anywhere. He bolted for the corner to try to get across Latham. He looked both ways quickly, and when traffic was clear dashed across the street. He was very focused on traffic and looking back over his shoulder at the candy store. He was so focused that he got half way across the street before he realized Paul, and Victor were not behind him; they were ahead of him. Their backs were to him as they hurried up the street trying to get home, all thoughts of Henry forgotten in the bitter wind.
They were one block up. They were moving quicker than usual because of the cold, but still not moving very fast. They could turn around at any moment. Henry realized he needed to find another way home, and quickly. If he walked south towards 162nd he knew there was still a chance he would run into them. Paul lived on the corner of Chicago and 162nd street. If he went up 162nd there was always the chance he would still run into them. On the other hand he could head north to 160th. It was a busy intersection and it took him a very long way out of his way to get home. He had always managed to avoid it in the past, but today it was the lesser of two evils.
Henry began to walk through the gradually increasing snowfall taking the longest way home. Although he had been this way a thousand times in the car, this was the first time he had actually walked home this way. On the east side of the street where he had just come from, there were no houses. There were businesses, but not the kind where you would walk in and purchase something. They were more of an industrial nature. There was a construction company with no cars and a glass shop with a sign that said “industrial glass.” He was not sure what that meant, but its parking lot was full and quite large compared to the size of the shop. Henry was not sure what they did at this glass shop, but it obviously took a large staff to do it. He thought this was very odd given how small the building looked from the front.
On the residential side of the street the world, seemed a whole lot more normal. It was filled with regular split-level, and ranch style houses. The houses were set back from the street so their front yard was probably much larger than the backyard. He hated that; everything always seemed to happen in the front yard it felt like the whole world knew your business. Henry was a quiet kid when it came down to it, and he liked to hide in the backyard behind the privacy fence where the neighbors’ kids couldn’t see him.
Many of the houses had a front door with a walk leading out to the sidewalk. This front walk had not been shoveled in most cases because; most people entered in the backdoor which was closest to the garage. Henry knew this because his Grandma had the same set up. Henry was always extra careful to shovel the front walk at his Grandma’s so she did not fall when she went out to get the mail. Most of the houses looked the same with small variations until he had almost reached the corner.
There he noticed one house was not only different, but drastically so. It was a split-level, set back from the street like the rest of the houses with the front walk connecting it to the sidewalk. There was a driveway connecting the back garage to the street like the other houses; but that was where the similarities ended. Where the front lawn should have been was the largest garden Henry had ever seen, an intricate wrought iron fence enclosing the entire thing. The fence was imposing and beautiful. It was finely crafted iron, worked to look like climbing roses had grown over an iron fence. The leaves so life-like he expected them to blow in the icy wind. The flowers so real looking he could almost smell them.
The fence was made in six-foot sections that started around four foot high and arched as high as they were long in the middle. Between the middle two sections of fence was a marble archway holding a gate guarding the path from the sidewalk to the front steps. The marble finely grained, and carved in bas-relief with the same flower pattern that adorned the fence was nearly eight foot tall. Henry thought it should be in a museum instead of adorning this garden in suburbia. The gate filled the archway made of the same ironwork as the fence with the exception of a shiny brass handle on the right side.
A four-foot tall evergreen hedge surrounded the yard. It ran along the fence about two feet wide making seeing into the yard difficult, but not impossible. Henry stood at the gate where he could look in at the garden.
Henry could see multiple paths had been shoveled through out the yard. The first was the standard sidewalk that entered through the gate, and went up to the house. There at the bottom of the stairs stood an imposing suit of armor. Henry loved armor; had seen lots of it, reproductions mostly at the renaissance faire, but this was different. Even from the 25 or so feet where he stood, he could see this was beautiful work. It was finely etched and inlayed with different colors and metals. And although the snow was beginning to fall none stuck to the cold metal. What’s more it looked like it was ready to step down and attack him with the very menacing pike it held at attention in one fist.
There were also several paths that wound through out the yard. They were paved with flagstones, and bordered by a smaller version of the iron fence that surrounded the yard. The paths wound through what Henry could only assume were flowerbeds in the spring, and summer. Even now, in the heart of winter the yard teamed with life, in the form of bushes and sculpted evergreens. Henry was amazed by the garden before him. He did a lot of gardening with his mother, and his grandfather before he died. He knew how much work it was to maintain a small garden, with all the trimming and weed pulling. He could not imagine the hours of upkeep that something like this would require.
The centerpiece of the yard was a large tree with a life-sized statue of a man reading a book carved in alabaster sitting in the shade of the tree trunk. It was February and the tree was covered in ice crystals but it held blossoms as well. They were the prettiest pink blossoms he had ever seen against the crisp white snow and crystals of ice. At first, Henry thought it was a trick of the eye, some kind of silk, like the flowers his mom had on the porch. But the longer he looked the more convinced they were real he became. The tree looked similar to an apple tree, but there was something not right. It seemed different, the bark was not the right color; it had bluish undertones to it. The branches twisted at just the wrong angle, and it bore fruit. Apple trees did not have fruit this time of year. The tree only bore one fruit; it was red like an apple but more oblong then round. The tree held several more flowers, he felt sure would eventually ripen into fruit. Henry wanted to call it an apple tree, because it bore red fruit that looked like an apple, but he had never seen a tree that looked like this. Henry was amazed. His Grandparents had a crab apple tree in their back yard when he was little, and he was very aware how unusual it was to see fruit in this extreme cold.
He believed in his heart it was real, and not fake. Henry stood at the gate for what felt like hours; his fingers curled around the wrought iron gate gazing at the magnificent tree wondering. He wondered how a magical fruit like that would taste, for any fruit that grew in this weather had to be magic, even if it was magic pretending to be science. Henry believed the world was full of magically wondrous things that people just accepted as science. He had to head home. If he did not arrive before his mom l
eft for work then he would be in trouble. He turned to leave, but caught a flicker of movement in the garden, he turned back hoping it was someone he could ask about the fruit, but no one was there. He promised he would return the next day to see if the apple was real or a figment of his imagination, then he continued on his way home.
II
Ms. Roberts sat at her desk working on paper work in the growing twilight of early evening. She was a slight woman, her face framed by hair that hung around her in a shoulder length bob. She tucked her hair behind her ear, it was a deep steel gray with slight undertones of black and blues highlights. It looked like silk spun from steel. There was a knock at her office door; irritated she looked up just as the door opened admitting a man carrying a book in one hand. His skin and clothes were alabaster in color. His eyes were topaz. He looked as if he had been chiseled from moving stone. She grimaced inwardly to herself. The last thing she needed tonight was Nathan. She hated when he entered her office with out waiting for permission.
Nathan walked to the window; he stood looking out into the growing darkness. Roberts knew exactly what had brought him to her office. He stood quietly for a moment; she was about to prod him, she had a lot of work left, when he spoke two words, “the boy”.
“I saw him, what of it?” she said. Hopping he would get to the point.
“He saw me,” Nathan stated. Nathan was so over dramatic, he always made everything about him. The boy had seen the fruit, and that was of far greater importance to her.
Roberts brushed him off, pushing him to get to the point, so she could get back to work. “A lot of people see you Nathan, that is the point of hiding in plain site. It doesn’t mean anything; even if he saw you, he would have no understanding of what he saw. You have nothing to worry about.”
“The fact remains he saw the fruit on the Kopar tree and you know it.”
He was finally getting to the point. She knew the boy had seen the fruit, but hated people telling her what she did and did not know.
“Maybe, time will tell. Besides even if he does, that doesn’t mean anything. He was young, even for a human,” Roberts said.
“You are right of course, but there is something about him” Nathan replied.
Roberts rose and joined Nathan at the window. The night had come fully now, and the snow was falling in earnest on the street outside. The city would soon need to start running the plows again to keep them clear. “Do you think the gates will open for him?“ Nathan asked. The silence drew out for a time while Roberts considered his question carefully.
“It is too early to tell, we don’t even know if he will return”.
Roberts left the widow, and returned to her desk. She turned on her lamp. Giving in to the darkness at last. She looked down at the stack of paperwork still to be done before she could finish, and sighed. She sat down to work. “Keep an eye out for him Nathan, and let me know if anything changes. You better tell Francis as well. We don’t want him to stab him with that pike of his, if he comes in the yard.” Nathan lingered a few moments longer at the window before returning to his post under the tree.
III
Roberts stood at the window looking down into the garden, the boy had returned. He had come every day for the last week. He stood at the gate, his fingers wrapped around the bars gazing into the garden. His gaze was so intent that he failed to notice her looking down at him from an upstairs window. Waiting for the timing to be right.