It took some haggling to convince Matthew to accept Rafe’s invitation, but when he saw I would not be swayed he finally conceded. The roadside café he selected as safe house for our gathering was remarkable only in its bareness—wobbling tables, harsh overhead lighting, a haggard woman wiping down a counter, her hair tied with a rag. There were few customers. We sat at a booth in the back, sipping weak but steaming coffee, picking at a plate of chips, positioned so I could see Marlowe, chafing at his bonds where Matthew had insisted we tie him up outside.
“You’re suspicious, I see, and so I’d like to start with all my cards out clearly on the table,” Rafe said to Matthew, opening his palms. He turned to me. “You’ve told me you’re connected to Urizon. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you look very much like my friend Peter Cothay. You were at his wife’s grave. . . . Am I right to assume a relation?”
I nodded. Matthew, sitting next to me, coughed into his drink.
“I knew it!” said Rafe, his expression taking on a look of wild glee before he caught himself and calmed it. “I knew you’d have the . . .” He shook his head, took a sip of water, and began anew. “Peter Cothay is a colleague of mine,” he said. “We’ve been working together for the past year on a theory I’ve developed. Or that he developed, really, but that I’ve been very eager to adopt.”
“Bullshit,” said Matthew. “Prove it.” I kicked him for his rudeness, but Rafe appeared unfazed. From his coat pocket he produced a stack of letters, all in my father’s hand, dated from the past fifteen months. Matthew flipped through them while I read over his shoulder.
. . . if we assume the wood itself was larger, we can widen our scope and begin to look . . .
. . . from the south, in approx the yr 600 (AD?) . . .
. . . can be translated to mean “lifeblood” or family, so there’d be no need for . . .
. . . once you prove the physics of it, they’ll be hard-pressed . . .
Matthew skimmed faster than me, put the letters down before I had finished. “All right. So he’s a colleague,” he said, pushing the pile toward Rafe. “But why does it matter? What can we do for you?”
“You’re going to have to bear with me,” Rafe said. He had, for the past while, been leaning toward us, his elbows set upon the table, voice deliberately low. Now he leaned back in assessment, as if trying to decide if we were worthy of the coming information. “Keep open minds. Most social anthropologists, archaeologists, even, are more concerned with history than practical application. I admit, to the skeptic, the idea I’m about to pose could seem a joke.”
Matthew sat very still, watching Rafe with eyebrows raised, his mouth already skewed skeptical. I thought that any minute he’d declare it time to leave, that we were done with this diversion.
“We promise to believe you,” I said, stressing the collective.
“All right”—Rafe took in a large breath—“here it is: I’ve found proof of the existence of a very special passage in the wood beside Urizon. But it needs . . . a lot of help with its unlocking. That’s what I was after in the graveyard. That’s why I’m curious to hear about your ties to the house. I understand that others call it pseudoscience—most of my peers think that I’m mad—but there is so much of the world we close our eyes to. So much of ourselves we, in our modern age, dismiss.”
“Unlocking?”
“One of the texts your father studies is concerned with a ritual leading to a woodland prophet. There’s a series of processional routes the ancients would travel to find her—you’ll be familiar with cursuses, I’m sure”—I nodded emphatically, although we were not—“and ley lines, of course. Certain stops along the way functioned like keys. Travelers made pilgrimage to certain sacred places, as if unlocking dead bolts before opening a door. It’s all written out, the directions are all there if you can make the right translation, and I think that I’ve done it. I think that we can get inside.” Rafe exhaled, smiled, and looked to us for validation.
“I don’t understand,” said Matthew flatly.
“You mean a tunnel?” I said. “What, under the ground?”
“Not quite.” Rafe took another sip of water. “More of a . . . path to a different dimension. Well, no, dimension is the wrong way to phrase it. If you haven’t got the background in the history, it can become a bit tricky to explain. Think of a spirit world. A holy place. Not a literal passage, but . . . metaphysical.”
I thought that Matthew might start laughing. Near us, someone’s mobile device beeped. The woman working the counter argued with a man who didn’t have the correct change for his purchase. Outside, Marlowe tugged at his bonds.
I felt that I had begun a large jigsaw puzzle on a surface half its size—my mind was not wide enough to lay out all the pieces, but I could carefully examine little pockets and, by squinting, visualize how they’d combine. Rafe’s explanation took so much of the experience I’d struggled with and wrapped it up so very neatly. I had gone missing and found myself in some other dimension; Peter’s research held the clues. The visions and the forest that I’d had no way to parse—here was my guide. Peter wanted to open the strange, shadow forest, to enter Rafe’s metaphysical world; he thought that I was there and had gone off to find me. Likely, he was waiting for me now.
“Could this be useful?” Using my sweater as a grip, I took Peter’s map from my pocket, pushing it across the table toward Rafe, ignoring Matthew’s quick intake of breath as I laid bare our only evidence. I watched as Rafe unfolded it, his eyes round with his luck. He traced the spirals, whispered the women’s names.
“Where did you find this?”
“Am I right? Is it directions to your passage?”
“Cothay wrote to me about this. We’d been planning an expedition, speaking regularly, and then we got into a slight . . . disagreement. Words were said, the fault was mostly mine. For a few weeks’ time we stopped all correspondence. Then I wrote him an apology, but I’ve heard nothing back. He’s not the type to hold a grudge. I’d thought he’d, well, I didn’t know what happened, but I’d hoped . . . and now it seems he’s gone ahead and done the work without me. You’ve given me exactly what I need to get through.”
“Through?”
“To the holy place. The other world. The undiscovered country.”
“You think that’s where Peter has gone?” I asked. Matthew kicked me again. “I mean, where he would have gone if for some reason he so happened to be missing?”
“I’m certain that it would be. And if you’re all right with my copying these coordinates, very soon that’s where I’ll be, too.” Rafe’s hands were shaking, his eyes glistened bright. His desperation was palpable, and compared to Matthew’s stoicism seemed a hand extended.
“This is absurd,” said Matthew.
“It isn’t,” I said, turning to Rafe, “and I will let you use our map.”
“Really?” Rafe’s hopeful smile extended into a wide grin, revealing rows of porcelain-white teeth, a set of dimples.
“If,” I said, “and only if, you’ll let me through the passage with you.”
A car sounded a long, low honk from the highway. The woman at the counter stifled a burp. Matthew suddenly seemed very tired.
“That isn’t happening.” He turned to me. “You’re going to forget this whole debacle. We’ll go back to your house and we’ll wait there.”
“Your house?” Rafe said. “To wait there?”
I glared at Matthew. “You see,” I said, “Peter Cothay is my father.” I saw no reason not to tell Rafe everything, believing, as I did, that he’d laid bare his plans to me. “Peter is gone, and we’ve been out looking for him. I intend to keep looking, regardless of what Matthew, here, thinks.”
“This is a joke,” said Matthew.
“It isn’t!”
“Would you,” Matthew asked Rafe, jaw tight, his milky coffee sloshing on the table, “mind giving us a moment alone?”
“Not at all.”
Abuzz with discovery, Rafe moved to the other end of the café, took his notebook from his pocket, and started scribbling. Matthew sat with his arms crossed, watching me watch our new companion.
“What?” I said, bristling.
Still no words, only that condescending focus.
“You’ve made your point,” I said, although much of it I had yet to decipher. “Will you please speak?”