Shane nodded. “How are your grades?”
“Fine.”
“They’re not fine,” Victor answered. “Coffee?”
“Please,” Shane replied. He looked at Tom and sat down at the dining table. “What’s going on with your grades?”
Tom slumped into a chair, scratched his shaved head with his good hand, and shrugged. “I’ve got brain-lock when it comes to math.”
“Tom,” Shane said, “you need it, man. Honestly.”
“For what?” Tom asked, undoing the straps that held his prosthetic left arm in place. “I have no intention of going into any sort of field that’s going to require math. Nothing close.”
“That’s not the point,” Victor sighed, shaking his head. He handed Shane a mug, and Shane nodded his thanks.
“Victor’s right,” Shane added. “Listen, math isn’t just about knowing the transitive properties of algebra and all that good stuff. No, it’s about training your mind to think properly. Same reason why you study Latin. It makes you think.”
“Latin’s easy compared to math,” Tom muttered. “Math drives me up a wall. I hate it.”
Shane looked at Tom as he took a drink from his coffee. It wasn’t often that Tom Daniels sounded or appeared to be the teenager that he was. When it came to the work required for homeschooling, though, that’s when the pubescent beast raised its head.
“Okay.” Shane leaned back in his chair. “There are two ways you can look at this, Tom. First, you can look at it as some albatross you’ve got slung around your neck like the Ancient Mariner. It’s there, you can’t get rid of the damned thing. Second, it’s a chore. No worse or better than that. Something that has to be done. If you choose option one, you’re in for a world of misery that you’re creating yourself. Option two, you do your work, put in the time, and it’ll be done before you know it. Right?”
Tom nodded.
“Anything else you’re having trouble with?” Shane asked.
“No,” Tom answered.
Shane glanced at Victor, and the man shook his head.
Grinning, Shane asked, “So, you’re almost old enough to drink.”
Victor threw up his hands and walked away as Tom laughed.
“No, not yet.” The teenager grinned. “Maybe never if Victor has his way.”
“And maybe not in here,” Shane replied, gesturing to the cases of haunted items. “All it takes is a crack in the seal, and one of those bad boys can get out. You know that. You know that better than most.”
Tom nodded.
“Anyway, I’m here to have a chat with the gentleman you two have been boarding for me.”
“Warren Thorne,” Victor said from the kitchen area.
“The one and only,” Shane nodded.
“I set up a place for questioning,” Tom interjected. “We put in a shed, and the inlay of my arm gave me the idea to use lead inlay on the floor. Lots of rock salt, too. I put in a chair, table, all the good stuff.”
“Ashtray?” Shane asked.
“Glass ashtray and a Zippo lighter,” Tom chuckled.
“You ought to give that up,” Victor commented, sitting down with a glass of water.
“I should. No doubt about it. Won’t, though. I like my Luckies, Victor. They’re comforting.”
“And deadly,” Tom added.
“Et tu, Brutus?” Shane inquired with a wink.
Tom and Victor laughed as Shane grinned.
“Anyway,” Shane continued, “putting my bad habits aside, how are things, really?”
Shane knew both Victor and Tom still suffered from the loss of their loved ones, and he knew how the pain of such losses could burrow deeply into one’s psyche. It could take hold and blossom, anger and sadness debilitating a man.
Shane had gone through it himself.
“We really are good,” Tom assured him, and Victor nodded.
“Our work keeps us busy,” Victor stated. “And that is all we can ask for at this time.”
Shane wanted to argue the point, to tell them both they could always ask for more, and that they should. But it was a conversation that didn’t need to be had, and so he remained silent.
“Shane,” Tom said, glancing at Victor, “there’s something we found. Something strange that we think you should know about.”
“Let’s hear it.” Shane folded his arms over his chest and peered at Tom and Victor.
“It’s about a group who call themselves the proctors,” Tom began, “and what they’ve been doing.”
“Bad?” Shane asked.
“They make Korzh look like a child,” Victor answered, his voice breaking.
Shane frowned, nodded, and listened as they began to speak.
Chapter 19: Unwanted Advice
Thursday, 9:45 PM
“Do you understand that you are setting them up for failure?”
Alex glared at Abel Worthe, but the old professor merely flashed a smile of broken teeth.
“Oh, Alex,” Abel sighed. “You don’t frighten me. Yes, I know you could torture me and eventually have me killed, but I am only speaking the truth. Without providing your hunter-gatherers with enough of the proper information concerning ghosts and the abilities of the dead, well… You’re not only setting them up for failure, you are short-changing yourself as it were.”
Alex shifted in his seat. No one alive had spoken to him in an authoritarian manner, not since the passing of Marcus. Timmy often did, but Timmy wasn’t alive, and in the end, Alex could ignore his dead friend.
The living mentor in front of him, Professor Abel Worthe, was another matter altogether.
Abel Worthe, in a quite literal sense, had helped form Alex into a scientist. His opinion, however irritating as it might be, was worth listening to.
Alex sat down on the floor and put his chin in his hands. “What if I don’t want them to know?”
“Is it part of one of your experiments?” Abel asked.
“No,” Alex grumbled.
“Ah. Then, you are wasting time, resources, and the ability to properly analyze a larger portion of the haunted items available to you,” Abel stated. “New England is quite rich with the dead. Hm, I would even go so far as to say the majority of the Northeast is an impressive vein of possessed items, all of which are waiting for the right man to mine them, to bring them back into the light. The question, then, is, ‘Are you the man to get it done?’”
“Of course, I am!” Alex barked.
Abel smiled. “I know. Now, you need to adjust your, shall we say, managerial style? Yes, violence has its place, and yes, Timmy serves as a magnificent deterrent. However, to continue to throw this gentleman, Marty Feldman, back into the wild with minimal protection is akin to dropping a man who speaks basically no Japanese into the heart of Tokyo and telling him to find his way home. It is a nearly impossible task. Yes, yes,” Abel said, holding up a hand and forestalling the argument that wanted to leap out of Alex’s mouth, “I understand all about others who speak English, the U.S. embassy, all of that. The point of the anecdote is this, Alex, you are quite simply setting them up to fail.”