Chapter 6

I let John Willie lead me out of the band hall and back across campus. I didn’t say anything and he didn’t either. The silence was not comfortable. We passed Oliver Hall and walked out onto the Commons. I saw students still ordering food at the pasta bar in the student center, and there were groups of people spread throughout the tables. I realized it wasn’t as late at night as I had thought. The on-campus radio station was still running through their evening playlist, and John Willie waved at the student DJ through the glass in the studio that was on the corner of the student center.

He saw me watching him as he turned away from the glass and mumbled, “Friend of mine.” I awkwardly nodded, my head jerking up and down rapidly. Now he was watching me, and I forcefully tucked my chin into my chest and glued my eyes to my feet as we turned onto the quad.

The closer we got to Wiley Tower, I realized my steps were getting smaller and soon I was a few paces behind John Willie. He stopped and turned to me. I forced myself to look up and past him at the smooth, white tower rising far overhead. I looked up at the 9th floor and felt my stomach begin to twist.

“You ok?” John Willie asked quietly.

I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

He opened his mouth, but he didn’t speak. Then he closed his mouth with an audible click of his teeth and nodded.

I nodded too, and then squared my shoulders and started walking again. He let me pass him, and then trailed right behind me to the front doors of the library. I pushed through and the cool air of the interior swept over me in a refreshing wave. The librarian saw us and she cocked her head slightly at me, probably recognizing me from the scared girl’s description. John Willie waved at her and she seemed mollified. She did watch us go to the elevators and I felt her eyes on me the whole time we waited for the car to arrive.

As the elevator doors closed and we started to rise, John Willie turned to me, “I’m going to be honest. I’m don’t know what to do right now. But how about we don’t use the hoodie until you’re comfortable with what we’re telling you?”

I met his eyes and nodded. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt like someone was telling me that I was being very melodramatic with all of the silence and the nods. I’m not sure if I agreed or not, but at the same time, I really didn’t have a better way to answer. Before I had time to really think about it, the elevator came to stop and the doors opened. I gave a look that said After you and followed him back onto the 9th floor.

We took the left from the elevators like last time. He had never pulled his hoodie up, and I wasn’t wearing mine. I still ran my eyes over every display case and looked down every aisle, searching for anything unusual or where I might see the world distort and begin to show what I had seen earlier. Nothing happened, and I started to feel more than a little embarrassed. Maybe I had imagined it.

Soon, we reached a corner window where a study area was arrayed. A low, rectangular table was surrounded by large, stuffed chairs. I saw a backpack in one of the chairs. It was unzipped and I could see a dark navy material stuffed inside. I knew it was my hoodie. John Willie ignored it and stepped to the window. He looked back and beckoned me by tilting his head to the window. I stepped up beside him and looked out at what I now saw was the campus. I had never sat near a window when I had come here, always preferring to tuck myself into one of the out-of-the-way scribes’ desks that were between the shelves.

I had crossed campus hundreds of times at this point, even though I was only a few weeks into my first semester. I knew almost every path between the places I needed to go. I normally walked with my head down though. I could see the main administration building for the campus off to the left of the quad. Loward Auditorium was opposite of Wiley Tower across the quad, reaching nearly as high as the tower with its tall peaked roofs. Off to the right of Loward, the student center stretched out and the Commons were on the far side. Oliver Hall was across the Commons and the band hall wasn’t visible at night even further away. To the right of the quad, the bookstore reached about halfway to Wiley Tower. The stone fountain in the center of the quad was gently lit and I could see water sparkling as it flowed. Large oak trees were at each corner of the quad. Concrete paths spread out in parallel patterns from the fountain, leading to each of the buildings surrounding it. I looked to my left and saw the business college down below.

“It’s a pretty view, ain’t it?” John Willie asked.

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I finally had something I could reply to. “I’ve never seen it. I’ve never come to the window when I came here to study.”

“Well, here ya go,” he smiled over at me. I smiled back, but I think it looked painful because he raised his eyebrows and looked away.

“So, you saw your hoodie,” he ventured again.

“Yeah, I did.”

“If you think the campus looks cool like this, you should see it with your hoodie on.”

I took a moment to think about that. He was openly stating that the hoodie would change what I would see. He had also said to wait until I was comfortable before putting it back on. I watched him reach up, adjust the folds around his neck, and then draw the hoodie up and over his head. He tugged on the draw strings gently, making them even lengths as they fell to his chest. I made up my mind.

I stepped over to the backpack and pulled my hoodie out. It didn’t feel magical, or have any sort of sensation other than the material was probably the softest I had ever felt on clothing. It wasn’t very thick, and I briefly wondered how warm it was in the winter. I went back to the window and before I could overthink it, I pulled it over my head. I realized I had my eyes closed, and opened them. I made sure my hoodie was comfortable on my head and adjusted the draw strings the way I had seen John Willie do.

When I looked out the window, the campus hadn’t changed much, but it was changed. The buildings were all still in the same places. They still looked the same. There was something about the air though that was definitely different. I saw John Willie’s hand reach out and his finger was pointing.

“Do you see it? The glow?”

I did. The air was swirling, and twisting, and it was glowing as if each eddy had a very faint pulse of ambience. I saw blues, greens, purples, yellows, and shades in between. I watched them move around the quad, moving between the buildings and trees. I stood there for a long time, letting my eyes follow the movement.

I slowly became aware that I felt like the air knew I could see it. Like it recognized me watching it. In response the pulses begin to intensify from almost imperceptible to eye-catching. John Willie drew in a sharp breath, and I watched his breath steam up the window on his exhale. In the brief second that the window was obscured, the colors had begun to swirl in joined patterns, no longer individual colors but what looked like a funnel turned on its side was beginning to spin and grow. It was a developing maelstrom on the front steps of Loward Auditorium. I was captivated.

“What is that?” I whispered.

“That, unbelievably, I believe, could be your second Adventure.” The gravitas he gave the word let me know it was more than the average noun.

“My Adventure?”

“Yep.”

“You say that like it’s not yours too.”

“Well, I can see that it’s forming, but I don’t think I can access this one. The colors aren’t right, you see?”

“No?”

“Sorry, bad expression. What colors do you see?”

“Green. Blue. A bit of yellow. Purple? I think?”

“And they’re pretty bright, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Not for me.”

I looked between John Willie and the cold rainbow cornucopia, thinking through what he was saying.

“So, not everyone goes on every Adventure.”

“Nope. Best guess, sometimes we have to do things on our own. Some things are best experienced, ya know?”

“No.” I replied.

“You will. Let’s go.”

He turned and walked back towards the elevator. I had to force myself away from the window and this time I kept my hoodie on as I followed him. The floor was incredible. I saw small flickers of wandering light and tried to follow one down one of the aisles, but John Willie called out to me.

“Later! This place isn’t going anywhere. I promise you, we will show you how to get around this place.”

He called the elevator, and I used the time to stare in wonder around me. The display cases were still there. But they were different. Instead of flat cases with glass covering old and fragile texts, there were giant tomes in what looked like leather. I saw stitched into the cover of the nearest book a series of etched lines and dashes. I didn’t know how to decipher them, and before I could continue, the elevator arrived and John Willie almost had to drag me from the book.

I don’t remember starting to ask questions, but by the time the elevator had reached the first floor and we were rushing out of the library front doors, John Willie was laughing at my excitement and repeating himself, “You’ll see!”

We stepped out into the night air and the questions caught in my throat. It was incredible. I reached out and tried to run my hand through a passing surge of light blue. In the street lights, I could discern the darker purples and I stared in awe at the yellows tracing the fountain’s water.

John Willie took me by the arm and began to lead me across the quad towards the front steps of Loward. As we got closer, I quit craning my neck to look around and took in the display before me. The colors had coalesced into a visible shape, a spinning circle like a coin on its side. It stood nearly double my height and I couldn’t have touched both sides at the same time. It threw off sparks of greens and blues and bright yellows, but when I tried to touch one, it felt like a I had pushed at a falling snowflake.

John Willie nudged me closer. “I’ll be here when you get back. Promise.”

I met his eyes, and in that moment, I believed him. This wasn’t just a story. This was an Adventure.

I turned and walked towards the spinning disk. The sparks bounced off my body. As the edge of the disk passed me, I stepped into its wake.