Page 47 of The Night Prince 3
“That door is as old as me, Finley,” he imagined the professor saying as he often did. “You can’t let it slam and not expect some damage.”
But silence was his only response.
“Professor? Are you here?” Finley called again as he stood on the linoleum floor with the faded flower design.
The back door led directly into the kitchen. While there were pans on the stove, they were nested one in another with paper towels in between them. They weren’t being actively used to fry bacon and eggs or filled with melted butter just waiting for the hand-shredded potatoes to be dumped in. They were in their storage position. Nor was there butter softening on the counter for the bagels that were normally toasted in the ancient toaster. That was empty as well. The room felt abandoned. The whole house did. Finley’s shoulders twitched.
The sweetish odor of rot had intensified.
Finley glanced towards the kitchen garbage can. The odor wasn’t coming from there. Besides, this didn’t smell like garbage. It really was like the raccoon who had been crushed and sent flying by a car or truck that he’d nearly stepped in, but Declan had rescued him from.
“Professor?” he whispered the call this time as he took a few steps deeper into the kitchen.
He didn’t expect a response any longer.
Had Dr. Johnson gone away unexpectedly and not had a chance to tell Finley he’d be away? That seemed unlikely. The professor had no children. He wasn’t close with his nieces and nephews that were located all over the globe. He’d been a confirmed happy bachelor or so it had seemed to Finley. Content with his books, his memories and their weekly meetups.
“I’ve outlived all my friends,” Dr. Johnson had said one time. But he’d not appeared sad about it. Not even wistful. His expression had been distant, but he had been half smiling as if thinking of something pleasant. “You know, Finley, that death may be the ultimate adventure.”
“Or it’s simply the end,” Finley had pointed out.
He didn’t believe in Heaven or Hell. On the one hand it seemed too simplistic for the universe as he saw it and, on the other, too complex. The cycle of life to him was that they were made of stardust and to stardust they would return in time. Some people might find that grim. If he were honest, he did too. But he was also a big believer in being truthful about the world to himself. After the war with the Leviathan and the introduction of beings that lived forever, Finley’s worldview had changed considerably. But back then, he hadn’t believed in any kind of existence after death.
“Maybe you’re right. But,” and here the professor gave him a soft smile, “maybe not. Death has motivated people to do great and terrible things. The fear of it. The desire for it. It rules us like nothing else, Finley. I hope it is not an end, but a beginning.”
“I don’t want you to cease existing either,” Finley answered.
The professor chuckled and ruffled his hair. “Neither do I, young man. Oh, to be twelve again! But old age has its rewards, too. I don’t know if I would like to be in the tempest of hormones and emotions once more. Now, let me tell you about Henry VIII.”
Finley truly did not want Dr. Johnson to die. And if he were honest with himself, he hadn’t really thought that the elderly professor was going to leave him anytime soon. But the smell…
He walked across the kitchen floor. The linoleum cracked and popped underneath his sneakers. The smell grew ever stronger, coming in great wafts from the front room. That was where the professor would read at night before heading to bed. Finley went to that front room now. His footsteps were nearly silent on the faded green runner. He paused just before the threshold and closed his eyes for a moment.
Please don’t be dead.
He felt the unexpected burn of tears behind his eyes. The professor cared about him. So few people did. His parents didn’t understand him. The kids at school thought him odd. Only Declan and Dr. Johnson seemed to really see him as someone worthwhile. But it was more than that. The world without the gentle, intelligent teacher would be a world bereft of some of its goodness.
He opened his eyes and stepped into the doorway.
His heart caught in his throat. He’d found the source of the smell. The professor was seated in his favorite easy chair. He was slumped forward. A book he likely had been reading had slipped from his lap and fallen on the floor. It was a history of Genghis Khan. Finley couldn’t breathe and he gripped the front of his t-shirt.
Dr. Johnson had died. Sometime between when Finley had seen him last Saturday and now. And just before he’d died, he’d been refreshing his knowledge of Genghis Khan for their Saturday morning meeting.
Finley heard a low moaning and it took him a moment to realize it was coming from him. Grief was like an anvil on his feet, keeping him in place. Tears flowed down his cheeks.
“No…” he whispered. “No, no, don’t be gone. Don’t.”
Finley?
The warm tones of the professor’s voice saying his name filled his ears. Finley nearly jumped. Was the professor alive? But no. He could see the dark patches on his skin. He could smell the decay.
Finley, I was right, the voice rasped directly in the cusp of his left ear. There’s something more. Something… more…
Finley jumped around to look for the source of the voice, but he saw no one. There was no one there. Later on, before the war, he told himself he had imagined the professor’s beloved voice, trying to soothe himself. But now? Now he was certain that Dr. Johnson had spoken to him that day. Had tried to assure him that death was not the end. But the beginning of something.
Don’t fear death, Finley, the professor’s voice was in his ears again in the Temple of the Necrilem, forming out of the whispers for a moment. Embrace it.
“Dr. Johnson?” he asked out loud and slowly spun in a circle.
