Higher Learnin'
Ole Miss University
Bondurant Hall
August 4
All Universities smelled the same, Zadie decided. Of old books, dirt, young hormones, and old men and women or strange chemicals, young hormones, and animals. From the sciences to the arts, each curriculum had their own heady mixtures of standard scents. And all the scents were usually flavored with cologne, perfume, unwashed bodies and sex. As she had walked from the public parking to the beautiful, classical brick building that housed the Professor’s office, she had smelled it all.
True to form, despite it being after hours, it had only taken her a friendly wave at a group of boys inside to get them to open the door for her and rescue her from the porch and the evening humidity. The English Department at Ole' Miss was mostly empty except for the last of the evening courses leaving for the night, students still standing in the hallways with lamentations or pretentious discussions of what they had learned. She smiled, knowing that she gathered male attention as she walked and put a bit more swish in her step.
The Professor would scowl, growl at her even, but in she needed a bit of healthy ego-stroking after the emotional beating that she had just undergone in the past few days. She was here on demand, but this time wasn't as full of resentment as she had planned to be. She was willing to offer the white flag. She had met Natchez's best and most deadly and she wasn't dumb enough not to realize that for the first time, she was way in over her head.
Pausing in her steps, she again checked the over-the-shoulder bookbag she wore. The paper was still there, pristine and perfect. “ASAP-A Discussion of the Precision of Time.” She was rather proud of it. And was equally certain that he'd tear it apart. She finally reached the Professor's door and rapped on it gently.
From inside the private office, Pettigrew's voice called out. "If you feel you need to knock, you should keep walking," he called out. "If you're not a complete waste of time and breath, come in as it is clearly office hours."
Zadie rolled her eyes and walked in.
Inside, the room was a masculine, ordered domain, carefully designed to give the impression that the inhabitant was smarter then you. A large oak desk, oversized swivel cherrywood chair, and the wall space obscured with overflowing bookcases. Volumes in English, French, German, and Latin were neatly arrayed, spines out, alphabetical by title, grouped by language, subgrouped by subject.
The only place to sit other than perch on the uninviting desk was a small wooden chair, looking more child-sized then comfortable for a college student to sit in, let alone a colleague.
"Ah, Ms. Calhoun," he said, looking up from the pile of double spaced compositions he had been marking with a red pen. "A complete waste of time. Well, be seated, deride me, make an emotional upheaval and then storm out quickly. I have pressing business trying to figure out how I'll keep your grandmother alive, at least."
And fuck you very much too! Zadie thought, as she came in and shut the door behind her, but took a long breath as she took the uncomfortable seat to find some calm. Reaching into her bag, she produced her paper and lay it on his desk. "As you asked." She forced a smile. "I must admit that I kinda enjoyed the paper."
Pettigrew's left eyebrow arched, and he scanned through the paper rapidly, pausing to make a red mark only once. He glanced up, then scribbled a note, and sat back in his chair, tossing the paper with a jaundiced air to the other side of the desk.
The paper was marked, "Use of present perfect tense shows pretensions above your undergraduate status. Inform, not impress, please." The other note was a grade of A-, and a short note stating, "Well supported arguments. Upon reflection, in future years you may wish to read this paper and think of how different life would be if you'd only listened to your own advice."
"So," he remarked casually. "Now that you are aware of the errors of our last tenant in Natchez, and have met the reason why all experiments have resulted in bloody ruin, are you ready to pick up stakes and move here, under my protection, and become a full time student?"
The slight smile that had slid unwanted onto her face at the grade widened once she had tucked the paper back into her bag. "No." She leaned forward, her eyes pinning on his. "I want to know how to keep every sorry Tom, Dick, and Nasi from digging up my yard to pull up my daggone wards. I'm buying a drill and punching the damn things to China and then shooting any asshole that tries to dig them up with arrows." She swallowed out of reflex, pausing to reflect that she still found the old ways of the living a good way to give one time to calm and center. Breathing? Swallowing? Not necessary anymore. But oh so good to keep the mortals from noticing and oh so good to let her have time to chew on her own pride.
"I need your help, Professor," she blurted out after a moment. "If it's any excuse, I didn't realize what son of bitches we were against. But I do now. And I ain't leaving Natchez." Her eyes blazed for a moment. "I may end up eating these words, but if I have anythin' to do with it, they are. So, I'm listening." Another pause. "And I was wrong about you." Another pause. "Mostly. But I'm willing to ignore that if you are."
Pettigrew leaned forward, his fingers steepled as he rested his chin on the points of his index fingers. "Something you don't know, Ms. Calhoun? I thought for sure you could google it or wikipedia the information you require while you were ignoring my texts." With a wry smile, he reclined again, and opened the right top desk drawer. Pulling out a map of Oxford, he pointed out the "X" marks in a concentric ring around the city.
"I myself maintain the ward that protects us here," he said. "The amount of blood would require access to a hospital, however." Leering, he pointedly mentioned, "Willie Mae actually would be the one to benefit from this lecture."
He returned to his dissertation. "Sink the anchor in concrete, using double normal blood expenditure to insure that the extra material doesn't interfere with the Ley lines you're drawing. Half the depth, place your icon in the dirt normally above it; don't bother to enchant the red herrings, however." He pointed to one of his carefully drawn X's. "This is the Woolworth store. Hidden in the rooftop AC, I have a gargoyle to attack minor attempts to dig at the spot, and fly to me to report any major attempts." His self-satisfied lecture boiled down to the importance of having a gargoyle to disrupt attempts to dig.
"So I take it you have met the esteemed Mr. Johnson, and his ravenous pit bull of a sheriff, then?" He grinned wolfishly. "Evangaline seems to be holding up her end of the bargain. If you met the King and are still here, you passed as some other clan."
"She is." Zadie frowned as the Professor lectured, trying to concentrate on his explanation. Cocking her head, she raised an eyebrow. "What about using a foci to strengthen the power from the ley lines? If you put a foci every other ward? Would that fix the usual power leakage? That and if you used wards that were blood permable and then seal them in something like shellac, would that help? Petrified wood even?" She leaned back in the chair, winced at its uncomfortableness, and wrinkled her nose. "The neighbors would wonder about the sudden existence of gargoyles. Unless we changed out one the bedrooms to the gothic/medieval merchandising. Celtic is big."
Her eyes narrowed as she put her fingers over her mouth to concentrate. "I could get Rooster and Shane to help dig. . .to help put in a sprinkler system for the place." She smiled and waited for the Professor to answer and then to shoot her down. But she didn't mind. She was ready to play. She wasn't gonna give up her home without a fight.
"Interesting theory," he said, smiling. "Entirely off base," he finished with frown. "The ritual is what it is. Your name is Calhoun; some sort of Euro-trash ancestry spiel should explain a statue here or there. I have a gargoyle I'll loan to Willie Mae that looks like a Confederate General at rest. Put it on the roof and claim he'll come to live when the Confederacy rises.
"Have you given thought to ghouls? A pity that Thibedeaux girl was taken. Her writing is of course trash," he shrugged. "Profitable trash, though. Money powers us as surely as blood."
"Kinda. I want a cop or two. People who are up at night, not businessmen. And maybe a doctor. But our doorknobs have been doing just fine for blood so far. And maybe some bikers. Some of momma’s old friends are still around." She waited but then couldn't hold her tongue anymore. "A Confederate general? Really? We do sell to out-of-towners. Grandma is known there, you know. Can't we have a monster? We can explain that to the Yankees wandering in a hell of a lot better." She forced a pleasant smile. "Sir."
With a curt nod, Pettigrew rose from his swivel rocker, and extended his hand towards the door. "Ugly and cathedreal, I understand. I suggest you pick dangerous but not stupid for foot soldiers, and even those discreetly. I defer to your judgment, but bikers are abhorrent, noisy and noisome. Police and local rough boys who have some animal cunning should serve." Before taking his seat again, he strives manfully to display an overwhelmingly insincere smile. "Please do give my best to your charming grandmother. I have work to do. Expect the delivery of the gargoyle between 4 am and 5 am. Explain to the neighbors what to expect.”
Zadie rose to her feet, nodding. "Celtic is cool. . .and many a Southern family is the long lost children of people from the British Isles. I'll say hello to Grandma for you." She turned to leave and then turned back. "Thank you. I know you've got motives for Natchez and I'm sure that Grandma and I weren't your first choice. But no one crosses us and no one is gonna drive us outta Natchez without a fight. I look forward to your future posts Professor." She went to the door with a sly smile. "So far I've found most of them quite entertaining."
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