Lillian bit into a piece of bread, watching Brandon and Daria's muttered, supposedly private conversation across the table and wondering whether she wanted to know what they were saying. Stealing another glance over at their side of the table, she contemplated how uniquely exasperating it was to go to lunch with two friends in a relationship, and whether she would feel this left out if and when any of her other friends started dating.
And so, for lack of anything better to do, she set down her slice of bread, muttering a vague excuse, rose, weaving through the crowd, and walked out the café door.
Strolling along the pathway towards the center of the park, Lillian raised her head and gazed towards the top of the obelisk, wondering for the umpteenth time what those symbols atop the monument could possibly mean. Nobody seemed to know how long the obelisk had existed or who had first discovered it, and the presence of a security camera in the area, originally intended by the landowner to identify trespassers, had been a stroke of pure luck. Lillian imagined the obelisk poking out above the forest skyline. As she walked toward the park's central plaza, she noticed with a chuckle the sign that Daria had mentioned not long ago. "Do not read the sign or sit on the letter J," she read aloud. "Well, that's a bit pointless; I've already read the sign."
The plaza surrounding the obelisk was thronged with tourists. Lillian groaned- she should have known better than to visit the obelisk at one o'clock on a Saturday. Almost a hundred people were milling around the plaza, some packed tightly around the obelisk, others eagerly snapping pictures of the park. As a popular national monument and tourist destination not more than an hour's drive out of Eugene, the obelisk attracted tourists that annoyed not just Lillian but also many of the other Dorena residents. She spotted a small cluster of people gazing toward the ground nearby and walked over to take a look.
A plaque in the shape of an infant's outline rested on the stone plaza floor. Next to the baby shape, a second plaque proclaimed that the infant had been found at this spot on the day of the Thaumatogenesis. Lillian grinned and raised her phone to take a selfie.
As she stared upwards, she noticed a sculpture of a security camera on a pedestal at the edge of the plaza. A plaque near the base of the pedestal explained that the statue represented the actual location of the security camera which had recorded the Thaumatogenesis. She noticed a real security camera panning back and forth from between the branches of a tree. It would have been well hidden during the summer but, given that it was still January, was clearly visible to the tourists. Lillian noticed a small group nearby frowning at the camera uncomfortably.
She finished taking her picture and stepped away from the plaques, walking toward the center of the plaza, gazing toward the obelisk. Constructed out of a sleek light gray material which, as far as Lillian knew, hadn't been identified, the nine-sided monument rose high into the air over the plaza. Lillian estimated that it would take three or four people linking hands to surround it and three or four flights of stairs to climb to the top. The plaque, located on the side facing due south, gleamed in the sunlight.
Her attention was suddenly diverted by a commotion across the plaza. An intrepid tourist had dared to bring his dog into the park, and one of the park employees was scolding him for venturing onto the plaza with the dog. Lillian laughed softly and started walking toward the annoyed tourist, not noticing when her foot caught on the edge of an elevated plaque and she slammed into the side of the obelisk, her right ankle twisting painfully under her weight. She struggled awkwardly to her feet, grimacing as her ankle attempted to support her weight. Oddly, the side of her body which had slammed into the obelisk only tingled painlessly, but Lillian was too preoccupied with her twisted ankle and scraped knee to worry about anything else. Several tourists examining the obelisk were scowling at her, and Lillian smirked, imagining the kind of treatment she'd receive here if anyone else knew who she really was.
Rubbing her ankle, she hobbled past the offending dog and back towards the café, hoping she would get back in time to eat the sandwich she'd ordered before it got cold.
❧☙
A single knock resonated through the office, and Dakota scrambled out from behind his desk to answer the door. As soon as he turned the lock, the door was immediately pushed open and Rory walked into the room, casually dropping a hand mirror on the floor and collapsing onto the couch. When the cushion sank under his weight, he wrinkled his nose and looked up at Dakota. "Do you sleep on this thing?"
"Where do you think I sleep?" Dakota snapped.
"I would have thought you would have made better accommodations for that."
"It's not like I could have brought a bed into the office."
Rory shrugged. "It would be more comfortable."
"None of this is about being comfortable. It's about staying safe."
"Let me tell you, they have no idea where you are right now." Rory rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, I know, but here's the problem- I wanted to stay close because of the girl-"
"And Mira."
Dakota sighed. "Okay, fine, because of the girl and Mira, but I'm worried they'll also be staying close."
"They don't know who she is and they don't know what you're doing."
"They know you, and they know Mira, and it's only a matter of time before they find her or me and then who knows what's going to happen."
"You're missing a couple things there. First, you're pretty safe- you barely ever leave campus and spend almost all your time in this office. And Mira knows well enough to avoid them. Second, what you've been saying doesn't make any sense. It's already been long enough that you would think they would have found you- right now, it isn't your biggest problem. Besides, why are you dragging the girl into this anyway?"
"She has the right to know. Also, I need her help."
"If you need help with teaching..."
"Are you telling me to ask you? Because I'm sure-"
"No," Rory growled. "We've already messed up and blown Ashley's cover. We don't need more compromised... agents. That would be a bit of a problem."
Dakota was silent for a moment, and Rory took the chance to ask a question he'd clearly been trying to lead up to. "So, want to come help me set up camp?"
"Nah, I have some grading to do."
Rory glared at the stack of papers on Dakota's desk. "No you don't."
"Yes-"
"Not anymore."
"Uh, thanks, but-"
"Please just come help out."
Dakota finally relented. "Okay, fine."
Rory rose, walking to the center of the room to lift the hand mirror from the floor. He opened it and stood in front of Dakota's desk expectantly.
"What, so you're not going to do it?" Dakota asked, annoyed.
"Please just take care of it. I just graded all your papers."
"Fine. Here goes."
❧☙
Galena stared at the fingerprints chart that Derek had produced from the files. "And can you show us the vagrant's fingerprints now?"
Evan wordlessly dropped another sheet of paper on the table. Galena slid it over next to the chart and checked the fingerprints up and down. Before she was even able to say anything, Evan cut in. "Doesn't match anyone's."
"Well, that's good..."
"Looks like there's nothing else going on."
"So what do we do now?" Rolf asked quizzically.
"I can see if I can get us some interviews with those police officers. Other than that, there's pretty much nothing else we can do," Derek answered.
"Will the interviews be over the phone?" Diane wondered.
"I'm sure we could just bring them in," Galena responded thoughtfully. "Eugene isn't that far away. Do you think they would come?"
"See, that's the thing," Derek replied. "One of them is still in Eugene, one is in Portland, and one is in Dorena. I don't know about the officer in Portland, but the other two would probably come in. They've all retired by now, so it shouldn't be a problem."
"I don't see any other way to continue with the investigation..." Galena said thoughtfully, tapping her chin. "I don't want to put out posters about Beanie or anything since it might be dangerous... this is where we're getting with the dead kid... there's nothing we can do about Fifth Wheel..."
"And Janelle's still working on the DNA test," Evan finished.
"Is there anything we can do other than that?" Rolf asked, taking a bite of a sandwich he seemed to have produced out of nowhere.
"No, I don't think-" Galena turned to stare at Rolf when she saw the sandwich. "How did you get a breakfast sandwich at the café?" she wondered enviously. "They stop selling those at lunchtime."
Rolf pulled a pickle out of the crinkly café bag and bit into it before answering the question. "I didn't get it after lunchtime."
The scent of dill pickles reached Galena's end of the table- she was sitting near the door and she wrinkled her nose. "You've had that in the fridge since this morning? Is it even hot?"
"Not really," Rolf complained. "And yeah, I guess you could say that."
"What do you mean, you guess- oh! Is that-"
Rolf nodded.
"Don't eat that!" Galena reprimanded. "You don't know what he could have done to that sandwich- he might have transfigured it-"
"Oh!" Derek gasped, realizing what was going on. "You're eating that? Why on Earth would you eat that?"
Rolf rolled his eyes and set the sandwich down. "Everything we did there was a waste. We should have taken his fingerprints and run tests. He didn't eat the sandwich, so I did."
"Please don't do that, Rolf, that's dangerous," Diane reprimanded. "Now can we please get back to the discussion?"