Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 02 - The School for Mysteries (9 page)

Chapter  19

Phoebe unhooked the bungee cords and unwrapped the blankets. Then she helped Nick climb out of the back of the truck. He was surprisingly bright and alert. She told him that he’d been invited inside. “Be good,” she warned.

Nick kept his mouth shut as he was met by the young nun and escorted through the extraordinary house. She led them to what was obviously a kitchen. It was a marvel of bronze sinks, copper pots, wooden spoons, and exposed pipes in a style that was a collision between the Flintstones and some very rich tree-huggers. “
Le Seigneur
suggests you refresh yourselves,” she said, gave them a small bow, and left.

A young man stood at a counter across the room with his back to them. He was chopping vegetables on a cutting board made from a slice of a tree that still had bark around the edges. The counter he worked on was an immense slab of honed soapstone.

This was not just rich, thought Phoebe, but a special kind of bottomless pit of wealth. A beautiful house like this, hidden in plain sight, was several levels beyond the best security system money could buy. She could tell Nick was awestruck, too.

The monk-chef was dressed in a perfectly clean, hand-woven brown medieval-style monk’s robe that was belted with a real rope.

“Allow me make you breakfast,” he said, with a thick Scottish accent. “What would you like? We have a full range of seasonal organic produce grown locally. Breads. Free range eggs, goat or cow’s milk. Cheeses.

“What do you recommend?” asked Phoebe, utterly charmed.

“The goat cheese omelet is very popular, but I prefer the slow food version of the Egg McMuffin.”

Phoebe laughed and ordered the healthy McMuffin. Nick went for the goat cheese omelet. The two shell-shocked houseguests sat side-by-side on stools at a vast limestone island wolfing down the delicious meal. Nick was clearly feeling better by the minute.

Phoebe figured now was as good a time as any to try to find out exactly what she’d gotten herself into by befriending him. She didn’t want to take him into the room with her new boss totally unprepared.

“We haven’t had much of an opportunity to get to know each other. But, considering the circumstances, I need to cut right to the chase. Why are people trying to harm you?” she asked, putting it as gently as she could.

Nick shrugged, “The guys weren’t much for conversation, but I gleaned that they’d prefer that I not publish the results of my research.”

“What research would that be?”

“I’m writing a book about the actual cause of the Civil War.”

Phoebe was dumbfounded. Talk about anti-climactic.

“Instead of debating with me about my methodology in obscure economics and history journals,” he said, “they decided it would be more expedient to simply toss me out of a helicopter in a place where no one would ever find my body.”

Wow. That seemed a like an extremely disproportionate reaction to a boring problem. She turned sideways to look at him. He didn’t seem to be kidding. As usual, when confused, Phoebe reverted to dialect. “What’re you sayin? That there’s still people fightin the Civil War? Like those reenactor people?”

Nick shook his head, so Phoebe continued with her list of suspects, “The Daughters of the Confederacy? The Ku Klux Klan?”

“No and no,” Nick said. “My guess is that it’s one or more large corporations.”

Oh my gosh
, Phoebe thought,
he’s insane
.

Nick saw the look on her face. “I know it sounds paranoid, but I’m a mathematician. I’ve done the regression analyses over and over and I’ve run it by the best economists in the country, even Nobel Prize winning economists, and everyone agrees that I’m correct.”

“About
what
?” Phoebe asked.

“That slavery was not the cause of the American Civil War.”

Uh oh
, Phoebe thought, now she had an inkling why people were trying to kill Nick.
This kind of talk was certain to send knee-jerk left-wingers and the political correctness police into orbit. Apparently it already had.

The cause of the Civil War was supposed to be black and white, north and south, good and evil, plain and simple. It looked like she’d accidentally gotten hooked up with a Salman Rushdie type. A political correctness fatwa must’ve been put out on him.

“Abolition was a smokescreen concocted by northern industrialists who stood to make fortunes if they could block imports from England that were undercutting their sales. Before the Civil War and during the generations since then, robber barons have spent a lot of money obfuscating the fact that there is a direct correlation between tariffs—taxes on imports—and war.”

Phoebe tried to choose her words carefully. “I know this is somethin that’s real important to you, and I don’t wanna upset you, but what you just said is a totally toxic mixture of extremely boring and yet unbelievably inflammatory stuff.”

“Exactly! If you link a despicable human rights practice to a dull business matter, everyone will tune you out. And yet, imposing certain types of tariffs on particular types of imports is how you start wars all over the world. And I have proof.”

Nick was certainly animated all of a sudden. This was a new side of his character she’d not seen before.

“Many industries in addition to the so-called military-industrial complex, want to prevent this information from getting out. They will gleefully kill me to prevent the public from finding out how they light these fuses around the world and then reap vast profits from behind the screen of their war-mongering.”

Phoebe struggled to follow what he was saying.

“It’s been going on for centuries. One of the lies is that the only companies that profit from wars are the ones that make weapons or military provisions. The truth is that even greater fortunes are being made in ostensibly unrelated industries. It’s
these
guys who’re the ones actually starting the wars—like the textile trades started the Civil War—and the automotive industry, among others, is fomenting conflict in modern times.”

“Why hasn’t anyone noticed this?” Phoebe asked, still not sure he wasn’t nuts.

“The root cause of the conflict is subtle. You can’t explain the concept in a sound bite, and it doesn’t help that winners of wars always rewrite history and cover up the incriminating parts. But also, we’re a nation where voting your pocketbook without the slightest concern for your fellow men or for the future of civilization has become
the way things are done
.”

Phoebe didn’t say anything. She wanted to care, but she just didn’t. She was a nurse, he was a numbers guy. She was more interested in his black eye than World War III.

“He’s right, of course,” said the monk-chef, from across the room. He was stirring a stockpot of soup with his back to them. “There are various sorts of groups—you can label them interest groups, trade associations, political parties, call them what you like.

“The front men for these cabals are never the real leaders. They’re just puppets who fit a vital demographic. They’re good looking, eloquent. They’re recruited and groomed for their roles.

“The top people are never publicly revealed, and they’re rarely known, even to the most ardent and highly-placed followers. These groups have legions of enforcers. It sounds like you’ve had a run-in with them.”

He put a lid on the pot and turned to collect their plates. “Good people, honest people, can’t afford to be naïve and trusting,
or disinterested,
” he said, looking pointedly at Phoebe. “That’s how evil wins.”

He removed a tin of glorious smelling apple and cinnamon muffins from the oven and set it down in front of them. He waggled his oven mitts at them and added, “But if you’re going to engage with these rascals, you better have the proper protection.”

Chapter  20

After they’d both scarfed a warm muffin, the monk-chef said, “Arjun will take you to
Le Seigneur
.”

Nick visibly flinched when he looked over his shoulder and saw the tall, fierce-looking fellow standing nearby wearing Sikh garb—a large turban in a brilliantly-hued orange and a white robe over loose white pants. Arjun delivered them to their destination in silence. A second chair had appeared in his room during Phoebe’s absence.

“Come,” he said. “It is a pleasure to have you both here. Quite enlivening, I must say. It can be annoying to have opposition, but it is strengthening as well. Like exercise, it is the way of things here on Earth, is it not?”

Phoebe and Nick both nodded, too befuddled to speak. There was something about the man that radiated great wisdom and kindness. He was obviously very frail. There were countless tiny lines radiating from around his eyes and mouth. But his large, expressive dark brown eyes had not been touched by age. They were beautiful.

“You are safe here,” he said, looking at Nick.

For reasons she would have been hard pressed to articulate, Phoebe relaxed for the first time since she’d met Nick, and when she did, she realized how sore she was from all the unaccustomed sorts of activity and the terrible tension.

“What
is
this place?” Nick asked.

Le Seigneur
considered the question. “You might surmise it is a monastery because of the students who come here to study and work, but the days for cloisters are over. No more cowering, or lazing, behind high walls. We must do our work out in the world.
In
the world, but not
of
the world, of course.”

Nick nodded.

“To be perfectly accurate one should refer to this place as a
School for Mysteries
,”
Le Seigneur
said.

“Mysteries?” Phoebe echoed, “A School for Mysteries?” She had no idea what he meant.

“
Magnum Mysterium
. There are those of us who have made it our life’s task to investigate the Great Mystery—God and man, the meaning of life, what happens after we die, those sorts of questions.”

Phoebe was extremely confused now, sandwiched between the mystery of Nick and the mystery of her new boss.

“The Mystery Schools of antiquity were conducted in the strictest secrecy. Only recently has it become permissible to work openly. There are many who oppose this lack of secrecy—especially the dark brotherhoods. But we cannot allow ourselves to be deterred by the dark ones. So, here we are, esoteric, what some might call
mystical
, religious scholars and translators of all stripes, working to answer the big questions.

“You allow males and females to study together?” Phoebe asked, surprised.

“Of course. All the
real
Mystery Schools have always allowed this, encouraged it, even
required
it. We are sent to earth in two genders for a reason. We must bring both skill sets to all the important questions. It is absurd, it is
evil,
to do otherwise.”

Phoebe was starting to really like her new boss.

“Another feature that identifies a real Mystery School is the working together of mixed faiths, such as Moslems, Christians, and Jews. The mystical branches of all the major world religions agree about the important spiritual truths.”

Le Seigneur
studied their faces. “Here you will find the current embodiment of a line that goes back thousands of years. Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus. There is quite a bit to know, if you are interested.

“But, of course, that is for another day. For now we have more pressing matters to attend to. I must say, it is very diverting to have the opportunity to intersperse the big questions with the occasional smaller mystery, a
parvus mysterium
, like yours.”

Le Seigneur
looked at Nick and said, “You, we knew of.” Then he looked back at Phoebe and said, “You, we did not know of, until now.” He smiled his lovely smile, and said, “Tell me how you really met.”

Phoebe gave him a slightly revised and expanded description of the events of the previous two days. He clapped his hands with glee, looked at Nick, and said, “Cast out of heaven and fallen to earth to make your way down here amongst the rest of us poor rabble. Painful and frightening for you certainly, but what wonderful image. What an entrance!”

He laughed, which made him look much younger, and added, “Cosmic humor at it’s best.”

Nick seemed unable to speak.

“
Fear not
, as they admonish us so often in the Bible,” he said to Nick. “You have done a magnificent job so far and now we will help you get your work out into the world. I cannot promise they will not eventually succeed in killing you, but I can assure you that now at least you will not have died for nothing.”

Ouch. That was a smack upside the head. Phoebe reached for Nick’s hand. It was ice cold.

“We are always much closer to death than we realize. Our existence here is quite precarious. Especially for people like you. Light always calls to Darkness. One of the greatest mysteries of life here on earth is that wherever there is light, there is also shadow. You have reached the critical point in your destiny at which you must step out into the light. And, of course, there will be significant consequences when you do.”

Nick visibly sagged.

“Buck up my friend, the great mysteries are not for sissies. Achieving ones destiny requires courage,” he admonished. “Our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated this at considerable expense for our eternal edification.”

Nick nodded. Tears seeped slowly out of one eye.

“Simply staying alive can become quite a challenge at times. We each must find something we value enough to make all the pain and frustration of this place seem worthwhile. It is no good straining at life if we do not have something we love, something we can help with, something that gives all the struggle of this place meaning. And even then, sometimes we can become tired.”

Le Seigneur
leaned over and patted Nick on the knee, “You are not alone any more, my son. You have found your helpers now.”