The Fountain of Youth

Chapter 13

After a night of research, preparing the next day’s lecture, and tossing under the ghost-repellant bed lamp, Nina struggled to get out of bed. Her body ached and the agony soon reminded her that she was running out of Neurontin and running too low on her back-up supply of codeine to boot. However, she was determined to make it as far as she could without drugging up and she opted for denial for another day.

Intrigued by what she’d been told about the property the day before, she was adamant to pry into the lawsuit from that Cotswald character, just for interest’s sake. Besides, Nina needed a distraction from her mundane teaching life, temporary though it was. Between the pain she was suffering in secret and the cattiness of the female faculty members, she certainly needed something to occupy her mind.

What she did not want to admit was that she was addicted to researching and pursuing relics and solving historical mysteries, and that she could not live without chasing some old, buried secret somewhere. She vehemently opposed the subconscious realization that she had, in fact, gradually evolved into a female version of Dave Purdue. The only way in which Nina would have wanted to be Dave Purdue, was financially, not psychologically.

This time, when she passed the old, eroded fountain, she looked upon it with completely different eyes. When she walked past it, it seemed to call out to her, as if it not only held dirty, stagnant rain water, but that within its core a quiet scream begged for discovery, for release.

She shook her head and made for the main building to get away from the enthralling structure. “God, so this is what it’s like inside Purdue’s brain?” she muttered like a preoccupied madwoman as she rushed to be on time.

The annoying nasal whine of Clara Rutherford shredded Nina’s peace. “Good morning, Dr. Gould. Should we get a temp teacher to take your lecture today? You don’t look too well.”

“Fuck off, fruit fly,” Nina murmured as she took a short left away from the toxic lackey before she would have to punch her in the throat.

“Sorry?” Clara asked, unable to hear Dr.Gould’s reply. But when the slight historian did not answer, Clara left it at that with a shrug and a scoff. In the lecture hall, Nina was given the silent treatment by her students.

“Oh, come on,” she frowned. “Dean Patterson dismissed the bloody exam anyway, so spare me the martyrdom. You do realize that only the syllabus I present counts, right?”

“But Dr. Smith has tenure, Dr. Gould. Doesn’t that mean she can override your authority?” one of the female students asked.

Nina looked sharply at the girl. “Not if I talk to the Dean about it, sweetheart. He is after all, the one who makes the final decisions at St. Vincent’s. Just remember that. So, how did you guys manage that test, by the way?”

They threw back their heads. Some groaned and others looked miserable.

“That bad?” she asked.

Her students nodded. The air conditioner hummed incessantly as Nina tried to teach to what felt like a group of comatose adolescents. Constantly she had to cry out a name or a detail just to keep them focusing. At the end of the class she watched them trudge out of the lecture hall, listless and quiet. It was very unlike them.

These were young people who were passionate about historical studies and had always asked to hear about her confrontations with dangerous archeologists or psycho-bitch Nazi hybrids. They constantly challenged Nina’s perceptions on certain political systems and the employment of socialism during those dark, cold years she so loved to flash pictures of on her PowerPoint presentations.

Now they did not object, apart from the occasional grunt. They hardly moved to take down notes. Their laptop desktop lights illuminated their faces in pale blue and soft white death masks without much change in expression, even when they spoke to her. Nina was beginning to become alarmed about their welfare. Above dealing with the horrible signs of her medical regression and the anguish of her condition, she now had to keep sharp to unravel whatever strange phenomenon was manifesting all over the campus.

She sat down after class, exhaling heavily. Nina looked over the printed assignments submitted for review from a deadline she’d given her class a week before.

“I still have to get through all this before I can sleep again,” she moaned, thinking about the extra time it took to fact check even the details she thought she was confident about while her brain was on fire and her skin was aching. “I miss Bruich.”

Languidly she gathered up the sheets of stapled assignments and logged off from her laptop. The projector was still on, beaming a white Cyclops eye against the barren projector screen after she disable the USB. Nina felt her chest burning, but she tried her best not to start coughing, much as she was pressed to. Her lungs felt impotent when she inhaled, as if they were mere strainers sifting particles from air instead of inflating with it. She tried not to panic as she hastened the packing up process. At least in the basement-makeshift-office she would be able to take care of her coughing fits in private and not have to worry about people asking too many questions about her state of health.

Luckily, the faculty was currently under the impression that Nina simply had an eating disorder, in itself not a trivial malaise. Still, it was far less than to explain having contracted cancer after radiation poisoning from Chernobyl due to running from her hypno-psychotic ex-lover.

Feeling the crippling pain blossom reluctantly through her chest and back, Nina rushed to get to the refuge of the basement archive room. Due to the upcoming public holiday, most of the students and lecturers had taken the afternoon off; only a skeleton staff remained on duty until the end of the day. Nina had to pass the Dean’s office to reach the top landing of the stairs that led to the basement. But as much as the pain pressed her to get to her sub-level hiding place, the sound coming from behind the locked door of the Dean’s office was more intriguing.

She could discern the voice of the Dean arguing with his wife, Dr. Christa Smith. Nina’s unnaturally powerful hearing yielded something she knew could not possibly have been a coincidence, given her recent conversation with Mrs. Patterson.

“You cannot, Daniel! This is your family’s property, for God’s sake!” she seethed.

“I can’t give up this opportunity, Christa! We’ll be set for life if this sale comes through,” he said, trying to reason.

“A Cotswald? Think about that for a minute!” she growled. “The last time your family had to deal with a Cotswald your grandfather almost lost St. Vincent’s! Now, after all the hell he went through to get rid of that parasite, not to mention the bad reputation this place got after that lawsuit, you want to just let them have it?”

“I’m not letting them have it, for fuck’s sake!” he roared as softly as he could in retort. “I’m selling it — for lots of money. You love money, remember, Christa?”

“Don’t provoke me,” she warned.

“My mother is growing too old to stay with us in the long run. I’m sure you can’t wait to get her out of our way. If I sell this property to the Costwalds, we can afford to put her in a high-end retirement home where I will no longer have to worry about my mother’s medical needs or her emotional well-being. She will be well taken care of and you will be rid of your horrible, terrible hag of a mother-in-law. Wouldn’t that make you happy?” his riposte snapped back.

Nina checked behind her and ahead through the long narrow hallway that was almost completely dark from the rainy weather outside. The high ceiling arched gracefully, reminding her of a cathedral, holding all the secrets of those who’d confessed their sins behind closed doors and hushed torment, just like the tirade she was listening to right now.

The shadowy corridor was thankfully void of human presence. Nina was relishing the information that served to fill out the meager details Mrs. Patterson had furnished her with. Little by little the facts were falling into place, although it was probably not even half the story. Suddenly Nina heard footsteps approaching the door. High heels clapped on the wooden floor, growing louder. The last thing Nina heard as she bolted for the refuge of the dark on the staircase was Christa giving her husband an ultimatum.

“I’m telling you Daniel. If you sell this college, I’m filing for divorce. And all your new income from the sale of this property will be swallowed up in alimony.”

“What a bitch,” Nina whispered to herself as she watched the tall department head storm down the hall toward Clara’s administration office.

The pain was becoming insufferable, but at least the looming coughing fit seemed to have abated with all the excitement of eavesdropping. Nina’s boots clanged on the iron steps that became cement and rock stairs halfway between the ground floor and the basement. She threw her bags down quickly and fell to her knees to rummage through her purse for the last sheet of the painkillers she still possessed.

Kind of strange how I never feel drowsy down here, she thought as she gulped down the capsule with the last bit of warmed bottled water she had with her. Maybe the humming air-con is lulling the kiddos to sleep in my lectures, because it can’t be my teaching voice.

Nina literally felt better when she was in the confined space of the basement’s cool tomb, and that was unusual, given her fear of small spaces. It was a comfortable and temperate atmosphere, minus maybe the dust from the stacked paperwork and records. While she caught her breath from the searing agony of her illness, Nina remembered the first time she’d heard something she wasn’t supposed to at St. Vincent’s: that day in the kitchen when she’d overheard the conversation between Christa and Clara about running records for a male person that Christa did not want to do. Could those records have had something to do with the sale of the college? Perhaps it was why Christa didn’t want to run them, so that she could mar the sale of the property. Yet Nina had a feeling that Christa’s reasons were not based just in her career or her husband’s money, but in something deeper. She would profit so much from the sale. Why on earth would she fight so hard to keep the place? What did it have that other places did not?

“Oh my God!” Nina exclaimed. “She is after the underground river, the fountain!”

“Who is after what?” Gertrud asked from nowhere.

“Gertrud, what did I tell you about just suddenly talking to me?” Nina reprimanded the admin assistant.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Gould,” Gertrud apologized again. “I just don’t know how else to start talking, especially in a quiet room away from other noises.”

“We should put a bell around your bloody neck,” Nina said, smiling as she rose and placed her stuff on the desk. “Hey, listen, Gertie,” she said in a subdued tone, “do you know anything about the records the Dean was looking for?”

The befuddled assistant rolled her eyes back in thought, mulling it around in her mind for a bit. She seemed to grasp something, but still looked a bit uncertain to the historian.

“I’m not sure about this, but I do know that Dean Patterson has been trying to look up a distant family,” she replied, hoping to sound smarter than she felt. Shrugging, Gertrud walked to the iron file cabinet in the corner and pointed. “These are the oldest secrets kept by this college, as far as I know. But I’m not sure if they have anything to do with the Dean or what he’s looking for.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nina said. “It’s a start. Thanks Gertie.”

“Always happy to help,” the assistant said before frowning. “Ugh, they’re looking for me topside. Will you excuse me, Dr. Gould?”

“Of course. Go on,” Nina grinned, happy to be alone to do her spying.