Page 25 of Witch Please
“This was the most unkindest cut of all.” Sebastian’s eyes, usually lively and full of spirit, dulled to a deep navy, the hurt reflected there took my breath away. He quoted Shakespeare’sJulius Cesar, essentially painting me as Brutus. The best friend to Cesar who betrayed him. I watched Sebastian exit my office. He looked small all of the sudden. Defeated. Seeing it broke me in a way I hadn’t expected. I reached out to the one person who knew Sebastian better than I did.
“Patrick, I don’t know what to do.” As soon as I heard his hello, emotion overwhelmed me. Tears spilled from my eyes without even having to blink. What was even crazier, it didn’t even feel like I was crying but the Hoover Dam couldn’t have stopped those puppies from spilling. “Have you seenThe Dartmouth?”
I felt the adrenaline coursing through my body. It set me on edge. I couldn’t sit still, choosing instead to pace the length of my office.
“Of course! Great job. Given what a bunch of superior assholes they are, I’d say the review was quite positive.”
“Did you read the whole review?”
The line went quiet for a moment.
“Well I read the important part.”
“And did you see my quote?”
I heard him typing on his keyboard, and the telltale zip of his mouse scrolling.
“Shit.” It was a whispered expletive, but I heard it well enough. “Did he ever tell you why he left Oxford to come to Dartmouth?”
Despite having a conversation at length about the two of us being there at the same time, he never actually told me why he decided to come to Dartmouth.
“I assumed it was because you were here.”
“Well, maybe that was part of his decision. But Oxford is kind of the penultimate school in England right?”
“Well, one of them anyway. There’s Cambridge, St. Andrews—”
“You get my point though—” Patrick cut me off mid sentence, “and St. Andrews is in Scotland. I merely mean that Dartmouth doesn’t hold nearly as much clout as being at Oxford.”
“He was just a post-doc though—he had to have known he had limited chances to move up staying there.”
“Well, he and Professor Emmerson were quite close. Emmerson let him be a third and even a second once on the research bylines. Getting his name published, even if he wasn’t listed as a primary researcher was a big deal. For him it meant he could start working his way through the academic ladders, get his name out there, start working towards finding a permanent position somewhere. He had written some pretty fascinating research on stanzas and meter in relation to Tolkien that honestly could have won him a great deal of notoriety.”
While I knew on some level that Sebastian was also a scholar of literature, he’d never mentioned that he too studied British literature, and certainly never mentioned a passion for Tolkien. I’d been in his home so many times over the past month and I’d never even seen a copy ofThe Hobbitlet alone any of his lesser known works.
“Emmerson said the research was groundbreaking. Told him that he was going to share it with his colleagues in Exeter College. Hinted at some grand plans for publication. Sebastian was a freshly hooded DPhil who trusted his mentor implicitly.”
I could already tell where this story was going, even before Patrick finished it.
“I’m sure you know how this ends. Emerson stole his research, published it, started to get a lot of literary acclaim. Sebastian went to the Dean of St. John’s and issued a formal complaint. It drew a huge wedge between Basti and his mentor—who said he would ruin him professionally if he kept up with the inquiry. Emerson kept his promise. He lost his subsidy, his research grant, and was forced to come back to the states. His Dad lives in New York so he went home and tried to find a position at Cornell first. I heard about an assistantship with the Literary Society—and convinced Sebastian that at least he could be on a campus and continue to research, publish, eventually he would also add a few classes to the mix so he could teach while working under Krane.”
“This was that moment.” I gasped, all of the subtext of his struggle coming together in a mountain of understanding. “He feels like he’s worked for twelve years only to have the same thing happen again.”
“Bingo, my friend. You know I love you, but I really need to call him. I’m actually a little worried he hasn’t called me yet. He’s probably on an emotional spiral right now. How did the two of you leave things?”
I could have just said not good. Made some noncommittal explanation of what had happened. But something in the way Patrick asked the words signaled he needed every last detail.
“He essentially called me Brutus.” The words stuck in my throat like a dagger. “Quoted Julius Cesar. Told me my cut hurt the worst.”
“Oh man.”
Just as Patrick said his goodbyes, Ted—the husband of the pregnant woman we’d been trying to help, knocked on my door.
“I’m sorry to bother you. There was a woman named Kennedy in the theater who said you might be able to help. Professor Doyle had been helping my wife and I before the festival on Saturday?”
“Of course, Ted! I remember. How is Marley? I heard that you two were the encore to our performance.”
He beamed. I imagined that smile had thousands of watts of light, glitter, rainbows, and a full forty piece marching band behind it. That’s how bright it radiated.