The Tree of Knowledge, Daniel Miller [unputdownable books txt] 📗

she was gone. I was devastated. I often joke about being ‘married to my students,’ but in reality, it was her . . . I was married to her.”

Ying reached forward and patted Turner’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Professor.”

The professor took a long drink from his lemonade, looked off into the distance, and then a lonely smile crept across his face.

“For fourteen years, I tried—and failed—to forget about her. Then, in the fall one year, a young high school student walked into my classroom. I took one look at those coffee-colored eyes with the yellow flecks, the wolf eyes, and I knew it was her daughter. She was just as smart as her mother and had the same tenacious desire for knowledge. She was a championship chess player, and within weeks, she, too, began to ask me about the Tree.

“As her knowledge of the Tree and its powers increased, this young woman began to explore the branch of the Tree that I had for so long ignored: violence. She would ask me to practice using the principles of the Tree for violent means. How to use it in hand-to-hand combat, in security, even in war. I told her that I would only do it if it stayed between the two of us and that she promised not to use it on anyone else. She promised, but again, I suspected that it was a promise she wouldn’t be able to keep. I just couldn’t stand to let her go. I had seen her mother walk out of my life, and I didn’t think I could take it again.”

“What do you mean when you say using the Tree for violence, Professor Turner?” said Ying. “Like in combat?”

“Yes. The Tree of Knowledge can be both a tool and a weapon. Person-to-person combat is just the tip of the iceberg. The Tree can be used to defend yourself, incapacitate and harm others, and even kill. It can also be used in war strategy and other forms of mass violence. Interestingly, when you use the Tree, what you find is that the most common uses of violence are the least effective. For example, bank robbers most often rob banks using guns. This is absurdly ill considered because it does not incapacitate your enemy unless you shoot everyone in the bank—and it does nothing to protect you. It’s the equivalent of taking your queen out in chess without any means of protecting her. A much better approach would be to simply gas the entire bank as you enter and wear gas masks. This incapacitates your enemy and protects you. If you were hell-bent on using guns, it would be much better to procure a secure location across from the bank and use long-range snipers to take out the people in the bank and then rob the bank. Again, this would remove your enemy without risking harm to yourself.

“Another example is poison. Poison is grossly underutilized. Why kill someone in public with a gun when you could simply offer them a stick of gum laced with poison and be done with it?”

“Do you think that’s why the thief used chloroform to kill the security guard at the bank, Professor?” asked Albert.

“Certainly,” said Turner. “And that is why I know Eva was behind this. More important, Albert, it’s why you need to go to the police before she realizes what she’s done.”

Chapter 12

The tires of Albert’s white Chevy Bolt spun in the gravel of Angus Turner’s driveway as he pulled out of the circle. A cloud of gray dust floated up around the driveway like mist, which added to the ominous feeling snaking through his stomach. As he screeched onto the main road, Albert replayed the scene inside Turner’s house. The look on the aging academic’s face gnawed at him. He remembered the last time he’d seen that expression on someone’s face.

Until the age of eight, Albert had lived in a state of ignorant bliss. His loving parents had raised him in a beautiful three-bedroom house in a small college town in southern Minnesota with the modest name of Northfield. The bright-white paint, set off by the house’s green shutters, gave the impression of Southern gentility in a northern Midwestern town. The backyard had fruit trees a boy could climb; the front yard, carefully tended flower beds. Both his parents had been professors of mathematics at the two colleges in town: Carleton and St. Olaf. His mother taught at Carleton, which was the more prestigious institution, and his father instructed at St. Olaf. Both believed passionately in the power of education and, more specifically, mathematics to solve the world’s problems. As such, they insisted on homeschooling Albert so that he could get the benefits of “higher-level” instruction.

While this was highly unusual in Northfield because of its strong, college-influenced school system, Albert loved it. He adored his parents and eagerly anticipated his morning lessons. His mother would teach him Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and his father Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Albert reveled in the wildly divergent teaching styles of his mother and father. His mother was a tactician who believed that the essence of mathematics was technical skill and proficiency. She would push Albert to do problems according to certain rules, to show his work, and to do it at greater levels of speed. He especially enjoyed Fridays when his mother would give him a set of one hundred problems and time him to see how fast he could do them. When he did well, she would take him down the block to the local ice-cream shop, and the two of them would enjoy root beer floats. He could still feel the warm sun and see the soft smile on his mom’s pretty face and the sleek, dark wave of her hair as the two of them quietly, contently enjoyed desserts.

His father, on the other hand, believed in the magical and creative power of mathematics. Instead of focusing on mathematical rules or problem-solving speed, he would encourage