PART 12
I found my grandfather’s secondary journals hidden beneath the floorboards of the study later that afternoon,
wrapped in thick oilcloth that smelled of salt and old parchment.
The leather bindings were cracked with age,
but the pages inside were crisp,
filled with dense columns of numbers and symbols I had never seen before.
As my fingers touched the faded ink,
the symbols began to shift,
rearranging themselves into legible text before my eyes.
Daniel stood by the door,
holding a flashlight as if the darkness in the room was a physical enemy he could fight off.
"What does it say?"
he asked,
his voice echoing in the small,
cramped space of the old library.
"It talks about the First Anchor,"
I murmured,
tracing a hand-drawn map that showed Blackwood Harbor before the town was even built.
"My grandfather didn't discover the structure,
Daniel.
He was drawn here,
just like my grandmother was,
and just like we were."
According to the notes,
the system required a conscious observer to maintain its physical boundaries,
otherwise reality would begin to fray at the edges.
If the observer lost focus,
the memories of the townspeople would begin to blend together,
creating a collective hallucination that could swallow the entire coast.
"Look at this entry,"
I said,
pointing to a paragraph dated forty years ago.
"He writes about a day when the sky turned the color of bruised iron,
and the ocean flowed backward for three hours because the previous anchor died before passing on the sequence."
Daniel walked over,
leaning over my shoulder to look at the shifting ink,
his breath warm against my neck.
"This is madness,
Amelia,"
he muttered,
shaking his head as the symbols danced across the paper.
"You are talking about altering the fundamental laws of nature as if it's a family business."
"It is a family business,"
I replied,
looking up at him,
my eyes reflecting the faint,
luminescent glow of the pages.
"And right now,
I am the only investor left."
Suddenly,
the lights in the study flickered violently,
and the sound of pages turning rapidly filled the quiet room.
But neither of us was touching the book.
The pages were flipping by themselves,
driven by an invisible wind that carried the distinct scent of deep-sea trenches and old electricity.
It stopped on a blank page at the very back of the journal,
and before our eyes,
fresh ink began to seep through the fibers of the paper.
It formed a single sentence,
written in a handwriting that matched my own perfectly.
"The investigator is already on his way."
Daniel dropped the flashlight,
and the beam of light rolled across the floor,
illuminating the dark corners of the room where the shadows seemed to stand up and salute.
"Who is the investigator?"
he demanded,
his voice rising in panic.
I closed the book firmly,
the glowing ink disappearing beneath the heavy leather cover.
"Someone who wants to use the archive,"
I said,
May you like
feeling a cold dread settle into my stomach.
"Someone who doesn't understand that memories are not weapons."
