PART 18
Before I could find a way to activate the console,
a shadow detached itself from the dark curve of the observatory wall.
It wasn't Arthur,
but someone much older,
her hair a wild halo of silver and her clothes tattered and stained with grease.
"You're late,"
she said,
her voice like grinding stones,
her eyes wide and yellowed with age.
Daniel immediately raised his flashlight,
pinning her in the bright beam,
but she didn't blink or shield her eyes from the light.
"Who are you?"
Daniel demanded,
stepping forward to shield me once again,
his defensive instincts never wavering.
"I am the caretaker of the second key,"
the old woman said,
pointing a long,
bony finger at the brass console.
"My name was Miriam,
before the gears took my voice and the telescope took my eyes."
She walked closer,
and I noticed that her movements were jerky,
mechanical,
as if her joints were controlled by invisible clockwork beneath her skin.
"The Blackwood girl has arrived,"
Miriam whispered,
looking past Daniel to stare directly at me,
her yellow eyes widening in recognition.
"You think you saved your town,
child,
but you only trapped them in a permanent loop of your own design."
"I stabilized the core,"
I said,
my voice echoing off the metallic dome above us.
"I stopped the containment failure."
"You stopped the leak,"
she corrected,
spitting on the dusty floor,
"but you didn't stop the pressure from building up elsewhere."
She reached into her tattered coat and pulled out a heavy,
brass key that was shaped like an intricate,
three-dimensional maze.
"This node holds the memory of the sky,"
she explained,
holding the key out toward me with a hand that clicked and popped with every movement.
"If you turn this key,
you accept the burden of the stars,
and you will see every storm,
every comet,
and every satellite that has ever looked down upon the earth."
"And if I don't?"
I asked,
looking at the key,
which was vibrating so fast it appeared blurred in her hand.
"Then the sky over your precious Blackwood Harbor will collapse,"
she said with a grim smile.
"The atmosphere will lose its consistency,
and the people you tried to save will suffocate beneath a vacuum of forgotten history."
Daniel looked at me,
his eyes pleading with me to find another way,
to refuse the deal and run away into the night.
But we both knew there was no escape,
no other road to take,
because the system had already claimed my blood before I was even born.
I stepped past him,
May you like
my hand moving toward the brass key,
the small crystal on my palm glowing in response to the ancient metal.
