PART 19
The moment my fingers closed around the brass key,
a terrible pain shot up my arm,
like liquid fire pouring through my veins.
I didn't scream,
because the sound was trapped in my throat by the sudden,
overwhelming sensory overload that flooded my mind.
I wasn't in the observatory anymore;
I was suspended in the cold,
infinite vacuum of space,
looking down at the earth from a distance of millions of miles.
I could see the lines of light that connected the thirteen nodes,
a glowing web of energy that held the planet together like a fragile glass ornament.
But the web was fraying,
the strands snapping one by one as the pressure from the unaligned nodes threatened to shatter the entire network.
I saw Blackwood Harbor,
a tiny,
isolated speck of light on the edge of the ocean,
surrounded by a dark,
swirling vortex of unrecorded time.
"Find the anchor!"
a voice shouted in my head,
a voice that belonged to my grandfather,
but sounded younger,
more desperate than before.
"Amelia,
you must align the gears before the constellation sets!"
I forced my hand forward,
fighting against the immense pressure of the cosmic vision,
and jammed the maze-like key into the center of the brass console.
The gears began to turn,
a loud,
deafening shriek of metal against metal that shook the entire observatory to its foundations.
Miriam laughed,
a wild,
hysterical sound that was quickly drowned out by the mechanical roar of the telescope shifting above us.
The massive lens began to rotate,
pointing down toward the floor instead of up at the sky,
its glass reflecting the deep,
black abyss of the mountain below.
"It's updating!"
I shouted to Daniel,
though I couldn't hear my own voice over the din of the machinery.
Daniel grabbed me around the waist,
pulling me back as the floor beneath the console began to split open,
revealing a swirling vortex of dark liquid.
It was the same liquid from Arthur's compass,
but here it was a vast,
subterranean ocean,
churning and boiling with the weight of billions of forgotten thoughts.
The telescope lens caught the light of the stars and focused it into a single,
blinding beam of white energy that shot straight down into the dark pool.
The liquid stilled instantly,
its surface turning into a smooth,
reflective mirror that showed the image of the next destination.
A sunken city,
submerged beneath the gray waters of Lake Superior,
its stone towers waiting for the third key to turn.
The pain in my arm subsided,
leaving behind a dull,
throbbing ache and a new pattern of silvery lines that etched their way up to my elbow.
I looked at Miriam,
May you like
but the old woman was gone,
leaving behind nothing but a pile of rusted gears and empty cloth on the dust-covered floor.
