Viv took a cloth from the stack and shook it out. It was, in fact, a white bedsheet. She handed it to Wallach, who flicked it a couple of times before letting it float down to cover the anchor. With the bedsheet over it, the Tinker Toys looked even more like an animal, one standing perfectly still as if avoiding a predator. Wallach regarded it for a moment, his hands on his hips. “That’s one,” he said. “Mrs. Campbell, do you have a stepladder?”
“In the basement,” I said. “Why—”
“The second anchor has to go somewhere high,” Wallach said.
“I was going to ask, why are the anchors here?” I said.
“Oh,” Wallach said. “Because we’re going to use Abernathy’s node as the power source for the realignment magic.”
17
“The hell you are!” I burst out. “Make Abernathy’s the center of your experiment? I don’t think so!”
Wallach looked surprised at my outburst. “It’s perfectly safe. The oracle doesn’t use a tenth of the power generated by its node—”
“How do you know that? The oracle isn’t like anything else. What happens if you’re wrong, and you suck all the power out so it dies?”
“I’ve studied this node on and off for twenty years, Mrs. Campbell.” He sounded placating rather than angry, and it made me even more upset, like he thought I was a child to be soothed. “The oracle sits atop the node rather than being integrated into it—”
“I know that.” I hadn’t known that, not really, but it fit with what I’d suspected after hearing Claude talk about the Athenaeum moving, and with the transport of the store from England to Portland.
“—And it generates its own power,” Wallach continued as if I hadn’t interrupted him. “The node is simply a backup, if that.”
That, I really hadn’t known. “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Ariadne Duwelt told me the named Neutralities are the largest nodes in the world. If the oracle isn’t using the node, why would it need to be so large?”
“It’s not about need,” Wallach said. He returned to the box and hoisted out another contraption, this one bigger than the first and resembling a scared cat. “The oracle’s proximity to the node encourages its growth—you know nodes grow and shrink naturally over time? All the named Neutralities have the same effect on their nodes, though some, like the Sanctuary and the Labyrinth, are more integrated than others. The oracle will be in no danger.”
I still resented his high-handed assumption that he had the right to use my Neutrality any way he chose. “You’re planning an untested experiment on Abernathy’s’ premises. Even if it doesn’t drain the oracle’s power, how do I know there won’t be other side effects? I heard about the houseflies!”
Wallach scowled. “The interbreeding worked,” he muttered. “Create a couple of self-propelling organic cameras the size of ponies and nobody ever lets you forget about it.”
“It’s going to be fine, Helena,” Viv said, a note of pleading in her voice. “We’ve done all sorts of testing and planning, and it’s perfectly safe.”
“And this will end the Long War, Mrs. Campbell, I can promise you that,” Wallach said.
“Meaning that even if you screw up, it won’t matter, because there won’t be any more invaders to fight?” I said sarcastically.
Wallach closed his eyes and tilted his head heavenward as if praying for patience. “Mrs. Campbell,” he said, finally looking at me, “you have done nothing but try to obstruct this project from the beginning. You—no, let me finish. You are worried about irrelevancies and issues I’ve already corrected for. I’m not sure where your hostility comes from, but I promise you this: I know this plan will work. I’ve poured a lifetime’s worth of scientific study into it, I have performed small-scale tests successfully, and I have absolutely no doubt that this magic will permanently prevent the invaders from accessing our world. Now, if you insist on standing in my way, I’ll call the Board of Neutralities and get an injunction. I would prefer you cooperate willingly.”
I gaped, stunned by his attack. “I have not tried to obstruct you,” I managed. “The oracle gave you all those auguries, not me. It cares enough about this project that it even gave me auguries to warn you when you didn’t listen to your own. Mr. Wallach, I want your plan to work. But if the oracle thinks something is wrong, don’t you think you should listen?”
“I did.” Wallach set the Tinker Toy cat on the counter. “I identified the flaws the auguries suggested and corrected for them. Why isn’t that enough for you?”
It was a good question. I had only my instincts to tell me Wallach wasn’t listening to the oracle’s warnings. That, and Viv’s concerns. “Viv, what do you think?”
Viv bit her lip and looked from me to Wallach. “I…think we’ve covered everything,” she said. “All the plans and all the tests have gone perfectly. Helena, everything’s going to be fine.”
“I don’t like the idea of Abernathy’s being involved,” I said. “Why not the Gunther Node?”
“That really could be disastrous,” Wallach said. “Not because this could endanger the node, because it can’t, but there are so many people at the Gunther Node it complicates the magic. The store isn’t nearly so crowded.”
I opened my mouth to protest again. Wallach held up a hand to forestall me. “Why don’t we let the oracle decide?” he said. “I’ll ask for an augury predicting our success. Will that satisfy you?”
I thought about it. “All right. But if it says to stop, you stop. No more grousing about how the oracle isn’t being cooperative.”
I handed Wallach a sheet of paper torn from the back of the ledger—we were running out of pages from having done that so often—and watched him write his question in big, looping cursive even I could read. Should I go ahead with this project on Abernathy’s’ premises?
I folded the paper in half and put it into my pocket. “I’ll be right back.”
As I expected, the oracle’s presence was tangible the second I stepped inside. Danger, Helena, it said. Warning.
“I know that. You need to give me an augury that’s obvious so there’s no quibbling.” I sidled through one of the narrower corridors, looking for the blue glow.
Seal the cracks. Resonance. Ending. I will end.
I stopped. “You don’t mean this could be what kills you, do you?”
No. Seal the cracks. Many, some, one, none. Power strikes.
“I really don’t understand.”
Ahead, blue light flared. Here, or nowhere, the oracle said, and slipped away.
That had felt fairly unequivocal. What Mr. Wallach proposed to do was seal the cracks allowing invaders into our world. And it sounded like the oracle wanted the plan to happen here. But I didn’t like the sound of “danger.”
I followed the blue light to a bookcase near the back of the room. The augury was on an upper shelf, and I had to stretch to reach it. The title on the bright red and orange cover read Feel the Fear…and Beyond. I read it a few times, waiting for the oracle to give me more guidance, but it never returned. Finally, I made my way back to the front of the store, where I half expected to see the Tinker Toy cat mounted on the wall. But Wallach and Viv, as well as Judy, who held a broom, stood around the counter, waiting.
I handed Wallach the augury. “It’s no charge,” I said. “I don’t know how easy that is to interpret, but the oracle spoke to me, and I think it says you should go ahead.”
Wallach flipped the book open and jabbed a gnarled finger at the page. He read silently, his fingertip following the lines of text. He closed the book and did it again, and a third time. When he closed the book for the final time, he said, “I’m satisfied if you are, Mrs. Campbell.”
“This is important enough I want it to succeed,” I said. “What do you need?”
“Just that stepladder. Oh, and some water.”
“For cleaning?”
Wallach smiled. “For a drink. I’m thirsty.”
I went down to the basement for the stepladder
while Judy got Wallach and Viv bottles of water. The basement was cool and quiet year-round and smelled of damp concrete and cleaning solution. Wooden filing cabinets lined two of the walls, with metal safe deposit boxes taking up most of a third. In the back corner was the stained porcelain sink, the broom closet, and, propped against the wall beneath the stairs, a three-step folding ladder. I hauled it out and lugged it upstairs, leaving the basement light on. It was superstitious, I knew, but even after nearly three years, I still felt haunted by the ghost of Mr. Briggs, who had been custodian before me and was murdered when he wouldn’t falsify an augury.
I set up the ladder in the front room and watched Wallach drag it to the corner opposite the other Tinker Toy sculpture. He took a hammer and some nails out of the box and tapped the nails into the wood, making me protest. “This is the only damage I’ll do,” he promised. He held the Tinker Toy cat against the wall and, with zip ties Viv handed him, fastened it to the wall between the nails. I kept expecting it to come apart in his hands, but it held together as if it was glued. Maybe it was.
Viv handed Wallach another sheet, which Wallach again flicked open and allowed to settle over the contraption. It, too, looked more like an animal once it was covered, only this one, because it was attached to the wall, looked like the ghost of a cat with its sheet trailing down to puddle on the floor beneath it. The colored rods and wheels were faintly visible beneath the white cloth.
Wallach stepped back with his hands on his hips and his head tilted to one side, examining it. “I think that’s it,” he said. “Now, I need access to the exact center of this room.”
“Um…that’s somewhere among the bookcases,” I said. “I don’t know how to figure that out.”
“I have an app for that,” Wallach said. He pulled out his battered smartphone with the cracked screen and shook it a few times, then tapped the screen so it lit up bright green. The glow played across his dark skin, giving his face an odd purplish sheen. He tapped it a few more times. The green glow turned blue, a color almost identical to that of a live augury. Wallach held the phone flat high above his head so the light shone on his white hair, tinting it pale blue.
Beams of red light like the lasers you see in movies shot out from the four sides of the phone, extending all the way to the walls except in the direction of the oracle, where the beam struck a bookcase. Where they touched the walls, the lights turned pink and shot out sparks like a Fourth of July sparkler. The one touching the bookcase, however, just ended.
“Huh,” Wallach said. He walked in the direction of the oracle, taking slow, long strides. Soon he was lost to sight. I followed him, feeling nervous about letting him loose inside the oracle even if it wasn’t active.
Wallach continued to hold the phone high, tilting his head back to see the display. Despite this, he didn’t run into anything or trip over the stacks of books on the floor I totally intended to pick up someday. He seemed to be following the red beam of light, which flicked from bookcase to bookcase, sometimes intersecting on a book and making it glow like an evil augury, red instead of blue.
After about a minute of this, Wallach stopped and looked around. “Do you mind if I climb one of these shelves?”
I hesitated. Despite being very hale, Wallach was in his seventies and not exactly spry. “Are you sure that’s safe?”
“Of course. Don’t worry, I won’t sue if I break my leg,” Wallach said with a smile. I shrugged and made a “go ahead” gesture.
Wallach tucked the phone into the breast pocket of his scrubs and hauled himself up, shoving a few books aside with his feet. I watched, biting my lip nervously, as he settled himself and then pulled out the phone again. The red beams of light shot out of it again, but this time I couldn’t see where any of them ended. Wallach tilted the phone one way and then the other, glaring at the display, which to me still seemed like a blank blue light. Then he set the phone atop the bookcase and climbed back down, feeling his way with his feet. I held my breath until he was solidly on the ground again.
“That’s the center of the room,” he said, gesturing to where the phone lay. “The last piece goes there.”
It surprised me that the center of the room wasn’t the same as the center of the oracle, those four monolithic bookcases that stood facing each other in a square where I’d so often spoken with the oracle, or been spoken to. “What’s the last piece?”
“It’s how the magic connects to the node.” Wallach headed for the exit, and I followed him. “It will take some time to make that connection, but we should be able to do this in about two hours.”
“Two hours from now?”
“You sound surprised. What were you expecting?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Something big and flashy. I mean—you’re planning to move our reality, right? That ought to be huge!”
Wallach laughed. “I suppose that makes sense. No, it’s a simple piece of sympathetic magic. I’ve placed anchors at the joints of the city, and then the fulcrum connects to the node and fuels their movement.”
We emerged from the stacks to find Viv and Judy talking quietly behind the counter. “And when one set of joints moves, the rest of them do,” Wallach continued. “It causes a ripple effect across our reality, shifting us out of alignment. When it’s complete, the only invaders left will be the ones trapped here, and it should be easy work for the Wardens to eliminate them.”
Despite my reservations, I had to admit it seemed perfect. “What’s the fulcrum?”
“This,” Wallach said. He reached into the box and pulled out the biggest gemstone I had ever seen outside cheesy ‘80s fantasy movies. It was an oval easily three feet across, black as night and faceted like a giant insect eye. Wallach held it like it weighed a ton, but waved off my offer to help carry it. So I followed him back into the stacks to where he’d left the phone, where he did give it to me so he could climb the bookcase again. I handed it up to him—it must have weighed twenty pounds or more—and watched him settle it atop the bookcase. It wobbled slightly when he climbed down, but didn’t fall.
Wallach turned off the phone’s display and put it back into his pocket. “Two and a half hours,” he said. “I have a few other things to do, but I’ll be back then.”
“Okay,” I said, glancing once more at the black gem before following him out of the stacks once more. I thought about asking him what else he had to do, but that carried with it the risk that they were complicated things he might try to explain to me, and decided against it.
Once we were back at the counter, Wallach said, “A few other people will be present for the event. Lucia, obviously, and some of my colleagues who worked on the prototype. Will the store be open?”
I checked my watch. “Actually, it should happen just before closing.”
“Good. You’re welcome to observe, of course.” Wallach picked up the now-empty cardboard box and said, “Is there somewhere I can leave this? That fulcrum is going to be incredibly valuable when this is all over, and I’ll want to retrieve it.”
“Sure.” I gestured at a spot behind the counter.
Wallach deposited the box and nodded to us. “I’ll see you soon.” He headed for the door. Viv hurried after him.
When the door swung shut, Judy said, “Viv didn’t look happy.”
“This is a big deal. I know it sounds simple, but it can’t be…I don’t know. Trivial?” I looked through the window at where Viv and Wallach were getting into one of the Gunther Node’s signature white vans. “I know Mr. Wallach feels confident, but I won’t rejoice until it’s done.”
“I can’t believe you agreed to it. Do you honestly think it will work?”
“I don’t know. I hope so. At least, I got the feeling the oracle was satisfied.” Though as I said that, I wondered if it were true. “Satisfied” wasn’t exactly the vibe I’d gotten. More like “resigned.” “But he was right about one thing. This is so important to the fate of the world, the Board of Neutralities would almost certainly have overridden
me if I’d continued to make a stink. So it’s better if we cooperate, don’t you think?”
Judy shrugged. “I guess so. But maybe you should see what the oracle thinks of having that big-ass black diamond smack in the middle of it.”
“It’s not in the middle of it, that’s what’s weird.” I shook my head. “I was thinking something along those lines. I’ll go take a look.”
Being able to enter the oracle’s space without an augury request was a relatively new thing for me. It had only been about a year since I discovered my ability, but until recently I had done it often, enjoying the moment of contact with my strange friend. Since it had started warning me of our ending, the experience had soured. This was the first time in over four months I’d gone in voluntarily. It was a strange feeling, like I imagined going back to church for the first time after a long absence would feel.
The oracle’s presence, to my surprise, was elsewhere. “Are you all right?” I asked. “That gem isn’t bothering you?”
The oracle shifted. Its attention brushed me, then darted away.
“It’s not at your center, so I thought maybe that meant it wasn’t a problem,” I went on. I walked through the aisles until I came to where the gem lay atop the bookcase. It didn’t look like it was doing anything. “I really hope I didn’t misunderstand you. I know Mr. Wallach was ignoring your auguries, or at least I thought he was, but it seemed like everything was fine.”
Its attention shifted again. Danger. Here or nowhere. Seal the cracks.
“That’s what he plans to do. Seal the cracks. But even if there’s danger, even if there are side effects, isn’t that worth sealing off our reality from the invaders’?”
Ending. I will end.
I sucked in a startled breath. “But you said…I thought you said this wouldn’t hurt you. Mr. Wallach says it won’t even touch your power source.”
No. I am alone. Not the node. Seal the cracks.
I shook my head, feeling stupid and helpless. “I’m really sorry I don’t understand you. I have to trust that if you were in danger…except that might not matter, right? If your ending, our ending, is inevitable. But it really does sound like this isn’t what kills you.”
The Book of Destiny Page 19