Across the Universe

by Raine Winters

  Nim leans into me, dropping her voice to a whisper. “If he’s the one behind all this, Amara, I imagine he’d do just about anything to reach his goal of destroying The House. That includes using you as a pawn. Don’t let him do that. I couldn’t bear the thought of you being cast into the void. I imagine you’re as much like a child to me as anyone ever will be.”

  I want to be mad at her for keeping secrets. I want to do exactly what she’s telling me not to. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t. Her forlorn expression and wringing hands make me forget all the things I want and remember why she’s so important to me in the first place.

  Nim is my mentor. She is my friend. And as much as I don’t want to see fear in Noah’s eyes, I don’t want to see it in Nim’s, either.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I lie down in my bedchamber, but I cannot sleep.

  In the few minutes that I manage to drift off, I dream of dark marble hallways that try to swallow me as I run through them. Images of Noah dead on the floor. Nim bleeding silver as she stumbles wounded through The House. It’s all too much and I jolt awake, unable to close my eyes again.

  I remove my glass orb from my pocket and hold it above me, letting the universe swirling within paint stars across the ceiling. I’m too afraid to put it back in its drawer at this point. Dante has a key that can access any universe, and I’m convinced he’ll destroy mine as soon as I’m not watching.

  I spin the orb until the galaxy I’m looking for reflects onto the walls. A line of orbiting planets revolve around a blazing ball of heat. There, the third from the sun, is my little blue planet.

  Noah is somewhere on Earth, waiting for me to come back to him. My crystal ball can’t show me that—only a speck of blue floating through a sea of night. I want to visit him again, to accept his invitation and stay in his world forever.

  But then who will watch the universe? Who will protect it from Dante and the Harbingers?

  I sigh and roll over onto my side, digging my face into the pillow to keep from weeping. I feel helpless and hopeless and lost all at once. It’s too much and the flow of tears comes anyway, wetting my cheeks and leaving the taste of salt on my lips. The crying doesn’t stop until there’s a puddle soaking the white linen and my eyes turn puffy and sore.

  I take one last look at the orb, praying Noah is safe somewhere in the pinprick of blue cast across the ceiling, and then drop my universe back into my pocket.

  I’m about to close my eyes and try to sleep again when a shadow cuts off the light shining in from underneath my door. The sound of shuffling feet and rustling paper makes me sit upright in bed. I stare at the opposite wall, pulling the sheets tight around my frame and breathing hard.

  I try to remind myself that no one in The House sleeps at the same time. We only lie down when we’re tired—when there’s nothing else left to do. Whoever’s outside my door has every right to be there.

  Unless it’s Dante. What if it’s him lurking on the other side of my threshold, preparing to break in and let the Harbingers destroy the universe I hold so dear?

  I tremble and lean away from the shadow that flickers across the floor. The rest of the light disappears altogether when whomever it is bends down and slips something underneath the door. Then the silhouette disappears and I’m left staring at a stack of papers resting on the ground. The hall’s white glow shows the aged, yellowing parchment and torn edges.

  I stand and cross the room, collecting the papers into my hands. Each is jagged on one side as if ripped from a book. A fist closes around my heart as I realize what the pages really are.

  Dropping the parchment on the bed, I rush from the darkness of my room into the bright hall. I blink against the harsh change in lighting, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and when they do I catch only the edge of a shadow disappearing around a corner.

  Adrenaline pumps through me as I run after the figure. I’m always just behind it, too far to make out more than a blurry humanoid shape or a silhouette bending around a turn in the corridor.

  “Come back!” I call out. “Please, show me who you are!”

  I should be afraid, just as I’m afraid of Dante, but I can’t be. I’m only curious. The person who gifted me the pages has to be helping me, I tell myself. They have to be working on my side to prevent The House from falling. Why else would they return the stolen portion from the book that holds the information about the Key?

  I run deep into the bowels of The House, past the Watch Room and the Sick Room and everywhere else I’ve ever been. The floor becomes dusty and the light dim. I can feel the corridor slanting down and I brace my feet against the slope to prevent myself from tumbling head-over-feet down the slippery passageway.

  The shadow flickers around a corner up ahead and I sprint after it, yelling words of reassurance the whole way. “I only want to know who you are! I need to know why you gave me the pages!”

  An echoing laugh makes its way back to me, stirring dust into the air and giving me a clear response: to them, this is a game. A way to pass the time. Anger boils in my stomach.

  In my haste to rush forward my sandals slide across a pile of dust and my feet go out from under me. I sit down hard, my tailbone connecting painfully with the marble floor and my leg twisting awkwardly underneath me.

  “Wait!” I shout after the figure, but it’s already gone, its residual laughter ringing in my ears as it bounces off the walls.

  I groan and massage my injured leg as I struggle to my feet. Putting weight on it hurts, but only dully. I turn, defeated, and begin to hobble back to my room. Though I’d love to know who gave me the pages, I’m more curious as to what’s actually written on them, and now’s as good a time as any to discover the secrets of the Key.

  I’ve only made it a few feet when a chill rocks my spine and an uneasy feeling fills me with dread—like someone is watching me, here but unseen.

  I spin around and search over the hall. No one’s in sight. I begin to back up down the corridor when a rushing noise comes from overhead. Slowly, I raise my eyes to the ceiling.

  A cloud of black smoke drifts above my head. As soon as I see it there it dive bombs me, swarming around my neck. I feel the cloud choking me, cutting off my oxygen as I fumble through it with my fingers. The malevolent force sends me banging around the hall, coughing and spluttering for air. My vision turns fuzzy around the edges and my mind slows down, but somewhere in my muddled thoughts I have the sense to duck.

  The move leaves me crouching under the cloud as it swirls above my head. I crawl out from underneath it and run—in what direction, I don’t know—but the smoke follows me, closing the distance fast.

  The sloping floor helps me now, increasing my speed as I barrel down the hall. I turn corners and sprint through corridors I’ve never seen before. Taking another right turn, I glance up ahead to gauge my surroundings and cry out in dismay. For the first time during my servitude in The House, I’ve managed to find a dead end.

  The wall rushes up to meet me and I skid hard into the marble, spinning around and flattening myself against it. The smoke flies toward me from the other end of the hall, a blur of black sparking with wicked energy. I throw my hands up in front of my face as it draws nearer, expecting the cruel force to swallow me whole, choke the life out of me …

  Death never comes. I wait and wait, but the smoke never takes me. I drop my arms to my sides and stare out at the blank hall before me. There is no black cloud—no Harbingers coming to kill me. I am alone.

  As I catch my breath in the silence of the hall, I swear I hear the faintest echo of laughter.

  Back in my room, I pour over the pages that were slipped under my door. The text is faded and nearly illegible, and I struggle to read as I scan over the parchment.

  The prophecy of the first Seer regarding the Key speaks of the fate of The House. The Key will be brought into these walls by a Watcher, who will then unlock the mystical force that powers our institution. With this power she will either destroy universes or s
ave them, but either way, The House will suffer a terrible end.

  Underneath the text is a large illustration of a group of House members, all piled atop one another in the middle of a marble hallway. Their eyes are blank and the floor is covered in liquid silver. Behind them stands a shadow, the only clear part about it the glass orb clutched in its silhouetted fist. The crystal holds a swirl of colors and shapes unlike any universe I’ve ever seen.

  I gulp back the rising bile threatening to climb up my throat. It can’t be Dante after all, I think. He isn’t a Watcher; he’s a leader, and that means the prophecy can’t be about him. I read on, struggling to keep my hands from shaking.

  With the mystical energy in one’s possession, a member of The House can control more than just the destruction of these walls we live in. He or she can create universes on command, shape worlds to their own liking. They can step outside the realm of watching and become rulers. Gods. It is for this reason we have hidden the Key, for this very idea goes against the purpose The House has been founded on. The Key itself has been put into human form and hidden in the first universe to ever be, on a little blue planet called Earth.

  I blink back horror and rub my finger over the crackling ink of the last sentence.

  The Key has been hiding in my universe all along.

  The gravity of the situation finally hits me, and a dizzy spell takes me over. I close my eyes and wish away the nausea as I think about what it all means.

  My intuition was right all along. Noah really isn’t safe. Neither is his family, or the rest of the life that exists in my universe. As soon as the Watcher the prophecy talks about discovers the truth, they’ll kidnap the Key and destroy the entire world in their wake.

  I blink back tears as I finger the torn edges of the last piece of parchment. The door to my bedchamber is open a crack, and the light filters in and casts a glow upon the ink. A faint line comes into focus, though I can’t make out what it is. Frowning, I hold the paper up to the light. More faint lines show up, a watermark etched into the yellowing page. The words written atop them obscure what’s underneath.

  A knock comes at my door and I react swiftly, shoving the pages under the edge of my mattress as Nim walks in. Her face is full of concern as she eyes the bruise blossoming across my leg.

  “What happened?” she asks.

  “I thought I saw someone,” I reply, assuaging my guilt by thinking of it as a half-truth instead of a half-lie. “While I was chasing them, I fell.”

  “Do you need to go to the Sick Room?”

  “No; I’m fine. It barely hurts anymore.”

  The corners of Nim’s mouth turn down in a grimace, but she doesn’t push the subject. “I came to offer you a chance to get your mind off things. I’m about to watch over my own universe, and I figured you could tag along.”

  I raise my eyebrows at the idea. “I thought walking in someone else’s universe is forbidden.”

  Nim grins. “It’s not forbidden as much as frowned upon. Anyway, I thought I’d bend the rules just this once.”

  In truth, I’d rather spend my time inspecting the pages hidden beneath my mattress. But I know forgoing Nim’s offer will raise her suspicions, so I stand and follow her into the hall. As I close the door behind me, I give one last fleeting glance at a torn edge of parchment that peeks out from under my bed.

  My universe, I think. That means it’s my Key. And I’ll protect it just like everything else in Noah’s world, like I vowed to the day I became a Watcher.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nim’s universe is brighter and fuller than mine. Her galaxies are filled with planets teeming with life, and none of that life looks like us. There are entities that move like ghosts, transparent and formless; others are fifty feet tall and reside in water instead of on land. Still others are as tiny as bugs, running around our feet in swarms as we look down at the mountains they’ve built out of green-glowing sand.

  Not once do we speak. Nim has always told me that’s part of a Watcher’s job—to look, not interact—but I’ve never really listened to the rule until now. In my mentor’s presence, I follow the laws to the letter. I check in on millions of planets and ensure they’re not dying before their time. I marvel at the way so many different beings can become rulers over their own domain.

  I begin to think of the words scrawled across the parchment—about how someone possessing the mystical energy of The House can not only watch over universes, but also build them—and I am tempted. I want to be responsible for creating the things I see before me. Leaving it to fate—to billions of years of evolution—seems boring and tedious. Destroying them after all that hard work seems petty.

  If I made a world, it would last forever. It would go on and on and never end.

  Nim brings me back to the Watch Room sometime later, and reality sets in again. I feel shame over my grand thoughts. Playing God means destroying the House, which is something I could never do.

  Heading back to my bedchamber, I say goodbye to Nim and close the door behind me. It’s dark, so I extract the torn pages from under my mattress and sit by the door, using the light filtering in from underneath to read by. I comb over the words again, looking for anything I missed, but there is nothing. It seems to describe a terrible fate for The House that cannot be escaped, no matter how hard I try.

  I cross my legs and cast one of the pages into the light, inspecting the watermark again. Without the fuzziness of panic clouding my thoughts, I can now calmly inspect every line. The ink seems faded, but there is no indentation from a pen pressing to paper.

  I turn the page over and gasp. It wasn’t a watermark at all, but an image drawn on the opposite side. In my haste to read I forgot to check both the front and back of the parchment. And I’m glad I did, because I wouldn’t have been able to hide my utter surprise from Nim over what I’m seeing now.

  The illustration is of Noah.

  His kind eyes, his glasses, his sweeping brown curls. His square jaw and thin lips are there, too. He is captured down to every detail, his arms and legs splayed out in a star shape to show off his lean frame.

  My heart skips a beat as I read the text scrawled underneath.

  The Key and a Watcher will become connected, and for the rest of the Watcher’s existence their lives will be intertwined. One will be unable to survive without the other, and each will have to forgo many trials to stamp out the evil that takes over The House.

  Trembling, I shove the papers aside and turn my head away. My eyes sting and my heart thumps hard against my ribcage.

  Noah is the Key. He is the one I must protect from the other Watcher—the one meant to take down The House. He is the one who is destined to unlock the mystical force that built these walls. He is connected to me.

  And he is also the one that I love.

  The truth seems too big to keep inside anymore. It boils up my throat, begging to come out. I have to tell someone—anyone—what I’ve discovered. Racking my mind, I come up with a list of only two names that I trust: Elli and Nim. Elli is probably farther away, lost in her duties in the Archives Room. Nim is closer.

  I throw the torn pages on my bed and rush from my bedchamber, running past rows of doors until I come to Nim’s room. I stop short of the entrance. The threshold is already exposed, and angry voices come from within. I recognize both of them.

  “Have I ever asked you for anything before?” Nim says. “One single favor in all my time in The House?”

  Someone backs up halfway into the hall, and through the crack between the hinges and the door I make out a head of tangled blonde hair. Elli’s hair.

  “I can’t give you what you’re asking,” Elli replies. “It’s against House rules to provide reading material to Watchers.”

  “Come now! I’ve seen you let Amara into the tunnels multiple times.”

  “This is different. What you’re asking for is a loophole. A way to access the Hall of Beginnings without a key. It’s off limits for a reason, Nim.”

 
The Hall of Beginnings. I remember Nim talking about beginnings when she explained what the locked room held. It’s the heart of The House. All of the beginnings are kept there, she’d said. My stomach drops like a stone as I press myself into the wall and listen to the rest of the conversation.

  “I have to get in there,” Nim says. “It’s important. I have to reach the heart before someone else comes along and prevents it.”

  “I’ve given you my answer,” Elli answers. “Your request to access the books about the Hall of Beginnings has been denied.”

  Elli turns and marches off, Nim following her out the door but not pursuing. She startles slightly when she turns around and sees me standing there.

  “Amara! What are you doing here?”

  “J—just headed to visit Elli,” I stammer. “Was that her?”

  “Yes, it was. If you hurry you can catch her before she gets to the Archives Room.”

  I race down the hall after Elli, but I can feel Nim’s eyes burning holes in my back as I go. It isn’t until I’ve rounded a corner and I see my friend’s mass of tangled hair that I feel safe again.

  “Elli! Wait up!” I shout after her.

  She turns and pauses for me, tapping her foot all the while. “What is it?”

  “Was Nim just asking you to give her something that will help her get into the locked room?”

  “If you must know, yes. But I said no, and I’ll say the exact same thing to you if you ask. I have to draw the line someplace.”

  “I don’t want to get in there. I need to talk to you about something else.” I tell her everything that has happened: the pages turning up in my room, the chase through the halls, the black smoke that tried to kill me. When I get to the part about Noah being the Key, I can’t help but cry. Tears flood down my cheeks and Elli holds me tight to her chest.

  “There, there, dear,” she says, her voice low and comforting. “We’ll think of something. We always do.”