“Four minutes and forty-three seconds, to be precise,” Pirolli said. He tapped his wristwatch. “I’ll time it.”
Wallach flicked the gem with his fingernail. A high, clear tone rang out through the room, like a note sung by a child soprano. He nodded. “We’re ready. Feel free to talk—it won’t disturb the magic.”
Nobody spoke. Maybe it wouldn’t disturb the magic, but it would make me, at least, feel weird. Wallach turned his attention to his tablet and tapped the screen. The light went from blue to clear white. Wallach continued to tap and swipe. I sidled up to Lucia and whispered, “How will we know it worked?”
“No idea,” Lucia murmured. “I hope it’s not explosive.”
So did I. I stole a glance at the gem. It still didn’t look any different, aside from the slight heat haze.
Movement caught my eye, and I looked up from the gem at the hanging cat. Its sheet rippled in a breeze I couldn’t feel, making it look even more like a ghost in a frat party haunted house. Instead of the traditional oooOOOooo sound, I heard rainfall pattering on the roof, as loud as if the second-story apartment wasn’t there. I looked out the window, but afternoon light filled the street, bright and strong without even the dimness of a slight overcast.
The sheet covering the other anchor started rippling too, but its movement looked more like a puddle of spilled milk flowing endlessly off the edge of a table. It was the weirdest mix of mundane and eerie I’d ever seen.
Wallach took a few steps in that direction and held out his hand, the fingers splayed wide, to the anchor. The flapping sheet went wild, twisting in an intangible wind. I looked closely. Though the sheet still defined a shape, there was nothing visible beneath it. The colored rods and wheels no longer showed through the cloth of either anchor.
Wallach turned and pointed his hand at the second anchor, whose sheet also went into flapping convulsions. He tapped and swiped some more. The white light dimmed and took on a greenish tint. “Ms. Haley,” he said.
Viv opened the toolbox and pulled out a tuning fork that looked like it was made of bronze. She tapped it against the black diamond. Another clear tone rang out, higher pitched than the first. The air rippled around the gem, the heat haze made stronger and more visible. A strong, unidentifiable scent filled the air. After a few breaths, my brain insisted it was peanut butter, but those moments of uncertainty told me whatever it was was truly alien, and I’d translated it into something I understood.
Viv struck the diamond again, sending out a lower sound that set my teeth on edge. I clenched them together. “Once more,” Wallach said, and the next tap produced a note midway between the others. The pleasant sound echoed through the store, and I saw Osenbaugh and Pirolli exchange smiling glances. Jeong had his phone out and was tapping furiously, occasionally looking at Wallach.
Wallach took a few leisurely steps toward the bookcases and came up short, his shoulders tensing. “That’s one gone,” he murmured, I thought to himself. He turned around and walked back to the anchor on the wall.
As he passed me, I got a look at his tablet. It showed a map of Portland’s roads as far south as Beaverton and as far north as the Columbia River. Tiny green lights, and one red one, glowed in a random pattern strewn across the screen. The red one was far to the west. Just before he was too far away for me to see the screen, one of the green dots turned red. “What does that mean?” I said, curiosity overriding my fear of disrupting the magic.
“Two anchors have been destroyed,” Wallach said.
Lucia swore under her breath.
“It’s all right, there are redundancies built into the system,” Wallach said. He used his fingers to shrink the display and then turn it. “Everything is fine.”
Jeong was still tapping rapidly. I wondered if he was texting someone or taking notes. Osenbaugh said, “It should have reached activation by now.”
“It’s fine,” Wallach snapped. “Ms. Haley. Again.”
Viv, looking nervous, tapped the diamond again. The sound that emerged was the same pitch as the last one, but instead of harmonizing with the lingering echoes of the other note, it sounded discordant.
Wallach thrust the tablet at Osenbaugh and strode to Viv’s side, snatching the tuning fork out of her hand. “Sarah, count them off,” he said. He stood poised to strike the diamond again.
Osenbaugh fixed her gaze on the tablet. “Three,” she said. “Four.”
“There’s not enough energy going into the system,” Pirolli said.
“There will be,” Wallach said. He struck the diamond, not the gentle taps Viv had used, but a hard blow like a hammer. The note rang out again, producing yet another discordant ripple of sound that made my skin vibrate. I backed away from the diamond and ran into Judy, who’d done the same thing.
“Five,” Osenbaugh said. Pirolli hovered at her side, looking like he wanted to snatch the tablet from her.
Light blossomed where the two anchors were, a pinkish-yellow light that made me think of a spring morning. Pirolli and Osenbaugh relaxed. “That’s it,” Pirolli said. “They’re drawing it in.”
“Six—no seven,” Osenbaugh said.
“It’s fine,” Wallach repeated. He lowered his hand holding the tuning fork and tension visibly flowed out of him. “It just has to outpace—”
The anchors’ light brightened. Osenbaugh’s hands tightened on the tablet. “Eight. Nine. Ten. It’s accelerating!”
Wallach swore and dropped the tuning fork. He ran to Osenbaugh’s side and snatched the tablet. “No, no, no,” he muttered, swiping at the tablet. “No. It’s not fast enough!”
“Shut it down,” Jeong said, lowering his phone. “Shut it down before it collapses.”
“No! We’re so close,” Wallach shouted. He shoved the tablet at Pirolli. The anchors’ light increased again until it was too bright to look at. Wallach held one arm over his eyes and walked toward the anchor on the wall. His steps were slow and halting, as if he were fighting a wind only he could feel.
Painful pressure seized me. Danger, the oracle said. Ending.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Don’t do it!” I headed for Wallach and immediately was caught in the same wind that pressed him back from the anchor. I heard the other scientists shouting things I couldn’t understand, and Lucia calling my name, but I couldn’t have stopped walking if I’d wanted to.
“It just needs an adjustment,” Wallach shouted over the noise of the discordant melody that had grown in volume along with the increased brightness of the anchors.
I took another step. Wallach had almost reached the anchor. He looked like a black blotch against the painfully bright light. I reached for him—
The sound cut off so completely I felt deafened. Glass shattered nearby, and I screamed silently as something grabbed my outstretched hand and twisted it painfully to the left. I jerked my hand away and fell to my knees, breathing heavily. All I could see was a pulsing yellow-pink light and black afterimages that might have been people. They were located where the others had been, at least, but they were motionless. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped I hadn’t been blinded.
Gradually, sounds emerged from the silence as if someone were turning up a volume knob. I heard muttered conversation, and someone put an arm around my shoulders and supported me into a sitting position. I hadn’t realized I’d collapsed. “Helena,” the person said faintly. I recognized Judy’s voice. “Helena, show me your hand.”