19

“Were these old clockworks used by the Elders?” Amber wondered, looking into a velvet-lined drawer, in another smooth, greyish chamber.

They were standing in some sort of clockwork storage room. It wasn’t as special or new as the previous one. The space resembled the Watchmaker’s little office in the Clock in the Sky, in both colour and shape. It was slightly bigger in size to be able to house the multitude of horological treasures.

It still seemed tiny though. Only Keymaker, Amber and Anton could fit inside. This triangular duplicate didn’t have a desk in the middle, but a hideous, square Swiss clock, hanging pontifical from the ceiling in the centre for no apparent reason. This didn’t help with the space issue.

The rest of the Pupils were pushing and elbowing each other and squeezing themselves to fit into the opening of the vault to peek inside, even though they had all witnessed something similar during their Rebirths or when visiting Kyle at his side job in the clock store.

Marith had found herself standing up front and followed the suspension mechanism of the Swiss monstrosity up to the ceiling. To her surprise there seemed to be a planetarium attached to the roof. A nice one too. The turquoise colour of the sea, the moving wooden discs, the sun, surrounded by six planets and the font of the constellations made it look antique and oddly familiar.

The two side walls, that met in an arrow-shape - the third one contained the now opened vault door – supported low, wooden dressers. The walls above them were draped with clocks from every timeframe and continent, since the discovery of time and the various inventions to measure it, apart from the obvious ones, of course, like Stonehenge and Obelisks.

The varnished and polished tops of the cabinets kept all sorts of standing clockworks from hourglasses to mercury clocks, from astronomical instruments to incense and water clocks.

“Yes, this is where we put the clockworks that have had previous owners,” Keymaker told them, one by one shutting the shallow drawers, that he had just opened. “When an Elder dies I make sure their instrument ends up here. Sometimes Watchmaker calls them back up and recycles these old clockworks, to fine-tune and adapt them for Pupils. Sometimes he makes new ones, from scratch, so to speak, custom made for each and every one of you.”

Marith felt her own clockwork buzzing in her pocket with enthusiasm.

“The other ones on display here are precious antiques, either acquired by Watchmaker himself during travels, or by his predecessors, over time. The ones that are exceptionally rare, expensive or old and that won’t fit into his workshop upstairs are kept here.”

“What about this beast?” Anton asked, with a frown, referring to the massive, modern, white impediment in front of him.

“Oh, well… I am not sure if I remember the story correct, but as far as I know the Germans wouldn’t sell Watchmaker a certain, carved cuckoo’s clock he had his eye on and he decided to steal this one, from a train station somewhere in Baden-Württemberg, out of spite.”

“Awesome,” Kyle breathed, delighted by this insubmission.

“Seems about right,” James muttered behind Marith.

“How did he do that?” Someone dared to ask.

“How does he keep the Corridors from flooding?” Keymaker retorted, before trying to move along to the next chamber of their tour.

“Wait a second…” Marith started, taking a deep breath, still fixated on the ceiling. “Is this the Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium from Friesland?”

“Maybe,” Keymaker responded as if he was caught committing a crime, even though it had clearly been done by Watchmaker and none of them would ever be put on trial for any of it.

“Then… what about the original?”

“This is the original.”

“Then what is hanging in Franeker? Ah, never mind!”

Seeing this national treasure, a symbol of the Renaissance, that was pictured in school books, printed on posters and on leaflets all throughout the Netherlands hanging under a lake on the other side of the globe, where nobody could visit it, made her feel melancholic.

“Oh, right. Eh, I am guessing the Dutch now probably make do with a replica, by the hands of Watchmaker. Don’t worry, they won’t be able to tell the difference.”

“Clearly not.” Marith sighed. That kind of theft would have been national news, at least.

“So you guys stole a ceiling?” Anton redundantly asked, staring up. That was the level of deception, cunningness and thievery he and Alexander were aiming for.

“But the original was square,” Marith tried one more time, still reluctant to accept this trickery as fact.

“Yeah, we had to alter the corners a little bit,” Keymaker hesitantly shared, uncomfortably awaiting her response. He was purposely not using the phrasing ‘sawing off’, seeing how distraught she already was.

“Such sacrilege! I just can’t anymore.”

She stomped away from the opening and waited in the hallway for Keymaker to lock off the clockworks room, so they could stride to the next stop of their guided tour.

The next chamber was square again and a lot larger and looked like a disco or a light show or whatever people were into these days. The Sunshine, placed on a designated pedestal in the centre, illuminated every corner of the potion storage room.

Marith guessed this space was as grizzly and grey as any other room anchored under the waters of Sweet Lake, but the apothecary cabinets and chests of drawers prevented her from being able to determine the state of these walls with any certainty.

While most of the Pupils sauntered around, peeking through the little windows of the displaying cabinets at the many glass bottles and sealed phials and their peculiar contents, Vanessa was hunting for jars with very particular contents, as casual as possible.

The hulls resembled most of the glasswork they each had been taught to work with during lab-class in Chemistry during high school. Kyle and Amber were even still taking those classes.

The laboratory glassware came in all shapes and sizes, flasks, beakers, Erlenmeyers, jars and even test tubes in little racks. The only thing they had in common was that they were all either corked or closed by a lid.

Vanessa had her eye on two pieces, the shape and size of average jam jars, filled with still, silvery white, hovering cloudlike substances. The last jars of Mist.

While Keymaker was explaining to the group that Potionmaker was usually more like a potion catcher than a cook she covertly made eye contact with Brad.

She nodded towards the jars. They were stored in a corner cabinet, behind a closed and locked door, as concealed and sheltered as possible, behind white feathers in bottles, but not too hidden. Keymaker didn’t want anyone to notice them in the first place, but he didn’t want that to be too obvious either. It was like hiding food from roommates. Not putting the good wine or the expensive chocolate on full display, but also not hiding the items too well, as not to raise suspicion.

Brad smirked and gave her a little flick with his eyebrows in understanding. For a moment he looked incredibly handsome and, even though he wasn’t even remotely in the age group Vanessa usually found her men in, she briefly saw what Amber was so smitten with.

“If she was still alive she could tell you the weather on the day you were born,” Keymaker was explaining. “Unfortunately, the old lady isn’t here anymore, but the good news is that our James here seems to have developed a peculiar sensitivity to certain weather conditions and a gift for catching it.”

Keymaker gave the tall Runner an jovial slap on the shoulder. James smiled an unexpected humble and timid little smile, his lips pressed tightly together.

“If Armsmaker knew what arms to make so far in advance then why didn’t Potionmaker knew what weather to catch for us?” Amber wondered sharply.

“She did know what potions we need,” Keymaker answered and gestured around.

“Then why did James have to go abroad to catch the Sunshine?” Amber pressed.

Vanessa was absolutely not proud of herself. Her only excuse was that it had all happened in the heat of the moment, almost literally. Her fire had gotten the best of her. When another fight about the Mist, the Push and William had occurred between Keymaker and Vanessa she had stormed out of the storage room, accidentally knocking the Sunshine of its very own pedestal.

The consequences had been blindingly bright and shockingly light, especially in contrast to the murky underground Corridors, where no natural light pervaded.

This had all happened months before Marith had returned to the mountains, even before some of the Pupils had been Rebirthed.

“I broke it,” he answered curtly.

Vanessa widened her already deer-like eyes and raised her eyebrows from the other side of the room. Keymaker smiled faintly at her. There seemed to be a higher understanding developing between them. Could this be his way of apologizing? Should she be doing the same?

“Can Potionmakers actually control the weather?” Kyle wondered, slightly squinting his eyes, trying to figure out how exactly the process of acquiring new potions worked.

He ignored the whole thing between Keymaker and Vanessa. She had already informed him about it, right after it had happened. She had been quite distraught. His hopes had been high. This had happened all before he had known about her and Marith’s dad.

Keymaker snorted displeased at this uninformed question. “No, the weather is not controlled by humans… obviously.”

Now several eyebrows shot up simultaneously as Keymaker marched out, leaving the Mist, the Dew, the Sunshine and every other conceivable weather condition between heaven and Earth behind.

The group followed him demurely and in silence, but it wasn’t soon before the Runners disported themselves up front. Keymaker occasionally got his clockwork out for orientation purposes and to correct the direction of the Runners.

The deeper into the labyrinth they wandered, the closer they came to the tomb and the colder the atmosphere that chilled their skin appeared to be.

Marith was breathing clouds of condense as she walked with the group through never before seen, winding corridors.

“Stay here,” Keymaker mumbled, as he skilfully picked the right key to open the second to last door of their tour.

They waited in front of the smallest, most regular sized vault door so far. It was thick and heavy none the less. Keymaker slipped in quick and unassuming, leaving the Pupils to frown at each other in the hallway.

“What’s in there?” Amber asked, in her sweet, but shrill voice, when Keymaker disappeared. She tried to catch a glance inside, but he swiftly closed the door behind him.

“I think it’s his workshop,” William whispered.

He was back, before anyone could comment on that.

“Here.” Keymaker brusquely put a keyring in Brad’s hands. It was less voluminous than his own, but it carried all the necessary pieces.

“What are these?”

“All the keys you could possibly need during this affair.”

“Thanks!” Brad responded, while clearly trying to figure out how he would ever know which key would fit on what door.

Keymaker nodded curtly at him.

Brad turned the bunch around in his hands and played with the bundle, before hooking the one key he already possessed to it and putting them all away.

He noticed it was somewhat smaller than the keys that belonged in the slots of the vault doors. Probably because it was meant for regular sized slots and the doors in the Corridors had quite large locks.

The air was now as cold as the blood flowing through Marith’s veins. The movements of the Prophets and the Mages became sluggish and syrupy as they descended further into the caverns under the lake.

The Runners were impatiently hopping and pottering around Keymaker, less affected by changes in temperature, weather or atmosphere.

Because of the Runners the lights went on ahead of the group. Marith halted when the spots illuminated a dim doorway to another chamber.

“Is that?” Amber wondered with a shudder.

“Yup,” Keymaker said, hoisting up his pants to no avail once more.

The Kid’s tomb had come into vision. The door was left open, as a marking of the times. Anton and James moved closer. Juliette and Jonathan were more reticent.

It was very clinical. A white, rectangular block of marble, the size of a surgical table, stood in the middle of an empty room, with empty walls and an equally smooth floor and ceiling.

The whispering returned and swelled.

Maaarishj... Maaaaarissshj…

Marith half-expected the First Runner to jump from the shadows, catch them off guard and end them all, before the actual battle had even begun.

Of course, their Runners could stab him and then he would bleed out, but the demonstration of their skills she had just witnessed in the armoury hadn’t been too convincing or ensuring.

Also, with the Kid being immortal and all he would probably bleed until his veins were empty and still survive, making new blood at a staggering high rate, or sucking it out of a human, like a vampire.

Extraordinary uncomfortable thoughts and images whirled through her brain, like bacteria in a hot tub. Bloody, noisy images of sick children, mutilated animals, slimy swamps, plastic waste and war zones in general trotted on behind her eyes.

“I’m…” Marith breathed heavily and swallowed. “I might throw up,” she whispered at Vanessa, after the rest of the group had wandered closer to the tomb.

Her head was spinning and there was a distinct, stabbing feeling blinding her eyes.

“Me too,” Marith heard behind her. “This is why I can barely visit this town anymore.”

Marith looked over her shoulder. Behind her Lisa stood leaning against the wall, almost as green as moss.

Lisa had this great way of disappearing and going practically unnoticed. The group had nearly forgotten she had joined them.

“Let’s go,” Vanessa whispered back, steering Marith away.

William had grabbed Lisa firmly by her waist and worriedly followed Vanessa and Marith into another corridor.

Marith was grateful Vanessa chaperoned her around the way she did, not revealing to the others how much it affected the only other female Mage. She felt as if she was going to bump into one of these magically shifting walls and make an utter fool of herself, which she hadn’t really done since she had gotten the Push.

The hallways Keymaker led them through, more than occasionally peering at his clockwork, slowly arched further into the bottom of the lake, and paradoxically closer to the platform in the garage of the clinic.

Juliette, James, Anton and Jonathan were still carrying their newly acquired, ancient arms around. Most had their blade in a back pocket for the moment and were holding the bows in their hands. The tubes, containing the arrows, hung over their shoulders by leather straps.

Keymaker pointed to a hallway on their left. The Runners darted inside and, by doing so, enlightened the short corridor. The doors to the last chamber of the tour were staring back at them. They were as high and wide as the ceiling and the ceiling was quite high and wide. This corridor looked strangely like a church chapel or a colonnade.

“Our last stop,” Keymaker announced, halting in front of double vault doors. “I don’t come here often, so let’s see if everything is still in the right place.”

“What’s with the pillars?” Amber inquired, her interest for architecture piqued.

The Pupils all gazed around. The little light spots only allowed them to see the columns disappear up into darkness. The cold and the draught informed them about the magnitude of the space they were currently in.

“They hold the roof up,” Keymaker muttered, searching his complex outfit for something.

He dug up two keys from a deep pocket in his dark blue pants. They were attached to each other by the kind of little chain that would bolt plastic pens to the desks of bank employees.

Each door had a keyhole. He slid a key in both openings and turned them simultaneously outward. Clicking and rumbling sounds eluded the intestines of the humongous, grey doors. He quickly pulled the keys out again. The pins, ensuring the place and indestructability of these barriers, started to slide and retract.

The doors, that could have easily belonged to a hangar, glided slightly into the hallway, like every other vault door had done so far, and then parted swiftly, without effort.

“Let me guess,” Amber started, prying inside the dimly lit, gaping space in front of them, “you’ve replaced the original Pantheon and the one in Rome is a duplicate.”

The Chain peered inside without entering, that seemed like an odd form of profanation. They stood on the threshold of some sort of courtroom, including a bench, witness stand, several desks, a jury box and even a bar, to separate any audience from the counsel and judges. The wooden furniture curved along with the shape of the room, without looking like they were specifically bend to fit. It was doing some trickery on the way the brain registered the signals the eyes passed along.

“No,” Keymaker smirked, “that one remains on the foundations it was built on, but this chamber was absolutely inspired by the Pantheon. Very astute.”

The courtroom was round, shaped like an auditorium in university, and topped by a large circular, domed ceiling with an opening in the centre.

Their guide stepped inside and the group followed.

Marith had actually been in the Pantheon, one time, on the mandatory Rome trip her high school made with the senior Gymnasium students each year. She mostly remember the scorching heat and a local protest or strike of some sorts.

This circular chamber was definitely smaller than the actual Pantheon, but did possess an oculus in the dome.

“This opening is sealed off with glass,” Keymaker informed, as some of the Pupils became aware of the natural source of light. “Very thick glass,” he quickly added, when Amber inhaled to ask a question about that.

The grey, stone walls gave room to innumerable alcoves, on eye level, but also higher up in the walls. They were filled with seemingly otherworldly trinkets and curiosa.

Marith’s gaze followed a library ladder, attached to a railing, up to the point where the ceiling started to arch. Rolls of parchment appeared to be sticking from the highest niches.

There were thousands of them. Their ends, or beginnings, sticking from the alcoves, were out of reach without the tall ladders, attached to the railing all along the circular space with regular intervals.

“Are those, like, books of law?” Marith informed, pointing up.

This courtroom got Marith thinking about how the laws of their shadow world would actually work and how they would be reinforced.

“No,” Keymaker started. “Those are the oldest known prophecies, done by ancient Oracles and Elders, long gone. We suspect Armsmaker and Potionmaker based their work on those, at least in part.”

“Why are they so high up? Shouldn’t we be using them right now?”

“Well, first of all, they’re not written in English and second of all, they became entirely unreadable. Age, time and spilled foods and drinks sort of did the trick.”

“Sounds professional,” Anton murmured under his breath.

Kyle had sauntered off, seemingly unimpressed by rolled up, old papers, and trailed along the curvature of the walls. Marith saw him leave the group from the corner of her eye.

He knew almost everything there was to know about their existence and their history, which meant he was aware of the contents of the rolls.

“Wow,” he uttered, on their left, “is this…?”

He stood halfway across the room and pointed at a shiny, golden disc that only Marith, William, Vanessa and he himself immediately recognized. The rest was unfazed, never been too intrigued by space travel or the existence of other worlds and species.

“Yeah, well,” Keymaker blushed, but in an excited and proud way. “Speaking of aliens,” he started portentous, as he marched over to Kyle, with the rest in his wake. He was referring to the questions about the weather and the potions he had cut short before.

He turned around in front of the shining, golden phonograph record, displayed on what looked like a small, wooden easel, hidden in one of the many alcoves, and explained the gravity of its presence back on Earth.

“It hasn’t been here for that long, by the way. It was intercepted in the early ninety’s and was then returned to Earth,” he finished.

He was met with uncomfortable shuffles, crossed arms, frowns and wide eyes throughout his whole clarification.

“And?”

“They had been looking for us.”

“What?”

“Why?”

“So they could hide their gyroscope here.” Keymaker motioned enthusiastically to the centre of the courtroom, which Marith knew was called ‘the well’.

Marith had been so captivated by the strange trumpery in the alcoves she hadn’t paid much attention to the rest of the room. In between the bench, the bar and the gallery and the jury box a black velvet cloth was hiding something the size of a small European car or a mid-sized pony, except for the fact that it was definitely rounder and seemingly placed on a pedestal.

Since it was around midday the faint sunshine flowing in through the oculus in the roof shone directly on the black fabric, making it all the more intriguing.

“Why did they return the Voyager Disc? They could have let the capsule travel on, further into space, after they found us,” Marith suggested after she had turned around to face Keymaker again.

“The government still thinks it is, you know, floating on into infinity, but the Travellers didn’t want any other species to find it, so they removed the records and destroyed the Voyager probe. They told Watchmaker that most intelligent life knows better than to publicly share their location.”

Kyle exhaled elated. This was far beyond any of their wildest dreams, or nightmares.

“Don’t!” Keymaker exclaimed suddenly, looking over the heads of the Pupils with the intense gaze of a hawk.

“What?” James asked, innocently, standing in the middle of the chamber, holding a corner of the thick, black velvet cloth, that covered the alien instrument.

“We do not operate the gyroscope,” Keymaker informed, one arm still stretched out in alarm.

“Oh,” James said, not lowering the curtain. This was payback for outing him as the new Potionmaker and slapping him on the shoulder so brusquely. James loved attention, he craved it as much as he did scones, jam and tea, but only if he asked for it, not if other people pointed it at him.

“And we do not know what happens if a human interacts with it,” Keymaker continued warningly.

“Interesting, so he might turn into a black hole?” Kyle brought in, grinning and by all means encouraging James to go through with it.

“Or he goes mad with knowledge,” Marith mused.

“Or power,” Brad corrected.

“I like that one,” James said, with a scholarly frown, tapping his chin with the fingers of his free hand, referring to Brad’s suggestion.

They abandoned the golden record and walked towards him, through the curving lanes between the mahogany benches.

“What does it do?” Kyle informed.

“Right now,” Keymaker said, following them hastily, “it is in a dormant state, as far as I know, but...”

“Then it doesn’t matter,” James decided wisely. With one smooth yank of his arm the curtain was off, flying through the air to the other side of the well.

Marith wasn’t sure how the others had responded, but she found herself sitting hunched behind one of the benches, meant for audience, protecting herself from whatever was perchance going to happen.

For a few moments she was alone with her own breathing, unsure what to do, until she remembered she could do this neat little thing with her mind. Before she dared to stand up she sought briefly for the others, squatting and balancing on her toes and the tips of her fingers. The floor was freezing cold, but she tried to not let that distract her.

The strings, enveloped in her mind, fanned out, scanning the round room. The heartbeats of the others came to her faster than she would have expected. Maybe stress enhanced this specific ability? Relieved none of them had been blasted out of existence she opened her eyes.

She stretched her body to look around. Some of them had jumped behind the furniture like herself, others were simply averting or shielding their eyes, for protection, as was Keymaker.

James stood nonchalantly next to the instrument, staring at it, before looking around to see the response of the others. He met Marith’s eyes and shrugged at her, she smiled back and joined him.

“Yes, this is absolutely the level of bravery we need to fight the Kid, people!” James scorned loudly and disappointed.

“I think we’re save, guys,” Marith added, when nobody felt the immediate need to jump up.

The group hesitantly circled the otherworldly tool, mumbling things like ‘better safe than sorry’ and ‘how could we know?’.

Several shields and layers of silver coloured lattice that looked like artistically wrought iron, made out of other elements than iron, curved around what seemed to be swirling and moving colourful wefts, not unlike those seen when a Mailbox or a clockwork from the hands of Watchmaker opens.

“Why are we looking at the same clouds that elude our clockworks when we open them?” Anton asked, slightly disturbed.

“The Travellers are called the Travellers because they evolved to the point of being able to travel between dimensions. After their solar system got demolished they were forced to live like nomads. They had been a spacefaring species for a long time, but ever since their planet perished they are looking for a new home.”

“Right, they had to go somewhere. Why stay in this dimension?” James interrupted sarcastically, ridiculing the story.

“What was the cause of their solar system being obliterated?” Kyle asked with serious interest.

“Mining and drilling,” Keymaker said succinctly, understanding that he would have to explain more. “They always knew this was a risk. That’s why they had set up colonies all across their quadrant of the Milky Way. At one point the surface of their planet couldn’t take the pressure any longer. At least, that’s what I was told.” Keymaker shrugged to clarify that the story sounded bizarre to him as well.

“The debris was hurtled into space and travelled far and wide. The explosion had a magnitude we can’t even begin to comprehend. The chunks that used to be their planet were the asteroids that hit Earth millennia ago. That is why the insides of the gyroscope look oddly like the clouds that our clockworks elicit when we open them,” Keymaker continued.

“So, their planet was in our dimension, but these creatures aren’t?”

“No, not anymore. They used to be from this Universe, so to speak, but they left.”

“Have you ever seen the gyroscope in action?” Lisa wondered.

Keymaker shook his head. “Watchmaker once explained to me, a long time ago, that they have a substance, a liquid, that they pour into the top of the gyroscope to make it work.” He pointed at a little cap, that could be removed, where the rosters surrounding the clouds came together. Apparently the wrought lattice was hollow on the inside. The shields of lattice could revolve around each other, like an actual Earth-like gyroscope. “When they pour this substance into the grille they can read the dust clouds like we can read numbers or letters.”

“What substance?”

“It’s a fluid from their home planet. I don’t think they’ve got much left, because they barely ever come by to use it. They’re now scouring the Multiverse to find a planet that can provide them with more of it.”

“Is that what they were drilling for?” Anton wondered.

“Could be,” Keymaker answered, with a little nod. It became clear that his knowledge on this topic was limited to the information he had already shared with them.

Keymaker looked at the hovering, glittering colours in their structure and then glanced inquisitively around the room. “The liquid is stored somewhere else, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“This is not really my domain. I just wanted to show this chamber to you guys, before we finish the tour.”

“Why would a courtroom need a gyroscope?” Marith informed. She had often heard her father tell about his first job as a court clerk. It somehow never involved an instrument used for measuring and maintaining orientation and velocity.

“It's to locate the position and direction of all the Universes that currently exist.”

“Sure,” James brought in again, this time joined by a sigh and a frown.

“In order to know the right verdict in a trial the direction of certain places in the Multiverse must be known. These creatures need to know what the future holds for the dimensions that are concerned, before they can come to a verdict. It’s a whole new way of implementing justice.” He shook his head in disbelief at the powers that the gyroscope possessed.

“If this instrument can do such predictions then why is there a need for Oracle and her Prophets?” Juliette wondered.

“Maybe they can’t see what happens outside of the Web that wraps Earth,” Anton suggested.

Both were ignoring Lisa’s, Kyle’s and Amber’s puzzled looks.

“Can’t they see past this planet?”

“Boy, you kids sure like to repeat each other, don’t you?” Keymaker chuckled. “Older Prophets sure could, if they wanted to,” he continued. “They can sense anything in the Web that shapes this dimension. It would be strenuous, but not impossible to look past this planet. The Elders did feel the extra-terrestrials coming with the Voyager Disc and the gyroscope, at the time.”

“The fields within the Web that the Prophets use, warp around Earth like gravity. That is our primary focus. Of course the Web extends to the rest of this Universe, but like time, it is also relative. Looking beyond our planet is not worth the efforts at the moment,” Kyle complemented Keymaker’s explanation, unsure of how much he actually understood about the Web and how the Prophets were using it.

“How many dimensions are even out there?” Juliette inquired, unassuming. “I mean, we’ve got this one, the Clock in the Sky, the Empty, the one the Birdman crawled out of, the ones these Travellers are apparently travelling through…” her voice trailed off.

William’s father nodded and sighed. His sigh told Marith this was going to be a long story.

“I once asked Watchmaker the same question,” Keymaker began, his tone of voice betrayed he regretted asking to this day. “He said this. Think of the Multiverse as a tree. This tree has more branches than you can imagine. All these branches fan out into twigs. Those twigs carry leafs and even fruit. No, wait...” he sighed again, staring up at the ceiling for an answer, “was there fruit? I don’t remember.”

He frowned until his relatively young, but chubby face wrinkled. His scruffy, copper hairdo travelled over his skull like a confused piece of shrubbery.

“Let’s leave the fruit out of it then. So, This tree has big branches, smaller branches and leafs, lots of leafs. Wherever this tree grows it rains incredibly often and this tree is always adorned with drops of rain. They glide past the branches, they stick to the leafs. Each and every one of those drops is a dimension. Frankly, we don’t know how many there are. And even if we knew, we probably wouldn’t even be able to survive in the fast majority of them.”

The Chain listened quietly to his wordings, intrigued by this explanation. Some did open their mouths to start the formation of a question but they aborted that mission before actual sounds escaped their throats.

“There are creatures much more powerful than Watchmaker that can navigate through those worlds,” Keymaker continued. “Maybe not through all of them, but through a lot of them.”

“Those Travellers?” Jonathan asked.

“Exactly,” Keymaker answered.

“And our world is a drop hanging on a leaf of that tree?” Kyle inquired, both incredulous and fascinated.

“This dimension is the foundation on which other dimensions are built. Without our world other worlds have no right to exist. Since this is the foundation this has to be the most powerful and reliable dimension.

“That is why they have trusted us with the gyroscope. Which is basically, to its very core, an instrument of orientation, to navigate this tree and all its branches, leafs and droplets. Used correctly, it can measure the different directions into which these dimensions are headed and give insight into the future, like a prophecy.”

“What are you really saying here? Are we in one of those droplets or not?” Juliette asked, all this being shockingly new information, even to her.

“No, we are the tree.”

“Oh.”

“The Empty, the Clock in the Sky, those are droplets, but not this,” Keymaker added redundant, gesturing around.

“Do any of those dimensions in the tree ever collapse or disappear?”

“Yes, the drops can fall from the tree and return to the ground.”

“Ground?”

“The Well.”

The Pupils had to let that sink in. There wasn’t much more to say while their task, their quest, their duty to make an end to the atrocities of the Kid – and to prevent worse – came crushing in on them, as if this figurative tree had just been split in the middle by a bolt of lightning. The importance of their existence had never looked this grant… or daunting. They had to save this massive tree? By themselves?

The Pupils and their newly acquired, ancient arms followed Keymaker docile out of the smaller copy of the Pantheon to the exit, under the clinic. They went up into the garage. This time they took the elevator behind the platform that was held up by the column. None of them knew if they should be feeling proud, motivated, deferential or hollowed out.

Outside a snowplough was cleaning the clinics’ parking lot and the road to the emergency room, following a certain pattern, before shoving the snow into the berm.

In the distance, through the forest, Marith could faintly discern another large yellow, beeping vehicle with big white lights on the roof. It was cleaning the main road that snaked around town.

Frankly, Marith could have done without the whole underwater experience she’d just had and she didn’t mind the heavy snowfall, or the freezing cold. The Pupils would probably hike back to the town and not use the roads, but Marith had been planning to go leave the area for a couple of days after that, so clean roads sure came in handy.

Nate had rented a cabin in an area where the trees were tall enough to support the sky and the ferns grew big enough to hide a small bear. The snow had slowly diminished as Marith had driven out of town, descending from the crater lakes. The cold had not affected the greenness of the environment down at the cabin yet, although the clouds were surely packed with cold, white flakes.

Marith was elated that she had a good reason to visit Nate again. She was very likely going to inform him of stuff he knew already, but she was excited anyway.

She had informed Jonathan in advance she wouldn’t require his running services. She felt blessed they had a male Runner now. He didn’t ask further questions. Juliette would have definitely wanted more context. Jonathan just seemed relieved he could spend his time working at the store and not failing at doing something he wasn’t actually trained for yet.

Marith’s former partners had often overwhelmed her into the physical part of the relationship prematurely, which had not seldom reflected poorly on the quality of their intimacies. With Nate she just knew nothing would be rushed. There would be a time and place for everything.

When she stepped over the threshold of the log cabin he had rented she immediately noticed he had tried to make the place home-y for her stay with him, in a manly way.

He had made a modest fire in the wood stove, strings of Christmas lights hung from pushpins at the walls and stacks of novels and an opened book of poetry lingered on and around the couch.

Two teaming cups of hot chocolate milk, with tiny, melting marshmallows floating on top, waited on the coffee table. He had known when she would knock.

“You travel around with Christmas lights?” Marith wondered.

“I found them in the cupboards? Let me take your coat.”

She shook it off and he tossed it over a nearby chair.

“I could have done that myself.” Marith laughed.

The Mage and the Prophet stood side by side in the living for a few moments that seemed to drag on longer than they actually did.

Marith wondered if Nate wondered why Jonathan hadn’t ran by. Her arms felt long and clumsy and she didn’t know where to look.

“Let’s sit,” Nate proposed.

Secretly they were both starving. Their souls craved the deeper than human connection they had longed for their entire lives, but neither of them had ever been fortunate enough to experience such entanglement. They wanted more than simply feeling skin to skin. They had been searching for a spiritual alignment.

Marith didn’t want to think about anything that was going on in her life. Evil Runners, homelessness, aliens, trees, clockworks, bows and arrows, it was all white noise when she sat next to Nate.

She was sitting next to him on the slanting couch and quietly drank, before asking about the poetry he was reading. He told her it was Charles Bukowski. She had already known, but enjoyed him talking about it anyway.

They quietly drank the bitter emulsion that started to cool off inside the mugs and stared into the fire as a satisfied drowsiness washed over both of them. They were finally together again and when they were together it didn’t really matter what they were doing.

They had both experienced that being in love was frightening and possibly quite harmful. They had been given just enough by former lovers to keep them holding on. Holding on to nothing, that was. Eventually, they had decided it was better to wait for someone who would be good for their wellbeing. That had been a long and lonely exercise for each of them.

“What were you doing before...?” Nate mumbled after a long yawn.

They had finished the hot chocolate and Nate had pulled a shabby looking blanket around them.

“Before I came back? I was on a tragic search for life's purpose. You?” Marith wasn’t too ashamed to admit her life had lost direction. Often there had only been herself, adrift, lonely and confused.

Nate thought about it. “Same, actually. It was a long suffering journey of disappointment and mediocrity.” He let out a slight sigh, before they both laughed out loud at their own melodramatic tendencies.

As with most people of their generation their problems had stayed the same, frozen in time, while they grew older and the life that they had always wanted was torpedoed further and further out of reach. They were lingering in the waiting room of life.

They had spent well over two decades failing forward. Their love was healing the open wound that a lifetime of disappointment and adversity had created.

“Do you think I’m,” she hesitated, “you know, awkward? I feel like I lost all social skills in my solitary years… if I’ve ever had them to begin with,” she added suddenly shy and contemplative.

“No, not at all. Don’t worry about it,” he assured her, stroking her face. “I didn’t notice it when I first met you. Social skills are overrated anyways. Especially when you can do this.” He trailed his fingers over her wrist and squeezed her arm some more.

Marith was relieved she didn’t have to share the rest of what she had to say out loud.

I’ve been so tired, Marith’s soul sighed. Tired of waiting for answers. Tired of waiting for love. Tired of reality hovering on such a vast distance from the way I had always imagined things to be.

I was suffering the kinds of depressions I was afraid I would never truly heal from. It does such damage… to everything. Not just mental health wise, but also when it came to my physical health, my education, my social life, my… love life.

You don’t… Nate started. I mean, it’s not like you recovered from any of your mental pain during your Rebirth. None of us did. You just learn how to carry it with pride and purpose. You need to put it into energy… power.

As in my talent?

Exactly.

I just wish that the Universe had been kinder to us. It would have made existing so much easier.

Kindness is overrated as well, Nate’s mental voice muttered, dying away, as he stared into the flames.

The shoulder Marith’s head was uncomfortably resting on softened and the heaving of his chest became more regular. She realised he was falling asleep.

It still would have saved a lot of pain if life had been easier on us, she insisted.

Easy is for weak people, he concluded, wrapping his free arm around her, clenching her at his chest.

He wasn’t muscled like the Runners were. He was tall and skinny in a dorky kind of way and Marith loved it. Stitch by stitch Nate tore apart her brokenness and made her more whole than she ever was before. She stroked the fuzz on his underarm and felt her own consciousness subside as well.

Marith had a painful past. Divorced parents, a strained relationship with her mother, living alone in the most rainy country on planet Earth, failing to finish her education. The greatest source of her pain, however, was having nobody to turn to. Because of Nate she got to experience for the first time in her life what it was like to have someone to love unconditionally.

People had been telling her that her ‘time would come’ since she was very young. Until she met Nate she wasn’t sure if she was ever going to meet someone who would understand her struggles, without judging, somebody who would complete her and make her feel at ease with herself. Now she knew. This was her time.

An amazing weight was lifted off Marith’s shoulders as she realized she had finally found someone she could confide in, about her fears, her passions, her hopes and wishes, about the mysterious parallel world they had stumbled into.

All her worries, mostly circling around the topic of her future - future finances, future family, future fiends, future friends - floated away and were replaced by this handsome man the Web had paired her up with.

At a certain point, late that evening, the fire had died, the cabin had turned cold and they had found their way to the bedroom.

The same shapes and colours that would appear after rubbing her eyes too feverishly danced on the insides of Marith’s eyelids. The colours of the Mailbox flashed before her. It was like peeking at another dimension, but not travelling all the way there.

Nate woke up next to her. They were both still wearing their jeans and sweaters. The slices of light that shone into the room gave the morning away.

“I am full,” she sighed, as they laid side by side on the lumpy mattress.

“Of what?”

She could hear by his tone of voice he was smiling.

“Full of love, and happiness and joy… and hope.”

“So am I.”

She turned her head to look at him and saw the tiniest of crows-feet appear around his eyes when he smiled at her.

“Remember why I came here?” Marith asked, staring at the heavy, wooden beams that held the roof of the cabin up.

“For me? To discuss poetry with me? So our love can unfurl like the delicate flower that it is?”

“Meh, not really.” Marith shrugged, interrupting his bravado and holding back laughter.

Nate appeared in her peripheral vision.

“What?!” He jokingly feigned insult. “Woman, I will make you pay for this!”

Marith giggled. He grabbed her legs with big, strong hands. She tried to kick him, to no avail.

His fingers slipped between her socks and pants. He bore his them into her ankles, looking down on her. He was positioned on his knees and she laid beneath him.

Apparently, the other pressure points were situated in the insides of their ankles. The connection was the same, but different. Their communications were forced to travel further, pleasing, but triggering, her whole body, instead of just her arms and shoulders.

She brought him the images and sounds of what the Chain had been experiencing recently. There was not much Nate didn’t know about yet, but he still enjoyed seeing his fellow Pupils learn and evolve through Marith’s eyes.

She summarized her adventures with Pavan and Keymaker for him. Some parts made him laugh, other parts were marvelled about and then certain parts were scrolled through, because he had become so well-acquainted with their world over the years it had become basic knowledge for him.

Sharing her thoughts and experiences with Nate was like waking up from a decade long nightmare. She could see clearly now. She was grateful she had lost her visions and her dreams after the Push. Nate could control his talent and share it with Marith. It enlightened her.

That weekend her life was perfect, which was dangerous, because she knew perfection could only exist in her life for a fleeting moment. Her greatest fear was that she was never supposed to have it for more than a fraction of a second.

They interchanged naps and sauntering hikes with sharing thoughts and visions. Life, death, Rebirths, science, books, art, music and the meaning of it all were discussed. They were in a flow together. Food was hardly eaten, time was totally forgotten.

They shared the insignificant little details about their past lives as well, just to have a reason to further their bond and keep on touching each other. On Sunday she showed him her past, her early childhood and her teenage years, up until her current age.

She had managed to share her valuable time, money and energy exclusively with men that showed unacceptable behaviour that matched her mother’s treatment of her kids. Which, she had learned, was perfectly normal for victims of narcissistic abuse. However, that knowledge didn’t serve her in any way.

You’ve seen my exes?

They were lingering in her heart and in her head like aggressive stalkers. There was no way Nate hadn’t come across them at some point.

I may have seen some faces.

I am thoroughly sorry for that.

It’s okay, he answered, his face hovering next to her, perked up on one elbow, while she still held his wrist.

Do you know what happened?

I’ve seen the basics. I think I get the repeating picture of the half-wits you’ve been with. He flashed his big teeth in a crooked smile that made Marith melt.

Please don’t be like that. Don’t be an idiot.

I shall make it a priority to not be an idiot, he solemnly swore, with his free hand over his heart.

They swiftly abandoned the treacherous waters that was the topic of ex-partners, for which Marith was immensely grateful. Their time together was too magical to pollute with insignificant people from the past.

Her past partners had treated her like a burden, never accepting her. Nate knew that bad relationships change good people. They had transformed her insecurities into a personality trait. It was with her now, forever.

He felt she had yet to be at peace with her mind and her weaknesses, but he knew she would get there in time. He knew what he meant to her and he tried to make her feel what she meant to him. How she had been worth the wait and worth the time. How his life had been such a mess up until that moment and how he would do it all over again if that would imply meeting her.

Sunday morphed into Monday like Ovidius’s main characters into mythical creatures and regular animals. The weekend had been such an assault on her bio-rhythm she couldn’t believe it was over already.

“Where are you?” Nick’s voice inquired. He sounded annoyed and Marith couldn’t possibly fathom why, until she remembered she was only supposed to stay over at Vanessa’s for one night.

She was holding her phone at a glowing ear.

“With Vanessa?” She frowned and hoped it wouldn’t sound too much like a question.

“Okay, sure…” he hesitated. “Doesn’t she have to work?”

“Eh, yes… she absolutely does. I am alone at her apartment right now.”

“When are you coming home?”

“Soon?” It sounded like another question, mostly because it was. “I mean now… of course. I have to clean up here a little bit, which I promised her, because we had such a wild, wild weekend… and then I return immediately.” Marith knew she wasn’t selling it, but at least she tried.

During a time that was lunchtime for most people Marith walked into the bedroom and stared at Nate, who laid sprawled over the bed in a fleece pyjama.

She had made a bad habit in the past by worrying about the ending of things before they had even started. While holding a tray with tea and some food she had found in the fridge she pushed that urge away.

Nate was laying on his face and belly, his limbs spread across the bed, breathing peacefully, his heart was beating unhurried. Her eyes trailed from his full head of hair, half of his handsome face, wrinkled with sleep, to his slightly heaving torso, his slender back and his long legs. Her heart was full. She felt complete.

Society had taught her that a woman in the 21th century didn’t need a man to be happy, which was a true and important message, but she knew that it wasn’t true for her. That’s not how she preferred her life. She needed Nate. She didn’t know that before, but ever since she had met him she was absolutely certain.

“Who was it?” Nate mumbled sleepily, rolling over and sitting up with a slight sigh.

“Nick,” answered Marith carefully, determined to not get in the middle of the two brothers.

Of course she wanted to see them together, like happy and peaceful remnants of the Pine dynasty, but what would her opinion add?

Nate nodded. “I figured.”

After their scarce lunch, consisting of rice waffles, cheese of dubious age and origin and some bonbons, serving as desert, Marith started to pack what little things she had brought with her.

“How are you feeling?” Nate hugged her from behind, when she took the car keys of the kitchen top.

She was wearing a presentable outfit for the first time in days and was packed and ready to go.

“Dizzy.”

“Why?”

“Starvation,” she joked, with a big smile.

“Have I been such a bad host?” He theatrically responded to her insinuation.

“Well….” She had to suppress a smile.

“No,” she continued, more serious, almost immediately. “It’s just that my heart has been restless. And yes, I know how sickly sentimental that sounds.”

Why did he have to be so insanely gorgeous and wildly fascinating?

“It has been snowing practically all weekend on your route,” he warned. “Please, be careful.”

“I will, if you will do me a favour?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t stand under the veranda when I leave.”

“Why not?”

“I won’t be able to leave.”

“Barf,” he answered.

“I know,” Marith said, because she knew.