Walking around to the back side of it, I confirmed my suspicion. A fresh hole had been bored into it, still sharp-edged, not yet buffed down, mimicking the empty hole that would house a mercury pin.
I stepped back, bumping into a long worktable. Glancing down, I puzzled at the contents. It was covered in drawings, notes and literally dozens of miniature TTM replicas. As I picked them up, one at a time, turning them this way and that, I realized with dread, he was close, terrifyingly close to figuring it all out. One pin away, really. Who has he shown these to? Does he have other engineers, inventors working with him? This could be far more serious than I had even suspected.
As I searched gadgets, I found Bacon’s easily. It was clutched in a vise, surrounded by tools as if had been worked on. I released it from the grips, and slipped it into the carpetbag with mine. There was no point in taking the rest of them. He had the knowledge to recreate the mechanics of it. I could only hope that no one else knew and that he had no inkling of what was in the pin that drove it.
I began to look through the myriad of papers on the worktable. The top ones were drawings of my alternate perception goggles. He had worked fast, creating maybe a half-dozen sketches already, with measurements and various specs jotted all over the pages. I took those and shoved them into my bag as well. Even if the TTM could be recreated, it would be difficult to locate an open wormhole without the APGs. And without the sketches, it would be nearly impossible to make the goggles from memory. Whether any of this would stop him, I couldn’t know, but it would at least slow down his progress.
As I continued to shuffle through his papers for anything else of any import, my eye fell upon something that stopped me in my tracks. Dropping all but the sheet in my hand, I was stunned to see the face of my beloved Gilly staring up at me. Tears instantly pooled in my eyes, a sob clogging my throat. I ran my fingertips over his sweet face. God, I missed him. Why is this here? I looked harder and realized that he was young in this picture, at least relatively speaking. This was not Gilly at age seventy-six, right before cancer ripped him from our lives. It was Gilly in his sixties, the way he looked when he first found us.
For no reason except that I wanted it and couldn’t bear to leave it, I folded it carefully and stowed it in my bag as well.
Shoving back the sorrow that threatened to engulf me, I picked up the sheaf again, determined to unravel the mystery that was getting more mysterious by the second. This time, under the pile, I noticed a tan leather journal. Tamping down a tiny niggle of guilt, I opened the worn, smooth cover to read.
Chapter Five
Bethlehem, September 15, 1823
If I wasn’t insane before, staring at these walls is making me feel that way. I know I shouldn’t complain. At least I have private quarters, miniscule though they may be. Some of the ladies here (whose husbands are not as generous with the hospital as my parents have been) are just piled together like stones, sometimes five to a room. The worst part of it is that many of them seem perfectly ordinary. It is said within these walls that some are no more than victims of their husbands’ anger. Maybe they were disobedient, maybe they strayed, but they seem so normal. I suppose I seem normal as well.
And I suppose it’s not so bad, really. Sometimes, for those of us who have the capacity to enjoy it, they hold dances in the great hall. During the day they let us into the yard for a while. It’s nice to feel the sun on my face. Father and Mum feel they know best, so here I must remain, with the other unfortunates, until my diseased soul is cured. I don’t know when that will be, because I know what I saw. It didn’t “seem” real. It was real. I am so tired, all of the time, tired.
Bethlehem, September 28, 1823
It seems strange that three months have gone by since I first arrived.
I stepped back, bumping into a long worktable. Glancing down, I puzzled at the contents. It was covered in drawings, notes and literally dozens of miniature TTM replicas. As I picked them up, one at a time, turning them this way and that, I realized with dread, he was close, terrifyingly close to figuring it all out. One pin away, really. Who has he shown these to? Does he have other engineers, inventors working with him? This could be far more serious than I had even suspected.
As I searched gadgets, I found Bacon’s easily. It was clutched in a vise, surrounded by tools as if had been worked on. I released it from the grips, and slipped it into the carpetbag with mine. There was no point in taking the rest of them. He had the knowledge to recreate the mechanics of it. I could only hope that no one else knew and that he had no inkling of what was in the pin that drove it.
I began to look through the myriad of papers on the worktable. The top ones were drawings of my alternate perception goggles. He had worked fast, creating maybe a half-dozen sketches already, with measurements and various specs jotted all over the pages. I took those and shoved them into my bag as well. Even if the TTM could be recreated, it would be difficult to locate an open wormhole without the APGs. And without the sketches, it would be nearly impossible to make the goggles from memory. Whether any of this would stop him, I couldn’t know, but it would at least slow down his progress.
As I continued to shuffle through his papers for anything else of any import, my eye fell upon something that stopped me in my tracks. Dropping all but the sheet in my hand, I was stunned to see the face of my beloved Gilly staring up at me. Tears instantly pooled in my eyes, a sob clogging my throat. I ran my fingertips over his sweet face. God, I missed him. Why is this here? I looked harder and realized that he was young in this picture, at least relatively speaking. This was not Gilly at age seventy-six, right before cancer ripped him from our lives. It was Gilly in his sixties, the way he looked when he first found us.
For no reason except that I wanted it and couldn’t bear to leave it, I folded it carefully and stowed it in my bag as well.
Shoving back the sorrow that threatened to engulf me, I picked up the sheaf again, determined to unravel the mystery that was getting more mysterious by the second. This time, under the pile, I noticed a tan leather journal. Tamping down a tiny niggle of guilt, I opened the worn, smooth cover to read.
Chapter Five
Bethlehem, September 15, 1823
If I wasn’t insane before, staring at these walls is making me feel that way. I know I shouldn’t complain. At least I have private quarters, miniscule though they may be. Some of the ladies here (whose husbands are not as generous with the hospital as my parents have been) are just piled together like stones, sometimes five to a room. The worst part of it is that many of them seem perfectly ordinary. It is said within these walls that some are no more than victims of their husbands’ anger. Maybe they were disobedient, maybe they strayed, but they seem so normal. I suppose I seem normal as well.
And I suppose it’s not so bad, really. Sometimes, for those of us who have the capacity to enjoy it, they hold dances in the great hall. During the day they let us into the yard for a while. It’s nice to feel the sun on my face. Father and Mum feel they know best, so here I must remain, with the other unfortunates, until my diseased soul is cured. I don’t know when that will be, because I know what I saw. It didn’t “seem” real. It was real. I am so tired, all of the time, tired.
Bethlehem, September 28, 1823
It seems strange that three months have gone by since I first arrived.
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