The Oak Hotel - Watty Awards 2013 Finalist

Chapter Fifteen - The Prophecy

Chapter Fifteen

The Prophecy

They sat talking for what felt like hours. Taking turns, Kayleigh and Lincoln managed to retell their story, starting with their search for the mysterious book in the Corwin house. Before the three young women could begin their own tale, a bell rang, signaling the end of lessons. Lincoln felt an odd stirring deep within him at the memory of Ms. Ruttier ringing her brass bell an hour before closing the library. Meredith, Kathryn and Nicole left to make sure all the children were safely off, promising a quick return.

“Are you okay?” Kayleigh asked, squeezing Lincoln’s shoulder.

“Sure… I guess. I mean, I’ve found my real family, so that’s amazing, but I feel like there’s something they’re not telling us. Plus, I haven’t even spoken to David about this yet and he’s my brother.”

“Why don’t you go find him,” Kayleigh said, “I’ll stay here and wait for your sisters. You can bring David back here. Meredith told me some of what’s going on, but we should probably hear the whole thing together.”

Lincoln rose and retraced his way back down the hall to David’s workshop. The older boy was still there, tinkering around in the fading daylight. Almost absently, he looked up.

“Oh, Lincoln, good. Come here. I figured something out.”

Lincoln walked over and noticed that David had attached a long ribbon cable from the motherboard of the computer to an odd, hexagonal-shaped apparatus. Wires ran from beneath the shell of this device to other equally anomalous gadgets positioned on the table.

“Check this out,” David said, then spoke in a more formal tone: “What causes this computer to operate?”

The odd, feminine voice replied, “Three hybrid BioSynth liquid hafnium cores with superluminal field gate portals. Three Quads of active photonic memory are layered with—”

“Cancel,” David said and the computer was silent. He smiled at Lincoln.

“How fast is the CPU?” Lincoln asked.

“Each core runs at a relative speed of 19 Terahertz per pico-cell—”

“Cancel,” Lincoln said, his eyes narrowing. “This is way beyond me, but it all still looks like a regular old computer.”

“I don’t know what a regular computer looks like to you,” David began, “But this whole thing is a scam.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at this,” he said, handing over what appeared to be an audio card. The casing around a chip on the board had been cracked open, revealing a thick, black gel that showed slow clockwise rotation.

“I think all the newer technology is hidden inside the older parts.”

“But who would want to hide such amazing things?”

“Good question.”

At that moment, Meredith leaned into the doorway. “I know you’re excited about your new toy, David, but we’re about to have dinner in the leisure room.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” David smiled. Meredith returned the smile and disappeared.

“I guess I should have come back to get you a while ago,” Lincoln said apologetically. “We’ve been talking about how we ended up here. Your sisters (our sisters) were about to tell Kayleigh and I about what happened after you came to Ceca Hebona.”

“Meredith doesn’t like to talk much about the past. It makes her sad. Have they told you about the prophecy yet?”

“What prophecy?”