I studied the shifting digits harder now and tried to match them with a few recognizable landmarks from my memory. A fallen log with a gaping hole in the center like a howling mouth. A red rock, flat on the top with three points.
The numbers told me I was getting closer. “This way.” I adjusted our course to veer left. The digits scrolled up. Closer, closer.
My pulse quickened and, with it, my pace. We picked through strands of spiderwebs that formed invisible nets between the trees and broke twigs from their boughs. Then, as the numbers bled one into the next, the thicket cleared, and we stumbled into an open space ringed by the warped trunks of trees. Here, I thought.
“Jesus…,” Owen mumbled.
This was it. The three columns of my dad’s lightning generators rose nearly twenty feet into the sky. Dormant gray orbs made a triangle in the secret circle. They stood like lost relics from a different era. A temple to the gods of science.
I separated from Adam and Owen and walked to the center of the triangle. Instinctively, I held my breath, feeling as though I was stepping onto hallowed ground. The carpet of pine needles was thick and undisturbed. I stared straight into the sky, where stars were beginning to prick holes into the navy blanket above. Thick white cables connected each of the generators. I traced their paths. The lightning cage, my dad had called it, and I missed the low-frequency buzz of electricity running through them.
I turned to see both Adam and Owen watching me. “You say you can fix anything,” I told Owen.
His eyes traveled up the length of the gargantuan generators. “You bet your ass.” He followed me and motioned for Adam. “Buddy, come here and hold the light,” he said.
Owen circled the first generator. Around and around he went, running his hands over the smooth cylinder from the base to as far up as he could reach. Then his canvas bag was on the ground, unzipped and puking out tools. Owen’s front teeth dug into his tongue. Adam held the flashlight over Owen’s shoulder while Owen kneeled in the dirt.
I could hardly see the tiny grooves, but Owen nestled the screwdriver tip into the screws and twisted two free until he was able to flip the lid. Inside, there were three switches, each pointed down and coated in thick rust. A beetle crawled up the side, and Owen flicked it off. For two years the monoliths had been in a coma. The outer build was cool to the touch.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. Owen flicked the first switch, the second, and, finally, the third. Nothing happened.
“I suppose that would have been too easy,” I said.
Owen grunted and flipped the switches back down. He used the flashlight to discover four more screws and removed a plate that opened into a tangle of wires, like the generator had intestines. They were every color, and beside them were a series of cogs frozen in place with age, a thin ribbon wrapped around each cog and attached to the next, disappearing into the underbelly of the generator where I couldn’t see.
“Bingo.” Owen licked his lips.
I left Owen to tinker and Adam to help. Though I felt Adam’s stare stretch after me, he didn’t follow. I found myself drawn away not by an electromagnetic source, but by something deeper. I crossed over the invisible line created by the three generators to a spot just before the end of the glade where the tree line resumed.
My fingers tingled. I bent down and touched the nest of leaves. I could feel the place in the marrow of my bones. This was where it happened. This was where my life had changed. I closed my eyes and remembered. The smell of the rain. The splatter of droplets on glass. The static playing through the speakers … and him.
“Wait in the car,” my dad had said. I’d kicked my boots together over the floorboards of his dusty old truck and played with the lightning-bolt bracelet around my wrist, spinning it around and around in an endless loop.
My dad crawled out into the rain that was busy sliding over the windshield in great torrents, turning the world into an Impressionist painting. His yellow galoshes splashed in the puddles. He looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but it made me mad that I couldn’t see it through the roof of the car.
He pulled the hood of his equally yellow rain jacket up and disappeared into the forest. Even though I knew it was strictly forbidden, I waited only thirty seconds or so before I followed him. The moment I stepped out of the car, the downpour beat against my cheeks, softening only once I’d crossed into the forest.
I’d been into the Hollows with my dad dozens of times before, but this time Dad seemed different. The printouts of his Doppler readings screamed with orange and red. The storm was coming. And now he wanted me to stay in the truck and miss the whole thing. I didn’t think so.