by J. G. Kemp
“Yeah.”
“Well, you have glasses, and a camera, and a telescope. Your eyes are like… super-eyes.”
“Yeah,” added Julee, “you’re like a super-hero. Introducing… the Incredible Mary Andromeda and her Super-Spectacular-Amazing-Eyes.”
Mary smiled. She imagined the island-giant, like a great big lovable cyclops, lying on its back and staring into space beside them. Mary Andromeda and the Amazing Eye, she thought to herself. She liked it.
As she fell asleep, The Amazing Eye continued to stare. Faint and distant specks of light entered it, one by one, and were caught in the camera, captured forever on a photograph.
Mary blinked… and her eyelids slowly closed… and soon she had fallen asleep and into a dream…
✧ ✧ ✧
She was in a desert; her sister was beside her. The sky was red. They trudged, hand in hand, towards a horizon of dark clouds that flashed with lightning. Wind picked up the sand and pelted it, like needles, onto her bare legs. Her dress flapped violently, and her hair whipped her face, and she struggled to breathe.
“Mary, where are we going?” Cassie shouted over the howl of the wind. Mary turned to answer but Cassie was gone. She looked down at her dress and it was still. The wind had stopped and Mary was standing before a massive steel door, with a rusted spiral letter ‘A’ pressed upon it.
She touched the door softly with her finger and it swung open with a creak. Inside was blackness. Infinite, unending, blackness. She stepped through the doorway and squinted her eyes and peered into the dark. She felt like the darkness was expanding, and like she was expanding with it. Gradually, points of light began to shine, one by one, like stars, lighting up, one after another after another, filling in the blackness faster and faster until all the lights together had turned the space completely white.
Then, in just the same way, points of darkness began to appear, like black stars in a white sky, one after another, faster and faster until the space was again completely black.
This same thing happened, again and again, black points in white space and then white points in black space, and faster each time, until there was no change at all between blackness and whiteness, there was only a still and solid gray.
Mary heard a seagull, and the sound of the surf, and smelled the ocean, and the grayness disappeared, like a fog lifting, and Mary was on a beach, sitting on a tree-swing. The sun was shining and a gentle wind blew against her face as she swung back and forth, and back and forth. She turned her head and beside her, chained to a rock at the base of a huge cliff, sleeping peacefully on the ground, was the princess Andromeda. Beside the princess, also sleeping, coiled up, was a sea-serpent, no bigger than a snake.
Mary felt something around her neck and saw that she was wearing a chain necklace with a large key dangling upon it, but the key wasn’t there, it was an empty hole of blackness shaped like a key. She stared at it, puzzled, wondering how she could use the key-shaped hole to unlock the chains of the princess when she heard her mother’s voice, gently calling, “Mary… Mary,” from the sea in front of her.
Her mother, with her straight blond hair and blue eyes, was standing, a few steps away, knee deep in the water, smiling and reaching out. Mary jumped off the swing and ran towards her with outstretched arms, splashing through the water, laughing, but with every step that Mary took, her mother moved farther and farther away, into the ocean. “Mom!” Mary shouted, “come back!”
Mary ran quickly back to the shore, hoping to reverse what she had done, hoping that when she turned around, her mother would be only a few steps away again, but when Mary looked, her mother was still out in the water, swimming and smiling.
Mary ran towards her again. But again her mother moved farther out to sea and began thrashing her arms like she was struggling to swim. Mary ran frantically back to shore and turned and ran towards her mother a third time. Her mother, far out in the water now, struggled and screamed, and soon she was gone, drowned, behind the rising and falling of the waves.
“Mom!” Mary cried, and the ground started shaking violently and the cliff rocks began to fall from above, crashing and crumbling on the beach. Then, there was Cassie again, standing a few steps away, smiling and waving in the shallow water, oblivious to the enormous boulder falling through the air directly above her head. “Cassie!—” Mary shouted out, as the boulder fell and hit with a sickening crunch.
Chapter 17
The Hidden Image
Mary awoke, sweat-covered and trembling. She looked around her. She was lying on the observatory floor; the light of dawn was overhead; Julee and Elliot were asleep beside her; the picture was finished. “Wake up,” she shouted, and hurriedly slipped on her shoes, rushed up to the telescope, and unscrewed the camera.
“What’s wrong?” Elliot said, blearily rubbing her eyes.
“Come on, wake up, let’s go!” Mary set the camera into its case, zipped it closed, slung it around her neck, and ran towards the door, grabbing her backpack on the way out.
“Mary, wait up.” Elliot hollered from behind.
Mary ran through the house and out the back door—past the sundial, past the garden rows, past the rock wall. She ran down the dirt path, holding the camera tightly. The vision of her sister, crushed under a boulder, and her mother, drowning in the ocean, replayed in her mind. She ran faster and faster.
She looked down and watched her legs flashing below her as she entered the dark evergreen forest. She scanned the trail for rocks and holes and roots. The great trunks of the towering trees rushed by her.
She ran—her sister crushed under a boulder, her mother drowning in the ocean. She looked up—there was the lake, just ahead, and the dam, and the cliffs—
She looked back down—her foot caught a root—she tripped—she flung forward—she flew through the air—hands outstretched.
She hit the ground and rolled—once, twice. Her arms and knees and shoulders and face plowed through the dirt.
There was a crunch and the sound of breaking glass and she slid to a stop. The camera was crushed, pinned underneath her.
“No, no, no!” Mary cried and frantically untangled the twisted strap around her neck. She unzipped the case—tiny bits of glass, like diamonds, lined the black fabric inside.
“No,” she gasped. She looked at her hands, they were covered in dirt and blood. She remembered falling from the tree swing, her mother washing her hair, washing the blood out, her mother’s beautiful naked eyes, smiling, the water running through Mary’s hair, washing the blood away. She imagined her sister, crushed on the beach, and her mother, gasping for air, arms flailing, drowning in the ocean.
“Mom,” she cried and began to shake. She dropped the case and hugged her legs and trembled. Twigs and pine-needles clung to her clothes and blood ran down her shin. She heard footsteps.
“Mary, are you okay?” shouted Elliot. “Mary, what’s wrong? Mary? Oh no—” Elliot ran up and knelt down beside her. “Mary, what happened?”
“It’s broken… the camera is broken,” Mary shivered.
“Oh Mary, your leg,” Elliot gasped, “and your shoulder.”
Mary’s right knee and shoulder were deeply scraped, covered in blood and dirt and pebbles that had buried into her skin.
“Oh Mary.” Elliot picked out a twig that was dangling in Mary’s hair.
“It’s broken, Cassie. The camera is broken. We’ll never find her. Never.”
Elliot looked puzzled and then reached her arms around Mary and hugged her. “It’ll be okay Mary. It’ll be okay.”
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Julee shouted from up the trail.
“Mary fell… she’s hurt…” Elliot shouted back.
Julee ran up to them and glanced over Mary’s wounds. “Let’s get her to the cave. Ben has a first-aid kit. He’ll know what to do. Mary, can you stand up?”
Mary nodded, and with Julee’s help, she stood slowly. Her left ankle throbbed and the skin on h
er right leg, shoulder, and face burned with pain.
“Can you walk?”
Mary put her weight on each leg. “Yeah,” she said, “but my ankle hurts.”
“Hold on to me,” said Julee.
Mary nodded. She limped slowly, leaning on Julee’s shoulder, while Elliot carried the broken camera. Ahead was the stone tower, vacant and lifeless. On its roof the magpie, head cocked to the side, watched Mary stumble forward. Crawk, it called once as they approached.
“Hello!” Julee shouted. They slipped through the crack in the doors. “Hello?” she shouted again. The lights turned on.
“Oh hey,” said Ben, surprised. He was lying on the cot near the wall. “You’re here.” He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. Henry was sleeping in a chair, slumped over, with his head on the table next to the computer.
“Mary fell. I think she sprained her ankle, and she’s scraped up pretty bad,” said Julee.
“Oh…” Ben looked at Mary and winced, “oh… yeah… just a second, let me get my first-aid kit.” He hopped off the cot and began digging through his backpack which lay beside him on the floor. “I have bandages and antiseptic and—”
“I broke the camera,” said Mary suddenly, “when I fell. I landed on it. I’m sorry.”
Ben froze and looked up. “Did you get the picture?”
“Yeah,” Mary said, “but it’s lost now.”
“Not necessarily.” It was Henry’s voice. He had awoken and was staring, wide eyed, at Mary.
“What are you looking at,” she snapped, “and what do you mean, not necessarily?”
Henry answered, still staring, his voice sounded almost… kind. “It’s not necessarily lost. The picture should still be there, as long as the memory card isn’t broken, let me see it.” He took the camera from Elliot.
“Got it,” said Ben, pulling two small white boxes from out of his backpack. He opened them and spoke to Julee. “Use the water purifier in the lake to clean off the wounds, and then spray them with this antiseptic.” He held up a small white bottle. “There’s all different sizes of bandages and gauze and tape you can use to cover up the worst of it.”
Mary cringed at the words the worst of it. She wished she had a mirror so she could see what she looked like.
“The lens has been shattered,” said Henry, “but the memory card is fine.” He reached for a cord and plugged it into the camera and began typing on the computer keyboard.
“Come on Mary,” said Julee, “follow us.”
Mary followed Julee and Elliot out of the cave and down to the lake. Elliot used the water purifier to pump clean water onto the cuts in Mary’s leg and arm and shoulder. To clean her face, Mary collected water in her cupped hands, and gently splashed it onto her cheek and forehead, which burned when she touched them. When the cuts were clean, Julee sprayed them with antiseptic—it felt cold—and taped large bandages onto Mary’s knee and shoulder and some small bandages onto her cheek and forehead.
“Does it look bad?” Mary asked when Julee had finished.
“Not too bad,” Julee answered, “makes you look tough.” She winked and gently punched Mary’s un-bandaged shoulder.
Mary smiled. “The picture!” She stood and limped as fast as she could back to the cave. Inside, Henry and Ben were sitting in front of the computer, staring at the screen. “What is it, what do you see?”
Ben wheeled around. “It’s a galaxy, Mary. There’s a whole galaxy. Look!”
There, next to the star of Andromeda’s right knee, was a clear and perfect spiral of lights. An entire galaxy. Billions of stars. It had been hiding, too faint and distant to be seen without the Amazing Eye.
“What does it mean?” asked Elliot from behind. “Is it another clue?”
Mary stared. She blinked. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It really was an entire galaxy. She had taken a real picture of a real galaxy. It had been right there in the sky, the whole time. It was the fuzzy spot she had seen two nights ago when she thought her eyes were just tired.
“Could it be… that simple?” Mary said. She took off her backpack, opened it, and pulled out the star-chart of the Andromeda constellation. She unfolded it carefully and lifted it up, allowing the fluorescent lights on the cave ceiling to shine through the paper from behind.
Something was there… something faint… something hiding… written in some nearly-invisible ink by Andromeda’s right knee. It was a drawing of a spiral galaxy, and a map, and a series of twelve strange symbols…
Chapter 18
Into the Dark
“Mary, what is it?” asked Elliot.
“It’s a map, and a combination… to unlock…” Mary pointed across the cavern, at the metal bars that seemed to belong in a jail and the black tunnel that led into the depths, where bats and glowing mice lived. She could almost feel the darkness seeping out of it. There was no moon-light or star-light, it was complete and total and utter darkness. “… to unlock that door.”
Elliot gasped.
“Wow, let me see,” said Ben. He stood behind Mary and gazed at the chart. “Yeah, it is a map… of the tunnel. See, there’s the cave, and there’s the tunnel entrance, where the metal bars are. There’s a whole maze of tunnels down there.”
“And here’s an X,” Mary pointed-out.
“like… X marks the spot?” asked Elliot.
Mary nodded. “Yeah. That’s where it is. That’s what I have to find.”
“It’s like a treasure map,” said Ben, beaming. “Hey, I have a flashlight, in my backpack. I’ve been wanting to explore that tunnel since we first saw it.”
Julee looked at him in disbelief. “Wait, you want to go in there?” she said.
“Sure,” answered Ben, “why not?”
Julee shook her head slowly. “Well you can count me out.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Elliot quickly. “I don’t want to go either.”
Mary looked Ben in the eyes—they were twinkling. She didn’t think it was possible to be so excited to enter a terrifyingly dark and scary tunnel, but his excitement gave her courage. “I guess it’s just the two of us then,” she said, and then glanced at Henry, “unless you want to go.”
Henry looked nervous. “Why would I want to go in there?” He scoffed and crossed his arms, and then he quickly stood up and left the cave, through the crack in the massive doors, without saying another word.
Ben began rummaging through his backpack and pulled out a small flashlight. “It’s ten LED’s, so it’s super bright.” He turned the flashlight on—it was very bright, so bright that Mary had to shield her eyes when he pointed it at her.
“Oops, sorry,” he said and turned the flashlight away. “Hey, can you walk alright?”
Mary nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Well.” He swung his backpack over his shoulders. “Should we go?”
Mary nodded again. “Yeah, let’s go.” She zipped her backpack closed, put it on, and holding the star-chart map in hand, she limped to the back of the cave, towards the metal bars. She imagined, waiting in the tunnel, the glowing red eyes and flicking tongue of the serpent, the serpent from the myth, the serpent sent to devour the princess Andromeda. She imagined it eating her whole, her hands clawing at the cold stone floor as she slowly slipped down the serpent’s throat. A wave of fear washed over her. The darkness of the tunnel was absolute. She took a deep breath. I can do this. I can do this, she thought to herself.
At the door, Ben held his flashlight behind the star-chart to illuminate the combination, while Mary spun the dial on the lock, one symbol after another, to match the sequence on the map. “These symbols look so familiar,” said Mary. “I know I’ve seen them before.” As soon as the twelfth and final symbol was entered, there was a soft click, and the metal bars swung open. The combination was correct.
Ben grinned with anticipation. “You ready?”
Mary took another deep breath. “Yeah.” She remembered what
Elliot had said, three days ago—was the door meant to keep something out, or keep something in? She hoped it was meant to keep something out. What if there’s something in there? she thought, and was immediately glad that she hadn’t said it out loud.
Ben directed the light inside—it lit the passage for a short distance before fading away into black. “The map showed this tunnel going down for a little ways, and then two tunnels branching off to the left, and then one to the right, and the X was in the second tunnel after that, on the right, after a couple of turns, in a long room.”
Mary looked at Ben with surprise. “How do you remember all that?”
Ben shrugged. “I dunno, I’m good with maps I guess.”
