Chapter 6 Gravity #2
As if pulled by a gravitational force, I return to the panoramic glass, finding Collins still engaged with Eugene-fucking-Prescott.
The breeze picks up, carrying a soft chorus of thunderous waves. Collins shivers, and I wonder if it’s from the gusty autumn air or the predatory gaze she senses lingering on her skin.
Every day, I sense the shadow darkening my mind a little deeper. Drawing me further into the clutches of some sinister influence. Like the woman silhouetted in the archway, unknowingly inviting danger, I’ve attracted something menacing and overpowering.
I curl my hand into a fist against the windowpane, assaulted by the echo of her near-touch that first day. It rings against my skull with a deafening tune, an infection seeping into my bloodstream the more I worry it.
On impulse, I sink my hand into my pocket and touch the brass instrument there, feeling the coolness of it as the breeze drifts past the open shutter to douse some of the heat gathered beneath my flesh.
Collins looks up as though she can, in fact, sense the predator in her midst. She says something dismissive to Prescott, and he gives her the full, arrogant wattage of his smile before he reaches out and clasps her hand.
My nostrils flare, my focus drilling to a pinpoint on their joined hands. A violence rips through my insides at the sight of his skin touching hers, my breath caught in the aching cavity of my chest until she breaks away and disappears into the depths of the colonnade to release me.
I expel a tense breath, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Fuck, this really isn’t healthy,” I mutter, bracing my palm against the window as I stare out over the campus.
Over the spires, starlings fly in rhythmic formation. Intricately timed murmurations roll like waves, each movement an echo of the ocean, traced across a twilight sky. Their pattern unfolds in flawless spirals and waveforms, as intimately related as the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence.
As if triggered, my fingers tap a compulsive count against the glass, innate as breath, easing the tension crawling beneath my flesh. Twelve beats to maintain some sense of balance and control.
From up here on the bluff, my observatory perched just below the highest spires, I feel like a god watching over his creation.
And Stonehurst is my creation.
A forgotten relic of academia, the university was in ruins before I restored Stonehurst Observatory, reinventing the astronomy department to become one of the most sought-after by investors.
In truth, we were both in a state of decay, this dormant carcass on the verge of collapse, my shambles of a career crumbling like ruins into the sea. Both neglected, forgotten. Destined to rot.
Once your name is touted to achieve extraordinary things and you fail—immensely—you’re swept aside, buried. Cast into the farthest reaches of oblivion itself.
While I do owe Leo for that lifeline, I’ve repaid my dues and then some. Besides, I had little choice in coming here. And his charity was hardly selfless.
Desperation can push us to take extreme risks.
My old colleague once cared more about breakthrough and discovery than impressing donors.
Now that Stonehurst is being recognized in a prestigious light, funding and acolytes pouring in, fresh blood infusing the dusty veins of the halls, he’d sell me out just to secure another wing for his institute.
His risk paid off.
Now I’m too great of a liability.
Jaw set tight, I turn to face the Hand of God, the name a nod to Feynman and his number obsession. At the center of the dome is the 14-inch Clark refractor telescope, gifted to the university over fifty years ago.
The tube of brass and precision-cut glass points toward the open shutter, supported by a balance of gears and counterweights of my own design.
I pull myself onto the aluminum ladder and adjust the mount’s controls, comforted by the familiar turn of gears.
A process I don’t have to repeat incessantly until it feels right.
Before I came here, the telescope was destined to be donated to a museum, Leo having nearly drained the department’s funds for the RC telescope. Yet I did more than restore the Clark—I enhanced it beyond its capabilities.
My hand glides over the tube, further chasing back the heated thoughts Collins stirred awake. This is the one place—the only place—where I find any peace from the intruding thoughts.
As if to mock me, an image flashes of her sitting on the bench this morning, her pretty teal eyes staring into mine as she licked her finger to turn a page in her book.
Feeling unstable, I spear a hand into my disheveled hair. A dark laugh escapes, nearly shocking me. No matter how advanced we strive to become, no matter how dedicated to our evolution, we’re still just these primitive, carnal beasts.
Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised by this development. If you deprive yourself long enough of any sustenance, your body will find a way to get what it needs—by any means necessary.
A dark current thrums along my spine as I descend the ladder and seat myself behind the console. Sliding my glasses into place, I toggle through my coded application and adjust the telescope’s position. A calming hum resounds throughout the room before the telescope locks into place.
As the sun dips below the horizon, I try to reclaim that rare peace.
Hours bleed away until darkness tints the windows, the reflection of lamplight killing the view.
My neck stiff, eyes blurry from monitor glare, I rub the scar below my hairline, bracing for the migraine already pulsing at my skull.
Frustration flares hot, and I shove away from the computer. Before I register what I’ve done, the chair sails across the room, crashing into the wall with a loud clang.
“Dammit.”
I tear off my glasses and drag both hands down my face. I then look up, searching for the stars beyond the darkened glass.
This, right here, is why the research team has to be relocated. Intrusive thoughts used to be just that—thoughts.
One second I imagined Prescott a broken heap on the ground—the next he was sprawled on the lab floor beneath me.
With a harsh exhale, I glove my hands and stalk toward the safety gate. Gripping the metal rungs, I scale the ladder and haul myself onto the catwalk and shove the door open, stepping onto the narrow observation deck that wraps the dome.
Inhaling a deep breath, I infuse my lungs with a cool, cleansing hit of salty ocean air and evergreens, dousing the fire in my chest.
The stars burn against a blanket of black sky. I can feel the kinetic pull, that dark energy capable of ripping atoms apart, a threat to my bones and organs, barely held together by that elusive matter.
On the misty shore below, waves crash against jutting rocks in a hypnotic, punishing rhythm. Crash and recede. Pounding the beach with the same relentless demand as the throb assaulting my head.
I reach into my pocket and retrieve the astrolabe, its compact design crafted to mirror the star-taker once used by ancient astronomers to decipher the secrets of the stars and planets.
A heavy pulse builds in my veins as my thumb sweeps the engraved ecliptic plate, tracing the calibrated dial. On instinct, my thumb moves to swivel the sighting vane on the rule—only to remember it’s no longer there. Jaw tight, I tap my thumb against the rete to offset the unease.
I turn my gaze toward the night, immediately pinpointing Orion. Three brilliant stars mark the belt—Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka—guiding my gaze toward a dimmer cluster of stars on the sword, where the nebula glows faintly, a wisp of white bleeding into the dark.
While the swirling hues of blue and green and gold aren’t visible to the naked eye, I’ve long since memorized its cloud of dust and starlight.
The same beautiful colors found in her eyes.
“Fuck.”
Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting.
My ribs strain beneath the crushing pressure of Leo’s words. Every day, the implications of my research war with the consuming gravity of memories. Fighting to hold onto them—to let go.
The cruel paradox that defines more than my work.
I lower the instrument, gripping it so fiercely the edges dare to bite past leather before I shove it into my pocket.
Then I’m clutching the iron rail, muscles tensed around bone and sinew. It’s just a thought—what if I jump—then I’m suddenly climbing over, my back pressed to the railing, my fingertips curled around the rough metal lip. The only solid thing preventing me from tumbling down.
Most people never act on their intrusive thoughts.
Most people allow fear to hold them back from doing the unspeakable.
Such unspeakable things haunt my waking world the way nightmares torment the damned.
I lean farther out, letting gravity grip me, the tips of my fingers giving an inch. Adrenaline floods the chambers of my heart, static frenzy setting my blood ablaze.
The rush is exhilarating. The possibility of letting go. Of surrender. Of gravity claiming me all at once with the bloody slip of my fingers. Sent crashing to the rocks.
Returned to stardust.
Through the howl of wind and roaring waves, a sound slices through the dark. Awareness prickles the back of my neck. I strain to see past the cliffside, my vision obscured by the dense night mist—until the sound comes again.
It’s unmistakable this time. A cry for help.
Not just any cry.
Hers.
Without fear to hold me back, I do the unspeakable.
And jump.