Excantation Page 14

  “I don’t blame you or Grandpa for this.” I barely remembered my grandfather, as he’d died when I was seven, but I’d been his pride and joy. I remembered being absolutely loved by that man. “I know my father’s workaholic indifference didn’t stem from you guys.”

  “Are you truly alright with just…” She didn’t finish the sentence, staring at me in consternation.

  “Closing them out? I doubt they’ll even notice I already have. And yeah, I’m okay with it. I realize I wasn’t several months ago. So, this is something of a switch on my part. But back then, I didn’t understand why I wasn’t loved by my own parents. I kept assuming it was my fault, somehow.” I turned my head and gave Klaus a smile, as he looked worried too. “Now I understand it really has nothing to do with me. I’m a loveable person. I know this because I’m now surrounded by people who love me.”

  Klaus wrapped both arms around my shoulders and hugged me tight. “You are dearly loved.”

  I hugged him back, unable to suppress a grin that stretched from ear to ear. “I love you just as much.” Pulling back, I told them both, “I’d rather focus on the people who love me. I don’t have time to deal with people who can’t spare me the time of day.”

  Nana nodded, a little sadly. “I understand. And I can’t blame you. As long as you are alright with it.”

  I was, oddly, alright with it. Was I disappointed? Yes, but that disappointment was so old its edges had worn away. I was a little surprised by how apathetic I now felt toward them. Even a year ago, I wouldn’t have felt like this. But now? Well, now I had a father figure who actually invested in me. Now I had dear friends at my side. And that, I supposed, made the difference.

  Breakfast the next morning was pretty subdued. I think everyone had had high hopes that if we could just get into the Hub, we’d be able to figure it out. But that hadn’t really happened. Instead, we’d left with half the answers we needed and exchanged part of our questions for a new, more complicated set. Hard to feel like a success.

  Aisling sat next to me at the table, poking at her breakfast more than eating it. She seemed more interested in talking to me instead. “I saw the pictures and video you took, thanks for uploading that so quickly. It answered a few things for me.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?” I ate my porridge with happiness. (I was secretly glad everyone else chose to eat the waffles and left my porridge alone.)

  “The windows, for instance, told the story of how the Hub was built. They started construction on the ground, and then when it was complete, they lifted it up. The window illustrations weren’t clear exactly how or where, but it seemed to be between the material and aethereal plane.”

  I blinked at her, waiting for the punchline. “Wait. Wait, between planes? How is that even possible? I thought those two were pretty connected.”

  “Oh, they are,” Zoya pitched in from across the table. “Which is what makes it interesting. But apparently there’s a gap, too, a sort of void space between them. It makes sense of the controls I saw which demanded an atmospheric climate and perfect glamour. I imagine between the planes there is no suitable air for a person to breathe. And the sight would have been beyond alarming, almost panic-inducing. The glamour was there to preserve sanity. That it also induced the mystery of where the Hub was located was more side-effect, I think. But it was also how they drew such large amounts of aether to power the Hub. It was literally connected to the aether plane itself.”

  That imaginary hamster in my head had stopped running and now stood in a bewildered sort of daze. Too much of this did not make sense. “So…uh…asking the obvious question here, but how did they anchor it?”

  “That’s the thing we have no answer for.” Zoya made a face. “Jackson, James, you saw nothing to explain this?”

  “No,” James admitted heavily.

  “Not for lack of trying.” Jackson stabbed at his waffle with more force then necessary. “We were able to discover a few things. A cantilever support kept it sustained on all sides. We saw the spellwork for it engraved into the side walls. But we couldn’t figure out if it was tied directly into the foundational support. Trying to dismantle anything was like playing Jenga with pieces big enough to crush you.”

  Richard nodded in fervent support of this. “Perfect description, actually. It was all so warped, trying to remove even a floor panel often had dangerous repercussions.”

  “Is that how you guys got hurt?” I asked in concern. “I heard a few injuries happened after I left.”

  “That was part of it,” Aisling muttered sourly. “That, and the floor wasn’t as stable as it looked in a few areas. There’s weak spots, and I almost found one the hard way. I do not see how going back in is a good idea or will yield any answers.”

  “Not more than we already have.” James sagged morosely in his chair.

  Richard grimaced as he explained to me, “But I do think I know what went wrong with the building as a whole. You need a very strong material to span between supports to sustain a cantilever, and that means you must have a very large platform to work with. The building has to be able to support itself at the base as well as hold itself up vertically. From what I could determine, there wasn’t enough support to do both. Especially with such a tall, vertical spire, there’s going to be many lateral forces pressing against it. Any kind of wind event would push hard at the top of the tower, creating a tendency to tip the structure over. I don’t know how much wind factors in between the planes, but I assume there has to be at least some, at that altitude. And with the structure struggling to be kept right side up, it will start to bend under stress. The portion at the base of the tower needed to be quite strong so it wouldn’t deform under those stresses, and I don’t think it was. Too many windows and doorways compromised the strength of that connection point.”

  I think I followed this well enough. “So, the whole base of the building wasn’t strong enough for the weight at the top, is what you’re saying. It was too top-heavy and not supported enough, that’s why it twisted and wrenched sideways like it did.”

  “As expected of an Imagineer,” he responded with a wink, “you follow along admirably. That’s it precisely. I’m afraid the original building was doomed from the very beginning. It wasn’t built correctly. That said, the Hub showed amazing feats of engineering and magic working that leaves me in awe.”

  “Seo Ra Im is coming in tonight, and I want to do a seeking spell with her, see if we can find some blueprints.” James looked tired just saying that, as if he really didn’t believe he’d find what he wished for.

  Klaus cleared his throat, an attention-getter. “Might I ask why you’re so determined to find these blueprints? I speak from experience when I say building technology has improved by leaps and bounds over the centuries. What was cutting edge when the Hub was first built is very outdated now. Surely you can build a stronger structure.”

  Jackson nodded, although he had to swallow before he could speak. “It’s true, we can. It’s mostly the question of how they connected to all the platforms that we need answered. That, and Richard is correct—some of it’s ingenious. We don’t want to take away the good parts of the design.”

  Looking between them, James protested, “Hang on, you make it sound like we’re going to rebuild the Hub from scratch! I know it’s structurally challenged, but sure—”

  Exasperated, Aisling hissed, “Don’t be stupid, James. I told you yesterday, you can’t put a new tree in the tower. It can’t be grown in situ. We’d have to tear that building down completely to get a new tree in. After all the trouble we had yesterday in just taking a wall down, or opening up a bit of floor, you think the tower will come safely down?”

  James looked crestfallen. “No, but…Aisling. Think about what you’re saying. We’d have to build the Hub from scratch. The greatest achievement the Imagineers have ever accomplished in this world, we’ll have to build again. Do you know how insane that project is? How much work is involved?! I know we need it, that people have been
suffering without it. Especially in this day and age, with all the cameras, it’s hard for most clans to travel any sort of distance. But this is…this is just….”

  The adults did look overwhelmed by this, and maybe I didn’t understand the full scope of the problem, but to me, that didn’t sound like mission impossible. To me, that sounded like the most amazing opportunity ever. “You make it sound like the worst possibility. Like we can’t manage it.”

  James drooped, worse than a wilted flower baking in the Sahara. “There’s no way we can.”

  “Not with the people at this table, sure, that’s kind of a tall task to assign just us.” I gestured to everyone listening, feeling a little uncomfortable under this sudden spotlight. I hadn’t meant to challenge him. But I didn’t like this defeatist attitude, either. “But the original team that put the Hub together wasn’t a dozen people, either. They probably had a lot more help than that. James, why are you acting like we’re alone in this? We are so not alone. Do you know how many people ask me, on a daily basis, for view access to the Google Drive? How many emails I answer for people around the world, who are dying to know what’s going on? Hundreds, man. I’m talking hundreds. Everyone wants to be a part of this, the largest, most amazing project they’ll ever see in their lifetime.”

  Here I addressed the whole table, turning my head to look each of them in the eye. “Do you really think you’re alone in figuring this out? If we issued a call for help this very day, we’d have dozens of people knocking on Agna’s door by tomorrow. I guarantee this. We have the opportunity to work the greatest magic of an age, right now. And yeah, it’s not going to be easy. But that’s what makes it incredible, right?”

  “Imagination has no limit,” Zoya said and then chuckled, shaking her head. “Once again, my apprentice seems intent on reminding us what Imagineers really are. James. You should not look at this as what it is, but by what we can imagine.”

  He didn’t take his eyes from me, and I could see it in his expression. Closed doors in his mind slowly opened as he forced himself out of the mental corner he’d been lurking in. “With modern building techniques, it’d be easier to build a strong structure, that’s true.”

  I nodded, encouraged by this. That was the spirit. Come on, James.

  “I—” He paused, looking around the table as I had done, meeting faces that slowly smiled with newfound hope. “Oh bollocks, I don’t know what to do now. I thought us done, frankly. I didn’t see a good option. But she’s so excited to do this, and the more I look at Reagan, the more I think it’s possible. Not easy, no, but possible. What say you, everyone? Can we do this?”

  “I’d like to try,” Jackson confessed, practically vibrating with the idea. “I’ve a few notions on how to make it smarter. Can’t we at least ask everyone else, see if they’re willing to help? I think Reagan’s right, for the record. A lot of people are likely dying to chip in, put their own stamp on this. Let’s see how much help we can call in, before we decide this can’t be done.”

  “My vote’s on Reagan issuing the call for help,” Oisin threw in. “Agna, can I have some more of that ale?”

  I spluttered a protest. “Wait, why me? I’m not team leader.”

  “Cute girl always gets a better response,” Liam answered with a nod to his friend.

  I would have blushed at his comment if I wasn’t busy spluttering out denials.

  Liam ran right over my protests. “He’s right in that. I think James can back her up on this, throw in a word or two of support, but Reagan, you’ve more direct contact with most of these people than any of us. As you said, you’re the one they’re emailing to ask for information and permissions and such. It’s your name they know more than anyone’s.”

  Uh. Well, hard to argue that.

  “And you’re the one who feels most passionate about it.” James gave me a smile. “You’ve lit a fire under me, haven’t you? We’ll all be in on the call; we’ll pitch in too. But I want you to start us off.”

  “You keep saying call. Are we doing another livestream?”

  “I think it’s the best way, don’t you?”

  Now there was a loaded question for you. I was much more eloquent over text. Really.

  Everyone wanted to start the live feed immediately after breakfast, give people around the world a chance to respond. I emailed everyone on my distribution list a head’s up that we’d have a livestream update in an hour, then went and changed into better clothes. If I had to address most of the Imagineers and magicians in the known world, I was not doing it in sweats. Just, no.

  Not gonna lie, I was nervous about it, not really sure what to say. Did I just speak my mind? Explain what problems we had today? How do you address people like this? I sat down and sort of worked out on paper what I wanted to say. Notes to myself. I had to start over three times, which made me glad I’d started on paper first.

  Zoya picked up on my nerves, as did Klaus, and they both pulled me to the side of the living room while Jackson set up the camera and such.

  Zoya kept a hand on my arm as she explained, “Just speak clearly. Explain what it is we need, but also tell them how excited you are that you can build something with them. That we can do a major project like Imagineers of old did. That sentiment is what changed everyone’s minds. We don’t do group projects like that anymore, and there’s a fantasy wrapped up in that, of being part of something so incredible.”

  That sounded good. I liked the direction. “Okay. I can do that.”

  “And if you’re stuck, you don’t know what else to say, then just stop,” Klaus tacked on. “You can turn to James or Richard, ask them to clarify the situation with the Hub. They know more of the technical aspects than you, and it’s better coming from them, anyway.”

  “Also really good to know. Okay. I think I got this.” My stomach was wrapped up in origami knots and my mouth was as dry as any desert floor, but I could do this.

  That was code for I had no idea what I was doing but be prepared to be thoroughly entertained.

  “Okay, Reagan, room is open!” Jackson called to me. “Places, everyone. We go live in a minute.”

  I drank heavily from my water glass first, getting that dryness out of my mouth. Then I took my place in the middle of the living room floor. Everyone else was perched around me in various chairs, in sight of the camera, a visible stance of support. James perched on a chair nearby, ready to pop up when needed.

  Jackson gave me a three, two, one with his fingers, and then we were live.

  Oh god, why did I agree to this? I tangled my sweaty hands together, fingers knotting and hopefully out of sight of the camera angle. My face felt hot, but hopefully my golden skin tone disguised that. I swallowed hard and managed a smile.

  “Hi, everyone. I’m Reagan Hunt, Imagineer of Mononoke Clan. Thanks for joining in. I know it was short notice. I’ve got a bit of an update for you, and a request. But let me start with the update. It’s…not good news. I wish I could say otherwise. The Hub is a hot mess express. From what we can tell, it’s not structurally sound, and something happened to warp the very framework. There’s very little we can salvage. Worse, the main component that connected the platforms to the Hub disintegrated. I mean that literally. I was leaning against it when it fell apart at the seams and—” A cold chill chased its way down my spine at the memory and I had to swallow hard. “And I almost died because of it.”

  Okay, I should not have brought that up. Bad mouth, seriously, what were you thinking? I took a second, a deep breath, regaining control of myself. Don’t dwell on that. I was fine, after all, and I didn’t need to talk about that here.

  “We’ve had multiple injuries. We can’t even do any excavation work to figure out how it was built, that’s how bad the Hub is right now. It’s dangerous just walking into it. Guys, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we’re not looking at a renovation here. We’re looking at a rebuild. And that’s where my request comes in. We need you.”

  A bit of spark came back, t
hat feeling I had when I encouraged James and everyone else at breakfast. Because really, the idea of doing something this cool, it inspired me as nothing else could.

  “We need all of you. We want to rebuild the Hub, completely redesign it and do it again from scratch, just like our ancestors did. But there’s no way we can do it with this small group. We need every single person willing to come. I guess I’m issuing a call to quarters. Anyone willing to help, anyone who wants to be a major part of history, I’m asking you to come to London. And I hope you all do. I, for one, am really excited about this idea. How often will I be able to work major magic like this? To build something that’s going to stand for centuries? And I get to work alongside all of you. I think it’ll be awesome. So please, come. Let’s do the coolest thing of our lifetime. We’ll make history and have a blast at the same time. Jackson, can you throw up Agna’s address and my email onto the bottom of the screen?”

  “Done and done,” Jackson assured me.

  “So yeah, here’s where to meet. Email me please if you’re coming so we can plan for you. We don’t have a new design for the Hub yet either, but we have ideas of what we need. So come with inspiration, we’ll need it.” I was running out of words, so I took Klaus’s advice and just stopped. I turned my head and indicated to James with a wave. “Annnd that’s your cue, James.”

  He popped up and gave the camera a smile. “If you’re wondering why I asked Reagan to address you instead of me, it’s because I knew she’d be more eloquent than I would. She’s already given me the pep talk needed to ask all of you for help. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed over here, ladies and gents. It’s too much for us to tackle. I hope you all come. Not just druids, witches, and sorcerers, but anyone with architectural knowledge. Anyone who knows structural engineering, architecture, mechanical engineering, construction, any of that, please come. Invite people with those skills to come. We need to draft out a plan.”