“No buts. If he can’t help us, he’l know someone who can.”
“Okay. But first …”
She jumped up and hurried from the room, taking the pyramid with her. “Hey, look,” said Eddie, holding up a reassembled black cube. “I got her back
together. The sides just clicked into place. Simplacious.” He started
prying at the edges. “But I can’t seem to get her open again.”
Jack showed him where to position his thumbnails but, try as he might, Eddie
couldn’t get it open.
“Here. Let me have that.”
He took the cube, positioned his thumbnails the way he’d shown Eddie, and
pried.
The box popped open.
“How do you
2
Weezy returned carrying the family Polaroid camera.
“Before we do anything, I’m getting some photos.”
She set the pyramid on her desk, knelt before it, and snapped a picture from
about two feet away. The flash lit the room.
Probably more light than this room’s seen in a long time, Jack thought. The camera whirred and spit out the photo. As expected, it came out blank.
Weezy put it aside to let it develop as she rotated the pyramid and—
“Lay that on the floor, okay?” she said, pointing to the unfolded box in his hand. He did, then watched as she snapped another picture.
“Okay,” she said, stepping back to her desk. She picked up the first photo and
frowned. “Damn.”
Jack stepped closer and peered over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” “I was too close.”
Jack wasn’t so sure. “Maybe. But funny how that pen lying right next to it is in
perfect focus.”
Weezy picked up the second photo: Same thing. And then the one of the unfolded box, where she hadn’t been close at al . The box pieces were blurred
but the rug around it was in perfect focus.
“Al blurred.”
Eddie came over and took a look.
“I don’t know about you guys,” he said, “but that’s creepitacious.”
Jack agreed, but didn’t say so. There had to be an explanation.
“Let’s try this,” he said, grabbing the pyramid and stepping back. He held it waist-high before him. “Take a shot of me holding it.”
Weezy did just that. The three of them clustered and watched as the image slowly took shape. There stood Jack, his head cut off by the top of the photo
frame. The Phil ies logo on his T-shirt was perfectly legible, but resting in his hand was a …
Blur.
He felt a chil run over his skin.
Beside him, Eddie said, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”
Jack couldn’t have agreed more.
But Weezy … she looked like she’d just found the Holy Grail. Her eyes shone as she clutched the photo and stared at it.
“We’ve found one!” she whispered.
“One what?”
“A secret … a secret object.”
Eddie groaned. “Your Secret History of the World again?”
She turned on him. “You like to make fun of me and that’s okay. Why should you be different from anybody else? But there
we know what’s happened in the past but we don’t. Most history books don’t even get the
Eddie snorted. “Oh, and you do?”
“I wish I did. But I know
events and everyone wants to believe they’re in charge of their lives but they’re not because we’re al being pushed this way and that for secret reasons
