Aeturnum (The Book of Adam 2) Read online

  “Have you read this?” she asked.

  Adam shook his head while Kevin nodded.

  “I’ve read the first four,” said Kevin, “but the fifth one has been gone from the library for a long time. I’m just waiting for it to get returned.”

  Adam looked at Kevin like he was seeing someone new.

  “What?” Kevin replied to Adam’s stare. “Didn’t think I could read a novel?”

  “No, actually, I didn’t,” Adam stated with a straight face. A few moments later, he smiled and chuckled a little.

  “So, why have you stopped in for a visit?” asked Elianora.

  Adam looked at Kevin and back to Elianora as he remembered why they were there. “Well, Gurpreet dropped us off here to talk to you about the symbol I saw in the Heartstone.”

  Elianora nodded, her expression looking more solemn. “I heard the old town truck, but thought it was Gurpreet coming to ask me something. I knew it couldn’t have been Don Chen because he’s away on holidays. I was surprised to hear you two walking up after it pulled away.”

  “You heard it from down here?” asked Kevin.

  Elianora nodded. “That truck is pretty loud, you have to admit. And the sound is quite distinct. The squealing brakes give it away every time.”

  Adam agreed with her.

  “So, why the sudden interest in that symbol again?” she asked.

  “Well,” replied Adam, “We were helping clean out George’s place and saw his drawings.”

  She nodded, her face showing understanding. “I didn’t think you would get a chance to see his drawings with all the work to be done there. Oh well.” She shrugged her shoulders.

  “What does it mean? Did George have something to do with the disappearance of the Heartstone?” asked Adam.

  Kevin nodded along as Adam spoke.

  Elianora pointed to a spot near her on the floor where the rocks were high enough to sit. “Come, take a seat.”

  They obeyed, and as soon as they were seated she began.

  “Do you know what the symbol of the Sentinel League represents?” she asked.

  Adam hadn’t really thought about it until that point, but realized it must have some sort of meaning. He shook his head.

  Kevin spoke up, “I can’t see what a bowtie has to do with anything I’ve learned so far.”

  Elianora smiled. “That’s because it isn’t a bowtie, contrary to what most people believe. Do you have your lapel pin on you?” she asked Adam.

  He shook his head. “I hid it because I haven’t needed it much since last year and I don’t want to lose it.”

  Elianora smiled. “That’s probably a good idea,” she said. She stood up and walked across the room, shuffling through a stack of books until she found the one she was looking for. She returned to her seat flipping through pages, stopping abruptly at one and turning it for the boys to see. It was a drawing of the lapel pin, still looking mostly like a bowtie to the boys.

  “Yes, it does look like a bowtie like this,” she said. “But, what does it look like when I do this?” She turned the book ninety degrees.

  It took a moment, but Adam couldn’t believe he didn’t see it before.

  “It’s an hourglass,” he replied.

  Elianora smiled and nodded.

  Kevin said, “Oh yeah, I see it too.”

  “Exactly. It is an hourglass, but it’s meant to be on its side. Any ideas why?” she continued.

  Kevin replied this time. “If you turn an hourglass on its side, the sand doesn’t flow anymore. Is that a symbol for time standing still?”

  “Very good, Kevin,” said Elianora. “Mankind came up with this symbol for us a long time ago, mainly because the Teneo don’t seem to age – therefore, our time stands still from their point of view.”

  “We had a class in school for a whole year and they said nothing about that,” said Adam. “Why wouldn’t that be one of the first things they teach?”

  “That’s because not everyone knows about it. If we had to teach everything that ever happened in the Sentinel League you wouldn’t have time for other school work.” She replied as she closed the book and set it on her lap.

  Adam felt as if she were skirting the question, but decided to let it pass.

  “So, now that we know about the hourglass on its side, what about that other symbol?” Adam continued to press for an answer.

  “That is another story in itself. It’s actually full of meaning, but I’ll give you the quick summary. The symbol isn’t nearly as old as the Sentinel League symbol, only about a hundred and fifty years or so. Anyway, somewhere in the early 1800’s, a group started forming within the Sentinel League made up of some of the senior members who were scientists and scholars in the organization. They felt that if they could study us, they could learn the secret of our long lives and use it to lengthen their own. They called themselves ‘Aeturnum’, meaning ‘eternal’, since they were looking for eternal life.”

  Adam nodded, having already wondered about the same thing in the past.

  “We agreed to let them examine us, and even went so far as letting them do experiments on us. They did everything they could at the time and came up with nothing. They even tried using our blood in transfusions on themselves, but it didn’t work. They found nothing unusual, and after years of trying, they abandoned the idea. Years later, in the mid 1900’s, we began testing ourselves and trying to unlock the secret to our health and long lives. So far, we have found nothing.”

  Adam was confused. “But the Teneo have all this knowledge and technology. You must be further along than us in medical knowledge, aren’t you?”

  Elianora nodded. “Yes, for most of history we have been, but Mankind has been catching up quite quickly in the last hundred years. Our last and best medical researcher was killed at that time, and none of the remaining Teneo are in that field, so we’ve relied on Mankind’s advances in medicine.”

  Adam had a thought, although it was off-topic. “How many Teneo are left?” he asked.

  Elianora raised an eyebrow. “Well, including Larix and myself, there are 11.”

  Adam was surprised at this low number. “How many of you were there?”

  “I believe you would like to know how many there were in total at the peak,” she corrected him.

  He nodded his head.

  “Twenty-six,” she continued.

  “That’s all?” asked Kevin, surprised. “Didn’t any of you get married and have any kids?”

  “Well, one of the costs of a long life seems to be the inability to reproduce. None of us were ever able to have children.”

  Adam was sad to hear that. From all the time he had spent with Elianora, he felt that she would be a great parent, like Kevin’s parents. It was a shame that someone so capable wouldn’t have the opportunity.

  “What happened to all of the others?” asked Kevin.

  “Well, when our home island disappeared there were 11 of us that disappeared with it. Three more have been killed by Larix directly and one more by the Heartstone indirectly.”

  “That one was the explosion in Halifax harbour, right?” asked Kevin.

  Elianora nodded.

  “How many were Decreta?” asked Adam.

  “Only five, if you include Larix.”

  The news was interesting to Adam, but he remembered the reason he was there and got back on track.

  “Why would a group whose concern is finding a way to have a longer life by studying the Teneo want an object that kills Teneo?”

  Elianora shrugged. “Well, it’s a very powerful object. Don’t forget, it wasn’t just used to kill Teneo. Larix was able to do many things with it, like making Mount Vesuvius erupt for instance. Many people would love to figure out how it works and make a weapon out of it. Even though Aeturnum began looking for a way to extend life, I’m not sure they wouldn’t want to build a weapon if they had the chance. In the past they have studied it in many different ways, from finding its effects on plants and animals to tryi
ng to find its power source and harness it for clean energy. It seems to regenerate on its own and leave no waste, so that would be a wonderful power source. On the other hand, though, it could be used to develop terrible weapons. Just look at nuclear energy. It is a relatively clean source of energy, but in the wrong hands it can cause massive devastation. Aeturnum has never been able to activate it as a power source, though, but they’d like to keep trying. So far, the only person who has ever been able to use it is Larix, and we don’t even have a hunch why.”

  Adam thought that sounded reasonable, but he still had questions. “So why would the Aeturnum symbol be stuck in George’s mind? Do you think he was part of stealing the Heartstone?”

  Elianora smiled and shook her head. “No. I don’t think he had anything to do with it. I’ve known him for most of his life, and it would go against his nature. He’s always been very kind and generous to everyone. Even after he lost his memory, his major concern was the safety of everyone in town – even if some of the kids called him crazy.” She looked right at Kevin, who hung his head feeling a little ashamed.

  “So, how did George lose his memory anyway?” asked Adam.

  “As you know, people who don’t make it as initiates have some of their memory erased. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, we have a very effective method of doing so. I won’t bore you with the details, but we can take a person back to just before the point in time they find out about the League. Usually it hasn’t been very long since they were initiated, so they don’t lose much time and it isn’t very traumatic. George performed the procedure on an initiate by himself and somehow it worked on George as well as the initiate. The initiate only lost a couple of weeks of memory, but George lost years. The funny thing about it is that it didn’t work perfectly on George. He still had parts of it floating around in his head. That’s what made him keep chasing after the Sentinel League.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell him about it again and re-train him?” asked Kevin.

  “We tried. Somehow, anything we taught George about the League would cause a reaction. It seemed that he would reset again whenever he learned too much about the League. That’s why we ended up putting him where he is and took care of him, letting him go about his business. Every couple of years he would learn enough about the league that it would cause a reset.”

  “So how come he remembers it now?” asked Adam.

  “The gas that Larix used to make everyone a zombie seemed to open a door to his memories. The mental blocks he had are going away with time. The gas gave Larix just enough of an opening that he was able to confirm that Grayson was one of the sites where we kept the Heartstone and that I was living here. It’s only been the past month that his memories have started returning and staying, though. I’ve been working with George to recover as much of his memory as possible since then, but most of it is still locked. I don’t want to overload him, so we haven’t discussed Aeturnum yet. It confuses him when some of the images come up, but he’s gotten much better at dealing with it. That’s why he’s back at his home now.”

  “But why would Aeturnum be bothering him unless he had some connection to it?” asked Adam.

  “You’d be surprised by what has bothered him. Whenever he has a panic attack I’ve gotten him to draw whatever is bothering him, and it’s been everything from a puppy to a toothbrush. None of it makes any sense. I’m pretty sure that it is just a random image that came to his mind, that’s all. He knew all about Aeturnum because they kept asking him for access to the Heartstone when he was Number 2, and before he became Number 3 he worked at our school teaching initiates about Aeturnum as part of our history, so I’m not surprised at all. You shouldn’t think too much into it either,”

  Still, Adam felt that Elianora knew much more than she was saying, but he decided not to push the issue. He nodded in agreement.

  “Besides, I’m not too concerned about it, so neither should you be. But since you’re here and we’re on the topic of the Heartstone, I have a little job for you.”

  Adam looked at her with curiosity. “Sure. What do you need me to do for you?”

  “It has to do with what I told you before I sent you into the tunnels when Larix first showed up here.”

  “Brutus?” asked Adam.

  His mind brought back the memory of that moment. Elianora was rushing them back into the tunnels when she decided to give Adam the strange instruction. “If something happens to me, go find Brutus in Killaly,” she had whispered in his ear.

  In the excitement of the moment, it didn’t seem that strange, but on second thought a year later he wondered why she had made the comment.

  Kevin looked confused.

  “Yes, Brutus.”

  “Sure. What do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to try and get an Impression Stone from Brutus,” she said.

  Now Adam looked as confused as Kevin.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to send one of the senior members to get it?” he asked again.

  “Gurpreet and Don have tried, but haven’t been able to get it. I think you might have more luck.”

  “Can’t you get it?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Possibly, but I’d like you to try. I haven’t been too concerned about it, because I know the message it contains.”

  “How?” asked Adam.

  “I put the instructions into it, of course.”

  That made sense to Adam. For some reason he hadn’t thought about it, but realized that someone would have had to put the instructions into the Impression Stones.

  “Now that Larix has been through every trap we have, the information on the stone isn’t that important, but they are rare and hard to come by, so I’d like to get it back to use again.”

  “So you think that I can find it?” asked Adam, unsure of himself.

  Elianora nodded. “It’s worth a try. If you don’t find it, don’t worry too much. The men have a baseball game in Killaly tomorrow, so I thought you could catch a ride with Gurpreet. I’ll let him know.”

  “I still don’t understand why I’d have better luck than the others,” asked Adam.

  Elianora paused and smiled. “I was getting to that. Everyone has talents in one area or another. You just happen to have a few talents that you might not know about yet. You see, your Grandpa and your Dad had mechanical talents like you, as well as talents with nature – the reason you have such deep connections with the Kurling stones. Your Grandpa is the one who hid the Impression Stone with Brutus to begin with and your Dad was the last one to give it back.”

  “But how does that make it easier for me to get the Impression Stone?” asked Adam.

  Elianora thought for a moment before speaking. “Because there’s a trick to making Brutus give it up, and your relatives could do it. You like to take things apart and try and build new things out of them, right?”

  Adam nodded, not understanding where she was going.

  “Do you find yourself visualizing the internal parts in your head sometimes before you even take something apart?”

  Adam thought about it again and nodded. It seemed natural to him.

  “Well, in the same way that you connected with the stones in Kurling, I’m betting you have the ability to ‘connect’ with mechanical devices – to understand them better than most, even with out taking them apart. I think that’s a key to getting Brutus to talk.”

  Adam had never thought of it that way before, but it made sense.

  “I need you to try something, though. You need to try and connect with a mechanical object in the same way you connect with a Kurling stone, but you need a couple of tips from me in order to do it. First, you need to be in contact with whatever object you are examining. Usually it is best to make contact with your hands as far apart as you can on the object. Next you need to close your eyes and really focus inside the object. Don’t push yourself into it; pull it to you until you are inside. As long as you maintain contact and with enough focus, you will ‘see’
inside whatever object you are connected to – at least, that’s the way I’ve heard it described. I’m mainly connected to nature, myself. Never had a mechanical knack. So when you go home today, find something and give it a try. Practice on a few things before you go to Killaly.”

  Adam didn’t know if he should be excited by the possibility he might have this talent or worried that Elianora had gone a little crazy.

  “So my dad was able to ‘connect’ with mechanical things?” asked Adam.

  Elianora nodded. “Yes. He was good at it. It was almost a curse though because any time anyone had a mechanical problem they called him to fix it immediately. Because he liked to help people, he had a hard time refusing. It annoyed your mother because he always seemed to be gone helping everyone else.”

  “Do I have any hidden talents?” asked Kevin.

  Elianora turned to him and nodded. “Everyone does, and everyone has talents in many areas,” she began, “but some people have deeper talent than others. Some find their talents early, while others search their entire lives and never find just the right one. I have no doubt that you are one who has deep talent in some area; I am just not sure which one yet. Your family line is deeply connected with nature – hence them all being farmers for the last few generations.”

  Kevin smiled after hearing this explanation.

  “So, can I count on you to try?” Elianora asked Adam.

  Adam nodded.

  “Good. And perfect timing too. Gurpreet is on his way back here.”

  Adam and Kevin strained to hear the truck, but could not. They looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Let’s go meet him. He’s only a few minutes away. I need to tell him something anyway,” said Elianora. She stood up from her chair, placed the book on the bookshelf and followed the boys up the stairs.

  By the time they were outside, they could hear a truck approach on the gravel road, then the squeal of the brakes, and finally the scraping of trees on the side of the truck. The rusty vehicle pulled up beside the group soon after.

  Adam and Kevin slid in next to Gurpreet and closed the door. Elianora was at the driver’s window, talking to Gurpreet.