Gravity Rises (S3)

PP: Part One

WINTER 2013, JUST AFTER THE PORTAL OPENS

As soon as the gravitational anomalies ended, Andrew felt the change.

The minotaurs were huddled in a system of caves that ran beneath their village, with nothing but glowfly lanterns to light the caverns. They had been here for about eighteen hours; the elders had ordered everyone underground once the gravitational anomalies started. Andrew deferred to the wisdom of the elders (they had, after all, been alive last time this happened), but he was restless, and he knew the other minotaurs were, too. They wanted to get outside and check on their homes and see the extent of the damage from the gravitational anomalies. They wanted to take their calves (or, children) away from the sharp edges of rock that threatened to impale them whenever a new anomaly started. Their calves, too, wanted to get outside and run around.

Andrew's calves, he knew, were no exception. His wife, Moira, was busy trying to keep them still and check for injuries; Andrew knew that he should help, but he was too dazed. Gravity had returned after the last anomaly; and with it, something had changed. Andrew didn't know what had changed, exactly, but he felt dizzy and unsettled. He felt as if gravity were still missing, even though it had settled back to normal.

"Andrew? Andrew!"

It was Moira, calling his name. He turned, blinking rapidly, trying to focus on her and not on the strange feeling in his mind. "Yes?"

"Can you hold Timmy?" Moira held their infant son, Timothy, in her arms, and she offered him to Andrew. The baby was cheerful, despite the anomalies, and he held his little arms out to his father. Andrew silently took Timmy from Moira, and she hurried off to go catch their daughter, Naomi, before she could get into any mischief.

Andrew looked down at Timmy, and the strange feeling only increased.

"What is it, Timmy?" he asked softly, shifting the baby closer to his chest. "What's different? Why do I feel like this?"

In his periphery, he saw a sudden motion. "You feel it too, Papa?"

Andrew turned. His eldest son, Enoch, stared up at him with his round black eyes. "Feel what?" asked Andrew. He sat down next to his son, who was seated on the cave floor. "What exactly do you feel?" His voice was urgent; he wanted to know what was going on.

"I. . . I don't know how to describe it," Enoch said. He reached up and grabbed one of his horns, pulling on it as he did when he was agitated. "It's like. . . like everything sped up."

Andrew shifted Timmy into one arm, then reached out and gently pulled Enoch's hand away from his horns. "Do you have this dizzy feeling?" he asked.

Enoch nodded. "I don't like it. It feels like something huge just happened, but I don't know what it is."

"Right," Andrew said. "I feel like that, too."

Enoch moved closer to his dad and leaned against his side. "Is it just us?" he asked. "Is it. . . is it something to do with the prophecy?"

Andrew looked around the cave. It was hard to tell if anybody else felt the same way that he and Enoch did, as almost everybody was bound to be dizzy and unsettled after that last gravitational anomaly. Gravity had disappeared, then pulled upwards, then disappeared again. They were just lucky that nobody was, as far as Andrew could tell, badly hurt.

Still, nobody seemed to be affected by whatever had affected Andrew and Enoch. Everybody was up and moving, trying to find their calves or shake off the effects of the anomalies.

"I think it's just us," Andrew said. "Which means. . . it probably is the prophecy."

Andrew had one of the most important jobs in the minotaur village — in the entire forest, really. He was the principal guardian over Bill Cipher's prison. He knew exactly what Cipher had to do to escape from this dimension, and he was the one in charge of preventing that. Enoch, as the eldest son, was apprenticed to Andrew; someday, he would take over as the guardian. If Andrew and Enoch felt something magical or strange, and nobody else did, then it meant that something in Cipher's prison had changed.