he’s a nice boy. I know his mom from the library. Just be careful if you are going to be running around out there. And don’t go without telling me or your uncle again.”
“All right,” she said rolling her eyes. “Ow! Hey. Did Dad call?”
“I’m sorry, hon. Not yet.”
“Well, he will tonight when he gets home from work. Ow! Where’s Gnat?”
“Nathan hasn’t left the couch or his video game all day.”
“Figures. Right now, I wish you had a TV.”
“There, I think I got all of them,” Aunt said as Olivia jumped down. “You know, Olivia, I’m really glad you are here. It’s been so quiet around here. You remind me of your mother when she was your age.”
Olivia stared at her feet. She didn’t know what to say.
“Go ahead and take a shower and use lots of soap to get any spines I might have missed,” Aunt said as she left the room, leaving Olivia to ponder how to turn on a shower with no knobs and only a nasty, old showerhead hanging straight down from the ceiling.
After dinner, Olivia skimmed the index of The Field Guide to North American Birds that she found in the bookshelf. B . . . Bobwhite, Northern . . . Colinus virginianus . . . page 47. She flipped through the book to page 47. A chill went down her skin. It was a picture of the brown chicken in the woods. Olivia quickly looked around. It was dark outside the windows. The witch could be staring at her right now and she wouldn’t even know. Gnat was sitting on a big overstuffed couch playing another video game. Cheeto was sprawled by the door. A huge colorful mask that Aunt said was from Bali stared over them all. It seemed so quiet inside. Safe. Weird, but safe.
Uncle came into the room. “Let’s have a story,” he announced.
“Eh –,” Olivia countered. Gnat didn’t move a muscle except for his fingers on the game.
“Let’s have a story!” he boomed. He walked over to Gnat and lifted the headphones off his ears. “A stor . . . y!” Uncle would not be denied. He jumped onto the couch between them. Something down deep in the cushions snapped.
“What I’m going to tell you is completely true and I’ve never told another soul,” he began.
4
Tesla Seeds and Wolverines
“When I was a young man, I was friends with a man named Nikola Tesla. He was a famous inventor, equally famous as Thomas Edison. You do know who Edison is right?”
Gnat stared blankly at him and grinned.
“You know, the inventor . . . ?” he asked again.
Gnat grinned.
“Just ignore him,” Olivia warned.
“Well, anyway, Nikola and Edison were rivals. Every time I turned around, they were both inventing something new and amazing. Edison invented the light bulb. Nikola invented the radio. Edison invented the phonograph, Nikola invented the AC motor. And on and on they went. They both wanted to be the greatest inventor to ever live. But more than anything, Nikola wanted to harness the power of the Earth and provide free energy to the world. He realized electricity could be distributed anywhere without wires and without bills from the electric company. Imagine that, being able to turn on the light without having to plug it into the wall! He thought Edison was just trying to make money instead of making the world a better place.”
“Then, one day, when I returned from a trip to India, Nikola was a changed person. He didn’t want to talk to anybody. He didn’t answer the door when I knocked. He had fallen into cavorting with mystics and priests from overseas. The newspapers said he was mentally ill and was obsessed with the number three. He became interested only in cosmic rays and telluric currents.”
“What are tell . . . ur . . . ic currents?” Olivia asked. Gnat grinned blankly.
“Telluric currents are the invisible magnetic fields that the Earth generates. Here let me show you.” Uncle walked over to a desk and rummaged through the bottom drawer.
“Ah, here it is. This compass points to the North Pole, see? Well, it turns out that it doesn’t really point to the North Pole, it points to the magnetic North Pole. The magnetic pole is the point of strongest magnetic output from the planet. The thing is, the magnetic pole moves. It isn’t a single place. It isn’t a place at all actually. It is an outpouring of telluric energy. The magnetic field around the Earth is a three-dimensional field, like a bird cage around the planet, only it never stops moving and fluctuating. The telluric field is that same birdcage flowing through the planet itself, underground and such. Energy flows out of the Earth at the magnetic poles, but it must return to the Earth. What goes up must come down, right?”
“A compass is only capable of reacting in two-dimensions, it isn’t an accurate representation of the magnetic field. You see?” He showed Olivia the needle spinning. “It only sees in straight lines. It can point you toward the magnetic pole, but it doesn’t show you the magnetic currents and waves fluctuating all around us. It doesn’t show you where the energy reenters the planet. It is like being in a submarine and only having a tiny window to see through. Everything you see is true, but it is only a very small piece of the whole picture.”
Olivia had a worried look on her face and raised one eyebrow. She was afraid to ask what cosmic rays were. She assumed they came from outer space.
“I’m sorry. I get excited. It will all become clear. Many months passed and Nikola wouldn’t see anybody. I left messages for him and nope, not a peep. Then, one day, I was shopping at the used bookstore, and I picked up an old book on the burning of ancient Alexandria’s Library. A tattered note fell out from between the pages. It read:
Meet me under the 2nd Street bridge, Eastside. 4 P. M. Nikola.”
“Who was this note for? How did Nikola know I would possibly find it? He had no reason to believe that I would be looking at that particular book on that particular day. I was filled with doubt and questions. It might not even have been my friend Nikola. Maybe it was a note left decades ago by another Nikola. But I did what it asked. And just as promised, at 4:00 p.m., Nikola was there. He stood in the shadow of the bridge and talked quietly. He looked exhausted and dirty.
“Nikola told me that he was being watched and followed, and warned me to be very careful. He needed me to do something very important for him and he would pay me all of the fortune that he had earned inventing over the years. He handed me two wooden boxes the size of shoe boxes, one marked ‘N,’ one marked ‘S.’ Nikola whispered, ‘These are the seeds. I need you to place the N at the Magnetic North Pole and the S at the Magnetic South Pole. Whatever you do, do NOT open either box until you are at the pole and ready to plant it. Also, you must go alone.’”
“I told him that this was a big job and would take me a year to complete. You don’t go wandering around the poles on a whim, you know. Especially alone. He then handed me an envelope with his entire life’s fortune. “I’m counting on you,” he said. “I am too tired and they are watching me.”
“What is this about? You are asking me to risk my life,” I asked.
Nikola’s eyes darted back and forth. He leaned in close to my ear, “There is a third pole, Harold. And it explains everything. They will kill you for it.”
“I wasn’t sure what he meant at the time, but for some reason, I believed him. Back then, it was my job to lead expeditions. I was used to actually helping someone else get to an exotic place. Certainly I could do it alone. It might even be easier because I wouldn’t have to haul some bookworm scientist on my back up a mountain or across a river of piranhas.”
“OK, Gnat. You are going to have to stop grinning at me like that. I haven’t even seen you blink in the last