The Forgetting by Sharon Cameron

Author:Sharon Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Now that I know what to do we get the little door open quickly. I felt nervous before, that someone might be behind me, inside the mountain. Now it feels like someone might be behind us at the pool. But I crouch down, holding the metal close to my eyes in the glow of the green light, calling out the numbers one by one while Gray touches the corresponding square. The false note of music comes each time he does. I get to the x scratched on the bracelet and pause. There are no options for letters on the green squares. But there’s still a 2 scratched after the x.

“What do we do?” I ask.

“I don’t know. There’s no room for any more.” The numbers of light have filled their space. Then the numbers disappear, exchanged instantly for a word in red: “Invalid.” I hear Gray suck in a breath. It’s uncanny, watching writing appear and disappear like that. Then “Invalid” is suddenly gone, replaced by “Enter Code.”

“I guess it doesn’t work,” I say. I don’t know whether I’m disappointed by this or secretly glad.

“Let’s do it again,” Gray suggests. “See if the same thing happens twice.”

His words “again” and “twice” shake my thinking. “No, wait. Not an ‘x.’ Multiplication. ‘x2.’ Times two.”

Gray thinks about this. “Push the numbers twice, or do we multiply it by two?”

“Can you multiply that in your head?”

“Not a chance.”

“Me neither. Do it twice.”

I call out the numbers and he pushes each one twice. Before we even get to the end the numbers disappear and the word “Invalid” takes their place, then “Enter Code.”

“Okay,” I say. “The whole thing, then, twice in a row.”

We do that, and when we reach the end of the black space, instead of “Invalid” the space just keeps receiving numbers. I call out the last number, 1, and when Gray pushes it, all the numbers fade to black. It didn’t work. I sigh, and then suddenly there’s a new word on the screen: “Open.”

We both turn to a noise, a clank that echoes over the roar of the falls. It echoes inside the mountain. And from inside the cave opening comes a streaking glare of pure white light.

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