American Prophet — Book Two — Chapter 2: The Map of the Sky Beneath
Teaser: In a broken observatory, an inverted “star map” turns out to be an old network mirrored under the crust.
The observatory sat like a broken crown on a low ridge. Half the dome had fallen in. The other half kept out just enough weather to leave the paint dry inside.
The wall was not a star map. Thomas said it out loud as soon as he saw the pattern. “These are nodes,” he murmured, tracing the lines with his finger. “Mirrored across the crust like a reflection in dark water.”
Naomi found a metal plate under a loose panel. It held shallow cuts that matched the spiral from the town. She rubbed chalk into the grooves. A phrase formed in the new script: Kalet en saren — Memory in the ocean.
“Can you read more than that?” Thomas asked.
“Only the stems,” she said. “Noun endings change with use. But the stems are simple.” She smiled. “It’s English logic dressed in old clothes.”
He powered a battered laptop from a hand crank and fed in the magnetometer’s numbers. The screen drew a faint web, then a brighter one. Lines crossed the continent, curved toward the ridge, and vanished into the sea.
A tremor moved under their feet—small, like a cough from the deep. Dust drifted down from the dome. Naomi placed her palm on the chalked plate. Warmth bled into her skin. The hum climbed a step, then another. The screen flickered.
“Careful,” Thomas said. “We don’t know what it’s tied to.”
“We do,” Naomi whispered. “The next place.”
The map’s lines brightened along a path that angled northwest. On the wall, someone long ago had sketched a second pattern over the first: circles stacked like a ladder. At the top sat a small triangle with three dots inside. She copied it into her journal.
Outside, thunder broke. Rain came hard enough to blur the ridge. They ran out under the split sky, laughing without meaning to, the relief of a clue singing in their chests.
American Prophet 