Down | Tyrus

IV

Inside the clocktower is Buffy's home. The middle flight is the only one where her family lives. The other two have clockwork taking up much of the space. Her room lies beside her grandpa's at the end up the hallway. There are no windows, but the gas lights on the walls allow us to see. The wallpaper is distinctive to Buffy's house. It's been here for decades, lines of swirling golden flowers on a cream-coloured background. It might've been white at one point, but age has painted it differently. Andi, Jonah and Buffy sit on the floor with me, because I told them they should gather around. 

"Are you going to tell us about how you're hanging out with a Kippen?" Buffy says. 

"The pilot?" Jonah reacts. 

"His son," Buffy clarifies. 

"Wait, when did this start?" Andi questions. 

"A few days ago, he introduced himself to me when I was working with my mom," I explain, "but that's not what I wanted to tell you guys about."

"How did you become friends with a top-level boy?" Andi goes on, still stuck on the last thought. 

"I have no idea," I reply, "but I have something more important to show you."

I open my jacket and pull out the clear bottle that I've been keeping in there for the whole day. All my friends stare at it as I set it down on the wooden planks. The piece of paper lies curled up inside in the exact same position is was in earlier. 

"What is that?" Jonah asks. 

"I don't know," I say. "I found it when I was gathering water. It was just floating in the ocean."

"How did it get there?" Andi wonders. 

"I don't know that either. There was no one around."

"Well, what's the piece of paper?" Jonah goes on. 

"I haven't looked at it yet," I explain. "I need tweezers to get it out."

Buffy jumps to her feet immediately and dashes off down the hall, coming back in a few minutes with a pair of tweezers. She drops down to the floor and grabs the bottle. It takes a steady hand to precisely shimmy the rolled paper out through the tiny neck of the bottle, but soon she gets it, and the paper unfurls. She places the page down in the centre of our circle, and we all stare at it, but right away, I can tell none of it makes sense. 

It looks like something a child scribbled while bored. There are three line drawings, which each look like connect-the-dots games for images that don't actually look like anything. Mixed in with those is a brownish-green blob, with some dots and lines drawn over it.

..-. --- .-.. -..

On each edge of the paper there are other dot and line messes as well. 

. ... --.. .- -.- ..

-.- . .-.. . - ..

-.. . .-.. ..

-. -.-- ..- --. .- -

And in the top left corner, there is one more collection of marks. 

.--- ..- -. .. ..- ... / -....

It looks like this page was used to test the ink in a fountain pen before being used for something actually important. 

"Well, this is underwhelming," Jonah mutters. 

"No, it's not," Buffy says. "It's morse code."

"What?" Andi responds.