on the windowsill nearby. After a while, Walker picked up the mug as if he’d just happened to find it the way he found the other life necessities that came his way.
Fallon leaned down and raised the blanket.
Vera and Henry looked at the clock. They both appeared baffled.
“It’s just a clock,” Henry said, frowning.
“It’s actually a clockwork device that generates energy that interferes with light waves in the visible spectrum,” Fallon said. “Wind it up and when it starts to tick everything goes dark for a radius of several yards.”
Henry whistled softly. “Son of a bitch.” He looked up suddenly, eyes narrowed. “Looks old.”
“It is old,” Fallon said. “Late nineteenth century.”
Vera eyed the clock. “Are you telling us that it was designed and built in the Victorian era?”
“Yes,” Fallon said.
Henry shook his head. “What you’re describing is cutting-edge technology. If it came out of the vault, it must have been designed and built in a high-tech lab.” He glanced uneasily at Vera. “Like the other things down there.”
“No,” Fallon said. “It came out of the workshop of a very ingenious, very dangerous inventor who lived in the Victorian era. Mrs. Millicent Bridewell. Trust me.”
“But the kind of technology involved in such a device would have to be state-of-the-art,” Henry said. “Hell, beyond state-of-the-art. I don’t care how brilliant your Victorian-era inventor was, she would not have had access to the kind of advanced materials and algorithms required to design and build a machine that can neutralize visible light waves.”
“Mrs. Bridewell’s clockwork curiosities, as she called them, were not based on software programs or cutting-edge manufacturing techniques,” Fallon said.
Vera looked uneasy. “What are you saying?”
“The design of this clock is based on the principles of para-physics.”
Vera and Henry exchanged looks. Henry cleared his throat and turned back to Fallon.
“Are you telling us that the clock generates some kind of paranormal energy?” he asked.
“Yes,” Fallon said. “Vera and Walker are obviously somewhat sensitive to that kind of energy. That’s why they can feel the psi infused into the clock.”
Vera looked wary. She glanced at Walker. “It’s just our intuition.”
“That’s what people say when they sense something they can’t explain,” Isabella said gently.
“She’s right,” Fallon said. “Most people are reluctant to acknowledge the psychic side of their natures, but they’re usually okay with the concept of intuition. Scargill Cove is a nexus, a hot spot, psychically speaking, which probably explains how the clock, and whatever else is in the vault, got here.”
They were all looking at him now, including Isabella.
Vera tapped one finger against the side of her mug. “Do you mean the Cove is a vortex? They say there are some in various places around the world. Sedona, for example.”
“Similar principle,” Fallon said. “But a nexus is more powerful.”
Henry appeared reluctantly fascinated. “You want to explain that?”
No, Fallon thought. I don’t want to waste the time. But he had a feeling that things would move more rapidly if he took a few minutes to go through it.
“There are different kinds of nexus points,” he said. “Those like Scargill Cove occur where there’s a natural confluence of several kinds of powerful currents. This stretch of coastline happens to be a place where the forces generated by strong ocean currents combine with currents from the earth’s magnetic field and the energy of geothermal heat flowing deep underground.”
Henry frowned. “What geothermal heat? We’re not sitting on top of a volcano.”
“The hot springs in the cave out on the Point,” Vera said suddenly. “They’re the result of geothermal energy in the area.”
Henry reflected for a moment. “All right, I get that there are some powerful geophysical currents running through this area, but how does that translate into paranormal energy?”
“The paranormal and the normal exist on a continuum,” Fallon said. “There’s no hard, fast line that divides the two. Think of the light spectrum. There’s plenty of energy just beyond the visible range. Some birds and animals can see it and there are instruments that can detect it.”
“Well, sure,” Henry said. He squinted through his spectacles. “But paranormal energy?”
Fallon felt himself getting a little impatient now. Isabella gave him a tiny, quelling frown. He decided to take the hint. He needed Vera’s and Henry’s cooperation.
“Someday we’ll have the kind of instruments needed to detect psi, too,” he said. “But take it from me, power is power and there’s a hell of a lot of it running through the earth. In places like the Cove, where you’ve got a tremendous amount of geophysical energy flowing into a nexus,