For now, I think, remembering what the Home Office wants. What they might do to this dimension, or another like it.
A shiver passes through me. I stand up, righting my bike, because it makes me feel a bit stronger—but I don’t ride off yet. First I open a web browser and search for Paul Markov, physicist. The results light up immediately, and I smile. He’s here, at Cambridge.
He’s here. I’ll be with him before the day is out, maybe even as soon as I get home. I don’t understand why I don’t have any pictures of him yet—but maybe he didn’t begin grad school quite as young in this universe. Paul might be new here.
I’m going to make everything right, I think. If you ever thought I didn’t love you for yourself, Paul, you’re wrong. And you can help me figure out how to stop Triad.
Then I search for Theo Beck, physicist, because Theo should have jumped into this dimension right after I did. While I trust that Paul’s mercenary group in the Home Office meant what they said, I’ll still feel better after I’ve spoken to him. When the results come up, though, I frown.
Theo’s in Japan?
I email him, trusting that his leap into his other self will have woken him up. Sure enough, my phone rings only a few moments later.
“The hell?” Theo says, instead of Hi there. “I’m sleeping on the floor in some kind of group lodge. There aren’t even any beds—”
“That doesn’t sound like any Japanese dorm I ever heard of.” Not that I’m steeped in the legends and lore of Japanese dormitory life, but if their students all lived communally without beds, I think I’d have heard about it.
“Hang on. I don’t want to wake anyone up. Let me get out of here.” I hear some shuffling, and the sliding of screens. Finally, Theo speaks again. “Okay. I’m on a porch. Proverbial dead of night, and—hang on, there’s some kind of brochure or something out here in a few languages—holy crap.”
He sounds freaked out. My hand tightens around the handlebars of my bike, until my wrist aches and I have to relax. “What? What is it?”
“I’m on Mount Fuji.”
“How are you—” Giggles bubble up inside me. Some of the terrible tension drains away. “What are you doing climbing a mountain?”
“I do not know. But for some reason, I decided to do it today.” Theo sighs. “In related news, I’m not going to be able to reach you anytime soon. From your accent, I’m guessing you’re back in London?”
“Cambridge.”
“Got it. Is Paul there?”
The faint strain in his voice would be inaudible to most people. “Yeah. I mean, he’s not here right this second, but he’s at Cambridge too. I should be able to get to him today.”
“Good. That’s good.” There’s a long pause before Theo says, “Did you get any clarification on the collapsing-dimensions thing?”
Tension returns, a dull weight on my chest. “It’s true. In the Home Office, my parents think—you know, what’s a few universes more or less?”
“That is as effed-up as it gets. How close are they to being able to do it? They’d need a device that could move through dimensions like the Firebird, one that could affect fundamental resonance—”
He’s already theorized that far ahead. It gives me hope that we might be able to outfox the Home Office yet. “They don’t have the device, but they’re heading into tests. So not long.”
“Damn. Maybe I ought to head back home. The sooner I get there, the sooner I can tell Henry and Sophia what’s happening.”
“They need to know.” But it feels weird to say, Sure, fine, go on without me.
Theo’s been by my side this entire trip. More than that: I’ve realized how much more we can be to each other. Paul is the only one I love, but I’ve connected with Theo on an entirely new level. The friend I cared for so much before the Triadverse and the Home Office started screwing with our lives—I have that Theo back. And I’m so glad.
I can’t talk about any of that here and now. Theo wouldn’t want to hear it, not this way, not yet. So I say only, “If I don’t get home within twenty-four hours, come back and get me, okay?”
“Always,” Theo says.
The tone in his voice is supposed to sound casual. It doesn’t. Just beneath the surface lurks a kind of longing I still don’t know how to deal with—but I don’t have to. Theo hangs up without even waiting for my goodbye.
For a moment I stand there, staring down at my phone screen. I wish I could call him back; I almost wish I could say what he really wants to hear. But I shouldn’t, and I can’t.
Instead, I find the Maps app and plug in the address on my driver’s license. It’s time to go home.
My trip takes me along the side of the River Cam almost the whole way, so I’m able to enjoy the scenery and the new warmth of a spring day. Gripping the handlebars makes my right arm ache beneath the red scar, but I can deal with it. In this dimension, it seems we live in a Victorian town house not very far from the university and city center—not far over the river at all. Parked in front is an absurdly small car in brilliant apple green. At first the grand yellowstone edifice of the town house looks so much like someone else’s home that I’m reluctant to walk inside.
Then I see tangerine orange sparkle in one window: a suncatcher, dangling mid-pane just like it does at home. Reassured, I cycle up the driveway, lock my bike, and head inside.
The moment I open the door, I hear this strange jangling sound—and then a black pug runs into the hallway to greet me, all scrunchy nose and dangling tongue. Laughing, I duck down to pet him.
At last a dimension where my parents let us own a dog! I’ll have to figure out how this Marguerite and Josie managed it.
“Who is it, Ringo, buddy?” My father’s voice comes closer with every word. “Has Xiaoting come to see us—oh! What are you doing home already, sweetheart? Did the first showing sell out?”
He looks so like my dad back home, with his fusty cardigan and permanently mussed hair, that I want to melt. No more strange, crazy Dad manipulating and threatening the dimensions—just one like the Dad I know and love. “Yeah,” I say, having no idea what movie I was going to see. “I got there too late.”
“All right, then.” He gestures for me to come farther into the house, as Ringo the pug runs to his side, panting happily. “At least you’re here in time to tell Susannah goodbye.”
Sure enough, as I walk into the small but bright kitchen, I see my aunt Susannah, wearing a leopard-print wrap dress and her trademark fuchsia lipstick. My mother—looking entirely like herself—is nodding in genial incomprehension as Aunt Susannah says, “And if you’re not flying business class, I say, it’s hardly even worth it. Because in coach, you might as well be cattle, you know— Oh, Marguerite, darling? Back so soon?”
“The movie was sold out.” I stick to the excuse Dad supplied; no point in overthinking anything. Besides, I’m truly glad to see her. At home, it’s been years since we visited—but Aunt Susannah was my guardian and caretaker in the very first new dimension I visited, and after hearing about her death in the Warverse, it’s good to see her standing here, alive, well, and flamboyant as ever. “When do you leave?”
“Your dad’s driving me to the train station at quarter past. So I get to tell you goodbye twice!”
She holds out her arms. Normally I’d try to dodge this, but now I walk into her embrace and hug her tightly. Her overripe perfume has never smelled better.
Aunt Susannah laughs, surprised but pleased. “Aren’t you a dear? Henry, Sophia, you must send her to London with me this summer. We can go shopping for all the latest fashions, so you knock ’em dead at Oxford come fall.”
Oxford? I applied to the Ruskin School of Fine Art and got in? Pride and hope swells within me. If this Marguerite could get in, maybe I could too. I don’t know if they take students starting in January—but I could go to their next SoCal portfolio review and find out.
“I think a London trip could be arranged,” Dad says. “But if we’re going to make the si
x-forty-five train, you and I had better hoof it.”
“Right-o.” After a couple of pats on my shoulder, Aunt Susannah lets go. I’m surprised to feel a lump in my throat as she waves. “We’re off, then. See you soon, my dears.”
“Goodbye, Susannah.” My mother always has this look on her face when she’s around my dad’s sister—slightly overwhelmed, slightly confused—but in this dimension, there’s also a deep fondness.
Once Dad and Aunt Susannah go, it’s just me, Mom, and Ringo the pug. While my mother is busy putting together dinner—a Bolognese sauce by the smell of it, yum—I do some quick reconnaissance of the house. This looks like a place we’d live: books, plants. And my room is filled with oil portraits in a style very like my own back home. Josie, Mom, and Dad form a triptych on the wall, each vibrant in their own way. Yet I recognize the brushstrokes, the blended colors, the light. I could have painted any one of these myself.
Paul wasn’t just being encouraging that night we talked in his dorm room; he was telling me the truth. Have I really been selling myself short this whole time?
If I could get into Ruskin, Paul could do his postdoc either there or here at Cambridge. It doesn’t take very long to get to Oxford from Cambridge, or vice versa. We’d be able to see each other every weekend at least. It can all work out, if we only try.
So I don’t let it bother me that Paul’s portrait isn’t hanging on the wall.
What’s weirder is that my easel isn’t out. I don’t see a box of paints; when I look in the hamper, it contains exactly zero paint-stained smocks. (I’m supposed to wash them separately, but sometimes I forget, with disastrous results for the rest of the laundry.) I’m supposed to be starting at Ruskin soon. Shouldn’t I be practicing?
I head back to the living room, which is smaller than the one we have at home, but equally comfy. Plopping down on the overstuffed red sofa, I’m immediately joined by Ringo, who wants a belly rub. As I oblige him, Mom walks in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel. “There,” she says as she sits near me. “We’ll put the pasta on when your father gets back.”
“Sounds good.” If Paul’s a physics student at Cambridge, even if I haven’t met him yet, my parents must have. “Have you seen Paul Markov lately?”
My mother sits up straighter. “Have you seen him around?”
“I—uh, no. I haven’t.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” She scoots closer to put her hands on my shoulders. “Are you still upset? I don’t blame you.”
Upset? “I’m fine. Really.”
“You wouldn’t be asking after Paul, if you really were.” Mom sighs. “Your father and I begged for more stringent measures, but the university code is as clear as it is lenient. Technically, he’d broken no university rules. So we couldn’t expel him from the program. I almost wish we hadn’t already canceled the Firebird project, so we could’ve had the satisfaction of tossing him out of that, at least. But other professors are supposed to be working with Paul from now on! They should have kept him out of your way—”
“I didn’t see him! Okay? It’s all right.” It’s beyond weird to see my mother talking about Paul without a trace of affection, or even grudging respect.
What I see in her eyes is pure loathing.
She rubs my shoulder gently. “I promise you, Marguerite—I absolutely promise—Paul will never come near you again. Never.”
Just when I think I’m home safe, the whole world turns upside down again.
28
THIS TIME I GO THROUGH THE BEDROOM LIKE A FORENSICS team scouring a crime scene. Her closet is emptied out across the bed, every pocket in every coat or pair of jeans searched through. Each and every drawer gets inspected. The spines of each book on this Marguerite’s shelf, and the titles of all the ones in her e-reader, are reviewed. I learn a few things about her—she’s confident wearing heels, she shares my mother’s passion for yoga, she’s a bigger fan of the surrealists than I am. But I don’t find the stuff that would tell me what I want to know.
What happened with Paul?
No blog. No journal. I don’t keep those at home either, but why couldn’t this have been another way she’s different from me? The various apps on her phone show me the photos she’s shared, her latest updates; all of it looks much the way it does on my own phone at home, except that, of course, she has lots of dog photos.
When I scroll all the way back to January, I finally see a picture of Paul. In it, he’s sitting on our red sofa, Ringo happily in his lap. Paul looks completely at ease. At home. And now my parents don’t even want to see his face.
Slightly heated by the exertion of ripping up this Marguerite’s bedroom, I push up the sleeves of my sweater. When I do, beneath my thumb I feel the crooked ridge of the scar on my right arm. The scar seems darker now, which I know is my mind playing tricks on me because the ache has returned.
Well, if I can’t find out anything else about this world’s Paul, I can at least learn how to contact him.
A little time on her tablet turns up Paul’s contact information without too much trouble. The university lists his housing and his email address, at least his school account. With a flick of my fingers, I open a window to write to him, then hesitate.
Mom wanted Paul thrown out of Cambridge—the same guy they practically adopted in at least a dozen dimensions. Anytime my parents and Paul have wound up at odds, Paul was the one who drew the line between them.
The fourth and final splinter of my Paul is here, sheathed within the body of this other Paul Markov. No matter what he’s done, or what he’s capable of, I have to face him. We have to be alone.
Until then, I refuse to worry. During my time traveling through the dimensions, I’ve been kidnapped, held at gunpoint, bombed from the air, nearly crushed in a submarine, exposed to the Russian winter until I nearly died of hypothermia, and chased by a torch-bearing mob intent on burning me for witchcraft. Every time, I’ve kept myself together. Every time, I survived.
Whatever happens next, I have to believe I can handle it. For Paul, I will.
The email I send to Paul is simple and direct.
You and I should talk, soon. Are you free tonight? If so, let me know what time, and I’ll drop by your flat.
(At the last minute, I remembered to use “flat” instead of “apartment.”)
It would be easy to spend the next however-long staring at my in-box, hoping every second to see his reply. But that would only drive me crazy, and besides, Mom made spaghetti.
“Susannah keeps insisting we should visit her in London this summer,” Dad says as he covers his plate with more Parmesan than most people could eat in a month.
Mom looks nonplussed. “But we go every summer, at least for one or two of the plays. I think I read that they’re putting on Julius Caesar at the Globe in June.”
My father shakes his head. “Oh, no, she’s having none of our weekend jaunts. Susannah wants us for a fortnight at least.”
More than a weekend sounds like a very long time to stay with Aunt Susannah, let alone two weeks or however long a fortnight is. To judge by the sound my mother makes, she agrees. It’s kind of sweet that my aunt wants us there, though. At home, our relationship is so much more distant, because my dad and his sister are practically scientific proof of just how different two offspring of the same parents can be. I like that we all found a way to get along here.
As I eat, it’s tough to keep my aching fingers tightened around anything as slender as a fork. My mother is watching me, her face falling as she sees me struggle with my utensils. Quickly I change the subject. “I had the strangest dream last night.”
“Oh, really?” Dad raises an eyebrow in mild curiosity. At his feet, Ringo sits, panting, alight with hope that one of us will drop food.
I try to sound casual. “Yeah. In my dream, we all lived in San Francisco, and we looked and acted like ourselves but had these different lives—and then I realized, this wasn’t my dimension. I’d traveled to another dimension with the F
irebird, to see how we lived there. It was so weird how I knew the Mom and Dad and Josie I saw there weren’t you guys, but at the same time they kind of were. I felt like I remembered the whole house, the whole neighborhood, everything.”
Mom and Dad give each other a wistful look. “I suppose it might have been like that,” she says, idly twirling her fork in her pasta. “Sometimes I still daydream about it—truly standing within another dimension.”
“It could still happen,” I venture. “Couldn’t it?”
Dad sighs. “No point in going back to it now. The Firebird project might have been our greatest glory, but it could also have been our greatest folly. Better to turn our energies to more productive ends.”
Oh, come on. No way Mom and Dad would give up on their dream just because they thought it was impractical.
At least now I understand why Conley sent the final splinter of Paul here. Since the Firebird technology had been scrapped, there was no chance my parents would figure out what was going on—and no chance they could have used devices of their own to get him back home.
Then my mother says, “Sending information will be so much more useful than sending consciousness.”
I pause, spaghetti slithering off my fork as I hold it above my plate. “How, exactly?”
She looks dubious, and I wonder if I’ve exposed myself; this world’s Marguerite would surely know more about her parents’ current research. Instead, Mom says, “You’re right to insist that I keep explaining myself. If we don’t revisit our first principles, we run the risk of losing our way.”
Dad goes into professor mode. “Now, Marguerite, what do you know about information? What is the most peculiar thing about it?”
Maybe that sounds like a really broad question, but I understand what he’s driving at. “Information is the only thing we know of capable of moving faster than the speed of light. The universe knows things it shouldn’t know, before it should be able to know them. Like—like when a quark is destroyed, and another is created instantly to take its place.” Paul told me this, too, as we stood in the redwood forest, looking up into infinity.