I find it hard to believe that Kal’s room—home to one of the finest comic-book collections in all of The Realms, not to mention some really cool gadgets his parents have brought back from the more advanced civilizations—has any similarities to hers.
I wonder if it would be rude if I were to slip out now. Aunt Rae seems to have everything under control. I’m halfway through the president’s nose when Annika calls out, “Joss, I want to give you something.”
I groan and trudge back down the hall. Annika is standing in the doorway of the bedroom, which, I can’t help but notice, is pink and white with a frilly canopy over the bed.
Kal’s bedroom is definitely NOT normally pink and white with a frilly canopy over the bed. I should have figured Aunt Rae would have redecorated for her houseguest.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a rectangular object on the wall. It has images tacked to it—flat two-dimensional ones, of a house and a car and a baby and an airplane and many more. It’s in the same spot where Kal had taped up a holograph of one of his favorite bands. He had to trade a lot of cool equipment for that, so I hope wherever the poster is, it’s safe.
“If you must know,” Annika says, barely glancing at the wall, “it’s my vision board.”
“Vision board?”
“You haven’t heard of a vision board?” Without waiting for my reply, she goes on. “It’s a map for my life. You know, how I want things to go. I graduate with honors, go to college, get an awesome job, get married, have a kid or two, see the world.”
I stare at it, mesmerized. Plans for the future. I’ve never made any of those. The future just isn’t a thing here. It’s always so far away that there’s no reason to even think about it.
“Here,” Annika says, holding out a short, yellow chain. I recognize it as the one she had been nervously twisting earlier.
I force my eyes from the vision board and take the chain. Made of tiny links, it feels cold to my fingers, and hard. “What is it?” I ask, bouncing it in my palm.
“It’s my grandmother’s favorite bracelet. When she died last year, my father gave it to me.”
“Why are you giving me your grandmother’s favorite bracelet?”
She shrugs. “I feel bad about before. You know, about flirting with Grayden. My friend Jessica has a superhot brother, and it drives her crazy when her friends flirt with him.”
“That was flirting?”
She reaches out and snatches the bracelet from my palm. “I’ll take it back, then. It’s real gold, ya know.”
Actually, I didn’t know, having never seen real gold before. The Realms were formed long before stars started exploding and showering space with the heavier elements. We have samples of everything, of course, but not jewelry, as far as I know. I had liked the way it felt. So solid and smooth. “No, I’ll keep it,” I say, grabbing it back.
Or at least I try to grab it back. Sometime between my reaching and her pulling away, the bracelet disappears. I look questioningly at Aunt Rae, who shakes her head. If she didn’t do it, then where did it go?
Annika grins. “I’m getting better at controlling this dream thing!”
Aunt Rae and I share a doubtful look, but we don’t contradict her.
Annika holds up her wrist, then slowly lowers it. “Hmm, I figured it would have gone back on there.” Puzzled, she crawls around on the white carpet (Kal’s was black), then stands and shrugs. “I’m going to take a nap. I fully expect to wake up back home this time, with my bracelet back on my wrist. Adios, dream folk!”
“No dinner?” Aunt Rae asks her, clearly disappointed. She finally has a chance to feed someone who actually needs to eat to survive.
“No, thanks,” Annika says. “I filled up on junk food earlier.” She grabs a bathrobe from the foot of the bed and slips it on over her clothes. “Nice!” she says to herself as she ties the sash around her waist. “I thought I lost this belt.” She climbs into bed, turns her back to us, and instantly falls asleep.
Aunt Rae and I watch the lump in the bed slowly rise and fall, then tiptoe out of the room. “How is she breathing?” she whispers as we head down the hall.
“I wondered the same thing.”
“Strange times we live in,” she says. “So, can I interest you in an open-faced hot turkey sandwich, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce?”
I shake my head. I really have to get back to Gluck. As she walks me to the nostril, I ask, “Why do you think that bracelet disappeared? Is it because it was made out of gold? Like it wasn’t compatible with The Realms or something?”
Aunt Rae shakes her head. “If only that were the case.”
“Why, then?”
She hesitates before answering. “It’s because Annika’s grandmother is also gone now. I felt her go. So anything that belonged to the dear old woman would disappear as if it never existed. Which I suppose it didn’t.” She sighs. “I find the rules of time exceedingly confusing.”
Messing with the time stream is almost never done for that reason. “What do you mean, her grandmother’s gone? Annika said she died last year, right? So she’d be in the Afterlives, or at least her essence would. Or part of it. I don’t really know how that all works.”
Aunt Rae shakes her head sadly but says no more.
If you’ve never eaten while crying you don’t know what life tastes like.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer
I should be knocking on Gluck’s door right now, demanding that he explain why Annika’s grandmother is gone from the Afterlives, and convincing him I am not the man to fix all this. Instead, I am at my own front door because Mom has only one rule: Do not miss family dinner, no matter what. Oh, and I have to clock in whenever I come or go, because she insists it’s the only way she can keep track of so many boys. Even my father has to do it.
I stand in front of the face reader, and an image of my face is projected on all the view screens around the house. A cheer rises from the kitchen. It’s been like this every day of my life. It started because my mom felt guilty that all the brothers had someone they could boss around except for me. When I was younger, I loved all the attention that came with being the youngest. Now that I’m a teenager I could happily do without it. A glance at the wall shows me that everyone has clocked in except for Dad.
I hurry down the long corridor to the kitchen, passing the hundreds of childhood holographs that Mom displays on the walls. I avert my eyes when a picture of me in a particularly awkward growth period pops up. I plan to eat quickly and hurry back out. How am I supposed to be around my mother and not tell her about Kal? She always knows if something’s wrong. All I can do is try to act normal.
All my brothers are seated in their usual spots: Thade across from our father’s currently empty seat, then Grayden, Ty, Laz, Ash, and Bren. As the youngest, I slip into my seat at the end. Usually I’d start talking to Bren, who is the one brother I confide in. But now there’s so much I have to hold back. I give him a quick smile instead.
“You look different,” Bren says, studying me. Then he calls across the table. “Hey, Ty! Does Joss look different to you?”
Ty looks up from his plate. “He does have a certain glow to him.”
“That’s what getting his first girlfriend will do to a guy,” Grayden says before swallowing a big swig of liquid spice.
The others laugh. I should have known Grayden would tell everyone about seeing me with Annika. “She’s not my girlfriend!” I insist.
“Boys!” my mother snaps. “How many times have I told you not to tease your brother?”
They laugh again. We all know it’s a very high number.
“Four billion and three,” Thade replies. No one argues. Thade, the oldest, is never wrong. His calculations are always perfect. That’s why it’s his job to make sure all the planets stay in orbit around their suns.
“Exactly,” Mom says. “You think you’d learn by now.” She piles heaping spoonfuls of a brownish stew onto my plate. Mom has many talents, but
cooking isn’t one of them. Since we could eat once a month and get all the energy and nutrition we need, dinner is all about “family time,” or so she claims.
She takes her seat across from us at the table and beams at me. “So, Joss… when do I get to meet your new girlfriend?”
“Mom!”
The brothers laugh again.
She shrugs. “Sorry. It’s a mother’s job to care.”
I dig into my stew, despite the fact that it tastes like the sole of my shoe.
“Where’s Dad?” Thade asks.
I pause from chewing, surprised at the question. Thade isn’t yet a member of the PTB, but he always knows everything that goes on. Is it possible he doesn’t know that three immortals have been lost today? I’m not certain if I’m supposed to keep that a secret or not. I glance at Mom to see her response to Thade’s question. If she doesn’t say anything, then I won’t. Her eyes well up, but she quickly plants a smile on her face. It’s a familiar smile. It means “I really know more than what I’m about to say.”
“I’m sure it’s been a big day down at headquarters,” she finally says. “What with losing more than eight million different species from a single planet.”
We all stop eating at that. “Eight million?” I ask. I know there are millions of species in the universe, but I didn’t know one planet could have that many.
She nods. “And the inhabitants of Earth hadn’t even discovered most of them yet. Now they will never get the chance.” She squares her shoulders. “But I’m sure it couldn’t be helped. Rules are rules. The girl broke the fundamental laws of physics.”
Laz snorts. “Last I checked, the fundamental laws of physics don’t say anything about pulling planets out of time because they don’t want to deal with what might happen if people knew about us.”
Our mother throws him a hard look and he returns to his food. As the fourth son, Laz is in a difficult position. He’s not grouped with the three older boys, or the three younger, and his job (creating sunrises and sunsets) is a solitary one. He kind of gets forgotten about. I think that’s why he has these little outbursts sometimes. He likes to remind everyone that he’s here. Still, even Laz wouldn’t criticize Dad’s decisions to his face. Not even when Dad decided that everyone in The Realms should communicate only through hand gestures for nearly two hundred years. The novelty of that wore off very quickly, but we had to stick it out. Dad is stubborn and he never reverses an order.
The sounds of drumbeats begin to echo in my head again, like they had at Aunt Rae’s. I glance around to see if anyone else hears it, but no one shows any signs of it. I shake my head to clear it.
The awkward silence around the table is broken by Mom reminding me to drink more water. I gulp down my glass and stand up to leave.
Mom points to my chair. I sigh and sit back down. “Being assigned to watch after the human girl is a big honor,” she says. “I hope you let the PTB know how grateful you are for this opportunity.”
I think back. Nope, gratitude was not on my list of emotions.
“At least tell us what she’s like,” Mom says.
I throw up my hands. “I don’t know. She’s like any girl, I guess. Kind of weird. Talks a lot.”
“Is she pretty?” Bren asks.
Next to Grayden, Bren is the most girl-crazy. He’s also my favorite brother and the one who’s the nicest to me. Although right now I wish he would focus on something else. “How am I supposed to know? I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“She’s pretty,” Grayden confirms. “In a human sort of way.”
Bren chews thoughtfully then nods. “Head slightly too small for her body?”
“Exactly.”
“Freaky,” Bren says.
“Totally,” Ty and Laz agree. Thade refrains from replying because he is above this sort of thing, and Ash is too busy reading from the book hidden in his lap. He is the quietest of all of us, and the most studious. He’s the go-to guy for homework.
I stand up. “This is why I didn’t want to talk about it. Mom, can I go now?”
“Yes, go. Have fun with Kal, but don’t be home too late. Tomorrow is Family Picture Day.”
A groan rises from the table at the mention of the holographer coming over for yet another round of terrible pictures. I’d complain, too, if it weren’t for her mention of Kal. I stop in my tracks and look closely at her. Is she saying that to cover for me so the brothers wouldn’t find out? She may not be the warm, fuzzy, hug-you-till-it-hurts type of mother, but at some point during dinner she surely would have tried to comfort me. I was so busy dodging questions about Annika that the thought hadn’t occurred to me until now. There’s only one other option.
She knows what happened to Earth, but she doesn’t know about Kal or his parents. Dad didn’t tell her! I give a quick nod and run from the kitchen. Dad has a lot of explaining to do.
If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day.
—John Archibald Wheeler, physicist
Dad’s office door is firmly closed, and he won’t answer my knocks.
“It’s really important,” I insist to his secretary, Faye.
She continues to ignore me. Faye always ignores me. Truly, I could be on fire and she would continue to file her nails with her heels up on the desk.
I try again. “Life or death kind of important.”
“Sorry,” she finally says in that clipped voice of hers. “Your father gave strict orders that no one is to disturb him. He’s very busy.”
I stare her down. “I can hear him hitting golf balls out the window.”
She shrugs. “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.”
I glance back at Dad’s closed door, tempted to open it without her permission. She sees me looking and gives me a slight shake of the head. “Fine,” I say, defeated. “I’m going to see Gluck, then.”
“Suit yourself,” she says, waving me off down the hall. The thwack of the golf club hitting the ball out into space follows me. Dad’s usual stress buster is to visit the Afterlives and race with the winged Pelinata from Borga 3. The golf is in honor of Earth, no doubt. I wish he’d be less interested in honoring it and more interested in saving it.
I find Gluck sitting behind his desk stuffing the last piece of what looks like one of Annika’s marshmallow squares into his mouth. He sees me and quickly swallows.
“Made extra,” he explains, licking the sticky marshmallow off his fingers. “Want one?” He holds out the plate. “They’re quite delicious.”
I shake my head. “No, thank you. I really need to talk.” I begin to pace back and forth. Gluck’s office is not nearly as big as Dad’s, but there’s a nice view of the courtyard. Usually filled with samples of exotic flowers and plants from around the universe, it has been transformed into a minor-league baseball field. Inhabitants of The Realms can play every sport, but the ones with balls are our favorites. Every few seconds a cheer rises from the crowd. I am envious. They get to enjoy this human pastime, while I’m stuck up here with life and death at stake. Mostly death.
Gluck motions for me to close the door, then says, “I know you’re probably very upset over Kal.”
“Probably?”
“Okay, you’re definitely upset. And rightly so. Are you ready to get to work to get him back?”
I try to stand as straight as possible (Mom says I slouch like an old lady) and look him in the eye. “You have to find someone else, Gluck. I deliver pies. That’s my job. I’m not the right person for this.”
“Who is, then?”
“The PTB. My father. You! Anyone but me!”
He shakes his head. “As far as the PTB and your father are concerned, the case is officially closed. It’s back to work as usual. The consequences for viewing The Realms were dealt out, in a very sensible manner, I may add. Still, I was willing to nudge you in the right direction, but I’m afraid that’s all I can do. You must trust this decision was the best one. The only one.”
&nb
sp; I can’t believe everyone can just move on so easily! “Okay, let’s put Kal aside for a second,” I say, beginning to pace again. “What about his parents? They’ve supplied the PTB with information for millennia. Going from world to world. Filing reports. Collecting samples. Half of what we know about the inhabited planets came from them. Now the PTB’s just going to forget about them?”
“Of course not,” Gluck says, shuffling through some papers on his desk. He finds what looks like a blueprint and holds it up. “We’re planning this lovely statue outside in the park.”
I stare at the rudimentary drawings of Kal’s parents. They are wearing short ceremonial robes, like the kind the PTB wear to important meetings. Kal’s mother won’t even wear shorts when it gets hot OnWorld. She says her legs are too pale to be seen by anyone with eyes. Only an OnWorlder would think something like that. Still, I know she would never want to be memorialized this way. “A statue? That’s all they get? A statue?”
He crumbles up the plan and tosses it over his shoulder into the trash. “You’re right. It’s not enough. Look, Joss. If you want to fix this, you need to start soon. You have a big job ahead of you.”
I grip the back of the chair. “But I can’t possibly do what you’re asking. C in Planet Building class, remember? Sixth smartest out of seven brothers? That’s the same as second dumbest, you know.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not dumb, you’ve just never had to try. There’s a difference.” He leans forward. He could use a breath mint. “Look. Your brothers would have an easier go of this, I agree. But we can’t risk taking them away from their current jobs. That leaves you. Only the sons of the Overlord could possibly have enough power to achieve something on this scale. Plus, you’re the one who cares the most. No one else has lost their best friend.”
I rub my head. It’s still sore from when I tried to stand up under the table, and now Gluck is making it hurt more. I get the sense there are things he’s not saying. Doesn’t he know I don’t have any power? That’s why I’m stuck delivering pies! “What about Annika?” I ask. “She lost everyone, even if she doesn’t know it yet. And now her grandmother disappeared from the Afterlives. Did you know that?”