A Million Worlds With You

  In my own dimension, Josie gave me a Hello Kitty alarm clock for my sixth birthday. It doesn’t get cooler than that when you’re six. Josie took pride in having picked out such a great gift, and the alarm clock remained one of my prize possessions until well after the age when Hello Kitty felt like “my style.” Even when I replaced it with my tPhone, I didn’t throw out the alarm clock. It’s still sitting in the back of my closet, serving as a makeshift dummy head for my knit winter caps.

  If Josie gave me the clock in this dimension, too, then Hello Kitty is about to get called back into action. So I shuffle to the closet and flip on the light to start rummaging around, then stop.

  My portfolio case has been jammed in the back corner, crumpled like paper, and all over the floor lie old canvases of mine. Frowning, I kneel to examine them. My first glimpse chills my heart.

  It’s a portrait of Josie—with the eyes scraped away.

  I keep going through them, and over and over, the destruction is the same. Josie, Dad, and Mom, their eyes or mouths or both missing from their original portraits. The mutilation makes their faces look hollow and ghoulish—the stuff you’d expect to see in horror-movie posters. At first I wonder whether this Marguerite made an artistic choice to deface her old pictures as a symbol of the destruction of her family. But then I see the tiny flakes of paint on the floor of the closet. No, this was done within the past day or two.

  In other words, Wicked did this.

  Last of all I find a self-portrait, very like one of my earliest ones back home. The me in the picture is even wearing a blue flowered T-shirt I still own. But her entire face is missing, scraped away so violently that Wicked’s knife tore the canvas in several places.

  She hates herself more than any of the others. Sitting cross-legged on the closet floor between my rows of shoes, I study each of the faces in turn. But why does she hate them? Does she just hate everyone? Maybe something went wrong in utero, and my brain didn’t develop into a normal person’s. Wicked might be a psychopath, only the shell of a human being. . . .

  But that answer is too easy. It lets me off the hook. If I’m going to beat Wicked at her own game, I have to understand her. That means I have to stop shielding myself behind all the ways I’m different from her.

  I have to face the same darkness Theo had to acknowledge. The same darkness Paul is doing battle with even now. I have to take a hard look at Wicked and learn what we share. I have to learn how the two of us are the same.

  So I try to imagine being the girl from the Home Office. Being me, there, in that dangerous, status-obsessed megalopolis, the daughter of two of that world’s greatest inventors. Why would that mess me up? I don’t understand how that would make me a murderer, but I can see how it would make me vain or snobbish. I can even see how it might distract me from my painting, or make me think less of it. In my own world, Mom and Dad have always encouraged me: buying brushes and canvases, convincing professors in the art department at the university to let me audit technical classes, and never once asking questions like But how will you make a living?

  In the Home Office, though, money is more than power—it’s also virtue. You are what you make. You bring cash value or you are worthless.

  So Wicked would always have been overlooked. Underappreciated. And when Triad chose Josie to be that universe’s perfect traveler, and Wyatt Conley even fell in love with her . . . she must have felt totally invisible.

  It’s not an excuse. It’s not even an explanation. But on a fundamental, inexpressible level, I know that I have finally seen something in her soul that might be like mine.

  The vandalized canvases lie across my legs, staring up blankly. When Josie died, both my parents and Conley became obsessed with getting back the splinters of her soul, because they believed that might bring her back. They plunged into this multi-universe conspiracy and became willing to collapse other universes. Josie eclipsed the other me even more completely after her death than when she was alive.

  The Home Office’s Paul told me my counterpart there was Triad’s most enthusiastic volunteer. Home Office Theo, less politely but maybe more accurately, called her a bitch. Now I see her doing everything she can to prove herself—braver, more ruthless, more unstoppable than even Josie had ever been, all for the sake of people she must have resented deeply.

  If she wins, what’s her reward? Josie returns to life to overshadow her once more.

  Wait. This happened three years ago? My eyes widen. This universe wasn’t a neutral one chosen at random—this was the one where their Josie died. When Wicked came here, she would’ve found my mom broken and depressed. She would’ve seen this house falling apart even though I was still here. Instead of having empathy, Wicked must have thought, See, I’m still not enough. I’ll never be enough for her. When she realizes she lost me too, then she’ll finally be sorry.

  It’s almost as if I can feel myself in the driver’s seat of that car, looking at the water. I’ll show her, Wicked would’ve thought in the moment before she stomped down on the gas.

  There’s more to it than this, I’m sure. Wicked’s glee in what she’s doing is still unfathomable and unforgivable.

  But I’ve gotten at the root. I know what drives her. Behind her endless malevolence is pain she can’t heal, no matter how many universes she tears down.

  Maybe the time will come when I can use this knowledge against her.

  Already I know that I have to start fighting back wherever and whenever I can every single time.

  “Mom?” I call as I walk toward her bedroom. I’ve spent hours mulling this over. The sky outside has started to lighten, hinting at dawn. “Mom, get up.”

  From behind her door I hear her mumble, “Marguerite?” I take that as permission to come in, and I do. When I see what her room looks like, I wish I hadn’t. It smells like unwashed laundry in here, and the other side of the bed—where Dad would’ve slept—is piled high with junk mail, crumpled socks, and a couple of used paper plates. Mom sits up from the rubble, scratching her head. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  “Mom, you do research on parallel dimensions, right? On different quantum realities?”

  She frowns in consternation. “I—you know I’m on academic leave—”

  “But that’s your field of research. Yes?”

  “Of course it was. Your father and I worked on that together.” Now she’s irritated. “Why did you wake me up to—”

  She cuts herself off the moment I reach for the chain around my neck and pull out the Firebird. “I’m not your Marguerite, Mom. I’m here from another dimension.”

  “What is that supposed to be?”

  “Look at it, Mom.” I sit beside her on the bed. “Look at the Firebird and tell me you didn’t make this.”

  “What the—” Her hands curve around the locket, and her jaw drops open.

  “You’ve invented the Firebird in several dimensions now.” For the time being I stick to the simplest part of the explanation. I’m not sure how much Mom can take all at once. “I’ve been traveling through several of them, and the Firebird finally brought me here. It brought me to you.”

  My mother says nothing. She just sits there examining it, not saying a word—until she starts making a sound I think must be crying. But when Mom looks back up at me, she’s laughing. “We did it,” she says, tears in her eyes and a huge smile spreading across her face. Thin and filthy as she is, suddenly she’s Mom again. “Henry and I. We did it.”

  I hug her tightly. “You better believe you did.”

  By the time we eat breakfast, I’ve filled Mom in on the essentials. Although we’re both exhausted from lack of sleep, I can tell Mom is awake again in a way she hasn’t been since Dad and Josie died.

  “You were acting strangely the past couple of days.” She sips from her cup of Darjeeling. “But never in a thousand years would I have suspected this.”

  “Did you ever work with a grad student named Paul Markov in this dimension?” I ask. “Or Theo Beck?” r />
  Mom shakes her head no. “I haven’t served as an advisor for any students since . . . well, since.”

  Both Paul and Theo probably enrolled in different graduate programs, in search of different mentors. “Do you have any former students you can reach out to who might work with you on this?”

  “Xiaoting, perhaps. She’s an assistant professor at Yale now. I’ve been meaning to call her—she emailed me, and I never got around to—”

  “Reach out to her.” Mom needs her support system back. Xiaoting and the other grad students who practically moved in with us over the years—they’d be a good place to start. “Get in touch with as many of your former students as you can. Soon you could make one of these yourself. Once all of this is over, I’ll see whether Paul or Theo can come to this dimension and talk you through it for a few days.”

  “And if I can figure out how to communicate through the dimensions, I might be able to move even faster than that.” Her expression is wistful. “It won’t be the same as being with my Henry and Josephine again. I understand that. But even knowing how they are . . . how they would be, if they were here . . . it feels like I can breathe again. Like I stopped breathing the moment they died but didn’t realize it until today.”

  I hug her tightly from behind, and once again look at the wilted, withered houseplants. “I guess I haven’t been doing so well either.” It’s not like I couldn’t have picked up a watering can once or twice.

  “No. We’ve buried ourselves in here together. I suppose we ought to find a new place. One without—one where we can make new memories.”

  Even the idea of moving away hurts her, I know. This house is more than a shelter and a place to put our stuff. In the deepest, best sense, it is home. But a person can have more than one home. “That might be a good idea.”

  Mom breathes in through her nose, out through her mouth—a sign she’s forcing herself to move on. “I’ll start working on cross-dimensional communications immediately. And I’ll know to watch for visitors.”

  “Come up with a security question, maybe. The others won’t be able to remember the answer, and if I need to come back here, I’ll always tell you who I am.”

  “Why did you decide to tell me?”

  “I’m telling all the worlds from now on.” My mind is made up. “At least the ones where I wouldn’t be burned as a witch for it. You guys have a right to understand what’s happening. Besides, the more universes that team up against Triad, the better.”

  The Triadverse itself is effectively taken care of. Conley kept the power and knowledge to himself there, and he’s dead. So far as I know, I’m the only perfect traveler left in the multiverse.

  We can take the initiative, I think. We can turn the tide.

  “Tell me again something else about how they are,” Mom says. “Just one more thing.”

  “Let’s see. Josie is considering taking up competitive surfing—part-time, so you don’t have to worry about her dropping out. And Dad was so psyched about getting one of those cars that parks itself. Was he as bad at parallel parking in this universe as he was in ours?”

  “Worse, probably.” Mom turns toward me and brushes one of my curls from my face. “When will you try to leave this dimension? I’m not trying to rush you, sweetheart, but I really can’t wait to talk all of this over with my own Marguerite.”

  “Soon. I ought to try now.” All my good intentions to keep checking through the night vanished when I had my breakthrough about Wicked. At least her more elaborate scenarios usually take a while to set up.

  “One thing,” Mom says as I take the Firebird in hand. “Don’t underestimate your will, Marguerite. Or hers.”

  I nod and hit the controls, expecting nothing—

  —and then it’s all I can do to catch myself against the tiles before I slip and fall in the shower.

  Hastily I take off the Firebird and put it on the nearby toilet tank. It’s endured being dunked in water a few times now, and Mom and Dad tried to make sure it was waterproof, but I’d rather not tempt fate if I don’t have to. Apparently I landed in this dimension mid-shampoo, so I pretty much have to rinse before I can do anything else.

  In some ways I feel cheated that I didn’t get to say more of a goodbye to my mother in the . . . the Josieverse. I have to stop relying on the opportunity for a longer farewell. My mom could’ve used another hug, more information . . . something. But what would ever have felt like enough? I couldn’t give her Dad and Josie back, but I gave her the best thing I could: hope. Maybe that will be enough.

  For now, I just have to figure out where I am, and why, and what Wicked’s done this time. Although hair-washing isn’t a supremely hazardous activity, Wicked wouldn’t have left this dimension without putting me at risk.

  This bathroom is really tiny, I think as I step out and wrap one towel around my hair before drying off with the other. Like it was in the Mafiaverse, when we lived in Manhattan. But there’s something about the fixtures—the oddly streamlined faucet, the unfashionable royal blue of the tile, the ten-kinds-of-shower-head—that makes me think this isn’t the United States. Sure enough, when I search through the vanity for some anti-frizz crème, the information on the back is given in both English and . . . is that Chinese? Japanese? Well, I’ll find out.

  Hanging on the bathroom hook is a simple white T-shirt, jeans, and a yellow silk kimono jacket embroidered with flowers and birds of paradise. It looks almost like one my counterpart had in the Londonverse; it was the only piece of clothing she owned that made me feel like we had something in common.

  My hands aching—losing their grip—the Thames below me—

  I have to save this one.

  As I get dressed, I take stock of my physical condition. I have no cuts. The house doesn’t appear to be on fire. What did Wicked do? Then I see something else in the vanity drawer: a bottle of Tylenol. I shake it and realize only one or two pills remain.

  If she were going to overdose, wouldn’t she have taken them all? But I can’t be sure. I wouldn’t put it past Wicked to know exactly how much it would take to overdose.

  So far I feel fine, but it might take a while for the medicine to kick in. Could medics pump my stomach if I warned them now, got started in time?

  I put my Firebird back around my neck, knot my damp curls into a bun at the back of my neck, and walk through a house I’ve never seen before—surprisingly large, given the tiny bathroom. Teak wood covers the floors, and the walls are all stark white. Following the sound of running water takes me into an enormous dining room, with a table long enough to entertain royalty but as cluttered as the rainbow table back home, and slightly different species of potted plants in the corners. Bamboo appears to be a favorite, its jade-green stems stabbing upward from squat, square pots with mustard-colored glazes. “Hello?” I call as I head toward what looks like the kitchen.

  “Have you decided to stop sulking and come down?” That’s my mother’s voice. I poke my head through the doorway to see her in teal-green yoga pants and a racerback tank, rinsing off plates before putting them in an industrial-size dishwasher that looks absurd in an otherwise normal kitchen. She smiles at me, with none of the pain and loss from that last universe, and it strikes me suddenly how beautiful Mom is when she’s happy. “Oh, Marguerite, it’s you.”

  I guess Josie must be in a bad mood upstairs. “Yeah. Hey, do you remember whether there was much Tylenol in this bottle?”

  “Only a dose or two left, I think. Why?”

  Wicked didn’t OD, at least not on this. “No reason.”

  Mom returns to her washing. “I don’t know what got into your sister this morning. Trying to sneak out of the house at dawn? What could she have been thinking?”

  Knowing Josie, she probably thought the surf was up. But then, Josie’s old enough to leave the house whenever she wants, and Mom and Dad would never try to stop her. Huh. Do I have a younger sister here? My memories of sturdy, obnoxious little Katya from the Russiaverse make me smile. “Not a
clue.”

  “Well, I told her she could come down for dinner, so I suppose we’ll see her soon. I do hope she’s managed to calm herself.” Mom sighs and smiles as she closes the dishwasher door. “Thank goodness only a couple of you ever lose your tempers at the same time.”

  “Um, okay.” The way she put that was kind of weird, but not worth getting into. I need to figure out what’s up with this Marguerite, not her bratty younger sister. Before I explain the whole story to this version of Mom, I’d like to know exactly what kind of help I should ask for first.

  So I continue exploring the house. In the kitchen, the appliances are all slightly odd—either too small or industrial-large, with rounded corners, and again the sink has slightly different fixtures that say we’re not in California anymore. We must be in Asia, I guess, but where? The dining room table is of course piled high with papers, on which are printed or scribbled equations that won’t tell me much. But wait—is that—?

  I pick up the Nobel Prize, a heavy disk of solid gold. Alfred Nobel’s profile stares into the distance, hoping humanity will remember him for this instead of the invention of dynamite. Mom and Dad had already won the Nobel in the Triadverse, too, which means this is the second dimension where I’ve seen one of humanity’s top accolades being used as a paperweight.

  “Heard from any alternate dimensions lately?” I call to Mom. If they won for inventing the technology, or at least proving their theory, she’ll know what I mean. That’s going to make this easy to explain.

  But when my mother appears in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, she’s frowning. “Sweetheart, are you all right?” She steps forward and puts her hand on my forehead. “You were asking about the Tylenol. Is that because you’re running a fever?”

  “No, I was just—I’ll explain in a minute.” Obviously Mom has no idea what I’m talking about.

  If they didn’t win the Nobel for learning about parallel dimensions, then what did they win it for?