Eternity's Edge

  Nathan folded the paper in half. Saving the airline passengers had brought more trouble, proving Patar's warning. The stalker's words, spoken while everyone else on board sat frozen, had penetrated his mind and locked in place. If these souls are cheated out of death, their escape will create more darkness than light. Take care not to stir darkened pools when you know neither the depth of the water nor the creatures that lurk beneath the surface.

  Nathan shivered. Patar was right again. Maybe it was about time he listened, put away his emotional attachments, and do what someone far wiser and more experienced told him to do. Without his father around to steer him away from a dumb step, he needed a word of wisdom, or maybe a kick in the pants, which Patar seemed more than willing to deliver.

  After topping off the tank and grabbing the newspaper again, he hurried back inside. Kelly hadn't come out, and with her eyesight still so blurry, he didn't want to leave her alone for very long.

  As soon as he opened the door, the clerk, sitting on a stool behind the counter, greeted him with a big smile. Kelly leaned against the front of the counter, munching on a stick of beef jerky.

  “Welcome back, Nathan,” the clerk said. “Kelly and I are having a very nice talk.”

  He laid the paper on the counter. “It looks like you're feeling better.”

  “I am. This lovely young lady explained everything to me.”

  He gave Kelly a quizzical look. “Oh. That's good. I guess.” Nodding at the paper, he added, “How much for this and the gas? The pump only registered about fifty cents.”

  The clerk waved a hand at him. “On the house. And more to boot.”

  “Drinks and snacks,” Kelly said, holding up a bulging plastic bag. “We're all set.”

  After getting back on the road, Nathan reached into the bag and pulled out a Dr Pepper. “What went on back there?”

  Furrowing her brow, Kelly swallowed the last bite of jerky before answering. “It was so weird. For a minute, she was all blurry, then I could see her clearly, but she was younger, with long jet-black hair. Then, she went blurry again. The whole time we were talking, everything seemed to fade in and out, even the store itself, like I was seeing two different worlds. But the other world was always clearer.”

  “Dr. Gordon must be right. The two universes are coming together. You're seeing into Earth Yellow, and it's clear to you, just like it is when you're there.”

  “I guess so.” She flipped the radio back on. The choir had already restarted their ghastly song, so she quickly assumed her translating position and planted her pen on the paper. This time, she squinted more than usual, cocking her head from time to time as if making sure she heard something right.

  Nathan drummed his fingers on the wheel. He ached to ask what she heard, but any interruption might ruin her concentration and make her miss something. He had to be patient and let Kelly finish. This was her job, her talent. She could do it.

  After about a half hour, Nathan's cell phone rang. While Kelly stayed glued to her task, he flipped open the phone.

  “Hello,” he whispered.

  “Nathan. It's Daryl … Daryl Blue. I can barely hear you. What's wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just have to stay quiet. What's up?”

  “Red's got something cooking. No voice yet, but she's going to try to send a text message to you.”

  “Wow! That was fast.”

  “Seems like it to us, but it's been months on Earth Yellow. She said she had trouble getting the parts she needed. With the whole world in a nightmare turmoil, it was tough getting anything done.”

  “Yeah.” He glanced at the newspaper in the backseat. “Trouble's popping on this world, too.”

  “All three dimensions are ready to crack. Dr. Gordon's been monitoring the news on Earth Red. Every nuclear-equipped nation has an itchy finger poised over the doomsday button. If we don't fix this thing soon, it's going to make Independence Day look like a friendly picnic with our alien friends.”

  Nathan heaved a sigh. “We're working on it.”

  “I know, but there's a new problem. I can't tune in the mirror at the Earth Yellow Interfinity Labs site. Dr. Gordon thinks someone might have moved it to make ready for the construction of the laboratory's first building, back when they were called StarCast. That means we can't go there unless your magic mirror does the trick. Plus, the time difference between us and Earth Yellow makes communicating with Daryl Red a real chore. Basically she has to wait for hours to get a response from me that takes only a few minutes. So, as soon as you get the text message, try to answer her. When she finally gets it, she'll have been waiting a long time.”

  “Got it. Talk to you soon.”

  Nathan closed the phone. Kelly looked up expectantly. After he gave her a quick summary of the call, she returned to her painstaking chore, straining to listen while squinting at her paper.

  A few seconds later, the phone chimed its text message note. Nathan flipped it up and punched through the menu silently, glancing at the deserted highway as he pulled the car to the shoulder and stopped. When he reached his inbox, he read the initial screen. Three messages.

  He began paging through them, starting with the oldest. Since each message had to be short enough to send in the cell phone's text format, he had to piece the three together to complete the entire note.

  “Nathan. News update. Tony Clark moved into Francesca's old house, and Gunther delivered the letter. Tony's making the bow and should have it done in a couple of weeks. That might be only a few days for you. Maybe hours. Who can tell? Anyway, I had to modify one of the original IBM PCs and use an asynchronous cable to hook it to my radio transmitter. What a pain! But at least it works. Daryl Blue picks it up and modulates it to a cell signal. Just reply to let me know you received it. She'll pick it up again and send it my way. I'll be waiting.”

  Nathan typed out a reply with his thumbs. “Good work. Will try to get there soon.” He sent the message and clapped the phone shut. After pulling back onto the highway, he squeezed the steering wheel again. The fate of the entire world — no, three worlds— waited for him to get a ten-foot-long bow that was being constructed by a teenager in another realm, take it to a ridiculously dangerous fourth world, and play an impossibly huge violin, all while saving his parents and three color-coded supplicants from death at the hands, or the voices, of the choir from hell. Could it get any more complicated?

  When they reached the final exit, just a few miles from the Earth Blue home, Kelly turned off the radio. “Okay, I have all the verbs and a few other words, too, and I had to mix them in with the nouns, but there were a lot of possible combinations. Here is one that makes some sense.” She licked her lips and held the paper close to her eyes. “‘Solomon lives. Location is square where music harmonizes. Key is circle of fifths. Sleep with interpreter. Follow dream in bedroom where Patar stalks.’”

  Nathan ran the sentences through his mind. At least now they had a real message, probably instructions from Abodah, the woman who had helped them in the misty world, but what exactly was she saying? As a rebel who worked secretly as Patar's ally, she was trying to hide her words from the others, but it seemed too cryptic. What could a dream in the bedroom be about? Patar had spoken during a weird dream there, but was it really a dream? And he appeared on the plane, too. He said something about giving a gift that could be used to battle Mictar.

  Patar's strange words again echoed in Nathan's mind. Take care not to stir darkened pools when you know neither the depth of the water nor the creatures that lurk beneath the surface.

  What creatures could he have been talking about? The supplicants?

  As Patar's words faded, Nathan silently formed the new sentence on his lips, repeating one phrase in a whisper. “Key is circle of fifths.”

  Abodah had to be talking about the musical circle, but how could it relate to the mirrors?

  “So,” Kelly said. “Got any clue?”

  “Maybe. Let's fire up the mirror and check out all the squares again.” br />
  When they arrived at the house, Nathan pushed the garage opener, but the door wouldn't budge. Obviously, the power outage continued. He parked in the driveway, helped Kelly out, and the two skulked toward the door. Nathan carried the Quattro mirror and his violin, while Kelly kept the camera on a strap around her neck. Clouds once again blanketed the sky, bringing a new chill to the air. As Daryl had indicated, summer on Earth Yellow had long ago flown by, and winter was at the doorstep. Could another snowfall be far away?

  Once inside the bedroom, Nathan restored the mirror squares to their original positions. Kelly held up the “Foundation's Key” music while he played it through. Instantly, the squares flashed with light, and, over the next minute or so, the reflection morphed into four hundred scenes.

  “Okay,” he said, lowering his bow, “what's the message again?”

  Kelly squinted at the back of the page. “Solomon lives. Location is square where music harmonizes. Key is circle of fifths. Sleep with interpreter. Follow dream in bedroom where Patar stalks.”

  He walked closer to the mirrored wall. “So we need to figure out which squares make a circle of fifths.”

  “I was supposed to learn about that stuff in music theory,” Kelly said, rising to join him. “But it got purged when my mother left.”

  “‘Foundation's Key’ is in C Major. The circle of fifths for that key will start with C-natural.” He pointed at one of the squares and shifted his finger from square to square in a circular pattern as he continued. “Then it moves by fifths through twelve notes, G – D – A – E – B – F-sharp, and so on. We have to figure out which square represents C-natural and find the circle in the mirror.”

  “How can a mirror represent a note?” She angled her ear toward the wall. “I don't hear any music.”

  Nathan lifted his bow again and played a long middle C. “Did that change anything?”

  “Not that I can tell, but I'm half blind. And I didn't hear anything but the violin.”

  He played every C possible, pausing after each one, but nothing changed. Some of the images showed country landscapes and deserted highways, others provided views of city skylines, and a few gave them glimpses of rooms inside homes with families huddling around fireplaces or storm lanterns. In one sparse living room, four wide-eyed children locked their stares on a father as he read to them in the glow of a single candle.

  Kelly moved a finger gently across the family's image. “They're so scared!”

  “Can you see them?”

  “Barely, but I don't really need to. It's like I can feel what they're feeling.”

  “Your interpretive skills must be getting stronger,” Nathan said.

  “I know, but sometimes it's a curse. I don't want to feel what other people are feeling, especially when they're terrified.”

  Nathan laid his hand over hers. “If we want to help them, we have to figure out what following the dream means.”

  She drew back and lowered her head, whispering, “It'll have to be your dream. I don't think mine will ever come true.”

  “Why not?”

  She shook her head. “Never mind. Let's concentrate on yours.”

  He tried to catch her gaze, but she kept her eyes low. What could be getting her down? What dream could be so lofty that it could never come true? Undo something in her past? Her mother coming home? Maybe one of those. But it was probably better not to ask. If she really wanted him to know, she'd tell him.

  He tried to infuse a bit more energy into his voice. “My dream is to get my parents back, but it seems like it won't ever come true, either.”

  “Maybe Abodah meant a literal dream,” she said, looking up at him again. “Maybe you have to go to sleep here, and Patar will stalk your dream. Then he'll tell you what to do.”

  Nathan's voice spiked sharply. “Sleep? Now? The universe is about to collapse and you want me to take a nap?”

  “What choice do you have? You've been awake for what? Thirty hours? And listen to you. Since when do you yell at me like that? You're exhausted.”

  Her words stung. He had been trying to squash down the tension, but it had just burst through. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You're right, as usual. It has been a long day. The Earth Yellow clock really messed things up.”

  “There's still enough mattress left to lie down on.” She pulled the ripped mattress away from the wall and laid it flat on the floor. “Now you have a comfortable place to rest. Why don't you just lie down and see what happens? I've had more sleep than you, so I'll stand guard.”

  Nathan eyed the mattress. He probably could fall asleep, and maybe Patar would come and pay his dreams a visit. He had done it before. But what if some kind of interpretation was needed and Kelly wasn't there?

  Thoughts of Francesca's dream flowed back into his mind. She believed that she and Dr. Malenkov had dreamed together by touching while asleep, but he never remembered it, so didn't that mean her theory might be wrong? On the other hand, one of the photos proved that her teacher stood behind her with a violin bow, but could he have just been a figment of Francesca's dream, not really there in a conscious state?

  Still, if Francesca believed it, she must have had a good reason. After all, this was the younger version of his mother. Her gift of insight far surpassed his own. Not only that, the message from Abodah said to sleep with the interpreter.

  But how could he do that? Sure, any touching would be innocent, maybe holding hands just to get the job done, but wouldn't even that kind of contact be forbidden in his father's sight? Wouldn't closeness on a mattress raise the temperature of his already simmering hormones? And what would Kelly think? He couldn't just ask her to sleep with him, could he?

  He took her hand and drew her closer. “My thoughts are really jumbled. Can you —”

  “Read your mind again?” She gave him a sly smile. “As tired as you are, it might put me to sleep.”

  He nodded at his violin, still in his hand. “Would it help if I played some music?”

  “Good idea. Just play like you did for Tsayad, something from your heart.”

  “Will do.” He raised his bow and brushed it softly across the strings. His mood called for something gentle, something that would communicate his innocent fondness for Kelly and his desire to treat her emotions with tenderness.

  Tilting her head slightly, she smiled and sighed, her glassy eyes focusing more easily than usual. The music seemed to warm her heart.

  For some reason Kelly's comfort and ease annoyed him. He pushed deeper into the strings. As if driven by an uncontrollable inner passion, he made the bow rocket back and forth. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, so fast he couldn't focus on a single one. They streamed from his frazzled brain directly into his instrument, flying into the air as a string of music, melodic at first, then tortured and dissonant.

  Kelly's smile faded. After several seconds, she blinked twice and turned her head.

  Nathan stopped playing. His chest heaving through labored breaths, he coughed out his words. “What's wrong?”

  She swiveled back. A tear moistened her cheek as she looked him in the eye again. “I … I'm not a harlot.”

  Nathan stiffened, but he managed to keep his face calm. “I know you're not. I've never thought that.”

  “Then your music tells lies.”

  He let the violin droop at his side. “Mictar said that, not me. Maybe I'm just mad at him.”

  Kelly shook her head. “You believed him. You think I'm not good enough for you.” She sniffed, and her voice cracked. “And maybe … maybe you're right. You need a sweet little princess who's as white as snow.”

  “Look.” Nathan raised his bow but resisted the urge to point it at her. “I'm not going to lie to you. The stuff I heard bothered me, but it's in the past.”

  “You'd like to think so, but in your eyes I'm damaged goods.”

  “Damaged goods? Did you hear that in my music?”

  She nodded. “And now … now you want us to sleep t
ogether.” Biting her bottom lip, she crossed her arms and turned away. “I promised myself I wasn't ever going to make the same mistakes again. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

  He touched her arm but thought better of pulling her around. “But it's just so we can dream together. Nothing else is going to happen.”

  She turned back, her cheeks ablaze. “Nathan Shepherd, don't pretend you know what it's like. You were raised in a protective dome. You've probably never even kissed a girl. You have no idea how it feels when the lights go out and …” Her cheeks turning redder than ever, she looked away. “Never mind. You wouldn't understand unless you've been there.”

  He set a gentle finger on her chin. This time he turned her face toward him and looked her in the eye. “You're right. I don't understand. But this much I do know.” He paused, hoping the words would come out with all the strength and resolve he felt inside. “You can trust me. No matter what happens, you can trust me.”

  As new tears welled in her eyes, her lower lip quivered. “I trust you. I … I just don't trust myself.”

  Nathan pulled back his hand. “Then I'll have to be strong enough for both of us.” He sat on the floor and patted the mattress. “You get the comfy spot, and I'll sleep down here. We can hold hands and stay apart at the same time.”

  With a doubtful look, she lowered herself to the mattress and lay down. She curled up and faced him, one hand extended. “Okay, Nathan. I'll trust you … for both of us.”

  As he lay down, he touched her fingers. The light in the room faded, leaving only her body's silhouette, the bare outline of her facial features, and her shining eyes in view. After a minute or so, her lips puckered slightly as she spoke again.

  “Have you ever kissed a girl, Nathan?”