The Multitude

by J M Fraser

  “I came as God’s version of a messenger.”

  “Doesn’t He believe in email?”

  “Go tweet Him and ask.” She turned her back on the crusty guy and took both of Brewster’s hands in hers.

  The world went into a slow spin. A kaleidoscope of images converged into a forest scene. The air grew damp and piney. Brewster looked down at a kneeling woman in a prairie dress and two bearded thugs holding their dicks in their hands, each dressed like a nineteenth-century frontiersman.

  The woman glared at the taller one. “I’ll bite it off.”

  The man unsheathed a sword, but Brewster barely registered the motion. With heart leaping to his throat, he gaped at… “Carla!”

  “No.” Abelia’s gentle voice drifted to his ears from a thousand miles away. “Her name here is Maynya.”

  The cosmic whirlpool latched on to Brewster again, sweeping him through its spiral and depositing him into a subterranean corner of the modern-day world—windy, acrid, chillier—a subway platform. A roar rose from somewhere within the tunnel, and the tracks hummed from the vibration of an approaching train. The lead car burst into the station.

  A woman lowered her head, ran forward, leaped in front of it.

  He caught a glimpse of Carla’s tight-lipped expression a moment before impact.

  His knees went wobbly.

  Once again, the wormhole snatched him away.

  “Open your eyes, Brewster,” Abelia said.

  “No. You’re killing me.”

  “You need to see the cause and effect.”

  The thick forest atmosphere closed in on him again. Although he kept his eyes shut tight, she somehow projected the images through the lids.

  As one of the frontier men lifted a sword to kill Maynya, the shadowy outline of another woman swept into her from above. The two merged as one, and thousands of screeching rats raced out of the brush from all directions. The other thug shouted and ran, leaving the man with the sword to fend off the rodents alone. He fell to the ground, lost his weapon, and skittered backwards until a tree trunk prevented further retreat.

  Maynya kicked him in the balls and fled.

  The scene faded. Brewster staggered back, but Abelia held fast to his hands. “Carla and Maynya shared a dormant power for casting illusions. When Carla killed herself, Maynya gained the ability to harness it—in this case, bringing the rats. One woman died so the other might live.”

  He clenched his fists. “That’s great, but I need to go back and stop Carla from jumping in front of that train.”

  “Because you love only her and have no feelings for the other half?”

  A new series of images burst before him, carrying the vague familiarity of remembered dreams—the bodies of two murdered settlers outside their burned cabin, a confrontation with bloodthirsty monks, and a woman, Adala, producing a sketch done in chalk. Brewster’s heart swelled with the identical love at first sight the soldier experienced upon glimpsing Maynya’s portrait. As if he were that soldier.

  “The two of you share the same soul,” Abelia said.

  “No. He’s an alter ego my crazy imagination kicks up when I’m dreaming, especially lately.”

  “Don’t deceive yourself. You know you never dream.” Abelia’s soft voice warmed his mind like a blanket. “You shift between realities. These memories have become more vivid recently because you share a blessed bond with Carla. Her aura has been pulling the two halves of your soul closer together.”

  The lighting dimmed. Brewster found himself in a wedding tent. And he knew everything that had happened as if he’d been there all along.

  “You were, Brewster,” Abelia whispered. “Or should I say Quintus?”

  In a sudden burst of motion, the frozen wedding guests sprang back to life. Orelea grabbed Maynya by the arm and pressed a knife against her throat.

  “Cut the witch apart!” someone shouted.

  “Burn her at the stake!” cried another.

  “No,” Orelea hissed. “The king should decide her fate!”

  All heads turned, but not to Albus. That cruel ruler had been rendered into salt.

  Everyone looked to him for direction—the dead king’s brother. Long live the king. He’d become Quintus, as he had in every Latin-speaking dream since his boyhood. Except this time, he was also Brewster—two sets of memories sharing a single head.

  The back of his neck prickled. He was no leader, just a soldier born with the wrong blood in his veins. If he found the courage to say what these people didn’t want to hear, they’d probably kill Maynya anyway and turn on him, as well. That thieving raider, Phineas, already had murder in his eyes. Whose direction would the other soldiers follow, the deceased king’s head of state or his disenfranchised brother?

  Abelia released his hands.

  The world brightened. He’d returned to the cemetery.

  Henry Stoddard’s psychic companion had tears running down her cheeks. “If you go back and prevent Carla’s death, Maynya won’t be alive in that tent. She’ll have died at the hands of the two barbarians a year ago, because she wouldn’t have been able to conjure the illusion to scare them off. Brewster, Maynya might be the messiah the people of Sanctimonia, Virtus, and all the lands beyond need so desperately.”

  “Wait. Let me process this.”

  “You and Quintus love her!”

  “What do you mean me and Quintus? We’re the same guy, right?” This concept of duality was as dizzying as if she’d swept him into the wormholes again. He never dreamed? For his entire life? His self-identity went beyond businessman and writer to include somebody who mixed it up with crazed monks?

  She nodded.

  A shiver of dread ran down his spine. He’d shared Quintus’s emotions in the tent—the man’s fear and uncertainty. His own fear and uncertainty. Did Abelia realize the full scope of the sacrifice required to ensure success against the angry mob? “You’ve shown me that if a host body dies, the two half souls converge, making the survivor stronger.”

  A shadow of worry creased her forehead. “You shouldn’t draw conclusions beyond the need to leave Carla dead.”

  “The premise is true, though, isn’t it?”

  Abelia wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  A half-baked notion had his hands trembling. “You want Maynya to live, but she’s gonna die in that tent if Quintus doesn’t rescue her. Do you really think he’s strong enough?”

  “He’s a warrior. We have to let things play—”

  Beads of sweat stung his forehead. No way could he summon the courage to kill himself, even with the absolute certainty that rather than die, he’d simply be shifting all of his awareness to a different head. But if he was with the woman he loved, doing it together with her… “Send me back to Carla.”

  Abelia’s eyes widened. “You don’t know what you’re asking!”

  Brewster closed his hands into clammy fists. “Yes, I do.” He turned to Henry. “Did you see the visions Abelia gave me?”

  Henry scowled. “She came to bring you a message. I’m only the fool who risked his life bringing her here.”

  Abelia lifted to the tips of her toes and planted a kiss on Henry’s cheek. “Don’t be hurt. Brewster may be the reason I came through the portal, but he isn’t why I might stay.”

  A slow smile brought some humor to his eyes. “Another schemer.”

  “And you’re a brute, but you rescued me rather than worrying about your own skin.”

  In a different time and place, Brewster might have been drawn in by the odd couple’s mating dance, but how long could his burst of courage last before he dissolved into a quivering mass of jelly? “Henry, I need you to send me into the past.”

  Henry’s smile faded. “Presuming I had such a gift, why would I use it?”

  “To set things right in Virtus. Don’t you see the destiny aspect here?”

  “Maybe I should introduce you to my friend Gabriella. The two of you think alike.”

  “We’ve already met.”

/>   “Then take your request to her. I’ll have no hand in changing history.”

  This guy was maddening. What could Abelia possibly see in him? “You’ve got it all wrong. I’ll be choosing, not changing.” Clearly events had multiple versions. The subway suicide he’d just seen conflicted with the story two witnesses told the cops about his involvement in Carla’s murder. And now he had a third iteration in mind, one that had sent his pounding heart into overdrive. He directed his plea to Abelia. “This is all about choice, isn’t it? Otherwise, why would you have shown me anything?”

  She again averted her eyes. “I’m a messenger, not a sage.”

  “Then what’s your message? I need your help, Abelia. Do the right thing.”

  She spread her hands and looked into the gap between them as if searching for a speck of an answer in sifting sand. “You think I know right from wrong? I’ve already turned a man to salt today.”

  Stoddard swept an arm toward the roses decorating his ancient wife’s grave. “Don’t worry, Abelia. If heaven casts you aside, I know an old man who might need a hand with his gardening.”

  “Thank you.” Some life returned to her eyes. She reached a hand to Brewster’s forehead.

  Before she touched him, he noticed the butterfly under her wrist. “I’ve seen that tattoo everywhere lately.”

  Abelia’s smile faded. “I’m part of a sisterhood. We’re supposed to bring grace, but I’ve carried only death this day.”

  She settled her palm on his flesh, and the world went black.

  CHAPTER 33

  Swept into 2012 Manhattan

  Brewster struggled against the worst case of fog-brained jetlag he’d ever experienced. He wobbled on his feet and clutched a lamppost to keep from falling.

  A wave of yellow taxis racing down the street quickened his pulse. He’d made it, right? The aroma of street-vendor hot dogs in a nearby stand sure screamed Manhattan.

  A man dressed in a business suit and sneakers hurried by, nearly elbowing him into the traffic. “Watch where you’re going, creep,” the man said.

  An icy wind clinched the deal. Early autumn had been unusually cold a year earlier. He and Carla had danced in the snow on Tug Hill.

  The low rumble of a train sounded below. The station had to be nearby. He spun around. Sure enough, a stairway led down. A row of newspaper machines displayed the front pages of The Wall Street Journal, Daily News, and New York Post. They all showed the same date, October 23, 2012.

  Did Romeo tremble like this before drinking the poison?

  And where was Carla, down in the station or still approaching? A neon sign flashing the time and temperature from across the street didn’t do any good. The cops hadn’t said anything about Carla’s time of death.

  Or had they?

  The immediate area sure seemed empty. That businessman who elbowed him had been the only person on the sidewalk. He turned to a commotion a block or two down—emergency lights, a crowd of gawkers.

  Barnes, the skinny cop, had mentioned a bus accident occurring when Carla died.

  Brewster leapt to his feet and hurried down the stairs.

  At the first landing, he saw Carla and Gabriella floating—not walking, floating!—hand in hand on the other side of the gates. They’d started down a second stairway.

  “Wait!” He ran up to a turnstile and tried climbing over the bar. “Carla!”

  “Hey!” A man’s voice came at him from off to the side. “Hold it right there, buddy!”

  He turned to a uniformed conductor standing at a nearby cashier’s booth. “I’m with that woman!”

  “Pay your fare or I’ll call the cops.” But the man barely moved. All bark and no bite, he seemed more interested in chatting with a pretty blonde through the bars of her cage than worrying about a misdemeanor. He muttered, “Must be another dumb tourist,” to the cashier in a loud enough voice to carry.

  Brewster held his breath and reached into his pants pocket where his wallet should have been. Who knew whether anything he’d been carrying in the cemetery had come along for the ride through time? He found the thing, whispered thanks to Abelia, and ran to a token machine on the wall.

  After three attempts to hurry a bill into a slow-motion slot, he managed to coax some tokens out of the machine. He raced back to the turnstile.

  “Doing it right?” the man yelled.

  A knee-buckling flash of insight nearly had him fumbling the tokens to the floor. The conductor and cashier stood as living proof the events in a Manhattan subway station on October 23, 2012, were fluid.

  The homicide cops hadn’t mentioned any witnesses seeing him on the landing, only the operator of the train down below and the passenger of a second train passing through the station in the opposite direction. Certainly, anyone in the vicinity would have been interviewed. These two should have provided their accounts, and they wouldn’t have waited a year to do so—further proof he and Carla could rewrite the script however they wanted.

  He whipped through the turnstile and ran down the stairs to the platform.

  The love of his life stood weeping beyond the yellow safety line with her arms wrapped around herself.

  “Carla!”

  “Brewster?” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  He gathered her in his arms. How much should he tell her? What did she already know?

  The clamor of a train rose from deep within the tunnel.

  She pushed away. “This isn’t how my dream goes. You approach from behind. I never see who you are.”

  “Nothing’s set in stone anymore.”

  “Oh dear God, I hope not. Gabriella told me I have to do a terrible thing.”

  Gabriella? The mere mention of her name frayed his nerves like nails grinding across a chalkboard.

  The train grew louder. The tracks hummed.

  Carla started to speak, sobbed, closed her eyes. When she reopened them, her expression had transformed to steely resolve. “She explained how I could only save Maynya by dying. And I’m Maynya. So I won’t be dying at all, will I?”

  The beam of the approaching train brightened the station.

  “I want you to push me in front of the train, Brewster.” Her voice shook.

  No. He’d jump with her. They had the perfect opportunity to escape this world and, in doing so, save Quintus and Maynya.

  A torrent of voices roared through his mind. Speaking English. Speaking Latin. His father’s voice. His mother’s. Quintus’s. His own voice as a child. Every priest and minister he’d ever known. They shouted snippets from all the lectures, admonitions, warnings, and sermons that had shaped his moral fabric.

  The voices went silent. Did he imagine them? An impossible ray of sunshine flooded the dank tunnel and bathed him in its warmth before rushing away so fast it had to be imagined, as well. His ears rang. His knees shook.

  What was happening? He clenched his fists. “I won’t do it.”

  “No?” She wobbled.

  Brewster grabbed her by the arm before both of them fainted onto the tracks. “You want me to push you because you’d never kill yourself. Suicide is terribly wrong and you know it. Guess what? So is murder.”

  Carla’s lower lip trembled. She broke eye contact and looked down at her shoes. “I’m fallen.”

  “No, you aren’t.” He took her in his arms again. “You’re trying to save Maynya however you can. We’ll find a better way.”

  “This is the only way!” The girl’s shout came at them from behind.

  Before Brewster could react, something shoved him forward. A force against his back far more powerful than any girl could muster. He lost balance, still holding Carla, and fell to the tracks with her.

  The train burst into the station.

  The brakes screeched.

  The world went dark.

  CHAPTER 34

  Limbo—a world without time

  Alive or dead?

  Heaven or hell?

  Brewster tried breathing.

  The sweet scent
of lilacs sent him soaring. He drew another breath, savored it, took in one more.

  Birds chirped. The voices of a woman and child came at him.

  He landed. The sensation of cold stone beneath him cracked the mood, allowing worries to creep into his brain like spiders. What had become of Carla? What happened to Maynya in the wedding tent? He opened his eyes.

  A Japanese girl of perhaps twelve sat on a marble bench, and a woman he’d met, Abelia, knelt before her on the flagstone path with head bowed, as if she were the child and the girl a scolding parent.

  He sat on a bench of his own, facing them and the stone wall behind them—a garden enclosure, judging by the idyllic scene of flowers and ponds visible through an unusual circular entrance.

  Closer to him, the two across the path contrasted like a princess and a scullery maid—an exquisitely garbed girl lording over a red-haired penitent dressed in a simple shift. The child sat straight-backed and proud in a blue-and-white kimono. Her dark hair had been fixed in a bun to bare a delicate neck. A blue mosaic butterfly rose from the bone holding the hairdo in place.

  Most likely, he was dreaming.

  If so, what about Carla? And Maynya? Timelines had reached a climax on each side of a portal, waiting for him to step in and set a new course. But he failed, didn’t he?

  Wavy motion drew his gaze to the garden again. A fountain bubbled just beyond the wall’s round opening. A willow tree waved droopy branches in the breeze. The images shimmered and blurred from the dance of butterflies—hordes of them—in the gateway.

  The nearer scene proved vague, as well. A conversation between woman and child seemed loud enough to hear, and certainly close enough, yet so distant he might as well have been viewing a stage act from the last row of the highest balcony. He strained his ears to make out the words.

  “What were you asked to do in Virtus?” the girl asked.

  Abelia sighed, long and deep. “Bring grace to Maynya.”

  “But what did you do?”

  Abelia reddened. “I turned a man to salt.”

  The girl caught Brewster’s eye. She shook her head.