The Light Between Us

by Katie Khan

  ‘We?’

  ‘Ayo, Urvisha and me. We’ve been working as a team – trying to piece together the timeline.’

  Thea swings her legs, watching the laces of her walking boots catch the wind. ‘And Rosy?’ she says.

  There’s no way around this one. ‘Rosy is missing,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She jumped, too.’

  She puts her hand up to the side of her head, holding the long brown strands escaping in the wind. ‘No, no, no – please don’t tell me that.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true.’

  ‘When did she jump? How? What method did you guys use?’ Thea stands, her ponytail whipping around her, the fabric of her coat flapping as she faces Isaac. ‘Have you looked for her? Tried her family, the Bodleian – anything?’

  Isaac reaches out a hand and puts it on her arm, trying to soothe her distress. ‘We’ve tried all of that. Everything. We’ve looked everywhere. Including her brother in London. That’s how I found … I followed some clues through time, for you.’

  She looks at him blankly. ‘If Rosy has disappeared, we need to find her. If this is a many-worlds scenario, as I suspect it might be, then we can’t let anyone get trapped between alternate universes. That could be catastrophic.’

  ‘For who – the world?’

  Thea flinches. ‘For the individual, most of all. I jumped here. Then Rosy jumped – where exactly, we don’t know. And now you’ve jumped here, too; we need to be careful we don’t draw tangled strings between parallel worlds that are impossible to unpick.’

  ‘Like knitting,’ Isaac says, but he’s actually thinking about the Barbara Hepworth sculpture Thea had loved in the book at the gallery: Stringed Figure (Curlew), Version II, its cotton strands criss-crossing like a geometric pattern.

  Thea tips her head in the direction of home. ‘Come on – let’s go back and try to solve this, however best we can.’

  Isaac stumbles as they follow the fence along the severe ravines of Whin Fell. The descent is steep and they struggle to keep their footing as they reach the remains of a stone shingle wall, climbing over a wobbly stile with great care, matter-of-factly holding out a hand for each other to traverse it safely. ‘Thea,’ he says, ‘you knew it was a portal, then?’

  She steps down from the stile. ‘No. I came to the conclusion when I woke up on the floor of the barn, having arrived seemingly back in the same place, yet with significant differences.’

  ‘Do you know why you’d remember everything about your jump, but … others … may not?’

  Thea pauses on the path. ‘That’s an interesting question. I suppose it depends who instigates the jump; in this case, it was me,’ she says, jabbing him as they pass the weir with the rotting information board and the dry-stone wall that lines the road back into the village. ‘But it might also have something to do with which prism was used. I’d have to think about it.’

  Isaac hurries to catch up after checking beneath the bridge for any sign of the other Thea, peering at the empty towpath next to the river.

  ‘I have to ask, Isaac,’ she says, as they cross the bridge and head past Puddleducks and the Post Office. ‘How on earth did you follow me here?’

  Twenty-two

  Thea had waited under the bridge for Isaac for quarter of an hour, then half an hour – hands shoved deep in her pockets – then three-quarters of an hour, stamping her feet to keep warm. After a freezing hour she said ‘Sod this’ aloud, and began the walk back to the farmhouse, taking care to ensure she didn’t meet the other Thea, walking around in her life as if she owned it.

  Perhaps she did.

  Perhaps they were two halves of a whole.

  Isaac was right: this was such a headfuck.

  Perhaps it was like having a twin.

  Maybe that’s unfair to twins. She’d always imagined what it might be like to have a sibling; someone to play with, fight with, and – if she was truly honest – share her grief with. To feel like someone else in the world understands the hell you’re going through, losing both your parents. Not the mention the compounded hell of losing them so young, before you even know a fraction of your own personality. Going to boarding school had given her someone to share a bunk bed with, dormmates and roommates. But until Thea met Isaac at university, she hadn’t known the best friendships could feel like falling in love.

  Reading C. S. Lewis as a child had introduced her, in her teen years, to two quotes he’d written about friendship in The Four Loves. She’d felt a certain kinship, at first, to his idea that ‘Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art … It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which gives value to survival.’ But as she studied for a joint honours degree in Philosophy, and came to appreciate first the subject’s worth, then friendship’s, she switched allegiance to a different quote. ‘Friendship,’ C. S. Lewis had written in the same book, ‘is born at the moment one man says to another, “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself …”’

  Thea walks back towards the house, opening the front door carefully, catching it before the locks clatter shut to announce she’s home. The dustsheet that was covering the miniature chandelier in the hallway when she and Isaac headed into the village is now draped over the bannisters, and she stares at it for a moment. A noise comes from the rear of the house, a sort of woof! like the sound of a gas boiler being lit, and she pads towards the kitchen, peering round the door.

  Thea’s heart shatters and she emits a short gasp as she sees this world’s Rosy, fresh from Puddleducks where she’d just left the other Thea with Isaac, wearing a lacrosse team jumper and furry boots, hair looped up in an inimitable posh girl’s bun, standing next to the Aga looking satisfied.

  She steps back, feeling for the warmth on the top plate, then sees Thea by the door watching her.

  ‘You’re back!’ Rosy says. ‘That was quick.’ Then: ‘And you’ve already changed, clever thing. How was the walk? Where’s Isaac?’

  Without answering any of Rosy’s questions, Thea moves across the kitchen and throws her arms around the tall blonde girl, holding her tight in a bear hug. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she whispers.

  ‘Silly Billy,’ Rosy says fondly, stroking Thea’s hair, which is damp from the cold outside. ‘We just had lunch together and I came back here, like you told me.’ She points towards the Aga. ‘I’ve got this thing lit, so the house should soon warm up.’

  Thea stares at Rosalind, at the regal arch of her brow, her smooth high forehead and the petite bow of her lip.

  ‘Thea?’ Rosy says. ‘You’re, umm, putting me rather on edge. Have I got some leftover jam or clotted cream on my face?’

  ‘No,’ Thea says, stepping back. ‘I’m … happy to see you. Thrilled you’re here.’

  Rosy pats her arm, moving away to tidy some mugs and other detritus in the sink. ‘Well, I’m pleased to be here. I can help make it more homely, before the others arrive.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘Ayo and Urvisha are going to head up after they finish their tutorials on Friday. For the weekend,’ Rosy explains.

  For one purely selfish moment, Thea wants to have Rosy to herself. She doesn’t want to think about the others – she only wants to talk to Rosy. She’s about to suggest they take a walk somewhere, when—

  ‘Hello, boy!’ Rosy’s lurcher rambles sleepily into the farmhouse kitchen, butting up against Rosy and then sticking his head in Thea’s crotch, wagging his tail. ‘Did you have a nice sleep?’

  ‘Oh,’ Thea says in surprise.

  ‘I couldn’t leave Cyril at home after I went back to visit my father; I want to spend a bit more time with the old boy.’ She ruffles the lurcher’s ears, tugging at him and giving him a good fuss.

  Everything is different here, Thea rationalizes, since she and the other Thea both jumped and swapped places. She reminds herself she hasn’t gone back in time just because Rosy’s here – the clocks have continued marching on, time remaining one of the only
constants. It’s the same day in both worlds, in the same month, the same year … It’s simply a case of two worlds no longer in parallel. Like the Y-shaped drawing in her notebook, the timelines have split.

  Thea reaches down to pet Rosy’s dog, her mind whirling. ‘Hi, Cyril.’ The lurcher sniffs her, curiously – and irrationally she wonders if a dog can sense a person is from another universe. After all, they’ve supposedly been known to detect cancer in humans simply by smell.

  ‘Shall we take him out for a quick walkies?’ Rosy says, interrupting Thea’s reverie.

  ‘Oh, yes please.’

  And, like the millions of times they’ve left the house this autumn, whether they were in this world or the other, they bundle back into their coats and warm boots, and Rosy pulls a well-worn lead from her waxed jacket’s pocket, heading towards the wood bordering the edge of Thea’s farm.

  ∞

  Isaac and Thea walk back towards the house, keen to warm up inside, arguing all the way through the woods. ‘How did you get here, Isaac?’ Thea says. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’ve got time,’ she says, gesturing at the road winding in front of them through the trees bordering her farm.

  ‘How did you get here?’ he deflects instead. ‘What prism did you use?’

  She frowns at him. ‘I used the diamond in my ring. But why do I get the feeling you knew that already?

  ‘Can you explain it to me?’ he says. ‘How it works?’

  ‘I can try,’ she says, diverting them towards the barn. Then she grins, breaking the tension between them that’s been evident since he appeared in this world. ‘If you think you can keep up with the science.’

  ‘Always my own personal brand of Kryptonite.’

  Like every other time someone has opened the heavy, double-height barn door, it creaks, and Thea hauls it round using all of her strength. If she’s surprised to see the experiment setup looking a little dishevelled after the latest landing, she doesn’t show it, and instead walks over to the workbench running along the longest side of the black wooden barn, switching on a lamp and pulling the head over to light the surface. ‘I’m going to pose some rhetorical questions,’ Thea says, so Isaac grins – it’s typical of her to announce that she will not require any answers, to avoid the awkwardness of him trying.

  ‘What is the historical significance of the diamond?’ she says. ‘Why is it the most popular family heirloom, passed down across generations? What is the enduring appeal of this particular stone for an engagement ring?’ Thea shrugs, the emphasis of her rhetorical questions fading between them, as she slides her ring from where it sits by the knuckle of her ring finger.

  ‘When it comes to diamonds,’ she continues, rummaging in a cardboard box under the workbench, bringing up a magnifying loupe and looking through it at the stone in her hand, ‘there are four Cs: cut, colour, clarity and carat. The third and fourth don’t matter in this instance. The most important is number one.’ She hands him the loupe. ‘Do you know about diamond cuts?’

  Isaac shakes his head, peering at the diamond, which he brings up to his eye.

  ‘When a diamond is cut with the proper proportions, light is returned out of the “table” – see here.’ She runs her finger over the flat top of the diamond. ‘That’s the table. But if it’s cut too shallow, light leaks from the bottom; too deep, and it escapes out of the sides.’ She turns the diamond sideways, displaying its perfect depth, its beautiful proportions. ‘This is a good example of a well-cut diamond. Do you see?’

  Isaac hesitantly touches his finger to the table of the diamond. ‘It’s stunning,’ he says, putting down the loupe. ‘What about colour? You said the third and fourth of the four Cs were the least important – so colour is important?’

  Thea bends the neck of the lamp so the bright light shines across the desk. ‘A diamond’s “colour” actually refers to its lack of colour. It’s the absence of colour that’s prized: the highest – and therefore most expensive – grades are those where the colour is barely visible under magnification, let alone to the naked eye. This,’ she says, turning the diamond over so it catches the light from the lamp, throwing sparkles out from the top of the round, brilliant-cut stone, ‘is considered grade D: absolutely colourless.’

  ‘I’m guessing that’s extremely rare?’

  Thea nods, clicking off the lamp.

  Isaac looks around, alarmed. ‘I hope that thing is insured.’

  Thea doesn’t acknowledge the joke. ‘That’s why the best diamonds are the most expensive … there’s real skill involved in cutting the stone. The best ones provide the most clean and clear route for the light to travel through the diamond. The path of least resistance.’

  Isaac nods, listening hard.

  ‘But this stone has a tiny inclusion, which to any diamond dealer would make it less valuable than a flawless stone. It’s not visible to the naked eye, so we’ll have to look through the loupe. For our purposes, it’s the flaw that makes it interesting: it’s a crystal inclusion.’

  ‘Crystal,’ Isaac repeats.

  ‘It’s a mineral crystal contained within the diamond, and in this case, it’s a tiny diamond within the diamond.’ She looks up at him. ‘It was always interesting to me – I liked the idea of a crystal flaw hiding inside, capturing emotions, holding a feeling within its facets; catching even the most difficult sentiment – such as grief. I would look at the ring on my finger and think, if my grief is only contained in that tiny diamond-within-a-diamond, then I’m protected from it, and it can’t hurt me … Well. Imagine how much of a family’s history such an heirloom could hold inside the stone …’ She trails off.

  ‘I understand,’ Isaac says softly.

  ‘There’s a scientific element to time travel and the glass portal,’ she says, ‘but I also think there’s something personal – some sort of alchemy between the person and the prism – that we’ll never even begin to comprehend.’

  She starts as Isaac puts a postcard down on the bench, its corners worn. A woman, wearing an embroidered hood or headdress over her dark brown hair sits, hands together, an unusual triangle of three rings adorning her fingers. In the background a reddish symbol hovers behind the woman’s head, reflecting the warm ambers and maroons of her dress. ‘What is it?’ Thea says, reaching to pick it up.

  Isaac taps the postcard lightly with his index finger. ‘Thea, I’d like to introduce you to the Portrait of an Unknown Woman.’

  ∞

  As Cyril the lurcher canters through the wood, his long, skinny legs graceful despite his age, Rosy and Thea lag behind, feeling their way across the uneven ground as twilight descends through the trees. The afternoon light is dropping fast, the first sign that winter’s on its way.

  ‘We haven’t had much of a chance to talk,’ Rosy starts. ‘Properly, I mean.’

  Thea chooses a good stick from the ground and throws it for Cyril, and despite his age he hurtles after it with the elegance of a racing dog chasing down his prey. ‘I feel like we haven’t spoken in ages,’ Thea says truthfully.

  ‘I would have come sooner,’ Rosy says. ‘I hated to think of you all alone here with only your memories. But I had to go home, first – to speak to my father.’

  The Thea from a parallel world recalls Urvisha’s description of her visit to see Lord de Glanville, a man adrift from his children, unsure of their whereabouts or happiness. ‘How did that go?’ she says cautiously, unsure what Rosy may have already said to a different Thea.

  Rosy rewards Cyril for bringing back the stick, then throws it with the power of her lacrosse arm. ‘I told him I won’t be joining Edward at Sotheby’s. Not now, and not in the future.’

  Thea widens her eyes. ‘Oh, wow. Good for you.’

  ‘I started to feel like, maybe – and this is no disrespect to my brother – that maybe I was meant for something more, something better.’

  ‘Ad majora natus sum,’ Thea murmurs and Rosy, with her extensive classical education
, smiles.

  ‘Thank you, yes. “Meant for greater things”, that’s a more elegant way of putting it. There is so much I want to see, so much I want to do … and I’m not sure valuing the paintings of my father’s friends, until I meet a suitable husband, is the best way for me to spend my days.’ Rosy smiles so Thea does, too, because if there’s one thing Thea has learned from her ability to put her foot in her mouth in all social situations is that it’s best to let the person speaking lead the emotion. If they laugh, you can laugh. But if they’re sad and you laugh – well, then you’re an arsehole.

  ‘How are you finding it – being home, I mean?’ Rosy says.

  Thea shrugs. ‘I’ve always tried to spend the minimum amount of time here. During school holidays I frequently stayed in the dorms; while at Oxford – well, you know better than anyone, I’d stay with friends and their families.’

  Rosy smiles at the memory, shaking off her kindness as though taking in a stray at Christmas was the same as leaving leftover turkey out for the foxes. ‘You’re always welcome. So long as you bring a Yule log.’

  ‘Thank you. Truly.’

  They walk through the trees, patches of shadow starting to overtake the patches of daylight. The texture of the trunks is slowly steeping with colour like a mug of tea being brewed, and Thea and Rosy stop for a moment next to a tree with carvings in the bark.

  Rosy leans in to read the initials etched in the wood. ‘A. C. and … What letter is that?’ She reaches to trace the markings with her finger, the initials set in the middle of a round sun, surrounded by beams that radiate outward.

  ‘R,’ Thea says quietly. ‘For Ruth – my mother.’

  Rosy runs her finger over Ruth’s R meditatively. ‘I’m sure they loved each other very much.’

  ‘Probably,’ Thea says. ‘But when both your parents die unexpectedly when you’re twelve, your memories take on a shimmer. You can’t rely on them as you’d hope.’ She traces her father’s initials in the bark. ‘I don’t really remember how they talked to each other; whether my father would help my mother in the kitchen, standing behind her to warm them both by the Aga after a long day out on the farm. I don’t know whether that’s an image I’m remembering, or whether it’s the haze of an image I’ve created.’