A Million Worlds With You
Page 32
But I’ll do it even if I don’t get to see them. I owe the grand duchess so much. It’s the least I can do. And I want to see the baby, too.
“This is extraordinary work.” The examiner walks around the room where my portfolio is on display. “You have an exceptional breadth of techniques for a student so young.”
I want to jump up and down and make squealing cheerleader noises. Instead I manage to stick with “Thank you.”
Although RISD remains willing to admit me in January, in the end I had to go after my dream. The Ruskin School of Fine Art holds portfolio reviews in maybe half a dozen cities around the country, during which dozens of applicants present their work for examination. Impressing the professor on the scene doesn’t guarantee admission—other faculty members will look at photos later, before the final vote.
But impressing the professor can’t hurt, right?
“Tell me more about this series of sketches.” He gestures to the papers I’ve set out on a table.
“Right. I guess you’ve seen on the news about my parents—”
The professor’s eyes take on a hopeful gleam. All the news media knows is that we’ve proved dimensional travel is possible, and that some of us have done it. We had actual paparazzi outside our house for about a week, which was hilarious. But the details of the alliance remain under wraps for now. We’ve learned how easily this technology can be abused, and until my parents can develop some safeguards, we can’t share too much. In the absence of hard knowledge, rumors have flown, and apparently this stoic, distinguished art professor from Oxford is dying to learn all about it.
Well, I can tell him a little. “I’ve gone on several journeys, and this is someone who’s close to me in many different worlds. So this series is an exploration of how his portrait has to change to reflect his unique fate in every dimension.”
Half a dozen sketches of Paul lie on the table—one angry, with dark lines of tattoo ink visible at the neckline of his shirt. Another in medieval garb, his expression gentler, his sorrow obvious. And in the center is the portrait of Lieutenant Markov. I’m proud of that one, because when I look at it, it’s as if I can feel his love for me all over again. Really, though, the emotion of the image comes from my love for him.
“Will you be doing any more work based on your travels?” Apparently that’s as close to prying as the professor will allow himself to go.
I nod. “I want to do a series of self-portraits, too. I changed as much as anyone in the different dimensions. I want to dig into the complexity. The strangeness. All of it.”
Already I know the hardest portrait to do will be Wicked’s, which is why it’s the most important one to get right. But I’ll paint her image as many times as I have to, until I can discover exactly how to show the ways in which we are different—and the ways in which we are the same.
Theo, meanwhile, will be spending his postdoc year at Yale, which offered him a fellowship he couldn’t refuse. He’s been tinkering with his muscle car, making sure it’s ready for the cross-country drive to come.
He’s not completely recovered from his exposure to Nightthief, but he’s almost there. Every week, his face takes on a little more color, his laugh gets a little louder, and his energy level rises. Before he leaves, he’s determined to show Paul yet more “remedial adolescence”—which mostly means them watching “important” action movies on Netflix, but okay.
Theo hasn’t spoken of his feelings for me since our goodbye kiss in the Cloneverse. I’m pretty sure those feelings are already changing. The wistfulness I used to see in him when Paul and I were together—that’s all but vanished now. He’s at ease around us, happy to hang out or to give us time alone. Theo being Theo, he has his own stuff to do. He’s even gone out a couple of times with this girl he met at a Lumineers concert.
“Nothing serious,” he says when I ask him about her. “I’m about to move to the other side of the continent. Kinda gets in the way.”
Theo wouldn’t even let a bomb come between him and the person he loved. I learned that about him, even if he’s only just accepting it about himself. “As long as you’re happy. That’s the main thing.”
He smiles over at me. “I’m getting there.”
Neither of us speaks of our counterparts in the Warverse, who are so passionately in love, or how devoted his scientist self has become to the grand duchess, even while she’s carrying another man’s child. Those worlds prove that we could have been together, that there are dimensions where I am his fate, and he is mine.
But in this world, we have a friendship so deep and powerful that I feel sure it’s going to last our entire lives. That’s a fate worth having too.
For some reason, the fact that my parents got married in so many dimensions has reminded them that they never got around to making it legal in this one. Mom phoned a cousin of hers who has a cottage in the French countryside, and now my dad is checking next year’s academic calendar to find the perfect date for him to whisk the family away for a destination wedding.
“At last,” I sigh one night, as we’re sitting together on the back deck with Rice Krispie treats. I clasp my hands together in melodramatic gratitude. “Josie and I will be legitimate. No longer children of sin.”
“You know we would’ve married long ago if it bothered you girls, but it never seemed to,” Mom explains. The tropical-fish lights glow orange and blue in the night. “We kept waiting to find the time. But there’s never enough time for everything you want to do. You have to prioritize. Henry and I have finally prioritized getting married.”
“We should’ve done it years ago.” Dad is lying on his back, his head against Mom’s knee. “Have you seen how much rings cost these days? Good God.”
Mom musses his hair. “Soon, we’ll be able to share more of our work with the scientific community at large. Then others will pick up the torch, make discoveries we never imagined. We won’t have to live and breathe dimensional travel any longer.”
“You know what that gives us time for?” Dad’s eyes light up.
Please don’t be talking about sex, I think. Please please please.
But it’s even worse than that. Beaming, they say in unison, “Time travel.”
Are they serious? I think they are.
Oh, God.
“I wonder what it’ll be like when we get to England,” Paul says as I fasten my seat belt on the plane. He gave me the window seat.
“You went to the Londonverse twice.”
“I mean, when we get to our England.” Just as he has been for the past few weeks, he’s torn between anticipation and worry. “Dimensional differences will be profound, not to mention the subtle changes in language use and social behavior—and yes, I’m becoming academic because I’m nervous.”
Hearing him diagnose his own nerves makes me smile. Paul’s learning how to deal. Even better, he’s learning how to be happy.
How to be loved.
Two days after I got my admission letter to the Ruskin School of Fine Art, he accepted Cambridge University’s postdoc offer. Oxford’s very close to Cambridge, which means we’ll be able to see each other every weekend. But we’ll still have our own college experiences, our own chances to explore and grow up.
Above all, we have our chance to create our shared destiny, together.
The Firebird was built one equation at a time. My paintings are the result of countless small brushstrokes, each one shaded with a different blend of colors, each one with a single, deliberate purpose. Every moment, every day, we are all making something—whether it’s science or art, a relationship or a destiny—building it choice by choice, moment by moment. Our decisions shape other people’s worlds as well as our own. We are all the center of our own universe, and all of us in someone else’s orbit. It’s a paradox, but sometimes paradoxes are where truth begins.
My father would point out that the Beatles told us all of this decades ago. They once sang that in the end, the love we take is equal to the love we make. No, we can
never be in complete control of our fates—we’re all vulnerable to accidents, to cruelty, and to the random misfortune of life. But I try to think about how much of it is up to us. We decide what emotions serve as our building blocks, which feelings we’ll use to shape our universe.
So Paul and I are creating a world, side by side, day by day. We have no idea what our future holds, only that we are making it together.
And we’re going to make it beautiful.
The jet engines whirr louder as our plane taxis down the runway. I glance back toward the airport, where I imagine Mom and Dad are still wiping away tears. Paul grips my hand so tightly that I wonder if he’s phobic. “You aren’t afraid of flying, are you?”
“No. I’m familiar with both safety statistics and the laws of aerodynamics.” At first I think Paul has gone back into Spock mode, but then he smiles with so much warmth that it’s like stepping into sunlight. “I just wanted to hold on to you.”
I squeeze his hand back just as hard. “I’m not letting go.”
The plane accelerates, pressing us both back into our seats so firmly that we laugh. As we rush forward, faster and faster, we lift off from the ground and claim the sky.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Melissa Vincent
CLAUDIA GRAY is the pseudonym of New Orleans–based writer Amy Vincent, the author of the New York Times bestselling Evernight series. She has worked as a lawyer, a journalist, a disc jockey, and an extremely poor waitress. Her grandparents’ copy of Mysteries of the Unexplained is probably the genesis of her fascination with most things mysterious and/or inexplicable. Visit her online at www.claudiagray.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY CLAUDIA GRAY
EVERNIGHT
STARGAZER
HOURGLASS
AFTERLIFE
BALTHAZAR
FATEFUL
SPELLCASTER
STEADFAST
SORCERESS
A THOUSAND PIECES OF YOU
TEN THOUSAND SKIES ABOVE YOU
A MILLION WORLDS WITH YOU
CREDITS
Cover art © 2016 by Craig Shields
Cover design by Sarah Creech
Art direction by Alison Klapthor
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
A MILLION WORLDS WITH YOU. Copyright © 2016 by Amy Vincent. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941453
ISBN 978-0-06-227902-6 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-256254-8 (int.)
EPub Edition © October 2016 ISBN 9780062279040
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FIRST EDITION
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