Parallelogram Omnibus Edition

by Brande, Robin

  “Does anyone else in your family know?” I ask.

  “No,” Elinor says. “When I told him I knew, he begged me not to tell any of the others, and I’ve abided by that. But if he … well, after he’s gone one day, I might tell my children. I think they’d be proud of the extraordinary work both their grandfathers have done. And I don’t wish the secret to die with me.

  “My father didn’t want that, either,” she tells me. “That’s why he asked me to speak to you if you came here today.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “He said he left you a key.”

  Daniel looks at me. “The drawer.”

  “Yes,” Elinor says. “There are details in there. Drawings. Plans. He wants you to have them.”

  “But … shouldn’t you?” I ask. “Or someone else? I only just met him a few days ago.”

  Elinor shifts her hand away from her father’s, and reaches for mine instead.

  “You and I both know why, Audie. He said you’re the one to carry on his work. I trust his judgment implicitly. I think you should, too.”

  “I … I don’t know what to say.” And it’s true: my tongue feels thick and slow, and my brain can’t come up with the right answer to such a generous offer from a stranger.

  I’m still feeling tongue-tied when the door opens and Madeline returns.

  “Everything all right here?”

  “Yes, dear,” her mother answers as she releases my hand. “Thank you.”

  Madeline stands there for a moment, surveying the scene. She seems disappointed that Daniel and I aren’t doing anything wrong.

  “All right,” she says. “Call me if there’s any change at all.”

  Dr. Venn coughs.

  Madeline rushes over to him. “GRANDDAD, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

  Dr. Venn coughs again and nods.

  “HOW ARE YOU FEELING?”

  He pulls away his oxygen mask. “Lou—” He coughs hard. “Lousy.”

  “LET ME GET YOU A DRINK.”

  Madeline raises the back of Dr. Venn’s bed so he can sit up, then she fills a cup of water. She offers it to him with a straw.

  He sips thirstily. Then slumps back against his pillow.

  He waves the cup away. “Thank you. Fine.”

  He finally looks over at me and smiles. I smile back. Then he pats his daughter’s hand.

  “Told you they would come.”

  “YES, FATHER, WE’VE BEEN ENJOYING A CHAT,” Elinor shouts.

  “Have you?” Just that amount of talking is too much for him. He strains hard into another coughing fit, and Madeline hurries to help him. She supports him until he’s done, then slips the oxygen mask back over his face.

  “Enough,” she tells us sternly. “You too, Mum. Enough. He needs his rest.”

  Dr. Venn shakes his head.

  “YES, GRANDDAD. THEY CAN COME BACK LATER.”

  Red has inched up the bed so he can lay his head across Dr. Venn’s lap. Dr. Venn reaches down with a crooked hand and pets the dog on the head.

  A tear slips out of his eye. Madeline uses the edge of her sleeve to wipe it away.

  “OH, GRANDDAD,” she says, her own eyes looking misty. “PLEASE. DON’T BE SO STUBBORN. I’M ONLY DOING WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU.”

  He holds up two fingers.

  “NO.”

  But Dr. Venn thrusts the two fingers forward.

  Madeline groans. But she gives in. “TWO MINUTES. THAT’S ALL. THEN NO MORE VISITORS TODAY.”

  Dr. Venn nods. And as soon as Madeline leaves, he pulls off his oxygen mask again.

  “You did it?” he asks me.

  “Yes. I saw Halli—”

  But I realize he can’t hear me. And this isn’t something I’m going to shout.

  Daniel takes out his tablet. He presses some setting that allows me to dictate into it. My words then show up in large letters hovering in front of Dr. Venn.

  “I went two places. I saw Halli the first time. Back in my old life. And then I tried to go someplace else. But I made a mistake.”

  Dr. Venn reads that, then shrugs at me instead of using his voice.

  I explain in as few words as possible how I tried to find Halli in one life, but ended up seeing her in another. Then watching her die.

  “But then it was strange,” I say. “I’m hoping you can explain it to me. I went forward in that world, even after Halli died, and I saw Ginny living without her.”

  Dr. Venn’s forehead creases as he reads. Then he looks at me.

  “How could I do that?” I ask him. “I thought I could only go places where there’s a parallel version of me. How could I find Ginny?”

  Dr. Venn shakes his head. He traces his finger in the air. I study the motion, but I have no idea what it means.

  “Thread,” Dr. Venn rasps. “Start with … thread.” Then he grabs his oxygen mask again and fumbles it over his mouth. He takes long, desperate breaths. I can hear the wetness in his chest.

  “Out,” Madeline orders from the doorway. “Out this instant. Mum, you can stay. They have to go.”

  Dr. Venn looks me in the eye and nods. I don’t really know what he’s just told me. But I nod back as if I got it. I don’t want him to be upset.

  Madeline rushes Daniel and Red and me out the door. The three of us stand in the hallway together without any clear direction of what to do next.

  “Did you understand that?” I ask Daniel.

  “About the thread?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not sure,” he says.

  And with people walking by, some of them glancing curiously at Halli Markham, I know this isn’t the place to talk.

  “What do you think we should do?” I ask.

  “Examine the contents of that drawer,” Daniel says.

  “That’s a good idea.” I pull out Jake’s card from my pocket and press it. “Let’s go back right now.”

  “Now?” he says. “It’s late. You’ve already had a long day. And the way you looked when you came out of the machine that second time—”

  “I know,” I say, “but I’m fine now. And Daniel, face it: if there are things in there that we need to ask Dr. Venn about, we should probably do it tonight.

  “He might not make it until the morning.”

  55

  It’s dark outside, but the Oxford campus is lit everywhere with warm white and yellow lights. Wilkinson insists on giving me his huge flashlight, even though I don’t need it.

  Jake isn’t happy.

  “I’m sure this could wait until the morning,” he says.

  “I’m sure it can’t,” I answer. “We’ll be about an hour. If you two want to go get dinner or something, help yourselves.”

  “You’re sure I can’t help you,” Jake says. He takes a step too close, and Red lets him know to back off. Jake is probably tired of that by now, but Red never seems bored. He’s decided that’s his job and he does it.

  “You could bring us back some food to eat in the car on the way home,” I say. “That would be great.”

  We’re halfway across the first courtyard and well out of earshot when Daniel says, “He looks at you, you know.”

  “Who, Jake?”

  “All the time.”

  I laugh. “Daniel, he’s not interested in me—unless you count wanting me to hire him. Which I have no intention of doing. Besides, your sister likes him. I’m hoping they’ll hit it off tomorrow night at the party.”

  “She’ll be disappointed,” Daniel says. “Because he wants you.”

  A dark campus is full of all sorts of dark corners. I pull Daniel into one of them and spend a few moments reminding him he has nothing to worry about.

  “Come on,” I say once I’ve proven my point, “we have work to do.” I hold his hand and lead him toward Dr. Venn’s office.

  The light comes on automatically as soon as we walk in. I look around for a box we can use, while Daniel begins pulling out files.

  We decided we’d do it this way instead of trying to read eve
rything while we’re here. Better to take it home and be able to spread it out and look at it at our leisure. When Dr. Venn is ready to come back to work—if he is, which I hope—we’ll just box it up and bring it back.

  I empty out a crate that’s filled with dusty textbooks. I stack them neatly in a pile. Then I start loading the file folders Daniel has been pulling out of the drawer.

  I glance at some of the tabs. Not just family members’ names, but also initials that don’t mean anything to me. I open one up. It holds ripped out pages from books. The first page has the title Lunar Influence on Tidal Sequences. Another page says Westwind Enclosures and Small Conductivity. Neither one of those sounds promising, but I close the folder and add it to the crate anyway.

  “Anything else?” Daniel asks me.

  My eyes stray to the door just beyond him. We closed it when we were finished this afternoon. But open or closed, I still know what’s behind it, and I’m still curious. And tempted.

  I glance at the clock on the wall. I do a quick calculation. Halli is at my school right now, if she hasn’t already given up and quit.

  “I’d like to look in on her,” I tell Daniel. “Just for a few minutes.”

  “There’s no setting for a few minutes,” he says. “The shortest is an hour.”

  I bite the inside of my lip. It seems a shame to be here and not take advantage of the machine. I’m feeling perfectly fine again. I’ve recovered from whatever happened after the last session.

  Thread. Start with thread.

  “Oh,” I say out loud, suddenly getting it. “Follow the thread.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Start from a known position and I can follow it as far forward as I want. Start with Halli, end up with Ginny. Start with Halli …”

  End up with me.

  “It’s a loop,” I realize.

  Daniel looks at me curiously. “What’s a loop?”

  “Me to Halli back to me again. I could see if I make the loop.”

  Daniel sighs. “Audie, unfortunately I am not inside your head right now, so you’re going to have to use more words. Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

  I give him my full attention now. “I saw a past where Halli died. I saw a present where Ginny lives. I went there and talked to her. What if what Dr. Venn was saying was that I could have followed that thread even further? Out into Ginny’s future?”

  “All right, what if?”

  “Then why can’t I do the same thing with Halli right now? Go pick up the thread of her in the present, off at school pretending to be me, and follow it further ahead to see if I really do succeed at figuring out a way to switch us back?”

  Daniel shifts forward in his chair. I can see from the look on his face that he understands what I’m saying.

  “You’d see whether you are back in your own body some time in the future.”

  “Right,” I say. “Then I’d follow the thread back, and see how I did it. Be my own future self whispering in my ear about how I can make it work.”

  “I can’t believe these are the conversations we have,” Daniel says. “They’re mad.”

  “What’s crazier is that we both understand what we’re talking about.”

  The two of us smile at each other. I really love that guy.

  I glance at the clock again. It’s getting late, but it’s worth it.

  “One hour,” I say.

  “One hour,” Daniel agrees. “Let’s get you into the machine.”

  56

  Only to watch, I remind myself. Not to bilocate. Just watch.

  Halli is sitting in class, bouncing her heel rapidly against the floor. She’s already looked at the clock four times in the brief time I’ve been watching. She’s tensed up like a horse about to bolt out of a starting gate.

  I wish I could tell her I’m here.

  How did Dr. Venn say they did it? Not invading another person’s mind, but whispering into it somehow, making suggestions, giving nudges.

  “Halli, it’s Audie. I have things to tell you. Important things. Can you hear me? Scratch your nose if you do.”

  She doesn’t. But she does tug at her earlobe. Is that the same, but just a miscommunication? I have no idea.

  When the bell rings Halli is up and out of her chair and out the door in record time. She shoulders my backpack and takes off across the campus, running for home.

  She’s going to quit school again. I can feel it.

  Follow the thread …

  As much as I love watching my body running like that with such strength and abandon, that’s not what I’m here for. So I imagine the scene as a rope lying on the ground. I pick it up with both hands. I start pulling myself along it, slowly at first, then in long stretches, like I’m being carried in a rapid river and just need to grab onto the rope every now and then to make sure I stay in my lane and don’t get lost.

  Halli climbing up a mountainside. Snow on the ground. She hears something, looks back.

  She kneels down and pats her thighs. “Come on, Moose, good boy!” A black Lab puppy bounds through the snow to catch up. Halli enfolds him in her arms and kisses the side of his face half a dozen times. The puppy pants happily and chews a few strands of her hair and licks Halli on the cheek. She lets him go and hikes on. “Come on!” The puppy stretches his little legs and gallops after her, ears flopping with every step. Halli is happy.

  She’s not me.

  I turn around and pull myself back the way I came, surprised to find I’m not fighting any kind of current. It’s as easy to travel in this direction as forward. I just pull myself along the thread.

  Halli and my mother, saying goodbye. They hug. My mother is crying. Halli smiles at her, but I can see tears on her cheeks, too. She wipes them away. “Don’t, Mom. I’ll call you tonight. I love you!” She hugs my mom one more time, picks up the handle of her rolling luggage, and heads toward the line at airport security.

  My mom watches her for a few more moments, then turns away, still crying.

  I look at the girl.

  Me.

  I’m pretty sure that’s me.

  It’s so tempting to try to get inside her head. See if I’m right.

  But I can’t put myself through that again. I have a strong instinct for survival now. I won’t ever invade another person’s mind again.

  But I have to know.

  I watch her give her ID to the security person. Watch her choke up again for a moment when she turns back to look for my mom. Then she takes her ID and the ticket back, faces forward, and continues on her way.

  She is happy. She is me.

  I pull myself along this thread. Just a few strong pulls—I don’t want to go too far.

  I’m in Professor Whitfield’s lab. He’s here, along with his lab assistant Albert and some other people I don’t know. I’m pointing to a drawing on a sheet of paper. We’re all excited about something. Professor Whitfield asks me a question that I can’t hear, but then I clearly hear my answer: “It’s a secondary power source. In case the first one goes down. You don’t want the person to be stuck. You always want them to be able to hear the return command.”

  I look over my own shoulder at the drawing we’re all studying. I recognize the machine right away. I’ve somehow brought the plans to Professor Whitfield. We’re going to make our own.

  I need to keep going backward. See how I made this future. See why Halli is still there, too, hiking with a puppy in the mountains, and where the two of us split off.

  “Coming back now … feeling refreshed …”

  No!

  “… awake and alive … coming back … and now you open your eyes.”

  I blink in the pitch black. “NO!” I shout as I struggle against the straps holding me in. Daniel pulls away the earphones and then the goggles. Light floods into my eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Daniel asks. “What happened? Audie, are you all right?”

  “Please, just get me out.” As soon as my arms are free I hug him. I know I�
��m crying, and I’m not exactly sure why. Yes, I’m frustrated, yes, I’m angry the machine pulled me away too soon, before I could find my answer.

  But there’s something else, something deeper than that, something my body is reacting to even if my mind doesn’t understand why.

  “Tell me,” Daniel says, still holding me tightly. “What happened? What did you see?”

  “I can do it, but I don’t know how. There’s a way, but I couldn’t see it. I was there, but Halli was, too, and I don’t know why we’d both be there at the same time—”

  But then, suddenly, I do.

  “Only one of us is real,” I say. “The other one is a bilocation.”

  And I know which one is which.

  There’s no reason for Halli to have to pretend. That has to be her, still in my body, hiking somewhere in the snow. If she were really back in her own world, she’d be with Red. Her hair would be long. She’d look stronger and more substantial and she wouldn’t be me.

  But the girl at the airport? Just a projection. Not real. Enough substance to hug her mother, to pull a suitcase, to appear in Professor Whitfield’s laboratory later and talk to real human beings.

  But she’s just an illusion. And she’ll never be able to stay.

  The pain in my heart tells me I’m right. I press my hand there and let out a sob.

  “It’s me, Daniel. I’m the mirage. I’m never going home.”

  57

  I’m silent on the ride back to London. I hold Daniel’s hand and gaze out at the lights of the city and think about where I went wrong.

  We went back to the hospital, but Dr. Venn was asleep and Madeline wouldn’t let us wake him. I understand—I know she just wants to protect him—but right now my mind is reeling and I don’t feel I have any of the answers I need.

  How did I look?

  I think back to the expression on my face in both the scenes I saw. I was sad to leave my mother, but I was also excited to get on the plane. I know that. I could see that.

  And what about later, in Professor Whitfield’s lab? I was smiling. I know I felt smart. I felt like I was doing important work.

  Is that so bad, as a future? Even if I’m just visiting for a maximum of five hours at a time?