The Alternate Universe

by The Alternate Universe [MM] (epub)

  “Get your mount and let’s race to the bandshell,” Jayesh said.

  Claude smiled. “OK.” He ran to Trax and jumped on his back. “Ya, ya,” he said, breaking him into a gallop. They sped into the park and were soon neck and neck, bearing down the path toward the bandshell. Because of the storm, the park was deserted, otherwise someone would surely have told them to slow down and go single file. Trax was larger and stronger, but Jayesh’s horse was lithe and fleet, maintaining a slight edge and then breaking ahead when the bandshell was in view. Arriving first, Jayesh guided his horse up the steps onto the stage, something Trax would never do.

  “That was crazy,” Claude shouted, his blood rushing.

  “You’ll never beat Gladhand,” Jayesh said, stroking the mare’s neck. “She’s a champ.”

  The rain was falling heavily now, the sky turning inky black. “I’m going to put Trax in the shelter,” Claude said. He brought Trax around to the attached horse shelter, whose cement wall afforded genuine protection from the storm. Jayesh guided Gladhand down the steps and followed them. The rain had flattened Jayesh’s hair, and Claude could see the outline of his chest through his damp t-shirt.

  After tying up their horses, they sat on a cement ledge, watching the storm, neither speaking. Claude didn’t know whether to say something funny or serious, or to simply stay silent, as if sitting there quietly with Jayesh was a perfectly normal way to spend an afternoon.

  Finally, Jayesh asked, “What’s with you and the steamy blade-throwing mädchen?”

  “Carolien? What about her?”

  “Is she your girlfriend?”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No.”

  “I’m into guys,” Claude said.

  Jayesh smiled. “No one is 100 percent into anything.”

  “I am. Carolien and I are just friends.”

  Jayesh grinned so wide that his cheeks dimpled. “You sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure. So what are your percentages?”

  Jayesh looked stumped. “Hmmm. Good question. I’d say 77.3 percent gay, 15.4 percent straight, and 18.5 percent other.”

  “Other?” Claude laughed. “What the Hades does that mean? And you’re percentages don’t add up, by the way.”

  “They don’t?”

  “What’s ‘other’ for?”

  “It means that I’m open to the possibility that other life forms exist in the universe and that I might be attracted to them, if and when I meet them. But how did you figure out so fast that my percentages don’t add up?”

  Claude shrugged. “They add up to 101.2 percent.”

  Jayesh looked amazed. “You’re a math whiz?”

  “Because I can add three numbers?”

  “Three numbers with decimal points, and you did it in a nanosecond in your head.”

  “You’re easily impressed.”

  “No I’m not.” He smiled crookedly and then leaned forward and kissed him. His lips were soft and inviting, like pillows warmed by the sun.

  Claude was acutely aware of everything—Jayesh’s breath on his face; the heat of Jayesh’s body; the sound of the rain; the rush of wind. He felt for a moment like they might burst into flames, as if they were generating so much heat that the rain would steam, the pavement boil, and the clouds evaporate, turning the sky blue.

  When the kiss ended, Jayesh sat back with a satisfied smile. “That was pretty impressive,” he said.

  “Yes it was,” Claude said.

  Claude’s phone began to chime. It was Carolien’s ring, the theme from I Dream of Warlocks.

  “Who calls?” Jayesh asked.

  “Never mind,” Claude said, flipping his cell to silent.

  “Are you in a rush?” Jayesh asked.

  Claude shook his head. “Not really. You?”

  “I’ve got a little time,” Jayesh said.

  They looked at each other for a long quiet moment and leaned in for more.

  Chapter Six

  The Escape of Molly and Moore

  “My name is Betsy Thomas, but everyone calls me Bets, and I’m 78 years young. The story I’m going to tell is about my great great grandparents. I don’t know exactly when they were born, or who their parents were, but I know their names. She was Molly, and he was Moore, and they were slaves.” Grandma Bets paused and squinted at the movie-maker.

  “Something wrong?” Carolien asked.

  “It doesn’t feel natural talking at a machine.”

  Carolien nodded. “Talk to me then.”

  “Can I do that?”

  “Why not?”

  Her grandmother adjusted her position to face Carolien. “Ah, that’s better,” she said, smiling. She looked down, tugged at her jacket, and smoothed her blouse. When she looked up at Carolien, she seemed more relaxed. “Now where was I?”

  “You were saying Moore and Molly were slaves,” Carolien said.

  Grandma Bets nodded and released a long slow breath. “It gets my blood boiling when I think about people owning people. People selling people. How could anyone have thought that was right?

  “But that was their world. Moore was born on a plantation owned by Thomas Watkins in Serenity, North Carolina. Molly was born I-don’t-know-where and bought by Watkins when she was just a young girl.”

  She stared so intently that Carolien felt as if she was looking inside her. “Molly had chestnut-colored skin and light brown eyes that faded to green at the rims—a mix that made folks look twice. They say Watkins thought she was pretty, so when she turned nine, he put her to work in the manor. That was a privilege. The work wasn’t easy, but it was better than the field, where most slaves spent their days, pulling cotton until their fingers bled.”

  Carolien imagined herself a slave, standing barefoot on hard earth. The air was heavy with summer, the sun fierce. She pictured a tall, pink-skinned overseer, fat and sweaty. He was wearing tall boots and a dirty, torn hat and carrying a large whip.

  “What you looking at?” the overseer sneered.

  “None of your begating business, donkey hole,” she yelled back. The other slaves stared, dumbfounded. When the overseer lifted the whip, she ran and kicked his nutbag. “Go fuck yourself,” she screamed, spitting with rage. The overseer stumbled back and she grabbed the whip. As she cracked it over his terrified head, he fell to the ground, begging for mercy.

  “You with me, hon?” Grandma Bets asked.

  “Sure,” Carolien said, snapping back. The daydream had left her hands clammy and her heart racing.

  “You were getting a spacey look,” her grandmother said.

  “Sorry. I was picturing the plantation in my head.”

  “Maybe we should eat first and pick this up after,” her mom said.

  “No. Let’s keep going. Go on, Grandma.” Carolien examined the movie-maker, trying to look officious.

  Grandma Bets exhaled loudly and nodded. “Where was I?”

  “You were saying that Molly worked in the manor,” Carolien’s mother said.

  “That’s right.” Grandma Bets lifted her eyes to the window. Carolien followed her gaze to the big oak in the backyard, its tangled branches swaying in the wind. She wondered how many people over the years—over the centuries—had gazed at those branches.

  “Freedom was only a dream for Molly until one day, the chance she’d been waiting for came literally knocking at the door. March 1849. Molly was in her mid-teens, and she was working hard in the scullery when she heard a sound; someone was at the window.” She paused for dramatic effect.

  “She saw a shadow cross the glass. Who could it be? When she goes to look, she finds a man—a stranger. But something wasn’t right. The back was the service door—slaves only—but this gentleman was white.

  “He was nervous, looking around like he was worried someone was following him. And he wasn’t alone. He had a slave, too—a woman. As soon as Molly opened the door, the two of them pushed their way inside like their tails were on fire, and Molly was terrified.

&
nbsp; “The first thought that went through her mind was that they were bandits—‘scallywags.’ That was the word they used back then. My mama would say, ‘Molly knew for sure they were scallywags set to rob, rape, and plunder.’ ” Grandma Bets wagged her finger as she repeated her mother’s words. “ ‘But she couldn’t do nothing about it,’ Mama said. ‘Poor Molly would have set to yelling, but she didn’t dare raise her voice—not against a white.’ ”

  This wasn’t the first time Grandma Bets had told Carolien about Molly, but it had been years since the last re-telling, and only pieces of the tale sounded familiar, giving Carolien the feeling that she was hearing the full story for the very first time.

  “Molly’s heart was pounding so bad she couldn’t see straight. ‘Can I help… Can I help you?’ she asked, swallowing her words. ‘Yes, please,’ the woman said. She had a kind voice and a kind face. ‘You must be Molly.’ You must be Molly. That’s what she said. It was as simple as that. You must be Molly. Just four words but they weren’t said lightly, like she’d just happened to hear Molly’s name coming up the road. She said it like she’d been looking for her, like she’d come on a long journey with the express purpose of standing there and looking Molly in the eye.

  “ ‘Excuse me, but do we know each other?’ Molly asked.

  “ ‘I’ve heard of you. I’m Karen, your cousin,’ the woman said.

  “Molly’s heart opened like a flower. She’d been waiting her whole life to find family and here she was! ‘What are you doing here?’ Molly asked. She could barely get the words out.

  “ ‘We’ve come to help you escape,’ Karen said, her voice about as solemn as a minister saying his prayers.”

  The word “escape” gave Carolien goose bumps. Her expression must have reflected her excitement because Grandma Bets smiled and reached over and slapped her on the knee.

  “I’m going to win this darn contest, aren’t I?” she said.

  Carolien grinned. “I hope so, Gran. But with all these interruptions, you’re probably going to have to tell it a few times.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ll tell it a hundred times.”

  Carolien’s mother looked at her watch. “Keep going, Ma.”

  “OK. OK. Where was I?”

  “Karen,” her mother said.

  Grandma nodded. “Right.” She took another moment to compose herself and then resumed. “So there was Karen and the white man. Molly had thought the white was Karen’s master but turns out he was her husband, a man by the name of Mr. Claws, with big lumberjack hands to go with the name.

  “Molly knew about whites raping slaves but not marrying them. And she knew about slaves escaping but not people coming to your door saying, ‘Hey, girl, how ya’ doin’ today and, by the way, we’re here to help you escape.’

  “But Molly wasn’t going to miss her chance. There was just one little problem. These folks were in a hurry. They’d waited ‘til Watkins and his family had gone out before they came knocking and they were saying, ‘We’ve got to leave now before they come back.’ Yet there was this boy that Molly loved and she didn’t want to leave without him. ‘Moore has to come with us,’ she said.

  “ ‘But there’s no time,’ Mr. Claws said. ‘This is your once-in-a-lifetime chance and we’ve got to go now.’ They must have been thinking ‘If we wait even a minute more, it will be too late,’ but in the end, they decided that Molly could get Moore, and meet Karen and Mr. Claws in the woods.

  “They waited and waited but Molly didn’t show up. A half hour. An hour. Two hours. I imagine Karen and Mr. Claws thought about leaving without them, but instead they went back to look for them.

  “It turns out the Watkins family had come back and Molly and Moore were too afraid to leave, but Karen speaks as calm as can be. ‘Time to go. No time to pack. No time to say good-bye. If we walk with our heads held high, like we know where we’re going, we’ll all get out of here safe, but we have to move fast.’

  “And out the door she and Mr. Claws go. Molly and Moore follow right behind, holding hands, and they take horses and a wagon like that’s what they’re supposed to do, and off they go into the woods in the night. And then Karen pulls a ring from her pocket.”

  Grandma Bets patted her neck. “Hold on. I should have got this ready beforehand.” She pulled out a thin chain. Dangling from it, like a pendant, was a gold ring.

  “I remember that,” Carolien’s mother said with delight. “Where’ve you been keeping it? I haven’t seen you take it out since I was a little girl.”

  “It’s too precious to keep around the house, so I have it locked up at the bank in a safety deposit box.”

  “That’s Karen’s ring?” Carolien asked.

  “That’s what they say. It’s handed down from generation to generation. When I go, it’ll pass to your mother and then to you.” Grandma Bets offered it to Carolien, who gingerly scooped it in the palm of her hand.

  “It’s so shiny,” she said. It was heavy and surprisingly cold for something that had been laying for hours against her grandmother’s skin. It’s face was flat and engraved with a pattern of circles within circles. A chill shimmered up her spine as she realized that the pattern was almost like the pattern on Claude’s watch, if not, in fact, identical.

  “I’ve seen this pattern,” Carolien said softly.

  “What’s that dear?” Grandma Bets asked.

  Carolien looked up. “What’s the pattern mean? Because I just saw it on a watch that Claude’s stepfather gave him.”

  Grandma Bets looked skeptical. “No. I don’t think that’s possible. That’s a one-of-a-kind ring. Let me finish the story, and you’ll understand.”

  “No,” Carolien said, her voice rising. “Today. Less than an hour ago. I saw it.”

  “Calm down, girl,” her mother said.

  “Sorry,” Carolien said, trying to quell her excitement. “It’s just weird seeing the pattern again.”

  Grandma Bets pointed at the ring. “That there is steeped in mystery, so even though I’d say it was next to impossible that Claude just showed you the same pattern, part of me wouldn’t be surprised if it was true.”

  “Now look what you’ve done,” Carolien’s mother said, with a wry smile. “Your grandma’s getting all mystical.”

  “I’m feeling a little mystical, too,” Carolien said. She’d just been looking at Claude’s watch, which was a strange thing to begin with, considering it had been a gift from Millstone, and now, it turned out, that at the very same time she’d been looking at Claude’s gift, her grandma had been waiting at home to show her something bearing the same—maybe even identical—design. As absurd as it sounded, Carolien had a strange feeling that she’d conjured Grandma Bets and the ring, willing them to be there at that moment.

  “Maybe I’m wrong about the pattern, you know?” Carolien said. “I’ll ask Claude to bring it so we can compare.”

  “Not now,” her mother said, but Carolien ignored her. She took out her cell and dialed. “What did I just say?” her mother asked.

  “What’s the harm, Harriet?” Grandma Bets said softly. “The more the merrier.”

  The call skipped to VM. “He’s not picking up,” Carolien said, disappointed. She hung up and quilled:

  can u come over?

  “Just as well,” Carolien’s mother said curtly.

  Carolien returned the ring to Grandma Bets, who straightened her blouse and re-settled herself in the chair. Carolien looked out the window, trying to picture the watch again. But her mind flooded with other images: Grandma in her traffic cop uniform, Mom rising in the dark to make breakfast before work, Dad in his hospital room. She felt sad that life moved in only one direction, towards the unknown and farther and farther away from a time when she knew nothing about dads’ dying or ancestors’ escaping slavery.

  “You ready?” Grandma Bets asked.

  “Sure,” Carolien said, turning back to the camera. She checked the battery, memory, and lighting. “All set.”

  Grandma B
ets held the ring up, inches from the lens.

  “This was Karen’s ring, which means it’s a genuine antique—over 140 years old. It’s been handed from one generation to the next, and my family has guarded it well not just for sentimental reasons or because it’s made of gold, but because we believe this ring—this very ring I’m holding now—was the key to Molly and Moore’s escape.”

  She paused for effect, holding the ring steady so that the pattern filled the screen. “It worked through the design. When they’d reach a home or a farm, they’d look for the design that was here on the ring, and if they saw a quilt or a flag or even a mark in the dirt that matched, it meant the place was safe—a safe house. And the owner let them in and down through a secret door. And that’s how they went, using all the symbols on the ring to guide their way.”

  “Symbols? You mean symbol,” Carolien said. “It’s just one.”

  “That’s the thing,” Grandma Bets said. “They say the pattern kept changing from night to night. Every time Karen took it out, it’d show a new pattern to guide them to the next safe house.”

  “Gran, you don’t believe that?”

  “It’s natural to be skeptical,” Grandma Bets said. “Personally, I’ve never seen the pattern change. It’s been like that bull’s eye my whole life. But then maybe it only changes when it needs too. Or maybe they only imagined the changes, just like you maybe imagined that Claude’s got a watch with the same design.”

  “It might not be the exact same, but it’s definitely close.”

  Grandma Bets nodded. “But if you tell someone else about it, they might think you were mistaken. Just like we’re thinking right now that maybe Karen and Mr. Claws and Molly and Moore were mistaken that the ring was changing its design. We can’t ever know because we weren’t there. You can probably spend your whole life looking for an explanation, be it scientific or mystical, and you’ll never know for certain. But one thing for sure is certain, and that’s that Molly and Moore made it to Chatham, Canada. The proof of their escape is in the fact that we’re here today.