“My girl, I hardly know what I mean myself,” said Miss Ackerbee with a sigh. “All I know is this object is somehow inextricably tied with you, and that you are an extraordinary girl. A most extraordinary girl indeed.”
“Am I?” Tess was dazed. She’d never imagined she was extraordinary, and wondered how extraordinary people were supposed to act. Probably, she thought, they weren’t supposed to go about with one sock down and their glasses smudged, and she wondered if Miss Ackerbee mightn’t be mixing her up with one of the older girls.
Then Miss Ackerbee began to speak again and Tess did her best to focus.
“When you were very little, Tess, you used to disappear. Just—vanish, like that, out of the blue. You’d only be gone for five or maybe ten seconds at a time, but it was enough to make my heart skip.” Miss Ackerbee gazed at her with steady brown eyes.
Tess blinked at her. “Um. Miss Ackerbee, I don’t think that’s—”
“Possible?” Miss Ackerbee finished Tess’s sentence. “I didn’t think so either. Not until I met you, at least.”
“But where did I go?”
Miss Ackerbee licked her lips and took a deep breath. She stared at her desk and it looked to Tess like she was trying to find a pattern in the swirl of knots in the wood. Finally she looked up. Her kind face was earnest, as though she hoped Tess would believe what she was about to tell her.
“The night you came to us, I was here. In this parlor. Drinking a cup of cocoa. The entire house was asleep and I was standing by my window, gazing out at the river and indulging in a bit of thought.” She smiled at the memory. “And then, out of the blue, a shimmering circle appeared in midair—just for a second, you understand. Had I blinked at the wrong moment, I would have missed it. It hung right in front of the door before winking out of existence again. But it was there long enough for me to see.”
“See what?” Tess asked.
“A man. Young and thin, and frightened. He looked up at the door of Ackerbee’s. Snow was falling all around him. And then he was gone. The next thing I knew, there was a wail. I put my cup down on the windowsill and ran to the door—and there you were in the porch, wrapped in this blanket.”
“And where was the man?”
Miss Ackerbee smiled, but there was sadness beneath it. “He wasn’t there, Tess. And all around you was snow, tiny flakes in your blanket and even one on your baby eyelash, which I wiped away.” Miss Ackerbee rubbed her forefinger with her thumb, as though reliving the moment. “Except it wasn’t snowing that night. Not in this world, at least.”
Tess fought to understand. “You said that before—‘this world.’ What does that mean?”
“I think,” Miss Ackerbee began, speaking carefully, “that you have the ability to move between our world and other worlds, Tess. I’m not sure how, but that’s my theory.”
“Other—other worlds?” Tess scrunched up her face. “Like—different planets?”
“No, I don’t think so. Other versions of this planet is what I mean. Different realities might be a better way of putting it, perhaps.”
Miss Ackerbee lifted the blanket off the pile of paperwork, opened the topmost folder and began to flip through some documents until she came to a collection of letters, speaking to Tess all the while. “When you were very small and your extraordinary abilities began to appear, I made some discreet inquiries of a scientific nature. Over the course of making those inquiries, I made a friend who, until a few years ago, was a professor of physics in a university in Ostravica.”
She glanced at Tess and smiled. “Several years ago he wrote to me about an idea he was working on, something he was calling the many-worlds theory, which basically means, as far as I understand, that all possible versions of our world might exist simultaneously. They don’t interact because they can’t—or at least that was his thinking at the time.”
Miss Ackerbee sifted through the letters until she found the one she was looking for. “Here we go. Could it be true, then, to say that everything which could exist, does exist somewhere? That every choice made creates a ‘branch,’ in effect, where both outcomes can come to independent fruition, entirely unknown to the other? It would mean an almost unimaginable abundance of universes, but who is to say such things cannot be true?” She looked back at Tess. “Such things can be true, Tess. You are the proof.”
“I—I don’t know what to say.” Tess’s mind was a whirl. Many worlds? It was too much to think about all at once, so she seized on the one thing Miss Ackerbee had said that she could fully understand. “Why can’t I do it anymore? The vanishing thing?”
Miss Ackerbee placed the bundle of letters down. “It stopped happening when you were about four, I think. Up to that point you might flicker in and out ten or twenty times a day. Only myself and Rebecca—Miss Whipstead, I suppose I ought to say—were aware of it, because we made sure one of us was with you all the time. We kept a log.” She glanced at the pile of paperwork again. “Date, time, length of absence. Just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
“You didn’t come back,” said Miss Ackerbee simply, meeting Tess’s eye. “But you always did. And then you stopped.” She looked up, her gaze settling on Violet, who sat still as a stone on Tess’s head. “Which, incidentally, coincided with Violet’s arrival here at Ackerbee’s.”
“So now Violet is from some other planet too?” Tess said, her voice wavering. “I really don’t—”
“Violet is simply a spider,” interrupted Miss Ackerbee. “But she has one extraordinary quality—she was loved. By you. From the moment you saw her. And that was enough to keep you here.”
The girl cradled the spider close against her chest, thinking about the day they’d first met. She remembered the magician who’d come to Ackerbee’s to entertain the girls one rainy afternoon. How he had pulled cards out of sleeves, handkerchiefs out of hats, and made shilling pieces appear from behind Miss Ackerbee’s ear. Most of all, Tess had been transfixed by the spider living on his lapel like a colorful brooch. That spider had been Violet’s mother, whose clutch of babies hadn’t long hatched. The tiny tarantulas had been like walking jewels and Tess had fallen in love with Violet as soon as she laid eyes on her.
“Here you are then,” the magician had said, holding Violet out on the end of one finger, like a tiny black berry. “I’ll give her to you. Seems like you’re made for one another.” Tess remembered looking at Miss Ackerbee for permission, her dark eyes meeting the housemistress’s darker ones, and how Miss Ackerbee had nodded, smiling in bemusement at her odd little charge. Violet had crawled onto Tess’s shoulder that day and she’d never left.
Tess brought herself back to the present, lifting Violet until she could look into her shining cluster of eyes. They were as familiar to her as her own.
“And Violet was an anchor,” Miss Ackerbee continued. “A tether to this world that kept you from slipping out of it. Rebecca and I worried what would happen to you if anything happened to Violet, but we were lucky. She’s robust and you take excellent care of her.”
Tess blinked hard, trying not to embarrass herself by letting the tears behind her lids leak onto her face. “It’s a lot to deal with, I know,” Miss Ackerbee said, removing a handkerchief from her sleeve and sliding it across the desk. “And we don’t have a lot of time. The man—his name is Mr. Norton F. Cleat—will be returning in a few hours and he wants to take you with him.”
“Who is he?” said Tess, wiping her nose with Miss Ackerbee’s handkerchief before scrunching it up and handing it back to her.
“Why don’t you keep that one, dear. I have plenty,” Miss Ackerbee replied, waving the handkerchief away. Tess stuffed it into her pocket. “And as for our friend Mr. Cleat, well, I simply don’t know who he is. But I know his claim to you has to be a weak one, no matter what legal papers he can conjure up. Proving it, however, will take time—time that we
don’t have at the moment.”
“But what does he want with me?”
“Nothing good, I fear,” said Miss Ackerbee, gazing at Tess with concern. “Which means we need to think about what to do with you.”
“Can I ask one more thing?” said Tess.
“Of course, dear,” Miss Ackerbee replied, her smile suggesting she already knew what the question would be.
“The man. The other one, I mean—the one in the circle in the air. Who was he?”
“It’s only my theory, Tess,” Miss Ackerbee replied, her voice measured and careful. “But I think—in fact, I’m fairly certain, because it could hardly be anyone else—I think that man was your father.”
Just then a sharp knock sounded on Miss Ackerbee’s door, making Tess jump.
“Come in, Rebecca,” Miss Ackerbee called.
“Tess’s things are ready,” said Rebecca, coming in and closing the door behind her. “Wilf gave me a hand with the lab bits and pieces.”
“And you told her Tess has to go into quarantine?”
“Hang on a minute,” Tess said before Rebecca had a chance to answer. “Quarantine?”
“It’s what we’re going to tell the other girls when they ask where you’ve gone,” Miss Ackerbee replied. She raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure not all of them will believe that you’ve been stricken with an infectious disease, but we’ll have to hope for the best.”
Tess sank into her chair, feeling like her chest was folding in on top of itself. She stared at the blanket on Miss Ackerbee’s desk, wondering how on earth she’d gone from conducting experiments on seaweed to being told she was some sort of monster, all in one morning. She felt like a stranger in her own skin, but in another way she felt as though she finally had some of the answers she’d needed all her life.
“You can have it, Tess, if you want it,” said Miss Ackerbee in a soft voice. Tess glanced up at her. “The blanket. It’s yours, after all.”
Tess lifted it into her arms as though it still contained her baby self, and a fold of it fell open to reveal a name tag stitched carefully against a seam.
“Teresita Mariana de Sousa,” she read, her eyes filling with tears again. “My name.”
“It’s how we knew what to call you,” said Miss Ackerbee, her own voice thickening. “I wondered if your mother made it for you. It looks as though she might have.”
“In another world?” whispered Tess, looking up at her housemistress. Two fat tears finally spilled out, pooling a little in her glasses before trickling to her chin.
“That’s my belief, yes,” said Miss Ackerbee, straightening her shoulders and sniffing, just once. Her eyes were shining.
“It’s almost one o’clock, Miss Ackerbee,” said Rebecca, behind Tess. “If we’re to get her going…” Her words trailed off as a cloud fell over Miss Ackerbee’s face. The housemistress nodded and got to her feet.
“Tess,” she said, bending over her desk and leaning heavily on the flat of her palms. “You’ve got to leave the house now, I’m afraid. Just for a short time, we hope—until this Cleat person can be satisfied with going away empty-handed. But as soon as we can, we’ll come to fetch you home.”
“Hang on—what? Where am I going?” Tess clutched the blanket tightly to herself.
“To my sister’s house, in the country,” said Rebecca, coming to stand beside Tess’s chair. She knelt, folding her hands in her lap, and looked up at Tess sympathetically. “Nobody knows about its connection to this house. So you should be safe there for a while. And I’ll stay with you all the time.”
“But—wait.” Tess closed her eyes. She put the blanket carefully in her lap and took her glasses off, rubbing her damp eyes with the heel of one hand. “Just wait a minute.”
“Tess, time is really against us…,” Miss Ackerbee began, her voice low and anxious.
“Miss Ackerbee—please. Why is this man—Mr. Cleat?—why is he coming for me? Why does he want me in particular?” She licked her lips, put her glasses back on and stared at Miss Ackerbee.
“What difference does it make?” said Rebecca. Tess turned to look at her. “He’s not having you, and that’s that.”
Tess turned back to the housemistress. “But there has to be a reason. How does he even know about me? If what you’re saying is true. If—if I’m not—if I’m not supposed to be here?” Tess struggled to find the words, but Miss Ackerbee knew what she meant.
“I can’t explain that, Tess. I truly don’t know. But as soon as I saw your name on his documents, I knew we had to keep you safe. We have to get you away from here.”
“But—” Tess began.
Miss Ackerbee leaned forward, her words urgent. She fixed Tess with a stare. “Your father left you here to save you from something. He must have had a good reason! If he brought you here, somehow, from another reality, hoping you’d find a loving home far away from the world you were born into, how can I possibly betray that by giving you up now?”
“But—just listen!” Tess scrunched her hands into fists, and Miss Ackerbee leaned back a little. “Mr. Cleat might be looking for me because he knows something about me—like, maybe, about these things I can do, the things you’ve been telling me about?”
“Well, yes. Of course. I can’t think of any other reason,” said the housemistress, sinking back into her chair. She frowned slightly as she looked at Tess. “He claimed he was related to you, but I don’t see how that’s possible. Plus,” she continued, her face hardening, “he didn’t seem like the type of person I’d trust to care for a dog, let alone a child.”
“But don’t you see? If he knows something about me,” Tess persisted, “I have to go with him, not run away.”
“What?” Rebecca got to her feet in a hurry. “Go with him? What sort of scheme is that?”
“But if he knows something about me, Miss Ackerbee, maybe he can tell me who I am? Where I came from?” Tess swallowed a lump in her throat. “Where my parents are?”
“There has to be another way, Tess,” Miss Ackerbee said, her eyes dull with sorrow.
“But there isn’t, is there?” Tess replied. “It’s been twelve years and this is the first time there’s been any hint that anyone outside of this house has ever even heard of me. This might be my only chance.”
A long moment of silence passed. “It’s a risky strategy,” said Miss Ackerbee finally, her steady gaze on Tess’s face. “I don’t like the idea of you being all alone, trying to figure things out by yourself while this man holds all the cards.”
“He doesn’t hold all the cards.” Tess sank her fingers into the blanket. “You’ve told me as much about me as you can. He doesn’t know I know. That gives me a card or two, doesn’t it?”
Miss Ackerbee smiled. “I’d say it gives you a royal flush,” she said.
“So—am I hearing right?” said Rebecca, putting her hands on her hips and striding away from Tess across the room. “Are you proposing we send one of our charges into goodness knows what sort of danger? This isn’t right, Aurelia.” She cut a glance at Tess and cleared her throat. “I mean, Miss Ackerbee.”
Miss Ackerbee leaned across her desk and took a sheet of notepaper in her hand. Quickly, in her neat writing, she printed a telephone number. “Take this,” she told Tess, handing her the paper, “and keep it somewhere about yourself, always. It’s the number for this house. If you need me, you get to a telephone and ask the operator to connect you here. Simply say the word quicksilver and I will know you need help. Do you understand?”
“Quicksilver,” Tess repeated. “Atomic number eighty. Atomic symbol Hg.” She blinked, looking up at Miss Ackerbee. “I won’t forget.”
“I know,” Miss Ackerbee said, capping her fountain pen. She got to her feet. “Right. Why don’t you go and finish packing, Tess, and we’ll wait here for Mr. Cleat. You can meet him yourself, and if you
r instinct tells you not to go with him, I will fight with everything I have to keep you here. If, however, you wish to leave, you may go with my blessing and I will be waiting here for you until you return.”
“This is lunacy,” Rebecca muttered. She turned away from Tess to face the corner of the room. “Utter madness.”
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Miss Ackerbee said, her words soft. “I hate to go against you like this, but I have to admit that I agree with Tess. This is her chance to find the answers neither you nor I can give her—answers she’s entitled to. Anyway, she can always come home once”—she paused, swallowing hard—“once it’s all over. We’ll find a way.”
Tess saw Rebecca shaking her head, but she didn’t say anything else.
“Thank you, Miss Ackerbee,” said Tess, getting to her feet. The hair on top of her head sat up and Tess glanced at her own forehead. “Violet says thanks too.”
“The best way to thank me is to come home safe—both of you,” Miss Ackerbee replied. “And you’re to write to me every single week, without fail. I shall miss you terribly.” She turned away quickly, as if to busy herself with putting away some documents, and Tess felt Rebecca’s hand on her shoulder. She allowed herself to be led out of the room, feeling like her ears were stuffed with cotton and her heart was a banging gong.
Tess sat on her half-made bed, her mind in a muddle. Rebecca had already packed away most of her clothes and books but she’d left Tess’s nightie, her toothbrush and her treasures box untouched. These things now sat around Tess like a fallen army, forgotten, as she stared at the blanket in her hands.
Then the door banged open. Two of her dorm-mates, Priscilla and Proserpina—who weren’t sisters but really should have been—walked in, gabbling away to one another about hockey, as usual. They stopped short and fell silent when they saw Tess, taking in the scene.
“Are you getting adopted?” Prissy came to sit on Tess’s bed, dropping so heavily onto it that Tess bounced a little.
The Starspun Web Page 2
