Until—
“If it had happened in one of the more dangerous dimensions, I think we might have been better prepared for negative outcomes.” My mother’s voice sounds thin. Strained. “But Josie was in a world similar to yours. Technology was more primitive, but she enjoyed the easier pace of life. The access to forests, and the sea. So she kept returning—supposedly to test the effects of repeated reentries into a dimension. Really she went just because she liked it.”
Conley closes his eyes. “I let her. I encouraged her. It seemed harmless. She did so much work for us. Why not let her have her fun? I—I never could deny her anything she really wanted.”
Nobody offers the next part, so I have to ask. “What happened to Josie?”
None of them wants to be the one to say it. Dad breaks down first. “A random accident turned—horrific.”
When it seems like Dad can’t go on, my mother speaks up. “No doubt you’ve wondered what happens if a traveler is within another self at the time of that self’s death.”
I’ve definitely had reason to worry. The thought of Josie dying like that—it’s terrible, but I’ve faced dimensions without her. Dimensions where either or both of my parents are dead; dimensions where all of them died while I was still a child. It never stops hurting, but I’ve learned how to endure that. I think of my own family back home and remind myself, I’ll be with them soon.
For these versions of Mom and Dad—and Wyatt Conley, weird as that is—there’s no such comfort. “That’s how Josie died?” I speak as gently as possible. “An accident where she didn’t have time to leap out again?”
My mother shakes her head. “In some ways, yes. But the truth was so much worse.”
Realization strikes. “She splintered, didn’t she?”
Conley answers me. “Josie attempted to leap out at the very moment of death. She didn’t quite make it. Pieces of her mind traveled to at least a hundred dimensions she’d visited earlier, as if . . .” He struggles for the right words. “As if the Firebird was trying to find a safe place for her but couldn’t. She probably made an error with the controls—she had no time, and she would have been so afraid—”
By now Dad is sitting, his head in his hands. Conley breathes shallow and fast through his nose, the way guys do when they’re trying not to cry.
This seems like a problem with an obvious solution. “Can’t you just put her back together again, using the Firebirds? The way I’m putting together my Paul?”
“No,” Mom says. “We tried. We knew the splinters were too small—that we’d never find them all, and they’d be too difficult to extract from the other Josephines—but we tried anyway.”
My parents have always dreamed big. But they don’t attempt the impossible; instead, they stretch the limits of the possible. For them to keep trying when they had no chance of success? That was desperation. Or maybe it was the insanity that sometimes follows deep grief, the same madness that made me chase Paul across the dimensions when I thought he was to blame for my father’s death. Thinking of how I felt then—how shaken, how raw—cracks open something inside me.These sad, deluded people are what’s left of my parents in this dimension. As angry as I am about everything Triad has done, I can’t help feeling sorry for them, even for this version of Conley, a little.
I remember what it’s like to hurt that much. I also remember that it fades. Grief never dies—I still have nightmares about the night a cop came to our house and told us Dad had been killed, even though he turned out to be fine. But grief changes. It softens, adapts its shape to become a part of you. That kind of sorrow never gets any lighter, but you grow accustomed to the weight as you carry it on.
In time, maybe, this world’s Mom, Dad, and Wyatt Conley might snap out of it. They could realize how crazy this has become.
“I’m sorry,” I say. For some reason, that seems to hurt Dad even more; he actually flinches. “I know it’s hard. I do. When I thought my dad was dead, seeing him in other dimensions . . . it helped me, for a while. If you need to keep visiting Josie—different versions of her—that’s okay. But that doesn’t mean you let the other two Conleys do whatever they want. I mean, they splintered Paul on purpose! Think about what they’re doing, would you? Splintering Paul and holding each piece of his soul hostage, letting Theo get sick from the Nightthief—even kidnapping another version of you, Dad—that’s so far over the line that nothing could ever make it right.”
They all exchange glances, and Conley sighs heavily. “Things are at the point where we intend to step in. Within a few weeks, the other two of me shouldn’t be a problem for you anymore.”
That ought to be a huge relief. Why does it make me tense instead?
Maybe it’s because they’ve done a lot of explaining, without giving me the answers I need most. Time to make my demands. “I want what I was promised. I want the coordinates to find Paul, and I want the cure for Nightthief.”
I expect evasion, or some kind of further bargain. Instead, Conley smiles as if in pride, and my mom and dad give each other the look that means they forgot something again. (The phrase “absentminded professor” exists for a reason.) Conley’s hand moves across the tabletop—which I realize now is also a sort of touchscreen—and after a moment, both of the Firebirds against my chest buzz slightly, receiving new data.
“There you go,” my father says. “You’re programmed with your next coordinates, plus we sent you a data file with information about the Nightthief treatment. The minute you move on, you can collect Paul, head on to your home dimension, and see if you can’t put Theo right. It is Theo who’s suffering the adverse effects, isn’t it?”
He acts so kind yet is so totally oblivious to the consequences of his actions. “Yes. It’s Theo.”
“The formula for the solution you’ve been given isn’t a cure,” Mom explains. It takes me a second to realize she means solution in the chemistry sense. “However, it greatly diminishes the toxicity within the body, and gives the patient’s immune system a chance to heal itself.”
“Yes,” I say dully. “I know.” All this, and the best I can give Theo is a chance. I think of his face at the Moulin Rouge, the naked vulnerability I saw there, and my throat tightens.
My mother comes to me and puts her arms around my shoulders. “You’re tired. Come home with us for a while. Rest. Learn a little more about our world.”
The tightness around my chest loosens slightly. Something about this still feels wrong to me, but I know I’d rather deal with my parents than any version of Wyatt Conley, anywhere. “Okay. That sounds good.” I toss off the next in an effort to sound casual. “Just us?”
Conley laughs. “Don’t worry; I’m not coming with you. I don’t blame you for mistrusting me, Marguerite. In fact, I’d say it’s proof of your intelligence.”
I get to my feet, and my parents begin leading me out. Dad’s hand touches my shoulder, maybe seeking comfort from the one daughter he has left. But I can’t bring myself to walk away from this room just yet.