by Kate Norris
Scott gave her a helpless look. “Hawthorn said he called in sick. God, if Hawthorn hurt James—” Scott stopped himself, jaw clenched, and shook his head.
Winnie didn’t want to ask, as if speaking it aloud was the thing that would make it real, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Do you think it’s because of us? Do you think Hawthorn caught him stealing equipment?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“We need to try to find him. Have you been by his apartment yet? We can go right now.”
Winnie hadn’t even taken off her coat. She moved toward the door.
“Winnie, no. Let me worry about James. What we need to do now is get you home.”
“But—”
“It won’t help anything if Hawthorn gets his hands on you too.”
Winnie knew he was right. But she hated it. Protecting herself, being cautious—it felt so selfish when other people’s lives were at stake too.
And she was the common link.
“I’m just . . .” Winnie paused so she could blink back her tears. “All I do is get people hurt. I don’t want to. I try not to. But I do.”
“Winnie, this isn’t your fault.”
She raised her eyebrows. Of course this was her fault.
“James started working with Hawthorn long before you came into the picture.”
She frowned. That was true—there, and in her own world. James had gone missing before she’d even known there was a James.
So at least this wasn’t only her fault.
“I should have said no when he offered to get the equipment,” Scott said. He paused and took a shaky breath. “And I shouldn’t have fought with him.”
“You just got angry because you care about him. I’m sure he knew that—knows that,” she corrected quickly.
“He could be okay,” Scott said firmly.
Winnie nodded. She had to believe James was alive, but okay? That seemed like too much to hope for.
* * *
• • •
It felt wrong to return to the preparations for their experiment, business as usual, but the fact of James’s disappearance only made it more vital for them to try to get her home as quickly as possible. She didn’t think James would tell Hawthorn about her voluntarily, but she did worry that he might be forced to confess.
Scott brought out a bulky canvas knapsack and began unloading its contents onto the coffee table, parcels of varying size cautiously wrapped in gloves, knit caps, and some plaid scarves.
“The only thing I dared to take from Nightingale’s labs was one of Hawthorn’s special batteries. The lab has a huge supply, and I have no idea how they’re made. But for everything else, I thought it would be safer to make do with these things from the general classroom equipment.”
“Will anyone find out you stole this stuff? Will Hawthorn?”
Scott just shrugged. “I don’t think so. But I didn’t know what else to do.”
Winnie picked up the largest piece of equipment, and carefully unwound the woolen scarf that wrapped it.
“A Leyden jar?”
Scott nodded.
“We can use it to build a makeshift electrometer with some of the other things I took from the lab. There’s only one electrometer, so someone would notice if it suddenly went missing, but no one will miss this.”
They needed the electrometer to measure ambient electricity after they discharged the generator, so they would know when it was safe for her to come out of the Faraday cage without risk of electrocution.
“As for the generator,” Scott continued, “there’s one on campus that needs repairs. I’ll say I want to fiddle around with fixing it and bring it home tomorrow. It’s an old one we use in class, not one from Hawthorn’s or Nightingale’s labs.”
“So we’ll have everything in place tomorrow?”
“If everything goes smoothly, yes.”
“Good,” she said, trying to sound confident, but really wondering when—in this world or her own—things had ever gone smoothly.
* * *
• • •
They used the specifications from an old Kelvin article to construct the electrometer. It took only a few hours, but it was much more painstaking than building the Faraday cage, and Winnie was exhausted when they were finished. Given all she had been through in the past week, it was hard to remember a time when she hadn’t been completely wiped out.
And Scott must be even more exhausted than she was. He had classes at Columbia and work with Professor Schulde on top of their own experiment—not to mention the stress she’d brought into his life.
“I can’t imagine how tired you must be,” Winnie said.
“No, I’m all right.”
Winnie gave him an incredulous look.
“Well, yes, I’m tired. But all of this—I mean, with everything happening in the world right now, there are certainly plenty of people who have it worse.”
“Sure. But G.I.s aren’t the only people who are allowed to get exhausted.”
“No, no—of course not. It just feels silly to complain myself with all that’s going on. Oh!” Scott exclaimed, a sudden light coming to his eyes. “But I must be exhausted, because I completely forgot to share this bit of good news: Winnie said she found the perfect spot for our experiment.”
“Really?”
Winnie must have looked and sounded as incredulous as she felt, because Scott gave her a warning glance.
“I gave her a copy of our experiment design, and told her all the necessities—a wide, open space with high ceilings and absolute privacy—and today while I was at Professor Schulde’s, she told me she found a place.”
Winnie waited a moment, but Scott said nothing more. “Well, where is it?”
“We couldn’t really talk there. I imagine she’ll tell me tonight.” Scott ran a hand through his hair nervously. “She’s, um, going to come here.”
“But—”
“I know—headaches and bloody noses. You’ll leave when she gets here. Dora’s going to come with her, so you won’t have to ride the subway back alone.”
“And you’ll take Winnie home?”
Scott was glancing all around the room as if he were looking for something, but all their equipment was right there, on the table in front of them. She realized he was just trying to avoid looking at her.
“Well, normally I eat dinner at her house, but I’ve been skipping it lately to work with you. I haven’t been able to spend any time with her.” He glanced down at the table and his fingers began moving from one thing to the next like a picky bumblebee before finally settling. He sighed. “She told Dr. Schulde she’s spending the night at Dora’s, and she’s going to stay here with me tonight.”
Winnie strained to keep a neutral expression. “Oh,” she said, “okay.”
She had wondered how far things went between him and Beta, but she hadn’t really thought they might go that far. He must think her such a child by comparison! She certainly felt like one, or like a country cousin come to town. Unsophisticated and immature.
Scott glanced at her, and suddenly his face went beet red. “I didn’t mean to imply Winnie will be staying with me. I’ll be sleeping on the couch, of course.”
“It really isn’t my business either way,” she said stiffly.
“I don’t want you to think I would take advantage. I wouldn’t do anything that would . . . well, I wouldn’t do anything.”
“Like I said, it’s not my business.”
“It is and you know it. What happens between any two of us—it’s all tangled up.”
“We’re each our own people,” Winnie said, although she agreed that it wasn’t that straightforward.
“I know you’re not Winnie, exactly—but there is overlap. And I don’t want you to think that’s something I would to do to Winnie because th
at’s not something I want you to think Scott would do to you. You want to feel one-of-a-kind,” he continued, “and look, I get that—”
“You really don’t. You can’t possibly.”
Scott was right that it was hard not feeling unique, but that was just one reason that Winnie preferred to think of her double as a sort of living shadow rather than a fully realized other self. The more she felt like Beta and she were two of the same person, the more it felt like anything that was Beta’s was really hers too. She wore her double’s clothes, slept in her double’s best friend’s bed, spent her evenings alone with her double’s boyfriend. It was already too easy to feel like the clothing was hers, Dora her best friend, and Scott—well, she was jealous that Beta would be with him all night, and moreover, Winnie felt like she had a right to be, even though she knew she didn’t.
“I know this is complicated,” Scott said softly. “I would like to understand, though.”
But Winnie knew that no, he really wouldn’t like understanding it at all.
When she didn’t respond, Scott glanced at his watch. “Winnie should be here soon.” He started tidying up. “If the place she’s found really works, we’ll try our experiment tomorrow—I’ll have Winnie let Dora know our plans, and she can pass them on to you after school.”
There was a knock at the door, and Winnie’s stomach dropped. She told herself it was just because Beta was near—that it had nothing to do with her feelings about Beta spending the night.
She turned to retrieve her coat from the armchair where Scott had placed it, until—
“Hello. Are you Scott Hamilton?”
Winnie looked to the door and saw two uniformed police officers standing on the threshold. She froze, one arm in the sleeve of her coat, and stared. If Hawthorn knew about her, he wouldn’t send the police, would he? He would send someone from the military—or he would come himself. So why did the sight of them terrify her?
Well, when police showed up at your door, it never meant anything good—but on top of that, they were expecting her double at any moment. If Beta showed up while the police officers were there, they would lie. Pretend to be twin sisters. And that lie would be disproven immediately if the officers did even the most cursory investigation.
“Yes,” Scott answered. “How can I help you?”
“Could we come in?”
Scott glanced over at her, then quickly back—it wasn’t as if he could say no. Winnie hoped they could keep this short.
“Of course.”
The four of them sat around the coffee table, and Winnie was struck by the odd mix of familiarity and formalness to the arrangement. Scott could have just invited some neighbors over for coffee—but all four of them were sitting grimly erect as if they were in church.
At a funeral.
That was why police showed up, wasn’t it? If not to arrest somebody, or for an interrogation—then to tell you somebody was dead.
“What’s happened?” Winnie asked, her voice cracking, unable to take a second more of waiting.
The officers didn’t answer.
“I’m Detective McPherson, and this is Lieutenant Muldoon. And you are?”
Indecision flickered through her. Was it better to make up a false identity, or just tell the sort-of-truth that she was Winnie Schulde?
“This is my girlfriend, Winnie Schulde,” Scott answered for her.
“Ah,” Lieutenant Muldoon said. He took a notebook from his pocket and flipped through it. “Professor Heinrich Schulde’s”—he glanced up at her—“daughter?”
Winnie nodded. Her mouth was too dry to speak.
“Has something happened to Professor Schulde?” Scott asked. If he sat up any straighter, he would spring right up off the sofa.
“No, no,” McPherson said. He swallowed and gave Scott a grave look. “But something has happened. We have a body, and we have reason to believe it belongs to James Oswald. Before we have his family make the trip in from Chicago, we want to be sure. Would you be able to come down to the morgue with us?”
Suspecting, worrying—that had not prepared either of them for the awful knowing. She could see James, in her mind, sitting across the table from her at the diner the day before. His tapered fingers, restlessly shredding his napkin. I know how to take care of myself.
“No,” Winnie said. She shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes. “No.”
James had gone missing earlier in her world than he had here. Did that mean something different had happened to that James? Or was James dead there too? He might have already been dead when Winnie got involved in the whole mess, making the events that led up to Scott’s accident even more pointless.
While Winnie was wondering all this, Scott was still just blinking at the officer, stunned.
“I’m sorry,” Scott said. “You want me to identify a body?”
Muldoon nodded. “We tried to contact Mr. Oswald’s boss first, but we’re having trouble reaching him. Someone on campus mentioned you’re his friend. Is that true?”
Scott’s mouth was pressed into a straight line, making him look almost angry, but he nodded once. “Yeah,” he said firmly. “That’s true. You want me to come now?”
“Sooner—well, sooner is better than later with these things.”
Winnie wondered if Scott had ever seen a body before. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t as if seeing her mother’s body, for instance, had made seeing Scott’s any easier.
The police officers stood, and Winnie and Scott followed their lead.
“Miss Schulde, we can drop you home on the way.”
Winnie cursed herself for not realizing—she was still too shocked—but of course they didn’t plan on taking a teenage girl along with them to the morgue. But she couldn’t let herself be dropped off at Beta’s house. What if her double was running late and hadn’t even left yet? What if the police wanted to talk to Professor Schulde while they were there? She couldn’t pass for her double in the girl’s own home, with her own father! And she couldn’t be dropped off on the doorstep possibly minutes after Beta had walked out the door, wearing a different outfit, being a different girl. Father wasn’t stupid.
“Can she come with me?” Scott asked, saving her again.
Or so Winnie thought, until she looked at him. His shoulders were hunched like he was bracing against a biting wind, and his face had the slack-cheeked blankness of shock. Unless he was the best actor since Spencer Tracy, this was no clever maneuver. Scott didn’t seem to be thinking about any of the practical matters. He’d just learned his friend was dead. He had to go see the body. He didn’t want to face that alone.
Winnie reached for Scott’s hand and gave it a squeeze. It took him a moment, but he squeezed back.
McPherson looked at their twinned hands. “She can ride with us to the morgue. If that’s what you really want.”
“And wait in the lobby,” Muldoon finished.
“I’ve seen a body before,” Winnie said, jutting out her chin.
She had seen two. She didn’t want to see a third—she didn’t even want to contemplate that the boy she’d met yesterday could be a body today—but for Scott, she would.
Muldoon gave her a look of sharpened interest. Winnie remembered too late that she shouldn’t be calling attention to herself like this.
“Oh?” he said. “Well, you won’t be seeing another tonight.”
* * *
• • •
Fear pulsed through Winnie on the way out. If they ran into Beta, it was all over.
There was only one staircase in Scott’s building. Winnie followed the officers down and hoped they didn’t meet Dora and Beta coming up.
Scott’s hand was lifeless in her own, but when she tried to drop it, he reached for her again. He must have felt her trembling—it pulled him out of the daze he’d fallen into. He glanced at her fingers, then at h
er face.
“Cold?” he asked, inquiring what was wrong in the only way that would seem innocuous to McPherson and Muldoon.
Winnie thought for a moment. She shook her head.
“Nervous. If people see”—she glanced at the officers—“what will they think?”
She hoped the police officers would assume she was talking about the neighbors, but Scott would take her real meaning—if the officers saw Beta, what then?
“That’s out of our control.”
He was right, but that did nothing to settle her pounding heart. It wasn’t just discovery by Nightingale she had to worry about now. If the police learned Winnie had a doppelgänger, they wouldn’t assume she was a transplant from an alternate universe, as Hawthorn or anyone else involved with Nightingale would. They would draw an explanation from the lexicon of their own experience: they would think she was a spy, groomed to resemble the daughter of a scientist working on a government project.
And they would suspect her in James’s death.
“You seem awfully nervous,” Muldoon said to her.
“You just told us our friend might be dead,” Scott said, bristling.
Muldoon raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t say she seemed sad.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The officers walked Winnie and Scott to the squad car parked in front of Scott’s building. Winnie glanced down the street and immediately saw Dora and Beta walking toward them, less than a block away. She and Beta locked eyes, but Winnie quickly turned and ducked into the car. There was nothing she could do to let her double know what was happening, and she didn’t want McPherson or Muldoon—especially Muldoon—to notice her looking at something and look that way themselves.
Winnie could only hope that Beta wouldn’t try to go looking for them. And for all she knew, Beta did try to follow them to the station, in some other world. But Winnie didn’t see a splinter. Even though she’d never thought the splinters were particularly useful—especially now that she realized she’d misinterpreted the splinter where she “met” James—she did feel blind without them. Would they ever come back?