The Edge of the Ocean

by L. D. Lapinski

  35

  It was a peculiar thing to step back into the travel agency and find that only two hours had passed since she and Jonathan stood arguing about what to do, but Flick was relieved that this time, at least, she hadn’t stayed so long she’d end up in trouble.

  Jonathan picked up the suitcase once Avery had clambered out of it, and carefully closed it before placing it on the desk.

  Flick raised her eyebrows. “If you don’t pull it through, will the pirates be able to use it from their side?” she asked.

  “That’s right.” Jonathan looked at her. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut them off from us completely, do you? If they need us again, I’d rather they were able to reach us easily.”

  “But what if someone else gets hold of it?”

  “Then we’ll be ready for them.” He pushed the suitcase back into its slot in the wall and patted it like it was a good dog.

  Avery, who had carried the suitcase Nyfe had given them through with her, put it down on the floor against the desk. The cut on her face had faded to a thin white line. Flick hadn’t been sure it would work, but by focusing on the magic of time just around Avery’s cut, the healing process had been sped up by what looked like at least a fortnight.

  She gave Flick a small smile, and Flick returned it. “Guess I should get going. I don’t even know what time it is in my world.”

  Jonathan picked up one of the clocks on the mantelpiece. “I could tell you the time, but the date is another matter.”

  Avery grinned, but it dried up very quickly. “It’s been long enough. I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

  “I know what you mean,” Flick said, fighting the urge to sink into the closest armchair. “That was a lot.”

  “Especially for you,” Avery pointed out, “controlling all that magic.”

  Flick’s cheeks prickled. The secret was bursting to get out of her. “I… don’t think the magic was just from the Break.”

  Jonathan frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “The magic that was keeping the schism open,” Flick said. “At the end it was like… it was coming from me.”

  “That’s impossible,” Jonathan said.

  “I know,” Flick said. “It’s like the magic came from another part of me that I didn’t even know existed.”

  The three of them exchanged worried and confused looks.

  Avery bit her bottom lip. “When we were on the boat, it was as though you were in another place. Your eyes were elsewhere. Like you could see something I couldn’t.”

  “I could,” Flick said softly.

  “What did you see?” Jonathan asked.

  Flick paused for a moment. “I think,” she said, “I think I could see what’s in between worlds.”

  “There isn’t anything between worlds,” Jonathan said dismissively.

  “That’s what I mean,” Flick insisted. “The nothingness. I could see it.” She shivered. “It was so close.”

  There was a moment of unease sinking into the room like a thin film, settling over everything in it.

  Jonathan cleared his throat. “Avery, I’ll get your suitcase.” He pushed the footstool close to the wall and reached up for the case.

  Avery took a step toward Flick. “I guess I’ll see you around…,” she said. There was a question in her voice.

  Flick stood up. Her face suddenly felt rather hot. She wanted to press pause on time, to work out what to say. She’d had all that time in the Break with Avery, but hadn’t actually said what she wanted to say. And now Avery was going away.

  Flick swallowed. “Yeah. I mean—we have to see each other again, really, don’t we? You’re part of the Strangeworlds Society.”

  Please say you are.

  Avery went a bit pink. “I’m not really,” she said, and Flick’s heart dropped. “I’m just Jonathan’s cousin, but”—she glanced behind her as Jonathan climbed down holding her suitcase—“I could always try to come more often. If you wanted.”

  Flick looked at the ceiling. “I do want you to come back,” she mumbled.

  Avery raised her eyebrows. “What was that?”

  “You heard.” Flick sighed at Avery’s teasing. “I’m not saying it again.”

  Avery’s pink cheeks went slightly redder. “Right.”

  From the desk, Jonathan rolled his eyes so only Flick could see. But he didn’t look cross.

  Flick stared at Avery, feeling as through her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wanted to say something—that without Avery’s help she would never have been able to help the people of the Break, that she wouldn’t have known how to help Jonathan, that she would have been isolated and alone, and most of all that she was sorry she’d treated her with such suspicion and jealousy when they first met. And also that she didn’t want to think about the possibility of not seeing her, even for a little while, because it made her heart ache in a way that was both unfamiliar and frightening. But she couldn’t say any of it.

  It was awful.

  Jonathan put Avery’s suitcase on the floor. “Thank you,” he said to his cousin. “I doubt we would have managed without you.”

  Flick felt a spike of annoyance. How come he found it so easy to say?

  Avery reached out and hugged her cousin for a moment. “I will come back,” she said, letting him go. “I just don’t know when.”

  “That’s fine.” Jonathan smiled. “I like your surprises.”

  “And I am really sorry about Uncle Daniel. I’m sorry.”

  Jonathan didn’t speak.

  Avery turned to Flick. “See you soon, then?”

  Flick inched forward. “Um. Yeah. Soon.”

  Avery’s arms flinched, and for a moment Flick thought—hoped—she might go in for a hug, even though Flick didn’t know how she’d respond to that, but then Avery was holding a hand out. “Soon as I can,” she said.

  Flick took her hand.

  It wasn’t a handshake, not really. It was a handhold. But it didn’t last for very long. Like us being together, Flick thought bitterly as Avery let go and turned to the suitcase.

  “Wish me luck.” Avery grinned.

  Flick gave her a wave, one not unlike the wiggly fingered one Jonathan had given Anthony, the handsome rugby-type lad in the supermarket only a few days ago, and she could feel Jonathan giving her a look of glee as she did it.

  Avery raised her hand in a quick salute and stepped into the case without another backward glance. The suitcase snapped shut as she dropped down inside it, the catches bouncing once before clicking closed.

  Flick sighed.

  Jonathan picked the suitcase up. He gave it a cursory dust with his hand. “She will come back, you know. I’m absolutely certain of that. You don’t need to worry.”

  “I’m not worried.” Flick shrugged. “It’s just hard, having a friend who lives in another world.”

  “I’m sure you can work it out. It isn’t as though you’re married yet.”

  “I didn’t think the Strangeworlds Society approved of people from other worlds getting—wait, what do you mean yet?”

  “Oh, please,” Jonathan drawled, but he didn’t elaborate. He went over to the suitcase wall.

  Flick put what Jonathan had said to one side. There was plenty of time to think about that later. Right now Jonathan needed her to ask a different question. She looked up at her friend. “Are you all right, anyway?”

  “I’m fine.” But as he pushed the suitcase back into its slot, Flick could see his hands were trembling. Like a sprinter having completed a race, his body was feeling the aftermath of the past few days. The adventure, the news, the grief, the loss were clearly all weighing down on him more than ever in the quiet of the travel agency.

  She went over to him and touched him on the arm. “Jonathan. Are you okay?”

  He turned. His eyes were shining behind his glasses. “What do you think?” he asked eventually.

  Flick held her arms out.

  EPILOGUE

  THREE
WEEKS LATER

  Flick had suggested they have a memorial service. Jonathan had been dismissive of the idea initially, until he decided he might do something in the travel agency “for close friends.” But when you worked in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, you couldn’t just invite people by email.

  They decided to ask everyone in person, which meant waiting for the weekend, when Flick was available. September had rolled around, and she’d started school. Byron Hall wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it was going to be. The place was so small that she had been the center of attention for a couple of days, but now that everyone had realized she was just like any other kid, she was being ignored—but in a good way.

  Jonathan had also gone back to school—to college, at least. Flick didn’t like to say it to his face, but she thought it was doing him good to get out of the travel agency. He also got cagey and weird when she asked him about Anthony, so she guessed things were going well there.

  The summer temperatures had just started to drop on the day when they made a list of people they wanted to ask back to Strangeworlds to celebrate the too-short life of Daniel Mercator. And the first suitcase they pulled down and jumped into was Tristyan Thatcher’s.

  They also took with them the photographs Flick had liberated from the lighthouse.

  * * *

  “I wanted to ask you,” Jonathan said, “if you’d come back with us for a day. To my dad’s memorial service.”

  Tristyan had been very pleased to see them (though to Flick’s relief didn’t seem aware of the dream they had apparently shared), and had welcomed them into his shop and set about bringing them bitter tea and bite-sized cakes. But at Jonathan’s words, he froze with a plate in his hand, his face a mask of shock. “You’re certain, then? That he has… passed away?”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “I am so sorry.” The apothecary put down the plate of treats and came over to where Jonathan and Flick were sitting awkwardly on his too-firm sofa. “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t know. All we know is that Captain Nyfe of the Break sent him a blood-magic note. To be delivered either to him, or his closest relative. And it came to me.”

  Flick’s throat hurt as she watched Jonathan speak. It was so final.

  But Tristyan looked thoughtful. “A blood-magic note to pass between worlds?”

  “Yes. Captain Nyfe explained how it worked.”

  Tristyan shook his head. “But that’s not—wait.” He grabbed a piece of brown paper and a pen from the sideboard. “Er, Felicity, what is your mother’s name?” he asked.

  “Moira Hudson,” she said. “Why?” She watched him write the name on the paper. “You’re not sending her a letter, are you? She doesn’t know about Strangeworlds!”

  Tristyan didn’t answer, just finished addressing the note before folding it into a crude paper airplane. He picked up a glass bead from a bowlful on the sideboard and crushed it hard against the paper, so it shattered in the heel of his hand. But it didn’t cut him. The glass melted into the paper like water into a towel, shimmering for a second and then vanishing.

  Flick had the urge to run up and snatch it out of his hand. If that letter got to her mother, she’d be in more hot water than someone attending a Jacuzzi convention. “Tristyan, I really don’t think this is a good—”

  “Just wait.” He picked up the airplane. “And watch.” He launched it into the air.

  Flick bit her lip.

  The note twirled, dived, and then… it zipped straight to Flick, landing neatly in her hands. She looked up in surprise.

  “What does that prove?” Jonathan asked, as Flick looked at the note, puzzled.

  Tristyan smiled. “Blood-magic notes are not terribly sophisticated, Jonathan. The pirates of the Break are not sorcerers, after all. It takes more than a simple spell to find someone lost in the multiverse. What these sort of notes find is the addressee’s closest relative, Jonathan—closest in terms of distance.”

  The whole world seemed to grind to a halt. Flick dropped the note in her hand.

  Jonathan stared at Tristyan, eyes wide. “Please tell me this isn’t a joke.”

  “It isn’t. The note came through a suitcase, yes? And found you. The closest relative.”

  Flick put a hand to her mouth. Hope sprang in her chest. “So, Daniel Mercator could still be alive?”

  “Yes,” Tristyan said. “He could be.”

  Jonathan’s eyes were the size of soup plates. He stared for a moment, then crossed the room at a run and hugged Tristyan so hard the man gasped for air. The hug only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough.

  “He could still be alive? He could be. He could be!”

  It wasn’t certainty. It wasn’t even a ghost of a promise, but it was enough. It would have to be, Flick thought. They might never find Daniel, or he might reappear at any moment. It was impossible to say. But there was hope now, where there was none before. Jonathan could hope to see him again.

  One day.

  Jonathan collapsed into Tristyan’s chair and covered his face, shaking with emotion. Flick wanted to go over to him and hug him but thought perhaps he needed a moment to himself. His world had been turned upside down yet again.

  To give Jonathan a moment, Flick took the photographs out of her backpack and went over to Tristyan, who was looking pleased with himself.

  “Tristyan?”

  “Mm?” He looked at her, and Flick again had that feeling—that she had looked into his eyes before, in another face.

  She held out the pictures. “Is this you?”

  Tristyan took the pictures. His mouth dropped open slightly, and his eyebrows creased. “Where did you get these?”

  “I found them,” she said. “In a lighthouse in another world.”

  “A lighthouse?” He frowned at her. “What’s that?”

  “You don’t know what a lighthouse is?” She frowned.

  “Perhaps I would call it something else,” he said, looking back at the pictures and putting the one where he was holding a baby on the top of the pair. “That’s my wife,” he said, touching the woman in the image. His finger lingered on her. “That was my wife.”

  “She—”

  “Died,” he said. “A long time ago.” He turned the picture over and read the names with a sigh.

  Aspen, Tristyan, Clara, and I

  “We wondered who the ‘I’ was, who wrote the names,” Flick said.

  “I wrote these names,” Tristyan said. “This is my handwriting.”

  Flick was taken aback. “But it says Tristyan, Clara, and I…” She frowned, confused.

  “Oh! The I doesn’t mean me,” Tristyan said. “That’s—” He stopped and bit his lip. “I can see it’s confusing. At the time I wrote it, the I was all I could manage. Sometimes, even thinking about someone is enough to make you want to stop existing. And writing their name can be just as painful.”

  Flick nodded. “Is that because… in the other picture, there’s only the three of you?”

  Tristyan put the pictures down on his table. Then he took down a frame of his own from the mantelpiece and brought it over. A teenage girl with dark ringlets, pointed ears, and a laughing smile shone out of the glass. Beside her, a younger Tristyan smiled too, his hair not quite as gray as it was now, his hand on her shoulder, the two of them looking windswept and happy, the moment locked in the frame forever.

  “That’s her,” Flick said. “That’s the girl.”

  “My little girl,” he said. “The only one of my children I saw grow up.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Flick said. “I did wonder, when there was only one child, after there were two in the early picture. And Jonathan said you lost someone.”

  Jonathan himself came over then. He looked happier than he had in weeks, but still stunned.

  “I never expected the love of my life to come from another world, and when she did, it was heartbreaking.” Tristyan said. “We tried to make it work. And, for a time, we were happy. We had the twins. But you ca
n’t live in a world you don’t belong to.”

  “Did Aspen go home?” Flick asked.

  “No,” Tristyan sighed. “No, she never went home. She wanted to stay here, with us, her family. And she did, for years. But then…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He gave her the saddest smile she had ever seen. “Some people live hundreds of years, Felicity, without knowing how blissful it can be to find the kind of love we had. Yes, it was short. I would rather she had gone home and lived a long life, but it wasn’t my decision to make. I am very, very grateful that I had the chance to love Aspen. And our children.”

  “So the I on the back of the photo was your other child?”

  Tristyan nodded. “My son. The boy of the twins. His mother named him, a name from a holy book in her world. His name was Isaac.”

  Flick felt her entire life grind to a halt.

  There was a clanging sound in her ears, and a rush of blood. Her face felt as if someone had slapped her, all stinging and full of pressure.

  “Clara and Isaac,” Jonathan was saying. “Nice names.”

  “I thought so. Aspen named them both. Felicity? Are you all right?”

  Flick put a hand on the counter. She forced herself to look up, past the bottles and jars, and into Tristyan’s face. Into his eyes.

  She had seen those eyes before. In another face, in another world. Those eyes, that expression of loving concern. She knew it. She’d known it all her life.

  “What’s wrong?” Jonathan asked.

  She swallowed. “Isaac.”

  “Yes,” Tristyan said, looking worried. “Is something wrong?”

  She saw it again, that expression she knew. The voice was wrong, but the expression was the same. “My—my dad’s name is Isaac,” she said.

  There was a silence so deep you could fall through it for a century.

  Tristyan spoke first. “Is that a common name in your world?”

  “Sort of,” she said. “Except, he doesn’t have a mom or a dad. He was found. Outside a police station when he was a few weeks old.”