The Light Between Us

by Katie Khan

  She visibly balks at the suggestion. ‘I wish we could. But everyone seems to be displaced, and I’m the only one who knows what’s going on.’

  ‘You want to be right again,’ he says sadly.

  ‘I am right,’ she corrects, but her voice is soft. ‘This isn’t about me. It’s about the other Thea … and Rosy.’

  He stands, offering her his hands, not even wanting to think about what he’s going to say next. ‘I’ll help.’

  Thea’s shocked. ‘You will?’

  ‘Of course I will. I promised, didn’t I? “Anything it takes”.’

  ‘I mean it. I don’t want to go back,’ Thea says, standing to face him in the bedroom. ‘I want to be with you, here. But the others … I have to.’

  He closes his eyes. ‘So I’ll help you.’

  It’s brutal, holding to a promise despite your heart screaming at you to break it. Isaac cannot even begin to comprehend why she feels the need to do this, nor why he’s offering to help. But perhaps that’s what real love is: sacrifice.

  Thea lets go of his hand and the gulf between them becomes real. ‘I need to get to the glass house.’

  Isaac opens his eyes. ‘Now?’

  ∞

  Ayo and Urvisha have both fallen asleep with Ayo’s little tot in his travel cot beside them, when Thea and Isaac tiptoe down the stairs.

  ‘They aren’t going to let me jump back,’ Thea says quietly as they reach the ground floor. ‘And they shouldn’t find out. I need to go while they’re still asleep.’

  Isaac tries to hold back from complaining, but she watches as he can’t stop himself. ‘Would it not be better— We could get some sleep, and think about this in the morning?’

  The idea of spending one night together is tempting. But if they wait too long, she’ll chicken out entirely. It’s like ripping off a plaster: better quick and fast.

  Isaac moves to turn all of the lights down, but Thea stops him. ‘No,’ she whispers. ‘It might wake them.’

  She asks Isaac to head out to the barn with her, and they repeat the routine of stepping into wellies and warm coats. Thea winds an old knitted scarf around her, then pulls another from her coat pocket, rising up on the balls of her feet to wrap the long woollen scarf around Isaac’s neck. He puts his hand on the small of her back, pulling her to him, and silently, so as not to wake the others, they hold on to each other in the doorway to the cold northern night.

  She hugs him a fraction longer than she should.

  Thea opens the door carefully, not making a sound, so her friends won’t hear. It feels like a lifetime since that night in Oxford when she crept out with the intention of breaking into the Beecroft by herself. What would have happened if she had done it alone?

  They lift their wellies carefully so the rubber boots don’t make a telltale scuffing noise against the courtyard pavestones, then pass through the kitchen garden with its vegetables so wild it’s like a garden at the end of the world, then past the crazy paving slabs – one, two, three, – and out towards the barn.

  It’s a clear night and, unlike in London, they can see all of the stars.

  ‘Do you remember,’ Isaac says, ‘what you did that was different from the others?’

  ‘The other experiments?’ Thea says, gazing up at the moon as they get to the shadowy outlines of the black wood outbuildings.

  ‘It must have been different. Rosy’s jumps were either very short, or she didn’t swap places. So for you to end up here, and the other Thea to end up there …’ He can’t finish his sentence, and she takes his hand in the dark.

  They make their way through the outbuildings to the barn, the door still open from when they’d rushed out carrying Urvisha, only a few hours earlier. The glass house isn’t illuminated by the stage-like lighting of the three photographic lamps, and the prismatic texture of the glass is grey and dull.

  Thea glances over it, then at the laser, then back again. ‘That doesn’t look quite right,’ she says slowly, and Isaac walks over to examine the laser, though what he hopes to deduce is anyone’s guess.

  ‘Did Urvisha change something?’ he asks.

  ‘No, I don’t think she did.’

  ‘Do you think you did something different before?’

  She flicks on the power for the three photographic lamps so the entire barn brightens and, illuminated, the glass house once again radiates its familiar ethereal glow. Thea fingers the pocket in the glass house door where she normally inserts the prism. ‘I’ve been putting the prism in the path of the laser beam, here, so it acts like a lens.’ She takes out the prism already tucked in the door; a fairly standard one of cut glass, which she lifts so it throws refracted rainbows wherever it catches the light. ‘But maybe it doesn’t need to be there.’

  Isaac watches the spectrums falling onto the floor and across the other surfaces in the room, laughing as one lights up Thea’s face. She moves the prism between her forefinger and thumb so it catches the light even more, and Isaac is momentarily blinded by the brightness of the light bouncing off the prism and the diamond ring on her hand.

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she says. Then she does it again, the diamond flashing in his eyes.

  ‘Hey! That hurts!’

  ‘I’m wondering …’ She moves the prism to her other hand, stretching her palm flat and regarding the three rings she’s wearing in the triangle formation. Like in the Portrait of an Unknown Woman, the stone on her ring finger sits highest, up between the two joints. So it doesn’t look like an engagement ring. She twists her hand, throwing the reflected light from it once more.

  Thea starts dragging the laser towards the glass house. ‘I’m going to rest the laser against the prismatic glass – I think that’s what it needs.’ Her eye once again catches the hole in the glass door, and she looks around the barn for something to raise the laser up to a similar height. She sees a rickety old wooden ladder resting against the wall and drags it over, placing the laser box on the rung level with the small pocket in the door, so when it’s fired, the beam can shine almost directly through into the glass house.

  ‘There,’ she says, stepping back to take in her work. She can easily turn the laser on from the glass house – it’s so close it’s practically inside.

  Isaac moves Urvisha’s suitcase away from the glass house. ‘What’s the small antechamber for, at the rear?’

  ‘Thea?’ The voice comes from somewhere near the kitchen garden, or the three paving stones. ‘Isaac?’

  ‘It’s Ayo,’ he says, moving to the door.

  Thea runs through the checks, the laser’s control panel casting an otherworldly green glow on her face. She turns on one of the battery-powered head torches, leaving it lying on the control panel. Without anyone else to record the video, monitor the National Grid and check for the all-clear, there’s little else to do.

  She takes a breath.

  ‘Are you sure—?’ Isaac breaks off.

  ‘Go on,’ she says. ‘Ask.’

  ‘Are you sure this will work? That you’ll jump to wherever Thea is – and Rosy, too?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she says, smiling. She raises the back of her hand, waggling her fingers, the gleam from the ring matching the proverbial light bulb above her head. ‘I used my own diamond when I jumped to this world. That’s why it worked.’

  Isaac stares at her hand, pulling the postcard of the Unknown Woman from his back pocket, where it has been stashed with Thea’s notebook. He holds it out to her and a smile blooms across her face, once again sure that it’s her.

  ‘A plain glass prism with lead oxide crystal was never going to work properly. But this – I was connected to it.’

  He beams at her visible happiness at solving at least part of the riddle.

  ‘I wanted whatever was inside the glass house to be carried away on the light wave,’ Thea says, gazing at the diamond. ‘But it never fully worked when I was trapping the light inside pieces of glass. But to carry a person away, all the way to a parallel w
orld, using a family heirloom – a personal link … that’s how you jump all the way.’

  ‘So now we know.’ Isaac sighs with relief. ‘We use the ring.’

  ‘Are you guys out here?’

  They hear Ayo somewhere near the dovecote, her voice getting louder.

  Thea reaches for the plug and turns off the photographic lamps, plunging them into blackness.

  ‘Thea?’ he says gingerly, seeking her outline in the dark barn. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘You can’t—’

  ‘I can.’ His tone is insistent, and the fact she doesn’t interrupt him again means he has her ear. ‘I can go with you, then return with the … other … Thea.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? We just found each other. I don’t want to be without you – not yet.’ He finds her hand in the dark.

  She mulls it over, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. From outside they hear footsteps crunching on the gravel, and Isaac moves closer towards Thea’s silhouette.

  ‘I’m coming,’ he says.

  ‘Hello?’ Ayo’s voice says; she must be near the first outbuilding.

  ‘All right.’ Thea pulls him into the glass house with her, and though he can’t see much in the eerie light given off by the prismatic glass, he can feel the warmth of her body against his own.

  ‘On three?’

  ‘Not this time.’ She stands face to face with Isaac in the enclosed space, the small glass seat pressing into the backs of her knees. She tilts her head up. ‘I say we just go.’

  As she fires the laser into the glass house and their world turns white, she kisses Isaac long and hard, and the light carries them away.

  III

  A Prism Full of Light Years

  Twenty

  Joined as one as they cease to exist, Thea and Isaac feel the gravitational force acting upon them as they are pressed together with an intensity unlike anything they’ve ever experienced. They lean into the kiss, the pull between them powerful, as their history and their future merge with their present within the tiny glass house.

  Through his closed eyes, Isaac can sense a blinding whiteness outside the glass house, plus something even brighter inside it. As Thea moves her hand to his face, he knows at once it’s her family heirloom: the diamond on her finger glows vividly, the light colourless. He lifts her hand, interlocking his fingers with hers, and without even opening his eyes he can see the halo outline of her ring clearly through his eyelids. She pulls back, looking at their interlaced hands, as a great ripping sound fills the air.

  ‘The blackout, maybe,’ she whispers, her mouth next to his ear, then she kisses the lobe and that part of his neck. They touch as though it is the first time, discovering each other anew. This isn’t like before – a sleep-soaked hangover of comfort sex, familiarity driving them together, the tinge of guilt keeping them apart. This Thea is in love with Isaac and he is in love with her.

  The light drops, and Isaac’s eyes spring open in alarm. Thea’s diamond ring emits a light like a beacon, engulfing the interior of the glass house, lighting her jaw against the dark, so he runs his thumb across it, cupping her face.

  Their stomachs plunge as though they’re rising a million storeys in a glass elevator. The colour outside turns yellow, then orange, then red as they climb, catching the grooves of prismatic glass in lines the shades of the sun. The glass refracts the light inside the glass house, drifting spectrums of colour across them both. ‘Did you know,’ he says, ‘there are only really six colours of the rainbow? Indigo isn’t—’

  ‘Not now, Isaac,’ she whispers, turning so they can both face outwards. Thea sighs, luxuriating in the warmth of the light, her gaze flicking to the warm pressure of Isaac’s hand on her waist, then up to his cheekbones as the light dips. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  The red dusk turns a deep blue before their features are completely lost in shadow. After a few moments of darkness, patches of light appear, dotted haphazardly on the inky black outside.

  ‘Oh my—’ Isaac says, and though he doesn’t finish the sentence, the sentiment is enough.

  ‘We’re among the stars.’

  They press their faces to the glass. Condensation from their breath pools on the surface and Thea leans against the wall, her face cooled by its smoothness. The glass house has turned almost translucent in the vacuum of space, showing the sprawl of stars around them.

  They see each other clearly in the light of the nearest star and laugh a little, awkwardly. Isaac lifts her chin gently with his forefinger, and as the three stars of Orion’s Belt glitter outside he leans towards her and says, ‘You’re beautiful.’

  She laughs.

  ‘You are.’

  She glows from the compliment and the prismatic glass shimmers as they head into a haze of fuggy stardust.

  As they exit the nebula and it darkens once more, the odd twinkling star causing ripples of light, Thea cranes to see the purplish radiance of the Milky Way, then lets out a cry when she catches sight of something.

  ‘Do you see it?’ she says, her hand up to the glass, pointing as best she can.

  Isaac leans against the surface next to her, moving to look where she is staring.

  ‘See? There!’ Her voice is urgent and he twists as much as possible, straining to see.

  ‘The ecliptic,’ he breathes, the curved line plainly visible to them in the glass house. They can see the arc of the planets: there’s Mercury and Venus, just like when Thea and Isaac saw them for the first time, together – but also Jupiter, Mars, the Moon … and Earth.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Thea says, near tears. ‘I never thought I’d see a conjunction that includes Earth in my lifetime.’

  They gaze at the blue planet from the glass house, picking out the oceans and continents from their unique viewpoint, noting the way our pale blue dot fits into the sweeping curve of the ecliptic among its neighbouring planets.

  ‘We’re the only people seeing this alignment,’ Isaac whispers, ‘in the entire universe.’

  She smiles. ‘This is our conjunction. It’s ours.’

  Isaac holds his hand against Thea’s waist. He cannot bear to let her go. ‘It’s as though we’re standing on the edge of the universe,’ he says, repeating something she said a long time ago. ‘As though, for once, we could wave and the other planets might see.’

  She looks at him, almost seeing through Isaac in that moment, finally aware of the truth: he’s been in love with her since they met. Isaac has always been in love with her.

  She reaches up and kisses him, softly. It’s a feather-like kiss, full of love and loss. ‘You see the world like I do,’ is all she says.

  ‘We’re so lucky,’ he says quietly, though the truth is they’re desperately unlucky. Because how could it happen that Isaac would love Thea in his universe, but she would only return his love in a world where she couldn’t stay?

  They leave behind the Milky Way and the ecliptic dissolves out of sight, the glass house once again becoming opaque as the light outside bends away. Another great ripping sound fills the air, the noise so loud they both cover their ears, when suddenly their world – Isaac’s world – is gone in an instant as the rear compartment snaps free. They tumble backwards into the smaller antechamber, collapsing on the floor of the glass house.

  ‘What the—?’ Isaac says.

  ‘Oh God,’ Thea says.

  ‘So that’s what—’ he says, but she lifts a finger to his mouth, her eyes on the spectacular view outside. They freefall in the microgravity of Thea’s world, the glass house sinking down with the inevitability of Newton’s apple.

  ‘Sshhh,’ she says, and he understands, holding her tightly as they descend through the stratosphere towards daylight, a sprawl of stratus tinted with fire greeting them as they fall back to Earth.

  ‘Red sky in the morning,’ Thea says quietly as they land, and together they watch the sun rise.

  ∞

  If they were expecting a parallel world to appear diffe
rent to the naked eye, they are disappointed. As daylight creeps across Thea’s world, Isaac reaches for the portal door, pushing it open carefully to see the world beyond.

  ‘Where are we?’ he says, as they both sit up, the spell broken.

  Thea kneels to lean out of the door. ‘We’re still in the barn.’

  ‘The barn?’ he says. ‘In my world?’ He uses the possessive lightly, only for clarity.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Thea steps out, looking round. The same cold stone floor, workbenches and photographic lights are arranged at familiar points, the laser pointing towards the glass house. She wanders round, touching the equipment gently, looking at her setup.

  ‘Have we gone back in time?’ Isaac asks, as he steps out, too, glancing round with interest but also suspicion.

  ‘No – we’ve moved sideways,’ she says, gazing back at the glass house. ‘It should be the same time, on the same day. Just a different place.’

  ‘Does it feel … like home?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she says. ‘As much as the other world did.’

  ‘Looks like the diamond worked, then.’ Isaac is suddenly more alert. ‘Hey, do you think Rosy was wearing a diamond when she jumped? She always wore fancy jewellery. Could that be why she went?’

  Thea shakes her head slowly. ‘I’m not sure. She used to wear a sapphire …’

  ‘It’s possible, then.’

  ‘The crystalline structure doesn’t lend itself that well to trapping light.’ Thea gazes around. ‘We’ll have to see what we can find out.’

  ‘Shall we head outside?’ Isaac says, sensing her reluctance to leave the sanctity of the glass house and her equipment.

  She finally takes the plunge, pushing the heavy barn door open to reveal the early morning, the flat, hazy clouds at low altitude burning off their redness as the sun fully rises.

  ‘Shepherd’s warning,’ Isaac says, and Thea claps her hands together. ‘What did I say?’ he asks, bewildered.

  ‘That’s what that means!’ Thea almost bounces on the spot, a piece of the spacetime puzzle clicking into place for her. ‘Red sky at night – shepherd’s delight. But red sky in the morning – why would that be a warning?’