Kat laughed and raised one auburn eyebrow.
“Oh, I see what you’re saying—you don’t want us trying to fix you up with any friends of our hubbies, right?”
“Well it’s just that I’m…” Caroline shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to give offense when she’d just met these girls. She really liked them—liked their free and open attitude and the way they had adapted to life on the Mother Ship so perfectly. She didn’t want to hurt their feelings by rejecting any offers of blind-dates out of hand. But still—she had to set the record straight.
“Go on,” Liv said encouragingly when the words seemed to stick in her throat. “Whatever it is, you can say it. Are you gay?”
“It’s not that. I…” Caroline swallowed hard. “I just have a hard time…connecting to people romantically. That’s all. Sometimes when people set me up on blind dates and they don’t work out, they get upset with me. I like you three—I don’t want to offend you.”
In fact, the correct term for what she considered herself was “Demisexual.” It had taken Caroline years to figure it out—for a long time she’d thought she wasn’t attracted to anyone of either sex at all. She watched as all her girlfriends went through numerous crushes—falling in “love at first sight” with any halfway decent-looking guy who came along and wondered why she never felt such feelings herself. Then, just when she had decided she was completely asexual, she had fallen in love with James, her best friend in high school.
Unfortunately, James was gay and couldn’t return her feelings. He was kind though and they had salvaged the friendship despite Caroline’s intense longing for him. Eventually the overwhelming emotion had faded and they still kept in touch to this day.
It was years and several failed relationships later when she finally heard the word that described her. A Demisexual was someone who couldn’t have sexual feelings for someone until after they had an intense emotional connection with that person. It didn’t make them sexless—on the contrary, Caroline had what she considered an extremely high sex drive. She just couldn’t seem to connect to anyone other than her vibrator in order to satiate her cravings.
She often thought that if only she could take things slowly, she might be able to fall in love and give herself completely to a man. If only things moved at the pace they had a hundred years ago. A long, slow courtship like the kind in her favorite BBC period dramas would have been ideal for someone with her temperament.
But alas, that wasn’t the reality of the dating scene today. It seemed you were expected to swipe right, meet up with a person, and instantly know—sometimes even before the first date was over—if the two of you were compatible.
Caroline couldn’t move that fast. She needed time—and a man who was willing to woo her—to find love, she thought to herself. Not someone like the last guy she’d gone on a blind date with—who had decided she owed him sexual favors just because he’d bought her a burger and a beer at the local Red Robin. He had screamed in her face and called her a “fat bitch” when she declined to go home with him for “a quick hook-up,” leaving Caroline trembling with tears of rage and shame in her eyes as he stormed out of the restaurant.
That had been months ago and since then, Caroline had decided to just throw herself into her work and forget about finding Mr. Right. He didn’t exist as far as she was concerned—at least, not in this century. Until she met a Mr. Darcy or a Heathcliff or a Mr. Thornton, she was going to remain single.
Of course, all this was too much to lay on new friends who she had just met, so she kept things simple and hoped that Liv and Sophie and Kat would understand.
“We get it,” Kat told her. “No trying to fix you up. Though it’s a shame, doll—you’re gorgeous. With that cloud of curls and your hourglass figure I know any number of Twin Kindred that would love to mate you. We plus-sized girls are like catnip for them.”
“That’s really flattering,” Caroline said, smiling. “But I’m better off married to my work.”
“Well, it looks like it’s been a pretty productive union,” Liv remarked. She walked over to the shiny brass frame of the PORTAL, which was rectangular and looked a little like an oversized mirror but with no glass in it. “Can you show us how it works or do we need some kind of protective gear to wear or something?”
“The PORTAL generates a protective shield between our reality and the one we’re viewing so it should be as safe as opening a window in your house and looking outside,” Caroline said, walking over to stand beside her. “Would you like me to fire it up?”
“Oh—would you really?” Sophie’s big green eyes sparkled. “We’d love to see it in action!”
“And I’d love to show you,” Caroline said, smiling. She was glad she would have witnesses for PORTAL’s maiden run. Somehow, no matter how many scientific breakthroughs she made, they seemed hollow when she didn’t have anyone to share her excitement.
She pushed up the sleeves of her long white lab coat, pressed the ignition button, and reached for the wheel that cycled PORTAL’s aperture open. She liked the cranking mechanism and the shiny brass trim of her machine—it looked very steampunk and Caroline had designed it that way on purpose. After all, what was the point of making a machine that could peel back the layers of reality and look at the universes underneath if it didn’t have a little style?
“Oh—I like your tattoo—what does it mean?” Liv asked, looking at the inside of her left wrist.
Caroline paused what she was doing and glanced down at the three tiny sparrows frozen in mid-flight. She had gotten the tattoo right after her mom and dad passed away—killed in a small plane crash.
“That’s supposed to be me and my folks,” she said, wishing her parents could see her now and be proud of her accomplishments. “My dad loved flying—it was kind of a family joke.”
“You said he ‘loved’ flying? Did you lose him?” Sophie asked quietly.
Caroline nodded. “Ten years ago—him and my mom both.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sophie said quietly. “Liv and I lost our parents while we were in high school.”
“I shouldn’t have asked,” Liv said quickly. “I’m interrupting your start-up procedure and bringing you down.”
“No, you’re not,” Caroline protested. “I don’t mind talking about my tattoo or talking about my parents. It kind of makes me feel like they’re always with me, you know?” She gave an embarrassed little laugh. “I know that’s not very scientific but I can’t help it—it’s how I feel.”
“I think it’s beautiful, doll,” Kat said, smiling at her. “I’m sure they’d be proud enough to burst if they could see you now.”
“I hope you’re right. My dad was an aeronautical engineer and my mom was a professor of advanced mathematics,” Caroline said. “I kind of combined their fields when I was building PORTAL. Speaking of which, I think it’s warmed up now. Should we take a look at the universe next to ours?”
“Oh yes—let’s!” Sophie exclaimed. “I can’t wait to see what’s out there!”
Caroline felt a zing of excitement—she couldn’t wait either. With a reckless twist of the big brass wheel, she spun open the aperture and PORTAL’s huge brass frame suddenly filled with a broad swathe of space.
All four girls gasped, Caroline included. Bright pinprick stars twinkled in the inky darkness but what drew their attention most was the familiar blue and green planet floating in the center.
“Oh—that must be Earth!” Kat exclaimed. “It looks just like ours.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Liv said. “Look what’s missing—there are no satellites orbiting it!”
It was true, Caroline saw, the space around this other Earth was completely devoid of satellites or any man-made material at all, including all the space-junk that had accumulated over the years since humans had started venturing into space.
“I see the Mother Ship, though,” Sophie said, sounding excited. “So I guess the Kindred are there.”
Caroline looked where she was pointi
ng and saw the sleek, white sides of the vast ship, which was about a fourth the size of Earth’s moon, orbiting the new world. She wondered if their view would be drawn there. She had speculated in her notes that the PORTAL might show an observer the exact same spot in the observed universe that they currently were in their own universe.
But even as she wondered, the view seemed to zoom in, past the Mother Ship and down to the surface of the planet. Caroline tried to guess which continent they were going to be seeing but the scene moved too fast and too much of the planet’s surface was obscured with clouds to tell.
“Oh—we’re going forward!” Kat breathed. “Straight down to the surface of that other Earth—that’s so cool!”
“It’s fascinating,” Caroline agreed in a breathless whisper. The reality was just beginning to sink in—PORTAL worked—it really worked! And they were seeing a whole new universe through its rectangular brass frame.
She couldn’t help thinking with satisfaction of all the universities that had refused to fund her research—one University president had even had the nerve to say she was crazy. Although the way he put it was, “You, Dr. Lambert, are certifiably insane and there is no way in hell that even a penny of this institution’s hard-earned money will be going to fund your crack-pot schemes!”
Who’s a crack-pot now, you old crank? Caroline thought as satisfaction and elation filled her.
“I did it—I really did it!” she whispered to herself.
“Yes, you did! You’re amazing!” Liv exclaimed, giving her a spontaneous hug. Sophie joined in, wrapping her arms around Caroline’s waist and giving her a squeeze.
“You’re making history and we’re here to see it! This is wonderful,” she said, laughing up at Caroline who hugged both sisters back with a big grin.
“Uh, guys—maybe the hug-fest could wait a minute?” Kat’s voice was strangely flat. “I think you need to look at the screen of the PORTAL thingy. There’s something weird going on.”
“What?” Caroline tore herself away from the enthusiastic embrace and turned to stare at the PORTAL’s rectangular brass frame. What she saw, made her jaw drop.
The view was no longer rushing downward. It had stabilized and it was showing what looked like an idyllic countryside. A rolling meadow dotted with big, old-growth trees that looked like oaks was showing. But instead of green, the grass and the leaves on the trees were deep blue—an odd sight to be sure.
The blue vegetation wasn’t what had drawn Kat’s eyes, though, Caroline saw. Strolling across the meadow, wearing a spreading dress that looked like it must have old-fashioned hoop-skirts under it was…
“It’s me,” Caroline whispered, moving closer to PORTAL’s rectangular window. “Or anyway, it’s me if I had a tiny waist and sleek, non-frizzy hair, and amazing taste in period clothes.”
“It is you,” Kat breathed. “I thought you said that seeing the other you in a new universe was impossible? Or at least like a trillion-to-one odds.”
“That was what I thought,” Caroline admitted. “But maybe I was wrong.” She shook her head. “Look at her—she’d look just like me if I lost fifteen pounds and straightened my hair.”
“And decided to dress up like you belonged in Gone with the Wind,” Liv pointed out. “What’s the deal with those hoop-skirts? That dress must weigh fifty pounds in fabric alone.”
“It doesn’t look very comfortable,” Sophie acknowledged. “But it does look amazing on you, Caroline. The other you, I mean.” She sighed. “You look like you stepped right out of a historical drama!”
“I really do,” Caroline agreed, eyeing her Multiverse doppelganger. She frowned. “I don’t look very happy, though.”
Which was true. There was an expression of haughty distain on her twin’s face as she picked her way daintily through the flower-dotted meadow and came to stop under one of the huge old, not-quite-oak trees. She started talking and Caroline was surprised to realize that not only could she hear what the other girl was saying—she could understand the words as well. Did they speak English in this other world? It seemed so.
“This is the spot—Ma-ma is determined to hold the announcement and reception right here,” she said, waving her parasol vaguely, as though to indicate the whole area. She pronounced “Ma-ma” with a French-sounding inflection so that it came out as “Ma-ma” which seemed unbearably pretentious to Caroline.
“Is that right?” a deep voice answered her as a man wandered into the PORTAL’s window. Caroline couldn’t see his face, because his back was to the window, but he had broad shoulders and was wearing a black frock coat that came down past his hips and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a period drama.
So apparently that was how they dressed there—it wasn’t just her doppelganger going to a costume party or whatever—this was everyday attire. Caroline wondered, as she often had while watching historical dramas, what it would be like to walk around in all that heavy clothing all day. It looked amazing but wearing a corset and hoop skirts on a regular basis probably wasn’t easy.
But it wasn’t her twin’s gorgeous but impractical-looking gown that drew her eye—she found that her gaze kept returning to the tall man with the broad shoulders. He looked too big to be human—was he Kindred? She wished he would turn around so she could tell—for some reason she had the oddest feeling that she knew him somehow. Which of course, was completely ridiculous. He lived in a whole other universe—there was no way she ever could have met him.
Maybe I’ve met his counterpart here in my own universe, Caroline thought. But that didn’t seem right either. She was certain she’d remember meeting a man so big and so broad across the shoulders and that voice…why did it sound so familiar?
He was speaking again and she listened closely.
“I’m sure the time cannot pass quickly enough for you and your mother both.” There was bitterness in his deep voice. “Tell me, Caroline, has she already chosen a new husband for you? Will you take his hand the same moment you let go of mine when you proclaim that our Joining is a sham?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, husband dear.” The other Caroline opened her big brown eyes very wide and gave the tall man an innocent look. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean that you can’t wait to be free of me, damn it,” he said roughly. “Not that I blame you. This whole thing has been a failure from start to finish. I thought I could make you care for me as I care for you but—”
A loud crack of thunder interrupted his words and the formerly sunny meadow was suddenly cast in shadows.
“Oh bother!” The other Caroline looked up through the branches of the tall almost-oak tree she was standing under and frowned petulantly. “Don’t tell me it’s going to rain now!”
“I think it is—storms blow up quickly on these summer afternoons,” the man remarked. Thunder rumbled again and fat raindrops began to plop on the shoulders of his black coat, as though to prove him right. A little distance away, the now-gloomy afternoon was suddenly illuminated by lightning.
“Ugh—how I hate the rain!” The other Caroline huddled closer to the tree’s trunk—as close as she could get without brushing its bark with her skirts, anyway.
“Caroline, come out from over there,” the tall man commanded. “We must get home directly.”
“In the rain, Richard? I don’t think so—it will ruin my new muslin dress. I won’t have that!”
“Didn’t you see the lightning?” There was anxiety mixed with irritation in the tall man’s voice. “This is the tallest tree in the entire park—it’s a veritable lightning rod. Come out now—it’s not safe!”
“No, I won’t.” The other Caroline set her pretty features in a mulish expression. “I told you, Richard, I don’t want to ruin my dress!”
“She’s going to ruin more than her dress if she doesn’t get away from there,” Liv murmured.
“He’s right—that’s not safe,” Sophie agreed.
“I gotta say, doll, that other
you isn’t too bright,” Kat remarked to Caroline. “Standing under a tree in a lightning storm—she’s not exactly Mensa material if you know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Caroline murmured. She felt as though she’d fallen into a kind of trance while she was watching her doppelganger and the tall man whose name was apparently Richard. For a moment, she’d almost felt like she was right there with them in the park with its navy-blue grass and tall, blue-leaved trees.
What’s happening to me? she wondered. Why do I feel so drawn to them? To him?
Because it was the tall man she most wanted to see. She willed him to turn around and show his face but he remained with his back to the PORTAL, still arguing with the other Caroline.
“Don’t make me pick you up and carry you!” he growled, sounding both angry and worried. “It’s a most undignified way to travel but I won’t scruple to throw you over my shoulder if you’re too misguided to get away from danger on your own.”
“Oh, poo!” the other Caroline tossed her head, her sleek, straight hair— which was drawn up in a fashionable up-do—ruffling becomingly with the motion. “It’s safe enough. You said yourself it rains all the time in the summer. The storm will pass soon enough.”
“Caroline—” he began again but just at that moment a huge crash of thunder drowned out what he was saying. At the same time, a jagged bolt of lightning, so big and bright it nearly blinded Caroline, hit the tree that her doppelganger was standing under.
“Oh!” Caroline heard Sophie and Liv gasp at the same time and Kat said, “Oh my God!” The three of them had jumped back from the PORTAL’s window instinctively but somehow Caroline herself had not. In fact, she found that far from jumping back from the window, she had somehow gotten even closer—so close that she was almost touching the area inside the big brass frame displaying the alternate universe.
No—not almost touching it—I am touching it, she thought. Good thing the PORTAL generates a protective shield between this universe and the one we’re viewing or I could just slip right through.
As she had that thought, she got a strange sensation—a feeling like falling and being drawn or sucked at by a high wind at the same time. She seemed to be tilting forward. The scene in the meadow where the tall man was shouting and everything was lightning and thunder and rain and wet, whipping branches, seemed real—so much realer than her own world.
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