There’s a barrier up between the back seat and the front, so the driver can’t see us. It wasn’t there last night when I rode in this car. Jake obviously knows where the controls are.
I sit at a respectable distance, but that doesn’t last long. Jake has me halfway onto his side of the seat in no time.
“I haven’t brushed my—”
But obviously he doesn’t care. And a few moments later, I don’t, either.
“I missed you,” Jake says when we finally need to breathe. “Come back with me. We can go explore London today. I know a place you’ll—”
“I can’t. I have things to do here.”
“What things?” he wants to know. “You were here all night.”
“I just need a few days,” I say. “I’m here for a visit. I can’t leave yet—Sarah will be disappointed.”
He strokes his finger down my cheek. “What about me? I’ll be disappointed.”
I can’t believe I’m so weak. This isn’t how I wanted things to go. It was easier to think about all of this clearly when I wasn’t within inches from Jake. It’s like I’ve passed over the event horizon of a black hole, and the force of him is pulling me in, too powerful to fight.
“Halli . . .” he whispers, about to kiss me again.
Halli. Exactly. Halli. I’m here for her, not me.
“I have to go.” I hit the handle and fling open the car door and get out before I can think again. Or before I can stop thinking again.
“Come on, Red.” The dog doesn’t want to budge. He’s stuck in Jake’s gravitational pull, too.
I finally coax the dog out. “Just give me a few days,” I tell Jake. “I’ll . . . call you somehow. I’ll come find you. But please, I need these few days alone.”
He looks confused, and I don’t blame him. Didn’t I just tell him that I loved him last night?
“Please, Jake. I’m sorry. I—I have to go.”
Then I slam the door shut and run up the walk before I can change my mind.
Please let me find Halli again. And let her come back and sort out this life.
42
I’m sitting at the kitchen table in the Everett-Wheeler home, trying my best to describe as simply as I can everything that’s happened since I first had that breakthrough meditation on a Saturday morning and ended up over here in this universe, up on a mountain ridge, staring at the parallel version of me.
And then I give them Part 2, the whole description I gave Daniel last night about everything that’s happened since last Thursday.
Daniel’s parents are mostly quiet through the whole thing, not asking a lot of questions, and in a way it reminds me of when I first told Daniel everything about how I managed to bridge the gap between our two universes and why it was I kept disappearing at such inconvenient times. He didn’t freak out on me. He just sat there with his head in his hands part of the time, listening hard, really trying to comprehend.
His parents take it even better than he did, just sipping lots of tea, nodding a lot, making me pause for a few minutes while Francie makes more toast because she says she’s suddenly ravenously hungry and can’t possibly listen anymore until she has some bread and jam in her, then once that’s done I get to continue on.
It probably only takes about an hour, all told, and then the four of us sit back in our chairs and take a breather and just look at each other.
And after a few silent minutes like that, Francie finally says, “Yes. Well.” And then a little more time goes by before she says, “It’s possible Sam and I can help you.”
“Help me?” I say. “How?”
“Has Daniel told you what we do?” his mother asks.
“Um, not exactly. I mean, I know you’re an archaeologist, and Sam is a history producer, but that’s about it.”
Daniel’s parents exchange a look. Then his mother smiles. “Shall I tell you the story of our first meeting?”
“Coffee this time, Audie?” Daniel asks me, getting up to make it. Every time he calls me Audie is just feels SO good. Like someone has finally scratched this itch in the middle of my back that I haven’t been able to reach.
But it’s strange that they’re all so casual right now. I mean, I just shared with them a shocking story of physics gone wrong, and instead of asking me a bunch of questions about that, his parents want to tell me the story of their romance?
But they’ve just indulged me for the last hour, so the least I can do is listen to them, even though the truth is I’m much more interested in Francie’s statement that she and her husband might be able to help me.
“I was nineteen,” Francie says. “Sam was twenty-two. I’d graduated the year before from the same girls’ school Sarah attends now, and instead of attending university, I had the good fortune of being apprenticed to one of my former instructors. Her name was Carolyn Brown, and she’d recently left teaching to return to the field.
“She was a famous archaeologist—perhaps you’ve heard of her?”
Francie laughs at herself. “No, sorry, I forgot—you’re not from here. Dr. Brown was a wonderful woman—still is—I don’t mean to imply she’s passed on or anything, she’s simply retired. She still comes for holidays, doesn’t she, Daniel?”
“I have the souvenir socks to prove it,” he says.
“She brings you socks?” I ask.
“From all over the world. Began when I was just a little boy. Can’t seem to stop her now.”
“You love those!” his mother says.
“Yes, I’m wearing a pair right now,” Daniel says, meanwhile shaking his head “no” at me.
“In any case,” Francie continues, “Dr. Brown was my mentor. She taught me everything I know about everything having to do with artifacts, burial sites, preserving ancient remains—all of it.”
“Get on with the love story,” Sam tells her. “How we saw each other across a crowded dig site, you fancied me immediately . . .”
“Yes, yes,” his wife says. “All true.” Then she mimics the same thing Daniel just did, shaking her head at me “no.”
Daniel gets up to pour me a mug of coffee. Then he sits back down beside me, slightly closer than before. The chill I felt from him when I first came back in, after sitting in the car with Jake, seems gone now. I think we’re back to being friends.
It helped that he had such a big part to play in the story I told his parents about everything that’s gone on. There’s no denying Daniel has been a significant part of my life over here.
“And why were you there, darling?” Francie asks her husband. “What was so newsworthy about a group of dusty archaeologists roaming some remote, featureless desert?”
Sam leans across the table and looks me intently in the eyes. “Because it was the first time anyone had openly brought a clairvoyant along on a dig.”
“A . . . clairvoyant?” I ask. “As in . . .”
“Able to see what we cannot see,” Sam says. “See beyond what’s apparent to our five senses.”
“Like a psychic,” I say.
“Yes,” Sam says. “Just so. We don’t use that term so much, but you and I are speaking of the same thing.”
“Why did you bring a clairvoyant?” I ask.
“Because Dr. Brown had tired of the game,” Francie says. “Of pretending that other tools didn’t exist. She wanted to be the first archaeologist to acknowledge the contributions that can be made by people with extraordinary abilities.”
“So . . . what did this person do?” I ask.
“This person was a farmer named John Thornton,” Francie tells me. “A wonderful, quiet man, very little education, large, generous heart. He had lived with his ability all his life, and had hidden it away from everyone, including his wife.
“But then one day, when the two of them were visiting a farm they were considering purchasing, Mr. Thornton stopped in the middle of the field, pointed at the ground, and said, ‘There’s a wall here. Straight down.’ He began walking very quickly, pacing out the dimensions of s
omething he could see so clearly in his mind, even though his wife and the other farmer could see nothing but dirt clods and grass.
“Mr. Thornton was so excited,” Francie goes on, “he forgot to hide his knowledge. He spoke freely for the first time of what he saw: a wall, a deep pit, an ancient cremation site and burial ground.”
“Did they believe him?” I ask.
“Eventually,” she says. “He was so adamant that the land contained this ancient site, he made a wager with the other farmer: if a crew of men with shovels dug downward in one specific spot, exactly as far as Mr. Thornton instructed, and thereby discovered this wall that he could see so clearly in his mind, then the other farmer would sell the land to Mr. Thornton and his wife at a reduced price. If the dig yielded nothing, Mr. Thornton would pay double.”
“But he got his discount,” I say.
“He did indeed,” Francie says. “And word began to spread. Until finally it reached the ears of my mentor, who persuaded Mr. Thornton to join us in our work.”
“But you didn’t inform any of the history organizations right away,” Sam says.
“No,” Francie agrees. “We wanted to be certain—Dr. Brown wanted that. She didn’t want us all to be made fools. So we asked Mr. Thornton to accompany us on several digs we’d arranged over a period of months. And he was right every time.”
“Right, how?” I ask.
“He always knew what lay beneath the ground,” Francie says. “Exactly what it was, and where it was. Buildings, pottery, bones—can you imagine, Audie, how much time and effort he saved us, simply by walking a stretch of ground and directing us exactly where to dig?”
“I can see that,” I say. “What a great idea.”
“Then once we were certain,” Francie says, “we called in the histories.”
“Called all of them,” Sam says. “But no one was interested.”
“Not no one,” Francie says. “There was this one young gentleman. Very eager, I recall. Willing to listen to a young woman with a strange tale.”
Sam shrugs. “It was a slow week.”
Francie smiles. “It was destiny. Sam flew out with us to a site in Egypt. He was there when Mr. Thornton walked the desert floor, describing everything beneath it. And Sam stayed on while we began excavation and discovered the first of many of the structures and artifacts that Mr. Thornton had described.”
“And by then,” Sam says, “everyone with eyes could see how much Francie had taken a fancy to me, so I had to propose to her to spare her reputation.”
“He proposed ten days in,” Francie says. “I said no. He proposed two more times over the course of the trip before I took pity on the man.”
“They married within two months of meeting each other,” Daniel tells me. “They’re both clearly irresponsible.”
“So what happened afterward?” I ask. “With the publicity? How did people react?”
“I’ll tell you how a specific person reacted,” Sam says, “and that’s my boss. He fired me. Watched the footage I brought back and handed me my papers that afternoon. Said we weren’t in the business of fiction. Invited me to find work elsewhere.”
“But you did,” I say. “History 14—right?”
“History 14 is ours,” Francie says. “We created it. Which is why, as you can see, we do not live in luxury. Some viewers appreciate the additional information we bring to our broadcasts through the use of clairvoyants and other people with extraordinary abilities, and some viewers do not.”
“And those viewers watch History 1,” Sam says scornfully. “Where facts do not necessarily interfere with the information being broadcast.”
History 1. That was the organization Bryan threatened might do the story about Jake and me if we didn’t let Bryan interview us first.
“So, are the histories like the news?” I ask. “They show stuff from the past, but also current stories?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Sam tells me. “I suppose the rationale is that everything, once it’s happened, is history—right? It’s just a name that stuck.”
“So what do you guys do that’s different from the others?” I ask. “I mean, how do you use the psychics?”
“That’s how I believe we can help you,” Francie says. “I have one particular person in mind. I’m going to contact her now, and see if she can come into the studio this afternoon. I think you’d be very interested in meeting her.”
“It’s why I suggested you speak to my parents,” Daniel says. “I knew they had resources.”
“I can’t guarantee anything,” Francie tells me. “These are human beings—they’re not machines. Some days are better than others for them. Sometimes their sight is clear, sometimes not so clear.
“But I’m going to ask one of our most reliable participants. She’s a specialist at flesh sight.”
“Flesh sight?” I ask.
“Touching human remains,” Francie says, “and seeing that person’s life, and death. I think in your situation, she’s exactly what we need.”
While Daniel’s mother goes into another room to place the comm call, and Daniel’s father calls the studio to arrange for a recording room, Daniel and I stay where we are in the kitchen.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?” I ask him. “We spent all that time together in the Alps, and you never said a word. You just let me babble on about myself all the time.”
Daniel shrugs. “Habit, I suppose. Self-preservation. One becomes accustomed to hiding certain facts.”
“But why?” I ask. “Didn’t you think I’d be interested? I would have loved to hear about all of it.”
Daniel looks me in the eye. “I wanted to impress you. I wasn’t certain having mad parents would accomplish that.”
“They’re not mad,” I say quietly. “I think they’re great. I think what they’re doing is really bold and exciting.”
“Sarah thinks so, too,” he says. “She’s never been shy about talking them up. Of course, she’s shy about very little. I’m certain if we’d all spent more time together in the mountains, she would have told you about them eventually.”
“Thank you for the idea of telling your parents,” I say, reaching over and giving his hand a squeeze. “Maybe they really can help.”
Daniel moves his hand away. “Right. Shall we go then?”
43
History 14 has a studio in a building that looks a lot smaller from the outside than it actually is inside. Maybe that’s because it’s squished between a bakery on one side and a bike repair shop on the other.
“Not the grandest of addresses,” Francie tells me as we go inside, “but well within our budget for the past twenty years.”
I hear a few whispers of “Halli Markham” as Daniel and his parents and I make our way past the staff and up the stairs.
“Not many celebrities on a daily basis,” Sam explains. “We mostly work with people no one has heard of. And they usually prefer us to keep it that way.”
“Many of them don’t even want to be paid,” Francie says. “Which also works well for our budget.”
“Why don’t they want to be paid?” I ask.
“Dilutes the skill, for some of them,” she says. “Others view it as humanitarian work—they don’t want to sully it by charging money. So they come in here, put their talents to use, then go back to their regular jobs.
“Like Olga, whom you’ll be meeting,” Francie says. “She and her daughter own a flower shop round the corner. Olga heard word of what we were doing, and showed up one day, ready to use her abilities however we needed her.”
We reach the second floor and walk down a narrow hallway. Daniel’s father opens one of the doors and ushers us inside.
It’s another deceptively large room. From the hallway you’d never know that where we’re standing now is almost as big as the guest room where I stayed at Halli’s parents’ house.
It’s divided into two areas: a control room, where we are now, filled with all sorts of monitors and eq
uipment, and a smaller recording area in front of us, separated from the control room by a clear, see-through wall.
There’s a technician in the control room, already setting up for the session.
“This is Julius,” Sam tells me. “Julius, Halli Markham.”
That gets his attention. He looks up from the controls, smiles and turns a little red, then wipes his hand off on his pants before offering it to me.
“You can trust him,” Francie tells me. “He’s one of us.”
I’m not exactly sure what that means—“one of us”—but I nod just the same.
“Why don’t you give her a quick preview?” Sam asks Julius.
“Right,” he says, then clears his throat a couple of times. “Right. Well, this area over here is for playback . . .” And he goes on to describe the process. I’m sure from the way he’s describing it he expects me to understand some of the technology, so I just keep nodding and acting like I get it. And I do get some of it, just not all.
A voice comes into the control room. “Mrs. Kopeck is here.”
“I’ll go,” Sam says, then he leaves the room.
I’m not sure what to expect. I’ve never met a psychic before. I wonder if she’ll be dressed like a fortune teller, with a long black dress and a fringed red shawl, and have long, bushy black hair.
But as Sam brings her into the recording area I see she just looks like a normal person. Like someone’s grandma. She’s dressed in high-waisted gray pants, gray shoes, and a bright coral blouse. Her hair is a curly white. She’s wearing pink blush and lipstick that matches her blouse.
Sam helps her get settled into the comfortable-looking chair in the middle of the room. He says a few words to her that we can’t hear. Then he goes to a box resting against the wall, and removes an object covered in cloth. He brings it to Olga, says something else, then leaves the room out a side door. He reappears in the control room a moment later.
Francie nods to Julius, who presses something on his control panel.
“Ready, Olga?” Francie asks her. “Everything all right?”
Olga nods and smiles, then settles into the chair a little deeper. She closes her eyes. And unwraps the object.
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