I just don’t know. I’m hoping I’ll understand more of it today.
Dr. Venn is already in place behind his desk when we walk in. He’s wearing a wool cap and a thick coat over flannel pajamas. There’s a blanket tucked over his lap. Instead of his regular shoes, he’s wearing a worn pair of slippers. He greets us with a deep, wet cough.
“Children,” he says, his voice very hoarse. “I’m afraid we only have a few minutes. Madeline will be back any moment. Young man, come here.”
Daniel and I exchange a glance, then Daniel joins Dr. Venn behind his desk.
“Here are the monitors,” Dr. Venn says. He pauses to cough in a very deep, phlegmy way. He’s obviously very sick. But also obviously in a hurry to convey this information.
“Heart rate,” he says, pointing to a red knob, “skin temperature, brain waves—”
The door to his office opens, and Madeline comes in, carrying a small duffel. “No. You two have to leave. Come on, now, out.”
“No,” Dr. Venn manages before he succumbs to another coughing fit.
“Do you see?” Madeline asks us. “I begged you not to exhaust him, and then yesterday, with the rain and the cold—he was supposed to stay in bed this morning, but he sneaked out. The man has a fever. You’re endangering his life.”
“No,” Dr. Venn argues.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Madeline. “I’M SORRY,” I repeat to Dr. Venn. And I mean it—he looks and sounds horrible.
“Don’t be,” Dr. Venn manages in a strangled sounding voice before he gasps and coughs again.
“COME ON, GRANDDAD, WE’RE GOING,” Madeline says. “I CALLED THE HOSPITAL. WE’RE GOING STRAIGHT THERE.”
He shakes his head like a bratty little kid. He points his finger at his granddaughter and says, “NO.” He coughs again while he points to me. “I must talk to this girl. Please, Maddy. Two minutes. Alone.”
She is clearly furious with both of us—Dr. Venn and me. But it’s also clear that she loves her grandfather, and doesn’t want to tell him no.
“Two minutes,” she says. She pulls a thin tube out of her duffel, along with a small oxygen tank. She loops the tube around Dr. Venn’s head and inserts the two nasal outlets into his nose. Then she unfolds a second blanket and tucks it tightly around him. “Two minutes,” she repeats, and to me, adds, “This is very serious. Don’t you dare kill him.”
Then Madeline stalks out of the office. Our two minutes have begun.
“Through there,” Dr. Venn tells us. His voice sounds weak and hoarse. Madeline is right: I’ve pushed him too hard. Or let him push himself too hard, at least. If he dies because of me …
“WHAT’S THROUGH THERE?” Daniel asks.
“Machine. Can’t wait for me. Might be in hospital … a long time. Or never come out. Might be …” He lapses into another horrible coughing fit before he can finish with, “Pneumonia.”
Daniel opens the door Dr. Venn indicated. I don’t want to leave Dr. Venn’s side, so the best I can do right now is crane my neck and try to see past him. It looks like a small room, about the size of a closet. There’s what looks like a long metal cage hanging from the ceiling.
“Controls here,” Dr. Venn rasps, pointing to a strip of dials and levers attached to the wall. “Start, stop. Monitors. Earphones and goggles in there. Very important,” he says, pointing to me. “Wear both.” Another cough shakes him. I can hear the liquid in his lungs with each breath. “Timer. One hour. Come back. Very important—come back.”
And then Madeline herself comes back, and she rushes Dr. Venn away.
Daniel and Red and I stand alone in the office. I don’t know about Daniel, but I’m feeling pretty shaken.
Dr. Venn is right. He might be in the hospital for a long time. Or worse, he might never …
I can’t think about that.
The door to the other room is still standing open. I shift so I can see more of the metal cage. There it is, empty and waiting.
I take a deep breath. “So.”
“It’s your decision,” Daniel says, “but I think we should wait.”
“For what? You heard him. You saw him.”
“Audie, someone has died in that machine before. We don’t know how to operate it.”
“We can practice before I do anything.”
Daniel runs a hand through his short hair. “There’s no rush, is there? Not really. Things are stable. Everything is good right now.”
“Maybe here,” I say, “but what about back home? If the time difference is still the same, Thursday morning here means Sunday night there. Halli is going to decide within about the next twelve hours to drop out of my school. She’s going to start making plans. She’s going to run away.”
“Let her,” Daniel says. “You have your own life. You’re doing well here, aren’t you? You could be … happy here.”
I close the distance between us and wrap my arms around him. I understand what he’s saying, and he might be right, if not for one important thing. One important person.
“I am happy here,” I say. “I’m happy with you and Sarah and your family. And you’re right—so far I’m doing okay. This is working way better than I ever hoped.
“But I love my mother,” I tell him. “I can’t just leave her. I can’t let Halli break her heart. If I can find Halli and talk to her, tell her I’m working on the problem and not to do anything drastic, but just wait for me—I need to try. Yes, things are nice here right now. But none of this is natural. I can’t pretend it is.
“Besides,” I add, hoping to sound upbeat and carefree, “aren’t you curious?”
“Not enough to endanger your life.”
Oh, boy.
We stand here for a moment longer, locked in the warm security of our tiny little bubble in the world. But then I force myself to unlock and back away. It’s so easy sometimes to do nothing. To stay comfortable with how things are, when you know in your heart you have to make a change.
“We’re smart,” I say, “right? We can figure out how it works. And if we can’t, then I won’t do it. I promise. We’ll be safe.”
Daniel doesn’t look any more sure than I am. But finally he nods.
“Okay, then,” I say, “let’s go.”
43
It takes us a few tries to understand how to even turn it on. But then once we do, the metal cage begins swaying with a gentle motion, back and forth, then side to side, then in a kind of random sequence that sometimes seems like a circle, but then changes course so it’s never going the same way twice.
Just watching it makes me a little queasy.
Then there are the goggles Dr. Venn mentioned. The goggles are complete blackout ones: coated with a thick black film on the inside, and rimmed in thick padding so that no light can get through to my eyes from any angle. So I’m going to have to sway in the dark. That doesn’t sound any better.
And last, the earphones. Once Daniel finds the controls for those, we can hear a kind of gentle ping coming out of them, followed by a kind of chime. That’s not so bad.
“Here’s the timer,” Daniel says. “One hour, two hours—five hours maximum.”
Dr. Venn said one hour, and we both agree. The truth is, if there were a setting for only ten minutes, I’d take that instead. I’m trying to act like I’m not nervous, but I’m sure Daniel can tell.
You’re a brave girl.
“Okay, so I’m going to get in,” I say. “Just to test it.”
The cage hangs about six inches off the ground. It’s easy for me to climb in, although I wonder how it was for Dr. Venn the older he got and the harder it was for him to move. I wonder when the last time was that anyone used this contraption. I hope everything still works the way it’s supposed to.
There are metal straps to attach across horizontally at various spots and hold me in place from my shins up to my shoulders. They can all be adjusted for height. Another strap fits across my forehead to hold me perfectly still inside.
If I were claustrophobic
, I’d be shouting for Daniel to rip off all these straps right now. It would be better if even just my arms could be free, but they’re locked in, too. It gives me a feeling of true powerlessness. I feel like a metal mummy.
“All right?” Daniel asks.
I try to nod, but my head won’t move much. I force myself to take normal, steady breaths.
There are sensors in all of the straps, and those are what send information back to the monitors. Daniel goes into the other room and adjusts the dials until he can see my pulse rate, my respiration, skin temperature, and the wavy line representing my brain waves.
Dr. Venn’s machine might not be the most modern, sophisticated apparatus in the world, but his design still seems to work. I have to believe that.
Red has been sleeping in Dr. Venn’s office this whole time, but unfortunately he decides now would a good time to wake up and come see what we’re doing.
He immediately goes berserk.
“Red! Red, it’s me! Look! It’s okay.” But it’s not okay, and he knows it. He’s bawling at me like the space alien I am. Daniel races to unstrap me so I can soothe the poor freaked-out dog.
I lead him back into the office and spend the time it takes to calm him down. I can’t let this dog be a problem.
“We have to close the door while you’re strapping me in,” I say. “But you’re going to have to do it fast, otherwise he won’t want to be out here all alone. I don’t know what he’ll do to the office.”
I bribe Red with a series of treats and wait until he seems fine.
I look up at Daniel and point to the other room. We go in there and quietly close the door.
I quickly step into the machine and let Daniel strap me in. He locks my head in place, then fits the earphones over it. Finally he positions the goggles so he can just slip them over my eyes.
But first he kisses me. While I can still see him. Then he lifts one of the earphones and tells me, “I love you. Come back. Don’t forget that part.”
I smile. “I love you, too. Don’t worry. I know this will be fine.”
Even though I don’t know anything of the sort.
He kisses me one more time, then covers my ears and my eyes. I assume that within a second or two later, he’s left the room.
A few heartbeats later, I feel the gentle sway of the machine.
Then the pings start.
Here we go.
44
I understand the swing.
It’s completely disorienting. Moving this way, in no particular pattern, with all of my senses shut off—no touch, no sight, no hearing, nothing to taste or smell—I’m out of my body with remarkable speed. There’s nothing to anchor me inside it.
The pings give way to a soft gong, like the sound felt-covered mallets make against a xylophone. But the instrument here is my brain. I can feel the vibrations on first the left lobe, then the right, then back and forth in some kind of song or rhythm like someone is playing a tune against the various folds of exposed brain inside my skull.
There are stars in here, bright gold against a pitch black sky, then silver ones, and bright white, then flashes of color like red and a lucent green. But I’m seeing them on an enormous scale, not the way I would if I were just looking at them through eyes. I’ve spread out, the girl or the mind who is Audie Masters, and I’m composed of the same material as everything else I see, the blackness of space, the silver and red glow of stars, the vastness that lets me know I’m far, far away from where I was, and now I need to direct myself or I’ll just float this way forever.
Focus and defocus. Isn’t that how Dr. Venn described it? I understand what he meant. How I am right now is huge. No boundaries at all. But I can’t go anywhere like this. I just am. If I want to move, I have to focus myself into something smaller.
Daniel’s drawing pops into my mind. Root. Root down.
I picture myself diving like an arrow straight into a patch of fresh soil. I can smell it now, that earthy, moist mixture of vegetation and dirt, and I keep diving deeper until I find my line.
It’s thick. White. Like holding on to a giant-sized bean sprout that’s too big to get my whole hand around. I’m still moving. Gliding. Letting the root direct me like someone following a rope through the dark depths of an ocean.
“Halli,” I think to tell it, and the glide continues, seamlessly pulling me along through the dark soil into the fresh air of a girl’s bedroom with the window open and admitting a fresh breeze.
I gently shake her awake. “Halli.”
She jolts up in bed, takes a moment to believe, then hugs me so hard all the air collapses out of my chest. Then she’s laughing and crying and repeating my name over and over, all at the same time.
“Audie, Audie, Audie, Audie …” It’s a chant and a song, quietly under her breath. “Oh, Audie. You’re here. You’re alive. You’re back. You don’t know how happy I am to see you.”
I know I was angry with her before. But I don’t feel that way now. I don’t think I can ever feel that way again. This is me. She is my blood and my sister and my other and my friend. And I nearly lost her more than once.
And she is me in the flesh. This is my old body I’m hugging so hard. If I could slip back inside it right now I would. Erase everything that’s happened for the past few weeks and two other lives. Just come home now and be back in my own bed and wake up in the morning as me.
Not possible. I know. Put it out of your head. Halli needs a place to live, too.
“I have less than an hour,” I tell her. “I’m bilocating.”
“From where? Where are you?”
“Back in London. In your universe and one of your bodies.”
“One of my—”
“I’ll tell you as much as I can. But first I need to see my mother.”
I don’t know when the thought occurred to me, but somewhere along the way I knew I couldn’t make the same mistake twice. Last time I talked to Halli and Professor Whitfield first, and by the time my mother came home from work and I could have seen her and hugged her, I was ripped away from my body and never saw her again.
Not this time.
“Here,” Halli says. “Not like that.” She gets up and hands me one of my old familiar sets of pajamas. I look down at what I’m wearing. I’m dressed like Halli Markham, of course. She’s right—my mother will think it’s weird. I quickly change.
Halli turns on my desk lamp and fishes a pair of scissors out of my drawer. It takes me a moment to understand.
Then I willingly turn my back to Halli and let her cut off her own beautiful hair.
She scoops it into my wastebasket and ties up the grocery bag I always keep as a liner. I know she’ll hide it in the morning. It’s what I would do.
“Turn around.” Halli nods in approval, then guides me over to the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door.
We stand there side by side, looking almost like exact replicas. I doubt my mother will notice the difference in my height and bulk. Not when she’s groggy from being woken up in the middle of the night. But Halli’s right—the hair would have been impossible to explain.
“I’ll be back,” I whisper. “Then I’ll tell you everything I can.”
I pad across the hall to my mother’s bedroom. I quietly open the door.
The room smells like her. And there she is, a lump under the covers, a woman I haven’t seen in far too long.
I ease onto the bed and scoot closer and closer until I’m just an inch or two away. “Mom?” I whisper.
“Mm?” She makes a kind of nasally, snuffling sound, then looks like she’s fallen back asleep.
“I had a bad dream,” I say.
“Oh, honey.” She’s still on the edge of dozing, but she instinctively loops her arm around me and pulls me in for a hug. “It’s okay.” Then she nudges me into flipping over the other way so she can pea pod me from behind. That’s what she’s called it since I was a little girl.
I don’t need to talk to her. This is eno
ugh. To know she loves me and will take care of me, no matter what. To know I can come to her even when things are completely out of control, and just crawl into bed and let her protect me and tell me it will be all right.
My newly-cut hair brushes the tops of my shoulders. I wonder if my mom can smell the unfamiliar shampoo. I wonder if somewhere in the deep recesses of her dreaming mind she knows this girl she’s hugging isn’t really her daughter. Isn’t really the same.
That’s why I can’t stay. I know it. The worst thing would be having her wake up and know in her heart I’m not me. What will her expression look like? Do I really want to face that?
Better to leave while I know I’m loved.
“Thanks, Mom,” I whisper. I kiss her hand. Then I gently lift it off my arm so I can slide out from underneath.
I stand at the side of her bed for a few extra seconds. Just to remember what all of this feels like.
Then I retreat back through the door, back toward my own room, where I know there’s a girl who’s desperate for facts.
But first I get to have this moment for myself.
I bend at the waist, here in my hall, and press my hand over my mouth. And here in the privacy of the dark, I allow myself to grieve. Not long, just a few minutes, but I’ve needed this cry for a while. There’s only so long you can keep going and going and thinking and thinking, and never take a moment to feel.
If this is my life, and I’ve lost it—
If this is my world, and I can only visit—
If I’m the one who has to tell Halli now that she’ll need to make the best of it, keep lying and pretending, even if the life I lead is nothing like the one she wants—
Then yes, that’s me. Yes, that’s true. And standing here weeping in the dark isn’t going to change that. The only thing that has any chance of making a difference is to keep going and going and thinking and thinking. I’ve known that all along.
I stand back up straight. Wipe off my wet eyes and cheeks. Time is ticking away.
I owe Halli an explanation.
Parallelogram Omnibus Edition Page 88