Relativity

by Cristin Bishara

  “I think we can assume that the tree works for eighty-seven hours,” she says. “Or until the solar storm lets up?”

  “Okay. So help me think this through,” I say, shifting the crutches under my armpits. “The first time I went through the tree was something like two p.m. on Friday, and now it’s what?”

  “It’s Sunday.” Mom looks at her watch. “No, now it’s Monday, two fifteen a.m.”

  “So it’s been about sixty hours.”

  “But that’s from the time you first went through the tree. What if it had been up and running for a while?”

  “Good point,” I say. “It was vibrating on Thursday, late afternoon, like the motor was on. So if it had already been running for twenty-four hours—”

  “That means we’re down to our last hour or two!” Mom says. “And the code says that the next sufficient surge is unknown.”

  “Mom, this must be the next sufficient surge. Ó Direáin used the tree in the year 1864, and he didn’t know when it would work again. He couldn’t tell when another solar flare would charge the atmosphere. We’re being bombarded by solar plasma right now. These are the conditions he couldn’t predict.”

  “Ó Direáin? The man who founded our city?”

  “He was an inventor. A scientist,” I say. “He was a genius. He built the portal, and housed it—hid it—inside the oak.”

  “What about those line drawings on the floor? Do you know what they mean?”

  I shrug. “They mark the names of the universes somehow. They’re runic symbols, I think, but I’m not sure it matters. I have my own numbering system to keep track of where we are. I started in Universe One, and you’re from Universe Four. Right now we’re in what I’m calling Universe Seven. I know where they correspond with the positions under the steering wheel.”

  “Steering wheel?”

  “The disk inside the tree.”

  “Okay. Then let’s go.” Mom touches the doorknob and an arc of electricity leaps. She snaps her hand back, like she’s been stung by an angry wasp.

  “The charge is getting stronger,” I say.

  She straightens her blouse and clears her throat, trying to gather herself. “Come on. Get in the tree.”

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Go. Hurry.”

  We wait for the door to seal shut, then Mom clicks on her key-ring flashlight. She struggles to twist the slippery wheel. “I hate this thing.”

  “Hang on.” I dig through my backpack and grab Chef Dad’s gardening gloves. “These help.”

  “Why didn’t we use these for the doorknob?” Mom asks.

  “The metal there needs skin,” I say. “A charge exchange. Otherwise nothing happens. The door doesn’t open.”

  Mom turns the disk and it clanks into the next position. Universe Eight. The door opens automatically, and we step out.

  “Okay,” Mom says. “Let’s get back in. We only need to turn it three more times and you’ll be home. Then I’ll continue on.”

  It’s raining lightly, though it doesn’t penetrate the tree’s dense canopy. Distant lightning illuminates the cemetery.

  “What do you think this place is like? It looks a lot like Universe Six.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  It does matter. Because the Mom in this world might have a chipped tooth and a faint scar on her neck too. She might have dodged death. The colorful gingerbread houses could be a quarter mile away, and Mom would be happy to see me. Patrick too.

  In this universe, maybe there’s no Ruby I’d be displacing. Maybe I can just fit right in, without disrupting a parallel life.

  “Come on, Ruby,” Mom says impatiently. “The clock’s ticking.”

  “I have to look around. Half an hour. That’s all I need.” I step away from the tree and into the drizzle.

  “Ruby! This thing’s only going to work for another hour—or less! Let’s go.”

  “We could have more like three hours left,” I say, calculating the window again. “Don’t you understand? You need to go ahead without me so I can see what’s here.”

  “I thought we’d gone over this! I thought you realized that you can’t.” Mom motions to the sky. “It’s the middle of the night. You’ll get lost in the dark, and if you stay too long, you’ll be trapped here forever.”

  She’s right. But I’m drawn. I’m pulled forward by force that feels inescapable, gravitational. And it comes, once again, to basic physical laws: an object in motion will remain in motion. I’m heading for another try at Mom, in this universe, wherever she might be.

  “Stop!” Mom heads me off, takes me by the wrists. “If this tree stops working, you can’t follow a yellow brick road. There’s no tapping your heels together.”

  I think of my alternate Ruby and her Oz collection. There’s no place like home. “I just need to see if this world will work for me,” I say. “Please!” My skin is still slippery from the rainstorm in Universe Seven, and I easily wiggle out of Mom’s grasp.

  “There’s no such thing as perfect, Ruby,”

  “Wouldn’t you want it? What I want?” My hands are tight fists, fingernails digging into my palms. “You would! Anyone would!”

  “Let’s go. Back to where you belong, and where I belong.”

  “But it might work out here. What if the Ruby in this universe has some terminal disease, or was abducted, or ran away, or has a horrible drug addiction? I’d be doing her family a favor by stepping in.”

  “No. No. That’s just nonsense.”

  “Maybe someone actually needs me here,” I say. “Someone might be happy to see me. I’d be wanted.” I hoist myself onto the crutches and start hopping. “I’ve applied the scientific method.”

  “The what?” Mom chases me again, grabs my shoulders, and locks eyes with me. “This is insanity.”

  “No, Mom,” I say. “Infinity.” I walk down the path and open the gate to enter the cemetery. I look around and point to a headstone on the other side of the iron fence. “That gravestone? It’s speeding along right now, faster than you can imagine.”

  “Ruby!” Mom clenches her teeth.

  “It’s moving because the entire planet is moving. We’re spinning on an axis, we’re orbiting the sun, and the universe is expanding.” I’m close enough to see that the veins in her neck are strained and popping, just like Patrick’s were when he found me in downtown Ó Direáin and hauled me off to the ER. Do the veins in my neck do that, too, when I’m mad?

  “You’re scaring me.” Her voice is laden with desperation. “What’s your point?”

  “This is real,” I say, spreading my arms around me. “I didn’t invent this portal to parallel universes. It’s a natural phenomenon, plus Ó Direáin must have discovered a gravitational anomaly, and somehow added electricity—”

  “Don’t you understand?” She keeps pace with me, following me down the path. “We’re in danger!”

  “Mom, listen. Sometimes things aren’t what they appear. Isn’t that what you used to say? Things aren’t what they appear? With the naked eye you can mistake a comet for a planet.”

  “Exactly! What appears to you to be a parallel universe might appear to me to be an elaborate, advanced, virtual reality game. And it might appear to someone else to be magic. Someone else might manipulate the facts to claim that aliens put this thing here!”

  “That’s absurd!”

  “Is it? Is it so much more absurd than what you’re saying? Maybe a crystal that was recovered from the lost city of Atlantis is powering the tree,” she goes on. “Maybe this is some sort of Dickensian fantasy, and we’re visiting the ghost of Christmas Present.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I say, but my heart is sinking because I see her point.

  “You’re force-fitting your ideas. This isn’t about string theory, Ruby.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re wearing blinders,” she says. “You only see what you want to see.”

  Her words dig in, all claws and teeth.
She’s painfully right. I’ve picked and chosen supporting data, and thrown out the rest. It’s a scientist’s worst crime: I’ve lost my objectivity.

  “Then what’s it about?” I ask. The ground rumbles, and I’m reminded of my original hunch—that there could be a source of power under the tree. I’d asked Willow about caverns, wondered about underground caves and rivers.

  My mind flashes to a passage I read at the library, from one of the string theory books:

  Discovering a wormhole would require a long journey through outer space in search of a black hole. Scientists agree that we currently lack the technology to traverse those gateways.

  Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong direction. Up instead of down. Left instead of right. The important thing is not to stop questioning. That’s what Einstein said. But that’s exactly what I didn’t do. I stopped questioning. I assumed I was right about string theory and worm-holes and parallel universes.

  “It doesn’t matter what it is!” Mom screams, sounding like she’s been pushed to the edge.

  I look around at the tombs and obelisks, the birth dates and death dates, the cherubs and Virgin Marys.

  “What are you looking for, Ruby?” Mom asks. “Who are you seeking?”

  “You!”

  We stand silently. The rain patters. Our clothes are soaked. My leg throbs.

  “Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask. “Is that the same thing you said back at the apartment?”

  She nods. “Here is my secret. It is very simple: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

  “Exactly!” I say. “Dark matter, vibrating subatomic strings, invisible worlds.”

  “No. You’re still missing the point.” Mom turns and walks back toward the tree. “My heart sees rightly that it’s time to go home,” she calls over her shoulder. “I’ve been searching for you all day. I’m so exhausted I can barely stand. And now I find out that you’re not even my daughter.”

  “Yes I am!” I turn and rush toward her, my crutches catching on tree roots. “Look at my face! Look at me. What does your heart see?”

  Her face softens into a look of pity. She bites her lower lip and slides my broken glasses off my nose. Her gaze goes from my eyebrows to my cheekbones to my lips. Finally, softly, she says, “Yes, somehow, you are.” She puts her arms around me, and we hold each other for a long time. “Ruby,” she says, pulling back to look at me once more, “we both need to get home.”

  It feels like I’m disappearing, my body hollowed out. I’m evaporating into nothing. Without Mom, what’s left of me? “I don’t want to lose you all over again,” I whisper.

  She hands me my glasses and reaches into her pants pocket to retrieve a piece of paper. She unfolds it and reads.

  “Dear Mom,” she says. “I have gone to the ends of the earth for you.”

  It’s the note I gave to George to deliver to the school secretary, so she could pass it along to Mom. I tremble as she reads the words I wrote just yesterday morning. “Yes,” I say. “I’ve gone a long way.”

  She continues. “Thank you for the soft couch, the pizza and breakfast, the conversation. Thank you for being my mom for a short time. I loved you for every single minute, and I will always love you, no matter where we are, no matter what dimension we’re in, separate or together.”

  I drop the crutches and double over, sobbing. “I wish …,” I say between gulping breaths. “I want … but, but like you said, there’s no such thing as perfect.” I look over my shoulder, squinting to see through the cemetery and beyond. I wonder what kinds of houses there are in this universe. I wonder who lives in them.

  “That’s right,” Mom says, following my gaze. “What if something terrible has happened here? What if both your father and mother are dead?”

  Lightning crackles and thunder claps. Mom picks up the crutches and takes my elbow, steering me toward the oak tree. Rain and tears stream down my cheeks.

  “I know you’re right. I just …” I wipe my face and sigh. “I just want you.”

  “You had a mother for four years. And you had me these past couple days. That’s all the universe could give you,” she says. “The universes.”

  “It’s not fair,” I say. “It’s not enough.” I slip my hand into hers as we walk toward the tree.

  “But it’s better than nothing.”

  I nod, trying to reassure myself. “I’m lucky for the time I had.”

  We near the tree and feel the ground beneath us roar with an engine-like voice.

  “Let’s get moving,” I say, and I touch the ruthless metal doorknob.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The smell of the ocean is unmistakable. The air is humid, and though it’s too dark to see, I can sense that we’re enveloped in a dense, jungle-like world. Verdant by day, pulsating with unseen life by night.

  “Did you hear a seagull?” I ask as we step out of the tree and into what feels like soft soil, sandy and loose.

  “Yes,” Mom says. “And a lot of mosquitoes.” She mumbles hurry, hurry, hurry under her breath, waiting for the door to close behind us.

  She offers her little key-ring flashlight, but I tell her I have a better one and fish it out of my backpack. I aim the light at the portal, half expecting it to be a palm tree in this universe, rather than an oak. But its massive trunk and gray bark remain the same, though it’s covered by a veil of fungus. The canopy of leaves make their blanket overhead.

  “Maybe there was a meteor strike here, and it changed the atmosphere,” I suggest.

  Mom doesn’t comment. The moment the door seals shut, she’s ready. “Get back in,” she commands. No nonsense.

  She makes the mistake of grabbing the knob with her entire palm, rather than touching it with the tip of a finger. For several terrifying seconds, she’s bound to the knob, convulsing from the electrical current. Suddenly, she’s released. A jolt propels her, and she’s thrown onto her back.

  “Mom!” I toss my crutches aside and drop to my knees, pressing my hand against her cheek. She’s sprawled across the ground like a wounded bird. Wings splayed. “Mom? Can you hear me? Can you move?”

  “Yes.” She rolls onto her side and slowly sits up.

  “Can you stand?” I brush the sand from her hair, then drape her arm over my shoulder and try to pull her up with me. My good leg quivers; it isn’t strong enough to lift both of us.

  “Stop,” Mom says. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “I’m already hurt. Can you use my crutches? Hey! Don’t lose consciousness!” I gently slap her cheeks. Her face is cold, despite the greenhouse temperatures. “Look at me!”

  “I’m okay,” she says. She crawls toward the oak.

  “Take your time.” I tuck the flashlight into my back pocket so I can get the crutches under my armpits and go ahead of her. Between the darkness, the blizzard of insects, and my broken glasses, I’m blind. I feel my way back to the opening in the trunk, patting my hand along the rough bark.

  “We don’t have time,” she calls to me.

  I step inside the portal, drop everything, and extend my arms. She’s walking on her knees and is halfway through the door when she collapses backward. Swearing under my breath, I kneel next to her and put my finger to her neck to find her pulse. I put my ear to her mouth until I feel her warm breath.

  Then the door starts to close in its relentless, steady way.

  “Get inside!” I scream at her, pulling on her legs, her pants wet from all the rainstorms she’s been through tonight. “Try, Mom. Anything. Come on!” Her eyes jerk open, and with a hint of awareness she struggles to move forward.

  I yank on her waist, and she sits up, wrapping an arm around my neck. The open space diminishes. Twelve inches, six inches. I shove my backpack into the sliver that remains, trying to buy an extra moment, trying to get the last of her inside.
There’s a sickening crushing sound, Mom’s screams, and the tree seems to spit both Mom and my backpack into its interior. Swallowed. The door seals shut. We pant and shiver in total darkness.

  “Mom?”

  “My wrist.” She moans in agony. I find her head and run my fingers through her hair.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I say. “We’re almost home.”

  “You’re almost home. I’ve got farther to go.” She presses something into my fingers. It’s my flashlight. Though I really don’t want to know, I click it on and shine the light on her mangled hand.

  “Your wrist looks okay,” I lie to Mom, and myself. “I’m sure it’s just a couple broken bones. No biggie.”

  “Liar,” Mom says, and the word stings. I have been a liar, a fake. Posing as her true daughter, trying to step into her parallel life with the intention of stealing it for myself.

  The tree’s engine seems to growl at me, angry, threatening. I pull myself to my feet and point the flashlight at the wheel. I wipe my hands on my jeans, but they’re slick with sweat. “I need those gardening gloves,” I mumble, digging into my backpack. My fingers don’t find the gloves, but I do find socks. I wipe the one remaining lens of my glasses clean, then put my hands into the socks to use them as mittens. I turn the disk and—clang! The disk suddenly drops a foot.

  “What was that?” Mom asks, alarmed.

  “The steering wheel just slid down the pole!”

  “Is it broken?

  “I don’t know!”

  Before I can assess the damage, the door opens upon Universe Ten, marked by a runic symbol that looks like a capital H but without the left-hand stem.

  At first I think I’m seeing large snowflakes, suspended and swirling through the air. But the air is hot and smells sulfuric. I squint into the darkness, and add a little logical deduction. Yuck. It’s ash and soot, not pristine snowflakes.

  “What’s it look like?” Mom asks.

  “The apocalypse,” I say, squinting harder. The landscape is an indistinct, glowing blur. But even with my bad vision, I can tell that the world is burning.