Relativity

by Cristin Bishara

  “What’s that smell?”

  “Fire,” I say. “I think it’s been all lightning and no rain here.”

  I shine the flashlight on Mom, flat on her back. There’s no way she’s getting up. “You’ve gotta stay in here while I go out,” I tell her.

  “No, Ruby,” she says. “Stay inside with me. Maybe the door will close.”

  “I haven’t tried that,” I admit. “I always get out, the door closes, then I have to touch the knob to get back in.” The tree’s engine hums, surges suddenly, stutters, then regains its steadiness. I don’t like the sound of it. At all.

  “Let’s wait it out.” Mom’s voice is a weak whisper.

  I sit next to her and hold her hand. Smoke blows into the tree and into our sinuses, but the air is thick and warm, and the heat feels good.

  I pull my shirt over my nose and mouth to filter the smoke. Mom hacks.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. The door hasn’t budged.”

  “Try turning the wheel.”

  “Okay.”

  It’s now at knee level, so I lean over it, into it, but it refuses to turn. And it’s not just slippery; it’s stuck. No give whatsoever, even with the socks over my hands.

  “It might be broken,” I say, hoping I don’t sound as frantic as I feel. “I’m sure it will turn once the door is closed.”

  Mom hears me straining and tells me to stop. “Save your strength,” she says.

  I stand on one leg inside the doorway, looking out. I’m not sure, but that might be Ó Direáin High School burning, throwing plumes of flame and smoke into the sky.

  “It looks like primordial earth,” I say.

  “Volcanoes?” Mom mumbles.

  “Right.”

  Universe Ten is disintegrating into ash. I imagine downtown Ó Direáin crumbling. Shanghai, Sweet Treats. All the books in the library, consumed by flames. Mom’s apartment. Her denim couch, her messy bedroom.

  Mom coughs and coughs and can’t stop. I sink to the floor and gently shake her. “Mom, the air is poisonous. We’ve gotta get the door shut. I’m going to step out, wait for the door to start closing, then jump back in with you. Maybe it will finish closing, and we can move on.”

  She’s silent, motionless.

  “Mom?”

  I press my finger against her neck and find her pulse. Her breath is warm against my cheek. But she’s unconscious. Her fingers are icy, so I press them between my palms, trying to rub some warmth back into them.

  “Mom?” I bury my face in her neck. “Please wake up. Please, please, please. I promise to take you back to Universe Four, back to your home.” I wait for her to respond, but she says nothing. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll take you wherever you want. I’ll get you there.”

  Her silence is more than I can bear. “Back in ten seconds,” I say before limping out of the tree, backpack in hand in case I need to wedge it in the door again. The moment both feet are outside the tree, I expect the door to start closing. But it doesn’t.

  I force myself to count to thirty before giving up, then step back inside. “It’s okay, Mom. Let me try the wheel again.”

  A gust of wind carries a cloud of smoke into the tree. Horrendous. My eyes sting and water; my throat is seared with hot pinpricks.

  Of course the disk won’t budge. “Go!” My muscles strain and fatigue. I abandon the wheel and proceed to kick and spit at the door. “Close, you stupid thing!” I grab the edge and lean backward, trying to pull it to get it moving, but I can barely get my fingers around its massive width. Futile.

  “I don’t think the wheel’s going to advance until we’re both out,” I tell Mom, though she’s silent. “It might not work at all anymore, but we have to try.”

  We need to hurry, to escape this stew of carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia—unbreathable air. Desperate, I look at her slumped body. It will take every molecule of strength I have, but I’ll get her out.

  I sit on the ground just outside the tree, hook my arms under hers, then press my heels into the ground and tug. Once we’re mostly outside, the door starts closing again. There must be some sort of internal sensor, a mechanism in the floor, that can feel when the tree is empty of passengers. The only problem is, Mom’s legs from the knees down are still draped over the threshold.

  We only have moments.

  “Wake up, Mom!” Coughing and gagging against the sooty air, I’m barely keeping pace with the door. If I don’t get her out—now—she’ll be crushed. A massive explosion booms behind me, and a sudden rush of flames casts an orange light on the tree. Mom’s ankles are still inside. I scream again, pull once more, and she’s out.

  The door seals shut.

  “We made it, Mom.” I pant, gulping in toxic smoke, willing myself to stand up and touch the doorknob. The shock of electricity is momentarily paralyzing; it throws me back onto the ground. The tree door opens again. I gather my senses, hook my arms under Mom’s armpits, and then reverse the procedure, screaming and tugging on her, until we cross the tree’s threshold and are back inside. The door closes behind us.

  Retching and dizzy, I try to turn the wheel. Universe One is only seconds away. But it won’t advance to the next position. I twist and twist, but it simply won’t go.

  “Turn!” I scream, shredding my vocal cords.

  It’s stuck. My lungs are collapsing. We’re suffocating inside this dark and unforgiving chamber. This coffin.

  “Mom,” I sob. “I’m so sorry. We’re going to die in here.”

  Is this what destiny had in mind? Is this my fate? To die with Mom? Maybe I should have been in that car when I was four. Maybe I’m the one who’s been dodging death all these years and it’s finally caught up with me.

  I hold Mom’s hand, waiting to black out. It will only be a matter of minutes. I lay my head on her chest so I can feel her heart, still beating.

  She squeezes my fingers. “Ruby,” she says in a raspy whisper.

  I press my ear to her lips so I can hear. “I’m here, Mom.”

  “Please,” she says. “Undo what you’ve done. You have to go back and reverse it somehow.”

  “Mom,” I say. “I can’t—”

  An idea jolts me, resuscitates me.

  “Reverse!” I scream, crawling back to the wheel. “I need to try it in reverse.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The wheel slides counterclockwise, returning to the position of Universe Nine. Fresh air blows into the tree, clearing the smoke from the interior of the trunk. Sand darts across the threshold, and the salty, seaside air seems to rouse Mom.

  “Are you awake?” I ask, shining the flashlight at her face.

  She nods.

  “I think you’re okay,” I tell her, brushing a mosquito from her nose. “You passed out from the pain.”

  She tries to sit up, holding her wrist limply in her lap.

  “Steady.” I wrap my arms around her, trying to offer support.

  “What about you? Your leg?”

  “Bad,” I admit. “It’s seeping through the bandages and sticking to my jeans.” I think of Dr. Leonard warning me about pus. A chill shakes me despite the balmy humidity here. I’m sure I have a fever.

  Mom shifts her weight, pressing her back against the inside wall. “Where are we?”

  “Universe Nine. We’re going in reverse now.”

  “Good,” she says.

  “We hit a roadblock, so we have to double back.” I shine the flashlight at the wheel mechanism, and inspect the pole. There’s the horizontal groove we’d been traveling along. But after Universe Nine, the horizontal groove ends and gives way to a vertical groove going down. So when we reached that point, the disk plummeted a foot, and then settled into place—at the start of another horizontal groove. Poised to rotate in the opposite direction.

  “Can you stand?” I ask.

  She says yes, and I help her to her feet. “Crutches?” she asks.

  “They’re gone. I left them inside the
tree, and they vanished.”

  “Thank goodness you didn’t leave me,” she says.

  “The tree wouldn’t let me,” I say. “Thankfully.” Maybe the tree has a way of distinguishing human cargo from inanimate objects.

  We hobble and lurch getting out of the oak, and then we turn to face the dreaded knob. With every touch, it delivers more amperes, more current, more impact. At some point, it will be deadly.

  Mom reaches for it, and I slap her away. “No way. I’ll do it.” The electricity tears through me, but I remain on my feet. “Piece of cake,” I say through vibrating teeth.

  Mom holds her wrist against her stomach, her shoulders slumped, looking weighed down by exhaustion, pain. “How much time do you think we have left?”

  “Zero.” The tree’s humming, engine-like noise has gone up in pitch. It’s straining.

  “So let’s keep moving,” she says, determination in her voice.

  Back inside the tree, Mom steps toward the wheel. “Maybe we don’t have to go one at a time,” she says. “See if you can spin it all the way to four. All at once.”

  I wipe my hands dry on my jeans. “I’ll try,” I say doubtfully, gripping the disk and turning it. It settles into the notch for Universe Eight, but I keep applying pressure. Surprisingly, I can feel that it’s not completely resisting. It doesn’t seem locked into place.

  “Is it working?”

  “Maybe,” I say, wishing I still had those gardening gloves. “Do you know what happened to that pair of socks?” My knuckles ache and my shin burns, but there’s some movement, a hint of possibility. And then it goes. “We’re at seven!”

  “Good,” Mom says.

  “It has momentum now,” I say as it slides from six to five. When it lands on four, I let go of the disk. “Yes!” I yell, but my excitement is quelled as the engine makes a grinding noise, like rusty gears wrenching. “That’s not good,” I say.

  Mom doesn’t reply. She seems to be holding her breath with anticipation. When the door opens I notice that she straightens her posture. “This is it?” Excitement and relief lift her voice. “We’re behind the school?”

  I nod. “Welcome home.” We step outside. The portal door seals shut behind us, and we’re greeted by the rumble of thunder. A low, growling warning. An earth-shaking. “This is Universe Four.”

  “Ruby …,” she says, her voice trailing off. “I …” She doesn’t know what to say.

  “Do you have your phone on you?” I ask.

  Mom looks confused. She pats her back pocket. “I do,” she says.

  “Think it still works?”

  She slides it open and the screen lights up. “Seems to,” she says. “I’ve got bars.”

  “Call Patrick to come pick you up.”

  Mom nods and holds the phone to her ear. When I hear Patrick pick up on the other end, I take the phone from her. “Hi, Patrick,” I say into the phone. “It’s Ruby.”

  “Ruby!” I have to pull the phone away from my ear. “Where the hell are you? And where’s Mom?”

  I laugh. “It’s good to hear your voice,” I say. “Mom’s right here. She needs you to pick her up in front of the high school.” I give Mom a look. “She’ll explain everything.”

  “I will?” she mouths.

  “You were just here!” Poor Patrick. The last time I popped into this universe, he was riding bikes with Ruby, and she—poof!—vanished. One minute she was pedaling behind him, the next there was an abandoned bike lying on the ground. “Why do you keep disappearing?”

  I lock eyes with Mom. I could tell Patrick about the science, that it’s quantum physics, but instead I tell him the truth. “I don’t know,” I say. “I honestly have no idea.”

  He sighs, sounding frustrated. “Look. It’s about time we hashed everything out,” he says. “No bullshit, once and for all. I set up an appointment with that therapist that the ER doctor recommended. For the four of us. You, me, Mom, and Dad. All of us in the same room at the same time.”

  “Listen, Patrick. I want to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to make an awesome dad someday. You’re just …” I search for the right word. “Good. Thanks for looking after me. For caring so much. It means a lot to me.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to act any differently when it comes to you, even though you’re a royal pain in my ass these days,” he says. “I need to find the Jeep keys and then I’m on my way. Hang tight.”

  I end the call and hand the phone back to Mom. “You’d better go. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  She looks stunned. “This is good-bye.”

  “Yes.” I can see she’s searching for words. “Just don’t bust into an eighties song right now, okay?”

  She laughs. “Oh, but there are so many that come to mind.”

  “I bet.” I try to force the smile on my lips to stay, but it quickly erodes.

  “Ruby, please know that I wish I could go back in time, in your universe, and save myself from that car accident for you.” She takes a step toward me and cups my chin in her hand. “For both of us.”

  “Okay.” I can feel my face tighten.

  “We’ve been on quite an adventure, haven’t we?”

  “Yes.” Tears streak down my cheeks, and I wipe them away. “I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble.”

  “Sweetheart, you didn’t build this contraption, but you need to get home before it stops working.”

  “I know.” Mom hugs me, and I whisper in her ear. “Even though I can’t have you, it makes me feel a little better, knowing you’re still out there somewhere.”

  She pulls back and puts her hands on my shoulders. “I was thinking of that Robert Frost poem earlier,” she says. “‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both, And be one traveler, long I stood, And looked down one as far as I could, To where it bent in the undergrowth.’”

  “‘Then took the other, as just as fair,’” I offer.

  Mom nods, and with that, she reaches toward the knob and gingerly touches it with a finger. The spark is alarming, but she remains standing.

  “You didn’t need to do that for me.”

  She straightens her blouse with her good hand and kisses me on the forehead. “That’s what mothers do. And now you need to go.”

  A streak of lightning punctuates her words.

  “I love you, daughter,” she says.

  “I love you, Mommy.”

  I limp backward into the tree, so I can glimpse her during that one final moment before the door closes. Before the door seals shut, and I’m without her once again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The wheel resists and my hands slip off, landing me in Universe Two rather than One.

  I mutter a long string of swear words to myself. Why didn’t I take a minute to find the socks first? They must be in my backpack, or maybe they disappeared along with the crutches. I wipe my palms on my jeans and try to finish turning it, one more notch. But it’s already clanked, so I wait for the door to open. But it doesn’t.

  Please work, for just a few minutes longer.

  The tree shudders violently, knocking me off-balance. I sink down and sit on the damp floor of the trunk, in darkness.

  “Open!” I shout at the door.

  I wrap my arms around myself, shivering, waiting. Minutes tick past, and I click on my flashlight, pointing the beam of light on my right leg. It’s so swollen the denim is stretched across my calf, the pant leg filled with what I can only assume is infected flesh.

  I close my eyes and try to remember what the East Bay Café’s golden brownies taste like. I try to conjure the flavor, the sensation of sugar and butter and caramel unfurling across my taste buds. But all I can taste is the stale interior of my mouth.

  The emptiness of my heart. The racing of my mind. Take all of it, and add my failed attempt at perfection. The sum of it is nothing but the bare truth: I am motherless, and I don’t know if I’ll ever find anything b
ig enough to fill this vast space.

  Right now, though, the inside of the tree feels like just the opposite. Small. Like it’s closing in on me. “Open, door!”

  It finally obeys, with a jerking motion. Stuck, then unstuck. As soon as there’s enough room to get around it, I crawl outside, into Universe Two, knowing that Ó Direáin High School is just a short walk away, and so is Patrick’s house on Corrán Tuathail Avenue.

  Patrick. He’s big enough to fill the emptiness. But I know I can’t stay here and intrude again. He’s already got a Ruby to take care of, and she needs his help navigating a divorce, and maybe a mother moving to New Mexico before she succumbs to karaoke. Besides, Patrick’s got his own happiness to pursue, without the distraction of a not-quite sister. I wouldn’t want to detract from the glory of his senior year, his last season of football, college acceptance letters. And maybe—if Universe Two is like Four—he’ll buy a clue and realize that a vixen cheerleader is dying for him to notice her.

  No. I can’t go running to Patrick. It’s up to me. To figure out how to make my life complete. To add some new element to the equation, so it all adds up to more than zero. Start a science club at Ennis High or volunteer at the library. Maybe I’ll ask Dad if he wants to take a cooking class together. Maybe I’ll start a math tutoring business and save up for a high-powered telescope, and take advantage of the fact that Ennis has no city lights. Or, better yet, I’ll use the money for a ticket to California to visit George.

  Flickers of forked lightning illuminate the sky, and I can see the spire of Ó Direáin High.

  This is the last time you have to touch the knob, Ruby. The very last time.

  I reach up from the ground and let the tip of my finger—the slightest pad of flesh—connect with the metal. This time the wrath of the electrical shock is exponentially worse. My spine feels pulled in five directions, my head feels split in half. The current rages on, ripping through me. I’m attached to the metal by a lightning arc, then I’m released with a vengeance, crashing to the ground, twisting my bad leg under me.