“It’s endless,” Brody breathed.
Zoric nodded. “Time is, indeed, endless.”
Rafe returned, with Alan and Aran in front of him. He pointed to the other end of the sofa that Alex was sitting on. They settled on it, looking downcast. Alex wondered what was going on, only his curiosity would have to wait.
“Except some timelines just stop,” Brody said. “Like Gronoya.”
“I’m going to guess,” Veris said, “and say that time itself doesn’t stop. It goes on. There just isn’t anyone or anything on that timeline to take any notice.”
Zoric nodded. “And there is nothing to jump to, either. Don’t try, any of you. Others have. They never returned.”
Rafe looked at Alan and Aran. The twins were staring at Zoric, their eyes wide.
Zoric lifted the bunch of flowers again. “Because of how the timelines diverge, it sets up an interesting phenomenon that you’ve already noticed yourselves. You may not yet have formalized the realization.” He touched the tip of one petal. “If you jump from here to this timeline next to it, the worlds look almost identical. There are tiny differences, barely vital changes. A red house on the corner instead of a blue house. The heads of state are the same, yet their wives have changed.”
“Or, I could be driving a different car,” Taylor said. “A Porsche instead of an Audi. Or my hair is longer than I remember. Like that?”
Zoric nodded. “Just like that.” He touched the same first petal again, then moved his finger to the other side of the flower. “Over there, this timeline would be far more different. Heads of state gone. Whole countries gone.”
“Are you saying, then, that Gronoya was only on the other side of the flower?” Aran asked.
“Or on a different flower, only right next to this timeline,” Zoric said.
“But it was so different!” Aran said, looking stressed.
“Not really,” Brody said. “Apart from Wales being Gronoya, everything else was still as Alex and Rafe and Sydney remember it. We’re all here, still. We’re mostly the same.”
“Veris is grumpier, though,” Alex added, holding back his smile.
Veris growled.
Zoric held his hand. “Wait!”
Everyone looked at him again. He, though, studied Aran and pointed to the same original petal. “Let us say you are here.”
Aran nodded.
Zoric spun the bunch of flowers and pointed to a petal on a flower on the far side of the bunch. “This timeline is one you would not recognize. You might not even be able to survive it. The changes are so vast and so strange for they go back a long way.” He dropped his finger down the length of the stalks. “All the way back into ancient history, before you find a common junction point with this timeline you’re currently in. The changes have diverged wildly in that far timeline. Perhaps there is no oxygen in that timeline. Perhaps the world entered a new ice age early. Maybe, humans mutated and have grown into creatures that no longer look human.”
“Or common diseases have mutated into lethal versions that humans in that world are immune to, only you are not,” Veris said.
“Wars, pestilence, alien invasions,” Rafe said softly.
Aran swallowed.
“Enough,” Taylor said shortly.
“Are you sure?” Rafe asked her.
Taylor frowned.
Zoric put the flowers back on the table. “It is uncomfortable to talk about. It is far more unsettling to see it for yourself. I have not jumped very wide. No one I know has jumped super-wide. Those who have tried pushing the known limits and returned to speak of it describe atrocities and alien landscapes, disasters we can barely imagine. The area we are in, where this timeline is located, seems to be one of the few that are relatively civilized and pleasant. Elsewhere, humanity has found many ways to make life difficult yet still survivable.”
“Life is a harsh equation,” Veris said shortly.
“What is a wide jump?” Alannah asked. She sounded intensely curious, which made Rafe frown. Alex wondered again what was going on with the three of them. He would ask Rafe later.
“A wide jump is one where you jump from one timeline to another, but maintain your position in time. If you jump along your own timeline, it’s a linear jump,” Zoric said. “If you jump timelines and move ahead or back in time, that’s a compound jump.”
“Anyone can make wide jumps?” Alannah asked.
Rafe’s frown deepened.
Zoric didn’t seem to mind catering to a twelve-year-old’s curiosity. He answered easily. “Vampires can’t jump. Their experience of time is objective, fixed and unfailing. That’s why they’re so good at giving directions. Most time jumpers learn about jumping when they’re in the company of a vampire who remembers history so clearly. Humans experience time subjectively. It’s more fluid for us, which is what allows humans who can jump to move through time.”
“Not all humans can jump, then?” Aran asked.
“Not even most of them. There is a tiny fraction of the human population who can do it. No one knows what makes them different or how to figure out who can and who can’t.” Zoric looked at Veris. “Because there are so many jumpers in your family, you hypothesized it was a genetic thing, which most of the research is starting to confirm.”
Veris scrubbed at his hair with one clawed hand. “You’re talking about something I haven’t done yet in the past tense.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Zoric assured him.
“Wait,” Brody said. “You said vampires can’t jump, yet Taylor can.”
Zoric grimaced. “Taylor is a woman and she was a human jumper first. Sorry. I should have been more precise. Male vampires can’t jump. Although, that may prove wrong eventually, too. There have been no male vampire jumpers yet, just as there are very few male human jumpers. It appears to be a primarily female skill. The one other male jumper I know was turned and couldn’t jump after that.”
Rafe held up his hand and everyone looked at him, some with amusement. He put his hand down. “I thought we were still doing the one question thing,” he said. “I have a question about the dangers of jumping.”
Alannah rolled her eyes. Aran just looked scared.
Zoric’s smile faded, too. “Do you have a week? It could take a while. Yet, you know most of it already. You guys have lived through several time jumps. That puts you ahead of many jumpers, who get themselves killed the first jump, because they were too stupid to get out of their own way.”
“Wide jumping, then,” Rafe said. “Start there.”
“It’s the same as linear jumping, only worse,” Zoric said. “You leave yourself behind in this timeline, because you can’t change physics. Wide jumps, though, mean there is an original you in that timeline as well as you, the traveler. It causes issues, because you tend to gravitate to that version’s life. Remember I was talking about bookmarks?”
More nods.
“If you visit a spot often enough, you leave a bookmark, like the dots on the progression bar of an ebook reader that mark places you’ve paused or marked. Your home time and place are throbbing beacons, so you can always find your way home. It pulls you there. So does any other frequently visited place and that can cause issues. Even a destination you’ve never been to can call, because there is a personal connection you’re not aware of yet. When you’re outside time, you have to learn to distinguish between where you really want to go and the bookmarks that make you think you want to go there, instead.” Zoric frowned. “Then there’s the time limit.”
“There’s a time limit?” Veris said sharply. “Determined by what? Entropy?”
“Of a sort. It’s a very simple time limit. It’s how long your human body can survive without you in it, in your personal timeline. If you linger too long in the other timeline, your body in your original world will wither and die. It happens really fast for humans—a week at the most. Vampires last longer, yet the decay eventually gets them, too.”
“We were gone nearly a week,” B
rody said, looking at Veris.
“You both had glucose and blood IVs,” Veris replied, frowning. “And neither jump was wide. Both of them were linear.”
“Linear is far simpler and straight forward,” Zoric said in agreement. “None of the seizures and screwed up metabolisms you can get from wide jumps.”
“Seizures?” Alannah repeated, alarm making her eyes wide.
Contrariwise, Rafe looked happier than he had since he had walked into the room with the twins.
“There’s a reason I ended up in your swimming pool,” Zoric said. “I was disoriented.”
“You were drowning,” Aran pointed out.
“I was in water. I was drawn back to water, because I didn’t have the time to pick my spot better,” Zoric said gravely. “Actually, I passed out before the jump was completed. I don’t remember arriving here at all.”
Aran pressed his lips together, making them thin and white. “We were right next to the water, ‘lanah,” he murmured to Alannah.
“Shut up!” she hissed. “You’ll ruin it.”
Aran shook his head. “Uncle Rafe is right. It was stupid.” He looked at Rafe. “Show them, Uncle Rafe.”
Rafe considered him. Then he dug in his pocket and pulled out a cellphone that wasn’t his. He thumbed through a couple of screens, then laid the phone down on the coffee table where everyone could see it.
Alex leaned over to look at the image, which was upside-down for him. Even so, it was clearly Veris in the photo, dressed in clothes much older than any Alex had ever worn. The man next to him was Rafe. A younger Rafe than the one sitting next to Alex right now.
“When was this taken?” Alex asked.
“In my subjective timeline,” Aran said, “it was taken about eighty minutes ago.”
“In my subjective timeline, that was taken in the year four hundred and eighty-nine,” Veris said quietly. Too quietly. “Rafe, can I use your office for a while?”
Rafe nodded.
Taylor closed her eyes. Then she put her face in her hands. Brody bent over her, murmuring.
Alannah bit her lip, watching Veris. Aran looked as if he was ready to burst into tears. He was watching Taylor.
“Aran, Alannah, come with me,” Veris said. He was still speaking quietly.
The small hairs on the back of Alex’s neck tried to stand up. He fervently hoped Veris would never use that tone and intensity with him. As Veris led the twins away, Alex felt a moment of pity for them, but no real concern. Veris was all bark and no bite when it came to his kids.
Even so, they were in for a very unpleasant few minutes.
Chapter Six
Coming back home this time was much gentler. Sydney could actually feel herself dropping into her own body. With the next blink, she was staring up at the ceiling over her bed.
Marit was sitting up in the armchair in the corner, smiling. “No headache. No reaction. How do you feel?”
“It was different this time,” Sydney confessed, sitting up. “The last few times, I worried. This time I tried looking around as you suggested. The worry dropped away and I could see…things.”
“Times and places,” Marit said in agreement.
Sydney thought again of the time-and-place that always seemed to be behind her, calling to her. This time, she had felt that if she could only listen long enough, she would hear its voice. It would be soft and reassuring, like a lullaby sung by a mother. It was, she guessed, one of those locations that Zoric had called a bookmark. She could feel the temptation to go there. However, on all these practice runs, the intention was not to complete the jump, but to navigate time and then return.
She was getting better at it.
Marit glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “I’m cook tonight,” she said. “I should go start in the kitchen, or everyone will be yelling at me about being hungry.”
“Everyone being the four of us, which includes two almost-teenagers who are always hungry,” Sydney pointed out.
“Five now, with Zoric,” Marit pointed out.
“Will your parents tell you what he was talking about?” Sydney asked. “I’d hate to think you missed out on anything critical because of me.” Rafe and Alex would recall everything of importance and share it with her, later, so she wouldn’t miss anything vital. Learning this new skill was more important.
Marit smiled. It had an odd tilt to it that reminded Sydney of Brody. Marit was Veris’ daughter by blood, yet Brody had wielded as much influence on her as Veris. She even smiled like Brody did, with the head-down, I’m-studying-you look in her eyes that he often used.
“What?” Sydney asked.
“I doubt that Zoric knows anything I don’t,” Marit said. Her smile turned into one of Veris’ full, I’m-the-king-of-the-world cocksure expressions.
Sydney considered that. “Have you two met before? I mean, out there?” She pointed to the ceiling.
“On the time plane?” Marit shook her head. “There are others out there. I feel them sometimes, only we don’t communicate. When I was little, I was afraid to. Now, I just don’t care to. The only person I’ve ever spoken to there is Alex. And now, you.”
“Why don’t you care to speak to them? They’re like you. I mean, they have that in common with you. I would have thought it would make you feel less…well, it must have been lonely, growing up and knowing you were so different.”
“I had Far and Athair and Mom and Uncle Alex. Later, I had you and Uncle Rafe. You all knew what I was and it didn’t matter to you. The others out there…I don’t know what they’re like as people. Besides, the one I’m waiting for isn’t there. Not yet.” She got to her feet and stretched.
Sydney felt her heart give a little squeeze. “The one you’re waiting for?”
Marit didn’t look awkward, or embarrassed. “I don’t know his name. I only know he’s there—somewhere ahead of me.”
“You’ve seen your future?”
“The shape of it, yes. Not the details. I don’t know his name. I do know his voice. The deep sound of it.” Marit grinned suddenly. “Don’t tell Far, will you? He has enough trouble thinking of me as anything but six with raw knees and missing teeth.”
“I think I’m suddenly having trouble with it, too,” Sydney confessed, moving to the side of the bed. She felt stiff and cold. “Don’t grow up too quickly, Marit. You’ll miss out on all the fun.”
Marit paused at the door, with her hand on the handle. “That’s what Uncle Alex told me when I was five.”
“You were never five. Fifty-five, maybe.” Sydney got to her feet and groaned. “I’m aching like a sore tooth. I haven’t moved at all today. While you get dinner, I’m going to walk around outside and iron out the kinks.”
* * * * *
The sun was heading for the horizon, lighting up the snow-caps on the mountains and turning them pink, orange and red, as Sydney stepped outside and moved along the path down to the bottom tier of the gardens. She pulled her coat around her tightly, for the cold was coming in. It was December 19th. In three days, it would be the winter solstice, which was the reason Taylor and her family were here. Christmas was a Christian festival that Veris objected to because of the commercial qualities, while the solstice was a natural phenomenon that all four of them—Veris, Brody, Alex and Rafe—could remember being celebrated in their lifetimes. They had therefore chosen the solstice as the annual family get-together.
When she and Alex and Rafe had dropped their old lives and taken up new identities in Spain, the tradition had carried on uninterrupted, although now everyone came to Spain. It would be a good few years before she and Alex and Rafe could risk returning to America.
It wasn’t a difficult compromise to make. Life here was very pleasant and very different from her old one. She had yet to figure out what she was going to do with this new life. There was no rush. Soon, Alex and Rafe would turn her as they had promised, although they had been putting it off with vague excuses and weak reasons.
Taylor had clued her in
. “They will procrastinate you to death on the subject,” Taylor warned her. “The old vampires like Rafe and Alex have learned to appreciate humans—flaws, weakness and all. They enjoy watching you change from day to day. When you’re really, truly ready to turn, you’ll have to force them to it in some way. For now, relax and enjoy being human yourself. You’ll miss it, when it’s gone.”
Sydney had trouble imagining what she could possibly miss about being weak and flawed and vulnerable, yet she trusted Taylor as she trusted very few other people. She had relaxed and let the days roll by and tried to enjoy them.
Here in Granada, that was very easy to do.
She climbed down to the lower tier. On this tier there was a long, narrow pond lined with thin Cyprus trees. The pond held koi she liked to feed. The biggest and oldest fish sometimes let her tickle his belly.
Down here, the sun was too low to peep over the tall wall that separated the grounds from the public road on the other side. Shadows were creeping in and it was even colder. It made her walk at a brisker pace, which would be good after more than a day of laying around in bed. Alex and Veris had insisted on the inactivity after yesterday’s venture onto the time-plane with Marit. Sydney would have gone stir-crazy if Marit hadn’t agreed to help her practice this afternoon.
A car was parked just on the other side of the wall. She could hear the engine ticking over. A flower stall was located on the other side of the road just there, only she didn’t think it was open at this time of year.
Still, she would go to the trouble of unlocking the manhole built into the wall and check to see what was going on. The old security instincts never fully went away and she would be happier knowing it was someone pulled over to talk on their cellphone with the other hand gesturing, the way the voluble Spanish liked to do.
Kiss Across Seas Page 5