Her heart sank. She’d hoped Yalé would understand that saving Browning wasn’t just a candy-colored wish for her. His death was the defining moment of her life—a life that was far from full. Spending only a few days with Kyle had shined a light on that emptiness. Despite everything Yalé just told her, she wasn’t dissuaded.
She was nearly ready to give the rest of her life to the Seres. At least until her life could intersect with Kyle’s again in nearly two decades. Nearly ready, but first she had to learn for certain that the door was closed to another path.
CHAPTER 18
January 20, 1989
* * *
Nine years earlier
Allaire kept looking over her shoulder, as if Yalé was going to pop out of one of the doorways on 7th Avenue with a look of disappointment. She had done exactly what he’d asked her not to, coming back to the day Dr. Browning was killed. She had to see. To know what happened. Perhaps, to stop it.
She hung back about a quarter of a short block from Browning and observed him as he walked, brown umbrella closed and slung over his shoulder. His tan London Fog jacket was opened in the front, hiding his thin frame. Allaire wanted to run up behind him and hug his back. She’d warn him not to keep walking in this direction. But Yalé said time resists changes, especially big ones. A whispered warning might not be enough.
For a few moments, she just watched him walk and wondered what her life would have been if he hadn’t been killed. How many more layers and dimensions would there be to her just for having been allowed to function in the world. She’d have gone to real school, and made real friends. She’d have had a father. Still processing the concept of different timestreams, she wondered whether there was one out there in which they lived happily as a family.
Browning passed West 23rd—the last big street before 29th, where he was hit while crossing, according to the microfilm newspaper article about the accident which Allaire had dug up long ago. Her heart began to race as the moment for a decision came closer.
She trailed him by about ten feet as he crossed 28th Street. If she was going to intervene, this was the time. She looked out at the cars moving down 7th Avenue, and the others waiting at the light on 29th Street to cross 7th. Which one was it? she wondered. Because the accident had been a hit-and-run, there was no record of the make or model of the car. There hadn’t been a single witness with any good information.
Now, midway through the block, Allaire moved to within arm’s reach of him. She began to reach out, but quickly pulled her hand back as if Browning was radiating heat. She wanted so badly not to believe Yalé, that trying to save Dr. Browning could have horrible consequences, but she couldn’t bring herself to reach out and stop him from moving toward his death.
Keeping close to Browning, she looked to her left and caught a glimpse of a parked car waiting for a break in traffic to pull out onto 7th Avenue. It was a white Mercedes. The intersection of the accident was just ahead, and this car could easily be the one that killed Browning in the original sequence of today’s events. She moved closer to the street and bent down, pushing her face up to the car window.
The driver noticed her and they locked eyes. She stared him down, surprised to see a familiar face, even though she shouldn’t have been. She’d always been suspicious, the thought further back in her head sometimes than others. She pulled her Karambit from the holster on her side and opened the blade.
She hustled to catch up with Browning again and wrapped an arm around him from behind, pushing him toward the doorway of a boarded-up liquor store on 7th Avenue right before the corner of 29th. The entire sidewalk was covered by scaffolding, so they were somewhat hidden in the dark alcove.
When she felt Browning pull away from her, startled, she firmed up her arm, turned him around and pushed his chest toward the boards covering the doorway. She was careful to keep the knife as far away from him as she could to avoid an accident.
“Excuse me,” Browning said. “What are you doing?” Even now, there was a warmth to him. He wouldn’t look at a sixteen-year-old girl and assume the worst, even if she’d given him reason to.
“Shh,” was all Allaire could manage. “This is for your own safety.”
She saw Browning look down at the Karambit in her hand and put his hands up in the air, backing up as much as he could until he hit the store’s boarded-up entrance. “I don’t want any trouble. If you want money—”
“Shhhh!” she said again, quickly glancing out to the street. The Mercedes was still there, angled slightly into traffic, but she noticed the car was empty now.
Before she could turn to look the other way down the street, a shoulder to the chest blindsided her and knocked her to the ground. Rickard kicked her in the neck and then looked down at her as if he were trying to place her. She searched for recognition in his look, but didn’t see it. She realized that at this point in Rickard’s life—in 1989—she’d be a complete stranger to him. It felt to Allaire, though, like she was seeing a ghost. Knowing Rickard had been responsible for Browning’s death gave her a sick feeling. Seeing him living and breathing again infuriated her. Any regret over killing Rickard in 1998 had evaporated.
Allaire scooted herself backward on the ground, still holding her blade. She saw Rickard turn his attention to Dr. Browning now and she popped up to her feet.
Rickard charged toward Browning and drove him into the wooden board covering the door. She saw Rickard reach into the inside of his coat for something. He was equally capable with a gun or a blade. Either way, Browning would be in trouble.
Allaire moved into the doorway, grabbing Rickard’s arms, tugging him away from Browning. Rickard’s blade—a similar model of Karambit to Allaire’s—fell to the concrete.
Browning looked panicked. He started to move out of the doorway, but Rickard was able to free his arm from Allaire’s grasp and push Browning back.
As Rickard reared back to punch Allaire in the face, Browning grabbed Rickard’s Karambit from the ground and held it in front of him, his hand shaking. “Just let me go,” he said.
Allaire took her eye off of Rickard for a second and he landed a hard blow right under her eye. She fell woozy to the ground.
As she collected herself, she watched Browning look from the blade to Rickard and then back. It was as if he were holding a dangerous, unfamiliar chemical. “Just let me go,” Browning said again.
Rickard squared up to him, blocking his way out of the doorway. If he were to step aside and let Browning go, Allaire wondered if her entire future would be different when she went back to 1998. Browning might still be alive, and the Seres might not even know her. There was no way to know what her life would have in store. Yalé had told her that the universe would fight hard to stop things from changing, but all it would take now was Rickard realizing he was outmanned at the moment.
But she knew Rickard better than that. He grabbed at Browning’s wrist, trying to get hold of the knife, but Browning pulled it away quickly. Rickard threw a kick at Browning’s knee, but Browning moved to the side, avoiding anything more than a glancing blow. He still held the blade like something foreign. Something which he never intended to use.
Now Rickard barreled toward Browning, pushing the arm with the knife away from him as he pushed Browning into the wooden doorway. Browning’s back crashed against the wood, and Rickard used both hands to hold the arm with the knife away from him. Rickard tried to pry Browning’s fingers apart to get his blade back.
Allaire staggered to her feet just as Browning managed to transfer the knife over to his left hand. Rickard’s head was buried in his chest pushing him backward, and he didn’t see that the knife wasn’t in Browning’s right hand anymore.
The doctor had a clear shot at Rickard’s back and side now. Allaire watched the realization of that fact click in Browning’s eyes. He tightened his grip on the blade as he prepared to strike, while Rickard pounded him against the wooden boards again and again, like a charging animal.
Allaire tho
ught about what would become of the Seres if Rickard were killed here, in 1989. Ayers hadn’t been born yet, so Demetrius would be the only one left in the bloodline capable of procreating, but he was also the only one capable of time weaving, since Yalé could do neither. If something happened to Demetrius, the Seres would be finished. And Allaire—who knew all of their secrets, who’d proven an able time weaver—would be a stranger to them.
“No!” she screamed to Browning, surprising even herself. Things were moving too fast. She hadn’t considered, before going back, that she might be in a position like this, where none of the possible outcomes were good ones.
Browning paused as her voice filled the doorway, which was set off enough from the street that, until then, no one walking by had stopped to intervene in what was happening.
In the brief moment that Browning looked at Allaire, Rickard delivered a crushing elbow to Browning’s gut, doubling him over. Rickard grabbed Browning’s hand and pulled the knife out while he was stunned.
Before Allaire could even react, Rickard drove the knife up and into Browning, standing him up and driving him into the wooden board covering the doorway of the old liquor store. Rickard stumbled backward as Browning slid to the ground, the blade buried inside of his solar plexus.
This time when she screamed, nothing came out of Allaire’s mouth.
Rickard pulled his blade out of Browning’s erupting torso, and then dove into his car from the passenger side, peeling away seconds later.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, kneeling down to Browning as the life slowly drained from his face. “I’m sorry.” All she could do was repeat herself over and over.
Police would be here soon. Someone would see them and call 911. She closed his eyes and stood up. She nearly tripped over the doctor’s umbrella as she backed out of the doorway. “I’m so sorry,” Allaire whispered once more before she took out the silk blot that had been scrunched inside her pocket and pulled it over herself.
CHAPTER 19
February 13, 1998
* * *
Nine years later
Allaire had blown her chance to save Dr. Browning. That fact was obvious. Theoretically, she could weave back to the day before and try again. The thought she couldn’t shake, though, during her two-hour journey through the tunnel back to 1998, was that she’d decided against saving him.
Everything had happened so quickly, and she was reeling from confirming that Rickard had been responsible for Browning’s death in the first place. Still, she intervened on Rickard’s behalf and ultimately failed to do the same for the man who’d raised her. Her momentary hesitation turned into the opportunity Rickard needed to gain the upper hand and, more or less, achieve the same result he had in the original version of that day. Originally, Browning died from being hit by a car, and now, from a gash caused by Rickard’s Karambit blade. That was all Allaire managed to achieve by going back.
When it came down to it, her instincts drove her in the direction of everything the Seres had taught her over the years. It drove her toward keeping the past the same. Those instincts had been more powerful than the one to protect Browning, and Allaire hated herself for it.
It took Allaire nearly a week to come back to the factory after learning that Rickard had been responsible for Dr. Browning’s death. It was more time than she’d ever spent away from the Seres in her own timestream. She barely slept, walking the streets of New York City and getting cheap hotel rooms when she couldn’t walk anymore. She realized during this time that she was nearly incapable of self-reflection. There wasn’t enough of her identity that wasn’t directly connected to the Seres for her to do anything more than walk through the city like a zombie, wearing her grief like a wet sweater.
She took the elevator up to the fifth floor of the factory and found Yalé working on one of the machines. It was the one which pulled thread directly from the silkworm basin below and began the process of creating the thread that would ultimately be used to create a silk blot.
She looked around carefully to see if anything looked different. He’d told her that even small changes made to the past could result in subtly different versions of the future. At the very least, Yalé would know that Browning had been stabbed, and not run down by a car. She wanted to know if Yalé knew Rickard had been responsible for Browning’s death.
Yalé looked at her as she walked into the room, and she wondered if he had any idea where she’d been. It had only been a few days ago that they’d talked and he’d forbid her to go back. If this was indeed a new timestream, where did the last one end and this one begin? she wondered. It became clearer to her every minute that there might never come a time when she knew everything about time weaving. Even the Seres didn’t seem to.
A tall man a little older than her walked into the room and stood silently at Yalé’s side.
“Who’s he?” Allaire asked. Seeing an unfamiliar face in the factory was beyond unusual.
“You deserve more say over your life,” Yalé said, without looking up from the machine. “And you deserve more answers from me.”
Allaire didn’t say anything at first, but she moved closer to him, sitting in a folding chair a few feet away. “Who is that? And, where is Ayers?”
“Ayers is sleeping,” Yalé answered. He pulled a hose from the sink in the corner of the room over to an empty basin on top of the machine and started filling it with water. “When I saw a silk blot missing, it made me realize how far you and I have to go before we can trust . . . Everett, would you mind giving us a moment?”
“Sure, sir, but aren’t you going to introduce me?” the man asked in a deep and friendly Australian accent. He held his hand out to Allaire. “I’m Everett. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”
Allaire reached her hand out and gave him a limp handshake.
Yalé gave Everett a look, and the young Aussie turned quickly, and with a nod of his head exited the room.
“Is he my replacement?” Allaire asked.
Yalé gave her a gentle shrug. “Not if you’re back . . . But he’s proving a fast learner. I’m sure you would agree we could use an extra pair of hands around here if he continues to be trustworthy.”
Allaire was too stunned by how quickly Yalé had brought in someone to replace her to consider whether there was any wisdom to her having a counterpart.
“Speaking of trust,” Yalé said. “Demetrius had yours, and Rickard, as you now decisively know, never deserved your trust—”
“So you knew?”
Yalé turned off the hose and looked at her. “That he stabbed the doctor?”
She nodded. She had come back to a reality where Yalé only knew this “new” reality where Rickard stabbed Browning to death. The timestream in which Rickard used his car to kill Browning was gone, or at the very least, irrelevant to the one they lived in now. But as she worked her mind around it all, Allaire’s spirit fell to a place of numbness. In either reality, Yalé knew his brother was a murderer and had done nothing about it.
“He knew the day was coming that we couldn’t stop you from finding out,” Yalé said. “That’s one of the reasons he always kept his distance.”
“Why didn’t he just kill me then?” she asked. She could feel her heart hardening. What, at this point, could still hurt her? She could only think of one thing.
“I made him see that we needed you,” he answered. “As did Demetrius.”
Allaire’s eyes filled with tears. “Did he know?”
Yalé shook his head. “Of course not. He wouldn’t have stood for it.”
She looked at the massive space around her. The factory had very few walls and the openness had always somehow added to her feelings of isolation there. She heard Ayers crying in his nursery. “I’ll get him,” she said.
“I can’t force you to stay. You’ve been a better fighter than me since you were ten,” Yalé said. He gestured his head in the direction of Ayers’s nursery “Rickard and Demetrius were building a secure pl
ace in the future. A home base, if you will. That’s why they’d been going into the tunnel so often.”
“Where? When?” she asked.
“More than a half century from now . . . The world they saw was very different, so they built something more secure than this building. Our factory won’t be secure enough at that point.”
“Can I go see it?” Allaire asked.
“They saw a future that was shrinking,” Yalé said. “With fewer years ahead of the human race every day. The tunnel itself became shorter and shorter. Whatever Ayers grows up to be, I’m afraid it isn’t good. We may never get him to take his place as the trusted keeper of our secret, but his heir will be the future of our family. I need you to help make sure we get to that point, so there is a future.”
Allaire often thought about other girls her age, ones who’d had normal upbringings. Most of the examples she knew came from TV, since she’d never gone to school. Never really had a girlfriend other than Wanda, who had come from the outside world but was turned off enough by it to choose a life with Demetrius, and all of the solitude that came with it. When Allaire thought of these other “normal” girls, there was always a part of her that felt like one day, she’d have a normal life too.
When the tears started falling from her eyes in that moment, she looked around at the factory. She listened to Ayers wailing now in the other room. She couldn’t imagine the little toddler she’d grown to love turning into someone bad, but she believed everything Yalé was saying. For the second time today she found herself mourning. This time, it was for the normal future she’d never have.
This strange world of jumping through time was going to be her reality now. Her existence of trying to preserve this Sere bloodline, which sometimes seemed like it would be better off snuffed out once and for all, was the only one she’d ever get to know. At least now, she was getting the answers that should’ve been given to her years earlier. She was finally an insider.
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