by Ilsa J. Bick
“Spooky,” he whispers, and for no reason he can figure, a shiver races through his body. His arms go sandpapery with goose bumps. His eyes slide from Our Mutual Friend to the Twisted Tales he snagged in April. Moist air’s curled the comic’s pages, but whaddaya expect from cheap paper? Hacker’s wondering if maybe they’ve been in this foxhole forever. Like Hacker’s entire life is that one day, lived over and over again. Of course, the kicker’s that Hacker and his men are toys who only think they’re real.
And now, Tony can kind of relate.
Have I been here before? His eyes roam his bathroom, the fogged mirror. “Of course you have,” he says. “You live here. It’s time for school.”
You’re stressed, that’s all.
His mom’s cancer, for one. His eyes find Hacker, frozen on the page. He’s obsessed with this story; reads it over and over again. The social worker would say he’s not “metabolizing” his brother’s deployment, like the fact that Matt might wind up with his brains splattered all over the insides of a helo off the coast of Grenada has given him terminal heartburn.
On the other hand, she might have a point. Like his friend Trey’s already seen The Dead Zone ten trillion times, but him? Walked out, chest tight and sweat lathered on his neck. Thing that got him? The whole bullshit about dead zone visions, like you could or should change the future. If you did, where did it end? Like, okay, save his brother from getting on the one helo that’ll take a nosedive into the ocean, right? But what about the guy who takes his brother’s place? He has a family, too.
See, you can go nuts thinking about stuff like that, which is probably why his science teacher, Steele, says he outta go into theoretical physics, because it’s so loopy. Like there are all these other Tonys in all these other universes and timelines. In at least one, yeah, his brother dies. Or there’s a Tony with a mom who doesn’t have lung cancer, or who does but gets better, and blah, blah. Thing is, he’s having a hard enough time dealing with the life he already has, thanks. Steele’s a nutjob. Get away from him with that crap.
So he couldn’t watch The Dead Zone. Walked out of Blue Thunder, too. That Roy Scheider loop-de-loop scared the shit out of him. Pull that crap in a real helo, you’ll drop like a fucking stone, same as Malcolm McDowell. (And you’re supposed to cheer about that? Yay, the bad guy cracked up. He’s paste. Real Marines crash during training missions all the time. Yay.)
Trey says they ought to stick to Disney movies, ha-ha. On the other hand, Something Wicked This Way Comes was pretty boss, what with old Mr. Dark and his freaky Mirror Maze, which showed you yourself at different times and ages, like those multiverses Steele talks about? And where your image might get trapped in a mirror and then you never get out? Scared the pants off him. He’s already seen the movie five times. Doesn’t know why. But it feels … familiar.
On the radio, Michael Jackson winds down. There’s a pause, a burp of static. A span of dead space in which he hears his mother, muffled but distinct, dying down the hall: kak-hakak-kak-kak.
For that split second, Tony thinks—and maybe for the first time ever: I’m like Hacker. This is the only morning of my life and the only day I’ll ever know, and that stupid song will start over again, you just watch.
So he snaps off the radio. He can’t remember if he’s ever done that. But what the hell’s he going to do if Michael starts up again? Never leave the goddamned bathroom? Hang out like Schrödinger’s cat and wait for someone outside this box to decide?
“Screw that,” he says. Hiding behind mist, his fuzzy reflection has no opinion. But in the center of his chest, his heart gives a sudden, hard kick. (Has it ever beat before?) He senses that what he does next is important; it just is.
He puts the toothbrush down, but carefully, and squares his mangled tube of Crest alongside. Then, he uses the side of a hand on the mirror. Has he ever done this? He can’t remember. Why is he breathing so fast?
His face, from his light blue eyes to his mop of curly brown hair, appears first. Everything looks … right. Normal. He squeegees the rest of his face into being: squared cheekbones, an aquiline nose, thin lips. Naked from the waist up because of the towel around his middle. It’s him all right. Shower stall in the background, the edge of the toilet. Shit, he better put that seat down, though.
He huffs a relieved sigh. The knot in his stomach unclenches. Fear-sweat has pearled his upper lip, which he now wipes dry. “Well, what the hell did you expect, you nut?” he says. Other than parroting his every move, his reflection has nothing to say for itself.
From beyond the bathroom door, his mother calls, “Honey?”
She’ll give him a kiss that tastes of death. He will brush his teeth again. Cut him a break. He’s not a monster. He loves her. But he’s only a kid.
And look on the bright side: he’s not a toy; he’s not Redlaw, haunted by himself, or a character in a comic book, like Hacker, that poor schmo.
“Coming, Mom.” Picking up his toothbrush, he throttles the tube into letting go of a green worm of Crest. The ooze of it sickens him a little, and for a fleeting moment, he eyes the glistening, sluglike glop and thinks, Squirmer. Something that makes no sense but which also gives him a queasy, frightened feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Stop it, you moron.” The boy in the mirror doesn’t disagree. So he sets to work on his teeth.
Yeah, yeah, his life isn’t perfect. A lot of the time, it’s not even all that great. But it’s better than nothing.
Tomorrow, though … different toothpaste.
If he remembers.
NOW
“OH, THAT’S A fabulous question. There’s actually a reason for that change from the first book to the second, and it’s right out of Ray Bradbury,” the writer says. She’s standing at a lectern in the store’s café. Behind her is a table piled high with stacks of books, and the bookstore’s manager is off to the side, a clutch of Sharpies in one hand. “He wrote this great story all about this guy who goes back in time to hunt dinosaurs, only when he gets back, everything’s changed because he stepped off the path and crushed a butterfly. This was before the whole chaos theory thing got going, the butterfly effect? You know, a butterfly flaps its wings in Kansas, and there’s a tsunami in Japan? Bradbury’s point was that one small change can produce ripples that have profound effects for the whole system. So I did the same thing. I’ve been playing with multiverses and different timelines throughout both books, right? And the nature of reality? Like how do you know you’re really in one, or awake at all?”
“Oh.” It’s a guy in the second row. “I get it. So that’s why the book is by McDermott in the first novel, but you know, the real book”—the guy holds up his copy—“has your name on it. It’s kind of this metatextual clue that something major has changed in that particular timeline.”
“Or I’m just messing with your head, and you’re going to freak when you get to that part and read what you just said and realize you’re all characters in my novel, and I’m the only real person in the room,” the writer says.
“Or crawled in through a back door for a visit with all your book-people,” a girl chimes in.
“There’s always that,” the writer says.
The first guy frowns. “Yeah, but so you’re saying they were all book-people, or they were real, only some of them weren’t, or maybe even some were book-people who kind of wrote themselves into our reality, only they can’t tell the difference and only think they’re real?”
“Yes,” the writer says, and everyone laughs.
“See?” An elbow to her right ribs, and then Lily’s leaning closer. “She totally speaks your language,” Lily whispers. “Please?”
“No, Lily, I already told you,” Emma mutters. They’re standing way at the back, out of earshot of the crowd. All the chairs were filled, but that was fine. From the number of people, Emma figures the signing line’s going to stretch halfway to the front door. “Great, she knows physics, but so what? It’s really not my kind of book.”
“But I don’t want to talk to her by myself.” Lily heaves a tragic, long-suffering, if-you-were-half-the-friend-you-say-you-are sigh. “She probably gets a trillion requests for this kind of crap.”
“Come on, she’s not Stephen King. Have they made any movies of her stuff?”
“No.”
“Well then, see? You’re only a big deal writer if they make a movie.”
“But I’m afraid of sounding duuumb.” Lily scrunches up her entire face. “Her stuff is weird and there are a lot of characters and it’s hard. Like there’s this science and stuff? You have to really think. Although you’d love this. One of the main characters, Emma? Sooo totally you.”
Which she so totally couldn’t take. That report on Jane Austen her freshman year just about killed her. Every time she sees her name in a book, her mind trips. She has to remind herself, No, you nut, that didn’t happen to you.
“Wow, thinking as you read, keeping track of characters—that’s rough.” Zero sympathy on this one; Lily stepped in this cow patty on her own. Emma flicks an appraising glance at the writer. Fifties, probably; short red hair that has to be a dye job. Tank top, cargo pants, one of those paracord survival bracelets. Steampunky glasses. At least she doesn’t look like anyone’s crazed Aunt Bertha, let out of the attic for a little air.
She glances at the book Lily hugs to her chest like a shield. Nice cover, if a touch freaky: all smoky purples and swirling bright blues, with ill-defined but clearly Victorian-era chimneys, like something straight out of Dickens via The Twilight Zone. Set it alongside the first book in the series, and she could see that the designer had echoed those crazy-ass crows in that explosive white glister at the center. A little Jack-the-Ripperish, actually, and not her kind of read; her life’s been enough of a horror show, thanks.
“Sorry,” she says, “I’m not the one who decided to take Kramer’s course.” Though that had been a near miss. When time rolled around to select her junior year classes, her schedule allowed for only one of two electives: animal husbandry, where she’d learn really useful things like neutering piglets (Holten Prep might be in Madison, but shit, this is Wisconsin), or Kramer’s überserious course on creativity and madness.
Anyway, when Emma saw the choices? These little internal bells went ding-ding-ding. Like those red-alert whoop-whoops in the old Star Trek.
Alarms like that happened rarely, but she always paid attention. The first time, she was twelve and had taken a header over her bike before awakening, splayed like roadkill, to the pop of gravel under a truck’s tires and gulls pinwheeling high above and laughing, A-hah-hah-hah, look at the stupid huuumannn. Completely freaked her out—my face, my face!—and Jasper, too, who’d just gotten this feeling and lit out from his boat for home faster than greased lightning. The craniofacial doc went apeshit, of course: You have to be careful of your face. Like, duh, yeah, tell me another.
It was later that night, when Jasper checked up on her, that ding-ding-ding had gone off, and then this little voice—kind of soft and big-sisterly—suggested that she really did have to suck it up and tell him about down cellar: that inky square that had opened when she touched it. It was something she’d been worrying about all week: Do I or don’t I? Like this was a really important moment and her life could go one way or the other, depending—and then that big-sister voice came out of the blue.
So she told him. Jasper listened, then kissed her forehead and told her not to think about it anymore. Oh yeah, right, like that would happen. The secret door was an itch in her brain. So, of course, she’d gone down cellar two weeks later, just to see.
But the door was gone. Not just painted over. Gone. Like someone had … taken it out. She must’ve mashed that cinderblock ten trillion times before giving up. She didn’t ask, and Jasper never said, although sometimes in dim light and when he tilted his head a certain way, she would think, Pair of glasses and dark hair … She could swear she’d seen him somewhere before, and wondered if, maybe, Jasper had been sent special just to watch out for her. Like some kind of guardian angel, or secret protector.
Most recently, there’d been the whole deal with the headaches. Didn’t take her meds. Didn’t like them. Made her all zombified. Whenever a headache came on, though, there’d also be this burn beneath the skull plate between her eyes and a tug in her brain, as if she were a baited hook a salmon had decided to test: Hey, you there? Like there was something out there, waiting to grab her, take her places. Set her on a different path. It was during those times that she’d think back to down cellar and wonder just who Jasper kept from creeping in or dropping by for a visit.
Anyway, the big-sister voice spoke up again: Tell your doctor about the headaches. To her surprise, her doc was cool and all about her not being zombied out. Put her on a different med. The headaches vanished, and so did the burn, those tugs.
So when the alarms went off and that big-sister voice suggested she get a little creative about the whole Kramer thing (and no way was she lopping off Wilbur’s balls), she talked her adviser into an independent study centered on the physics of glass, which, considering she gets to spend a ton of time in the hot shop, is sweet. Mainly, it got her out of Kramer’s class, and that was all that mattered.
“You dug your own grave here, girlfriend,” she says now, patting Lily’s shoulder. Everyone in Kramer’s class has to interview someone from the reading list. (Lily had added that they had to be living writers, which Emma’s let slide. Lily’s so clueless sometimes.) “She’s not going to bite you. Just talk to her. Anyway, I got my own crap to do. Come get me in the science section when you’re done.”
The store shelves science, philosophy, and poetry in the very back, where virtually no one visits—which is exactly why she loves it. Nice cushy leather chairs. Plenty of legroom, with enough space between standing shelves to sprawl on the carpet if she wants. Finger-walking spines, a title catches her eye: Glass of the Alchemists. Book’s huge, one of those coffee table things, but it’s put out by the Corning Museum people, who know their stuff. Hefting the book under an arm, she heads down the aisle for what she thinks of as her spot: right corner, round table, faux Tiffany lamp, deeply cushioned red-leather wingback with an ottoman. But as she rounds a standing shelf, she pulls up short. Thinks, disgusted: Shit.
And then gets another, better look and thinks, kind of breathless: Holy shit.
He’s heard her coming, because he looks up from what he’s been reading, a question in his dark blue eyes. “Hey.” Not an invitation but not a get lost either. Nice voice, baritone, smooth. Like good chocolate you’ve let melt in your mouth.
“Hi.” Moron. She teeters, uncertain if she should turn back or take that empty wingback.
“Oh, hey, sorry.” He’s stacked books on the table between the two chairs and now he moves his closer. “Sometimes I spread out. There’s plenty of room, you want.”
Okay, so he’s not a creep. Her gaze sweeps his stack, though she only recognizes one book because she’s just seen it. Probably waiting for that writer to finish up with the questions. Or maybe he doesn’t like crowds either and will wander back when the signing line’s winding down. She watches him through her lashes as she lays the glass book on an ottoman. In the soft light of the faux Tiffany, his hair is military-short but still shimmers an iridescent purplish-black, like the velvety wing of a red-spotted purple butterfly. His shoulders are very broad and muscular. Yet when he turns a page, he does it with long, delicate fingers. Maybe … a senior? She’s never seen him at Holten. Could be he’s in college or something. ROTC, maybe. That makes sense.
“It’s Plath”—and, startled, she looks up to find his eyes on hers. “Not her poetry, though I really like that, too.”
“Oh.” A blush creeps up her neck. Shit, this is so meet-cute, it ought to be in a book. This is her cue to ask him more, discover how sensitive he is, blah, blah. In ten minutes, he’ll offer to buy her coffee, and by that evening, they’re having a food fight with a tub of popcorn before they collapse
, giggling, on a deep shag carpet and her shirt’s rucked up and then he slips his hand under …
She veers away. “I don’t know much poetry.” Okaaay, conversation killer right there; you go, girl.
He shrugs. “I do, but I’m not sure I would’ve looked at this either, except the writer back there? Mentioned Plath a couple times, said she’d read a bunch of Plath’s poetry and her diaries, and one of the characters gets all hung up on The Bell Jar, so …” Handing over the book he’s been reading—The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath—he opens to a page and points. “I got curious.”
She reads. It’s a passage about remembering every moment—every now is how Plath puts it. Recalling what the writer said about timelines and multiverses, she thinks: Hunh. “All that talk about nows? Bet your writer knows Barbour, too.”
“Who?”
“Julian Barbour. He’s this theoretical physicist?” Flipping open her backpack, she tugs out a book.
Eyebrows arched, he scans the title. “The End of Time?”
She nods. “Basically, what he’s saying is what Plath does, and I think it’s what this writer’s getting at. For Barbour, every moment is its own Now and exists forever. The only reason we even dreamt up something like time is because we notice there’s a difference between one Now—one moment—and the next. It’s like, uh, you know … when you were a kid and got those books where that drawing of a horse is just a little bit different than the one before?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “Flip ’em really fast and it looks like the horse is galloping.”
“Exactly. But it’s an illusion. We only think there’s motion because our brain processes it that way.” She taps Barbour’s book. “Same concept. There’s no time. There’s only this Now and the next Now and the next, except they all kind of happen at once.”