A Universe of Wishes

by A Universe of Wishes (epub)

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation.

  “It might be dangerous.”

  “Everything is dangerous. All the more so for me.”

  “Okay, let’s go back to where we met.” Lane stood up, but stopped when he realized Ariadne hadn’t moved. “What?”

  “Is there any danger to anyone else here?”

  “No. It’ll either work, which might be dangerous to you or me, but no one else. Or it won’t, and then there’s no danger to anyone.”

  Now she stood and joined him. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Lane spread some foam padding under a thin blanket on the cleared floor, just in case. Ariadne did something on her wrist computer to set it to send a message if she didn’t cancel it before their self-imposed time ran out, but Lane only caught the barest sliver of the technical details of what she was doing.

  “Done,” she said, pressing another couple of keys.

  Lane heard the nerves in her voice, but she didn’t hesitate to take his hand when he reached out to pull her to her feet.

  “Okay,” he said, “picture the place you’ve wanted to go the most. Hold that image as tightly and completely as you did to open the LAMP. And I’ll try to make a portal like the LAMP’s to send us there for a few seconds. Or however long the energy lasts. I just know that this’ll burn through the power quicker than anything I’ve ever tried.”

  Ariadne nodded and closed her eyes. Lane stood behind her shoulder and rested his fingers against her temples. “Ready?”

  “Yes.” The word was barely a breath, but it was backed by her will and shimmered in the air. Lane pressed his will to hers, boosting it and channeling it. Then she raised her hands and pushed them out, as if she were pressing on giant double doors.

  The world opened.

  * * *

  “Ariadne? We’re here.”

  Her eyes went wide as she saw grass rippling around their feet and then gazed out over white chalk cliffs to a choppy sea, and the blue sky beyond. Wind tugged her hair in front of her eyes, and she pushed it aside with a laugh. She tasted the sea salt on her lips and finally believed that maybe, one day, she would again be somewhere other than Vale. With that, the growing panic that had been building for years eased.

  She turned to Lane, who stood beside her, a hand under her elbow.

  She smiled. “See, you can change people. You just have to take the long way around. Like the rest of us.” Her eyes fluttered closed, and Lane caught her before she fell, returning them in an instant to the little room in Vale.

  He swore as he checked her pulse. But it was steady and strong under his fingertips, so he lowered her to the padded floor. As he sat, waiting for her to wake up, he studied her retreat, brimming with fresh Wish energy. For once, resupplying and moving on wasn’t the first thing on his list.

  * * *

  He tweaked a few things in Ariadne’s hideaway. The tiny room grew an annex, with a sofa and a pile of patchwork quilts, one of which he tugged over Ariadne. Next to it he Wished his bookshelf of favorite books. If he was staying a bit, he’d want those. He would have given her better computer equipment, but he knew when he was outclassed in a subject. Instead he Wished into existence a picture of the two of them at the top of the cliffs beside the old postcard. And, last but not least, he Wished a coffee maker, beans, and a battery-powered grinder onto a tray near the couch. Then he pulled out a book and waited.

  Ariadne woke just in time to turn off the automated message to her mother.

  “You could have deactivated it. I was fine.”

  “You passed out. Even if it was just to sleep, I’m not a doctor and I’m not a computer tech. So I wasn’t going to mess with it.”

  Ariadne made a face at him but didn’t continue to protest. Instead she asked, “What are you going to do now?”

  “Stick around until I’m sure you’re okay. That little stunt probably shouldn’t have worked, and it took a lot of energy from both of us, whether you’ve noticed it or not.”

  She stretched and slid her hands behind her head, a grin lighting up her face. “It was worth it.”

  Lane nodded, only a little surprised to find that it had been, even if this new headache lasted a century.

  That was what the Heart Scale Center advertisement whispered to Marcus and Grace as they stood outside the building. They clutched the newspaper between them, the paper flickering with promises pressed between black lines of vitalized ink. The scales in the picture moved up and down like the playground seesaw they used to jump on as children. Back when the city still made room for such things. Back when they were little and all that mattered was whether Marcus had remembered to bring the jump rope Grace liked when he knocked on her front door to play. Back before they’d been each other’s first kisses, first touches, first loves.

  The parking lot swelled with cars, an attendant stacking them like bento boxes in a vertical iron grid. This place had become the most popular spot in the entire city; lines of eager people hoping to get an appointment stretched around the block.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Marcus asked, trying to control his face and keep his expression blank. His mama always said his eyes told the world too much about him.

  “You said you were up for it.” Grace removed their appointment card from her pocket.

  He watched the calligraphy skate across the cardstock, forming and re-forming their names.

  Grace & Marcus

  Marcus & Grace

  She cradled it like it was a golden ticket.

  He studied her face; the honey glow from the center’s lights reflected across the brown of Grace’s cheekbones as she hid an excited smile. “We jumped the six-month wait list,” she said.

  “Coley got the appointments for us, didn’t she?” he asked.

  Marcus felt her bristle.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, it’s going to be great. Marisol and her girlfriend did it last weekend.”

  “Aren’t they about to break up?”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “And didn’t Jacob and Keisha try this too? They’ve been fighting ever since.”

  They both paused to look up at the building. Marcus imagined the shadows from its towers growing larger, big enough to swallow him. Grace crinkled up her nose with curiosity, the pinch of it making her scattering of freckles hard to see. That look was usually his favorite, but maybe not today. He bit his bottom lip and fussed with his jacket.

  “You scared?” she asked.

  A shiver ran through both of their bodies, one colder than the few winter snowflakes starting to fall around them.

  Marcus glanced away from her inquiring eyes. His heart did a somersault, and not because he was afraid of it being taken from his chest. Everyone said that part didn’t hurt. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to know exactly what his heart might reveal.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Then let’s go in.” Grace barreled forward.

  * * *

  The lobby glowed red. Its walls enfolded them into a velveteen pocket. It felt like they’d walked inside a whimsical plush heart.

  Grace figured this was how it should be. She blinked twice to be sure the walls weren’t pulsing. She thought she could hear the thuds and thumps of a thousand heartbeats. Maybe it was the hearts sitting in golden sarcophaguses just beyond the door. Maybe it was just her own. Maybe it was all just part of the experience.

  She’d heard so many great reviews about the Heart Scale Center.

  Marcus’s hand found the small of her back, one of her favorite ways that he touched her.

  They walked farther inside.

  Almost every couch was filled with a person. A motion picture flickered across a silk screen, showcasing scowling couples entering the H
eart Scale Center and stepping into separate rooms, then emerging with smiles so big you could count all their teeth. The montage ended with the words, Welcome to a better way to love. Every heart tells a story. Find yours here.

  She wondered if she and Marcus would be like that. Though they hadn’t been fighting lately, they hadn’t really been doing much of anything else, either.

  A woman in a tailored blue suit sat at a large desk. Grace smiled at Marcus, then stepped forward. “Hello.”

  “Welcome! We’re so happy you’ve come to learn your hearts’ story. Last names, appointment card, and registration paper, please,” the woman said. A heart-shaped brooch began to vibrate on her lapel, drawing Grace’s attention.

  Is that a real miniature heart?

  Marcus nudged her.

  She flinched and pulled out the card, then the paper, tattered and worn from weeks of folding and unfolding, running nervous fingers over every line, and scanning all details of the procedure. She handed it to the woman. “Last names are Williamson and Tucker.”

  The woman gave her a clipboard with several forms and a writing stylus. “Fill these out together, and bring them back to me when you’re done.”

  Marcus fumbled with the board. Grace caught it before it plummeted to the floor.

  The entire room paused to look up at her. She flashed a sheepish smile. This wasn’t the time to be clumsy. That’s what her mama would say if she were still alive. She’d also probably tell Grace she had no business up in here. Some questions didn’t need answers.

  But for Grace, every question had one.

  Grace and Marcus found a nearby couch to plop down on. They scanned the forms together. The ink revealed questions, one set for her and one set for him.

  Is your heart healthy for removal?

  List any heart-related surgeries or diseases you’ve had.

  Have you been in love before?

  Are you currently in love?

  Grace pointed the writing stylus at each one and searched Marcus’s eyes, trying to guess his answer before he said it. She knew him very well and prided herself on being able to anticipate how he felt about most things.

  Even though he hated when she answered for him, she liked knowing that she could—that she knew the shape of him.

  How many people have you loved?

  This question made her sit upright. It was the reason they were here. The tiniest tendril of apprehension curled in her stomach.

  Her father had told her never to ask questions she didn’t want answered, and maybe this was one of those times when she should’ve listened. She and Marcus were high school sweethearts destined to become lovebirds, together forever. That was what everyone always said. But this question bubbled up from time to time: Has he ever loved another?

  They’d taken short breaks. It was possible. And what would that mean?

  As soon as they’d gotten their college acceptance letters, more questions had crept to the surface. Did they love each other enough to make it through going to different schools, in different cities?

  If the procedure showed that Marcus’s love for her was heavy, then she’d know what they should do. She’d ignore her best friend Coley’s warning that college changes you, silence her suggestions that she and Marcus break up and give each other clean slates. She’d have proof that they really belonged together. She’d have more faith and be able to stamp out those tiny doubts.

  Grace nibbled her bottom lip.

  “I don’t know the answer to that question,” Marcus said. “Do I include, like, my mom, dad, grandparents? How am I supposed to list everyone I’ve ever loved?”

  “I guess we could skip it. The form says we don’t have to answer them all.”

  “Okay.”

  Grace searched his eyes for how he really felt. He glanced around like they were being watched. She looked back down. The vitalized ink swirled, almost too eager to complete the form.

  The last question revealed itself: Do you understand the objective of the procedure?

  The goal was to have your heart weighed. To have the organ plucked from your chest like a swollen cherry and placed on a set of golden scales. To goad the blood-soaked flesh into exposing its imprints, the names of those you’d loved scrawled along striated muscle. To have a machine divulge whom you loved the most, whether you wanted to admit it or not.

  Every heart tells a story.

  “You ready?” Grace asked.

  Marcus replied, “Yeah.”

  A line pulsed at the very bottom of the page. Prepare yourself for your heart’s true story.

  Grace was certain she already knew her story. The largest name imprinted on her heart—aside from Mama’s and Daddy’s and her little sister Serenity’s—was Marcus’s. But her hands still shook, and she didn’t know why.

  “Finished, right?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  They walked together to return the clipboard to the woman.

  A door swung open, and a man appeared. “Grace Williamson?”

  Grace raised her hand like they were in school and the teacher had called her name from a roster. She turned to Marcus. “I guess I’m first. It’ll be okay, right?”

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  Grace kissed his cheek. It was warm with a deep flush she couldn’t see beneath the rich brown of his skin. He always carried too much heat, like he’d swallowed the sun. It was one of the things she liked most about him. She’d never grow cold when she was with him.

  He took her hand and squeezed it.

  She thought maybe she should just turn around, pull him forward, and walk straight out the door. Maybe she didn’t need to know. Maybe everything would be fine and her worries would drift away like rain clouds after a summer storm.

  But maybe not.

  Grace took a deep breath and released his hand.

  * * *

  Marcus scoured the waiting room for water. The answer he’d just given Grace about everything being okay lay thick and heavy on his tongue like cane syrup. He always told her those sorts of things, even if he didn’t believe them. That was what you were supposed to do. His pops always made sure his mama was good, even if he had to wrap a little lie inside something sweet.

  “You got dragged here too?” the man beside him asked.

  Marcus flashed a false smile and mumbled something that wasn’t yes and wasn’t no, either.

  When Grace had asked him to do this, he’d said what he always said to her: Sure. It was more reflex than real, mostly muscle memory. He didn’t know how to say no to her. He didn’t know if he had ever wanted to. When she cried, her hazel eyes appeared green, and her brown skin flushed pink, and he couldn’t handle it. He’d seen the same thing happen with his mama. Those tears haunted him. He’d say just about anything to make Grace smile, to keep her smiling.

  “My girlfriend thinks I’m cheating,” the man said. “Yours too?”

  “Nah,” Marcus replied.

  He’d never do that to Grace.

  He’d never behave like his pops.

  He’d leave her first.

  Even if he had to see those tears.

  Marcus’s eyes darted around the room as more and more people disappeared behind the door Grace had gone through. He wondered what was happening to her.

  “I didn’t even love that chick,” the man adds. “That shouldn’t show up on my heart, right?”

  “I don’t know.” Marcus knew what his heart would show: that he loved his mama and his sisters and his brother and his pops and Grace.

  Always Grace.

  But he didn’t know if that would be the case forever, and he wasn’t sure if the test would show that. If his curiosity about being with someone else might affect his love for Grace.

  Marcus didn’t consider himself a person with secrets. Grace probably k
new all there was to know about him, and there wasn’t much. His favorite things: the smell of a fresh pair of sneakers straight out of the box; the hum his grandfather’s old albums made when he first put them on the record player; the way his dog waited for him every day like he was the best person in the whole world. She knew about the weird stuff going on between his parents ’cause his pop kept making mistakes, and she’d told him all his nightmares about drowning in the new pool on his block. She knew he sometimes worried that his little sister and brother might not return from school or that his parents’ fights would get so big they’d turn into a hurricane and destroy everything. Or that maybe he couldn’t be the perfect son, the one his mama counted on to put things back together.

  He told Grace most things worth telling.

  The man beside him loudly unleashed all the details of his affair while Marcus tried hard not to listen. The story of betrayal boomed like thunder, its rattle hitting him in the chest, excavating his greatest fears.

  “Marcus Tucker?” an attendant called out.

  Marcus leaped up, happy to be able to escape the man.

  “Good luck,” the man said.

  “Yeah, okay. You too, I guess,” Marcus replied. He didn’t believe in luck and wasn’t sure he needed it. He needed something else.

  He ducked through the door and followed the attendant down a hall. Brass lanterns painted stripes across the floor. Marcus counted them as he walked. It was the only thing that kept him from panicking.

  He felt like he was about to be outed in some way. That every half-truth he’d ever told was about to be laid bare and given air, a monster growing from it. He had always told himself he wouldn’t be like his pop. He might not be perfect, but he wouldn’t outright lie, the big kinds of untruths that were just too-small Band-Aids over hemorrhaging wounds.

  No, he’d never do that.