“No. You’re wrong.”
“About what? Being crazy? I’ll tell you what crazy is, Dre. It’s standing here looking at you after hearing you tell me that you love some guy named Isaac and still hoping that in the next second you’ll burst out laughing, take it all back, and say that you got me good. So what are you waiting for, Dre? Come on. Stop crying. Laugh. Tell me that this is your idea of a joke. I’ll believe you.”
Andrea wept too hard to speak.
“Yeah. I thought so.” Nate turned his back to her. “Please go.”
“See you on the bus?” Andrea choked through her tears.
“I said get out.”
Millions saw the apple fall but Newton was the one who asked why.
—BERNARD M. BARUCH
San Francisco
Present Day
Andrea is nineteen.
Pyramus pounded on the wall that kept him from his lover, ripping the skin from his knuckles. He turned to Andrea and reached out to her with his torn hands. Andrea held on to him, but his hands were slick with blood and slipped from her fingers. She fell backward. Her head slammed against her pillow, jolting her awake.
Pain bit into her palms. She opened her eyes and found her fingernails digging into her flesh. The weathered leather spine of Metamorphoses shifted in the circle of her arms. In the year that had passed since she told Nate about Isaac, the characters that dwelled in its pages were the only company she dared to keep. They didn’t care about her secrets.
Andrea relaxed her fingers and gathered the book to her breast. The nights she spent wading through its myths led her to tragic dreams, but she found an odd comfort waking up next to tales that were stranger than the one she lived in. Andrea had hoped to share the entirety of her story with Nate, but the tip of it had crushed him more than she could bear. She had given Nate Isaac’s name and, in exchange, she received the contents of his heart. Her two oldest friends now lived behind walls. Isaac was locked behind a thicker one that was deaf to her cello’s pleas. Andrea was one song away from giving up trying to find him.
“Hey, kiddo. You awake yet?” her dad asked through her bedroom door.
She sat up and shoved Isaac’s present back in its hiding place. “Yup.”
“There’s someone looking for you downstairs. Do you know a Mr. Westin?”
Her heart stopped. She yanked open her night table’s drawer and pulled out a crisp white handkerchief that she had washed and pressed herself. A hint of the red Sri Lankan mud that had stained it a year ago remained on one of its corners. Andrea jumped out of bed and scrambled to the door. “Thanks,” she said, squeezing past her dad.
“Who is he?” he asked.
Andrea heard the real question in his voice as she bounded down the stairs. It had thinned over the years since she had given up on his dream, but it was still loud enough to ring in her ears. “No, Dad. He’s not a cello teacher. I bought something on craigslist. He’s delivering it.”
“Oh.”
The word hung in the air. It was funny, Andrea thought, how a sound so heavy with disappointment defied gravity as long as it did.
—
Mr. Westin stood at her doorstep looking like he always did: smiling and lint-free. “Good morning, Ms. Louviere. Did I wake you?”
“No.” She wrestled her hair down. “I…I didn’t expect to see you today.” She handed him his handkerchief. “Here. Thanks for lending it to me. I washed it, but I’m afraid I couldn’t get all the mud off. I’m sorry.”
“That’s perfectly all right. Thank you.” Mr. Westin tucked his handkerchief into his pocket.
“Do you have something for me?”
“I do.” He slipped his hand into his suit jacket and drew out a yellowed letter. “Have you changed your mind about giving me cello lessons?”
She took the letter from him. “I didn’t think you were serious about that.”
“I couldn’t be more serious.” He buttoned his jacket.
“I can give you the numbers of some cello teachers I know.”
“I’d like to learn from you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m old and I know that you’re one of the finest cellists in the world. I’d like to learn how to play the cello as soon as possible.”
“Learning how to play isn’t something you can rush, no matter how good your teacher is. And I’m certainly not qualified to teach you.”
“I respect your decision. Have a good day.”
“Hold on,” she said. “Do you know how many letters I have left?”
“I do.”
She leaned forward on the balls of her feet. “How many are there?”
“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that sort of—”
“Please, Mr. Westin. I won’t tell anyone if that’s what you’re worried about. No one has to know. I won’t get you into trouble. I promise. Besides, what harm is there in giving information about letters that belong to me?”
“I wish I could help you, Ms. Louviere, but I can’t. I’m truly, truly sorry.”
—
Andrea laid Isaac’s letter on her desk and ran her fingers over his monogrammed seal a fourth time, memorizing the swells and valleys of the wax. Not knowing how long she would have to wait until she heard from him again, she needed to make his latest letter last as long as possible. She was not in a hurry to be alone. She broke his wax initials and unfolded his note. The passages of Pyramus and Thisbe’s tragic fate leapt from the first page. The story of the lovers’ untimely deaths had spurred Shakespeare to write Romeo and Juliet, but it’d had a less inspiring effect on her. She gnawed her bottom lip and turned to the next page of Isaac’s letter.
My dearest Andrea,
By now, I am certain that you are more than well acquainted with Pyramus and Thisbe’s tale. They defied their families and dared to love each other through a crack. For this, they paid with their lives. I would have wanted more than anything to assure you that our story bears no similarities to theirs, but I swore a long time ago never to lie to you.
We defy rules just as surely as Pyramus and Thisbe did. The difference lies in the gravity of the laws that we break. Pyramus and Thisbe went against their parents’ wishes. We flaunt time itself. Such a crime has its own consequences. I would offer you my protection, but the wall between us allows me to send you no more than words of caution—and my deepest gratitude—for the risk you take whenever you open our wall and for the lovely gift that you are about to send through it.
Andrea yanked her night table drawer open. A gift, wrapped in lilac paper, jostled against Ovid’s book. Andrea did not understand how Isaac knew about the thank-you present she had planned to give him, only that he was waiting for it on his side of the wall. She could not imagine a danger great enough to keep her from sending it to him. She pulled her cello from its case and played.
Notes tumbled out of the instrument’s strings in several false starts. Andrea paced the room, wringing a year’s worth of calcified disappointment from her fingers. She returned to her chair with knuckles that were red but less stiff. It was easier to play through pain than self-doubt.
A damp October afternoon flowed from her bow. She played on, ripening the song into a crisp, golden fall. A silvery white crack spread over her corkboard, coming to a stop between her class schedule at the University of San Francisco and a birthday card Sebastian had made for her. A curtain of leaves draped over it from the other side of the wall. A shadow lurked behind the green veil. Isaac poked his head through the leaves. His lips shaped her name with a smile.
“Isaac…” Andrea dropped her bow and tossed the gift through the crack. “Catch.”
The box flew through the corkboard, rustling her class schedule. The crack flared. Andrea squinted through the glare. Isaac caught her gift. The crack shrank around his grin. Andrea pushed the edges of the corkboard back with a flurry of notes. Isaac stepped away from the crack and disappeared behind the leaves.
“Come back,” she yelled, not ca
ring that he couldn’t hear her. She abandoned her cello and ran to the wall. “How did you know about the gift? How do you send me your letters? Isaac? Are you there?”
An apple flew through the crack. The hole burned bright and closed. The red-green fruit rolled across the carpet and came to a stop by Andrea’s foot. She scooped it up. A crudely carved smiley face that mimicked the one that she had drawn on a music sheet years before grinned at her from the apple’s peel. A chuckle snorted through her nose. She set the apple on her desk and read the rest of Isaac’s letter.
Your gift puts mine to shame. The apple I gave you was hardly a fair exchange. For you, our most recent encounter happened but moments ago. The same is not true for me. Much time has passed between this letter and the afternoon the crack opened in my orchard. Still, the memory of you and the little box you hurled through the crack remains fresh in my mind.
Woolsthorpe Manor
1666
Isaac is twenty-four.
Isaac leaned his shoulders on the makeshift table he had set up behind the barn. He clutched his playing cards, trying not to smile at his pair of queens. It wasn’t too difficult. Compared to his other secrets, his hand of cards was a fairly simple thing to keep close to his chest. He placed his bet inside the circular compartment of the wooden Pochspiel board and looked across the table. “Tom?”
The stocky farmhand ran his eyes over the chips Isaac had tossed on the board. He glanced down at his cards. His stubby fingers pinched them tighter. He wrinkled his bulbous nose, grunted, and threw his cards down on the table. “I fold.”
Isaac turned to the man on his left. “John?”
The scruffy man knitted a hedge of graying brows. He scratched his ear with mud-encrusted fingernails. “Er…pardon me, sir, but are three kings a good or bad thing to have? I haven’t quite gotten the rules straight in my head. There seem to be more of them than the manor’s sheep.”
Isaac chuckled. “It is a very good thing, indeed.”
The old shepherd broke into a grin that displayed more gums than teeth. “In that case, sir, I shall raise you,” he said, tossing chips into the game board’s compartment.
“I fold. Well done, John.” Isaac patted the shepherd’s shoulder. Secretly dealing the man a winning hand had been a challenge, but the manor’s longtime servant was taking his wife’s recent passing roughly and Isaac thought he could use some cheering up. Isaac could not take back the hand that fate had dealt John, but he could control the playing cards he received. He knew too well what it was like to live under the shadow of loss. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir,” John said.
“Better luck next time, Tom,” Isaac said, winking at the farmhand who was in on his plan.
The farmhand nodded. His mouth twitched as he did his best to look disappointed.
“Thank you for the game, gentlemen. I enjoyed it very much.” Isaac stood up, savoring the taste his words left in his mouth. The truth was clean and sweet and it had been a long time since he had been able to speak his thoughts plainly. “Have a good day.”
Isaac strode into the apple orchard. He weaved his way to a tree with a crooked trunk. Of all the apple trees in the orchard, he liked this one the best. Its trunk curved into a shape that cradled his back and neck, rivaling the comfort of his bed. He had frequently sought sanctuary in its shade in recent months. It was the only place in Woolsthorpe where it was quiet enough for him to hear himself think.
The bustle in the manor had grown when his mother had returned after her second husband had died. She had brought his three half siblings, Mary, Benjamin, and Hannah, with her. It was almost the family that he had prayed for every night when he was a little boy, but not quite. He did not know any of them well enough to trust them with his secret. Trees were easier to confide in.
He approached his old friend. The whorl on the side of its trunk glowed behind a low branch. Isaac’s pulse raced. A crack broke through wood. Andrea appeared on the other side. Isaac ran to her. She called his name and tossed a box wrapped in lilac paper through the glowing hole. Isaac caught it. His eyes flew around the orchard, searching for something to give her in return.
—
The fog swallowed the lantern’s light, leaving only the scent of apples to guide Isaac through the maze of mist. Damp grass squished under his feet. He raised his lamp higher, grazing his elbow against bark. He reached blindly through the fog and rested his palm against a crooked trunk. The evening air seeped through his coat. Isaac shivered. He rested his cheek against his favorite tree. “Andrea?” he whispered.
Isaac turned his collar up against the chill and the colder certainty that he was not going to get an answer. He had documented the details of Andrea’s visits in enough pages to know that she never came when he begged her to, nor appeared in the same place twice in the same day. But hoping was the hardest of habits to break. He pressed his face closer to the bark. “Are you there?”
Only the leaves rustling above him offered a reply. Isaac sank to the ground, molding his spine to the curve of the tree’s trunk. He pulled Andrea’s gift from his coat and opened it. He did not have a name for the little rectangular black object inside the box. The letter that came with it was sparse, leaving him with only the briefest of instructions. He had fumbled during his first attempt to follow them, but now he navigated them with ease. He turned the object to its side and pushed a silver button with a drawing of a small triangle on it.
Music spilled from the tiny holes in the object’s back and floated into the fog. The song danced in the air, traipsing over mist and moonlight. It found its way into his soul as swiftly as it did the first time he had heard it. Andrea’s song broke his heart and put it back together with every note. The apple and the grinning face he had carved on it seemed ridiculous in comparison to her song, but he knew it would make her smile.
He looked up at the stars twinkling through the tree’s canopy and wondered if it was evening wherever Andrea was. A dark object fell through the branches and struck her music box from his hand. The box crashed against a rock, shattering her song. Isaac swung the lantern around him, searching for the culprit. A shriveled apple wobbled next to Andrea’s broken gift. He picked it up. A carved face grinned at him from the fruit’s withered black flesh. His hand grew limp. The fruit slipped from his grasp and crumbled into dust in midair. The shattered pieces of Andrea’s music box glowed beneath the gray shower. Isaac retrieved a silver button from the ground. Its light faded through the gaps between his fingers. He held his lantern over it and illuminated a fistful of fog.
And so it seems, Andrea, that some gifts are not meant to be kept. One day soon, I shall make it up to you.
Yours always,
Isaac
1666
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55
Isaac’s letter had described how the apple he had thrown through the crack had returned to him and rotted before his eyes. Andrea looked at the shiny fruit in her hands and wanted to tell him that he had been mistaken. His gift was ripe, plump, and begging to be bitten. She raised it to her lips. A bright white light ignited under its peel as her teeth sank into its glowing flesh. She spat it out.
The apple vanished from her carpet in a burst of light. Her lilac gift box took its place. Andrea tore it open. A mini audio recorder, wrapped in purple tissue paper, sat inside it. She pulled it out and pressed play.
The song she had recorded years before crackled out of its tiny speaker. A bright white light bled through the recorder’s plastic and glowed in time with the music. Andrea fumbled with the pause button. The recorder broke apart under her thumb and swirled into a tiny dust storm over her palm. The gift box met the same fate. Ice rose up from her ankles. The crack’s message was clear. Their wall was not meant to be crossed. She wrapped her dusty fingers around her bow and threw it out the window.
Anything cracked will shatter at a touch.
—OVID
San Francisco
Present Day
&
nbsp; Andrea is twenty.
The cursor blinked and brought Andrea half a second closer to a paper deadline she was not going to meet. She took a long sip of her tall macchiato on the odd chance that the two thousand words she needed were swimming at the bottom of her cup. Her phone vibrated on the café’s table. She licked the foam off her upper lip and answered it. “Hey, you.”
“Hey, you,” Nate said. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, you know me. Every day’s an adventure. Today, I put two packets of real sugar in my coffee.”
Nate chuckled. “How can you stand all that excitement?”
“What can I say? I like to live dangerously.” Her words had slipped out with a laugh, but Andrea heard the irony coating each of them.
A recorder crumbling to dust lived in the edges of her mind. Andrea was quick to push it away whenever it got too close but took care not to shove it too far. She needed to know that she could summon it whenever the compulsion to open her wall became too strong. The crack had given her fair warning of the dire consequences of breaching it. Over the year that she had heeded it, there was not one second that she did not wonder whether turning to dust might be less painful than keeping away from Isaac. She pressed her phone closer to her cheek and blinked twice, trying to drag herself from the mire of questions back to Nate.
“Dre? Are you okay?”
“Oh…uh…yeah. Sure. I was just thinking about this paper I need to finish. So how have you been? How’s the tour going? Where’s your next stop?” she said, without taking a breath.
Nate had dropped out of college, choosing his band over an advanced math degree. He had called a few times from the road and Andrea found herself really listening to what he had to say. In the year that had passed since she had thrown her bow away, she and Nate had learned to become friends, albeit from a distance. His voice kept her mind off gifts that turned to dust.
“Whoa. Slow down. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were excited to talk to me.”
Love and Gravity Page 9