Love and Gravity

by Samantha Sotto

  Her lungs collapsed. She grabbed the second letter Mr. Westin delivered. She ripped it open, ignoring his instructions.

  My dearest Andrea,

  I cannot tell you what you can and cannot do, nor do I have the right to. I hope, however, that the trust we have built over the lifetime we have lived behind each other’s walls is enough to persuade you to defer reading the remainder of this letter until you return from your journey. Seeking Nate’s assistance is a far more urgent matter. It is he who shall send you on your way. Andrea, I beg you, make haste.

  Andrea shoved the letter deep beneath her mattress to keep herself from reading another word. Her watch snagged on a bedspring. She ripped it off and tossed it onto her nightstand, weary of the constant push and pull of time’s hands. The looping engraving on the steel back of the Omega glinted in a small pool of sunlight. It posed the same riddle the infinity symbol carved into Isaac’s apple tree had asked her. Andrea squinted at it, just as she had inspected it many times before. This time, she noticed a change. From the angle her watch lay on her nightstand, the two intertwined circles looked less like the symbol of infinity and more like a number. An eight. Andrea gasped, remembering where she had seen the number before. Isaac had carved its Roman form into his sundial.

  —

  The soles of her shoes stuck to the floor of the bar where Nate’s band was playing. Andrea took her pick of empty tables in the room. She sat down and ordered a Corona she had no intention of drinking. She needed to be sober when Nate finished his set.

  The veins in the neck of the band’s wiry lead singer bulged as he screeched through a cover of a Queen song. Andrea sifted his voice from the music and found Nate’s drums pulsing behind it. Nate kept his eyes closed. A smile hovered over his lips. He didn’t need an audience to be happy.

  Nate walked over to Andrea after the set, his black T-shirt clinging to the sweat on his chest. “Why are you here?”

  Andrea stared at the water rings on the table. “That was a good show. I enjoyed it.”

  “You’re still a horrible liar.”

  “No. I mean it.”

  “Why are you here, Dre?”

  “I found it.”

  “Found what?”

  “The key to Isaac’s code.”

  “Jesus. Not this again.” He turned on his heel.

  “Nate, please. He told me to see you.”

  He stopped and looked at Andrea. “Who told you to see me?”

  “Isaac did. In his last letter. He said that you could help.”

  Nate shook his head. “This is crazy.”

  “I know it isn’t fair of me to drag you into all of this.”

  “Then don’t. And you don’t have to be stuck in it, either. Just walk away. Forget the crack. Forget Isaac. Forget all of it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t or you won’t?”

  “I can’t,” Andrea said. “It’s not just Isaac that’s behind my wall.”

  “What do you mean? Who else is there?”

  “I am.”

  —

  Nate doodled little eights on the back of a Chinese takeout menu and sipped his coffee. An hour had passed since he and Andrea had returned to his apartment after she had told him about the engraving on the watch and the sundial. He had not looked up from the paper once.

  Andrea balanced on the edge of the barstool in his kitchen. “Any progress?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve tried using number eight as the code key, but it doesn’t break down the sequences into anything that makes the slightest sense.”

  “But it can’t just be a coincidence, right? The same number on two different types of clocks must mean something.”

  Nate slapped his forehead. “Clocks. Of course.”

  “Clocks?”

  “Have you heard of clock arithmetic?”

  “No. What is it?”

  “It’s the way we tell time on a twelve-hour clock. It’s also called modular arithmetic. The twelve-hour clock divides the day into two twelve-hour periods.”

  “So? What does this have to do with Isaac’s code?”

  “What time is it?”

  Andrea glanced at her watch. “Almost three a.m. Why?”

  “What time will it be twelve hours from now?”

  “Three p.m.”

  “Wrong.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course it will be.”

  “Not if you used simple addition. If you added twelve to three, the answer should be fifteen, right?”

  “Well, yes, but…”

  “But clock addition makes your answer correct,” Nate said. “Twelve hours from now is three o’clock and not fifteen o’clock. Clock time starts over every twelve hours. When you add hours in a twelve-hour clock, whenever the answer goes over twelve, you subtract twelve to find the answer. This is known as modulo or mod twelve.”

  “Okay, I get it,” Andrea said. “But I still don’t see how clock arithmetic helps us.”

  “This means that your first hunch about the numbers being related to music was correct.”

  “But I told you, I couldn’t match them up to notes. Isaac’s numbers run up to double digits but an octave only spans…” Andrea’s eyes grew large. “Eight notes.”

  “Exactly. If we think of the musical scale as an eight-hour clock and use eight as our modulus instead of twelve, we could apply clock arithmetic to Isaac’s code—”

  Andrea’s heart pounded. “And make Isaac’s numbers fit into the musical scale.”

  Nate nodded. “All we’d have to do next is assign each note a number, match the code to the numbered note, and convert the sequences into music. One would be C since it’s the first note in the scale, two would be D, and so forth. For numbers that are higher than eight, we would have to subtract eight or a multiple of eight to get the right note. Thirteen, for example, would become five and correspond to G on the scale.”

  Andrea threw her arms around him. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  He shrugged her arms off him. “Do you know why I decided to help you?”

  “Because you believe me.”

  “Because I’m the guy who killed Santa. I helped you because I know that the only way you’re going to be able to forget about all of this is when you have proof that you’re wrong. So go ahead. Hurry up and play this song. The sooner you see the truth, the sooner you’ll come back to the real world where the real people who care about you live.”

  I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.

  —OVID

  Los Angeles

  Present Day

  Andrea is twenty-three.

  Notes rose and fell inside Andrea’s chest as she lay on her couch. The melody was a variation of a tune that she had played her entire life, stripped down to its raw and most fragile form. Isaac had arranged the song that opened the wall into strains Andrea’s arm could play.

  Andrea sat up and rested her cello between her legs. The new, naked song felt its way to the cello’s strings. The pain in her wrist fought every note. Every inch between her shoulder and wrist turned to cement. Sweat dripped into her lashes. She shut her eyes. Music found her in the dark. It led her by the hand and took her to a place where the pain could not follow. Every measure pulled her farther away. Bright white light called her back.

  A crack grew to the size and width of a door on her living room wall. Blackness stretched beyond it. She laid her cello at her feet and lunged through the crack before her legs could tremble.

  Liquid white light swallowed her whole and drowned out every sound. She swam, unable to tell if she was moving forward or staying in place. Air bubbled from her lips and rose past the tip of her nose. A silver bubble drifted by her eye. A breezy morning when she was six months old flickered inside it like a firefly in a cage.

  The moment was small and she had been too young to remember it, but as she gazed i
nto it, it came back to life. A high chair pressed against her back. The airplane noises her dad made as he steered a pink spoon into her mouth tickled her ears. Applesauce slid over her tongue. Andrea did not have the words to describe the mush, but she knew that she liked it. She cooed for more.

  Breath rushed out of her mouth and bubbled around her. Slivers of memory and time swirled inside each translucent sphere.

  A math quiz she had in fourth grade.

  A heart-shaped rock she found in the garden when she was six.

  The third tooth she lost.

  Isaac’s kiss.

  Her lungs burned. Drowning inside a wall, though painful, looked pretty.

  Her face slammed against stone. Pain radiated through her left cheek. Heaven, she thought, hurt. She groaned and opened her eyes. The crack dimmed and sealed shut on a timber-framed wall.

  She clambered to her feet. Her legs swayed. Andrea staggered into plastered brick. Familiar shapes emerged from the shadows. A small desk sat by a window and a dark wooden bed was pushed against a wall. Isaac’s bedroom and the scent of apples spun around her. A woman’s voice drifted through his door.

  “I am beyond relieved that you are home, Isaac,” she said. “We have been hearing such dreadful news about the plague in the city. I pray it does not spread. Thank God they closed the university.”

  “Woolsthorpe is quite a distance from London, Mama. I would not worry.”

  Andrea had waited all her life to hear Isaac’s voice, and in that moment she realized how crude her imagination had been. His words were made from the darkest hot chocolate, every sound creamy, comforting, and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. She leaned closer to hear more.

  Footsteps stopped inches from the door. Andrea squeezed herself into the darkest corner of the room.

  “Would you like me to have some dinner brought up for you? You must be starving from the journey,” Isaac’s mother asked.

  “Thank you, but I am more exhausted than hungry, to be honest. I think I shall go straight to bed.”

  The door swung open. Candlelight spilled into the room and lapped at the tips of Andrea’s navy-blue flats. She muffled a gasp with her hands and stood on her toes.

  Isaac stepped into the room and took the candlestick from his mother. He kissed her on the cheek. “Good night, Mama.”

  “Sleep well, Isaac,” she said. “I shall have your things sent up shortly.”

  “Thank you.” Isaac shut the door behind him. He held up his candle and swept away the last of the room’s shadows. Light fell over Andrea’s face.

  She swallowed hard. “Hello, Isaac.”

  Isaac stumbled back. “Andrea?”

  She nodded.

  The candle trembled in his hands. “Surely this must be a dream.”

  “Your numbers worked. We figured out your code. We used clock arithmetic to turn the numbers into music and—”

  Isaac wrinkled his forehead. “Numbers?”

  “The numbers you sent in your letters.”

  “Letters?” The crease on his brow carved deeper into his skin.

  “The letters you wrote to me.”

  “I have written no such letters.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve been sending them to me since I was seventeen.”

  “Andrea, I swear to you, I have not.” He set his candle on his desk. His sleeve fell back from his wrist, exposing his naked arm.

  Andrea gasped. “My watch…where is it?”

  “Your watch?”

  “The watch I…” Her next words evaporated. She fixed her eyes on Isaac’s bare wrist. “When was the last time you saw me?”

  “Do you not remember?” The tips of Isaac’s ears flushed red. “It has been four years since I saw you at the library. I…I held your hand.”

  Her mouth fell open. “What year is it now?”

  “The year of our Lord sixteen hundred and sixty-five, of course.” He frowned. “Is it not the same where you are from?”

  She leaned against his desk, reeling from time’s latest trick. Isaac was a year away from writing his first letter to her. “I must have played your song wrong. I’ve come too soon.”

  “Too soon?” Isaac’s eyes flashed. “Andrea, where do you come from? Or should I ask from when?”

  She drew a breath. “Three hundred years ahead of you.”

  “I never imagined…” Isaac gripped the corner of his desk. “So this place…this moment…this is your—”

  “Past.” The word exploded inside Andrea. She was not early. She was right on time. Isaac had yet to write a single letter. Nothing needed to be undone. There was no better time to convince him about warning her about her father’s death. She flung her arms around him. He was still the man she loved.

  His spine stiffened. “Andrea…”

  Heat flared in the back of her neck. She stepped away from him. This version of Isaac, she thought, did not love her yet. She cast her eyes down. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. Wait.” He took her hand and drew her closer. “Stay.”

  She inhaled the early spring on his skin. More than three hundred years away from her life, she was home. Every muscle in her body screamed when she pulled away.

  Isaac dropped his arms to his sides. “Is something wrong? Have I offended you?”

  “No. Nothing’s wrong. Not anymore. I don’t know how much time I have here and there’s something I need to ask you to do for me.”

  “Anything.”

  Her eyes darted around the bedroom, chasing the thin hope that she would find the right words to plead her father’s case. A young boy’s loneliness was soaked into the floorboards and walls. Andrea breathed in the scent of old tears and found what she needed. “Isaac, do you remember how sad you were when your mother left you? How you ran to the window each time a carriage passed and stood there until your toes hurt, hoping to see her again?”

  His jaw tensed. “How have you come to know of this? I have not spoken of this to anyone.”

  “You told me,” she said. “I mean, you will. A year from now, you will write letters to me and tell me all about your childhood and Cambridge, and—”

  “Stop.” He took a step back. “Are you saying that you know of my future?”

  “I…” All that Andrea knew of him—the greatness he would achieve and the man he would become—rushed to the tip of her tongue. She bit down hard. As eager as she was to tell him about the legacy he was going to leave, she did not dare tamper with his destiny by revealing things that might alter it in some way. “I don’t. Not all of it. I only know that you will write me letters about—”

  “Andrea, I beg you, do not tell me any more. Such things are not meant to be revealed. We are taking too many liberties with God’s laws as it is. I dare not be greedier than I already am.”

  “I understand. Believe me, I do. But there is one thing that you must know, and it is important that you remember it. It’s about my father.”

  He nodded. “Go on.”

  “My father left me.” Her voice shook. “But unlike your mother, he can’t come back. Not on his own.”

  “I do not grasp your meaning.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “I’m so sorry, Andrea.”

  “But he doesn’t have to die.” Her eyes locked into Isaac’s. “Not if you warn me about it. This is the past and what you do here can fix my future. If you tell me not to let him go for a walk after his concert and to take him to the hospital instead, he might…will live.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “But I will. Just write down what I’m telling you in the letter you will send me on my twenty-second birthday. My twenty-second, Isaac. It cannot come later than that. Will you do this?”

  “Andrea…” The muscles in his neck twitched as though he were trying to wrestle his voice from it. He pointed to Andrea’s arms. “You are aflame.”

  She glanced down. Light flowed through her veins and seeped out of her skin, erasing the border between her body
and the candlelight. In a flash of light, she was gone.

  —

  The old coffee stain on her bedroom carpet tickled the side of Andrea’s face. She tried to stand, but every breath dragged her closer to sleep. She made a pillow of her arms. Her watch ticked in her ear, falling in perfect rhythm with the dull pain throbbing in her cheek. She brushed her fingertips against the bruise left by her introduction to Isaac’s floor. It had swelled into a small bump and was her sole souvenir from her trip. When she turned to dust, it was going to crumble with her. She sank into a syrupy dream, hoping that she would not leave too much of a mess for her landlord to clean up in the morning. Her Dustbuster sat fully charged on top of the kitchen counter just in case.

  If I had staid for other people to make my tools and things for me, I had never made anything of it.

  —ISAAC NEWTON

  Los Angeles

  Present Day

  Andrea is twenty-three.

  Sunlight washed over her eyes. Andrea pushed herself up from the carpet she had spent the night on and ran her eyes over her body.

  Two hands.

  Two feet.

  Ten fingers.

  Ten toes.

  She ran to her phone and called her dad. His cellphone was still disconnected. The old pain in her arm, in the shape of his fingers, squeezed her wrist. She dropped the phone. Isaac’s song had worked; her plea had not. The crack had not turned her to dust, but she had not changed the past. Her dad was still dead. She drew a breath that should have been heavy but was not. The crack had let her live and she was going to cross it as many times as it took to make Isaac listen.

  The doorbell rang over her thoughts. Andrea wobbled out of her bedroom and answered it. Nate stood outside her door.

  “Dre, we need to…” His eyes fell over the large purple bruise Isaac’s floor had left on her cheek. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Her hand flew to her cheek. “I tripped in the shower.”

  He frowned, his gaze glued to her bruise. “We need to talk.”