Weave a Circle Round

by Kari Maaren

  This was so much the opposite of unexpected that Freddy thought she was probably getting too used to Cuerva Lachance. “He sounds fictional,” she said. Josiah twitched.

  “Exactly,” said Cuerva Lachance, beaming. “I tried asking his thoughts on the Three situation, but he kept going on about his insane plan to conquer the universe. Couldn’t you just tell us which of you is Three? I’m dying of curiosity.”

  “I don’t know which of us is Three,” said Freddy with perfect truth, though if she’d known, she would have lied.

  She hadn’t had time to think much about Mika’s story, but she’d never put it entirely from her mind. There was something really strange about the Three situation. Okay, the entire thing with Josiah and Cuerva Lachance was strange, but Freddy had needed to recalibrate her strangeness meter over the course of the past year and a half. Even by her new standards, she could sense something wasn’t right.

  The story had made Josiah really uncomfortable. She’d never seen anything do that before. Also, the old versions of Cuerva Lachance and Josiah hadn’t been there when the story had started. They could have walked out of the darkness, but Freddy had been watching, and she didn’t think they had. Cuerva Lachance was the sort of person who habitually appeared out of thin air. Except when he was time travelling, Josiah wasn’t.

  She thought maybe she had been listening to a more or less true story about them being born. She thought it was something neither of them had wanted her to hear. She didn’t know what to do with either of these ideas.

  “Oh well,” said Cuerva Lachance cheerfully. “Do we have something soothing to feed the supervillain? I’m not sure how long he’s going to exist, and I expect he’s hungry by now.”

  “You didn’t buy anything soothing,” said Josiah. “You bought lots and lots of sugar.”

  “That won’t help in this case.” Cuerva Lachance pursed her mouth thoughtfully. “Spider plants!”

  Everybody looked at her.

  “This kitchen needs spider plants,” she said.

  “If you say so,” said Josiah 2, rubbing violently at his forehead.

  Someone knocked on the back door.

  It was almost four. Freddy and Josiah stared at each other for three full seconds, then dived under the kitchen table. It wasn’t really the right thing to do. Freddy decided later that they had both panicked in the same way.

  “If it’s the stepbrother,” said Josiah 2, “I’m going to put him at the top of the ‘Three’ list.”

  But when Cuerva Lachance opened the door, it was Mel’s voice they heard. “Hi. I was wondering if my sister was here.”

  Josiah glanced at Freddy, who was racking her brain. Where had she been on Friday after school? She couldn’t remember. It had been too long ago, and she hadn’t been doing anything important.

  “Why would you wonder something like that?” said Cuerva Lachance. “Has your sister made friends with Josie? I would be completely shocked to hear it. Do you think this kitchen would be better with spider plants in it?”

  “Sure,” said Mel. “Freddy? Is that you hiding under the table?”

  She didn’t seem to have seen more than one of the Josiahs, which was really the only good thing about this situation. Josiah slid around behind Freddy, who said, “I thought you were going to be Roland. He’s been bugging me about hanging out with Josiah.” Was that true, though? She thought maybe Roland had only started behaving strangely later on.

  “No, Roland’s watching TV,” said Mel. “You can come out now.”

  “I can’t,” said Freddy. “I like it under this table. It’s peaceful. I’ll be back later, okay?”

  “Goodbye, little fat one!” said Cuerva Lachance. She shut the door in Mel’s face, cutting off her, “But why can’t I—?”

  They all waited, Freddy holding her breath. After a moment, they heard Mel move heavily away.

  “We’re going to have problems with the ducklings,” said Josiah 2 as Freddy and Josiah emerged. “That one’s far too curious. And the stepbrother saw me talking to Cuerva Lachance at school.”

  Freddy looked at Josiah, who shrugged. She said, “Why is that bad?”

  “She was invisible at the time,” said Josiah 2. “We were in that courtyard where the Deaf kids go to smoke. It was a whole epic invisible argument.”

  “I get silly when I’m invisible,” said Cuerva Lachance. “It’s possible I knocked him into a tree, and I may have turned him upside down at some point. I’m not sure how much the big awkward one saw, but there was some.”

  Freddy said warily, “What was the argument about?”

  “You,” said Josiah 2. “All of you. Three. I don’t know how much he gathered. I’m sure he was only there for a couple of minutes, and he couldn’t have seen much even just of my side of the conversation, but it was enough to make me seem sinister.”

  “Have you ever thought of gathering us all together and telling us the truth?” said Freddy.

  Everybody turned towards her in amazement. “Why on earth would we do that?” said Josiah 2.

  “It seems more practical than what you’re doing now,” she pointed out.

  “It’s not,” said Josiah. “Don’t you remember how you reacted when you found out? It’s better to ease people into these things. Besides, whichever of you aren’t Three don’t need to know.”

  “Except you, if you aren’t Three,” said Josiah 2, “since you know already, unfortunately.”

  “You’re making it all unnecessarily complicated,” said Freddy.

  “No, we’re making it necessarily complicated,” said Josiah, and the others nodded.

  Freddy bit back the words she really wanted to say. It would be better if she let this drop. It was another clue. There was something about the Three situation she wasn’t understanding yet.

  * * *

  The house calmed down after that. The bathroom reappeared, and if the third floor really had turned into a portion of outer space with a floating supervillain in it, it had gone back to normal by early evening. Chairs and spider plants were popping up all over the place, but the weirdness seemed limited to them. The calm lasted all through the rest of Friday and the whole of Saturday. Freddy thought the Josiahs were doing something, though she couldn’t tell what. When she asked, Josiah 2 said loftily that he was “asserting logic.” It was eminently unclear what this meant.

  On Sunday afternoon, Freddy heard someone playing the piano and walked into the living room to say hello to Cuerva Lachance. The problem was that it was Loki at the instrument.

  There were, by this point, a lot of chairs in the room. Freddy stood in a sea of them and stared at the Viking warrior pounding out a swing version of something Freddy thought may have been written by Beethoven. If this was the old version of me, she thought, my brain would be shutting down right about now.

  It wasn’t the old version of her. She crossed her arms and cleared her throat.

  Loki finished with a flourish and turned to her, beaming. “Curly-haired one! I just left you. Your headache has gone, I hope?”

  “It’s been gone for more than a year,” said Freddy. “Are you looking for Cuerva Lachance?”

  “Not particularly,” said Loki. “We’ll bump into each other eventually. There’s no need to go around actively looking for anyone.”

  One of the Josiahs rushed into the room. Freddy hadn’t yet seen either today, and it took her a moment to identify this one as Josiah 1. “Don’t let him into the kitchen!” he gasped.

  “Too late.” Loki reached under the piano and pulled out a case of beer. “I’ve already had several. The beer in your time is effectively yeast-flavoured water. I’m not the slightest bit impaired.”

  “Yes, you are, you fool,” said Josiah.

  Freddy said, “Why is there beer?” She’d looked in the fridge this morning, and there hadn’t been anything in there but milk and half a head of lettuce.

  “There’s always beer in the fridge when Loki shows up,” said Josiah. “As soon as he
enters a house, alcohol appears. We need to get him out of here. There are too many things he can set on fire with his brain.”

  “Why would I do that? I wouldn’t. I don’t do things like that. Why would you think I would? What if I played the piano some more? I like playing the piano. Haven’t you people found Three yet?” said Loki.

  “It’s bad enough in Sweden. He really likes his mead.” Josiah had got in behind Loki and was heaving him to his feet. Loki giggled. “But Sweden has lots of wide open spaces where he can go boom all by himself. He comes here and does it in houses.”

  “He was doing it in the mead hall before,” said Freddy. At Josiah’s impatient gesture, she moved forward and began to tug at Loki’s left arm.

  “That happens after this. Don’t give him any ideas,” said Josiah. “Get him upstairs to the bathroom.”

  They passed Cuerva Lachance in the hall. “Loki!” she said with what Freddy considered far too much oblivious happiness. “Did you come to see me?”

  “Yes,” said Loki, “but I met your alcohol accidentally on the way.”

  She followed them up the stairs as they herded Loki towards the bathroom. Freddy kept wanting to sneeze; his furs were making her nose tingle. “Is there anything in particular you wanted to talk about?” asked Cuerva Lachance, for all the world as if they were seated politely around the kitchen table.

  “I can feel the weirdness. There’s weirdness everywhere!” said Loki. “This time is going to be different … and difficult. Time travel changes people. Didn’t you know? Keep your eye on the candidates.”

  “Of course,” said Cuerva Lachance. “How much beer did he have?”

  Josiah’s eyebrows twitched. “Eight bottles. At least.”

  As they rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, Freddy heard the front door open, then close. There were voices downstairs. Everybody froze.

  “Damn it,” whispered Josiah. “That idiot Josiah’s gone and fetched you and your sister!”

  Freddy blinked. “The inclined planes…”

  “Into the bathroom, now.” Josiah shoved Loki through the door.

  “Hey,” said Loki, “it’s all small and white in here.”

  “He’s going to start blowing things up,” said Josiah to Cuerva Lachance.

  “That will be interesting to see.”

  He glared at her. “Cuerva … Lachance.”

  “Oh, all right, have it your way. I’ll get you some help. But just a minute.” She followed Loki into the bathroom. Freddy saw her open the cabinet, take out a bottle of mouthwash, and pour some into one of the glasses she kept beside the sink. “Back in a second,” she said, and vanished.

  It was a literal second later that she reappeared with Ban. “You kids have fun,” said Cuerva Lachance. “I’ll go downstairs and torment people for a bit. Perhaps someone will even sit on my chairs.”

  She flitted out of the room, her ever-present coat billowing behind her. Freddy and Josiah stared at Ban. “This counts as help?” said Freddy.

  “No,” said Josiah, “this counts as the opposite of help. There are now three of her. Anything could happen and probably will.”

  “You worry too much.” Ban was perched on top of the toilet. Her general lack of clothing was much more striking here than it had been in the jungle. “Drank something, did he?”

  “I drank everything,” said Loki proudly. He climbed into the bathtub and fell down on his bottom with a thump.

  “It feels wrong here,” said Ban, watching as Freddy and Josiah tried to help Loki sit on the edge of the bathtub while muffling his thuds and bangs. “It feels ominous.”

  “Yes, well,” panted Josiah, “that’s because there are three of you and two of me and two of her in the same house at the same time. I’m sure that breaks some sort of cosmic rule.”

  “No, that’s not it,” said Ban. “What have you two been doing to reality?”

  “Living in it. Just sit there and avoid helping, do.”

  “I bet I can reach the ceiling from here with my sword,” said Loki, and drew it. Freddy hadn’t even noticed he had a weapon with him. Everybody crowded away from the notched length of metal, which Loki was waving around indiscriminately. “Great,” said Freddy, “now we can’t get near him at all.”

  “It’s been going on for a long time, hasn’t it?” said Ban, doing the head tilt.

  Josiah said, “What has? Nothing’s going on. Can anybody reach that bloody sword?” Loki, who was now on his feet in the bathtub, lunged towards him, and Josiah jerked backwards into the door.

  “Of course it’s been going on for a long time,” said Loki, abruptly lowering the sword. Freddy, trying not to think about what she was doing, darted forward and took it from him. She didn’t think he noticed.

  “Did you start it,” said Ban, “or did he?”

  “Don’t remember. Doesn’t matter,” said Loki. “It works. Are you going to be boring about this? Are you sure you’re not Bana in disguise?”

  “I resent that,” said Josiah, “and shut up, Loki.”

  “Make me,” said Loki, grinning through the flames that were beginning to ignite in his beard.

  “Oh, fantastic,” snarled Josiah, pressing right up against the door.

  “What? I can’t help being out of control. It’s what I’m for,” said Loki. “I mean, I could go around creating chairs or making vague moralistic pronouncements, but what’s the point? You tell Cuerva Lachance to remember what she is. This whole living-in-a-house deal is sweet and all, and I very much like her hat, but there’s no use playing at all this domesticity. Even you’re domestic, Ban, and you live in a Stone Age jungle, surrounded by people who want to kill you. Take charge, will you? And stop listening to him.”

  The flames had crept up into his hair. Freddy stepped into the bathtub and turned the shower on.

  The next bit was all smoke and steam and coughing and quite a bit of thumping and blundering about. Ban was doubled over laughing. Freddy crouched, sopping, in the bathtub while Loki bellowed something about finding her and turning her skin inside out while she was still alive. The water was barely warm, but she didn’t care. The most urgent thing they had to do at the moment was get Loki back to his time.

  “Okay. Okay. Are you all quite done?” said Josiah once some of the smoke had dispersed. Freddy quietly turned off the water.

  “Wet,” said Loki, “not done. It was a good idea,” he assured Freddy, “though I’d still like to kill you.”

  The bathroom door opened, revealing Cuerva Lachance and Josiah 2. “Oh dear,” said Cuerva Lachance.

  “What are you all doing?” said Josiah 2. “They noticed! They knew there was someone else in the house!”

  “Well, what were you doing bringing them over?” said Josiah.

  “I didn’t know we were having a multiple-self party in the second-floor bathroom,” Josiah 2 spat. “Get Loki out of here before he burns down the neighbourhood.”

  “It’s not my fault I like fire. Maybe I’ll set all the water on fire, just because I can’t,” said Loki.

  Cuerva Lachance and Ban looked at each other and moved together towards Loki. Ban glanced into the bathtub, straight at Freddy. “Everything’s backwards,” she remarked. Then all three of them were gone.

  * * *

  Several hours later, deep into the night, Freddy and Josiah sat side by side on the stairs, waiting for Cuerva Lachance to discover the pipe organ.

  “Why don’t we just stop her now?” said Freddy. “Or tell the other Josiah?”

  Josiah said, “Because that’s not what we do.”

  “That’s just an excuse,” said Freddy. “Nothing’s stopping us but you saying we don’t do it. We could change what happens. We could—”

  “What?” He turned to look at her. “Nail boards over the door? Do you think Cuerva Lachance can’t get into a sealed room? Warn the other me so he can stand in front of the door all night? She’ll get past him. Nothing we do now is going to change anything.”

  �
��Just telling him would be changing things.”

  Josiah shook his head. “We don’t.”

  The rules of time travel, whatever they were, made her feel like a puppet. “I don’t understand why he couldn’t stop her if he knew.”

  “She’s Cuerva Lachance. She doesn’t respect rules. I do. What’s not to understand?” said Josiah, picking moodily at the carpet runner.

  “It seems as if she has all the power.”

  “No, not all of it. If she did, the planet would have been space rubble for several thousand years now. She’s dominant at the moment, but I’m sometimes able to … persuade her to be more reasonable than she naturally is.”

  “And she’s sometimes able to … persuade you to be less reasonable than you naturally are,” said Freddy.

  He made faces for a moment or two, then admitted, “Maybe.”

  “I just think we should try to change things, is all,” said Freddy.

  “I keep telling you we can’t.”

  “Then it’s like we’re fated. Trapped.”

  “No, it’s not—” But then he paused. “Too late. I hear the door to the tower.”

  They sat there, tense and resigned, and listened as Cuerva Lachance barricaded herself inside the tower, pulled out most of the organ’s stops, and began to play. The sound was even more appalling here than it had been in the yard. Freddy could feel the stairs trembling at every note.

  Eventually, they got up and went to help Josiah 2, who was trying to break down the door by throwing himself at it ineffectually. It felt useless to help him, since they knew what the outcome would be, but Freddy did anyway. I hate feeling all fated like this. We shouldn’t be hemmed in because we’ve gone back in time.

  Freddy timed the music. It lasted for nearly half an hour. For Cuerva Lachance, that was almost astonishing. With the exception of one time in Rome, Freddy didn’t think she had ever seen Cuerva Lachance concentrate on anything for more than ten minutes at once. They all waited while Cuerva Lachance removed the furniture she had dragged in front of the door. They could hear Jordan pounding and swearing downstairs.