by David Arnold
While I am grateful for this time together, an invisible clock hovers over our heads, an incessant ticking, and I toggle between the Harry who loves Dumbledore for his goodness, and the Harry who hates him for his elusiveness.
“Dad.”
“You were born at the hands of an angel,” he says. “I saw your face that night, and I remembered it. Eyes like fire. I remember—” He taps his brain, as if to say, Steel trap.
“I know, Dad. I saw you too.”
“Did you see the angel?”
“You should really get some sleep, you know.”
But he doesn’t. He says those fiery eyes stayed with him through the years, says he watched them blossom slowly, right in front of him, day after day. “I knew it was time to send you when your mother . . .”
I have often wondered what it would be like to devote my entire life to a single person. To hand them my heart, and to hold theirs in return. As my father’s eyes fill with tears, I think of my photo from when they were young—Mom’s smile captured in time, a look that said she knew he belonged to her—and it hits me that while I’ve had eighteen years to cope with losing my mother, her death is still fresh for him. I kiss his hand as the maddening logic of loss rages silently in his eyes, and while I may never experience such pure devotion, in front of me now, I see what happens when the person you give your heart to is no longer there to hold it.
A few minutes pass, and he asks how I feel, and I tell him of my life in the House by the Solar Cliffs, how I ate only what I grew or what was in the basement stores, how my water was filtered. “Whether it’s another virus, or water or food—I don’t know. But my house saved me.”
“Good.” He smiles. “So, you’ll go back there. After.”
After.
I tell him what he wants to hear, and I smile, but a thought has been turning in my mind, something I need to ask while he’s lucid, and before his after is here.
“The other portals,” I say, recalling the cities in the file at Kairos. “Madrid, Seoul, Missoula—”
“Alexandria, Bend, Lima, Asheville.”
Like a switch, I think. His brain turns on and off and on again.
“So I’ve been thinking . . .”
And I tell a story. There once was a plague that wiped out the world. My story is bare bones, no jokes, not nearly the detailed depictions of his imaginative tales. But the gist is this: an apocalyptic world where the mass exodus of humanity occurs, while at the same time, a number of mysterious portals appear. “At the end of the world, what could be more convenient than a way out?” I ask.
“You sound like your mother.”
We smile, tinges of the maddening loss still lingering.
“Even if you’re right,” he says, “the portals aren’t ways out. They’re ways back.”
“Maybe instead of portals to other worlds, all we needed were portals to other times. Maybe it’s not alien or cosmic or some divine modern-day Noah’s Ark. Maybe it’s just the next step in evolution. Single-cell organisms, fish, birds, dinos, apes, upright, freethinking humans, followed by—”
“The same humans. Living over and over again.” He smiles. “Your evolutionary timeline needs some work, but it’s . . . an exciting thought.”
Silence for a moment, and when I try to fill it by reading again, he stops me. “Let’s just be,” he says, and so we do. We sit there, just being together, not speaking or even looking at each other, and it feels quietly tectonic, the kind of moment that might move a mountain if it were let outside.
“I knew it was you,” he says, breaking the silence. “Figured it out years ago.”
I don’t know what to say to this. The thought of so many years passing between us, each knowing the other is alive—like standing on opposite sides of a closed door, not being able to walk through.
“There’s a reason we couldn’t live together?” he asks.
I’ve memorized those particular entries in the Red Books. The transport imprints of them jumping off the cliff are burned in my mind, the nightmare those Lives became. I could tell him. And I almost do. But when I look at him, eager and frail and so close to the end, all I can say is, “Yes. There was a reason.”
He slips into a fit of coughing, which turns to blood in his mouth, and out of the blue, the verbal spiral descends: the angel from heaven, my mother’s sweaty hands, “Your sweet mother,” he says, and I hold him, tell him not to talk, just rest.
Later that evening, after he’s had a heavy nap, I help him eat some bone broth, and he asks questions about how the Tollbooth worked. I explain what it feels like, the mist of the spinning water, and my theory that going through so many times has left a mark on my soul.
“Like a tree ring,” I say. “Dendrochronology, remember?”
His smile is mechanical; I can’t tell if he remembers, so I go on, explain the concept of transport imprints, how I’d begun having memories of things from other timelines, other Nicos, earlier Lives.
“How many Lives?” he asks, his face an expectant sunrise. “How many times have you gone through?”
“I’m number 160.”
He laughs out loud. “My Nico,” he says, and my heart warms at the affection in his voice, until he follows that up with— “Number 161.”
That night after he’s asleep, I go up on the attic deck and stay awake into the early hours of the morning. As a child, when this treetop sea whispered possibilities and freedoms beyond my reckoning, I listened with eyes wide and ears open. Eighteen years of the Red Books have made the prospect of freedom dizzying. And so I turn from the view to face the Bell, try to recall a transport imprint from my last Life, but it doesn’t work that way. Instead I close my eyes and imagine how it might have gone, a time when, laughing, my father had called me his Nico.
My Nico, he would say. Number 160.
NICO
DATE: October 30, 2025
ACTION ITEMS:
—The man hanging from the walkway needs cutting down (obviously). We can use our knife, but there’s a machete in the upstairs closet that works better. It takes a while, so that’s it for today. Enjoy the bed.
INCIDENTAL NOTES
Hello, Nico.
Welcome to the House by the Solar Cliffs. I am Life 7, the founder of the house, and as an older, wiser you, I do hope you will read this note carefully, with an open mind and open eyes.
First, an apology for the incomplete nature of these Books. The early pages detailed our six Lives prior to the house. They were full of darkness and desperation and so I tore most of them out. It was impulsive and on my worst days, I wish I hadn’t—perspective can be a balm. But it’s done, so let’s move on.
After eighteen years, the end of my time in this house looms, and I am compelled to return to the beginning of these Books, not to apologize, but to warn. As I’ve already spoken with our 8th Life (more on this in a minute), I write this warning for the benefit of our many Lives to come.
Your instinct, upon arriving in this place, will be to fill it with those you love. I know, because I am you. Whatever number you are, it has probably already occurred to you that your parents are young, alive and well. The house is clearly a miracle, an embarrassment of riches, beautiful and bountiful in many ways, and so why not bring them here?
Let me tell you why.
In bringing your parents here, you bring yourself also—as a very young child.
I admit, the idea was so bizarre, it had not occurred to me until I’d already arrived at the Farmhouse with the invitation, only to find Youngself asleep by the fire with Harriet. And while I could fill these Books with details of the traumatic experiences that followed, there are only so many pages, and who knows how many years of notes ahead, and so for the sake of concision, here are the details that truly matter:
I brought Mom and Dad and Youngself to live with me. Each of us were
inclined to see the House by the Solar Cliffs as a ticket to a better, safer life—if not for us, then for Youngself.
Nico, listen.
This living arrangement is unnatural to the point of nightmarish. It drives our parents to the edge of the cliff, and eventually, hand in hand, over it. And while their joint death ends the nightmare for them, it is only the beginning for Youngself and me.
For years now I have been left alone in this house to raise myself as my own.
Nightmare is the only word for it.
Imagine: You change your diapers, teach yourself to walk. You watch yourself lose your first tooth. You teach yourself to read, listen to yourself learn to sing. Small tics, growing pains, secret thoughts (not so secret), awkward limbs, puberty, sexual awakening, and through it all, you watch and feel yourself become yourself, and I promise you, it is lonelier than being alone.
Maybe it wouldn’t be like this for you. Maybe you’d bring them here and Mom and Dad would be happy, and you’d be like an older sister to Youngself, or a live-in aunt. But I doubt it. And if things go for you as they did for me, bringing them here only robs Youngself of a life in the Farmhouse: all the stories on the attic deck, the Bell, the books by the fire, Mom, Dad, faith, science, songs, brittle pages, stale tea, all of it, gone.
For lack of a better word, our 8th Life has been my daughter, and I, her mother. And yet, she is not my child.
She is me. My Youngself.
This life—this Life—has been a waking nightmare.
Please listen.
—Nico
LIFE 8 HERE—
My life fucking sucked. I was raised in this stupid fucking house by my own fucking self. And now I’m here alone, which, I guess, is minimally better. Listen to Momself. Leave it the fuck alone.
LIFE 9—
I had a great life in the Farmhouse. Life 8 left it the fuck alone. I highly recommend you do the same.
LIFE 10—
Use the machete to cut the guy down. It’s way easier. Also, the ground is super hard outside, but there’s a softer spot behind the rainwater-harvesting tank. You should get going; it’s about to snow again.
LIFE 23—
Listen to Lives 7 and 8. I tried to bring them here. Thought it might be different, seeing as how I knew what to expect this time. It isn’t different. It is a waking nightmare.
LIFE 100 HERE—
It takes living in a circle to think in one. That’s the long and short of it. Apparently, this is only possible alone. Tried bringing them again. Failed again. Listen to 7, 8, and 23. Stick to the Law of Peripheral Adjustments and learn to love your own company. It’s all you have.
LIFE 160—
When you get both drunk and existential—and you will—I recommend the stash of jigsaw puzzles in the upstairs closet.
Still on the couch, Nico sat in shock, staring through the window. She knew what she needed to do: go upstairs, get the machete, cut the guy down, bury him behind the harvesting tank, but all of that was presupposed by her getting up off this couch, which, for the moment, was not happening.
From the minute she’d flipped the first switch in the house—and there was light—all she’d been thinking was how and when to get her parents here. But okay, fine. Clearly that wasn’t possible. Her next thought was of Lennon and Kit, immediately followed by the realization that Kit was years away from being born, and Lennon was probably a baby.
Surely there was something more she could do.
Considering not just where she was, but when, the implications were mind-boggling: October 2025. Four months, give or take, before the Flies hit North America. Theoretically, what was to stop her from pinpointing the moment of the outbreak and stopping it? Her father had said the failed experiment had occurred in Russia. “My God,” she said aloud, and immediately turned back to the journals to see if any other Lives had thought to do this.
She had no idea where the nearest airport was. Manchester, probably. Though where in Russia would she even begin? Four months wasn’t a ton of time, and even if by some great skill or luck she was able to pinpoint the exact location of the outbreak, what then? This wasn’t a button someone pushed to launch a missile, or a phial of some airborne disease busted open in a largely populated area (which she could theoretically prevent?), and as she was thinking these things, she landed on a few entries from her 9th Life detailing an attempted trip . . .
INCIDENTAL NOTES
LIFE 9 HERE—
Considering saving the world? Forget it.
I made it to the airport, but apparently, you need a passport for international travel, and apparently, this takes months to obtain, and apparently requires not only a lengthy and detailed interview process, but documentation proving, among other things, a place and date of birth. We have no such documentation, and even if we did, we are technically, currently, an infant.
And a few pages later, this note from her 10th Life:
INCIDENTAL NOTES
LIFE 10 HERE—
In lieu of Russia, I used the months prior to the arrival of the Flies attempting to warn a federal agency called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As it turns out, it’s pretty difficult getting a government employee to take anyone seriously, much less a teenage girl from the fucking future.
Aside from these few entries, most of the pages outlined fairly small-minded ventures: delivering food and goods, saving a few people here and there, mostly regional Good Samaritan stuff. No family, fine. Can’t save the planet, got it. But Nico was currently in possession of some real Time Turner–level shit. Surely there was something bigger she could do, some task equal to this godlike power.
Kit. If he was still years away from being born, she had years to find Town. Forget bringing him to the house; all she had to do was find Dakota, warn her about what would happen in Waterford. Although—if she accomplished this, there was the potential he would never leave Town, which would change the entire timeline of her next Life. Maybe she could find him in the days leading up to Waterford, warn him that way.
A quick perusal of the journals informed her of all the ways she’d tried to save him, all the ways it never worked, and while Nico took some comfort in living in a world where the reality of Kit was still ahead, not behind, she couldn’t help feeling cheated.
Outside, it began to snow.
She stood from the couch, fully intending to get the machete and do the job that needed doing. Instead she found herself standing by the shelves full of records, vague memories of warbly music from her father’s old radio, the occasional Farmhouse a capella session. She reached up, pulled a record off the shelf. It was called Pet Sounds by a band called the Beach Boys. It took a while to figure out how the turntable worked, but eventually she managed, and as the music played, she looked around the house, felt its light and warmth, things like miracles around every corner. She could already sense how the house would grow on her, how she would come to rely on it, and maybe one day, even love it. But for now its sounds and lights weren’t miracles so much as reminders of her own quiet, dark world.
She turned the volume up until her ears hurt.
THE DELIVERER
I bury him in the cellar beside Mom.
After that, it’s hard to remember. I stay in the Farmhouse for a while. Days, weeks, it might have been a month.
Time is nothing now, time is wind. I feel it, but barely, and it passes in a gust.
Outside, there is quite a bit of snow. January, then. Maybe February.
However long I stay, it is too long. This transition happens quickly, or at least covertly: one minute, the Farmhouse feels like home, the squeaky floorboards of my childhood like a loving, arthritic old woman; the next minute, I am an orphan.
There are simply too many echoes.
It takes less than an hour to pack. Metallyte pouches from th
e cellar, maps, lighters, et cetera. Before I know it, I’m in the biosuit again, walking the woods, feeling more at home with my tree-siblings than at any point in the last few weeks.
Days. Months. Whatever.
Something about being in the woods again calls to mind the poem I’d read over Dad’s grave. Covered in dirt, having just dug the hole and trying to read through tears, I read Dad’s old copy of Leaves of Grass, which felt expected, but I was at a loss for originality. And though I’d buried Mom years ago, the freshness of her grave in this Life made the missing that much stronger. And so I’d read over both graves, wondering at the virtue of peripheral adjustments, of spending years keeping my own family alive in a world where to do so cost me a place with them . . .
“‘The untold want by life and land ne’er granted. Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.’”
And that was when I saw it.
The next poem in the book. I’d read it before, years ago, my first night in the House, alone and looking for company in pages.
“‘What are those of the known,’” I say now to my tree-siblings, “‘but to ascend and enter the Unknown?’”
NICO
"And what are those of life but for Death?’”
Her first night in the house, after the sun had set—after a long and difficult process in which she’d cut down the Architect with a machete, made a mess of the floor downstairs where he fell, and then buried him in the grounds out back—after she’d gone to the basement for a snack, only to stare at the rock wall so long, she began to see the outline of the circle that brought her here—after taking the first hot shower of her life, and thinking, Music, sex, hot showers, and time travel, it’s been a week—Nico lay in what must have been the most comfortable bed in the world, and stared at this poem.