Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
SARAH
“Welcome home, darling.”
–Enid Healy
Buckley Township, Michigan, the basement of the Old Parrish Place
ENGINEER’S EYES FLASHED WHITE, AND we were flung across dimensions.
She was holding most of the math in her thoughts, but halfway there she handed it over to me, one last farewell from someone who had been my sister, if only for a little while.
I twisted the strand of mathematics in my thoughts, filling in the final coordinates, and we were abruptly standing in my grandparents’ basement in the house in Michigan.
The distant hum of their minds clicked on before the afterimages could fade, accompanied by the complicated web of Aeslin thoughts, hundreds of mice reviewing the same religious texts, as they tended to do whenever not actively engaged in celebration.
“Tell them we’re here before someone shows up with a shotgun,” said Antimony tightly.
“All right,” I said, and reached out. We’re home.
Sarah? My grandmother’s mental voice was tinged with delight. Oh, Greg is going to be so happy to see you!
The door at the top of the stairs banged open, my grandparents rushing down to join us, their thoughts full of fireworks and delight.
Thomas was dwelling on all the things he could add to the family records, while Alice was just looking forward to calling our parents and telling them we were all safe.
She paused when she realized we had an extra body with us, giving Arthur a hard look.
He ducked his head, watching her shyly. “Hi, Grandma,” he said, voice making it clear that he didn’t expect to be recognized.
Her wariness melted at once. “Arthur, sweetheart,” she said, and opened her arms for him.
He threw himself into her embrace, while I leaned back against Artie and felt—for the first time in years—like the world made sense again. He put a hand on my shoulder, fingers brushing the skin of my neck, and I could feel him completely, comforting and complete and exactly as he was meant to be.
Mark shook his head, backing away from our impromptu family reunion. “I need to get back to Cici,” he said. “Don’t call me.”
He vanished, bending the world around him in a cascade of equations that might as well have been written on the air, they were so crystalline and obvious. I could follow him, if I wanted to; I could step forward and be with him in his family home, leaving him with nowhere to run. I could do it.
But I didn’t want to.
Everything I wanted was right here, and I was exactly where the numbers wanted me to be.
“This is gonna get real awkward, isn’t it?” asked Artie.
I leaned back and kissed him on the cheek.
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it amazing?”
Because, after everything, it really was.