Chapter 10
“I just thought I’d check in.” Nate’s voice sounded tinny from where she’d balanced the phone on top of her coffee mug while she clipped price tags into reindeer slippers. “I haven’t seen you for a few days.”
“All good here,” she replied, choosing not to mention Jared’s graffiti prank the other night, or the Spirit of Christmas Present, who was currently swinging from a chandelier in the stairwell. “What about you? The kids okay? How did Conner get on with his festive spelling test?”
“Nine out of ten; he got stumped on ‘myrrh.’ ”
Casey tsked. “That’s a hard one. I didn’t know how to spell that until I was at least twenty-nine. What are you up to this evening?”
“I’m making jam with all that foraged fruit I’ve got in the freezer.”
“Of course you are.”
Nate chuckled. “I take it Nigel’s not back yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Have they found someone to cover?”
She could tell he was trying to sound casual.
“There’s no one available to cover. It’s not a problem, I’m fine.” She tried to match his casual tone, but she couldn’t help the note of irritation creeping in. “If I’m not worried, then you shouldn’t be either.”
“I wish you’d look for another job…”
“Don’t start, Nate. I like my job.”
“I worry…”
“Worry about your own life,” she snapped. “By the way, did you skip football practice again last night? I told Mark I’d tell you—”
He cut her off. “I’ve got a lot on, Casey, I can’t do this right now…”
This had become their familiar pattern. Nate clucked at her like an anxious hen and she shut him down, then she turned the tables and he shut her down and neither of them addressed the real issue for fear of unbalancing the delicate status quo.
They made up before the end of the call because experience had taught them that life was too precarious to leave a conversation on an argument, but they resolved nothing.
Aside from attending PTA meetings and having the occasional dinner up at Nigel and Vern’s, her brother had no social life to speak of.
She understood that it was hard for him to mix with people who—through no fault of their own—couldn’t comprehend what it was like to be a young widower with two small kids.
His friends were compassionate, but time—naturally—moved on for them, while Nate had remained in his grief.
When, after a year, they had started making noises about him “getting back out there,” he had begun to make excuses not to see them.
His world had shrunk and his gaze upon the few who remained in it had intensified.
Casey knew that sooner or later they would need to talk properly about what was going on with him, about his feelings—God, even the word feelings was liable to send her brother into some sort of chutney-making frenzy where he’d be “far too busy to get into all of that stuff.” Either that or he’d shut down and give her the cold shoulder.
And therein lay the reason she’d been skirting the issue for months—Casey Smith, avoider of all things confrontation and conflict.
—
“Let’s roast chestnuts on an open fire,” Margo suggested.
“We don’t have an open fire,” Casey replied as she pushed hot-water bottles in fluffy leopard print covers onto hanging rods.
“Not yet.” Margo winked. “Follow me.”
Casey followed. She was learning that misgivings came with the territory where Margo was concerned.
Up they went, Casey taking the stairs and Margo—one leg crossed demurely over her other knee—slowly sliding up the banister beside her as though on an invisible stair lift, a cascade of chestnuts bouncing down the staircase in her wake.
“I’m curious,” said Casey, “if you’re, like, ‘all-seeing,’ how come you didn’t know that Jared would break in?”
“I’m a spirit, not an oracle,” Margo replied disdainfully. “And besides, the only people on whom I have additional intel are those in my dossier. Other than that, I can no more predict the future than you can.”
“Isn’t that a bit annoying? Having all that power and not being able to know what will happen next?”
“I don’t want to know. I’ve seen what it does to Felicity; no wonder she’s always shrouded in black. Having knowledge of the future robs you of the hope that things could get better, and with you lot, hope is all I have to cling to.”
Margo hopped off the banister at the second floor and sashayed through the department to the bookshop, squashes, pumpkins, and nasturtiums trailing out beneath her coat.
She stopped in front of a large stone fireplace that had been defunct for at least seventy years.
The grate was filled with a wicker basket of pinecones and pillar candles on stacks of old books wound with fairy lights.
“No,” said Casey. “That chimney hasn’t been swept in decades. You’ll burn the place down.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” Margo drawled. “I do solemnly swear that no department store will be harmed in this act of cozification.” Before Casey could stop her—as if she could have—Margo clicked her fingers, and the candles, books, and basket flew out of the recess and restacked themselves next to the till.
Then she pulled a bottle of cognac out of her cleavage, uncorked it with her teeth—spitting the cork onto the floor—and took a swig.
She threw her head back and gargled the cognac loudly before blowing out a long, steady breath into the fireplace and striking a match setting fire to her exhalation, which erupted into a cheerful blaze.
“Perfect!” she declared, and then regarded Casey, adding, “You look like that scream painting by that Munch fellow.”
Casey closed her mouth and let her hands drop down by her sides.
“How am I going to explain this if someone goes over tonight’s recordings?
” she wondered aloud. “Or any of the nights since you’ve been here?
” She could imagine what it would look like to the unsuspecting eye: a stock replenisher, alone, running amok through the departments, talking to herself and setting fires…
Getting the sack would be the least of her worries; they’re going to think I’m certifiable.
“Didn’t I say?” Margo asked innocently. “I won’t show up on the videos, and by extension, when you’re with me, you won’t either.
This never happened.” She gestured to the fire.
“None of it did. Anyone who watches the footage will see you diligently packing, stacking, and racking stock just as you should be.”
Casey considered this. “No one can see me when I’m with you.”
“Correct,” Margo replied. “Liberating, isn’t it!”
There was a devilish gleam in Margo’s eye that made Casey nervous, but she had to confess that after striving for anonymity for the last couple of years, it was rather thrilling to discover she was literally invisible for at least some of the time.
Margo began heaping chestnuts from a burlap sack directly into the flames.
“Um, shouldn’t you be scoring crosses into the nuts before roasting them?” Her brother was a stickler for crossing chestnuts.
“Who’s got time for that?” Margo demanded.
“I’m on holiday. That means minimum prep, maximum relaxation.
Take a load off,” she said, pointing to a pair of well-used high-backed armchairs.
Casey did as she was told. Now that she knew she wouldn’t be caught on camera she didn’t mind sitting on the job; she even felt a little thrill of recklessness.
“And while we wait for these babies to heat up to maximum Christmassy perfection,” Margo went on, plopping down into the armchair next to her, “we can take our first glimpse at one of the alternate yous in your sans-meme life.”
“My what now?” Casey’s heart gave a bump of alarm.
“Your glimpse. Remember before we shook on our deal and I said there would be certain boxes that needed ticking before I made your meme disappear?”
Casey screwed up her eyes. “To be honest that whole night is a bit of a blur.” She mostly recalled feeling drunk on the tantalizing promise of freedom, followed by low-level panic. “What exactly are we talking here?” she asked. “Are we going to see my futures?”
Margo harrumphed and snapped, “I’ve told you, the future is not in my remit.
No, this will be your standard peeping into alternative presents in order to take a gander at what other you has been up to without having the meme.
It’s standard stuff for an agreement like ours.
It offers a more holistic view of what might be lost or gained in order to help you decide your fate.
To erase or not to erase, that is the question, which, given the flippancy with which you entered into our agreement, is just as well.
You deserve the bigger picture before you embark on a choice that will catastrophically alter the course of your life. ”
Casey frowned. “I’m not sure I like you using words like ‘catastrophically’ in connection with my life choices.”
“Oh.” Margo looked nonplussed. “I’d have thought that expecting consequences for your actions was elementary.”
“Again with the C words!” said Casey. “The idea of potentially inducing catastrophic consequences is making me nervous.”
“Good,” said Margo. “Changing lives should not be done willy-nilly. Of course, there are infinite possibilities for the way a life can turn out depending on an infinite number of daily micro-decisions, it isn’t only big things like your meme that chart personal journeys—you could blow your nose and turn left instead of right at a junction and dramatically change the course of your own history—but five randomly selected glimpses ought to be enough for you to make an informed choice.
If, after all five, you decide to go ahead with erasing the memes, then your wish will be my command.
But you must partake of all five. No glimpses, no deal. ”
“Do I get to choose one of the five glimpses to live in?”
Margo laughed merrily. “No, silly goose. Those glimpses belong to Other Casey. We can have no idea how your own life without the meme will turn out—that’s wing and prayer stuff.”
Casey could feel her worry frown deepening; at this rate she would wind up with a deep groove in her forehead.
“Well, I suppose I should be grateful that there are safety measures in place for this sort of thing. I guess I hadn’t really thought through the ramifications when I made the deal.
” She shuddered internally at how rash she’d been.
Thank goodness Margo wasn’t a genie, or Casey could be in a right mess by now.
“Nobody ever does, dear,” Margo replied flatly. “Luckily, we spirits eschew acting in haste and repenting at leisure.”
Casey’s stomach twisted with nervous anticipation at the idea of seeing her alternative selves, but she had to admit that she was curious to know how the Other Caseys had turned out.
“Okay,” she said. “How does this glimpsing business work? Because I should warn you that I get travel sick. I get sick on roundabouts, the ones on roads and in parks. I don’t want to puke in the intergalactic vortex and accidentally clog up the space-time continuum. ”
Margo gave her a side-eye. “This isn’t traditional travel. You won’t feel a thing.”
“What about the store? What if something happens while I’m spying on other me? What if an ember from the fire sets the store alight?”
“You won’t miss anything. We’ll simply step out of time, have a little look around, and then step back into it at the precise moment we left it.”
Casey was struggling to get her head around the logistics of it all. Could it really be as easy as blipping in and out of dimensions? She wished she’d paid more attention when Doctor Who was on.
“Try not to think about it too much,” Margo said. “Bigger brains than yours have been blown by the concept.”
“That’s a bit rude.”
“It’s like looking through a window. Or peeking into a dollhouse, if all the dolls inside were real.”
“That sounds like a horror movie.”
“Oh, it’s the worst kind of horror movie! Watching another you screw up your life and being powerless to intervene, and no one can hear you screaming!” Margo cackled.
Casey’s skin prickled with unease. Was it wise to delve into these things?
She had already accrued plentiful regrets in her own life; did she really want to be burdened with the regrets of alternate versions of herself as well?
But then again, how many people got the chance of a try-before-you-buy on life?
People would pay good money to know in advance how their odds might play out.
“Will other me be able to see me?” she asked.
“No. You will be a voyeur. Nothing you do while in the ‘unfixed’ will have the slightest effect on the past, present, or future. We ironed out those glitches a long time ago. Glimpses are foolproof by necessity.”
“If other me has a cat, will the cat be able to see me? Cats are very perceptive.”
Margo sighed. “It depends on the cat. You ask a lot of questions.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, this is my first time traveling to a parallel universe.”
“The choice is yours—you can take one simple leap of faith or stay fixed in this present with the meme for the rest of your life.”
Casey took a deep breath and decided to leap.