CHAPTER FOUR #3
It would’ve been easier if I’d had a moment to jot down all my thoughts, but this impromptu discussion will have to do.
Besides, I’m not sure how to ask questions about something I hardly understand.
I can’t shake the memory of Everest in the river, of the power that seeped into the very air around me.
I’ve spent my tenure as keeper voraciously studying time in the capacity of my role, primarily travel and mending.
Seriously, my undergrad physics professor would die from disbelief if she could take one look at my work.
But this exposure to Everest’s abilities has opened up possibilities that I wasn’t even aware of.
I’m fascinated.
“You literally create time?” I ask.
His eyes crinkle with confusion. “That’s your question? You knew that.”
“Not really,” I say. “I knew you and your siblings created time and that the river played a role in it. But I thought it was a more abstract process, not that you literally churn time out like it’s butter. You’ve never properly explained.”
He rubs the back of his head. “I guess I thought you knew. You put so much together yourself, and it’s been so long that I forget there are things that may still be unclear.”
Once upon a time, I may have gotten upset with his scattered brain, but I can hardly fault him after five centuries of life myself. Things get hazy when you have an eternity’s worth of information to keep in your brain. Some stuff inevitably falls out.
“What else?” he asks.
I try to wrangle my thoughts into order. “Your siblings all do this too.”
He raises his brows at the lack of a question. “Yup, it’s why we take turns at the fair. The exception is Cyrus. He only deals with fate and hasn’t had a go at this place since Minerva.”
“Because he got stuck in a cave?” I ask, remembering whispers of a story Everest told us a while back.
“Not just any cave. We were playing a prank on our aunt – she orchestrates chaos. Cyrus got stuck in one of her caves and came out…different.” Everest shudders. “Since then, he’s had gifts that none of us can explain. The rest of us dabble in creation.”
“I would hardly call whatever that was dabbling,” I say, watching as his face turns small. I wonder if Cyrus getting stuck in the cave was the end of their relationship, and maybe the other siblings as well. “Were you all ever close?”
Everest falls quiet, and I wonder if this is when he turns the conversation into a joke, or finds a reason to leave.
It was apparent from my arrival here that his family is nothing like mine.
After I got past my initial anger at him for his outrageously insensitive comments about my desire to go home, I felt bad.
“We were, back when we were children,” he says.
“I told you about the dragon egg theft with Cyrus and Sienna. We did stuff like that all the time, but then we grew up and drifted. I know it’s hard for you to understand, given your relationships with your parents and friends, but my mother is different. ”
I hold my breath. Everest rarely mentions his siblings, let alone Mother Time herself.
“We have a family home, but it moves with her whims. I don’t even know which realm it’s in now, and I haven’t asked around in a while.” His gaze takes on a glassy, distant look. “I guess it’s harder to stay connected, the older you get.”
And Everest is very, very old.
He’s always seemed so nonchalant about his lack of familial ties, but now I wonder if that’s a bit of a facade. I switch topics, unwilling to scare him away.
“Have you ever shown anyone else time creation?”
“No one currently here,” he says, falling flat on my bed.
“Shoes–” I warn, but he’s already kicking them off.
“It’s a pretty intense experience,” he says. “It requires a lot of energy, and it’s really draining. It knocked you out for a bit there, and it takes even more from the ghosts. As tempted as I am to put Geneva out of commission for a week, I’m not that cruel.”
“You could have warned me,” I say pointedly.
“I honestly didn’t think it would be that bad!
The last keeper I showed was fairly unaffected.
” He interlocks his fingers behind his head.
The mention of a previous keeper is surprisingly irritating.
It shouldn’t come as a shock that he’s shared this with someone else before, but it grates on my nerves that I’ve only been let in later, despite begging to know more in my early years.
“Normally, my energy is enough on its own, but as you’ve so presciently noted, we’re in need of a lot more. ”
“But I didn’t even do anything.”
“You were a necessary ingredient.” He sits up. “Now, I know this is plenty to process, I can already see you getting snappish–”
“I am not snappish!” Actually, I’m bubbling with questions, effervescent.
“But I’m not done yet. Where do we even start?
How does the water bind to time? Is it old time that’s being recycled, since you’re using existing memories and regrets?
Or is time infinite, since we know all timelines continue to exist? ”
The prospect of him answering all my questions is almost too much for me to handle, and the fair mirrors my excitement, sending a wave of rumbling energy our way.
It whips my hand to the right, causing me to nearly hit Everest in the head with my hairbrush.
Thankfully, his reflexes are sharp, and he swerves out of the way.
“Sorry. Apparently, we’re all too worked up,” I say, pinning my arms to my sides. “But seriously, what even is ‘new’ time, since we don’t harbor concepts of the past and future? How long have you–”
A silver blur flies into the tent, stopping just an inch from my face.
“Beam!” I say impatiently. “Now is not the best–”
“So glad to see you’re okay,” Beam says, and the mood turns as she looks nervously between Everest and me. This isn’t just a case of her missing me. “And beyond distraught that Geneva won again, I’m telling you if she keeps tallying–”
“You’re babbling,” Everest says, making the same note of her worrying energy.
Beam purses her lips. “You both need to come now.”
Everest is already putting his shoes back on.
“What is it?” I ask, clenched with unease. All questions about time-making have been filed away for later.
Beam leans in as if this is a secret that she can’t fathom speaking out loud. “Something came out of the carousel.”