CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We gather at the edge of the archives, where the drapes have been pulled back to reveal the night sky.
The floating shelves have ceased their own dance, suspended above us in a grim circle.
We’re the strangest coven, congregated around Quill, who’s most definitely reveling in being the center of attention.
There’s a giant emerald bowl set next to her, filled with still, moonlit water prepared by Ender and Beam.
Geneva’s petting Cillian, who has his eye marginally open in a casual show of interest. Keshav and I flank Quill with one hand each pressed to her pages.
Valentin clears her throat. “So, uh, how does this work if she doesn’t have hands?”
Hands, Quill scoffs. How pitiful to have to depend on such unreliable things. Why, one sharp blade and you could lop them right off.
“She doesn’t need them,” I translate, doing my best to avoid looking at Keshav, who’s coughing into his sleeve in an admirable effort to not laugh. “Put your necklace down here.”
Valentin hesitates but reaches back to unhook the chain around her neck. She lets it hang from the fastening, gently pooling it on a bare strip of table in between Quill and the bowl.
What am I supposed to do with it there? Quill asks, bristling against my palm. Put it in the bowl, child.
I swipe the chain from the table and dip it into the water, watching as it sinks to the bottom of the bowl. From afar, there’s a distant squeal as the eclipse celebrations continue, filling the air with spices and drunken laughter. Beam presses into my side, her warm hand wrapping around mine.
“What now?” Everest asks. He’s taken a seat and is surveying us with his head held in the cradle of his hands. I flush at the memory of his lips on my ears, the heat of his arm around my back.
Do you need privacy? Quill asks wryly. I shoot her a sharp glare as Keshav looks intrigued by the contents of my brain that have unwittingly spilled into our nosy tome’s head.
Focus on your task at hand, I instruct, then add out loud. “The foundation of scrying, or our hypothesis, lies in disrupting a timeline. If Val’s necklace holds a strong enough connection to her dimension, Quill can harness its energy to open a temporary portal.”
“So, I could go through it?” Valentin asks quietly.
“Not tonight,” I reply. “We’re testing in a stable medium first: water. But yes, if this works, the next step would be opening a portal in time.”
“I would wait to see how the carousel feels about your actions first,” Geneva comments. She’s still petting Cillian, but the motion is mindless, her face burning and haunted with emotions I’ve never seen her display before. Concern, maybe. Not that she’d ever admit it.
Everest cocks his head, hearing something we can’t. “It’s ready.”
And then it hits me. A gust of warm air like a dragon’s soft breath.
The stirring of a giant, or some other long-slumbering power.
The carousel always makes itself felt on the fair, but tonight its sentience is primal, a reminder that it’s the wheel on which the world spins.
Burning anticipation sears the wick of our despair, stoked incessantly by the undeniable magic of the night, and then–
“Something is happening,” Ender exclaims, leaning over the bowl. Sure enough, the surface of the water ripples, and the moon disappears. It’s replaced by an image. A house with a freshly trimmed garden. We watch as the chestnut door swings open and someone familiar – Valentin – walks out.
“Oh, my god,” she whispers, falling to her knees in front of the bowl.
Another figure races into the tableau, a woman with dark brown skin and long, luscious hair.
Scry-Valentin’s face breaks into a wide grin as the woman pulls her into her arms and kisses her hello.
The air around us warms – scented with amber and tea, brewed with ginger.
Suddenly, I want to look away – their embrace is short-lived, but so intimate that it doesn’t feel right that we’ve all been privy to it.
“I don’t remember her,” Valentin says, a tear running down her cheek. She looks up, distraught. “Why don’t I recognize this place, her?”
Ender is scrutinizing the house in more detail. “The architecture resembles what I’ve seen in the 20th century, from Ryka’s world, which lines up with the clothes you were in when you arrived.”
“Not now, Ender,” Beam hisses.
“No, it’s okay,” Valentin says, rubbing her nose. “I want…I need to know where this is.”
As she says it, a subtle pressure builds around my ears, and the necklace twirls at the bottom of the basin, as if spun by a finger.
Valentin and the woman vanish. The image transforms, revealing clean grey walls, lined with carts of equipment.
A figure walks along the hallway in a white coat, a black stethoscope around her neck. It’s Valentin.
“You’re a doctor,” I whisper, in awe. Ender reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“I am?” Valentin asks, her prior sadness melting away to confusion. Her finger fiddles at the hollow of her neck, where her necklace normally lies. She’s looking at the sheet-vinyl floors like they’re the most marvelous invention. As scry-Valentin walks by, I spy a gold-tinted label on the wall.
“There, what does that say?” I ask, and we all bend over the bowl at the same time, heads knocking right into one another.
“Ow!” Beam says, “It’s no fun not being able to pass through you when I want.”
“I think it starts with a U,” I say, squinting at the metal plate, but scry-Valentin is on a mission marching through the halls. Nurses and physicians greet her hello, and I can definitely smell the bitter antiseptic clinging to the freshly cleaned surfaces.
“Ew,” Beam says, wrinkling her nose. The portal’s more open than we realized. Hovering above the water are thin, barely perceptible threads of time, evidence that the carousel is transmitting Valentin’s past to us, bringing with it wisps of sensations. The image flickers.
“No, wait, keep it there!” Valentin cries, but it’s too late.
I don’t control what we see, or for how long, Quill says, a hint of worry in her voice. The carousel is in control.
What does that mean? I ask her. Everyone else is trapped in this enchantment, glued to the bowl, and I can see the threads emerging from the water, connecting to each soul present. The carousel’s force has always been undeniable, but it’s never done anything like this before.
I don’t know, Quill admits. Something feels wrong. But it’s not done yet. Look.
This time, we’re in a different house. The warm, beige walls are split with large windows.
Outside, the yard is coated in a layer of white snow, newly fallen.
It’s Christmas; there’s an ornamented tree lighting up the frame.
Valentin is inside the house with the same woman as before, but there are more people here, a family.
An older Black man is sitting on an armchair with a little girl in his lap.
She’s wearing reindeer ears and is laughing at a story he’s reading her from a book.
“I think…I think this is coming back to me,” Valentin says, looking all too overwhelmed.
Now it smells like cinnamon and hot chocolate, the kind that warms you to the bone.
Valentin’s finger hovers over the little girl.
“This was her third Christmas, and we got her a doll house that she took apart in one day. I think…I think that’s my daughter. ”
A daughter. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, not when I’ve woven through so many stories of families, but something about seeing Valentin in the scrying bowl strikes a nerve deep within me.
She’s from the life I thought I’d live – a warm holiday morning, in a quaint home, filled with family.
I study the scene greedily, as though looking for other signs that this is my dream.
I see the well-loved blanket squeezed between the older man and the couch, the lace trimmed frock grazing her daughter’s little legs, and the haphazardly decorated tree, filled with mismatched ornaments they probably collected over years.
Something tugs at me. Like one of the threads has gone into my chest and is pulling at my heart.
What was that? I ask Quill.
She responds immediately. I don’t know–
Another tug, this time so hard that it yanks my attention to the mantle above the roaring fireplace.
There, sitting in between a few framed photos of the loving family is a familiar wooden carousel, hand-carved horses set around it.
All the existing pressure melts into a blanket tossed over my nerves.
Suddenly, nothing and no one exists except me and this image.
I want to zoom in, to disprove the tricks Quill must be playing on me, but I have no control over this illusion.
“Are you okay?” Everest whispers.
“Is that your mom?” Ender asks, as another woman walks into the frame.
All of the blood in my body turns to ice.
In this light, it’s unbelievable that I didn’t see the similarities before.
“Yes,” Valentin says, assured, breaking through her prior confusion. “That’s my mother.”
I look between Valentin and the woman in the bowl.
They have the same strong nose and jawline, except the woman in the bowl is older, the smile lines beneath her eyes more pronounced.
A rock the size of a grapefruit is lodged in my throat, closing off my airways.
All this time I’ve wondered, never known if the fruits of my labor had paid off. If any of this had been worth it.
Finally, something says in my head, but it’s not Quill, and it isn’t me.
Valentin gasps as if she’s been drowning and has only just come up for air.
“Are you okay?” Beam asks, rushing to her side.
“I think I remember,” Valentin whispers, hoarse.
“I do too,” I say, aware of how thick my voice is. The tableau in front of us unfolds with presents opening, ribbons tossed in the air, but the whole time I’m focused on only one person. “I know who that is.”