CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“What?”
Beam nods. “Ender’s right. The end of the string winds up Phoebe’s leg. We thought you both noticed.”
Everest looks as befuddled as me. His hand is still on my hip, but I don’t displace it. “I wasn’t paying as much attention to her,” he admits. “But another timeline ending with a person?”
“How are we supposed to examine her body?” I ask. Panic flutters anew in my bones. This is a disaster, another pathway with an ending that can’t be good.
“Well, we don’t know where it leads yet,” Everest says. “Beam says it went up her skirt?”
“Well you’re my husband, so seduction isn’t an option,” I say.
Everest grins. “I don’t like sharing, but if you wanted to invite others–”
The door swings open, and there stands Phoebe, two glasses of water in her outstretched hands. As we thank her and gratefully sip from the cups, I notice that the end of the string has, in fact, come back into the room with her.
“How’s the school system around here?” Everest asks Phoebe, giving me a little push away from him.
Phoebe perks up. “It’s so good to know you’re thinking about that this early.”
“I hear it’s competitive these days,” Everest says casually, as if he’s spent his whole life thinking about human children and school admissions.
I’m pretty sure my jaw is somewhere on the first floor, but he makes a subtle shoo-ing gesture with his hand, and I remember I’m here for more than Everest’s new-found fascination with the mortal world.
As our friendly realtor dives into a speech about the closest public schools, I walk around her, pretending to examine a portrait that looks suspiciously like the Mona Lisa, all while searching for the point of entry on her body.
Beam flies right up to her, until her head’s looking down Phoebe’s shirt.
Stop that, I mouth at Beam, but she’s pointing frantically at Phoebe’s chest. “It ends here!”
It ends at her shirt?
I return to Everest, who’s got his best concentration face on as Phoebe babbles on about the latest aviation lessons and the spaceship flying program of the fancy private school in the district, if we’re ever interested.
Her pink blouse looks simple at first, but a careful examination reveals a tear in the top, right where the button should be.
“Your shirt is really pretty,” I say, using it as an excuse to step closer, scrutinizing the small tear. There, undoubtedly, is the glittering end of the string.
“Oh, thank you,” Phoebe says. “My mom had it specially made for me. You won’t believe it, the buttons look like simple things, but come here, look at this. Gosh, I still can’t believe I lost one.”
I’m all too happy to oblige. She points at one of the black buttons and the floor falls out from underneath me.
“They’re refurbished,” Phoebe says. “My mom thinks the originals were from Ancient Greece. They found them during one of their digs near Troy. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Amazing,” I say, but my voice is light and airy, ready to tear like the rip in her blouse.
Because the item that’s missing on the top of her shirt is a button, and I know in my bones that even if I touch her chemise with permission, that nothing will appear up there. Because the button that belongs here is back at the fair, tucked in the velvet box that Quill keeps by her side.
The button I took from the handmaiden’s room.
Just as the weight of this realization settles in my gut, a faint murmur echoes through the apartment, and I’m so rattled that it takes a moment for me to register what I’m hearing: voices inside this home.
“Darling,” Everest calls, and I jump at the hint of anxiety in his voice. “I think we’re running late for our next appointment.”
Clearly hearing the voices herself, Phoebe frowns down at her screen. “That’s odd. I thought you were the only ones authorized for a tour here today.”
“We have to go!” Ender yells, flying along the timeline back into the room from where we came.
Everest grabs my hand and starts pulling me towards the bedroom. “We need to use the restroom,” he says. “Thank you for showing us around.”
“Hello! It’s Farhad and Zelda here for our tour,” a pleasant voice calls from the other room.
“But I thought you–” Phoebe says, but I barely see the realization dawn on her as Everest practically drags me into the bedroom. “Hey, you! Trespassers!”
Everest kicks the door shut behind us.
“Valentin!” he calls, rushing to where Beam and Ender are standing by the string. The closet door opens and Valentin stumbles out. I grab her hand and pull it on top of mine, around the same point in the string.
“What the hell happened?” she asks, as a loud, blaring sound fills the room. “Are those alarms?”
“Not now,” I say, giving Everest a nod.
The bedroom door swings open as we vanish into the ether.
The carousel spits us out in different directions.
My head hits the ground hard. I’m seeing stars both figuratively and literally as I roll over on the cold earth, facing the velvet night.
“Who did you piss off this time?” Geneva asks angrily, appearing above my face.
From a distance, I hear someone throw up. Geneva snarls in disgust and wanders away from me.
“This is horrendous,” Valentin says. Her voice sounds sticky and muffled as she wipes her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “How do you do this regularly?”
“You get used to it,” Everest says.
He continues talking, but I tune him and the ghosts out, the realization from the trip confronting me in all its might.
My fingers itch at my pocket, the same one where I slipped the button from Troy.
I never would have imagined that such a small artifact would have ended up in the future, on the shirt of a realtor descended from a line of archaeologists.
It’s unbelievable, far too coincidental for my liking, but the evidence is clear as the starlight above.
As I sit up, the carousel glows black and blue, bruised from the threads I’ve twisted in the past. See, it seems to say, throbbing in its violent glory, inconveniently lucid as it hurls telepathic accusations my way. See what we have been trying to show you?
A wave of nausea ripples through me and I fall to my side, emptying the hot, bilious contents of my stomach onto the soil next to me.
“Are you okay?” It’s Everest, sounding alarmed.
He slips off his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders as I’m overtaken by tremors.
I haven’t vomited from time travel since my first year here, but I don’t know how to explain to him what I’ve uncovered.
The gravity of the time-rot that orbits my existence.
“I’m okay. I just need a minute.” I need to talk to Quill.
He backs off, but his concern is palpable.
Valentin groans, stumbling over to us. “Well, at least it isn’t just me.”
I give her a small, unconvincing smile as I get to my feet, still avoiding Everest’s gaze.
No one’s more accomplished at reading my expressions than him, and I worry he’ll easily see the guilt that’s so blatantly present.
I need to gather my thoughts, my research, before I admit my hypothesis to everyone.
“I assume you did not succeed, given the state of the carousel,” Geneva says mockingly.
Everest winces. “No, things did not go as planned.”
The understatement of an eternity. It feels like someone’s making balloon animals out of my intestines.
“Um, Ryka,” Ender says, alarmed.
“I’m alright,” I gasp, although I’m unconvincingly doubled over, fighting for every breath.
But other voices rise, and shrieks ring out around the fair. Not all of them could possibly be this concerned for me alone.
Ender cries, “Look out!”
The next seconds are an assault on my senses.
I smell something foul, like the time Calliope accidentally singed off a visitor’s hair.
The carousel’s confusion runs along my body like static, all while the wreath of time turns a rather frightening shade of deep sapphire, shudders, and with an ear-splitting burp, spits out a terrifying human form.
A form I’ve seen before. Wielding a giant axe.
“The axeman!” Beam screams, flying out of my peripheral vision.
I can’t bring myself to move. It’s the oddest thing, how the sky darkens several shades and my body pulses, like I’m being squeezed through a carwash.
Everest, who’s to my right and equally stupefied, flickers in the dark light.
Cotton candy laces through the air and a brief flash of green overhead confirms the bizarre, unbelievable sensation that’s washing over me.
The axeman came to us hundreds of years ago, and we have been transported back to that night.
“Impossible,” Geneva says. “It would mean…”
That time is bending into itself in the one place that should not be possible. And if this is happening here, well. I don’t know what’s happening outside this dimension.
The axeman blinks, taking us all in, and fear creeps over his dazed expression. His grip on the axe tightens and it’s incredible, really, how deeply this memory is engrained in my mind, because I leap into action mere seconds before he turns homicidal.
“My love!” I cry, fighting every bit of survival instinct to step towards the man.
“Your what?” Everest whispers from behind me, but I ignore him, smiling at the man, who looks entirely unconvinced that I could be his object of desire. Rude.
My smile wobbles. Nova was always cast as lead. My theater career ended with the role of a mountain in our kindergarten performance.
“Maria,” I say emphatically, pointing at myself. “Do you not remember me?”
“Do you have a death wish?” Geneva hisses, but she doesn’t approach us. Smart. Leave me to take the fall.
Thankfully, the name Maria does something to the axeman, and he loosens his hold on the axe.
“Maria,” he repeats, and I could cry.
“Yes, it is me.” I scan the carousel, which still looks entirely unusable.
Last time, we’d simply pushed the axeman inside, but I don’t see an opening.
The fair’s conscience is an indecipherable string of words that I attempt to mute.
Ender comes around from behind the axeman, chewing his nonexistent nails.
Think, Ryka!
“I’ve been looking for you,” the axeman says, his voice trembling.
“You…you found me,” I say, still scrambling for any sort of plan. Getting rid of the weapon would be a nice beginning. “You must be tired. Here, let us take that from you.”
I shoot Ender a meaningful look. Bless the boy, he transitions seamlessly into butler mode, bravely holding his hands out for the man’s axe. “I can put it in your tent, sir.”
“You found me?” Everest asks in a hushed, amused tone. “Remind me to teach you how to woo.”
“Go make yourself useful,” I hiss back at him in Ancient Greek while the axeman looks around bewildered. What use is there in having thousands of shared languages if you cannot use them in a ploy?
“Where are we?” the murderous ghost asks, dropping his arm so the axe swings downwards. Ender mercifully dodges.
“Someplace safe,” I answer with far too much pep. The axeman blinks at me. Thankfully, he remains oblivious to how he is enclosed in a ring of frightened ghosts, all poking and prodding at one another instead of helping. I really, really don’t get paid enough for this.
“Can somebody bring me an object with which we can restrain him?” I ask in Ancient Greek, all while maintaining my too-wide smile.
The axeman frowns. “What did you say?”
“I was just asking them to prepare our tent for you!” I ask. “We want you to be comfortable.”
“I’d prefer you not be within striking range of the man,” Everest says in Ancient Greek.
“I don’t know what object we can use!” Ender says, anxiously eyeing the axe.
“What are they saying?” the axeman asks. This time, his words drip with suspicion.
“They, uh, were discussing our plans for tomorrow.”
Geneva snaps her fingers, and her own Ancient Greek comes out dustier than the archive shelves that Keshav doesn’t let anyone touch. “Beam, go get–”
The axeman roars in pain.
“Are you okay?” I ask as he drops the axe entirely, clutching his head. Ender swoops it up and backs away, leaving me to stand inches from our newest and least welcome guest. Up close, I can see the scraggles in his beard, and the deep wrinkles that mark his age like rings on a tree.
“Maria, I–” he squints. His expression curdles and he bares his teeth. “No. You’re not–”
Bang!
I yelp as his head whips to the side and he collapses to the ground.
Beam stands behind him, clasping Quill in her grubby little hands.
The indignity! Quill projects into all of our minds, something I know demands far too much of her energy, but she’s drowned out by pure relief and the sounds of ghosts hooting and hollering. Return me to the archives at once!
“And that,” Beam declares haughtily, glaring down at the limp body, “is for trying to kill us all last time.”