AS FAR AS THE NEWS IS CONCERNED, WHAT HAPPENED that day in San Francisco was an earthquake—one with a strange shock pattern, but not even all that serious. Aside from a couple of minor injuries from fender benders, nobody was even hurt.
A few people on social media mention strange things they saw or thought during the quake, and some conspiracy-theory sites blame “chemtrails.” Mostly people write the weirdness off as fear and confusion. Hallucinations caused by panic, maybe. No one realizes just how close our world came to destruction. Already the quake has been almost forgotten. Life goes on.
Josie invites me down to San Diego for a couple of weekends, and I go. She teaches me to surf, or tries to, anyway. I never manage to do much more than stand on the board for roughly thirty seconds before I tumble back into the ocean.
It doesn’t matter. More important are the evenings we spend walking along the beach in our bikini bottoms and swim shirts, towels draped over our arms, an ice cream cone in each of our hands as we talk about everything and nothing.
We always got along, but it doesn’t have to be anger that drives people apart. Time and inattention can separate us just as surely. How far apart might Josie and I have drifted if I hadn’t had a chance to see how desolate my life could be without my big sister? If we hadn’t consciously decided to carve out more time for each other?
I’m glad we’ll never know.
The collaboration between the dimensions continues. Now we’re much more likely to simply talk than to visit, and journeys are always checked out in advance. I travel less often than the others now, because the trips are de facto scientific conferences. But I’ve visited along with my parents or Paul just to see how things are going.
In the Warverse, “our side” of the conflict seems to be turning the tide. While none of us are thrilled that they’ve used their new knowledge to design weaponry, it’s their choice to make, not ours. Their Marguerite writes, and receives, long love letters from Theo at least twice a week. If the Paul from that world is ever going to have a chance, Theo will have to seriously screw up.
The Mafiaverse is making significant strides forward. My parents try to visit on weekends when Josie and Wyatt aren’t around. Their version of Wyatt Conley continues to be devoted to my sister, so there’s no point in tearing him down. Maybe his Mafiaverse self is his best self—the person he could’ve been here, if his ego hadn’t gotten in the way. Their Theo did lose one leg below the knee, which is terrible. But he’s learning to deal with a prosthetic, and his anger is directed at the mobster who shot him. The prospect of discovery engages Theo more than any bitterness about the past.
As for the Russian mob version of Paul, well, he’s stopped trying to contact that Marguerite. (Our Paul, of course, never visits that dimension.) The police never found him. He’s somewhere in that world leading a very sad life. I hope he finds a way out of it before the poison sinks in too deep and turns him into another version of his father.
The Triadverse went completely silent for a while, until the other versions of my parents finally reached out. Without Conley around, or any interference from the Home Office, they’ve been able to take control of the Firebird project again. That Paul returned to the US from Ecuador with the other me at his side, both of them relieved to be back home.
The Oceanverse continues to believe we should pay for that submarine. Apparently they’re superlitigious over there—that’s something I didn’t pick up on during my visit. We’ve told them to take it up with the Triadverse, since it was technically that Theo’s fault. But his death leaves them still searching for someone to blame. Thank goodness you can’t sue someone in another dimension. Not yet, anyway.
In the Cambridgeverse, my parents have forgiven their version of Paul, at least enough to work with him again on the new discoveries. Apparently my other self forgave him too; they haven’t gotten back together, but they’re . . . doing better. And she got into film school at USC, which is amazing. She dreams big, too—she’s even left out some fashion magazines for me when I’ve visited, complete with jokey Post-It notes asking me which gown would make the best Oscar dress. I’ve returned to this dimension more than most of the others, although I admit that’s mostly to play with Ringo the pug.
Some worlds I’ll never see again. The Spaceverse understands that it wasn’t exactly me who sabotaged the Astraeus, but I doubt I’d receive a very warm welcome. The Moscowverse doesn’t have the technology to join in or the desire to play along. In a police state, inexplicable movements and memory lapses are exponentially more dangerous. They were glad to help us in the end, but just as glad to see us go. And of course any world in which a Marguerite died is cut off from me forever. That futuristic London is lost; so is the chance to explore the tombs in Egypt.
But I’ve visited the world where Dad and Josie died in the carjacking, to spend more time with that Mom. She doesn’t want to come here and see them because she says it would set her back. Still, I’ve been able to share some of their scientific data with her, and she enjoys just hearing about the others—imagining the lives her husband and older daughter would have led.
I might see the Russiaverse again, someday. The grand duchess sent a message for me with Theo, saying that she appreciated my promise not to return, but that I’m welcome to come back one more time, after September, if I want to see the baby. What she really wants is for me to be able to tell Paul about this child that is partly his, partly mine, and entirely hers. That trip will be difficult, not to mention mind-blowing, but I’ll go. It would be worth it just to visit Vladimir, Katya, and Peter again.
But I’ll do it even if I don’t get to see them. I owe the grand duchess so much. It’s the least I can do. And I want to see the baby, too.
“This is extraordinary work.” The examiner walks around the room where my portfolio is on display. “You have an exceptional breadth of techniques for a student so young.”
I want to jump up and down and make squealing cheerleader noises. Instead I manage to stick with “Thank you.”
Although RISD remains willing to admit me in January, in the end I had to go after my dream. The Ruskin School of Fine Art holds portfolio reviews in maybe half a dozen cities around the country, during which dozens of applicants present their work for examination. Impressing the professor on the scene doesn’t guarantee admission—other faculty members will look at photos later, before the final vote.
But impressing the professor can’t hurt, right?
“Tell me more about this series of sketches.” He gestures to the papers I’ve set out on a table.
“Right. I guess you’ve seen on the news about my parents—”
The professor’s eyes take on a hopeful gleam. All the news media knows is that we’ve proved dimensional travel is possible, and that some of us have done it. We had actual paparazzi outside our house for about a week, which was hilarious. But the details of the alliance remain under wraps for now. We’ve learned how easily this technology can be abused, and until my parents can develop some safeguards, we can’t share too much. In the absence of hard knowledge, rumors have flown, and apparently this stoic, distinguished art professor from Oxford is dying to learn all about it.
Well, I can tell him a little. “I’ve gone on several journeys, and this is someone who’s close to me in many different worlds. So this series is an exploration of how his portrait has to change to reflect his unique fate in every dimension.”
Half a dozen sketches of Paul lie on the table—one angry, with dark lines of tattoo ink visible at the neckline of his shirt. Another in medieval garb, his expression gentler, his sorrow obvious. And in the center is the portrait of Lieutenant Markov. I’m proud of that one, because when I look at it, it’s as if I can feel his love for me all over again. Really, though, the emotion of the image comes from my love for him.
“Will you be doing any more work based on your travels?” Apparently that’s as close to prying as the professor will allow himself to go.
I nod. “I want to do a series of self-portraits, too. I changed as much as anyone in the different dimensions. I want to dig into the complexity. The strangeness. All of it.”
Already I know the hardest portrait to do will be Wicked’s, which is why it’s the most important one to get right. But I’ll paint her image as many times as I have to, until I can discover exactly how to show the ways in which we are different—and the ways in which we are the same.
Theo, meanwhile, will be spending his postdoc year at Yale, which offered him a fellowship he couldn’t refuse. He’s been tinkering with his muscle car, making sure it’s ready for the cross-country drive to come.
He’s not completely recovered from his exposure to Nightthief, but he’s almost there. Every week, his face takes on a little more color, his laugh gets a little louder, and his energy level rises. Before he leaves, he’s determined to show Paul yet more “remedial adolescence”—which mostly means them watching “important” action movies on Netflix, but okay.
Theo hasn’t spoken of his feelings for me since our goodbye kiss in the Cloneverse. I’m pretty sure those feelings are already changing. The wistfulness I used to see in him when Paul and I were together—that’s all but vanished now. He’s at ease around us, happy to hang out or to give us time alone. Theo being Theo, he has his own stuff to do. He’s even gone out a couple of times with this girl he met at a Lumineers concert.
“Nothing serious,” he says when I ask him about her. “I’m about to move to the other side of the continent. Kinda gets in the way.”
Theo wouldn’t even let a bomb come between him and the person he loved. I learned that about him, even if he’s only just accepting it about himself. “As long as you’re happy. That’s the main thing.”
He smiles over at me. “I’m getting there.”
Neither of us speaks of our counterparts in the Warverse, who are so passionately in love, or how devoted his scientist self has become to the grand duchess, even while she’s carrying another man’s child. Those worlds prove that we could have been together, that there are dimensions where I am his fate, and he is mine.
But in this world, we have a friendship so deep and powerful that I feel sure it’s going to last our entire lives. That’s a fate worth having too.
For some reason, the fact that my parents got married in so many dimensions has reminded them that they never got around to making it legal in this one. Mom phoned a cousin of hers who has a cottage in the French countryside, and now my dad is checking next year’s academic calendar to find the perfect date for him to whisk the family away for a destination wedding.
“At last,” I sigh one night, as we’re sitting together on the back deck with Rice Krispie treats. I clasp my hands together in melodramatic gratitude. “Josie and I will be legitimate. No longer children of sin.”
“You know we would’ve married long ago if it bothered you girls, but it never seemed to,” Mom explains. The tropical-fish lights glow orange and blue in the night. “We kept waiting to find the time. But there’s never enough time for everything you want to do. You have to prioritize. Henry and I have finally prioritized getting married.”
“We should’ve done it years ago.” Dad is lying on his back, his head against Mom’s knee. “Have you seen how much rings cost these days? Good God.”
Mom musses his hair. “Soon, we’ll be able to share more of our work with the scientific community at large. Then others will pick up the torch, make discoveries we never imagined. We won’t have to live and breathe dimensional travel any longer.”
“You know what that gives us time for?” Dad’s eyes light up.
Please don’t be talking about sex, I think. Please please please.
But it’s even worse than that. Beaming, they say in unison, “Time travel.”
Are they serious? I think they are.
Oh, God.
“I wonder what it’ll be like when we get to England,” Paul says as I fasten my seat belt on the plane. He gave me the window seat.
“You went to the Londonverse twice.”
“I mean, when we get to our England.” Just as he has been for the past few weeks, he’s torn between anticipation and worry. “Dimensional differences will be profound, not to mention the subtle changes in language use and social behavior—and yes, I’m becoming academic because I’m nervous.”
Hearing him diagnose his own nerves makes me smile. Paul’s learning how to deal. Even better, he’s learning how to be happy.
How to be loved.
Two days after I got my admission letter to the Ruskin School of Fine Art, he accepted Cambridge University’s postdoc offer. Oxford’s very close to Cambridge, which means we’ll be able to see each other every weekend. But we’ll still have our own college experiences, our own chances to explore and grow up.
Above all, we have our chance to create our shared destiny, together.
The Firebird was built one equation at a time. My paintings are the result of countless small brushstrokes, each one shaded with a different blend of colors, each one with a single, deliberate purpose. Every moment, every day, we are all making something—whether it’s science or art, a relationship or a destiny—building it choice by choice, moment by moment. Our decisions shape other people’s worlds as well as our own. We are all the center of our own universe, and all of us in someone else’s orbit. It’s a paradox, but sometimes paradoxes are where truth begins.
My father would point out that the Beatles told us all of this decades ago. They once sang that in the end, the love we take is equal to the love we make. No, we can never be in complete control of our fates—we’re all vulnerable to accidents, to cruelty, and to the random misfortune of life. But I try to think about how much of it is up to us. We decide what emotions serve as our building blocks, which feelings we’ll use to shape our universe.
So Paul and I are creating a world, side by side, day by day. We have no idea what our future holds, only that we are making it together.
And we’re going to make it beautiful.
The jet engines whirr louder as our plane taxis down the runway. I glance back toward the airport, where I imagine Mom and Dad are still wiping away tears. Paul grips my hand so tightly that I wonder if he’s phobic. “You aren’t afraid of flying, are you?”
“No. I’m familiar with both safety statistics and the laws of aerodynamics.” At first I think Paul has gone back into Spock mode, but then he smiles with so much warmth that it’s like stepping into sunlight. “I just wanted to hold on to you.”
I squeeze his hand back just as hard. “I’m not letting go.”
The plane accelerates, pressing us both back into our seats so firmly that we laugh. As we rush forward, faster and faster, we lift off from the ground and claim the sky.