Selena was back in her sunlit room at the Pontalba. It was the afternoon of her fifth birthday. There had been cake and cognac and kisses from Mother, and now she was lying in her soft white bed, wrapped in her soft white sheets, drifting away on the sound of her parents’ voices, talking softly and with love in the parlor.
The brassy tones of “Saint Louis Blues” drifted in through the curtains, a band of players in Jackson Square, carried to her on a scented wind off the Mississippi.
In the middle distance, a riverboat sounded its deep bass note, shaking the air and driving pelicans into the sky. She turned into the sheets, feeling them wrapped around her, tightening.
Too tight.
And too warm, and too wet.
She lifted her hands, and they were red, slick with blood. She pushed the sheets off, writhed herself out of the bed, and now the room that was softly sweetly white was pink and wet and bloody.
She looked down at herself, at Selena in her bed, and saw a bloody mess of ripped flesh and soaked sheets and a dead little girl.
And she stood over her, looking down at her, and in her hand was a knife. She turned to the mirror covered in a linen towel, tore the towel way and looked into it.
A haggard black shape, a woman, her matted hair in a tangle, in a shapeless black shift, covered in blood, holding a bloody knife, panting, staring back at her, eyes wild, mouth open, breathing hard.
“Who are you?” Selena asked the figure in the mirror.
“I am Philomena D’Arcy. Who are you?”
“I am Selena D’Arcy.”
“No, you are not. Selena D’Arcy is dead in the bed behind you. We just killed her.”
“We?”
“Yes. You and I.”
“Who are we?”
“We are Philomena D’Arcy. Will is our brother.”
“Where is Will?”
“In the parlor. We have killed him.”
“Killed Will?”
“Yes, and that bitch he lives with.”
“Why?”
“Because they left us in that place. That prison. Because Will would no longer lie with us.”
“Lie with us?”
The figure in the mirror arched and twisted.
“We used to lie with each other. Like brother and sister often do. And then he tired of us. He chose that other woman. He put us away. In that place. He shut us away. He left us.”
“No. He left you. I am not you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No. I am Selena.”
“Look behind you. That is Selena D’Arcy. She is their love child. We hate her, and we have just killed her. We are in this mirror. You are me, and we are Philomena D’Arcy.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
A long silence.
“I am not you.”
“Yes we are. We have always been Philomena. We came here to kill Bea and Will for leaving us in that awful place.”
“But I know I am Selena! I have been Selena all my life!”
“Selena just died here at the age of five. We killed her.”
“Then why do I know I am Selena?”
“When Selena died the Shimmer came, and we took it, and it changed us. We decided to become Selena because being ourselves is terrible.”
“Then why are you telling me this?”
“Because we can change it. We can go back again and change everything.”
“How?”
“Find our locket.”
“Yes. We need our locket.”
“I know,” said the haggard witch in the mirror.
“Do we know where it is?”
“Yes. It’s where we last held it.”
“In the car? By Matanzas Inlet? The night we drowned Mary Alice?”
“Yes. We were holding it. We broke the chain. Go back to before we break the chain.”
Go there.
Find it.
Bring it back.
* * *
Jack and Annabelle found a different gate. It opened onto that last night at the beach house, and the storm coming in. They were in the white room, Barbara’s white room at the beach house, and there were three dead men in the hall.
Pandora Jansson was lying on the ground, her chest bloody, dying, but she was still breathing, and her eyes were open. Jack knelt down beside her. She looked up at him, her voice a whisper.
“Jack. Go. Go get her.”
“No. We have to get you to a hospital.”
Annabelle stepped in, pushed him aside.
“No. She’s right. Go. Find Selena. I will take care of Pandora.”
“What will you do?”
“When you come back, we will both be here.”
“How?”
“Just go.”
Pandora looked up at Annabelle, her lips bloody.
“Who are you?”
“You know me. You’ve been talking to me for days.”
“Annabelle?”
“Yes.”
“So, now I’m dead?”
“No. You are not. Not yet.”
* * *
The rental car. Matanzas Inlet. The last place Selena had held the locket. She hunted through the time gates until she found what she thought was the right one. She opened it, stepped through, and she was at Matanzas Inlet.
But it was cold, and not the right time of the year. There was a mist on the water, and a thick fog on the bridge, and she thought, There is no bridge at Matanzas Inlet in 1957, and she stepped out onto the middle of the bridge, wandering, wondering, looking for the rental car, looking for a way back to her locket. And she realized then that she had made a terrible error. The place was right, but the time was all wrong. She had come in through the wrong gate. It was Christmas Eve, the Christmas Eve Jack’s wife and daughter died.
She heard a wind-rush sound, heavy tires on the road. She turned to her right, and saw, from the south, coming fast, a big black car, a Mercedes-Benz, coming north across the bridge, the bridge that shouldn’t be there, and now, from the north, out of the fog, coming fast, a bulky rounded shape, another car.
She stepped into the middle of the road, trying to cross, trying to get out of the way of those two cars...and they must have seen her, a figure in the middle of the bridge that wasn’t there, a vague shape in the path...she heard the shriek of brakes and the sound of tires squealing on wet pavement.
The big black Benz swerved left to miss her, and the other car swerved left to miss her...and so, inevitably, they met in the middle, a violent clash of metal on metal, and the big black Benz drove the smaller car across the median and through the lane and into the guard rail, where they locked in grinding steel and hot blue sparks—the tangled wrecks hit the rail, bounced once and then broke through, and there they hovered on the brink...she heard a child screaming...a moment of balanced forces...a moment frozen in time...and then the shriek of bending steel...and they went over the edge...they hit the surface of Matanzas Inlet yards apart...floated for a moment, the Benz going first, and then the black truck...bubbles rising, an oil slick, and the lights of the black truck visible under the water for a short while...and then dark water, and a shimmering veil of starlight, and then silence.
She stood there in the middle of the bridge, shivering in the cold wind off the ocean, the fog swirling around her, watching the ripples subside, seeing bubbles of air rising up from the deep, and she saw a faint blue glow far down in the water, the black truck down there, the lights still on, not yet shorted out, and she thought, whoever was in that truck would be dying, dying right now, and, hope rising in her heart, she stood on the bridge and watched. For the Shimmer.
She walked over to the edge and looked down, and yes, there was the Shimmer, the water was changing, dissolving into a veil of blue light, a glowing mist that came up out of the deep and flowed around her, and she felt herself dissolving into it...
* * *
The Long Hall opened up... And Jack Redding was standing inside it, looking at her, barring the way.
She flared at him. “You have to get out of the way!”
“You’ve just killed my wife and child.”
“I didn’t—”
“You were the figure in the middle of the road. Barbara told me about you. You killed my wife and child.”
“How could I have killed your wife and child? They died last Christmas. I read about it. It happened months ago.”
“No. It happened here and now. Tonight.”
“How can that be?”
“You don’t know what you do, when you travel, do you? What you make happen when you travel.”
“What do I do?”
“You make a new world each time you do it. A world that is just a little bit different from the one you left. It looks the same, but it isn’t.”
She looked past him, at the Long Hall behind him. It stretched away into a hazy infinity, a hall of mirrors with a floor made of stars, and the green gates receding into the blue distance, each one a door into another time. She had to get by him and find the right gate. Find her locket. But he wouldn’t move.
“What do you want from me?”
“We’re going back.”
“Back where?”
“Back to that bridge, you and I.”
“We can’t.”
“We will,” he said, and then the Long Hall faded...
* * *
...and they were back on the Matanzas Bridge. They stood there together, and there was no crash, no broken barrier, no black truck deep in the water, no Mercedes-Benz lying on its roof fifty feet away on the ocean floor.
“What are you doing?”
“Making another world,” he said, and they both heard the wind-rush sound of tires on the pavement, and they felt the surface of the bridge begin to vibrate. The glow of headlights shone through the fog, and now they could hear engines: two cars, one coming from the north, and one from the south.
“It’s them,” she said. “The cars are coming. The accident. It’s going to happen again.”
Jack took in a deep breath, looked up at the faint veil of stars shining through the mist.
“You feel that?” he said.
“Feel what?”
“You don’t feel it?”
Selena stepped back and away, and she realized that there was something happening, something familiar, although it had only happened to her once before. But it had happened right here, at Matanzas Inlet, sixty years ago, when she had killed Clete Redding’s wife. The vortex that had held her, the force broken only by the locket, the locket she didn’t have. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her mouth was suddenly dry.
The headlights were coming closer, the bridge was vibrating. Jack looked to the north, and saw the black Jeep materialize out of the mist. And from the south, the big black Benz, moving much too fast. He turned and stepped into the middle of the road, facing the oncoming black SUV. He walked away from Selena and into the path of the black truck. Behind him he heard the Benz, now less than a hundred yards away. He stopped in the middle of the lane, facing the Jeep, lifted his bright gold badge case into the air and waited.
He heard Selena calling his name, and the sound of the ocean booming and roaring out in the darkness beyond the seawall, and then the Jeep was on him, and he saw the headlights dip and waver as the driver hit the brakes, hit them hard. The truck slipped and swerved as the driver fought the wheel, the tires fighting for traction.
And then it came to a stop, less than twenty feet away from him, and then the big black Benz went flashing by in the northbound lane, a blast from the horn as the car hurtled past, pushing a wall of wind, and then it was gone, into the dark, a glimmer of taillights, fading into the mist.
Jack walked forward, came to the driver’s side of the Jeep. The woman at the wheel was Barbara, and she rolled down the window, and looked at him.
“What’s the problem, Officer?”
Jack looked at his wife, and then into the backseat, where Katy sat staring back at him, eyes wide, holding a stuffed bear that Jack had given her on her last birthday. Warm air flowed from the car interior, and with it came the sound of Christmas music, Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and it nearly broke his heart. Barbara had no idea who he was.
Barbara was looking at him oddly. “I almost hit you,” she said. “Is there an accident?”
Jack shook his head, pulling himself together. “No, just a pedestrian in the roadway there.” He turned and looked back. Selena was still standing there.
The Long Hall was gone, and they were alone on the bridge. Jack turned back to Barbara, who was studying him carefully.
“Is she okay, Officer? That woman?”
“Yes. She’s just a little shaken up.”
Barbara looked at him. “Do we know each other?”
“Do we?”
“You look familiar.”
“Do I? I guess I have that kind of face.”
“Okay...well, thanks for stopping us. Is she going to be okay? That woman?”
“Yes. I’ll take care of her.”
“Well then.” And she put the car back in gear, stepped on the brake. “Where’s your patrol car?”
“Just down the road.”
“Well...okay then.” The truck started to roll, but slowly. She stopped it and said, “So, Merry Christmas, Officer.”
“Yes,” he said. “Merry Christmas to you. And your little girl.”
And she drove away.
* * *
Selena was standing in the middle of the median, watching him walk toward her, very aware of the pistol at his belt.
“That was your wife?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t know you.”
“No. Different worlds. In this one, she doesn’t know me. We make a new world every time we travel. You’ve been doing it for years.”
“What happens now?”
“I go back to my house.”
“And what do I do?”
“You stay here.”
“I stay here? You’re not going to arrest me?”
“No. I don’t think I’m going to have to do that.” He looked up at the stars again, and then back to Selena. “You feel that?”
The air was filled with a humming sound, and the fog seemed to be turning slowly, turning around them. The mist took on a glow, and the vibration grew into a deep bass rumble that seemed to come from everywhere around them.
“What’s happening?” she said.
“I have no idea. But I think you do.”
She stepped away from him, and turned to face into the darkness, and out of the mist came the glow of headlights, and she turned to say something to Jack, but he was gone, and she was in the middle of the road, and out of the night came an Oldsmobile, a big ancient tank, and at the wheel was Mary Alice Redding, and sitting beside her was Selena, looking back at Selena, standing in the middle of the road, looking back at herself, and then the car was on her, and the vortex closed around her, and she stood there in the roadway waiting for the impact—
* * *
She stepped away from him, and turned to face into the darkness, and out of the mist came the glow of headlights, and she turned to say something to Jack, but he was gone, and she was in the middle of the road, and out of the night came an Oldsmobile, a big ancient tank, and at the wheel was Mary Alice Redding, and sitting beside her was Selena, looking back at Selena, standing in the middle of the road, and then the car was on her, and the vortex closed around her, and she stood there in the roadway waiting for the impact—
She stepped away from him, and turned to face into the darkness, and out of the mist came the glow of headlights, and she turned to say something to Jack, but he was gone, and she was in the middle of the road, and out of the night came an Oldsmobile, a big ancient tank, and at the wheel was Mary Alice Redding, and sitting beside her was Selena, looking back at Selena, standing in the middle of the road, and then the car was on her, and the vortex closed around her, and she stood there in the roadway waiting for the impact—
She stepped away from him, and turned to face into the darkness, and out of the mist came the glow of headlights, and she turned to say something to Jack, but he was gone, and she was in the middle of the road, and out of the night came an Oldsmobile, a big ancient tank, and at the wheel was Mary Alice Redding, and sitting beside her was Selena, looking back at Selena, standing in the middle of the road, and then the car was on her, and the vortex closed around her, and she stood there in the roadway waiting for the impact—
She stepped away from him, and turned to face into the darkness, and out of the mist came the glow of headlights, and she turned to say something to Jack, but he was gone, and she was in the middle of the road, and out of the night came an Oldsmobile, a big ancient tank, and at the wheel was Mary Alice Redding, and sitting beside her was Selena, looking back at Selena, standing in the middle of the road, and then the car was on her, and the vortex closed around her, and she stood there in the roadway waiting for the impact—
She stepped away from him, and turned to face into the darkness, and out of the mist came the glow of headlights, and she turned to say something to Jack, but he was gone, and she was in the middle of the road, and out of the night came an Oldsmobile, a big ancient tank, and at the wheel was Mary Alice Redding, and sitting beside her was Selena, looking back at Selena, standing in the middle of the road, and then the car was on her, and the vortex closed around her, and she stood there in the roadway waiting for the impact—