“Scott?” Professor Schulde called from the basement. “If Winnie’s all right, there is a bit of a mess to clean down here.”
Her own father never called her Winnie.
This Father sounded nothing like the out-of-control man he’d been in her world minutes earlier, but Winnie’s heart still pounded at the sound of his voice. Was this fear an animal instinct to be trusted? Or was she merely experiencing a conditioned response, like one of Pavlov’s dogs?
Winnie didn’t intend to find out. She needed to get back.
“Scott?” this world’s Father called again.
She locked eyes with her double, the girl who looked so like—and so unlike—herself. How strange that she had no idea what this girl was thinking!
“Don’t tell him I’m here,” Winnie whispered urgently. “Please.”
Her head began to pound painfully. She looked back and forth between her double and Scott. “If the two of you could just get him out of the lab somehow, I can go check it out, gather some evidence . . .” Winnie trailed off.
She had to see the laboratory before any sign of what had happened was tidied away.
Her double flinched and rubbed at her own temples. Yes, it was all too much to process.
Finally, Winnie’s double nodded. “Fine. I’ll help you.” She sighed and shook her head. “I mean, of course I’ll help you.” She looked at Scott. “How are we going to get Father to come upstairs?”
Scott smiled. “Play along, okay?” Then he called down to Father, “Winnie’s eyes are irritated by all the smoke. I’m going to take her upstairs to the bathroom to rinse them out. Could you come take a look?”
“Thank you!” Winnie whispered urgently.
Scott nodded in acknowledgment.
“Hide in the dining room,” he said. “Once he comes upstairs you can go down to the lab, but you’ll only have a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” Winnie said again, but although she was grateful that Scott’s double was so willing to help her, she couldn’t help but feel a bit betrayed by her own double’s hesitation before. Of course, blind trust was hardly one of her own characteristics, so perhaps it made sense that she didn’t find it in her double either.
“I won’t say anything to Professor Schulde until we’ve discussed things further,” Scott added, “but I have so many questions! I hope that at some point, you’ll have answers.”
Winnie didn’t know what kind of answers she could give him, but she’d worry about that later. For now, she was focused on enduring the present moment, then the next one, and the next . . .
The future was a terrifying blank, and the past—well, she didn’t dare think about the past at all.
Something that had happened in the lab back home had led to her being transported here. If she could figure out what it was and how to re-create it, maybe that would be enough to transport herself back again. Not that there was anything so wonderful waiting for her there . . .
“Good luck,” Scott said, pressing her hand in encouragement.
Winnie’s fingers tingled at his touch.
Then Scott turned to retreat upstairs, bringing Winnie’s doppelgänger with him.
He was just doing what she’d asked, but Winnie hated seeing him walk away. She wished he could go down to the lab with her.
Because even though the site of Scott’s accident was a world away, Winnie still felt like she was walking into a tomb.
Winnie needed to examine the damage she’d done to the lab when she arrived, but first, she wanted to check out this Professor Schulde’s notes. Even though Scott worked with Hawthorn too and would be familiar with Nightingale’s work, Father was sure to have his own insights.
She headed over to Dr. Schulde’s desk to see what she could find.
There was a small, leather-bound notebook lying open facedown on his desk. It looked identical to the one Father jotted his own thoughts in while they worked. Winnie picked it up, flipped to the first page, then began to skim his notes.
She stopped when she came across a particularly interesting passage:
There are two essential questions when it comes to traveling between alt-verses. The first: whether or not it is physically possible for matter to cross these barriers. We’ve answered that. Yes, it is. The second question—and in my opinion, the far more interesting and less certain one—is this: Could a person survive this transition? So far, animal subjects who make the trip seem physically unharmed, but suffer a mental deterioration that quickly proves fatal. Human beings have a consciousness that organizes and analyzes their experiences. Would this help a person’s consciousness “manage” this transition? Or make the dissonance between worlds even worse? Hawthorn theorizes that certain individuals might have a kind of immunity to these ill effects, but it’s unclear to me why or how this might be the case. As always, he is extremely guarded about his own reasoning and research.
So that was what Scott meant when he said interdimensional travel “didn’t go well” for living subjects! The stress of the trip—what? Drove them mad? Winnie’s mouth went dry. This was more frightening somehow than if they were just being killed directly.
Could that still happen to her? Or did she have Hawthorn’s theoretical “immunity”?
Of course, maybe there was no immunity, and it was Hawthorn’s method of transportation that caused that little side effect.
Still . . . Winnie doubted it was just a coincidence that she saw alternate realties and had now traveled to one. It seemed likely that whatever it was that allowed her to see splinters was also what had enabled her to travel between worlds.
Winnie wondered again if James was able to see splinters too. If he could, and Hawthorn knew about it—was that something that informed Hawthorn’s cryptic theories about immunity?
Impossible to say. But Professor Schulde’s notes confirmed that Winnie would be of particular interest to Project Nightingale. She was “special” somehow, although considering her situation, that word seemed comically inaccurate. “Uniquely cursed,” perhaps.
What she couldn’t understand was why her double’s Father didn’t seem to be experimenting on his Winnie, especially since he was working for Nightingale. Oh well—that would have to remain a mystery for another time. She had more than enough to worry about at the moment.
Winnie continued to scan the rest of Professor Schulde’s notes. She didn’t have time for a thorough study, but she learned that an ambient electric charge was crucial for interdimensional travel. It seemed that atmospheric electricity sort of “cracked the door” between worlds.
This made sense to her, particularly in light of the accident that had brought her here. Scott had been electrocuted because the Faraday cage’s grounding wire was damaged. The lab would have been full of ambient electric charge.
After Winnie spent several minutes reading over the notebook, she reluctantly realized she needed to set it aside and begin her examination of the lab itself before Professor Schulde came back. She found the place where she’d “landed,” for lack of a better word. The earthen floor didn’t seem harmed in any way there, but she noticed the dirt seemed scuffed about ten feet from that spot—around the place where Scott had been electrocuted in her world.
She bent down to take a closer look. When she brushed her hand across the packed dirt, she was unsettled to find something hard there.
Bone? Winnie thought with a flash of revulsion, but no, of course not. She was letting her imagination get the best of her.
After a few minutes of careful excavation, she had the thing unearthed. It was a branching tube of jagged glass. It looked like—like frozen electricity.
Winnie pulled the name for it from some corner of her memory; it was a Lichtenberg figure. She’d seen illustrations in books, but this was her first time seeing one in person. A strong current had left its fingerprint there by melting something in the soil—silicon most likely.
Had the electric charge that shocked Scott in her own world left its mark in this one? How?
And if the current that struck Scott was powerful enough to turn dirt into this, Winnie thought, what had it done to Scott’s body?
She knew the answer. She didn’t want to face it, but she knew.
Scott was dead.
And it was her fault. Hers and Father’s. Just like Mama’s death had been.
Scott had wanted them to leave the lab together, but she’d insisted on staying. So he’d stayed too.
He’d stayed for her. He’d stayed for her, and now he was dead.
That was what was waiting for her back home. The lifeless body of a boy who’d had the misfortune of being loved by her.
Winnie continued poking around the lab listlessly. It was hard to focus. It was hard to care. She just felt . . . helpless.
Then she heard it—footsteps on the basement stairs.
She’d taken too long. Professor Schulde was coming back.
Winnie’s eyes darted around the laboratory. There was no way out; she had to hide. But where?
She took a few steps toward the lab bench, but no, that was too open. Under Father’s desk? At least there was a chair she could hide behind there, unless he pulled it out and sat down . . .
The footfalls kept coming, ever closer, but she could not decide.
She’d seen scared rabbits freeze like this, out in the countryside. Darting back and forth but going nowhere. She always wanted to shout, Just pick a direction and run!
Now she realized what they must have felt in those moments: sometimes, there is simply no escape.
“Winnie?” a voice called.
Oh, thank god—it was Scott. He rounded the corner of the basement stairs and came into view.
“You scared me half to death—I thought you were Professor Schulde!”
“Don’t worry. He’s still upstairs. He sent me down for the saline from the eyewash station. We’ve rinsed Winnie’s eyes with water, but I’ll be darned if they aren’t still irritated,” he said, grinning slyly.
Winnie was grateful that even though her double had been against concealing her from Father, she seemed to be playing along now.
“Say, what have you got there?” Scott asked, gesturing to the lab bench where Winnie had placed the glass form she found.
“It’s a Lichtenberg figure. I found it on the ground over there. There must have been some kind of electric discharge when I arrived. Do you think that could have caused the fire you and Fa—Professor Schulde—were putting out earlier?”
Scott stared at her in consternation. Had he noticed that she’d almost called this world’s Dr. Schulde “Father”? An embarrassing misstep, to be sure, but . . .
“You know about Lichtenberg figures?”
Winnie sighed in frustration. He was surprised about that?
“I told you! I work with Father—and you. I’m going to be a physicist myself.” If Father lets me, she thought, but did not add.
Scott picked up the glass rod and began to carefully examine it.
“Maybe,” Winnie began, thinking aloud, “maybe this discharge of electricity was the universe, I don’t know, snapping back into equilibrium?”
Scott raised his eyebrows.
Winnie was reaching. She knew she was reaching. She understood just as well as he did that when electricity discharged, it wasn’t as if that energy vanished. It was just—she closed her eyes, and all she could see was her Scott, lying there on the floor. The jagged hole burned in his lab coat. The stillness of his chest.
That was the world she was supposed to want to return to?
Her chin trembled. Scott was right here! And completely out of reach.
“What is it?” Scott asked. He made a move forward as if to touch her, but then seemed to remember himself. He stopped short and stepped back. “Winnie, what’s wrong?”
Winnie let out a trembling breath. “Right before I transported here, there was an accident. You were—” Winnie began, but cut herself off.
She wanted to tell, and she didn’t. Keeping all this grief pent up inside her felt impossible. But saying it out loud would make it more real.
“An accident?” Scott pushed. “What happened?”
Winnie squeezed her eyes tight—not that it mattered. Eyes open or closed, she saw the same thing. Scott, coming close because she had called to him. And then the blinding bolt. And then Scott on the ground.
“Something went wrong with one of Father’s experiments. Scott was hurt. No—not hurt. He—he’s dead. He was electrocuted and he’s dead.”
Scott let out a shaky breath. “Oh, Winnie. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
She opened her eyes. “I read Professor Schulde’s notebook. The animal subjects Hawthorn transports—they go crazy? Is that going to happen to me?”
“No! No, I don’t think so. And it isn’t—they don’t ‘go crazy,’ per se. When they come back, it’s like their brains have aged. But it happens very fast. If that was going to happen to you, we’d be seeing signs already. The rats immediately show signs of severe—fatal—dementia. Except when Hawthorn autopsies them, their brains appear normal.”
Winnie didn’t know what to think. “What if that happens to me when I go back?”
Her breath quickened. It was all catching up to her: Hawthorn’s ghoulish experiments. Not being able to get home. What waited for her there if she did manage to get back.
And she was terrified.
Even if Winnie could somehow get herself home unharmed, what kind of experiments would Father subject her to, now that he knew it was possible for her to travel between worlds?
No. She couldn’t do this.
“Scott, I can’t go back! It’s too risky. You say that me being here will upset the balance of things, but the first law of thermodynamics—it’s like any other natural ‘law’: It’s manmade. A theory, really. It could be wrong. Maybe me being here proves it’s wrong. I don’t want to go back, and you can’t make me.”
For a long moment, Scott didn’t say anything. He just stood there, scratching his chin, looking at her. What was he thinking? That she was being a coward, probably. He must be so disappointed in her.
But even Scott’s disappointment couldn’t make her want to go.
To Winnie’s surprise, when he finally spoke, it wasn’t to rebuke her.
“Are you familiar with time dilation?” he asked.
Winnie frowned. She thought she’d heard the term before, but wasn’t sure.
“It’s a correlation of Einstein’s special theory of relativity,” Scott explained.
“Oh! Yes. I’ve read some of his papers, but they’re . . . pretty dense.”
Winnie had no idea where he was going with any of this.
Scott laughed softly. “Well, that’s an understatement. And I’m certainly no expert myself, but Hawthorn is. Basically, the way he explains it is that time moves at different rates in different frames of reference. And alternate realities are very different frames of reference. So, traveling between worlds is always a sort of time travel. He thinks that’s what’s causing the animal subjects to experience a strange sort of aging. He’s trying to figure out how to minimize that effect, but—”
“You think we could make use of time dilation—is that it?” Winnie broke in eagerly. “You think that when I go back, I could really go back—back to before Scott’s accident?”
Winnie’s breath went quick and shallow with excitement as hope took root. She could go back in time and prevent Scott’s accident. The idea of time travel was crazy—but was it crazier than traveling to alternate realities?
Scott smiled. “Yes. Exactly. You could go back in time when you go back in space,” he said. “At least theoretically.”
The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. Father had always theorized that her ability could transcend linear time. That was the whole basis of his coin toss experiment—that she could change a coin toss that had already happened.
It all sounded pretty impossible.
But maybe she could do the impossible, if it meant saving Scott.
Without that hope, she had nothing.
Winnie gestured to the Lichtenberg figure. Its meaning was gradually becoming clear to her.
“I found that where Scott was standing when he was shocked. But that happened before I traveled here.”
“Hmm,” Scott said, considering. “Maybe it was like . . . a sort of echo. A reverberation that came through when the door between our worlds was open.”
“Could it be a sign of the time dilation, though? Could there be an inverse relationship between time in your world and mine?”
Scott frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Well, in my world, there was the electric blast, right there in the lab”—she pointed to the spot—“and then, after that, I was transported. But here, I was transported first—I must have been, or else there wouldn’t be an opening between our worlds—and then came the blast. You see? The order is reversed. So, when time moves forward here—”
“It moves backward in your reality,” Scott finished thoughtfully. “That could be the case.”
“So, let’s say it takes us a week to plan an experiment to get me back home—that would deposit me back in my world a week ago, right?” Winnie smiled wide. “Is—is that true, do you think? Because that would be amazing!”
Scott smiled. “It sounds logical to me. Of course, we can’t know for sure. But it seems as probable as anything. So, you’ll work on an experiment with me? To go back?”
“My god, yes! We should start right away!”
Scott gave a chuckle.
Winnie had been completely adrift since she saw Scott hurt and somehow transported herself to this strange place. Each new thing was a wave crashing over her, and she hadn’t been processing things so much as just trying to keep her head above water. But now she felt like she could breathe.
Maybe she could see Scott again, and not just by proxy. Maybe she could save him. The thoughts were a life preserver, and she clung to them.
“What do we do first?” Winnie asked eagerly. She’d been in their world now for what—forty minutes? They were already plenty early enough for her to stop the accident if they began immediately.
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Scott said. “The experiment will take planning, and equipment—which means we need to find somewhere for you to stay in the meantime. You’ll have to look like the real Winnie for that, so if someone spots you, it won’t be suspicious.”
“Don’t call her that,” Winnie said sharply. It made her feel like . . . like a cheap knockoff. And the worst thing was, she knew he was right. A glance at this world’s Winnie revealed just how she measured up—or rather, didn’t. “I am the real Winnie,” she said, more for herself than him. “Just as much as she is.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t implying that you’re second-rate. Only—different.”
Ah, yes. Different. He’d known she wasn’t the “real” Winnie as soon as they kissed. There were much more important things to worry about, but unfortunately that didn’t stop the petty ones from bothering her too.
She couldn’t wait to get back to Scott. The real one.
Scott went back upstairs with the saline solution, and Winnie retreated once again to the dining room to hide out until Scott and Dr. Schulde returned to the laboratory. Then she would let her double make her up, and the two of them would try to figure out someplace where Winnie could stay. Maybe with Dora? If the girl even existed in this world. She thought of her own Dora wistfully. How she would love to be part of Winnie’s forced makeover! She was a little excited at the prospect of looking more like this world’s prettier version of herself, and that feeling mixed uneasily with the awful events of the day.
Winnie knew Scott was dead, but she could undo it. She would go back—go back and wrest a happy ending out of that sad world, no matter what it took.
Winnie would remake reality and become Scott’s savior, instead of his downfall.
Her body trembled lightly, still awash in adrenaline, an acrid taste in her throat. But despite that, a tentative shot of hope unfurled in her chest.