The next morning, Dora nudged Winnie long before she was ready to wake. It took a moment for her consciousness to claw itself out of an unpleasant dream that immediately faded to nothing more than a vague impression of fear, needles, and James.
“What?” she asked groggily, glancing at Dora’s alarm clock—6:45. They hadn’t gotten in until after 3 a.m., and then they’d had to wake Louisa to look at Winnie’s head, claiming she’d tripped carrying a glass of water back to Dora’s room. Winnie would be surprised if she’d gotten two hours of uninterrupted sleep. “What is it?”
“School is canceled,” Dora said. “We just got the call. I thought you would want to know.”
Winnie’s stomach sank. She’d hoped the mess they left in the gymnasium would pass as a failed prank, but they wouldn’t close the school if they thought it was just schoolgirl shenanigans.
Winnie rubbed her temples. What was done was done. They couldn’t change things now.
“All right,” Winnie said. “I’m going to try to get some more sleep.”
She rolled over, putting pressure on the cut on the side of her forehead. Tired as she was, it was a long time before she was able to fall back asleep.
Winnie awoke again hours later to a brisk knock on the door. Louisa entered the room carrying a pale pink Bakelite phone on a shiny tray. Its long cord trailed off out the bedroom door.
“There’s a call for you,” she told Dora, setting the tray down on the bedside table.
Dora nodded mutely, and Louisa left the two of them alone again.
“Who do you think it is?” Winnie hissed.
“Maybe Mother, or Father?” Dora suggested uncertainly. “Maybe it has nothing to do with what happened.” She lifted the receiver to her ear. “Hello?”
Winnie’s eyes were trained intently on Dora’s face, and she was surprised to see a flicker of irritation come and go.
“Winnie,” Dora said, “you can’t call here! You are here! Louisa knows your voice.”
Winnie scooted closer to Dora on the bed, and Dora held the telephone out between them so she could hear too.
“I pretended to be Lucille. I had to call—some policemen came by the house, the same ones we saw taking Winnie and Scott to the morgue. They had Daddy come home from work and they interviewed us together. They asked about James—no surprise there—but they also asked if we knew about what happened at school.”
“What!” Winnie gasped. “How did they link that to you so quickly?”
That damn Muldoon had been suspicious of her from the start. But even so, it seemed unlikely that the police would connect the dots to her. Only Hawthorn would recognize the damage they’d left behind as a failed experiment.
“I don’t know, but they seemed fairly certain a girl was there at the school when the explosion happened. They wanted to take my fingerprints, for some reason. Daddy wouldn’t let them.”
Winnie remembered falling on the gym floor, leaving a bloody palm print—a handprint that would be easily identified as belonging to a young woman just by the size, but the fingerprints would identify it as hers. Well, hers or Beta’s.
“Scheiße!” Winnie cursed in German.
The police could have no idea what was really going on, of course—which, if anything, made them more dangerous. She thought about the facts of the case, as they would see it. A scientist—Beta’s father—working on a military project. A dead student, best friend of his daughter’s boyfriend, also part of the project. An explosion at this daughter’s school, with a young woman present. A random jumble of evidence until you throw in this: the Schuldes—they’re German. Now all this pandemonium coalesces, and a single cause emerges.
Espionage.
Suddenly, it’s clear that the Schuldes must be German spies. They integrated themselves into a government project to steal American technology for the enemy. That student? He died because he knew too much—collateral damage.
Winnie let out a breath.
Even though there wasn’t any truth to it, she knew far less evidence was required to make such charges those days.
That August, less than three months earlier, there had been a mass execution of German enemy agents. The six men had not carried out any sabotage, but they had intended to—or so the military tribunal claimed.
The details of the case had stuck with Winnie, for obvious reasons. The youngest of them had been only twenty-two, and a US citizen since the age of ten. He’d been abroad when Hitler declared war on the United States and wound up stranded in Europe. He claimed he’d only cooperated with the Germans as a way of getting home. When Winnie saw his mugshot in the newspaper, she couldn’t believe how normal he looked—handsome even—and scared.
“That’s not all,” Beta said. “There was some other kind of accident last night, apparently. They asked if I knew about it, but wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“What do you mean? They thought you might be involved with something other than what happened at school?”
“I guess so.”
What could it have been?
And was it possible that they were to blame for something else, something they didn’t even know about?
Well, no, not “they.”
Her.
“So, what are we going to do?” Dora asked. She spoke the question into the receiver, but she was looking at Winnie.
Winnie had no answer. What were they going to do? What could they do? Their plan had failed; their equipment was destroyed; police detectives were on their trail, closing in, and Hawthorn couldn’t be far behind.
“I don’t know,” Winnie said, but her own uncertain words were lost beneath her double’s confident reply.
“Winnie and I are going to restage last night’s experiment tomorrow. Here, in Father’s lab. He has the equipment,” Beta said. “We can do it. Just she and I.”
Winnie was surprised her double was willing to try again. The way Beta’s forehead had just split open like that . . . thinking about it made Winnie sick to her stomach. Would something worse happen to the two of them the next time they were together? But the physical effects of Winnie’s presence in their world were intensifying too. It was dangerous not to try.
“Scott won’t like it,” Winnie said finally. “What if we get too close to each other, and something goes wrong?”
“That’s why we aren’t going to tell him. He would just tell us not to. But nothing is riskier than you staying here. And what about your own Scott—you haven’t given up on him, have you?”
“Of course not!” Winnie said.
“We don’t have a choice. We have to try.”
And for once, Winnie had to agree.
Winnie should have realized McPherson and Muldoon would come for Dora next.
That afternoon there was a loud knock on the door, audible even in Dora’s bedroom. How was it that just a knock could convey so much authority?
“Mr. and Mrs. Vandorf aren’t home at the moment,” Winnie heard Louisa say firmly. “You’ll have to come—hey, you can’t just barge in here!”
There was the bass rumble of one of the detective’s voices, but she couldn’t make out the words. Winnie grabbed Dora’s hand tight in her own. The two girls looked at each other, but neither said a word. Fear had pushed Winnie beyond the ability to speak.
Whatever the detective said, it must have mollified Louisa, because she said, “Here, I’ll take your coats. Have a seat in the drawing room, and I’ll go get her.”
Louisa opened the door without pausing to knock.
“There are detectives here,” she said quietly. “They want to speak to you, Dora. I told them your parents aren’t here, but they insisted. Should I ring for Mr. Rockford? You should have someone here, but Dora, please tell me you don’t actually need an attorney.”
Louisa shot Winnie a dirty look, like she suspected that this trouble could be traced back to her. Winnie resented the unfairness of this for about a split second before realizing that Louisa wasn’t wrong.
Dora shook her head mutely. Then, after a long pause, she said, “I’ll speak to them. I—everything will be fine.”
“You won’t tell them I’m here?” Winnie asked Dora, but the question was really for Louisa.
“No, of course not.” Dora frowned at Louisa. “It’s just me and you and Martha here, understand?”
Louisa nodded, but she didn’t look pleased about it.
Dora left to go speak with the men, but Louisa hung back a moment.
“I don’t know what it is you’ve done, but I want you gone by tomorrow or I’ll turn you in myself.”
Winnie nodded. If the next day’s experiment didn’t work, she would have nowhere to go—but if the experiment didn’t work, Louisa would be the least of her problems.
“It’s okay,” Dora said shakily when she returned some half hour or so later. “They just asked if I was at the school last night, or if I knew who was. They also asked if I’d heard about some kind of car accident? I just told them I’d been home all night. They asked if I knew James—there, at least, I could tell the truth. We never met. They must have found out I’m Winnie’s best friend, but they don’t know anything more yet.”
Winnie frowned. “They might not know exactly what they’re looking for, but they’ve already managed to get awful close awful quickly.”
It was bad luck that there was an open investigation into James’s death when they destroyed the gymnasium, and that she’d seemed somewhat suspicious already—to Muldoon, at least—when the investigation into the explosion at her school began. The two events weren’t actually related, but of course they would seem that way, since Winnie had ties to both, and James and her father had ties to the same government project.
“You know, they might be watching Dr. Schulde’s house,” Dora said. “They might even be watching this building. Are you sure it’s a good idea to go over there tomorrow?”
“No,” Winnie said. “It’s almost certainly a bad one. But it’s the only one we have.”
While they were eating that evening, Louisa came in, tossed the New York PM Daily down, gave Winnie a glare, and stalked out of the dining room.
Dora met Winnie’s eyes from across the table with a meaningful look, then cautiously picked up the paper.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice.
Winnie pushed her chair back with a screech and hurried over to stand behind her friend so they could read together.
WARSHIP APPEARS—AND DISAPPEARS!—OUTSIDE BLOOMINGDALE’S
It was the kind of thing she’d expect to see on the cover of Astounding Stories or Weird Tales—some work of science fiction—not the evening paper. But there it was.
Winnie quickly skimmed the news article. Apparently, in the middle of the night, several bystanders saw a ship flicker into existence smack dab in the middle of the intersection of Third Avenue and 57th Street, remain there just long enough to demolish three parked cars, and for at least two witnesses to note the hull number and name on the bow—USS Eldridge 173—then vanish.
As if that weren’t impossible enough already, the ship with that identification was planned, but it hadn’t been built yet.
“What do you make of it?” Dora asked breathlessly. “It’s just so strange! A hoax—?”
“Do hoaxes crush asphalt? Or cars?”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. But I thought . . . I thought I heard a ship horn last night, when we were getting on the subway.”
Dora frowned. “But that was earlier, and much too far away. The ship—”
“Appeared maybe half a mile from the school,” Winnie interrupted. “Later. Right when we were performing our experiment.”
Dora shook her head in disbelief. She seemed slow to accept what Winnie already had: This was her fault. It was another side effect of the energy imbalance Winnie had caused. She didn’t know exactly how it had happened, but the why was no mystery.
“Maybe it was the Germans, somehow, like the paper says.”
The article supposed that the Germans had somehow dropped a ship in the middle of Manhattan. What else could it possibly be? But that theory didn’t account for the US hull number, or explain how the Germans could have gotten something so massive aloft—let alone how they could have possibly made it disappear after.
The whole article had a tone of barely constrained panic.
Only one thing is clear, it concluded—our Axis enemies have a terrible new weapon.
Winnie shook her head. “It was us. Me. Our experiment—somehow, I moved that ship. I must have brought it here from the future, from when it’s done being built. Maybe even some other world’s future. I’m jumbling everything up, twisting the natural order of things, and now . . . this. It’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense.”
“All these poor people!” Dora exclaimed. “Terrified of the Germans’ ‘new weapon.’ I wish we could tell them they don’t have to be afraid.”
Winnie didn’t say anything—she didn’t want to worry Dora more—but people should be afraid. The real threat was right there, in their own city.
Winnie suspected it was the continued wrongness of her being there, concentrated somehow by the electric field they’d created, that had temporarily pulled a massive amount of matter into their system when she’d failed to transport herself. A small part of her was gratified. At least they were on the right track. At least they were doing something.
But what if there had been a person in one of those cars?
What if they’d staged their experiment at any other time of day, when that intersection would have been teeming with people, not just a handful of couples heading home from the Copacabana or whatever other nightclub. It was a tremendous stroke of luck that no one had died.
It was more urgent than ever for Winnie to try their experiment again.
And more dangerous than she’d realized for her to try again and fail.
“No call this morning,” Dora said, “so I suppose school’s reopened.”
“Well, that’s good,” Winnie said uncertainly. “Maybe everything will blow over.”
But she and Dora both knew that was just wishful thinking.
“Or maybe the police want to get all us schoolgirls back in one place, so they can keep an eye on us,” Dora said.
Winnie felt a twinge in her gut and knew immediately that Dora must be right. She hated to think of her friend there all day under their ominous eyes, alone.
“Don’t go. Come to Winnie’s with me. We should all stick together.”
Dora thought about it for a moment. “I think it’s safest if we just act normal. Honestly, I wish Winnie wasn’t playing hooky today.” Her forehead wrinkled with concern. “The detectives last night—they didn’t threaten me, exactly, but I got the sense that one of them, at least, would have been happy to cart me in even if I’m innocent, just to see if it put pressure on the right people. I don’t want to give them any excuse.”
“They wouldn’t arrest you. Not without a good reason. You’re—well, you’re rich.”
“This is wartime, Winnie. I’m not sure it matters who your parents are. And besides,” she added, “it isn’t as if my parents are here.” Dora sighed heavily. “I’m sure they would have leaned on Winnie much harder if her father hadn’t been there to tell them just where they could stick their inquiries. But me, I may as well not have any parents at all.” For a moment, the pain was naked on Dora’s face, but then she gave a weak smile and said, “I just have to hope they don’t realize I know anything. So, I’ll be going to school like a good girl. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab my books.”
Dora got up, pushed her chair in, and went off to her bedroom to put together her school things. Winnie tried to take a few more bites of breakfast, but the food turned to cardboard in her mouth. The fork dropped from her hand, and time thickened around her, like the air itself was so full of possibilities that it impeded the normally steady tick of seconds.
It was a splinter—the first one she’d experienced in this world. It hit with an unusual intensity, as if the energy of all the small splinters she would have normally seen in this time had combined into this one.
What Winnie saw was as real for her as if it were actually unfolding before her eyes: Winnie suggested Dora skip school and join them for the experiment at her double’s house.
“Don’t go,” Winnie said, just as she had a moment ago. “Come to Winnie’s with me. We should all stick together.”
But instead of declining, Dora frowned, thought a moment, then nodded her head and said, “Okay. I think I will.”
Then, time jumped.
Winnie saw herself and Dora with Beta in the shed at Beta’s house, sorting through all Father’s retired equipment. It was happening again. She was seeing a potential future, just like she had when she “met” James in Hawthorn’s lab, although this one seemed awfully pedestrian. Dora went with her, and all seemed well.
Winnie felt a twinge of worry. Did that mean things would go well only if Dora went with her?
Then the other half of the splinter hit her. She felt a cramp deep in her belly, like someone had reached inside and was wrenching her organs in their tightly closed fist. Winnie doubled over in pain. She heard her plate shatter against the hardwood floor before she realized she’d knocked it from the table.
She saw her body alone on a dirt floor, a deep dent in her temple. Winnie started panting. Could it be she was just unconscious? No—not with an injury like that.
Was that what awaited her if Dora didn’t go?
Winnie forced herself to focus on the here and now and tried to shut out the awful image of her dead body. She had seen her death once before. She had been crossing the street when a car sped around the corner, just barely missing her. In an alternate reality, it caught her. She heard the wet thump of the impact, like a thick slab of steak being tenderized with a wooden mallet, and saw her bloody body in the street. Although she was unharmed, it took her some time to realize it. Seeing the split had been so upsetting, things had gotten all jumbled. For a moment, it was like she had been hit. She collapsed, screaming. Once the gathering crowd realized she was uninjured, they decided she was having a hysterical fit. A man in a suit had knelt beside her and given her a sharp slap to bring her out of it.
Remembering this made Winnie hopeful for a moment. Perhaps this was like that other time, and she was confusing what happened in the split with what would happen here—perhaps it was some other Winnie who died on a cold, packed-earth floor. But the splinter seemed to be outlining two possibilities: If Dora came with her, she lived; if Dora didn’t, she died.
Of course, she had thought she understood the meaning of the splinter she saw when Father told her she couldn’t go to Hawthorn’s party. She thought that defying him would lead her to James. But it had led her to the wrong James, in the wrong world, via a path that included Scott’s death.
So how could she really know what to make of this splinter?
But the way it had come on, so intense—it also felt wrong to just ignore it.
Dora hurried into the room then, while Winnie was still struggling to decide what to do.
“Are you okay? It sounded like something broke.”
Winnie nodded. She knelt down and began picking up the shards of porcelain.
“I’m afraid to go to Winnie’s alone,” Winnie said suddenly, the words popping out of her mouth before she even knew she was saying them. “Are you sure you can’t come with me?”
Irritation flashed on Dora’s face. “We were just talking about the danger of me skipping class.”
But what if this was life or death? It very well might be, and Winnie was certain that Dora would say yes, if she explained that to her.
But what if Winnie was wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time. How could she ask Dora to become even more mixed up in all this than she already was, when she wasn’t even sure?
Asking Dora to skip school and come with her would be tantamount to demanding that Dora put Winnie’s well-being over her own. And the thing was, she knew Dora would do it—which was exactly why she couldn’t ask.
Of course, Winnie didn’t want to die. She was sixteen! There was still so much she wanted to do. And, if she were to die, there would be no one left to try to save Scott. He would be dead for good.
So, she would try to be smart, and careful. Maybe with the warning she’d seen, she would be prepared to save herself from whatever accident she’d seen the aftermath of, if it was truly the consequence of going to her double’s alone.
Winnie made her goodbyes to Dora, thankful that any strangeness on her part would be dismissed as nerves about the impending experiment.
“This is our last goodbye, isn’t it?” Dora said. “I mean, hopefully it is—if your experiment works.”
Winnie forced a smile. “It is. Thank you for letting me stay with you. Thank you for everything.”
She hugged Dora tightly. Then she made herself let go.