As soon as Winnie knocked, Beta opened the door, glanced up and down the street, then gestured frantically for Winnie to come inside.
Beta tucked her hair behind her ear nervously, baring the ugly gash on her forehead. Strangely, it startled Winnie more seeing it on her double than when she saw it in the mirror.
Winnie hadn’t taken that close of a look at herself that morning. Were the circles under her own eyes as dark? Her skin that sallow? The girl was a wreck.
“Are you okay?” Winnie asked.
Her double laughed. It was a hopeless sound.
“No,” she said. “Are you?”
Winnie shook her head. “No. I guess not.”
“We should start in the shed, I think,” Beta said, taking a few steps back from her.
Did the shed have a dirt floor? Winnie couldn’t remember. Father used it to store excess lab equipment and things in need of repair, but she didn’t go out there much herself.
“Why not the laboratory?” Winnie asked.
The floor of the basement laboratory was definitely dirt, but avoidance wouldn’t save her—she had to hope that caution might.
“Father has a—what was that thing you broke? The glass thing that measures electric charge?”
“An electrometer?”
“Yeah, he has an electrometer out there, I think. And one of those cages too.”
“Really? In the shed? Assembled and everything?”
“Um, I’m not sure. We might have to put it together. Let’s go check.”
Even though she knew they had to try to find a way to get her back home, Winnie didn’t share her double’s eagerness to get started. Their earlier failure hadn’t left her with much confidence, and the stakes had only gotten higher. If all four of them together had managed to screw things up, what hope did just she and Beta have?
Beta turned and began walking toward the kitchen.
“Wait—” Winnie said. “Should we really be doing this? Maybe it would be better to wait for Scott.”
Her double stopped and faced Winnie. Her expression was inscrutable.
“I didn’t know James as well as I would have liked,” she said, brows furrowed. “But he meant a lot to Scott, and that means a lot to me.”
“I feel the same way,” Winnie said, although she wasn’t quite sure what Beta was saying—or rather, she didn’t understand the emotion underneath it, or why she was saying it then.
“Scott—” Beta began, but then shook her head. “He’s been through enough already. He is going to be so mad.” Tears welled in her eyes, but they didn’t spill. “But I don’t know what else to do. Do you?” She paused. “Scott sugarcoats it, but you and me—we know the truth, right? You’re tearing this world apart.”
Winnie couldn’t disagree. It was dangerous to try their experiment again. Or rather, it was dangerous to fail again. But there was danger in all directions now, and retrying their experiment was the only direction that also had the potential for safety—and Scott.
Winnie nodded. Her double was right.
“This is what we have to do,” Beta said.
Winnie nodded again and followed her double outside.
The large courtyard was hemmed in on all sides by the neighboring townhouses. A narrow, stone-paved path led to a small storage shed in the rear corner of the yard. Winnie began to walk toward it, and Beta trailed a few feet behind.
Winnie understood why her double was afraid to get too close to her. She put a hand to the cut on her forehead—it looked worse than it felt, but she wasn’t eager for any new injuries, and imagined her double wasn’t either.
What traitors their bodies had become!
As Winnie approached the door, she saw that the padlock on the shed had been left open.
“Why don’t you go in and see if the stuff we need is there, okay?” Beta said.
She looked miserable. Winnie felt a pang of guilt. She hadn’t come to their world on purpose, but that didn’t make her presence there any less difficult for her double.
“Okay,” Winnie said. She entered the small shed, which was just as tidy as the one back home. All the tools were hanging in their designated places on a wall of whitewashed pegboard, and orderly shelves of laboratory equipment lined the back wall, either duplicates of things in the basement lab, or equipment in need of repair. The only thing out of place was a stool, pulled out from its spot in front of the workbench to sit in the middle of the room, with a bundle of rope sitting on top of it.
“I don’t see a Faraday cage,” Winnie called, “or an electrome—”
Her words were cut off when Beta rushed up behind her, grabbing her arms.
Winnie looked around the shed frantically—Beta was pulling at her—she must be trying to save her from something bad, but what?
Then she heard the snick of handcuffs clicking into place around her wrists, binding her hands behind her back, and finally understood what was happening.
Beta wasn’t trying to save her from danger—Beta was the danger.
Winnie realized immediately what her double must have planned, sure as if she’d conceived it herself.
Beta was going to turn her over to Hawthorn. Maybe he’d made some kind of threat. Or maybe Beta was just desperate to get their lives back to normal.
“Hawthorn needs a new subject now,” Beta said quietly, “with James gone.”
“You told him about me?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t have to.”
Hawthorn had found her so quickly, just like James knew he would—uncannily fast. Although, scientists were natural detectives, weren’t they? That was why Scott had asked for her help finding James in the first place.
“He came by yesterday when Father was out,” Beta continued. “Said it was nice to meet me—a trick. Of course, I didn’t know we were supposed to have met at the morgue.”
Winnie strained against the cuffs and tried to think. Beta had been in such a hurry to get them on that she hadn’t secured them very tightly. The left one seemed like it just might be loose enough to squeeze out of.
“So that’s that?” Winnie asked, hoping to keep her double distracted as she fumbled around behind her back. “Hawthorn knows about me, so you may as well hand me over?” She grasped the loose cuff in the fingers of her right hand and started to yank, ignoring the pain in her wrist.
“He said he can make the police think Scott did it—that Scott killed James.”
“And you believe him?” Winnie asked, but she was stalling. She didn’t think Hawthorn was the type of man who made empty threats. Still, there had to be another solution. “If you knew what it was like to be experimented on,” Winnie added bitterly, “you wouldn’t do this.”
“Oh, please. Working with Father couldn’t have been that bad.”
Beta had no idea. Being dragged out of bed, kept up all night. Father looking at her, but not seeing her, interrogating her about the splinters, taking copious notes on every one—but skipping simple small talk like “Hey, how was school?”
Beta didn’t know what it was like to watch Father at the breakfast table the morning after Winnie had been accidently shocked during their experiment the night before, eating his toast dry and drinking his coffee black like some kind of penitence. Even though Father wouldn’t meet her eyes, it was like she could read his mind.
I’m a monster. You’ve made a monster of me.
She had to break the silence to let him know it was okay, so she’d told him, “Next time, let’s try a Faraday cage,” making herself an accomplice in her own torment—because it was either that or be a helpless victim.
Winnie couldn’t do it again. She wouldn’t.
It had been bad enough with Father, but with Hawthorn? He’d had James’s body thrown in the Hudson like trash, and that was someone he supposedly cared about. He’d have no trouble disposing of Winnie.
“Hawthorn is a murderer,” she said.
“Exactly! That’s how we know he’s more than capable of hurting Scott. If you really cared about him, you wouldn’t fight,” argued Beta.
“That’s not true!” Winnie shouted. “Getting back home isn’t just for me. It’s to give my own Scott a chance. Prison is one thing, but my Scott is dead unless I go back. Let me try our experiment again! With what’s in your father’s lab, I’m sure I can make another attempt, and with me gone, Hawthorn won’t have anything to gain by threatening Scott.”
“Are you serious? Best-case scenario, you disappear, and I’m the one left with Hawthorn’s threat. Now that he knows about you, he is going to get his hands on a Winnie. If it can’t be you, he’ll come after me instead.”
Beta was right. But Winnie would rather it be her double. It was a ruthless thing to think, but it was easy to feel ruthless with her hands cuffed behind her back.
Not that it mattered. She was the one Hawthorn wanted.
“You’re safe from him in a way that I’m not,” Winnie said, “because you don’t see them.”
“You can’t really be that stupid, can you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Of course I see splinters!” Beta said.
Winnie was stunned.
“I just know better than to tell people about it.”
“But . . . really? Not even Father?” she asked, so surprised by this revelation that she momentarily stopped trying to yank her wrist free from the cuff. “Or Scott?”
She’d been so sure that not seeing splinters had caused the differences between them. But now . . .
“Not anyone. I know I’m a—a freak. No one else needs to know.” Beta frowned. “I told Mama once,” she said, “a long time ago.” The far-off memory made her fade into herself for a moment. “She said to ignore them, and not to talk about it again.”
Mama had been open enough about her gift once to tell even Schrödinger. Something had taught her that she should never do that again. It must have been a hard lesson.
So, she’d wanted to spare her daughter that pain. How could Mama have known that this command would plant the seed of such self-loathing in the girl?
Even Winnie had at least been able to share her ability with Father.
“Oh, Winnie—”
“Then you come here, and suddenly we’re all in danger,” Beta continued angrily, cutting her off. “Suddenly, Nightingale isn’t the career break of a lifetime for Father and Scott, it’s some shadowy threat—but Hawthorn was never a problem for us until you came along. I get too close to you and my nose bleeds, my forehead splits open—and ever since you got here, I see splinters all the time! Every day!”
That must be why Winnie had stopped seeing them. Both of them being in one world had caused some kind of interference, blocking Winnie’s ability and flooding her double. It almost made Winnie feel bad for Beta—or it would have, if the girl hadn’t handcuffed her.
“But somehow,” her double continued, “you’re the one we have to sacrifice everything to protect. And Scott will do it, too. He’s too good for his own good. He’ll put himself at risk for you, but enough is enough. I won’t let him—and if you cared about anything except yourself, you wouldn’t either. So, sit down,” Beta said, gesturing at the stool, “and let me tie your ankles.”
Winnie’s double was a terrible funhouse mirror that showed her not squat and fat or stretched too thin, but stripped bare. Jealous, and broken, and capable of terrible betrayal.
This was the reflection of her own selfishness, wasn’t it? When Winnie got there, Scott warned her that her presence put their world in danger. But her only concerns had been self-preservation and saving her own Scott.
Could she really be surprised that her double only cared about doing the same?
Winnie continued trying to pull her wrist free. She was making progress, slowly, until the cuff hit the lower joint of her thumb. The tight metal began to tear into her knuckle. Winnie fought to keep the pain off her face.
But trying to free her hands—it wasn’t working. Winnie began to pant as she realized she wasn’t going to be able to pull the cuffs off. They were too tight after all. She was trapped, and soon she’d be caged.
Would Hawthorn’s experiments be like Father’s, or completely different? How long would it be until her body gave out like James’s had? Or would her ability allow her to endure Hawthorn’s experiments for months—even years?
At least she knew she wasn’t destined for the river. She had no family to miss her. No one to wonder. Even Scott would just think she’d gone back home. There would be no need for a body. When Hawthorn was finished with her, she would never be found.
Beta took a few quick steps over to the wall and grabbed a shovel that was hanging there. “Sit,” she said again, waving the shovel in Winnie’s direction. “Now.”
“If you hit me with that thing, you might hurt yourself too,” Winnie warned her, but her double seemed desperate enough to try anything.
Beta glared at Winnie. “Just sit. It’s over. Hawthorn’s already on his way.”
No. This wasn’t happening. Winnie’s eyes darted back and forth. If she let herself get tied down, it was over—but how could she possibly escape? Beta was standing between her and the door. It would be hard with her hands cuffed behind her back, but if Winnie could push past her—get free of the shed—then she would at least have a chance.
“What’s Scott going to think?” Winnie asked harshly. “He won’t forgive you.”
“He won’t know,” Beta said, even though the threat made her eyes wide with fear. “Hawthorn promised.”
“I think we both know he will.”
It was a bluff, but the shovel sagged in Beta’s hands, the head of it dipping down toward the dirt floor as she contemplated the awful possibility of losing Scott’s love.
Winnie took her moment.
She rushed at Beta, shoving into her with her shoulder since she couldn’t use her hands. The force of the impact sent them both flying. Winnie watched Beta’s arms pinwheel for balance as she stumbled backward herself.
Winnie tripped over the shovel that had been in Beta’s hands a moment before, and landed painfully on her back, on top of her cuffed hands, wrenching her shoulders and knocking her head against the dirt floor, hard.
She saw Beta fall.
She saw Beta hit her temple on the corner of the workbench. A glancing blow.
Winnie struggled to get up—she knew her double would be back on her feet in a moment, blocking her way again. It was difficult with her hands cuffed behind her back, but Winnie managed to stagger to her feet.
But when she did, Beta was still on the floor. Just lying there. Had she been knocked unconscious when she hit her head? Maybe that was why the blow hadn’t hurt Winnie too—maybe when she was knocked out, it severed whatever connection existed between them.
Winnie eyed the door. How much time did she have before Hawthorn came to collect her? Was he waiting for some signal from Beta, or was he already on his way? She should go quickly, she should go right now—
But Winnie couldn’t leave without checking on her double.
“Winnie?” she asked, approaching cautiously and nudging the girl with her foot.
Beta didn’t move.
“Are you all right?” Winnie whispered, dread thick in her throat.
She nudged her double’s shoulder harder, and the girl’s head lolled bonelessly.
Winnie couldn’t bend over to take her pulse with her hands cuffed, but she didn’t need to. Her eyes fixed on the spot where Beta had hit her head. It was concave, and deeply purple.
Winnie stumbled back in horror.
That face, that ground, that awful dent in her skull. Winnie recognized this—it was what she’d seen that morning.
Her eyes unfocused. Her eyes blank.
Winnie understood now.
It wasn’t her own death she had seen in that splinter. It was Beta’s.
It was Beta’s.
It was Beta’s.
Her stomach heaved. She was afraid she’d be sick.
What had she done?
And what could she do now?