THE KITCHEN DOOR SWINGS OPEN, AND THEO AND I LOOK up to see Josie standing there wearing a Coronado Island T-shirt and a backpack slung over her shoulders.
She grins wickedly. “Am I interrupting something?”
We were having a serious conversation about a murder in another dimension, that’s all, but that’s not an explanation my big sister needs to hear. Besides, right now, I’m just too glad to see her.
“Hey, you.” I go to Josie and hug her as tightly as I can with the backpack in the way. “Welcome home.”
“Thanks.” Josie ruffles my hair in the way she knows I hate. Normally that’s my cue to scowl at her, but right now I even love her messing with me.
The last time I saw Josie, she was sobbing hysterically in Mom’s arms. Now she’s her usual laid-back, beach-girl self, complete with flip-flops and a sunburned stripe across her nose. As I study her face, I recognize anew all the ways in which she’s similar to my father: the blue eyes, the square jaw, the chestnut color to her hair. I’m the one who looks like Mom, more like Vladimir and Peter—
That stops me short. Only now do I remember I’m in a world where my brothers and little sister never existed.
“Are you okay?” Josie gives me a funny look. Behind us, I can hear Theo putting the lasagna in the oven.
“Yeah. I’m good. It’s just—” I make a fluttery gesture with one hand, which is supposed to mean something like, I haven’t got my act together right now.
But Josie’s expression hardens, and I realize she thinks I’m talking about Paul, and the scars his betrayal have left on the family. That’s why she’s home for New Year’s instead of partying with her friends; she’s trying to help our parents get through it.
“Mom and Dad are in the great room?” Josie asks, dumping her backpack at the door like she has ever since fourth grade. As she lopes in to see our parents, I lean back against the fridge, disquieted.
When Theo gives me an inquisitive glance, I motion toward the great room. “Go on, hang out for a while. I need a second.”
He doesn’t look 100 percent satisfied with that response, but he nods, giving me the space I need.
After Theo leaves the kitchen, I stand there staring out the kitchen window. (At home, we have a suncatcher dangling there, a little orange and yellow butterfly. Here, the suncatcher is in the shape of a bird, all blue and green.) My heart aches, and this time, there’s no cure for it.
I can see the irony. Throughout this journey, I’ve longed to be with my family again. Now I’m with them, more or less, but I have another family to miss.
Katya and little Peter—I never even got to see them after the attack on the royal train. Peter must have been utterly terrified. He won’t be able to sleep at night; I ought to have a couch brought into my room for him, so he can rest nearby, so I can wake him if he has nightmares. And Katya? Probably she’s already arguing that the tsar should allow women in the army. And Vladimir will be urging the tsar to consider more constitutional reforms, so that no other pretender to the throne can rise up to capitalize on the dissent . . .
I should be there, I think, before remembering that, of course, I am. The Marguerite who belongs in that dimension is back in charge of her own life. We are enough alike for me to know that she’s taking care of Peter, and that she’s adding her voice to Vladimir’s, for whatever it will be worth with the obstinate Tsar Alexander.
She’s also mourning the loss of Paul Markov, her Paul, dead and gone forever.
Does she even remember her final weeks with him? Does she know that she was able to spend one night with Paul, one night when all the barriers between them came down? If not, then . . . I stole that from her. Something sacred that ought to have been hers alone became mine forever.
I told Theo earlier that I didn’t think Paul was the villain here.
Now I realize the villain might be me.
“So, I was wondering about the ethics of traveling through different dimensions,” I say at dinner.
Mom and Dad exchange glances, and Theo gives me a look like, Are you crazy? I pretend I don’t see him.
“We’ve had these conversations often enough,” Mom replies as she helps herself to a piece of the lasagna. “Forgive me, sweetheart, but I never thought you were interested.”
I have to admit this is more true than not. If I didn’t tune out some of the heavy-duty physics talk from time to time, I’d go crazy. Besides, when was any of this theoretical stuff going to apply to my real life?
Now, of course, I know the answer to that question.
“When you guys were talking about it before, it was always, you know, ‘what if.’ Abstract, not concrete.” Hopefully I sound casual, just interested enough to make conversation. “Things have changed now.”
“Yes, they have,” Dad says heavily, and I know he’s thinking of Paul.
We are gathered around the rainbow table, temporarily cleared of its papers to make room for lasagna, salad, garlic bread, wine, and a ceramic pitcher filled with ice water. (The Nobel Prize is on the floor beside a stack of books, all but forgotten.) In so many ways, this scene is exactly the way it ought to be, cozy and shabby and unmistakably ours. Mom’s hair is pinned back into a messy ponytail with two pencils. Dad wears reading glasses with rectangular, tortoiseshell frames. Josie smells like cocoa butter. Theo has his elbows on the table. And I’m kicking the center pedestal of the table, a nervous habit my parents gave up trying to break me of when I was in junior high. There’s even a package of shiny hats Josie brought, like she does every year, though we won’t put them on until nearly midnight.
Yet there’s an empty chair at the table, a place where Paul should be and isn’t. The most powerful presence in the room is his absence.
“We thought it would be a chance to glimpse a few small layers of the multiverse though another set of eyes . . . and then we would return home, to share the knowledge.” Her gaze turns dark. “But apparently knowledge isn’t enough for some people.”
“Come on, Sophia.” Theo gives her his most charming smile, which is pretty damn charming. “Don’t tell me you’re turning paranoid too.”
Mom shakes her head; one of her curls tumbles loose alongside her face. “I don’t condone what Paul has done. He broke faith with us all. But that doesn’t mean he was wrong about Triad.”
“Wait, Triad’s still pushing?” Josie says through a mouthful of salad. “I thought you guys told them to shove it.”
Dad sighs. “We tried. Turns out it’s rather difficult to get a multinational corporation to shove anything. Particularly when they bankrolled your research.”
“What exactly is it you’re trying to get Triad to shove?”
Theo holds one hand up to my parents, an I’ll-take-this-one gesture. “Some researchers at Triad wanted to push the boundaries of what we can do. Which theoretically is all good! It’s not like we don’t want to learn more about the possibilities of traveling between dimensions. But Conley doesn’t want to only send energy through dimensions. He wants to send matter.”
I shake my head no; this much I understand. “Consciousness is energy and can travel more easily. But matter is incredibly difficult, right? It’s kind of a miracle that the Firebird can make the trip.”
“That’s correct,” Mom says, now in full professor mode. “However, the Firebird also proves that matter transfer between dimensions is possible.”
“And it’s not like that’s so bad, on its own,” Theo jumps in. “I mean, how awesome would it be if we could bring back some amazing tech from a dimension slightly more advanced than ours? Bring it here, analyze it, figure out how to replicate the effects? That’s golden.”
I recall the technology from London—holographic view-screens, smartphone rings, all the rest.
“So far as that goes, I’ve no objections.” Dad looks weary. I decide to pour him a little more wine; normally he’d never have more than one glass even on New Year’s Eve, but tonight maybe he needs it. “But Conley’s pushing a more aggressive agenda. It sounds less like he wants to study other dimensions, more like he wants to, well, spy on them.”
“Can you imagine it?” Mom says. “He wants to find ways to let the travelers fully take over the bodies of their other selves. For long periods of time, if not permanently. That’s not what we envisioned. We never wanted to harm anyone, and what Conley’s talking about goes beyond harm. The Firebirds would be used to . . . to steal people from themselves.”
Dad shakes his head as though he’s just had a chill. “You could be talking to your best friend and have no idea they’d been replaced by a spy from another dimension. It’s bloody well terrifying.”
Theo and I glance sideways at each other and sit very, very still.
Mom takes a deep breath. “Anyway. As I said, Paul went too far. It’s too late to keep Triad from developing the technology further. Much too late.” She says this with obvious regret. “They’ve only been set back a few months. He would have done better to work with us; I still think we might be able to convince Conley that the risks outweigh the benefits.”
“Exactly,” Theo says. “Change comes from within, right?”
“Which is why we let you take on that Triad internship, but we shouldn’t have,” Dad says. “They’ve overworked you these past few months; we weren’t even sure we’d get to see you tonight. You’re aware you’re running dangerously behind on your dissertation, aren’t you?”
Theo groans. “Please, can we not invoke the name of the dissertation on a holiday? It’s like saying ‘Bloody Mary’ three times in front of a mirror at midnight.”
Dad holds up his hands, like, I surrender. I remember him making that exact same gesture when I argued that I should get to paint in my room, because any stains would be my own problem. The memory makes me smile, and yet want to cry at the same time.
“Anyway, I didn’t mind being at Triad,” Theo continues. “It gave me a chance to defend our work. And, you know, I get that Conley wants some return on his investment. We simply have to make him understand the limits, ethical and literal. Because, seriously, there’s only so much we’re ever going to be able to bring across dimensions.”
“Let us pray. Now can we discuss something else? I confess, I can’t yet think of Paul without—” Dad’s voice trails off, and I know he wants to say something about being angry, but that’s not right. He’s not angry; he’s heartbroken.
Quietly Mom says, “I made him a birthday cake.”
“Don’t do this to yourself.” Theo takes Mom’s hand and squeezes it tightly, a gesture as loving as any I’ve ever given her. “Okay, Sophia?” She nods sadly.
Then Dad straightens in his chair. “Marguerite, we’re distracted, but we’re not that distracted.”
What is he talking about? Then I realize that, after pouring wine for everyone else at the table, I had helped myself to some. We drank wine in the Winter Palace; I’d honestly forgotten there was such a thing as an age limit. “Sorry,” I mutter.
“Go ahead,” Mom says. “It’s New Year’s Eve.” She raises one eyebrow. “But don’t go making a habit of it.”
“All my fault, I’m sure.” Theo grins. “Everybody knows I’m a bad influence.”
Josie shoots him a look. “You’d better not be too bad an influence.” She’s talking about what she thinks she saw in the kitchen, which brings up the whole question of what I do or don’t feel for Theo, on top of every other confusing thing that’s happened . . .
I take a sip of the wine. It doesn’t help.
After dinner, Dad does the dishes. When he starts humming “In My Life,” at first it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Then I remember that this is the last time I’ll ever hear him humming his beloved Beatles—and I have to bite my lip to hold back the tears.
Or I could just stay here, in this dimension, forever.
It’s tempting. Dad’s alive. Our family is together. Whatever happened with Paul, we can get to the bottom of it, put things right.
But back home, Mom is mourning Dad, worried about Paul, and scared to death for me and Theo. I have to get back to her. This dimension may look like home, but it’s not, and never will be.
I stay right outside the kitchen, listening, until Dad finishes. Then I slip out to the back deck, needing a few minutes alone to steady myself before we start watching the festivities in Times Square on TV.
It’s the same deck, the same weird sloping backyard that’s not even flat enough for a folding chair. Even the electric lights are identical, Josie’s plastic tropical fish glowing along the rail. The tall trees that ring our yard obscure the houses near us; even though we’re in the heart of the Berkeley Hills, it’s possible to imagine that we’re isolated, alone. When I was a little kid, I used to pretend the trees were a stone wall around our castle. I wish that were true.
The sliding door behind me opens. I don’t turn my head as I remain sitting on the steps of the deck.
Theo drapes Mom’s apple-green cardigan around my shoulders before he sits down next to me. “And here we are again.”
I laugh despite myself. “This is where this whole crazy trip began.”
“You must wish I’d never even told you about the Firebirds.”
“No, I’m glad you did.” I think of everything I’ve seen, every aspect I’ve discovered of the people I love. Especially Paul—always, always Paul.
Where is he right now? If he were here, maybe I’d know whether what I love in him is the same, whether it lives on. All I know is I want him here with me so desperately it almost hurts.
“You’ve got that faraway look in your eyes.” Theo rests his forearms on his knees, leaning forward to study my face. “How are you doing?”
“I think I could try to figure that out for most of the next year and still not know.”
“Is it hard, being around your dad? I keep wanting to hug the guy. At least you can do that without Henry wondering if you’re high.”
Coming from Theo, that’s not just a joke.
But Theo has held it together, at least as far as I can tell. Probably I shouldn’t ask what he got up to in Paris. I bet it involved absinthe.
“Listen,” he says. “It’s obvious that you want to pin the blame on Triad instead of Paul. Right?”
“Even you admitted Triad had gone too far,” I say. “Who knows what else they’re up to?”
“Wyatt Conley, that’s who.” Theo runs one hand through his hair. “So why don’t we ask him?”
I stare at him. “Just walk up to one of the biggest tech tycoons in the world, any world, and ask him what he’s doing?”
“Don’t be so literal. In this dimension, we’ve worked with Triad a lot more closely. Remember, I’ve been interning there for months. That means I have access to their HQ—the mega-cool modern one, which is complete here, so we’ll see it first when we walk right through the front doors tomorrow.” From a front pocket of his shirt he pulls a laminated security pass bearing the triangular Triad logo.
“We can get into the building,” I whisper, starting to smile. “You have access to their computers.”
Theo holds up a warning hand. “My security clearance won’t be all-knowing, all-seeing. But it might be a bit more comprehensive than they meant for it to be. Besides, on New Year’s Day, the place will be all but deserted. Gives us a chance to stick our noses where they don’t belong.”
By now, I’m very curious to find out more about what kind of man Wyatt Conley might be. Because I’m beginning to believe he’s played a bigger role in my life, and my father’s death, than anyone ever suspected.
Theo adds, “While we’re there, we might even be able to figure out how to track down this dimension’s Paul. Right now, he’s on the run, and we’ll never find him on our own. But Triad? These are the guys who developed the software the NSA uses; they’re not easy to hide from.”
I fist my hands in my curls. “Why are you still so sure he hurt Dad?”
“Why are you suddenly so sure he didn’t? And don’t give me the ‘he looked innocent’ thing again. That is not valid evidence.”
“These journeys—the other dimensions we’ve seen—haven’t they taught you anything?” No, I don’t want to get defensive. I especially don’t want to be short with Theo, not after everything he’s done for my sake, and for Dad’s. So I turn to him as I struggle for the right words. “Each Marguerite I’ve been was her own individual, with her own strengths and weaknesses. But they were all me, Theo. I’m not sure there’s anything in those Marguerites that isn’t in me, too. And I haven’t only learned more about myself. I’ve learned more about Paul.” If I think about Paul in Russia again, I won’t be able to bear it. So I force myself to concentrate on the here and now. “All those versions of Paul are Paul. I know him better now than I ever did before. He’s not a murderer. I’d stake my life on it.”
“You are staking your life on it. Don’t you see?” Theo groans, scuffing his tennis shoe against the deck. “I never should have let you come along on this trip.”
“If it’s anyone’s job to avenge Dad, it’s mine. Yes, even more than yours. You know that.”
“Do you think I’ve spent one second of this trip not kicking myself for putting you in danger? That I haven’t hated myself for putting you through this?” Theo’s dark eyes search mine. “Now I hear you getting confused, watch you letting your guard down, and all I can think is, Marguerite’s gonna get hurt. If you get hurt, it’s going to be my fault, and I will never, ever get over that.”
I shake my head no, but I can’t answer him. The raw emotion in his voice has stolen my own.
He comes even closer to me, so close our faces are nearly touching. “You say you’ve seen these different versions of Paul. You’ve learned who he really was. Well, what did you learn about me, Marguerite?”
“Theo . . .”
His hand grips the curve of my neck, his touch hard and possessive, and then he kisses me.
I gasp, and Theo’s tongue slips into my open mouth. My skin flushes hot; my limbs go weak. My body knows what this is even if my mind doesn’t. Theo puts his arms around me, and for one instant all I want is to kiss him back.
Then I remember Paul, and the dacha in the snow, and making love to him in the glow of the fire. I remember loving Paul more than my own life.
Turning my face away, I say, “Stop. Theo, please, don’t.”
He remains completely still for a second, then lets me go. For a while we sit next to each other, breathing hard, unable to speak.
Finally Theo says, “He’s gotten to you.”
I want to argue with him, but it would only make this moment worse.
With a sigh, Theo stands. When I look up at him, I’m surprised, and heartened, to see that he’s trying to smile. “Let’s just . . . start over tomorrow. Okay?”
“Okay. Tomorrow.” When we walk into Triad Corporation headquarters, side by side. Even now—always—Theo is my ally. As he fishes his keys out of his pocket, I say, “You won’t even stay until midnight?”
“And the traditional kiss?” Theo arches one eyebrow. He’s trying to turn this into a joke, but it doesn’t quite work. “Doubt my luck would improve.”
He deserves better than this. But “deserves” doesn’t have a lot to do with falling in love.