A Quill Ladder (34 page)

Sam had cut his hair and grown a beard. A
beard
. She had a crush on a man with a beard. It was all too inappropriate. Physics and time travel; those were the only reasons she wanted to see him.

The doorbell rang, and Abbey found herself unable to move, so they all sat there staring at each other in the living room in full view of the picture window through which Sam could easily see them. Finally her dad rose and opened the door, and he and Sam shook hands. Only men shook hands. Abbey smiled weakly, and moved toward Sam and his startlingly blue eyes.

*****

“
What are you doing here?
”
Jake said.

Mark had dropped back behind the clawed woman and the two bad men. Ian was far up in the lead, leaping over fallen logs and weaving his way through the undergrowth at an all too rapid pace. HT One and Two brought up a distant rear, struggling with the tight trees and brush with their bulky frames almost as much as Mark was. They had already been hiking for what seemed like at least half an hour, and generally in an upward direction. Mark thought for sure that soon there would be no more up to go, that they would be at the top of the hill looking out over the Circle Plateau, but still the mountain continued relentlessly on in front of them.

The foliage was dense and unyielding and fog patches hung low in hollows. If they abandoned him, he had no idea how he would find his way back to the stones. The digital GPS compass in his Garmin Forerunner wasn
’
t picking up a signal, although he was fairly certain from the position of the sun that they were traveling northeast. He should be using this opportunity to further his contour line analysis, but with the denseness of the tree cover, he was totally lost.

He checked his watch. It was 2:12. They had been hiking for twenty-seven minutes. The Sinclairs, who considered him an adult, wouldn
’
t be worried about him in the slightest until at least five.

“
I don
’
t know,
”
Mark said in response to Jake
’
s question. In actual fact, he had thought that they were going to the other future, the one where he might be able to go back to the library, get his photocopied map, and go see Kasey
’
s map. This treed, unpleasant place was not at all what he had expected.

“
Just so you know, they
’
re
making
me help them,
”
Jake said.
“
Said they would tell my parents everything if I didn
’
t. My parents don
’
t need any of this. I
’
m just trying to get it over with. So far it
’
s mostly involved a lot of walking and standing around.
”

Mark nodded. He had no idea why Jake was telling him this, or what the appropriate response was.

“
They
’
re looking for something. They didn
’
t tell me what. Another set of docks or stones or something. They keep taking me places and asking me if I feel anything. It
’
s weird. What was that guy with the funny hat saying about a wormhole?
”

Mark shrugged. Sylvain had been looking up wormholes at the library, but he didn
’
t see how mentioning that to Jake would be relevant. Jake was looking at him now, that scrutinizing look that people gave him before they decided he wasn
’
t quite right in the head. Perhaps Jake didn
’
t know that Mark had Asperger
’
s. Mark wanted to say that he was quite fine in the head, just that his head and his ability to express himself didn
’
t connect very well.

Jake was still staring at him. Waiting.

“
I like maps,
”
Mark said.
“
Somebody stole my maps.
”

Jake
’
s expression shifted to the scrunched-up quizzical contortion that usually followed one of Mark
’
s non sequiturs. Except that they usually weren
’
t non sequiturs. They were related. People just didn
’
t know that.

Someone was definitely looking for something. That
’
s why they stole the maps. But Mark had no idea what a wormhole was, or even if he believed they existed. Mark tried smiling to communicate this, and Jake nodded gravely and then turned away, and moved ahead of Mark on the trail.

*****

“
So, what piqued your interest in time travel and parallel universes all of a sudden, Abbey? I thought you were in the Newtonian camp.
”

Sam sat across from her in the coffee shop. During the five-minute drive down Coventry Hill in the blue Vibe, Abbey had held her breath and tried not to say anything stupid. Her father and Sam had chatted about the most recent hockey game between the Blackhawks and the Kings and then shaken hands, and Sam had promised to have Abbey back within two hours. And then she was left alone with a man she was supposedly going to marry and live with in a bubble. Or maybe that was in a parallel universe, and in this one she would marry Jake and live in L.A. She really had no idea.

“
Do you think it
’
s possible?
”
Abbey said.

Sam took a small bite of his brownie.
“
Hmm. Hypothetically, yes, but that puts me on pretty unstable ground within the physics community, let me tell you.
”

“
How do you think it would work?
”

“
Which: time travel, or parallel universes?
”

The server placed Abbey
’
s tea in front of her and Abbey folded her hands around the warm mug. It was foggy and damp today. No snow yet, which was unusual for this time of the year.

“
Let
’
s go with parallel universes first. And stick with ones with the same laws of physics, for now.
”

“
So we
’
re talking like Schr
ö
dinger
’
s cat, a branching hypothesis?
”

“
Let
’
s go with that for now.
”

Sam
’
s smile revealed his chipped front tooth, acquired from a childhood encounter with a baseball. In a many-world parallel universe, Sam
’
s tooth would be intact.
“
Well, quantum physics would suggest that there is something to it, and I do tend to subscribe to the Copenhagen interpretation and superposition. But I
’
m not sure if our physics will ever arrive at a point at which we can prove any of it. Everett
’
s Many Worlds theory doesn
’
t have a lot of support among serious physicists, but it hasn
’
t been, and may never be, disproven, and the real answer might be some combination of sub-quantum string theory and Many Worlds theory.
”
Sam
’
s fingers twitched a few centimeters above the table, and Abbey was sure it was because he was thinking of drawing something, as she had so often seen him do at science camp.
“
I still have a problem with the overall amount of space and time required for that many universes, even though the universe is expanding. Mathematically, it just doesn
’
t work out for me. But Cleland
’
s work with the paddle is intriguing.
”

“
What if the number of universes was limited somehow? What if there was branching, but not as a result of every quantum decision? What if the branching happened as a result of a Big Bang intersection of the existing limited universes?
”

Sam
’
s eyes narrowed as Abbey spoke.
“
That would be an entirely new proposition. So, same as the ekpykrotic brane collision theory, but causing branching of our existing universe? So we would have doppelgangers? I don
’
t know. Seems pretty far-fetched.
”

The hypothesis
was
far-fetched. It was half-baked, in fact. But she needed something to grab on to, to explain the events of the last few months
…
and the list she had left herself. Sam continued to smile attentively at her, as if he was enjoying the conversation and not dismissing her.

“
But do you think it
’
s possible?
”

He snorted a bit.
“
I
’
ve decided that in the world of quantum physics, almost
anything
is possible.
Probable
, I
’
m not too sure about. But I
’
m not sure if I
’
m your man to discuss this. One of the reasons I wanted to come and talk to you is that I
’
m switching careers.
”

“
What?
”

Sam grinned at her shock.
“
I
’
m just switching to chemistry. I did a double major for my undergrad. You know I just defended my dissertation in November.
”

Abbey nodded. This she knew from Facebook.

“
I just got a fellowship offer to do a postdoc in chemistry at Purdue that I couldn
’
t refuse. Chemical extraction methods for mining under Dr. Isaac Burton. You may have heard of him. He
’
s super-famous, in the chemical extraction world anyway.
”
Sam gave a slight smirk and eye roll of acknowledgement that fame in the chemistry world wasn
’
t probably common knowledge.
“
Industry is pouring a bunch of money into the program and the fellowships are pretty attractive. Nobody
’
s putting any money into physics these days. Anyway, I need a research assistant at camp, but I
’
m switching to the chemistry stream this year. I know you prefer physics, but I was wondering if you
’
d be interested in the job?
”

Abbey tried to funnel the wild beating of her heart into a facsimile of a casual smile before blurting,
“
I
’
d love to.
”

Sam gave a broad grin.
“
Great! We can talk about it more in late spring. Anyway, back to the parallel universe thing. If it
’
s a paper for school, I
’
m sure you
’
ll get an A plus if you just summarize and show an understanding of the existing hypotheses. You don
’
t need to advance your own hypothesis. Save that for when you
’
re a superstar at MIT or Harvard.
”

Abbey studied the amber wood of the small table they occupied.
Sam can help.
“
It
’
s not just for school,
”
she said.

“
Is it a competition?
”

“
More like a personal problem.
”

Sam raised his eyebrows.

*****

The sweat ran down Mark
’
s face in streams. He couldn
’
t understand why anyone would go hiking without water and food. The ascent had turned steep for the last several minutes, and Jake and the others had quickly outpaced Mark and HT One and Two, leaving them to scrabble up a rocky seasonal creek bed, clutching at bushes to propel themselves upward.

“
And here we are! And there it is!
”
Ian announced in his melodious voice.

Mark burst through the final spray of snowberries to find the rest of the group assembled on a rocky outcrop that overlooked the plateau from which they had just climbed. A sea of treetops lay below them
—
a mixture of robust evergreens dotted with the occasional leafless deciduous. Mark edged his way out onto the outcrop, which appeared to hang precariously over the edge of the mountain, to where the rest of the group stood. He could hear the heavy breaths of HT One and Two behind him. He looked in the direction that Ian was pointing. Rising up out of the evergreens, its leaves a lush green despite the season, was the tallest Madrona Mark had ever seen.