Relativity (24 page)

“Stop it!”

Kidnapper. Identity thief. Interloper. Impostor.

Murderer?

A menacing crack of lightning sends a jolt of adrenaline through my already overtaxed nervous system. Too close for comfort.

“Let’s get going,” she orders. “Did you decode the inscriptions?”

I take a deep breath, trying to get myself together, needing to think straight. No matter what we do, we can’t stay here. We have to move on to the next world. “I figured out the one above the door, but it was useless. ‘Who are you seeking?’”

“Well, the code inside the tree is slightly more helpful,” Mom says, unfolding a piece of paper.

“How did you crack it? Did you find the key?”

“No. I used the process of elimination. It seemed pretty obvious it was an alphabetic shift,” she says. “I thought it might give me a clue as to where you were, so I worked on it awhile.”

Thunder in the distance. A nearly incessant rumble. Mom flicks on a key-ring flashlight and shines it onto the paper. “Can you see? Your glasses are a mess!”

“I know.” I pull them off and inspect them, the frame bent, one lens missing. “Your Ruby had LASIK, but I didn’t.” I slide them back on and read.

Massive solar flare 1864 = Atmospheric electric surge. Tree retained power 87 hours. Sufficient surge reoccurrence incalculable
.

“So a solar flare triggered an atmospheric electric surge,” I say.

“I guess that’s what’s powering the tree.”

That explains the dangerous weather patterns. Explosions on the sun’s surface can shake the Earth’s magnetic field. These plasma assaults
cause all sorts of problems: blackouts, flight delays, bad cell phone reception. I can hear Chef Dad’s voice in my head:
There’s been a record number of lightning strikes the past few days. The weather people can’t get over it
.

“I think we can assume that the tree works for eighty-seven hours,” she says. “Or until the solar storm lets up?”

“Okay. So help me think this through,” I say, shifting the crutches under my armpits. “The first time I went through the tree was something like two p.m. on Friday, and now it’s what?”

“It’s Sunday.” Mom looks at her watch. “No, now it’s Monday, two fifteen a.m.”

“So it’s been about sixty hours.”

“But that’s from the time you first went through the tree. What if it had been up and running for a while?”

“Good point,” I say. “It was vibrating on Thursday, late afternoon, like the motor was on. So if it had already been running for twenty-four hours—”

“That means we’re down to our last hour or two!” Mom says. “And the code says that the next sufficient surge is unknown.”

“Mom, this must be the next sufficient surge. Ó Direáin used the tree in the year 1864, and he didn’t know when it would work again. He couldn’t tell when another solar flare would charge the atmosphere. We’re being bombarded by solar plasma right now. These are the conditions he couldn’t predict.”

“Ó Direáin? The man who founded our city?”

“He was an inventor. A scientist,” I say. “He was a genius. He built the portal, and housed it—hid it—inside the oak.”

“What about those line drawings on the floor? Do you know what they mean?”

I shrug. “They mark the names of the universes somehow. They’re runic symbols, I think, but I’m not sure it matters. I have my own numbering system to keep track of where we are. I started in Universe One, and you’re from Universe Four. Right now we’re in what I’m calling Universe Seven. I know where they correspond with the positions under the steering wheel.”

“Steering wheel?”

“The disk inside the tree.”

“Okay. Then let’s go.” Mom touches the doorknob and an arc of electricity leaps. She snaps her hand back, like she’s been stung by an angry wasp.

“The charge is getting stronger,” I say.

She straightens her blouse and clears her throat, trying to gather herself. “Come on. Get in the tree.”

“You sure you’re all right?”

“Go. Hurry.”

We wait for the door to seal shut, then Mom clicks on her key-ring flashlight. She struggles to twist the slippery wheel. “I hate this thing.”

“Hang on.” I dig through my backpack and grab Chef Dad’s gardening gloves. “These help.”

“Why didn’t we use these for the doorknob?” Mom asks.

“The metal there needs skin,” I say. “A charge exchange. Otherwise nothing happens. The door doesn’t open.”

Mom turns the disk and it clanks into the next position. Universe Eight. The door opens automatically, and we step out.

“Okay,” Mom says. “Let’s get back in. We only need to turn it three more times and you’ll be home. Then I’ll continue on.”

It’s raining lightly, though it doesn’t penetrate the tree’s dense canopy. Distant lightning illuminates the cemetery.

“What do you think this place is like? It looks a lot like Universe Six.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

It does matter. Because the Mom in this world might have a chipped tooth and a faint scar on her neck too. She might have dodged death. The colorful gingerbread houses could be a quarter mile away, and Mom would be happy to see me. Patrick too.

In this universe, maybe there’s no Ruby I’d be displacing. Maybe I can just fit right in, without disrupting a parallel life.

“Come on, Ruby,” Mom says impatiently. “The clock’s ticking.”

“I have to look around. Half an hour. That’s all I need.” I step away from the tree and into the drizzle.

“Ruby! This thing’s only going to work for another hour—or less! Let’s go.”

“We could have more like three hours left,” I say, calculating the window again. “Don’t you understand? You need to go ahead without me so I can see what’s here.”

“I thought we’d gone over this! I thought you realized that you can’t.” Mom motions to the sky. “It’s the middle of the night. You’ll get lost in the dark, and if you stay too long, you’ll be trapped here forever.”

She’s right. But I’m drawn. I’m pulled forward by force that feels inescapable, gravitational. And it comes, once again, to basic
physical laws: an object in motion will remain in motion. I’m heading for another try at Mom, in this universe, wherever she might be.

“Stop!” Mom heads me off, takes me by the wrists. “If this tree stops working, you can’t follow a yellow brick road. There’s no tapping your heels together.”

I think of my alternate Ruby and her Oz collection. There’s no place like home. “I just need to see if this world will work for me,” I say. “Please!” My skin is still slippery from the rainstorm in Universe Seven, and I easily wiggle out of Mom’s grasp.

“There’s no such thing as perfect, Ruby,”

“Wouldn’t you want it? What I want?” My hands are tight fists, fingernails digging into my palms. “You would! Anyone would!”

“Let’s go. Back to where you belong, and where I belong.”

“But it might work out here. What if the Ruby in this universe has some terminal disease, or was abducted, or ran away, or has a horrible drug addiction? I’d be doing her family a favor by stepping in.”

“No. No. That’s just nonsense.”

“Maybe someone actually needs me here,” I say. “Someone might be happy to see me. I’d be wanted.” I hoist myself onto the crutches and start hopping. “I’ve applied the scientific method.”

“The what?” Mom chases me again, grabs my shoulders, and locks eyes with me. “This is insanity.”

“No, Mom,” I say. “Infinity.” I walk down the path and open the gate to enter the cemetery. I look around and point to a headstone on the other side of the iron fence. “That gravestone? It’s speeding along right now, faster than you can imagine.”

“Ruby!” Mom clenches her teeth.

“It’s moving because the entire planet is moving. We’re spinning on an axis, we’re orbiting the sun, and the universe is expanding.” I’m close enough to see that the veins in her neck are strained and popping, just like Patrick’s were when he found me in downtown Ó Direáin and hauled me off to the ER. Do the veins in my neck do that, too, when I’m mad?

“You’re scaring me.” Her voice is laden with desperation. “What’s your point?”

“This is real,” I say, spreading my arms around me. “I didn’t invent this portal to parallel universes. It’s a natural phenomenon, plus Ó Direáin must have discovered a gravitational anomaly, and somehow added electricity—”

“Don’t you understand?” She keeps pace with me, following me down the path. “We’re in danger!”

“Mom, listen. Sometimes things aren’t what they appear. Isn’t that what you used to say? Things aren’t what they appear? With the naked eye you can mistake a comet for a planet.”

“Exactly! What appears to you to be a parallel universe might appear to me to be an elaborate, advanced, virtual reality game. And it might appear to someone else to be magic. Someone else might manipulate the facts to claim that aliens put this thing here!”

“That’s absurd!”

“Is it? Is it so much more absurd than what you’re saying? Maybe a crystal that was recovered from the lost city of Atlantis is powering the tree,” she goes on. “Maybe this is some sort of Dickensian fantasy, and we’re visiting the ghost of Christmas Present.”

“That’s ridiculous!” I say, but my heart is sinking because I see her point.

“You’re force-fitting your ideas. This isn’t about string theory, Ruby.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re wearing blinders,” she says. “You only see what you want to see.”

Her words dig in, all claws and teeth. She’s painfully right. I’ve picked and chosen supporting data, and thrown out the rest. It’s a scientist’s worst crime: I’ve lost my objectivity.

“Then what’s it about?” I ask. The ground rumbles, and I’m reminded of my original hunch—that there could be a source of power under the tree. I’d asked Willow about caverns, wondered about underground caves and rivers.

My mind flashes to a passage I read at the library, from one of the string theory books:

Discovering a wormhole would require a long journey through outer space in search of a black hole. Scientists agree that we currently lack the technology to traverse those gateways
.

Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong direction. Up instead of down. Left instead of right.
The important thing is not to stop questioning
. That’s what Einstein said. But that’s exactly what I didn’t do. I stopped questioning. I assumed I was right about string theory and worm-holes and parallel universes.

“It doesn’t matter what it is!” Mom screams, sounding like she’s been pushed to the edge.

I look around at the tombs and obelisks, the birth dates and death dates, the cherubs and Virgin Marys.

“What are you looking for, Ruby?” Mom asks. “Who are you seeking?”

“You!”

We stand silently. The rain patters. Our clothes are soaked. My leg throbs.

“Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Is that the same thing you said back at the apartment?”

She nods. “Here is my secret. It is very simple: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“Exactly!” I say. “Dark matter, vibrating subatomic strings, invisible worlds.”

“No. You’re still missing the point.” Mom turns and walks back toward the tree. “My heart sees rightly that it’s time to go home,” she calls over her shoulder. “I’ve been searching for you all day. I’m so exhausted I can barely stand. And now I find out that you’re not even my daughter.”

“Yes I am!” I turn and rush toward her, my crutches catching on tree roots. “Look at my face! Look at me. What does your heart see?”

Her face softens into a look of pity. She bites her lower lip and slides my broken glasses off my nose. Her gaze goes from my eyebrows to my cheekbones to my lips. Finally, softly, she says, “Yes, somehow, you are.”
She puts her arms around me, and we hold each other for a long time. “Ruby,” she says, pulling back to look at me once more, “we both need to get home.”

It feels like I’m disappearing, my body hollowed out. I’m evaporating into nothing. Without Mom, what’s left of me? “I don’t want to lose you all over again,” I whisper.

She hands me my glasses and reaches into her pants pocket to retrieve a piece of paper. She unfolds it and reads.

“Dear Mom,” she says. “I have gone to the ends of the earth for you.”

It’s the note I gave to George to deliver to the school secretary, so she could pass it along to Mom. I tremble as she reads the words I wrote just yesterday morning. “Yes,” I say. “I’ve gone a long way.”

She continues. “Thank you for the soft couch, the pizza and breakfast, the conversation. Thank you for being my mom for a short time. I loved you for every single minute, and I will always love you, no matter where we are, no matter what dimension we’re in, separate or together.”

I drop the crutches and double over, sobbing. “I wish …,” I say between gulping breaths. “I want … but, but like you said, there’s no such thing as perfect.” I look over my shoulder, squinting to see through the cemetery and beyond. I wonder what kinds of houses there are in this universe. I wonder who lives in them.

“That’s right,” Mom says, following my gaze. “What if something terrible has happened here? What if both your father and mother are dead?”

Lightning crackles and thunder claps. Mom picks up the crutches
and takes my elbow, steering me toward the oak tree. Rain and tears stream down my cheeks.

“I know you’re right. I just …” I wipe my face and sigh. “I just want you.”

“You had a mother for four years. And you had me these past couple days. That’s all the universe could give you,” she says. “The universes.”

“It’s not fair,” I say. “It’s not enough.” I slip my hand into hers as we walk toward the tree.

“But it’s better than nothing.”

I nod, trying to reassure myself. “I’m lucky for the time I had.”

We near the tree and feel the ground beneath us roar with an engine-like voice.

“Let’s get moving,” I say, and I touch the ruthless metal doorknob.

The smell of the ocean is unmistakable. The air is humid, and though it’s too dark to see, I can sense that we’re enveloped in a dense, jungle-like world. Verdant by day, pulsating with unseen life by night.