The Broken Universe (23 page)

*   *   *

Grace did not exactly warm to Clotilde, but nor did she attack the woman again. John fetched ice from the freezer and then made an ice pack for her face. Grace led them to the upstairs office and stood while Clotilde sat on the low leather couch. She answered their questions tentatively.

“I don’t know where the Alarians have gone,” she said. “No female knows where the home world is. And certainly no half-breed. I just know that Lord Charboric and most of the other Twelve—I mean Eleven—are gone.”

“Gesalex is one of the Twelve?”

“The youngest. He was a boy when they were banished here.”

“And he’s all that’s left here from the originals?” John continued.

“Yes, Lord Charboric left him to move the transfer gate to the laboratory, only something went wrong.”

“Stop calling him ‘Lord,’” Grace said.

“Yes, mistress,” Clotilde said meekly.

“How many went through before they moved the gate?” Grace asked.

“Hundreds,” Clotilde said. “Charboric and his favorite women. The other Eleven, except for Gesalex, and their favorites. Some of the oldest half-breed males.”

“Did any come back?” Grace asked.

“None.”

Grace and John shared a glance.
Why hadn’t they come back?
They had fled this universe to … somewhere. Surely they had a gate there.

“And how many are left, of the People, I mean,” John said. “How many are in the know?”

“Less than a hundred,” Clotilde said.

“From the outside, Grauptham House looks like it’s in chaos,” Grace said. She stood apart from Clotilde, her arms crossed.

“It is, mistress,” she said.

“Stop calling me ‘mistress,’” Grace said. “Only Henry is allowed to do that.”

“Yes … ma’am.”

“‘Grace’ will do.”

“Yes, Miss Grace,” Clotilde said. “I am here because there are no chaperones at the seraglio. I could leave easily.”

“How did you get here?” John asked. “Do you have a car?”

“No, I have no car!” she said. “I took a bus, of course. I have money! I know how to spend it.” Her anger startled him, and her as well, because she immediately lowered her eyes and added, “I’m sorry, sir.”

“I was just asking,” John said with a laugh. “But I take it someone will miss you at some point.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Things have not been the same since the Second Exodus. Gesalex told us that we would soon be heading to the Home Universe. But that was months ago. Then I heard from … one of the half-bloods that you had made an offer of peace.”

“Twice,” John said.

“But that Gesalex would not take it.”

“No, he seemed a little put out at the time,” Grace said with a smirk.

“He has failed,” Clotilde said, the same dark smile on her face.

“So you want to go to the … home universe?”

Clotilde paled. “Anywhere but,” she said. “I hate what my father did! I hate everything about the Alarians!”

“Why?” Grace said.

“He … he…” Clotilde said, grasping for the words. She swallowed. “I know about the culture here,” she said. “My privilege as Visgrath’s daughter allowed me access to books and some movies. I know that we are different. But it’s nothing I want.”

“Do the other Alarian women feel that way?” Grace asked.

“Yes, we mostly agree,” she said. “Some can’t see beyond the seraglio, but most of us, especially the younger ones, understand.”

“How are you treated at the … seraglio?” Grace asked.

“As breeding sows,” Clotilde cried. Tears formed at her eyes.

“Oh,” Grace said. She grabbed the box of tissues from her desk and handed it to Clotilde.

“Anywhere but here?” John asked. “You just want to leave.”

“I can pay you,” Clotilde said. She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope. John expected to see cash, but instead inside was a folded sheet of thick paper. She handed it to John.

John read the words on the stock certificate,
Grauptham House, 10 shares, Clotilde Visgrath.

“How many shares of the private stock does Grauptham House have outstanding?” John asked Grace.

She shrugged, and turned to her filing cabinet. She pulled a file, and inside was the report from the State of Pennsylvania on the company. “This says a thousand,” she said.

“Do all the Alarian females have stock certificates?” John asked Clotilde.

“Yes, when the Second Exodus started, many papers were signed over,” Clotilde said. “The stock was given to the women in case it was needed later. Charboric didn’t expect to be back.”

Grace took the stock certificate worth several million dollars and said, “I think we can come to an agreement, Clotilde.”

*   *   *

John and Grace took Clotilde to an urgent-care facility where they set her nose and prescribed painkillers. The doctor eyed John suspiciously and asked to speak with Clotilde alone, as if John were an abusive boyfriend. No, John thought, it was the thin, gangly woman standing next to him who had broken Clotilde’s nose. Never cross Grace. That was a good axiom for life.

“Do all the women at the seraglio have stock certificates?” Grace asked again. She leaned against the wall, her hands on her hips. Clotilde sat on the edge of the examination table, her slight nervous movements rustling the stiff paper covering.

“Yes, most of them,” Clotilde said.

“And most of them will take us up on the offer if they could?” Grace said. “Transport to another universe. Any other universe?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll explain the offer to all the others?”

“Grace,” John said. “It’s dangerous if she goes back. They’ll know she’s been gone.”

“They have no idea,” Clotilde said quickly. “I could be gone for a week and no one will know.”

“But the black eyes?” John said. “They’ll know.”

“They won’t,” she said. She looked into John’s eyes. “I’ll be fine. Just drive me back tonight.”

The seraglio was in Pittsburgh, a night’s drive.

“We’ll need a bus,” John said. “Two buses. And drivers.” His head was boggling at the magnitude of the operation.

“That we can cover,” Grace said. “We’ll send a message to the settled universes. Tell them we need drivers for a caravan to Pittsburgh.” She laughed, and Clotilde smiled in return. “I’m sorry for attacking you, Clotilde. But when I learned who you were…”

“I understand.”

The nurse returned with her discharge papers and prescription.

“Let’s go,” John said. It was after seven already, and the drive would be close to four hours. He hated Pennsylvania! In all universes!

“Do you go by the name Clo?” Grace asked.

“Tilly,” Clotilde said. “You can call me Tilly.”

“I like that,” Grace said.

*   *   *

John Ten, Civil War John, and John Champ joined them in Grace’s minivan for the trip to Pittsburgh. Clotilde looked at the four Johns, her mouth agape.

“I understood, of course, but I’ve never seen a dup before,” she said. She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to use that offensive term.”

John laughed. “It’s not actually offensive to us,” he said.

“I knew it was true,” Clotilde said, “but none of us born here have ever witnessed what that meant.” She reached out to touch John Ten’s face. He blushed.

“Um,” he said. Grace made John drive, taking the passenger seat, and somehow positioning John Ten in the bench seat next to Clotilde.

“What are you doing?” John asked Grace softly.

“There’s no Casey in 7601,” she whispered back. “She seems like a nice girl.”

“You’re matchmaking him with an Alarian?” John asked.

“Shush!” Grace replied. “7601 is a fine universe for all of them to emigrate to.”

“But—”

“Really, you’re going to argue with me?”

“Okay, fine.”

John sped them across Ohio toward the Crimson Livery Rental in Wheeling, West Virginia. Grace had reserved four minibuses.

“You guys can drive these, can’t you?” Grace asked.

The Johns shared a look, scoffing at her. “We grew up on a farm!” John Ten said. “We can drive anything.” He glanced at Clotilde, making sure she was listening to him. She was. John tried not to roll his eyes.

But as he watched John Ten maneuver near Clotilde, speak so that she knew he was speaking, and always be ready to assist her, John reminded himself that there was no Casey in his universe. In 7322 and 7351 (called Universe Low and Universe Champ, since one was the lowest settled universe and in the other, John’s basketball team had won the state championship), John and Casey were an item for certain. And maybe they were in every universe where the two lived in Findlay. Prime had his Casey, and John had the Casey in 7650. It was almost as if it was always meant to be. Except for John Ten, who’d never had a chance to find his own Casey. But he certainly liked Clotilde.

John Ten agreed to lead the caravan since that meant Clotilde would ride with him. The four buses formed a convoy into Pennsylvania, and around midnight they pulled onto a dark road that led into a wooded lot on the east side of Pittsburgh. The road meandered until they reached a stone wall nearly three meters high. The road formed a circle in front of the gate, and all four buses lined up there as if it was last bell at some nocturnal grade school.

Clotilde emerged from her bus and walked to the gate. The metal gates were chained together, but she easily slipped between the two gates; the chain was too loose to hold them completely closed. There was no guard as far as John could tell. Clotilde disappeared into the darkness beyond the wall.

Minutes ticked by. Grace was silent beside him. John stood up and said, “This is driving me nuts.”

Grace caught his arm. “Hold on.” She peered intently into the darkness past the gate. “Here they come.”

A flash of white in the darkness caught his eye. He thought it was a plastic bag blowing in the wind, then two more shapes appeared, then a dozen. But no, it was a line of women walking toward them, dressed in white skirts that covered their bodies from neck to toes. Leading them was Clotilde. She produced a key and unlocked the gate.

John counted fifty-three women.

“Let’s go.”

John realized that it would be a tight fit. Each of the women had baskets, bags, or handfuls of clothes and objects—utensils, radios, books. As the group neared the buses, they stopped and stared at the Johns. They were all tall and nearly all blond, with the Nordic look that was common to the Alarians.

It was Grace who rushed forward and took the nearest by the hand.

“Let’s go, ladies,” she said. “We have a long way to go tonight. Let’s get going.”

She led the first woman to the nearest bus and placed her things in the back. After that, each of the Johns helped stow their belongings.

The women, silent at first, were suddenly loud and boisterous, jostling to get their things packed in the back. As John loaded baskets and bags, the women reached out and touched his face one by one.

“John Wilson,” one of them whispered. Then another said it. “John Wilson.”

“It’s John Rayburn, actually,” he said self-consciously.

“John Rayburn,” a woman said. “Thank you.”

John looked over to see each woman handing Grace a sheaf of paper, payment for their passage. Some women had no paper, but Grace waved them onto the minibuses anyway.

“Quiet, please,” John whispered.

“Don’t worry, sir,” someone said. He turned to see Clotilde walking toward him. “The single guard will not bother us.”

“Did you…?” John Ten asked.

“No,” Clotilde said, blushing. “He’s not dead. But his head will ache in the morning.”

They managed to load all of the women, fifty-four counting Clotilde, though some had to sit on the floor, leaning against the plush seats. It took far longer than John expected, but no alarm sounded, no guards emerged from the dark, no Gesalex appeared to demand the return of the women.

The caravan departed with the rumbling of diesel engines.

Beside him, Grace grinned.

“We saved them all,” John said.

Grace raised an eyebrow. She waved the sheaf of paper at John. “And we were well paid for it.”

“How much?”

“Six hundred and change shares of Grauptham House,” she said. “As soon as we have these notarized in the morning.”

“Of the thousand?”

“Yes, we own a majority share of Grauptham House.”

CHAPTER
18

The morning was a madhouse. The call had gone out to all the universes, and the pinball factory was the center of the craziness. Representatives from every settled universe were present, calming the Alarian women, calling to find notaries available on a Saturday morning, and making breakfast.

Luckily it was a weekend, and the factory was closed. The guard had been sent home, rather than allow him to see ten identical John Rayburns, six Graces, five Henrys, and three Caseys.

“Found one,” John Gore said. “Said she’ll be out here in two hours with her notary stamps.” Universe Gore—Universe 7512—was an environmental nightmare universe, where big business had sacrificed the planet for profits, leading to global temperatures that were noticeably higher and weather more chaotic than any other universe.

“That’s three notaries on the way,” Grace Home said. “We need to make sure all these women have identification.”

Clotilde nodded. “I made sure. We all have certificates of identification and social security numbers.”

“Just no driver’s licenses?” John asked.

“That was forbidden,” Clotilde said. “But I’d like to learn,” she added with a smile.

“I’ll teach you,” John Ten said.

John Prime and his Casey—Casey Prime—appeared, trailing a half-dozen Alarian women. They had raided the local Roebucks for clothing, suitcases, and toiletries, enough for all fifty-four of their guests.

“Let’s line them up alphabetically,” he said to Casey as he passed by.

“We’ll label their spot with their name,” Casey Prime replied. “Give them all a suitcase or duffel and the best match we can for size.”

“We’re going to need another trip,” Prime said, brushing past John with a nod.

In the little kitchenette in the back of the factory, a gaggle of Henrys and Graces were making pancakes on a dozen griddles they’d purchased at Callahan’s in Columbus on the way back.