Beyond the Reflection’s Edge (18 page)

Nathan slapped the mirror. “We almost did it! We were so close!”

Jumping to his side, Kelly displayed the violin in her hands. “Can you try again?”

Clara pointed at the mirror. “You heard your father. It sounds like all this dimensional travel and poking around and whatnot is putting them in danger.”

Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “It looked like he was already in trouble, like someone was coming.”

“I know!” Nathan backpedaled and flopped into his desk chair. What else could he do? Without another clue to go on, every option seemed like it ended at a brick wall with no fire escape ladder in sight. But at least now there was hope. At least his parents were alive.

He glanced at the digital clock on his desk. Still before noon. They spent maybe twelve hours in that other world and came back only a few minutes later than when they left. After shaking his head wearily he looked up at Kelly. “You got any ideas?”

“Not a clue.” She smoothed out her safari shirt and drew closer. “With the whole clothes–swapping thing and clones of us getting murdered, there’s some serious sh —“She winced but continued with barely a pause. “Some serious stuff going on. Maybe we really did travel through time.”

Nathan shook his head. It couldn’t have been time travel, but he was too tired to argue the point. After all, how could they have made drastic changes in the past without affecting the present? He shifted his gaze toward Francesca. Not only that, now they had his ten-year-old mother in his bedroom. If
she stayed with him, then he couldn’t have been born. Time travel just didn’t make sense, but, then again, neither did anything else. What other options were there? She couldn’t have come back to life and then aged backwards.

Taking the violin from Kelly, Nathan got up and put it away. “It looks like our only plan is to find the email Dad mentioned.”

“But was that your father?” Kelly asked. “There was more than one Nathan. Maybe that was the other Nathan’s father. Maybe he’s the Nathan they were talking about.”

Nathan sagged his shoulders. She was right. How could he know who they were for certain? If there was another Nathan, there had to be another set of parents, and they probably experienced the same events in their lives, even the stuff about Quattro.

He thinned out his lips. “Thanks for the uplifting theory.”

“Sorry. I’m just looking at all the angles.”

Francesca pulled on Nathan’s sleeve. “Can we find my mother now?”

Bending over, he lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “We’ll do our best. I promise.”

“Is there anything else we might have missed?” Clara asked. “A puzzle piece you might have overlooked?”

He pulled the newspaper from his back pocket. “There is one clue …” Unfolding it, he showed the article to Clara. “Do you know anything about this murder back in nineteen-seventy-eight?”

Clara’s eyes darted back and forth across the page. “No. Nothing like this ever happened.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I attended this concert. Your mother’s teacher, Dr. Malenkov, and his wife were the violinists in one of the quartets, so I remember it well. Since my dear husband was a percussionist, I was quite involved in the orchestra social circle. Eventually
that’s how I first met your mother, when she joined the CSO as its concertmaster at the age of twenty-one.”

Nathan creased the newspaper and laid it on the bed. He stared at the article as it lay open, searching for more than the scant information in the wrinkled type. Since Dr. Malenkov never returned from the concert, maybe he really
was
one of the victims. Could he and his wife have replaced the pieces of Rosetta from his dream? He tapped Kelly’s shoulder. “Let’s see if Dad has any emails from Dr. Malenkov.”

Kelly scooted the mouse pointer and pressed the button. A list of messages appeared. There were several from Nikolai Malenkov.

He joined Kelly’s hand with Francesca’s. “Kelly can you and your father get some lunch for Francesca while Clara and I look at these emails?”

“Sure.” She looked at Tony who was still glaring at the mirror. “Daddy what can we whip up for lunch?”

Half closing one eye, he gazed at the ceiling. “We have a lot of tuna-banana salad left over and buffalo wings marinated in ketchup and mayonnaise.”

Taking Francesca along, she reached for her father’s hand. “C’mon. We’re going on a safari hunt in the freezer.”

As they walked down the hall, Tony’s voice echoed, “I think we have some eels still frozen from the fishing trip. What do you think? Serve the eels with some of my special rattlesnake sauce?”

“No! Don’t you dare!”

After bringing in a chair from another bedroom, Nathan and Clara sat together at his desk, studying his father’s inbox. The messages from Dr. Malenkov focused on his visit to Chicago, expressing his concern about attending the shareholders’ meeting even though he had no interest in the company. Since he hadn’t seen Francesca in so long, he just wanted to hear her
play. Another email asked if her favorite flowers were still white roses, but there seemed to be no hidden messages, at least nothing Nathan could spot.

Clara pointed at an icon on the screen. “Looks like there’s something in the draft folder.”

He clicked on it. “One message. It’s addressed to Dr. Malenkov. It was never sent.”

They both leaned close and read it silently.

Nathan clenched his fist. This had to be the email they were supposed to find, locked away in the draft folder where it couldn’t be intercepted during transmission.

Clara’s eyes darted back and forth as she read the message again. “Very interesting. Alternate realities that are out of phase with each other on the timeline.”

Nathan propped a pencil eraser on his chin. “Just like I thought. We didn’t travel through time. We went to another dimension.”

“That’s what pure logic demands, but it doesn’t explain your dead bodies.”

“Maybe it does. Maybe there are exact copies of everyone in the other world. Our copies died over there and somehow got transported over here.” He pointed his pencil at the mirror and shrugged. “When we came back, they got zapped into their world again. Two corpses, special delivery.”

Clara jerked off her glasses. “Nathan!”

He squinted at her. “What?”

“You’re acting like it’s no big deal. A couple of dead kids, who happen to look just like you and Kelly are getting thrown back and forth like an old pair of shoes, and you’re as cool as
a cod.” She set her fingers against her neck. “I put my hand on their lifeless pulses. I mopped their hair back from their ashen faces and stared at the scorched pits where their eyes used to be.” Pointing her glasses at him, she gave him a stern glare. “You need a dose of reality Nathan Shepherd, and a heaping bowl of compassion.”

Nathan lowered his head, shaking it slowly. What could he say? Clara had nailed him to the wall. Letting out a long breath, he looked up at her. “You’re right … as usual. I guess I never felt like the other Nathan and Kelly were real. I only saw them in the mirror, like it was a movie or something.”

“And let’s not forget this.” She tugged on the sleeve of his safari shirt. “These aren’t your clothes. Or, then again, maybe they
are
yours. Maybe you’re really the Nathan from the other dimension.”

“That’s impossible.” He nodded toward his reflection. “I remember being here before I went over there. That place didn’t even have the mirror, and I never saw this shirt before this morning.”

“Fair enough. You’re the Nathan I know. But there are still mysteries aplenty. I don’t understand what your mother was doing. How did the light appear in her eyes? And what was that dark chamber she was in? With all the reflections and colors, it looked almost like the house of mirrors.”

“You’re right. That was too weird.” He tapped the pencil on his knee. Should he tell her about sometimes seeing light in his own eyes when he looked in the mirror? But how could that help? She couldn’t possibly know why it happened. And the bigger mystery was all that stuff Mom said about playing a huge violin. She was great at storytelling, but she sounded dead serious.

“So,” Nathan continued, “Dad says Dr. Simon maintains a steady state. Any idea what that means?”

“Maybe. Here’s how I would piece the puzzle together.”
She set a finger on the screen. “The part about sealing the hole makes me think someone figured out a way to open passages between the dimensions. Somehow this hole threatens to bring about some kind of catastrophic state called interfinity, and Dr. Simon was keeping that from happening.”

“But he killed them! Why would he be on Dad’s side, keeping a steady state?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“And now Simon’s dead, so interfinity is probably on its way.” He kept his eyes on the message, reading it absentmindedly. “Didn’t you say Dad did an assignment for a company called Interfinity?”

“Yes. And that reminds me. With all the excitement, I forgot to tell you that the police called this morning. They found your parents’ bodies, so I have to go to Chicago early tomorrow morning to finalize the funeral arrangements. I’ll pay Interfinity a visit after everything’s settled.”

Nathan sank in his seat. “Now I’m more confused than ever. I don’t know if I’m an orphan, if I’m trying to rescue my parents or someone else’s, or if I’m just chasing after ghosts.” He glanced at the suitcase on the floor of his closet, still not quite unpacked. “What time do we leave?”

“We?” She patted his leg. “You have to stay here.”

“What? Why?”

She rose to her feet and stretched, speaking through an extended yawn. “You have to register for school Monday.”

“Can’t school wait till we get back?”

“Not a chance. We set up your secret identity and filed your transcript, and they already know you’ll be out on Tuesday for family matters, or so we told them. When you and Kelly come to Chicago, we’ll talk about what I find at Interfinity. Since your father says it’s dangerous for you to be peeking through dimensional peepholes, you might as well stay here.”

Nathan slumped his shoulders. “Is Kelly’s father coming to the funeral?”

“I asked him to, but he says he has to stay here. Kelly will have to drive.”

“Why? I have my license.”

“Because it’s their car.” She planted a finger on his chest. “And you’d better get used to the idea. Tony rides his motorcycle to his morning shift at a machine shop, so he doesn’t get to the school for coaching until the afternoon. That means Kelly will be driving every day.”

Nathan sank another inch in his chair. “I guess I can deal with that.”

“Of course you can. She’s a sweetheart. She even volunteered to help you through the registration process, and she’ll probably want to introduce you to her friends.”

Nathan tightened his grip on the pencil but said nothing. Was the prospect of meeting Kelly’s friends supposed to cheer him up?

The clatter of a metal pan rang from the hallway, making him swing his head around. “That reminds me. What are we going to do with Francesca?”

“What choice do we have? I should take her with me. She can’t stay here by herself, and we can’t very well send her home.”

“Yeah. With Gordon and Mictar stalking her, it won’t be safe for her here or there.” As he replayed their escape from Francesca’s house, he shook his head sadly. It looked like the burglar killed her mother just like in his own dimension, but now he knew his mom escaped thirty years ago by hiding under the bed. Obviously, Gordon and Mictar had planned to kill this new Francesca and make sure the burglar got the blame.

So that meant he had at least done something right. Even though he had altered the events in Francesca’s dimension, he had saved her from Mictar. As goose bumps rose all along his
skin, he shuddered and looked up at Clara. “I don’t want to think about what would happen if that creep got hold of her.”

Clara clapped her hands lightly. “But he didn’t, and we’ll make sure we keep her safe. I’ll take her with me to Chicago. I’m sure she won’t be any trouble at all.”

He rose from his seat and gave Clara a serious stare. “She’s my mother. Take good care of her.”

“I’m going to warn her about the crazy son she might have some day.” Giving him a sly wink, she turned toward the bedroom door. “Let’s go and see what Kelly’s cooking up.”

“Wait.” Nathan picked up a screwdriver from the top of his cabinet and took it to the mirror. Kneeling at the bottom left corner, he inserted the blade end behind the square he had placed in the matrix.

Clara walked closer. “What are you doing?”

“This is the piece Dad gave me, but it won’t come loose.” Sliding the blade in as far as he could, he pushed against the handle. “If I’m supposed to look in the mirror whenever I get into trouble, I’m taking it to school with me, and I don’t want it creating any of those portal views by itself.”

The square popped loose into his free hand. “Got it!”

A burst of light flashed from the mirror, making a hollow popping sound. Like a splash in a pond, ripples of radiance emanated from the center, fading as they approached the edges. After a few seconds, the light disappeared.

“Well,” Clara said, setting her hands on her hips, “I think the big mirror’s back to normal.”

“Yeah, it’s weird.” He balanced the extricated piece on his palm, eyeing it as he turned it slowly. “I feel like I’m holding another world in my hand, like there’s billions of people in there who have no idea that someone’s got them all teetering in his grasp.”

She shook her head. “That’s too deep for me to think about, especially on an empty stomach.”

“Then let’s get some grub.” Tucking the mirror under his arm, Nathan climbed to his feet and headed for the hall. “But I hope we’re not having eel pie for dinner.”