My hand closes around the Firebird locket. I could take it off now if I wanted, since I don’t seem to need the reminders. But even the thought of being separated from it terrifies me. Instead I close my eyes and imagine that it could help me fly away to a new place, not this life or my old life, but some newer, shinier reality where everything is okay and nothing can hurt me ever again.
My legs seem to give out, and I flop down on the immaculately made bed. For a long time I lie there, curled in a ball, wishing to be home—my real home—more desperately than I’d known I could ever wish for anything.
4
AS I LIE HERE IN A DIMENSION NOT MY OWN, ON A STARK white bed more forbidding than comforting, I try to paint pictures of home in my mind. I want every face, every corner, every shadow, every beam. I want my reality painted over this one until I can’t see the blinding white any longer.
My home—my real home—is in California.
Our house isn’t on the beach; it’s nestled at the foot of the hills in the shade of tall trees. It’s always clean but never neat. Books are piled two deep on the shelves that line nearly every room, Mom’s houseplants thrive in every corner and nook, and years ago my parents covered the entire hallway with that chalkboard paint that’s meant for little kids’ rooms but works perfectly well for physics equations.
When I was little, my friends would get so excited when I told them that my parents did most of their scientific work at home, and they’d come in for the first time looking around for bubbling beakers or dynamos or whatever devices sci-fi shows had taught them to expect. What it mostly means is papers piled on every flat surface. Sure, lately we’ve had a few gadgets, but only a few. Nobody wants to hear that theoretical physics has less to do with shiny lasery stuff and more to do with numbers.
In the center of the great room is our dinner table, an enormous round wooden one Mom and Dad bought for cheap at a Goodwill back when Josie and I were little. They let us paint it in a rainbow of colors, just goop it on with our hands, because they loved hearing us laugh and also because no two human beings on earth ever cared less about how their furniture looked. Josie thought it was funny to smear swirls on with her fingers. For me, though—that was the first time I noticed how different colors looked when you blended them together, contrasted one next to another. It might have been the moment I fell in love with painting.
“I guess you think painting isn’t as important as physics,” I said to Paul as I sat at my easel, that one day he watched me work.
“Depends on what you mean by important,” he replied.
I could have thrown him out right then. Why didn’t I?
My memories become dreams as I fall asleep without knowing it. All night I see Paul’s face in front of mine, staring at me, questioning me, planning something I can’t guess. The next morning, when I wake up in this cold, foreign bed, I can’t remember the dreams. I only know that I tried to go after Paul but never could move.
Surprisingly, there’s no disorientation. From the first moment I open my eyes, I know where I am, who I am, and who I’m supposed to be. I remember what Paul did to my father, that I’ll never see Dad again. As I lie there amid the rumpled white sheets, I realize how little I want to move. My grief feels like ropes tying me down.
“Come along, sweetie!” Aunt Susannah calls. “Time to make yourself pretty!”
Not unless the technology in this dimension borders on the miraculous. I sit up, catch a glimpse of my crazy bedhead curls reflected in the window, and groan.
Apparently we’re going to a “charity luncheon,” though my aunt doesn’t remotely care about whatever charity it’s for; she doesn’t even remember what it is. It’s a society event—a place to see and be seen—and that’s all that matters to Aunt Susannah.
Still, I know I have to stay put and wait for Theo. If I’m going to stop Paul, I’ll need all the help I can get—and Theo is the only one who can help me. So, for one whole day, I have to lead this Marguerite’s life.
From what I can tell, it’s not much fun.
“Come on, dear.” Aunt Susannah trips along the cobblestone street in her high-heeled shoes, as nimble as a mountain goat. “We can’t be late.”
“Can’t we?” The idea of navigating a whole social event as another version of myself—it’s pretty intimidating.
She gives me a confused glance over her shoulder. “But I wanted you to get to know the duchess. Her niece Romola is at Chanel, you know. If you want to be a fashion designer someday, you’ve got to make some connections now.”
In this reality, I want to be a fashion designer? Well, at least that’s creative. “Right. Sure.”
“Don’t pretend you’re too sophisticated to be impressed by a title,” Aunt Susannah says. She gets like this—brisk and slightly contemptuous—whenever she’s challenged. “You’re an even bigger snob than I am, and you know it. Just like your mother.”
“What did you say?”