“I see your point,” Jane says, “but really, I’m not afraid. It just took me by surprise, is all, but now I’m one hundred percent on board. Of course there are alternate dimensions. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for any travel right now, because I need to be building umbrellas. You’re not an artist, so you might not understand artistic inspiration, but believe me, I’ve got no choice but to answer the call.”
“Umbrellas,” says Mrs. Thrash, sounding intrigued. “It’s true I’m not an artist. But I am a scientist, which may, in fact, be similar in spirit. I’m an inventor and an explorer. I understand the compulsion to follow where one is called.” The first Mrs. Thrash seems to make a decision. “Well then. I won’t stand in your way.”
Jane finds it unsettling that the first Mrs. Thrash imagines she could stand in her way. She suspects she’d be a fool to waste this reprieve. “Allons-y,” she says, then jumps up from the bed. At the resulting head rush, she steadies her hand on Ravi’s shoulder. Then she gives him a farewell pat and heads for the spiral stairs. Jasper thumps onto the floor and follows. Together, Jane and Jasper make their way down to the tower’s base.
The door to the tower is heavy and the threshold slightly raised. Jane stumbles a little as she enters the corridor, then feels a sturdy hand, strong on her arm. It’s Ivy, who’s holding her camera and looking upon Jane with concern.
“You okay?” says Ivy. She’s wearing black leggings and a ratty blue sweater and the ceiling lights burnish the edges of her hair to gold. She’s solid, real.
“Yeah,” says Jane. “Thanks. I’m a little disoriented,” she says, waving vaguely in the direction of the first Mrs. Thrash’s door.
“Oh,” says Ivy, in a different tone of voice. “Oh, god. Did she—did you—”
“What?” says Jane. “No. No! I just met her, that’s all. And her—pets.”
“I’ve heard about the pets,” Ivy says.
“I’m trying not to think about them,” Jane says.
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“No, I mean, the fact is that I’d like to talk to you about it,” Jane says, realizing this to be true. Telling Ivy all about it would be a great comfort. “I’d love to, later, when my head is clear. I kind of—passed out when I saw the pets,” she says, pushing at her own forehead, “and I don’t feel like I’ve reassembled all my parts yet.”
“Can I bring you anything?” Ivy says. “Soup? Tea? Kumquats?”
“Kumquats?” says Jane in confusion. “You really have kumquats?”
“Mr. Vanders has a soft spot for them, so we keep some around when we can. But mostly I just wanted to tell you the word,” Ivy says, grinning.
Understanding, Jane counts the letters. “Plus, it has a q and a k,” she says. “High points.”
“Yep.”
Jane doesn’t want Ivy to feel like her servant. “I don’t need anything,” she says. “How’s the gala prep going? Need help?”
Ivy frowns down at the camera in her hands and Jane remembers the weird pictures she’s been taking. Ivy has secrets. Is there anyone in this house who doesn’t have secrets?
“You can come rescue me from it,” Ivy says, “later. We could go bowling or something, and talk about stuff.”
“Sure,” Jane says, just as the tower door opens again. Ravi emerges, the Monet under his arm.
“Hello, darling children,” he says.
“Don’t be a douche, Ravi,” says Ivy, with no malice.
Chuckling, he plants a kiss on her forehead. “Ivy-bean,” he says, “it’s nice to see the two of you getting acquainted. And you,” he says, leaning toward Jane. “You know where to find me if you decide you want company.”
Jane’s face is blazing with heat as he walks away. “Sorry,” she says to Ivy, not sure what she’s apologizing for.
“Don’t worry,” Ivy says. “I’m used to it.”
“Why doesn’t he hit on you?” Jane says. “You’re gorgeous.”
Ivy turns away before Jane can fully appreciate the wattage of her sudden smile. “He knows better,” she says. “See you later, Janie.”
*
Back in her morning room, the umbrella Jane was working on previously—the self-defense umbrella in brown and gold—no longer calls to her. She’s sure it matters to someone that Philip was lurking around with a gun and Phoebe was making allusions to the Panzavecchias and Patrick seemed in on it, et cetera, et cetera, but who cares? Ravi’s mother has velociraptors.
This circumstance calls either for a project so dull that she forgets everything, or so weird and complicated that all her anxiety can flow straight out of her and into it.
What, she wonders, would a transdimensional umbrella be like?
It would need to be able to blend into any scenario, in any kind of world, without drawing attention to itself.
Jane has never made a plain black umbrella before.
The canopy would need to be perfectly curved, the tips at the end of each rib and the ferrule on top perfectly straight. A plain black umbrella won’t have any frills or furbelows to distract from her mistakes. All her umbrellas have mistakes.
It’s going to be a disaster.
What would Aunt Magnolia say to that? It might. But you’ll learn something from it, sweetheart. Why not try?
All right then.
As Jane trims the shaft with her lathe, the world starts to make sense again. Explanations offer themselves. Pinky and Spotty are obviously not velociraptors. After all, since when is Jane familiar with every species of animal currently living on Earth? Why shouldn’t there be a small, lizardlike sort of animal that the first Mrs. Thrash, being delusional, found in the Sahara, or the Amazon, or the great desert of Rajasthan, then convinced herself are transdimensional velociraptors? Earth lizards, yes. With feathers.
And what had she said? Something about the house in the other dimension being in danger of being “boarded by pirates.” Ridiculous. Pirates attack ships, Jane thinks, not houses, and houses aren’t things to be boarded like ships. Anyway, pirates are something out of a bad fantasy story. The pirates offer the most solid proof that the first Mrs. Thrash is making everything up.
“Someone should help that woman,” Jane mutters to herself. It’s funny the way crazy people can cause you to start losing your own grasp on reality. Stunning, really, the things Jane had almost begun to believe. It’s so nice to be back in her morning room, surrounded by familiar things, with Jasper, a completely normal basset hound of Earth, snoozing under the bed in the other room. How wonderful to be making a deadly boring black umbrella. Her fingers move smoothly through her collection of runners.
Tu Reviens is making noises around her, pulling her out of herself. “Is someone shouting?” Jane says aloud, because it’s hard to distinguish the house’s moans, watery hums, and breaths of heat from other kinds of noises, and she thinks she might hear someone shouting.
When the shouting gets closer and resolves itself into Ravi’s voice, raised in anger, Jane goes to her gold-tiled bathroom, rifles through her toiletries, and unearths a pair of earplugs.
In her new, underwater sort of silence, Jane chooses a runner for the umbrella’s shaft. She threads ribs onto tying wire; she slices and sews gores together. It’s slow, focused work.
It should be meditative work, but Jane’s mind keeps spinning off. Had Aunt Magnolia ever stood in a boat, looking down at a deep, cold, unexplored stretch of ocean, and been terrified? Had she ever stood there, wrestling with herself over whether to stay in the boat or drop herself in?
As far as Jane knows, Aunt Magnolia had always eventually decided to drop herself in. Face what scared her and open herself to whatever she might learn.
Why not try, Janie?
Dammit, Jane thinks to herself, dropping her unfinished umbrella on the worktable. She covers her face with her hands and thinks to herself repeatedly, Dammit. She grips the table. When her fingertips find a rough patch, she opens her eyes to the discovery of a carving, a blue whale and its calf. Next, along the top edge of the table, she finds a carving of a peaceful whale shark and its babies. Ivy must’ve made this strong, beautiful table.
Jane takes a jellyfish breath.
Aunt Magnolia? Is this why you wanted me to come to this house? Is this what you wanted me to try?
Removing her earplugs and choosing two umbrellas, Jane leaves her rooms.
*