“Hmm?” I say.
“So, say your Closing comes in three months,” Alice says. “Maybe you only have three more months before you’re shut out of these alternate realities, which are sort of like lunar eclipses. Multiple worlds overlapping, but it’s temporary.”
“Okay.” I already feel panic coursing through my veins at the thought of being shut out of Beau’s world.
“In that case,” Alice continues, “it’s possible Grandmother wants you to do something in the other world. Maybe that’s what the time limit’s for.”
“Maybe,” I agree. “There’s only one way to know for sure, though. I have to find her.”
“And your friend—Beau—has he ever encountered her?”
I shake my head. “No, but he says he’ll help me find her.”
“You think he can?” she asks, one dark eyebrow arching.
“I don’t know. But he has a lot better control over this. He’s been going between the two worlds since he was little.”
“Bring him here next time,” Alice says. “We’ll see what parallels we can draw between the two of you.”
“I’ll try,” I say noncommittally. I can’t imagine Beau agreeing to be cross-examined by Alice, especially not after spending his whole life thinking he was losing his mind.
“In the meantime,” Alice says, “I still think we’re heading in the right direction. I feel it. The key to getting Grandmother back is in your mind. Dr. Wolfgang just has to find a way to get at it. Your brain’s like Alcatraz in its heyday.”
“I thought it was a Walmart.”
“A maximum-security Walmart,” she says. “One where otherworldly visions and teenage football players are welcome, and hypnotherapists panning for trauma are most definitely not. We’ll bulldoze your brain if we have to—we’re getting in there.”
“Speaking of getting somewhere,” I say, “I need a ride home.”
She glances at her watch, then throws up her hands. “Who am I kidding? I’ll make time.” She squeezes between her desk and her bookshelf and grabs her keys off a tray balanced precariously on a stack of papers. Suddenly she freezes and grabs my arm. “Brother Black and Brother Red,” she gasps.
“What?”
“Brother Black and Brother Red—the story you recorded for me last week. Holy dear freaking Grandmother.”
“Alice—use your words.”
“Two different versions of the same person,” she breathes. “The answer was in the story.”
Goose bumps prickle up along my skin beneath my still-damp clothes.
It’s all in the stories. Everything. The truth. The whole world, Natalie. That girl jumped through the hole, not knowing what would happen, and the whole world got born.
18
I tell Megan everything that’s happened since Beau showed up outside my house, leaving very little out. Every few words bring a new gasp from her mouth, and when I’m finished, the first thing she blurts out is “Grandmother is so God. Or a spirit. Or an angel. Or the missing link—ooh, an alien. No, wait, I think God.”
“I don’t know what she is,” I say. “But she’s not like us. I know that. She’s something different, and she’s helping me.”
“So do you think it’s Beau?” Megan asks. She’s panting as she talks, feet audibly pounding against the treadmill in her dormitory basement. “The guy you have to save, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “There’s only one Beau. If Alice is right, if the story of Brother Black and Brother Red has something to do with all this, I’d guess I’m looking for someone there’s two of.”
“Oh my God,” Megan gasps. “What do you think the other me’s like? That is so freaking freaky.”
“Not nearly as pretty,” I joke. “Probably a real bitch.”
“Probably,” Megan agrees. “Do you think she’s at Georgetown?”
“I guess? I don’t see why not.”
“This sort of makes me feel like I’m going to puke.”
“Could that be the torture device you’re running on?”
“It’s certainly not helping.”
“Hey, so tell me about things there,” I say.
“Intense,” she says. “The girls are nice. Some like to party. Some never do anything except work out. There’s a sophomore named Camila who’s pretty cool, kind of moderate.”
“Don’t you mean horrible and hideous and nothing like me?”
“I mean, if I were speaking comparatively, yes,” Megan says. “But without my soul mate standing next to her, Camila seems all right.”
“I’m glad you’re making friends,” I say, despite the pang in my chest.
“You don’t have to be,” she says. “I won’t feel bad if you loathe them on principle.”
“Honestly, I kind of do.”
“And I promise to feel the same insane, possibly unhealthy jealousy when you go to Brown and all your friends are genius history buffs with gender-ambiguous names like Kai and Fern and The Letter Q.”