It was as if I inhabited a perverse universe at the intersection of Groundhog Day and a computer game. I knew what I had to do to get to the next level, so to speak . . . and I could do it, increasingly well, but dammit, that did not release me from the requirement of repeating it.
There were always slight variations, of course. For that was, in a way, the whole point of what Erszebet called the Strands. They were never exact clones. They were more like a family of similar pasts that all got to vote on what their shared future was going to look like. My next visitation, the witch’s house was sited slightly closer to the river; otherwise, all was the same. But the time after that, Goodman Griggs was blind, and his son drove the cart for him—and thus, being a young man responsible for the well-being of a household, he had not been out illicitly shooting rabbits as I arrived. The time after that, it was the younger ferryman who looked at me, not the older. In that Strand, the witch had only a son, but said she would pass the word on to any other witches she met, not that there were likely to be many in such a society. The next time around, the printer Stephen Day was drunk, and as I left the shop, I heard him slur to Hezekiah Usher, “There is something about that woman, she seems so familiar . . .”
Journal Entry of
Rebecca East-Oda
JUNE 22
Temperature about 75F, pleasantly humid. Slight SW breeze. Barometer falling.
Seedlings planted in container garden on front steps: kale, lettuce, seed onions. Tea roses transplanted to south side of house to avoid further damage to root system; hate to do that this time of year, but no choice, really.
The digging continues. Tristan has ceased claiming the aeration is good for the soil. Has offered to have fertilizer mixed in after the final dig. Neighbors registering complaints about the early morning noise. Cats stressed even though they are strictly inside.
Today was the fifth dig. Each time we collect to watch Tristan at work, the glamour is stronger. It feels almost as if, when I attempt to look directly into the hole, some force shunts my vision aside. A very strange sensation, but Erszebet says it is a good sign. Frank is pleased with himself for coming up with an acronym: GLAAMR, for Galvanic Liminal Aura Antecedent to Manifold Rift. I hope he is not just being optimistic.
It is clearly exhausting for Mel to make these excursions day after day, but she keeps her chin up. Tristan getting increasingly agitated (in a contained but obvious way). “Can you make it happen any faster?” he asked Erszebet today.
Erszebet’s answer: “No.” And then continued, as if the same conversation, “I am ready to go to Hungary now to spit on the graves of my enemies.”
Tristan: “We’ve already had this conversation. We need money. What we’re doing now, that’s how we get money.”
“I know, I was present at the rude idiot’s office in Washington, DC, when you volunteered me for this indentured servitude.”
A pause as he reclaimed his cool. “The sooner we’re successful, the sooner we fly you to Hungary to spit on the graves of your enemies.”
“I cannot alter the laws of the universe, even if you tell the idiot I can. But when I Send back Melisande this time, I will try very hard to summon her toward a Strand that is especially conducive to change. That is the most I can do.”
Diachronicle
DAY 335 (COLONIAL BOSTON DTAP, 1640)
In which I am foundationally challenged
FOR WHAT I HOPED MIGHT be the final repetition, I just wanted to hurry through the motions and be done with it. I realized the witch was aware of all my other visitations, but referred to them only occasionally and only very obliquely—they were, in a sense, all happening at the same moment in time to different versions of her. And to all of her non-witch neighbors, of course. But part of what it was to be a witch, I was beginning to realize, was that all of those different versions were somehow in closer touch with one another than was the case for non-witches. So on this visit I was less conversational, got out the door faster—finally (to my great relief, uncomfortable though it was) borrowing the witch’s corset. Happily, Goodman Griggs was also leaving earlier, and his ox had more oomph to his step as the sun had not gotten to its hottest point yet. I was over the river in record time, walked out of the shop holding the Bay Psalm Book scant minutes later, and even the cooper was prompt and respectful (perhaps because I was finally dressed like a goody rather than a hussy). The day felt like the last fortnight of high school, senior year: I had to show up, but no Powers On High expected me to do anything but phone it in.
I was in such a good mood, and now so familiar with the way, that truly I was operating on autopilot as I approached the creek that would lead me to the boulder. This may account for why I did not quite register that something was suddenly extremely different: the creek, which had heretofore dwindled in size and force as I approached the boulder, was now running rapidly and loudly. I looked at it . . . and stopped in my tracks. It had been recently dredged and the banks cut back to allow for a faster flow. I was moving upriver, so looked ahead to see how far this man-made alteration went.
I saw the foundation to a building. My jaw dropped open in shock. The earth and vegetation all around the boulder had been cleared for many yards, and the boulder itself incorporated into the half-built foundation, although it was of course much higher than the other foundation stones, high enough to be a section of wall for the ground floor. The site was unmanned at present, but there were stacks of lumber and shaped rock; instruments and tools rested on canvas tarps, and beyond the boulder, near the stream, was an enormous mixing vessel with bags of sand around it. The stone foundation must have cost a fortune; hewing and bringing in the stones alone would have been an ambitious undertaking.
What was this thing? How could it have come out of absolutely nowhere, and what was I to do about it? Clearly I could not bury the book here. With a sigh of resignation, I collected myself and began to slog back toward the Cambridge palisades. The tall gates being unmanned by daylight, I let myself through and headed back to the bookseller’s.
Merchant Usher and Printer Day had just finished arguing, with Usher apparently the victor, for Day was gloomily boxing up his stacks of books. I begged pardon and placed the bucket down so they would not think to ask about it.
“What might be the building under construction up the creek, off the Watertown Road?” I asked.
The merchant laughed without malice—or humor. “That is the most ambitious undertaking the devil ever spurred anyone to. It is to be a maple sugaring factory. A very enterprising company from back home has decided to stake a claim in the future fortune of the colony, and has determined that sugar maples are what Providence has provided to enrich us.”
“The name of the company?”
“The Boston Council for Boston,” he said.