“Have you a share in it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I was invited to invest, and I confess I was tempted, to engage in something so forward-thinking. But I fear it is a bit too forward-thinking. Every joint-stock company of the New World so far has failed, or been taken over by the crown, and I see no sign this one should fare any better. When the town requires palisades for safety because all the American tribes are at each other’s throats, and the factory is half a mile’s walk outside the palisades . . . I fear they are doomed.”
“’Tis a wondrous thing,” the printer said to me, dismissing Usher’s concern. “Any bettering in our circumstances is to be applauded.”
“Only when it is done well, Stephen,” said Hezekiah gently, as if in regretful rebuke.
Thanking them, but rather flummoxed, I left the keg on the step of the booksellers, as it was not worth it to cart it back to Goody Fitch’s, who would then be left with what to do with it. I took the ferry back across and walked in great agitation the now-familiar route to the witch’s home.
Journal Entry of
Rebecca East-Oda
JUNE 28
Temperature 70F, raining steadily.
Seedlings: no sign of germination, but it is too soon. Flame azaleas and peonies a smidge beyond peak. Herb garden thriving. Roses seem adjusted to new spot. The rain helps.
A complication has arisen in the project, that being the foundation of a factory having sprung up where this house now stands. Tristan phoned, asked us to come in to brainstorm. Frank was distracted poking about with the quipu-like object I had brought down from the attic, and I did not want to interrupt him, so I told them to come to us. We settled in Frank’s office and I made a fire, for ambience. A summer thunderstorm was passing through, and rain was lashing the windows.
Melisande was exasperated, Tristan grim. Frank curious, when brought up to speed, and questioning Erszebet, who demonstrated boredom.
“Does that mean there is a parallel universe in which our house does not exist?” Frank asked Erszebet.
“I do not know if it is parallel, I have never measured it,” she said. “But clearly, something like that. If I were you, I would not try to return to that world.”
“Why did you send me there in the first place?” Mel demanded, cross. She sat closest to the fire and held her hands right above the flames, still chilled from her return. Calico trying and failing to convince her to scratch his head.
“You think I have control over the universe?” said Erszebet. “If I had such control, I would not have allowed magic to be ruined in the first place. There is no certainty. There is never certainty.”
“How do we get rid of the factory? What are our options?” Tristan asked.
Erszebet said, “You cannot get rid of it, you can only uncreate it.” Then explained that the usual means of resolving such problems is to go back to an even earlier time and prevent the conflict, by slightly (and multiple times) altering something prior to the event in question. All shoulders in the room sagged at this notion.
“Could we not simply go back to 1640 and try again?” I suggested. “There has only been one reality in which there was a maple syrup factory, and many more in which it didn’t exist, so perhaps we can simply continue the effort in another Strand without the factory—sidestep the problem, so to speak.”
“You can try that, but clearly things are tending toward the factory being there, so I recommend that you address the factory.” She yawned expressively to make sure we’d noticed how dull this sort of talk was.
“Why?” asked Frank, who was as usual the least exasperated person in the room. “Why are things tending toward the factory being built?”
“Yes, what are the mechanics here?” demanded Tristan, almost interrupting him.
“There are no mechanics,” said Erszebet disdainfully. “It is magic. Magic does not speak your language, Mr. Military-Physicist. Study it as hard as you wish, some part of it will always elude you. I am giving you the best advice there is.”
“You are saying,” said Tristan (patience exaggerated), “that we must go back to a time before the factory was built, and prevent the factory from being built.”
“Several times.”
Tristan swore under his breath.
“All of this effort for an unreliable result is why time travel has never been a smart use of magic,” she added in a superior tone. “I knew it would be a terrible way to try to influence anything.”
“Why didn’t you say that when I first suggested it to Frink?” Tristan demanded.
“Agreeing to try it was the quickest way to earn a salary, which gives me a chance to go to Hungary and spit on the graves of my enemies.” She added darkly, “Not all my enemies are in Hungary, you know,” and with that glanced briefly toward Mel, who was staring at her hands poised just above the flames and did not notice.
I requested Erszebet to help me with the tea, and, once alone in the kitchen with her, asked why she had shot that look at Mel.
She tossed her dark hair back over one shoulder. “I am only still alive because of Melisande.” She is so beautiful, and so very present in her young body, that it is continually difficult to remember how old she really is.
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“There is no benefit to my staying so long,” she said. “Now I am treated like Tristan Lyons’s trained dog. His Asset. If I had died in natural time, I would be at peace now. This”—gesturing out the window toward my ruined garden plot—“is not what I ever believed it would be like when I finally could perform magic again, and in the meantime I have survived one century and a half of unnatural alienation and boredom and loss.”
I did not know what to say. I could not blame her the bitterness.
“So,” she continued briskly, gesturing now toward her own splendid figure, in tight-waisted sundress and heeled sandals. “I am going to have some enjoyment now, to make up for all those years. But even so”—and here she darkened—“I am only making the best of a bad situation. And I am in that situation because of Melisande Stokes.”
“Whatever it was that happened, I’m sure she meant you no harm,” I said quickly.
“Neither did the first photographer,” said Erszebet, and walked briskly back toward the study.
I feel for her, deeply, but I wonder if she is a reliable participant in this undertaking. Which is worrisome, as she is the only one involved who is irreplaceable.
Diachronicle
DAYS 335–352 (EARLY JULY, YEAR 1)