This is the first chance all evening I’ve had to be alone. Fingerband was in the kitchen, brainstorming “something major” for the summer’s-end shindig, while Papa flitted in and out. Newly minted groupies Sof and Meg tagged along, and when Thomas came back from his Book Barn shift, all three of them launched into a furious comic-book debate. (“Graphic novels,” Sof corrected me.) I lurked, cradling the warmth that Jason and I had a secret again.
Now it’s past midnight. I’m hypothesizing, trying to narrow down what the wormholes have in common.
Meow. On my desk, Umlaut is hopping around atop the stack of diaries. I get up, grabbing them—kitten and all—and carry them back to the bed. As I move around the room, I notice the kitchen light through the garden, still on.
The diaries. Grey wrote about the day I first kissed Jason. There was DRUNK ON PEONIES, the same day we met at the beach. If I can find some of the other wormholes, I could plot the dates. Establish a pattern.
I let myself fall into the pages, ripping my heart wide open with how the world once was.
Umlaut paws at the duvet as I find the day at the Book Barn, how Grey wrote RESHELVING WITH CARO before scribbling it out and writing my name. In last year’s diary, I find more of those asterisked *Rs, confettied on the pages. There are no *Rs in the earlier diaries, but I do find an entry about me and Thomas going on a school trip to the Science Museum, which ended in disgrace when he got trapped inside the space probe.
Seeing the words on the page reminds me that before we got in trouble, there was a projection of the galaxy on the ceiling. Lying on the floor, staring up, it was like …
Like being in the Milky Way.
It’s not just one diary entry that corresponds to a vortex. All the wormholes are here.
Are the diaries what’s causing everything? It can’t be a coincidence—even if it doesn’t explain the screenwipes, or the way the stars went out in the garden. This means I can only wormhole to days Grey wrote about. I don’t have to revisit his funeral.
I don’t have to see the day he died.
I grab the nearest textbook and flip through the index. Causality … Einstein … String theory … Weltschmerzian Exception … The words catch my eye, faintly familiar and already highlighted yellow. When I turn to the page, there’s just a brief description:
The Weltschmerzian Exception manifests itself between two points, where the rules of spacetime no longer apply. As well as vortex violations, observers would witness stop-start effects, something like a “visual reboot” as they passed between different timelines. Based on theories of negative energy or dark matter and developed by Nobel-winning physicist
The next page is torn out, cutting off the entry.
The rules of spacetime no longer apply …
Vortex violations—that has to mean wormholes, which shouldn’t be real. But I’ve witnessed them.
The Gottie H. Oppenheimer Principle, v2.0. The world has “visually rebooted” twice now, both times when Thomas mentioned an email. An email I never received. What if that’s because it doesn’t exist in my reality? Thomas and I share a timeline in common except for this, so every time he mentions it, the world reboots? Is that even possible?
As I put the diaries back on my desk, I notice the kitchen light is still on. Cursing Ned, I yank on my sneakers. The earth’s not getting anywhere near my toes, I think, stomping out into the night.
*
When I open the kitchen door, I discover Thomas. Baking.
While I’m still half out of my skin in surprise, he smiles, then goes back to painting something warm and golden-scented onto dough.
The past week clicks into place: the wonky bread, his first morning. The cinnamon muffin in my book bag. The mess in the pantry, which I’ve been blaming on Ned. And he never once came out and said, “It’s me.” He’s as secretive as I am.
“You’ve been making the bread. You bake,” I accuse.
“I bake, I stir, I cook, I roll!” He flips the brush in the air like a baton. We watch as it lands on the floor with a clatter, splattering honey on the tiles. “Oops.”
“Papa used that brush to varnish the table,” I tell him, and he stops trying to pick it up. “But why do you bake now? It’s almost one in the morning.”
“Jet lag.”
I point at the dough. “What’s that?”
“It’s when you travel through different time zones and it takes your body clock a while to adjust.” Thomas manages about two seconds of straight-facedness before his mouth wobbles and he cracks up at his own joke.
“Funny.” My mouth twitches. “I meant that.”
“Lavender bread. Here, smell.” He lifts the baking tray up and starts towards me. I shake my head and he shrugs, spinning on his heel to the oven instead, talking over his shoulder as he slides the loaf in. “Good with cheese—normal stuff, not your weird German ones.”
“Rauchk?se is normal,” I reply automatically, surprising myself. Thomas keeps shaking words out of me. Perhaps it’s friendship muscle memory. “You honestly bake now? This is what you do?”