“I figured,” said Freddy, who had just begun to realise. “There were even clues. We kept noticing there was someone else in the house.”
She was going to have to start thinking in terms of the doubled timeline. Was this the way it had been for Josiah the whole time they had been travelling? Had he constantly been worrying about where everyone had been the last time? At least he hadn’t had to hide from himself.
To hide from himself. Oh damn it—
“Behind the hedge,” said Freddy. “I’m listening. Right now!”
“You’re what?” said Josiah.
“Listening to this. To us. In our yard,” she hissed.
“Well,” said Josiah, “we should go over to the other side of our yard, then. Are you going to be forgetting such important details often?”
“Shut up,” said Freddy, but she followed him quite meekly around to the other side of the house. She remembered walking around the hedge to look for the people who had been talking; she and Josiah would be out of sight by the time that happened.
*
They got into the house through an open basement window. Josiah admitted his future self had told him it would be open. “Isn’t that a paradox?” said Freddy.
“Please stop trying to analyse the time travel,” growled Josiah, yanking the window up. “If you start going on about stable time loops and the possibility of killing one’s own grandfather, I shall smack you.”
The window led to the laundry room, which contained a boiler, a run-down-looking washer and dryer, and nothing else. They climbed the stairs to the equally empty main floor, then went up another flight. Josiah led her into a bedroom at the front of the house. “This is where we were last time,” he said. Freddy nodded.
They passed the time by emptying their bags and taking an inventory of what they had brought back from their travels. There wasn’t much. Josiah had several articles of clothing, a bork, a handful of pearls a random Greek princess had given him, a jewelled comb, half a wheel of cheese, and the knife he had been carrying since medieval Sweden. Freddy had several more articles of clothing, a bork of her own, a sling, Ling’s sewing kit, a small book of German poetry, and the microgun she had picked up in Filbert’s time. Josiah tried to take the microgun away from her. “No,” said Freddy, “that’s mine.”
“It doesn’t belong in this time,” he said.
She just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes at him. “I’m not going to use it. I want it as a souvenir. I won’t let it fall into the hands of mad scientists; I promise.”
Reluctantly, he handed it back to her. “Your sister is a mad scientist, so you may find that difficult.”
Freddy was trying to think of a sufficiently scathing reply when something went bang very loudly outside.
“The accident.” Josiah scrambled to his feet. “Here we go.”
They watched it all through the window. It wasn’t easy to see—the trees got in the way—but they caught glimpses of Freddy, Roland, and Mel having their first interaction with Josiah and Cuerva Lachance. It was only when everybody started carting stuff into the house that Freddy could finally see the five of them clearly.
She found she was clutching her key again. She had missed Mel. She had known that, but this made it worse. Her sister was right there, and Freddy couldn’t go to her. There was another Freddy down below. Watching herself was strange as well. She looked so … small. Next to her, Roland hulked huge and awkward. She squeezed the key again. She wouldn’t even have minded having a conversation with Roland. Her anger with him was a year and a half in the past.
About fifteen minutes into the moving session, Freddy heard someone mount the stairs. She and Josiah were just turning towards the door when the other Josiah flung it open.
He glared at them malevolently through his mask of drying blood. “Of course this would happen.” He backed out of the room and slammed the door shut. They heard him throw himself back down the stairs, snarling, “You’re not to go upstairs. No one is to go upstairs ever.”
“I was in a bad mood,” Josiah observed.
Josiah 2 came back later, once the unloading was done and everyone else was eating pie on the front porch. “All right,” he said in a low voice, “this is going to be tricky.”
“We know that, thanks,” said Josiah. “It can’t be avoided.”
“Obviously,” said Josiah 2. “Is Thingy there going to be able to keep out of the way?”
“As far as I can remember, yes,” said Freddy.
“Your memories are useless. All we know is that you’re able to keep out of your way. Well, it will have to do.” He looked at his other self. “You need a haircut.”
Josiah fingered the ponytail he had grown during their travels. “You can do it later.”
“And she needs a … well, words cannot express what she needs,” said Josiah 2. “There’s going to be a right fuss over that.”
“Over what?” said Freddy.
The two Josiahs exchanged glances. “Tell you later,” they said together.
“No,” said Freddy, “tell me now.”
“We prefer to save the hysteria for when there aren’t ducklings quacking around on the ground floor,” said Josiah 2.
“Yeah, well,” said Freddy heatedly, “by this point, if I’m remembering in the right order, one of them is right on the other side of the door!”
Josiah 2 stared at her. “Why didn’t you say so before?” he said, and leapt for the door, which he wrenched open. Freddy caught a glimpse of a small, startled girl standing in the opening, blinking up at Josiah 2. She took a step back. “Who—?”
“No one,” Josiah 2 barked. “I was practising my impressions. I plan to join the circus. I told you to stay downstairs!”
He slammed the door behind him. They heard him tugging Freddy 2 back down the stairs. Freddy and Josiah moved to the window and watched Josiah 2 drive the others away. It was surprisingly difficult not to go running after them.
Josiah 2 returned a moment later, Cuerva Lachance in tow. “All right,” he said, “now we can deal with the hysteria. Quack away.”
Cuerva Lachance was doing a great big Cuerva Lachance smile. “Hello, curly-haired one.”
“Hi,” said Freddy. “What’s going on?”
This time, there was a three-way exchange of glances. “She’s very unobservant,” said Josiah 2.
“Be fair,” said Josiah. “It’s been kind of frantic lately. I trust you made the mark?”
“I’m not a complete idiot,” said Josiah 2, “so yes.”
Freddy said loudly, “I hate to interrupt, but what’s going on?”
Josiah twisted his face into what he may have meant as an expression of concern. She would have liked to tell him he wasn’t fooling anyone. “On September twenty-seventh, what are you planning to do?”
“Go home,” said Freddy.
“Good plan. Good plan,” said Josiah. “However … you may have to be prepared to deal with a few … hiccups.”
“Hiccups?”
“Well, it’s been a year and a half, after all. I mean … there are things … you need to…”