“Well, what were you doing bringing them over?” said Josiah.
“I didn’t know we were having a multiple-self party in the second-floor bathroom,” Josiah 2 spat. “Get Loki out of here before he burns down the neighbourhood.”
“It’s not my fault I like fire. Maybe I’ll set all the water on fire, just because I can’t,” said Loki.
Cuerva Lachance and Ban looked at each other and moved together towards Loki. Ban glanced into the bathtub, straight at Freddy. “Everything’s backwards,” she remarked. Then all three of them were gone.
*
Several hours later, deep into the night, Freddy and Josiah sat side by side on the stairs, waiting for Cuerva Lachance to discover the pipe organ.
“Why don’t we just stop her now?” said Freddy. “Or tell the other Josiah?”
Josiah said, “Because that’s not what we do.”
“That’s just an excuse,” said Freddy. “Nothing’s stopping us but you saying we don’t do it. We could change what happens. We could—”
“What?” He turned to look at her. “Nail boards over the door? Do you think Cuerva Lachance can’t get into a sealed room? Warn the other me so he can stand in front of the door all night? She’ll get past him. Nothing we do now is going to change anything.”
“Just telling him would be changing things.”
Josiah shook his head. “We don’t.”
The rules of time travel, whatever they were, made her feel like a puppet. “I don’t understand why he couldn’t stop her if he knew.”
“She’s Cuerva Lachance. She doesn’t respect rules. I do. What’s not to understand?” said Josiah, picking moodily at the carpet runner.
“It seems as if she has all the power.”
“No, not all of it. If she did, the planet would have been space rubble for several thousand years now. She’s dominant at the moment, but I’m sometimes able to … persuade her to be more reasonable than she naturally is.”
“And she’s sometimes able to … persuade you to be less reasonable than you naturally are,” said Freddy.
He made faces for a moment or two, then admitted, “Maybe.”
“I just think we should try to change things, is all,” said Freddy.
“I keep telling you we can’t.”
“Then it’s like we’re fated. Trapped.”
“No, it’s not—” But then he paused. “Too late. I hear the door to the tower.”
They sat there, tense and resigned, and listened as Cuerva Lachance barricaded herself inside the tower, pulled out most of the organ’s stops, and began to play. The sound was even more appalling here than it had been in the yard. Freddy could feel the stairs trembling at every note.
Eventually, they got up and went to help Josiah 2, who was trying to break down the door by throwing himself at it ineffectually. It felt useless to help him, since they knew what the outcome would be, but Freddy did anyway. I hate feeling all fated like this. We shouldn’t be hemmed in because we’ve gone back in time.
Freddy timed the music. It lasted for nearly half an hour. For Cuerva Lachance, that was almost astonishing. With the exception of one time in Rome, Freddy didn’t think she had ever seen Cuerva Lachance concentrate on anything for more than ten minutes at once. They all waited while Cuerva Lachance removed the furniture she had dragged in front of the door. They could hear Jordan pounding and swearing downstairs.
“Oh, hello,” said Cuerva Lachance dreamily when she emerged. “There’s a pipe organ in my house.”
“That’s nice,” said Freddy. “You’d better answer the door.”
Cuerva Lachance floated down the stairs; everybody else crept after her. Freddy and Josiah stood in the shadows near the door to the living room as Cuerva Lachance and Josiah 2 had their conversation with Freddy’s family. Freddy felt oddly left out. She knew there still wasn’t a place for her back home, but she kept wanting to join the discussion.
“Stop fidgeting,” said Josiah. “You know they don’t notice us.”
“That’s not why I’m fidgeting,” said Freddy, who remembered that Mel had, in fact, heard voices inside the house. It wasn’t something Josiah needed to know.
This time, the conversation between Cuerva Lachance and Josiah 2 after the family had gone was completely audible. “I hope you’re happy,” said Josiah 2, his hands on his hips. “You’ve turned the entire household against us, which will make it so very much easier for us to do our jobs.”
“But Josie,” said Cuerva Lachance, “there’s a pipe organ in my house.”
“Shut up,” said Josiah 2. “It’s just like you to intimidate their parents. You know we have to find out which of them is Three. How are we supposed to do that if we alienate the whole family?”
“It’s unusual that we can’t figure out which one it is,” said Cuerva Lachance. “I don’t suppose you have any thoughts? They’re all possibilities, but at the same time, they don’t really fit. It’s very exciting.”
“You are the most infuriating person in the history of infuriating people,” said Josiah 2. “Playing a pipe organ in the wee hours! Not understanding why this is a bad thing! You complete moron.”
“We’ll find out about Three eventually,” she replied. “We know only that it’s not going to happen before you go wandering. So that’s after September twenty-seventh, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” said Josiah 2, “but there’s no guarantee. Why did you have to play the stupid organ? We need to wrap this up quickly after the twenty-seventh.”
“It was pretty and made interesting sounds.”
“You make my brain melt.”
“That’s what I’m here for. Have you two finished eavesdropping?”
“We’re standing six feet away from you, in plain sight,” said Josiah, but Freddy felt a chill run through her as she thought of Freddy 2 and Mel crouching behind the rhododendron. Did Cuerva Lachance know? She sometimes did just know things, and she noticed a lot more than she let on.
“Even so,” said Cuerva Lachance. “Well, I think I’ll go to bed. Don’t stay up too late complaining about me.” She shut the back door and meandered off towards the stairs.
The Josiahs looked at each other. Freddy was pretty sure they were going to spend most of the night complaining about Cuerva Lachance. Since neither of them ever slept, it was possible they did this every night. I don’t belong here, she thought. She knew the thought was futile. At the moment, she didn’t belong anywhere else, either.
17