“It’s a small town. Everyone knows about me, my history with the sheriff and…” The words catch in my throat. “And the Ghost Town fire.” Flames reduce wood and even people to mere ash, just piles of dirt. Sizzling flesh from bones, paring skin… I study my arm; the bubble blister forms a dome above charred meat. That’s all we are. Meat and bone. As insubstantial as breath, just waiting for the day we turn to dust.
She frowns and leans forward. “Yes, I know about the fire. You want to tell me what happened, Kyle?”
“God, stop saying my name already.”
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Ky…”
I glare at her, but she doesn’t avert her gaze and I’m the one who breaks eye contact first.
“See, thing is, I don’t know what happened.”
“You can’t remember?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?” How the hell did Shira think this was helpful? “No, I don’t remember. I get confused. It’s all kind of hazy.”
“Have you tried remembering?”
“Only every day. Everyone says it was an accident, but it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“What doesn’t?”
“I don’t know, but…” There’s a question I’ve been avoiding asking myself. “I just don’t understand why Danny and Shira got hurt when I didn’t.”
Amy gives me a sympathetic look that makes my fist twitch. Pity. Precisely what I don’t need.
“Can you remember how you got out?”
“No.”
“Do you remember why they didn’t? Was there something preventing them from leaving?”
Jesus, this woman asks a lot of questions. The smell of burning wood, acrid smoke, and screams. Oh God… “I remember their screams.”
“Where were you when they were screaming?”
After a while, Amy realizes I’m not going to answer. I can’t. There are some things I just can’t bear thinking about. There’s a wall in my mind, a huge solid thing topped with razor wire and there’s just no slipping past it.
“Do you know about post-traumatic stress disorder?” she asks.
“Yeah, everyone’s told me that’s what I’ve got. So does PTSD explain gaps in time?”
“Gaps in time?” She frowns and leans forward.
“I’ll be doing one thing, then bam, I’m doing another with no knowing of how I got there, or what happened in between. Can you explain that?” Simplified version really, but maybe she’ll have an answer.
She scribbles something in pencil on a notepad in front of her. “How long has this been happening?”
“Since the fire.”
“Have you been drinking or doing drugs at all?”
I roll my eyes. If I only I was some junkie with a needle hanging out of my arm, then all of this could be written off as a side effect of the chemicals in my blood.
“And have you seen a doctor about it?”
“Obviously not.”
“Kyle, you could be suffering from a massive head injury. You need to see a doctor.”
“Great.” I rock back in the chair. First accused of being an addict, and now my head’s about to explode.
“I think you should see someone in Farmington. They’ll know whether you need more tests or medication.”
“Medication?” Just as I thought. Mention problems to a head doctor and they just want to dope you up. I’m rocking back and forth in the chair, the legs knocking against the floor. “Sometimes I really wish I’d been the one that died.”
She puts down the pencil and leans forward across the desk. “Do you really wish you were dead?”
“Yeah, sometimes. I think it would’ve been easier on everyone.”
“Have you ever considered killing yourself?” She seems genuinely concerned.
“Hasn’t everyone?”
“Kyle, have you ever seriously considered or tried killing yourself?”
“Maybe I should,” I say before I think that statement through. I’m an idiot. She’s already picking up the phone.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, Kyle. By law I have to report you.”
“Report me?” I wince as I get to my feet. The pain in my side is getting worse. Maybe my ribs are more than just fractured. Feels like knives slicing up my lungs.
“If you’re suicidal, I need to—”
Broken ribs forgotten, I’m bolting for the door. Amy grabs my arm as I reach for the handle. The air turns to syrup, thick and heavy, slowing my movements, sucking at my limbs. It’s like being in quicksand. I can’t move; I can’t even breathe. I’m falling, spiraling into the dirty carpet, the threads shredding my clothes and skin, and there’s heat, an impenetrable wall of fire. The flames engulf me.
Chapter Nine
Danny’s dead
Sand stings my face and arms as a dust devil whirls past me. The damn
ch’iindi
won’t leave me alone. I’m approaching the ice-cream van parked in the lot above the community center. Shira’s beside me.
“Hey ya, Scarface. Coke float?” Mya waves to me.
“You know her?” Shira asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, sort of.” I wave back. “You go on ahead. I’ll meet you down there in a minute.”
A rueful smile. “Enjoy the ice cream.” Shira heads toward the center, not sparing the slightest glance toward Mya.
I’ve only just managed to get my shaking hands under control by the time I’m standing at the counter.
“You OK? You look paler than usual.”
There’s a jackhammer bashing away at the back of my skull. Nausea ebbs and flows, and I swallow rising bile. I take a gulp of warm, dusty air. Being jolted between realities is taking its toll.
“Just had a rough day.”
“How’s Shira doing?”
We both watch the retreating figure clad in black.
“OK, I guess. She still cries a lot.” I try to hide my face with hair.
“You shouldn’t worry so much.” Mya hands me the glass. “People only stare because they can’t imagine what it must be like walking around looking like that, not because they actually think it’s ugly.”
“You say the sweetest things.” I’m trying not to grin. Grinning is worse than smiling. It makes me look like a badly carved jack-o’-lantern.
“I think it’s kinda cool, really.” She brushes the hair from my face. “Interesting how the body puts itself back together.”
“You like them, you can have them.” I lean into her touch just a little.
“No thanks. I’m already blessed with freckles. Add scars and my face’ll just be far too cluttered.” She winks, and serves two kids standing as far away from me as they can get. They glance at me when they think I’m not looking and whisper to each other.
“So, you get a sombrero yet?” she asks.
“Yes…ah, sort of.” Glitch in reality. The memory of the fight with my folks comes rushing in too. Maybe killing myself isn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Ah, no?” She raises an eyebrow at me.
“They’ve got them out at Garry’s. Just haven’t had the chance to go yet.” That I can remember.
“Dance is Wednesday night, you know?”
“I’ve got four days.”
“Three. It’s Sunday.”
I nod, so easy losing track.
“You sure you’re OK, Kyle? You’re looking about ready to lose your breakfast.”
“Just symptoms of PTSD, apparently.”
“You buying that?”
I stare into the remnants of ice cream clouding my Coke. “I don’t know. Maybe, I guess.” So damn eloquent.
“The more I read about our universe, the more I’m convinced that Obscura is messing things up.”
“At least I’m not crazy then.”
“Maybe, but at least you can blame Obscura.” She points a delicate finger upward.
“You wanna close up shop and run over to Garry’s with me?” I knock back the dregs in my glass.
“What about Shira?”
“I’ll text her.” And I do, apologizing for ditching her. I hope she’ll understand. Last thing I want is another round with the counselor.
“OK, let’s go.” It takes Mya a minute to switch off the machines and lock up the van.
Then we’re running. It’s a relief taking deep breaths without being impaled by injured ribs every time. Even in sneakers and a sundress, Mya leaves me trailing behind, eating her dust.
Might as well enjoy my freedom while it lasts. Back in the other world, I’m going to get sent to the loony bin for sure, strapped down and doped up.
* * *
“You ever wonder what your life would’ve been like if Benny hadn’t died?” I ask her as we browse the rails at Garry’s. Thankfully, Shira’s mom isn’t in the store. Even with Shira alive, I don’t want to have to face her mom again. Soaked with sweat, I position myself under the AC vent and arctic air washes over me.
“Sure. I think about it sometimes. Why?”
I fiddle with the feathers on a headdress. “Ever think maybe there’s another reality where he’s still alive?” Now the AC’s actually making me cold.
Mya chews on her lip contemplatively. “Some scientists think there are multiple universes, several realities.”
“Really?” Maybe I’m not crazy after all.
“Yeah, it’s mentioned in that astronomy book.” She disappears behind a row of shelving, emerges moments later bearing a rainbow-colored straw sombrero.
“How do I look?” I ask, shoving the sombrero on my head. I turn a full three-sixty for her.
She scrutinizes me through narrowed eyes and then nods. “It’ll do.”
“What are you wearing to the dance?” I ask once we’ve paid and we’re headed out of the door. The sombrero stays on my head; it keeps the sun off my scars.
“You’ll see.” She winks.
Familiar laughter draws my attention to the gas pumps. Shira’s mom is hanging off the biceps of a guy fresh off the ranches. She’s drunk as usual, her ass hanging out of too-short shorts and her top cut so low I can see her black lace bra.
“Friend of yours?” Mya asks.
“Shira’s mom,” I say, even though admitting the truth feels like a betrayal.
“And the guy?”
“Some ranch hand she’ll probably end up in bed with.” I’m way too bitter. It’s not my mom acting the drunk slut in public. My heart hurts for Shira. I wish she didn’t always have to come to her mom’s rescue.
Mya nudges me with her elbow and I turn away as Shira’s mom topples into the guy’s waiting arms.
“You wanna come over to my place for lunch and a discussion on parallel universes? I’ll make hot dogs.” She grins and too late I remember not to grin back, not to let the scars pull my face askew.
“Hot dogs sound great.”
* * *
Mya lives in this tiny two-bedroomed house on a plot of ochre earth dotted with yucca. A satellite dish clings to the wooden facade. She skips up the splintering stairs and opens the door, ushering me inside.
Twenty minutes later, we’re sitting on the floor in her bedroom, licking mustard and ketchup off our fingers. She’s got glowy stars stuck on her ceiling behind the whizzing fan. She notices me gazing up.
“They’re a replica of the night sky, OK? I’m not afraid of the dark. I just like looking at the stars.”
I recognize some of the patterns, the Big Dipper and Orion, but that’s about it.
There are posters on her walls, Pink Floyd’s prism and Dream Theater’s Chaos in Motion.
“I’ve always thought they sound the same.” I nod toward the posters.
“Don’t let my dad hear you say that.” She gets up and presses Play on her stereo. Ethereal music fills the room, punctuated by the
whoosh
of the ceiling fan. “I like this.” She joins me on the carpet again.
“What is it?”
“The genre’s called shoe-gazing. It’s soothing. Here.” She thrusts the astronomy book into my lap and directs me to the page on multiple realities.
“It doesn’t say much.”
“I’ll be back.” She pads out of her room, returning moments later with a laptop. “My dad’s. The Internet will know more.”
We sit shoulder-to-shoulder, leaning against her bed, legs outstretched with laptop balanced across our thighs so we can both see the screen.
I type. Mya operates the touchpad, navigating us through the thousands of search results.
“Many-worlds interpretation,” I read off a web page that looks less dubiously New Age and more scientific. “Previously, reality has been seen to be a single unfolding history. The MWI theory posits that reality is actually a many-branched tree where alternative histories and futures are just as real as what we presently perceive, resulting in many different realities.”
“So everything that might’ve happened in my past, actually did happen in some other universe that’s like a spin-off from this one?” Mya scrolls down the page to diagrams representing the splitting universes.
“That’s how I’d understand it.”
The more I read, the more I believe that it’s possible. M-theory and quantum physics. Most of it goes way over my head, but I think I’ve understood the basics.
“Travel between these parallel dimensions is theoretically possible, via gravity. So…” I run a hand through my hair. “If Obscura is messing with gravity, maybe the corridor between these worlds is open.”
Mya pushes the laptop off her legs and swivels round to look at me.
“What’s going on, Kyle? Why the sudden interest in parallel dimensions?”
This is it, a chance to spill my guts.
“Promise you won’t think I’m crazy?”
“No, but you should tell me anyway.” Mya crosses her legs and looks at me expectantly.
I need to tell
someone
. Danny’s not talking to me, and Shira would probably try to cure me with an incense bath. That just leaves Mya.
“Ever since the fire, the weirdest stuff has been happening to me.” The words stick like toffee between my teeth. It takes serious effort to spit them out. “I switch back and forth between these two worlds.”
Her eyes widen a little. “That fire really did sear your brain.”
“Forget it.” I expected this reaction.
“No, I’m sorry. Go on, please.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“I’m not smiling.” She isn’t; she’s looking rather pensive, her eyes focused on my face.
“Sometimes, I’m in this reality and Shira’s alive. I’m burned, never graduated, and…” I take a deep breath. “And I’ve met you as a friend.”
“I’m listening.” She twists her hair into a braid.
“Then there’s this other world where Danny’s alive, but in a wheelchair and I’m fine, and I’m going off to Rice in the fall.”