What I Didn’t See Coming
“There are other stories all around us, but our story appears to end here,” said Anches, indicating the colored glass panel at the end of the row.
We stared at the representations of ourselves without making a sound or movement. It felt creepy and invasive to see us up there, our every movement watched by someone unseen. Was the watcher a chronicler or a creator? A demon or a friend? How did it all fit together? Earth, Mars, wherever Anches went, her loving and seemingly clueless parents, the Glowing Ones who killed Grent so brutally what seemed so long ago, the evasive Guardian of the Library. What was the Library? What language did we speak in this world of the Library? At Earth I thought I heard some words I understood once when I was on a trip with my husband to London. A person passed by on the street and the words cut through and, to my husband’s surprise, I sped after that voice, but it was too late, the voice had disappeared in the crowd. It wasn’t one of the common languages. Not a Romance language or a Germanic one. More like the sound of a bird, a clicking black bird.
“It looks like a bird,” Pintor said.
He was talking about the last panel of glass that was so different than the others. We weren’t in it. This one looked like one side of a legless duck with a red star for an eye.
“That’s a map,” I said suddenly.
“Do you think it’s of a place on Earth?”
“Could be. Or could be on one of your worlds. We’ll each have to memorize it and try to find it in the world we go to. So, stare and put it in your memory.”
“Could it be that one of us is meant to use the glass as a portal and go through it?”
I considered it for a minute. Probably not. The scale was wrong. The portals were a more immediate point of entry, not from such a distance above. My gut told me it was a message, not a portal. However, it was possible I was wrong. What did I really know?
“I don’t think so, but maybe we each can try it just to be sure. Anches, you first, then Pintor, then me.”
I don’t know why I established an order for the attempt. I guess I felt it was most likely to belong with my world, Pintor’s world was part of my system, and we had no idea about where Anches went. Progressing from least to most likely seemed logical.
Anches attempted to put his hand and then his foot in the glass. No success. Pintor did likewise. The result was the same for me.
“Okay. We can let go of that idea. So, let’s memorize it, imbed it into your brain, and look for it when you get to your world.”
“Anches and I will have a number of days yet, so we can come here and stare at it each evening to make sure we remember it.”
“I really wish I had a photographic memory,” I said.
“A what?” Pintor asked.
“A photographic memory. It’s like making a picture with your mind and it stays there in all its detail. I’m going to do the best I can.”
We stared at what looked like a child’s rendering of a legless duck in a blue pond with a red star eye for as long as we could stand. Anches was the first to become drowsy. We walked together to our corridor and returned to our rooms.
When I woke, I began working on the colored glass portal to the library in Evanston. In the scene, I constructed a cute little Chicago Times newspaper and added the date, hoping it was just enough detail to get me there without an incongruency to keep me out. If it didn’t work, I’d try again with another date.
This time, when I put the colored glass to the wall, it took to it immediately. I didn’t even have to let go to know that it was attached. I paused before entering. I was eager to be back to Earth, but wondered what was ahead. An astrophysicist! I never thought I’d become one, but I was about to embark on a whole new life in hopes of figuring out where I came from and what was really going on. I wouldn’t see Pintor and Anches again for what would feel like a very long time and they would be changed, too. I wished there was a way we could all go together. Was that impossible? Maybe I could wait until dinner and invite them to try going back with me at the same time. It wasn’t likely that it would work, but at least we’d know for sure rather than relying on the word of the evasive Guardian. Or was that invasive like a plant species? Just like any living thing, it was difficult to know whether or not Guardian was helpful or hurtful. I suppose, just like any living thing, that depended on the context. In any case, there had to be a point to all of this and, determined to find it, I put my foot into the colored glass and stepped back into the library in Evanston in the fall of 2012, or so I hoped.
There were a few people huddled under lamps with their laptops and books. The newspaper I’d created was there on the table and the date was the one I’d set.
I walked toward the entrance in the hope that Carmen might be in her office and she was.
“Hello? Can I help you?”
She stared at me with a puzzled look.
“Do I know you? You look familiar.”
“I’m a ghost from your past, Carmen. I’m Althea Vincente and I’m going to need your help.”
“If this is some kind of Back to the Future BS, I’m not amused.”
Too happy to be back to pay much attention to what Carmen was saying, I put my arms around her and said, “Oh, it’s so good to be back! Why does it feel more real here than anywhere else?”
“I just spoke with Althea on the phone. You’re not her.”
“I know it’s shocking, but you’ll get used to it. In the meantime, could we get used to it over some food at the Farmhouse? Are you able to leave now? Oh, how I’ve missed their food!”
She didn’t move and just stared at me with those big brown eyes I knew so well. In a sudden, brusque motion, she picked up her coat and I followed her out and we walked over to my favorite restaurant in Evanston.
After we ordered, I asked her about her family and brought up details of her life that only she and I would know, hoping that it would help her begin to accept that I really was Althea. She answered my questions guardedly. When the food came, she looked me straight in the eye and said, “So what the hell is going on here?”
“In a few months, the middle-aged Althea Vincente you just spoke with on the phone will end up going back to wherever it is I come from and then will come back again now as a child.”
“Holy Jesus!”
“I’m hoping you’ll let me stay with you again, like you did before. I have a mission now and it’s one I’m hoping you’ll help me with. I’m going to become an astrophysicist and find the world I come from.”
“Never a dull moment with you, I’ll give you that Althea Vincente! I didn’t know what to think when you suddenly showed up in the library thirty-five years ago and I certainly don’t know what to think now! Man!”
She took a few more bites of her chicken and a sip of wine and then suddenly set the glass down.
“What about your family? Oliver. Maura. Kali. Theo. What about them?”
“I’m going to need their help, too, but I’ll have to wait until the old me is gone.”
“You don’t want any space-time paradoxes,” she said, nodding her head.
“Exactly.”
“They aren’t going to take this very well.”
“Oh, I don’t know. They’re made of tough stuff.”
Carmen shook her head. “No one could deal with this very well, Althea. Your wife and mother is suddenly ten? Uh uh. No way.”
“Twelve years old, actually. Yes, it’s not easy. Imagine how it is for me! I look like a kid, but have the thoughts and experiences of an adult. I could get all mopey about it and go off the deep end, but there’s nothing I can do to change this unreal situation. I have a mission now and I intend to focus on it rather than lamenting what I’ve lost. I found out my brother, my brother from where I come from, has been going to Mars. It sounds like a Mars in the future, so I’m going to study Mars and see if there is a way I can get there when the time is right. And I want to try to find my home world. It’s got to be somewhere in the universe. If I become an astrophysicist, I can study the universe, find my brother, find my home world.”
“Wow.”
“So, I need your help. A place to stay and some help with how to proceed with my education and some advice about getting in touch with my Earth family when the time is right.”
“I have a cousin who’s an astrophysicist,” she said slowly. “Maybe I could get you started there. He can at least help you out with what you’ll need to do to become one. An astrophysicist. Man!”
After dinner, we went back to her house. When I first met Carmen, she lived in an apartment near the library where she worked. Now, she had a nice little house a bit of drive away. That first night, she made popcorn and we watched favorite movies that were now old movies and sitting on her couch, I realized with a sudden certainty that she was and would always be my true mother and I was getting to do what so many people wish they could do. I was going back as a child to spend time with my mother.
As the days passed and I settled into school determined to pass out of everything I could and get to a university as a savant, I took joy in my life, but missed my family. Carmen kept in touch with my husband and children and gave me updates.
One evening, we were surprised by a knock on the door. When Carmen answered it, I heard a very familiar voice.
“Aunt Carmen! Hello! Sorry to drop by unannounced, but you’ve been calling so often that I started getting the idea you might be lonely and thought I’d come see you. That and I happened to be here interviewing at Northwestern. Yes! I know! It’s so exciting! If I get the job, we’ll be able to see more of each other.”
I didn’t know Maura was looking into a job at Northwestern. It was just days now before my disappearance. I stepped out into the hall and next to Carmen.
“And who’s this beautiful young lady?”
“She’s my dau- well, she’s one of my nieces, one of my brother’s children.”
“Funny, I don’t remember her. I thought I met all of Elwin’s children.”
“Honey, I don’t think any of us has met all of Elwin’s children.”
Maura laughed and hugged Carmen, “Oh, how I’ve missed you Aunt Carmen! And so has Mom.”
And quite suddenly and unexpectedly, my older self stepped through the door and looked me right in the eye.
Next: First Person Binary
This is the twelfth part in a series of stories. Following are the previous installments starting with the first:
1. The Library
2. Listen, Move, Hide, Repeat
3. A Necessary State of Alarm
4. Anches
5. A Question in Colored Glass
6. How a Lifetime Friendship Began
7. In the World I Created
8. To Make Things Right Again
9. Escape from the Library
10. Pintor’s World
11. Vincente