Obscura Burning (15 page)

“I know,
cielo.
” He returns the pressure on my fingers, leaning his elbows on the bed.

“This is going to sound crazy, but I really need you to believe me.”

Danny nods, dark hair tumbling into black eyes.

“It might have started before the night of the fire…” I tell him everything about the split realities, about Mya, about the shifting, about his death, about how I’m sleeping with Shira. All of it. The words burst out as if a dam just broke somewhere inside.

Danny sits quietly beside my bed the whole time. He doesn’t say anything. Even when I’m done, he’s still holding my hand. His eyes are wide and wet.

“You think you’re living in two different realities?”

Can’t blame him for being dumbfounded and confused, skeptical even.

“I know it’s crazy, but this is real. This is really happening to me.”

“You think Obscura opened up a portal between universes?”

“Yes.”

“And in this other world, Shira’s alive and I’m dead?”

“Jesus, Dan. Weren’t you listening? You need me to spell it out?”

“I love you,
cielo
. You know that, right?” Danny gives me a pained look. “I’m going to help you, Kyle. That’s a promise.” He lets go of my hand and wheels away.

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

Cold dread tightens up my insides. What if he didn’t believe me, thinks I’m nuts and is going to tell the doctors that I need a padded cell and antipsychotics? Maybe I do, or maybe I just need Mya, someone who believes my outrageous story. Someone who’s willing to really help.

The doctor arrives a moment later. Danny hangs back at the entrance to my room with my mom. She’s crying, a nurse rubbing her back consoling her. Danny’s tanned face is pale.

“What did you do?” I throw back the covers as if I can make a run for it.

“Kyle, we’re here to help you,” the doctor says, flanked by two orderlies.

I try getting out of bed, but my ribs and the IV hamper my escape and the orderlies grab my arms, strapping me down even as I squirm and kick. Ignoring the pain in my side, I manage to worm an arm free, and smile as an orderly’s nose pops under my fist.

“Please, Danny. I’m telling the truth. You’ve got to believe me.” I scrabble toward the door, but even bleeding, the orderly is bigger and stronger, and sweeps me back onto the bed.

My mom is sobbing now. She must’ve overheard, the cheating, eavesdropping bitch.

“I’m sorry,” Danny mouths to me from the door as the doctor jams a needle in my arm. The energy gets sucked right out of me. It’s a small comfort knowing that the sedative will let me pass into the other world.

Shadows drag me under in a riptide of unconsciousness. I’m churning through the empty void…then I get spit out the other end, and Mya’s singing along to the radio.

Chapter Fifteen

Danny’s dead

“Hey sleepyhead.” Mya turns down the stereo. We’re in her Dad’s Chevy, barreling along a narrow road cutting a gash through stunted woodland.

“I was asleep?” I check my watch. 10:04, Monday.

“You dozed off between tracks five and eight. You OK?”

A wave of dizziness makes the car lurch sideways as the world seems to tilt on its axis. “I’m going to puke.”

Mya swerves and slams on brakes. I open the door before we stop moving and cough up chunks of bacon and cheese sandwich. The heat hits me like a fist in the gut, making breathing difficult after the cool interior of the Chevy.

She passes me a bottle of water and some Kleenex. I heave again, rinse, and spit. Warmth trickles down my neck. I wipe at it, thinking it’s sweat. My fingers come away red.

“Oh crap.” Mya presses a tissue to my ear. Both ears are bleeding and I stanch the flow with Kleenex.

“What did I miss?” I ask.

“When last do you remember?”

“Falling asleep last night.”

Mya pales. “Nothing about this morning?”

“Nope.”

“So who’s here when you’re not? I mean, I made you breakfast, we chatted, we’ve been road-tripping.”

“Bacon and cheese?”

“Yeah, in an omelet. Why?”

“Weird parallels.”

“But who did I eat breakfast with?” She seems on the verge of losing her breakfast as well.

“No idea. Maybe it’s just my consciousness that’s bolting back and forward? No clue, honestly.”

“This is some seriously creepy shit, Kyle. I mean, you right now, you’re exactly the same. I can’t tell the difference at all.”

“Really?”

“Nope. I’d never have known you weren’t here.”

“This really is killing me.” I lean back against the headrest, just concentrating on breathing, trying to ignore the lightning-bolt pain in my head.

“We’re about an hour or so away. You just hang in there, Scarface.”

“That’s the plan.”

She rolls the car back out onto the road, casting nervous glances my way.

“The other world is really going to shit,” I say.

“Are you at least alive?”

“Would’ve been better off dead.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

On the radio, shoe-gazing singers yodel a dissonant melody above strained guitars. Mya turns down the volume.

“I told Danny about all this.” I gesticulate to the ether. “My mom overheard. They think I’m crazy and now I’m strapped down in a hospital.”

“Jesus, what you gonna do?”

“I hope to hell this Cruz guy has an answer for me.”

She accelerates and we race toward the dirty horizon at ninety miles an hour.

* * *

Almost two hours later, we bump along the cracked asphalt through Ponderosa, the woodland reduced to crouching creosote and clumps of tobosa.

“And I thought Coyote’s Luck was a dump,” Mya says. “Look for Perdido Lane.”

Ponderosa is just a couple of houses scattered in the middle of nowhere. We drive past a bar and grill in what I guess constitutes the center of town out here in the boonies. A woman, more whale than human, sits fanning herself outside the eatery. It’s the first and only sign of habitation.

“A retired Princeton professor lives
here
?” Sand and scrub race up the flanks of unimpressive hills. “It’s like a ghost town.”

“The Internet says he lives out here.” She shrugs.

“No wonder this guy got kicked out of the Ivy League. Probably loony.” We pass ramshackle houses, trailers parked in driveways without wheels, gates without fences, and rusting mailboxes.

“There it is.” Mya jerks the car into reverse and backtracks, turning down a dirt road with a lopsided sign dangling at a precarious angle from a pole bent almost double.
Perdido Ln.

“You know what Perdido means, right?” I ask. Lost. Exactly how I’m feeling.

“I think it’s all cosmic synergy. We’re meant to be here. You know, for a guy hopping between worlds, you’re awfully skeptical.”

Fifteen minutes later, we bounce and jolt to the end of the road. A single house squats in the dust. It’s enormous, would probably fit the entire town into it. It has large windows held between mustard-yellow bricks, and a yard that doesn’t look as shriveled and dead as the rest of the surroundings.

“What if this guy’s a homophobic religious zealot who thinks I’m the Antichrist?”

“Then we’ll run back to the car and drive away. Don’t be such a baby.”

“It’s easy for you.
Your
life isn’t under scrutiny.” My fingers clutch the book in my hands, leaving sweaty prints on the cardboard.

“You’re right,” she says. “But I did just drive us all the way down here—without asking you for gas money—to help
you
figure out what’s going on, so grow a pair already.”

“Thanks,” I say and she flashes me her cutest grin.

“Maybe he just likes the solitude out here.” Mya gets out of the car. It’s spooky and feels a bit like a bad horror movie when the coeds saunter into the serial killer’s lair out in the middle of nowhere, where no one can hear them scream. I follow Mya up the paved pathway to the front door anyway.

The bell chimes inside and a gruff voice answers, “Who is it?”

“Professor Cruz, we’d like to talk to you about Obscura.”

The large wooden door cracks open an inch and dark eyes peer at us.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Mya and this is Kyle.” She pulls me into view by the arm. I automatically tug hair over my face. The eyes narrow and the door closes. Chains clank and then the door opens again revealing a man shaped like a potato, his face too, wrinkled like a potato left too long at the bottom of the fridge.

“Are you peddling Jesus?” His accent is more East Coast than Southwest.

“No, sir. We’re from Coyote’s Luck and we’re interested in your research.” Mya beams at him, batting her eyelashes just a little.

“Which research would that be?”

“Here’s the thing,” I say, having finally found my testicles. “If Obscura really is messing things up and causing rifts in the multiverse then I really need to know, because I’m shifting between realities and it’s very definitely killing me.”

The old man stares at me, blinks twice, and then laughs. Couldn’t have expected him to believe me.

“Langley put you up to this?” Professor Cruz smiles, revealing a row of neat white teeth. Definitely East Coast.

“No, sir.” Mya gives me a sideways glance.

“I don’t appreciate being mocked.” He slams the door in our faces.

“Great, let’s go.” I’m already heading for the car when Mya catches my arm, holding me in place.

“What did you expect? This guy thinks we’re crazy.”

“Maybe we are.”

Mya rolls her eyes and drags me back toward the door. Banging a fist on the wood, she shouts, “Hey Prof, we’re not leaving till you’ve heard us out.”

“This is a waste of time.” I slam my hands in pockets, rocking back and forth on my heels.

“Professor, please. We’re telling the truth.” Mya sighs and turns to me when she goes unanswered. “Couldn’t you have one of your episodes?”

“Episodes? Just spontaneously shift realities and come up bleeding?”

“It might help.”

“Why don’t you just punch me in the nose then?”

“Tempting.” She balls a fist and bangs on the door again.

Professor Cruz hauls it open. “If you two don’t get off my property, I’m calling the cops.”

“And they’ll take an hour to get out here. Just give us five minutes to explain. If you still don’t buy it, you can kick us out then. Deal?” Mya’s got her hands on her hips and her eyebrows up.

“Please.” I put on my lost puppy-dog face. Guess it works because Prof. Cruz heaves an exasperated sigh, and opens the door a little wider.

Inside, the AC is going full blast, making me shiver as the sweat cools on my skin. I expected clutter and mothballs, piles of papers, years’ worth of magazines and maybe even a cat. Instead, the Prof’s place is chic and tasteful, with Navajo and Hopi artwork on the walls.

We sit in his kitchen at a smooth marble tabletop.

“Five minutes.” He folds his arms as if expecting to be unimpressed.

For the third time in twenty-four hours I spill my guts, telling him all about my double existence, showing him my rudimentary log in the drawing book. I haven’t had a chance to include the latest details yet, but I give a verbal update. I’d rather be scarred and naked on a pedestal in the center of town than sit here divulging my darkest secrets to a complete stranger.

At least the prof listens the whole time, not once interrupting me, never raising his eyebrows when I mention my boyfriend or how I slept with his best friend. Mya tries to fill in a few blanks where whole snatches of time have gone missing, but there are still chunks of my life I just don’t remember.

When I’m done, the prof takes a look at the book, studying my boxes.

“I’m not proud of what I did,” I say as he hovers a finger over the box about Shira. Blood warms my cheeks.

“This is impossible,” he says. Cruz looks up at me from beneath bushy brows. “What you’re describing just cannot be.”

“Well, it is happening.”

Prof. Cruz drums his fingers on the table and stares off into the middle distance, sucking on his bottom lip. He leaves the kitchen and returns with a laptop. He flips open the screen and types in a password. His desktop display is a satellite image of Obscura.

My palms are sweating, my knee bouncing uncontrollably beneath the table. I’m totally freaking out here.

The prof ignores my borderline hysteria as he punches in a web address. He starts talking while the page loads.

“At a quantum level, the universe is like a rough sea. Even when things look smooth and even, at a quantum level everything is just noise, froth, and foam. A writhing mess of particles.”

Mya nudges my foot under the table, and we share a look. Prof Cruz sounds every bit the wack job.

“This is why we can’t describe our universe on a very small scale. Ever heard of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle?”

“Um…” Guess my blank face gives away my ignorance; at least Mya has the sense to shake her head.

“Never mind.” He waves away the question and scratches his chin. “The point is that it’s virtually impossible for your consciousness, the electrical impulses that constitute the consciousness, to be in the same state at the same time.” He pauses and takes a chest-wobbling breath. “But the electrical impulse of Obscura appearing could have allowed the electrical impulses of your consciousness to achieve the same quantum state, creating the interaction necessary for quantum entanglement.” The prof’s looking more excited while I’m feeling more idiotic by the second.

“In English, Prof?” Mya says.

“Imagine the flash of a Polaroid camera. The flash gives the camera enough light to take the photograph, much the same way as Obscura has created a flash, giving Kyle’s consciousness a singular state. And from there, different realities could theoretically diverge.”

My brain hurts from trying to compute the metaphor. I’m still not sure it makes any sense.

“So every time Kyle makes a decision, a new reality spins out of the universe?” Mya asks, showing off her smarts.