It’s not easy with the big clip on my finger—I think it’s for measuring my blood-oxygen—but I manage to get my jeans on without passing out or throwing up, steadying myself on the bed. Bending over to put on my socks gives me a massive head rush.
N2 and O2 in, carbon dioxide out. Breathe, Ruby.
A nurse walks past my open door but doesn’t enter. The IV left a little, achy hole in my arm that’s leaking fluid and blood. I press the bedsheet hard against it, waiting for it to stop.
Now I’m able to wiggle my feet into my wet shoes, which truly need to be thrown away. I can put a finger clean through my right shoe. Where did that melted-looking hole come from, anyway? Did someone sink a giant cigarette through my shoe? Did the lightning do that? Yeah, of course. It must’ve been the lightning.
I dump out the remaining contents of my backpack. The two science books are soaked, so I throw them in the trash. They were heavy anyway, adding most of the weight to my load. I guess Ruby in Universe Four is going to have more late fees at the library.
The eight-by-ten photo is wrinkled, but otherwise unscathed, and so is my little snapshot of Mom and me when I was a toddler; they were protected by my change of clothes. I keep Mom’s sweater, the grape shampoo, Ó Direáin’s journal, and the gardening gloves. The flashlight still works, but my digital camera won’t turn on. I toss it into my backpack anyway; it might just be the battery. My postcard from George is warped, but I can probably revitalize it with a clothes iron. The LEGO shuttle is in pieces, but I have George’s diagram to rebuild it later.
What seems to have taken the brunt of the water damage is my notebook. The ink has bled, and it’s all but unreadable. My chart of the universes, the codes, the runic line symbols, a few notes about Padraig Ó Direáin. Everything smudged into a blur. With a sigh, I throw the notebook into the trash. The umbrella is gone. I probably dropped it when I got struck. The copied pages from the library—the Ó Direáin street map and Mom’s address from the phone book—are missing too. So is my wallet, my prescription pain pills, the Internet article Patrick gave me, and Mom’s GPS. Maybe the hospital kept them, trying to figure out who I am and where I belong.
Good luck with that.
Ready, set, go! I yank the three EKG leads off my skin. Ow! The whine of the alarm startles me, but it’s the rip of skin that makes me shriek. I pull on my shirt, grab my backpack, and hop.
At first I think it’s because of me. All the commotion. Someone yells, “The trauma is here!” A nurse smacks a button on the wall and giant glass doors part. An ambulance beeps as it backs up to the opening bay. The smell of exhaust fills the hallway. Dr. Leonard and another nurse rush past me like I’m invisible.
The rear doors of the ambulance open with a metallic moan, and a paramedic wheels a stretcher out. As soon as he makes eye contact with Dr. Leonard, he starts talking. “Car accident. The patient is approximately forty years old. Female, unconscious when we arrived.” He rattles off her blood pressure, other vitals.
The ambulance driver joins the other paramedic. “She hit a deer,” he adds.
Right now, all I’m interested in is the wide-open ambulance bay. The perfect escape route. While everyone hovers over the accident victim, I inch toward the door. But as I ease past, the shocked expression on Dr. Leonard’s face makes me pause.
“Windshield wiper,” a nurse says, trying not to sound alarmed, but she is. She snaps latex gloves onto her hands.
Windshield wiper?
My ears fill with a pounding that comes from within. Blood rushes. My heart pumps too much, too fast.
Before I even know what to think or do, I’m pressing my way through the paramedics.
“Mom!” An oxygen mask is strapped across her face, bolsters surround her head, EKG leads connect to a monitor, an IV feeds her saline while blood drizzles out of her neck. “You can’t let her die!”
“What are you doing out here?” Dr. Leonard locks eyes with me. “Get back in your room.” He sounds like an impatient parent scolding a three-year-old.
Mom’s shirt is splattered with red, her pale forehead streaked with it. I want to yank the windshield wiper from her neck, but it would surely cause a flood of bleeding. Like taking the cork off a foaming, angry chemistry vial.
I lunge at Dr. Leonard, grabbing his scrubs, knowing I’ve got fistfuls of his chest hair underneath. “Save her!”
“Security!” He pushes me away and barks at a nurse. “Get her out of here!”
I watch Mom’s chest, hoping to see it rise and fall. But it’s still. She’s dying. They wheel her down the hallway into a room labeled TRAUMA. “You have to think of something!” My words are full of spit and tears. No one pays attention.
Parallel universes are quasi-similar. There’s a repeating pattern, with almost identical subpatterns. What happens in one universe, might, could, or will happen in another.
“She has kids!” I call after them.
Patrick.
What if Mom in Universe Two or Four is dying right now as well? Patrick would be leveled. Now I wish I’d explained everything to him. Maybe he would’ve believed me, would have made it his mission to keep Mom safe. Mr. Overprotective would’ve been the perfect bodyguard.
Dazed, I grab a set of abandoned crutches and walk straight out into the parking lot. I’m propelled by sheer adrenaline. I tuck the crutches under my armpits and thrust myself forward.
I hear someone yelling behind me, “Hey kid! Get back here! You can’t leave!” Then I hear her yell at someone else, “The patient from room one has fled!”
In the distance, a bolt of lightning connects with the top of a building—the central spire on the high school. For a moment, the glow illuminates the entire sky, which gives me a chance to orient myself. With each flash, the dark clouds turn luminous, and I adjust my direction, keeping my bearings straight. I feel dizzy and nauseated. Hospital drugs, one-eyed glasses, lightning holes in my body.
Mom. Dying. Again.
Should I turn back, hold her hand until her heart goes silent?
Another crooked finger of lightning touches the school’s spire. Sparks leap off the slate roof like a meteor shower. Ahead, a fence that appears to be black wrought iron blocks my way. Though everything looks dark in this drizzly dusk. Another lightning strike, and I can see tombstones slick with rain. I’m at the rear gate of the cemetery, not far from Ó Direáin’s mausoleum. Navigating with dwindling sunlight and on crutches means I keep tripping over roots and gravestones. I squint, looking for the giant tree, hoping its purple glow will provide a beacon.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I chant, waiting for another vein of lightning to give me a chance at reorienting myself.
Finally, a flash. And there’s a shape. A towering, massive presence that can only be the portal tree. I hurry toward it and the refuge it offers, even though I know it could easily be a target for the lightning too. Somehow it seems invincible in its size and power. The moment I’m under its canopy, I feel relief. Its massive limbs and thousands of leaves shield me from the rain. Instantly I feel warmer.
“I’m back,” I tell the oak, pressing my face against the weather-worn door, the etched and twisted lines—grid patterns depicting the fabric of space.
My fingertips connect with the metal doorknob, but I hardly care about the static shock. The door swings open and a deafening noise spills from the tree. The flapping of wings, dark bodies swooping and darting. Bats! Hundreds of them pour out of the doorway, sending me to the ground. I can feel them all around me, landing on me, hissing, making an insectlike chirping sound.
“Go away,” I moan, waiting until the tree is empty of them.
Finally, when all I can hear is my own hard breathing, and after my hands stop shaking, I convince myself that it’s safe to continue on.