AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jane takes a panicked step back from the door and immediately encounters Jasper, because he’s standing behind her feet. “Blaaaaaaaa!” she whispers frantically, windmilling her arms to prevent herself from stepping on him or falling on her back. “Jasper,” she whispers. “Stick your head in the door and pretend it’s all your doing!”
Jasper looks down his long nose at her in contempt.
And Jane supposes that when it comes down to it, she does want to know whether Ravi is delusional, or simply loves his mother that much. She stays in the doorway.
Ravi descends the stairs most of the way and sticks his head down to look at her. His grin, when he spots her, is triumphant. “I waited forever in the corridor for you to catch up,” he says. “Well?” His face contains both amusement and a kind of warning. “Care to meet my mother?”
“Fine,” Jane says, trying not to show how flustered she is.
“Let the dog in,” Ravi says.
Jane does so, then allows the heavy door to swing shut behind her. Ravi comes the rest of the way down the steps, saying, “Silly old dog.” He picks Jasper up and carries him, indignant and squirming, back up the stairs. Jasper is not made for carrying and he glares at Jane over Ravi’s shoulder. “Come see your pals,” Ravi tells him.
Jane follows, trying not to find Ravi attractive. It’s probably why he picked up the dog in the first place. Ravi is the type to know that his Adorable Quotient increases steeply when Carrying a Dog.
“I know you won’t tell anyone what you’re about to see,” Ravi tells Jane quietly as they climb. “Except for Kiran and Octavian. They already know, and Patrick and Ivy, and the Vanders family knows some of it too, though Mrs. Vanders wants as little to do with it as possible. She thinks my mother is upsetting the natural balance of the universe.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“I’ve been wanting you to meet my mother,” Ravi says.
“Why?”
He’s not facing her, but she knows the sound of his grin. “You remind me of her. You say what you think, without apology.”
“I remind you of your mother, and you’ve been hitting on me since you met me. That’s lovely, Ravi.”
“I assure you, that’s for other reasons.”
“That’s what Oedipus said too.”
“Mum,” says Ravi in a voice suddenly resonant and strong, stepping off the stairs into the room above her. “Allow me to introduce our eavesdropper. Janie, this is my mum.”
Jane emerges into a room tall and square, full of dappled light from small windows in every wall. With a stove, fridge, cabinets, and counters, it appears to be a kitchen. On a table lies Ravi’s bowl of fruit and a Monet lily pad painting both familiar and unusual.
The first Mrs. Thrash is a tall, dark-skinned woman, stately, with smooth black hair neatly tucked into a knot at the nape of her neck. She wears simple black slacks, a fuzzy gray turtleneck sweater, and an aspect of utter normality.
“It’s impertinent to listen at doors,” she says, even as she shakes Jane’s hand firmly.
“I’m sorry,” Jane says.
“Are you? I wouldn’t be,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “Some of my most rewarding experiences have come from sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.”
Jane is standing near a window. Enormous wind chimes hang on a bracket outside, and it occurs to her that she’s been hearing their sweet tinkling ever since she stuck her foot in the door. Looking out, she can see into the west attics, quite a distance away. Then a soft yipping noise comes from the floor above them.
“I apologize for my miniature velociraptors,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “It’s time for their second breakfast. Maybe you’d like to come up and meet them? It might help you accept the existence of the multiverse.”
“Er,” Jane says, with a quick confused glance at Ravi, who seems amused. “Okay.”
The first Mrs. Thrash begins a march up a second metal spiral staircase. “Don’t be frightened of them,” she says. “They’re from an Unlimited Dimension that’s bred them to be quite small and friendly to humans, and anyway, their portrayal in that dreadful movie was entirely unrealistic. Pinky likes to comb my hair gently with his enlarged claw.”
“I see,” Jane says, coughing.
“Ravi doesn’t like it when I import animals,” adds the first Mrs. Thrash. “He doesn’t like me to import anything but art.”
“With good reason,” Ravi says, starting up the stairs and motioning for Jane to follow.
“It’s because of the time I tried to bring him and Kiran two sparkle ponies from a high-level Unlimited Dimension and the poor things went mad and exploded.”
“I can still hear them screaming,” Ravi says.
“Well, I hadn’t come to appreciate yet the dangers of moving highly Unlimited creatures into uncorrelated Limited Dimensions. I’ve since refined my calculations. Of course it would upset a small boy. But honestly, Ravi, that was so long ago. Your tenth birthday!”
“Twelfth,” says Ravi.
“Eons ago,” says Mrs. Thrash. “Anyway, Janie, I’ll explain everything. Basically, what we’ve discovered is a thermodynamically reversible quantum boundary that allows for local recoherence. Boom! Interdimensional portals.”
“Oh my god, Mum,” says Ravi. “No one understands what you just said.”
“Too technical?”
“At least offer her an analogy first!”
“Schrödinger’s frog? Quantum superposition?”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” says Ravi, turning to Jane. “Do you know much quantum physics?”
“Not much beyond the basics,” says Jane.
“Well, all you really need to know is that everything that could conceivably happen does happen, somewhere, in alternate universes across the multiverse. So, you can imagine the possibilities. And Mum—together with a bunch of alternate Mums—has found a portal to cross from one to another. I mean, plenty of other universes have had portals before this, but this is the first known portal that allows travel to and from our universe.”
“If I’m being honest,” says the first Mrs. Thrash as she reaches the next level of the tower, “we can’t entirely explain how the portals work. But, observably, they do.”
Jane has decided to stop listening to all the nonsense. She’s focusing hard on her surroundings instead. This level of the tower is much like the one below, square with small windows and another spiral staircase leading up to yet another level, though that level is closed off by a bright red trapdoor in the ceiling that has an impressive number of locks. There’s a largish bed positioned against one wall. Next to it is a bedside table piled with dozens of haphazardly balanced paperback books. Romance novels. A pair of doors beyond the bed probably leads to a bathroom, or a closet, or both.
An animal is moving under the deep red bedcovers, a large cat or a small dog. It wriggles its way to the edge, slides down the side, and emerges into the light head-first. It scuttles forward on all fours, then balances itself on its hind legs. It stares at Jane suspiciously, with a canted face and blinking eyes. It’s got a lizard head, a tail fully as long as its body, and a coat of fine feathers. Jane has been to the museums, she’s seen the TV shows. She understands that she’s looking at a miniature velociraptor.
* * *
Jane wakes to find herself staring at the red door in the ceiling, the one with all the locks. She’s lying on the first Mrs. Thrash’s bed. She’s woozy, but otherwise unhurt.
She remembers now: She saw a velociraptor and suddenly had no legs. Ravi and Mrs. Thrash caught her. Fainting, while dramatic in stories, turns out to be deeply unpleasant in real life.
There’s a warm presence nestled against her left side. It quietly yips as it breathes. Jane has only just woken; she doesn’t have the fortitude yet to cope with the fact that she’s being snuggled by a velociraptor.
“Ravi?” she says.
His voice rises absently from the armchair in the corner of the room. “Mm?” He pushes himself up and comes to Jane, eyebrows deeply furrowed. In one hand, he holds an open romance novel. “You’re awake,” he says. “Feeling okay?”
“What the hell, Ravi,” Jane says. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just what we told you. Would it help if you pretend you’re inside a Doctor Who episode? It’ll take a minute, but just go with it,” Ravi says. “Listen to this passage, does this sound realistic to you? The main character, her name is Delphine, says, ‘I wouldn’t have you if you were the last man in East Riordan,’ and this man named Lord Enderby says, ‘You are the only woman in East Riordan. My darling, you’re the only woman in my world. We were meant for each other, can’t you see?’ Then Delphine is overcome and starts kissing him and shrieking.”
“Does she?” Jane says, becoming conscious of another warm, yipping presence resting against her ankles. Also a larger, warmer, silent presence against one knee. That one is Jasper.
“Why does my mother read this stuff?” says Ravi.
