The perfect brows rose.“How long have you had this in mind?”
“What is time?”he said, then added, “She’s perfect for it.Too smart.”No need to mention that her intelligence wasn’t his only issue with her.
“That’s a pity,” said Alice’s mother and then added as almost an after thought, “I used to like smart girls.”
Stella Merriweather sat without moving for a long time after John left her alone.
Poor John.He thought she couldn’t tell he’d lost his illusions and possibly his soul.She’d certainly lost hers when she abandoned her child and her husband for—she glanced around—this.
From her place in the 1950s, lost in the shadow of a husband who wasn’t even close to her mental equal, this had seemed like the dream.It hadn’t been that hard to sell her on it.
She could have tried harder, of course.Other woman did.They’d pushed against the barriers, fought the system, gone toe-to-toe with the men.She could have rolled over poor George.
He’d loved her.She remembered that now with distant awe.He hadn’t been good at loving, which might be why she couldn’t summon the resolution to roll over him.He’d been so amazed she’d married him, so grateful, so pathetic.
Had he noticed she was smarter than he was?She still wasn’t sure.
In the end, he’d been easier to leave behind than Alice.
Alice.
He—her snake in her non-Eden—had told her to bring Alice but she couldn’t quite deal another blow to George.She couldn’t leave him completely alone.Did that mean she’d loved him a little?Or—this was the thought she only had when she was alone—had she feared her daughter’s brain?Alice had already shown signs of brilliance.
And so Stella had left her to the same stifled life she’d fled.
“I promised myself I’d go back for her,” she told the silence.“And I knew she could handle it.She was stronger than me, even then.”
She pressed her finger against the bio-lock and a drawer slid open.It had one thing in it: a picture of Alice taken not long before Stella left.
Stella had thousands of images taken of Alice after that, but this was the only one that felt real to her.This was her daughter as she’d known her.
As she’d left her.
She made herself think the thought.She’d left her and now time itself seemed determined to make her break her promise.
She pushed the drawer shut and leaned back, feeling the perfectly controlled air flow around her, its very perfection a mockery.
Welcome to “perfection.”
She didn’t have a picture of the snake.Alastor was clever.Either he’d managed to erase his image from time, or he’d always known not to get photographed.
She didn’t need a photograph to remember him.
He was the most beautiful man she’d ever met.The fathomless eyes compelled, invited, persuaded.The rich, deep voice destroyed whatever resistance she’d had left.She’d even left her daughter for him.
She would have given him anything he asked for, but all he’d wanted was her mind.
That should have satisfied her.It should have delighted her.How refreshing to be seen for her mind and not her body.
Refreshingly unsatisfying in this future without warmth or humor or…love.
He hadn’t loved her.Had she known it then?Had she wanted to believe he did?It felt more noble to abandon everything and everyone for love, rather than “mere” knowledge.
When had her calculation flipped?She’d told herself it wasforknowledge, without the “mere.”But the sober truth was that she’d left because he asked her too.
He’d seduced her with words.He hadn’t touched, hadn’t even kissed her.The Butterfly Effect, he’d said.It was too dangerous for them, for Alice.So she’d followed him, because touching each other wouldn’t affect her past once she was in the future.
And then he’d showered her with knowledge, so much she’d been drunk on it.And when she sobered up?
