Page 12 of Butterfly Effects

He froze, sagging slightly, like I’d just knocked the wind out of him.

“I’ve been checking in with your family periodically. They don’t know who I am, and they don’t remember me between visits, but I know who they are, and I know they miss you very much. They have no idea what happened to you. They just want you to come home.”

“Cici.”

“Is twenty years old now. She graduated from high school in the middle of her class, but she didn’t get expelled, and when one of the boys on the football team grabbed her ass, she broke his jaw. She’s a little spitfire, just like you said she was. She’s majoring in forensic science. She misses her big brother.”

“She can’t be twenty,” he objected. A giggle sounded from off to the right, high and bright and playful. He glanced toward it. “She’s not allowed.”

“I’m sorry.” That wasn’t enough. That could never have been enough. “You remember how Ingrid said she was going to turn me into a queen?”

“Yeah.”

“The last instar only triggers if you experience psychic trauma and have had your ancestral memories removed,” I said. “I caused you psychic trauma in the process of removing those memories. I think you’ve been undergoing the third and fourth instars at the same time. That’s why it’s taken so long.”

He stared at me. “That’s not possible.”

Cici ran into the space between us, a skinny urchin of no more than twelve in leggings and an oversized T-shirt that hung well past her mid-thigh. Her hair was gathered into two puffs on the sides of her head, banded with rainbow beads, and her skin was dark enough to make Mark look sickly as she grabbed his arm and yanked it down, pulling on him.

“Mark, come on,” she said. “You promised I could have a turn. You promised, you promised.”

“Cici, hey, chill for a second, okay?” He picked up the controller and handed it to her. “Go ahead and get your high score on, and I’ll check in with you in a little bit.”

She threw herself into his chair, already punching buttons with wild glee. Mark turned his attention back to me.

“You can’t tell me she grew up while I wasn’t there,” he said.

“I’m sorry. But she’s still young, and she has so much life ahead of her. She needs her big brother. She needs you to come home. Will you wake up, please? Will you at least try?”

Mark hesitated. “I don’t know how,” he admitted, after a long pause.

“Don’t worry.” I smiled brightly, offering him my hand. “I do.”

“Just a second, okay?” He turned back to Cici, who was just a memory, but was still the little sister he knew, the girl who’d been enough to stop him from destroying his entire family the way every cuckoo before him had done. She mattered.

He knelt, reaching over to poke her in the middle of the forehead. She glanced at him, lower lip jutting out in an exaggerated, playful pout.

“Stop it, stupid brother,” she said. “I’m playing.”

“I know, but—I have to go with my friend Sarah now, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Can you stay here and keep the game going until I see you again?”

Memory-Cici nodded enthusiastically, attention returning to the screen. Mark stood, sighing, and turned back to me.

“I know she’s just my memory of her, but if I’m not going to see this Cici again, I needed to say goodbye.”

“I understand.” I did, too. I would have given anything to have had the chance to say a proper goodbye to Artie, and I was never going to get one.

This time when I offered him my hand, he took it, and he let me pull him along as I started walking back through the endless white void. The gaming setup dwindled in the distance, becoming a speck before vanishing altogether. We were once again lost in the nothingness.

“Where are we going?” asked Mark.

“Home,” I said. “Back to the world where your family is, and your body is, and there’s tomato juice and math and autumn afternoons and no zombie cuckoos trying to destroy the world.”

“Wait—if you’ve been checking on my family for eight years, does that mean you did it? You finished the equation, and you didn’t die in the process?”

“Yup,” I said. “I am officially the first surviving cuckoo queen. Whee.”

He eyed me, sidelong and suspicious. “What did it cost you?”