Page 91 of Butterfly Effects

I started for the house, Mark, Sam, and Artie following me, and every step took us closer to doing something we weren’t going to be able to take back, and that was part of how I knew it was the right thing to do. The right thing is almost always hard. That’s what stops some people from doing it.

The fear of being taken apart by a hive of angry telepathic wasps stops the rest.

I climbed the steps to the back door and opened it, waving the others into the kitchen. Once they were through, I let the door bang shut behind me as I followed them inside.

Twenty-Two

“While you’re alive, you fight, little girl. You fight to stay that way. That’s the only thing I’m ever going to ask from you. You have to fight.”

–Angela Baker

Buckley Township, Michigan, once more in the basement of the Old Parrish Place

MARK LOOKED AROUND WITH UNDISGUISED interest as we walked through the kitchen to the dining room, then through that to the living room to the basement door. He balked when I pulled it open, revealing the descending darkness on the other side.

“I am not going into the murder hole with you people,” he said.

“If you want those coordinates, you need to,” I replied. “That’s where we left from, and where the Johrlac collective returned us. That’s where the echoes of the equation are going to be.”

“I didn’t want to do this in the first place,” he complained—but he started down the stairs, and the rest of us followed him.

As we walked, I tried to see this space as it would seem to a stranger. The racks of weaponry on the walls, the work tables scattered around the edges of the room, and of course, the ritual circle at the center. All in all, it could have been an unused sound stage for a horror movie. I tried to keep that in mind as I waved Mark toward the ritual circle, stepping into it first so he’d see that there was nothing to be afraid of.

“This is where we made both crossings,” I said. “Give it a look.”

“Right,” he said dubiously. His eyes flared white, and the air around us began to ripple and tear, forming tiny rifts that opened just long enough to show me glimpses of auroras and cascading sheets of light, then sealed again. Mark frowned, shaking his head, and the glow died, taking the distortions with it. “Okay, I’ll give you this much: there was definitely some sort of dimensional crossing here. One heading out, the other coming back.”

“Can you retrace the crossing?” asked Artie.

“Patience,” said Mark. “I just spent eight years in a coma. I’m not in a huge rush to leap to my death. Yeah, I can see which way to go. I can even put together the equation that’s going to get us there. But there’s a problem.”

“Isn’t there always a problem?” I asked.

“I’ll need more processing power. And I’m not using my traveling companions. We already know from watching Sarah that it never works out the way you hope it will.”

“Processing power?” asked Sam dubiously.

“Brains,” said Mark. “I need brains I can offload some of the math onto, once it’s finished but before it’s ready to execute.”

“Do they have to be human brains?” I asked.

“No. Anything with sufficient neuron density will work— Where are you going?”

“To get you some brains. Come on, Sam. We need to go visit your friend the bloodworm and all his little bloodworm buddies.” I grabbed the banister, stepping onto the bottom stair. “Artie, you and Mark chill here. We’ll be right back.”

Then I was off and running, Sam behind me, with a task I could actually complete.

Sometimes it’s good to understand what you can find in the Galway Woods.

It’s not true that leeches have thirty-two brains. Leeches have one large—by annelid standards—brain, and then thirty-two separate packets of ganglia that transmit instructions to the individual sections of their bodies. So no, not thirty-two brains. But thirty-two tidy little processing centers that someone could use to offload complicated math intended to change the universe.

I ran across the field, Sam close behind me, and plunged into the trees, heading for the nearest path that would take me to the swamp. “What are we looking for?” asked Sam, easily catching up with and pacing me.

I looked over at him as I ran. “Bloodworms.”

“Bloodworms?”

“You remember your giant leech friend?”