Beyond the Reflection’s Edge (22 page)

“Not a problem.”

Nathan leaned forward, trying to catch Kelly’s attention in her rearview mirror. “What did you hear when we were in the stall?”

“I’ll tell you later.” Their gazes locked in the narrow mirror. Her eyes seemed warm and sympathetic. “It’s kind of … personal. It won’t change anything if we wait a little while.”

He reached into the front pocket of his backpack and pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call Clara and get her up to speed.”

“Be sure to tell her about Dr. Gordon. Hell probably head back to Interfinity.”

He punched in her number and waited through the trill. After the third ring, her familiar voice buzzed through the earpiece. “Yes, Nathan?”

“Where are you? At Interfinity?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “We are. Francesca and I are playing tourist. We blended into a school group’s guided tour.
I’m looking for a chance to sneak away maybe get into the offices when they close.”

“Make sure you look for Dr. Gordon’s office. He’s the head of R&D, and he was at the high school looking for me, so he can’t possibly get back there in time to walk in on you. I’ll tell you more later, but we need to stay away from him no matter what.”

“Great information. Why was he looking for you?”

“Not just looking. He was going to make me come back with him to his office, but Kelly and I got away.” As they approached a sharp curve, Nathan checked the speedometer. Kelly showed no sign of dropping under fifty-five. “We’re getting ready to come to Chicago,” he continued, clutching the seat in front of him, “because Gordon’s sure to find out where we live, and we have to come to the funeral anyway.”

“We’ll figure out a place to meet. You have your ATM card, right?”

As the Toyota careened around the bend, he lurched to the side and draped his arm over his backpack. “I got it right here,” he grunted.

“Then you have plenty of money. Be sure to take care of all the expenses.”

“Gotcha.”

“Don’t call again,” Clara warned. “I’ll estimate the time of your arrival and call you. I’m sure you can find Interfinity’s address on the Internet. The observatory is northwest of the city.”

“No problem. We’ll see you in a few hours.” He slapped the phone closed.

As the Camry roared down the country highway Kelly explained their story to Daryl, cutting out enough details to keep it short. Nathan added what happened to him when he first saw his parents in the coffins and the subsequent pursuit by the gunman in the Mustang. He finished with his suspicions
about Dr. Gordon. “The guy who chased us looked exactly like him, except, when he showed up at school, he didn’t have a cut on his cheek. So until I know otherwise, he’s a murderer in my book.”

Daryl interlaced her fingers behind her head. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m coming along. Let me tell you what I know.”

“Cool your jets.” Kelly pressed the brakes and skidded into a turn down their cornfield-bordered road. “Let’s get our stuff. You can tell us the rest on the way to Chicago.”

After pushing the garage opener, Kelly zoomed inside, barely fitting the car under the rising door. Screeching to a halt, she jumped out and ran into the house. Nathan slid on his back-pack and followed Daryl through the laundry area, across the kitchen, and into the formal living room.

Kelly pointed down the hall. “Daryl, you first in the bathroom. No potty breaks if we can help it.”

When Daryl trotted away, Kelly pulled Nathan close. “When you played in the stall, I heard your mother and father talking.” She breathed a gentle sigh. “Nathan, I’ve never heard anything like it. They were so sweet.”

Nathan dipped his head. “Yeah … I know.”

“Anyway, your father said he was being tortured to draw you to their dimension. They think someone called Simon is behind it, but they’re not sure.”

“But Dr. Simon is dead. How could that be?”

“Your parents are dead, too, but they still seem to be talking.”

The sound of a toilet flushing came from down the hall, followed by a closing door. Kelly glanced that way and sped through her words. “They’re worried about you. Something’s gone wrong in their plan, and if you follow the clues they’ve left behind, you could be in big trouble. Apparently, Simon set some kind of trap for you. He thinks you’ll respond to your father’s suffering and come to help him.”

Daryl peeked around the corner. “That sounds like
The Empire Strikes Back.
Darth Vader tortured Han Solo to get Luke to show up. That was a trap, too.”

“I remember,” Nathan said. “Luke went anyway.”

Daryl flashed a thumbs up. “He had to go no matter what. That’s what heroes do.” Angling her thumb toward the hall, she grinned. “Speaking of having to go, who’s next in the bathroom?”

Kelly pushed Nathan’s backpack. “You go. I already went.”

“In the guys’ bathroom at school?”

“Why not? They all work the same.” She pushed him again. “Hurry! I’ll get my stuff packed.”

Nathan rushed through his bathroom stop, picking up his toothbrush on the way out. When he got back to his bedroom, he flipped on his desk lamp and laptop computer, threw his suitcase on the bed, and hurriedly packed it. He glanced at the mirror on the wall. Everything seemed normal. The trunk was closed. The lights stayed constant.

He pulled open a desk drawer and lifted out his father’s camera by its strap. No sense in leaving it behind for Gordon to steal. He laid it gently among his clothes, and, after zipping his suitcase, he slid into his chair and opened the browser. Interfinity was easy to find. He pulled the observatory’s address up on a map. Just as he clicked on the print button, Kelly bustled into the room, a duffle bag strap over her shoulder.

“You ready?” she asked.

He nodded at the suitcase on the bed. “Yeah. I just sent a map to the printer.”

She set her bag down. “I’ll get it. Daryl’s already in the garage.”

Nathan packed his laptop and grabbed his suitcase, but he couldn’t resist another look at the mirror. Still normal — a perfect reflection. This would be his last chance to see the big mirror for
quite a while. Might it be able to show images his little corner section couldn’t?

Moving quickly, he slid off his backpack, fished out the mirror, and reapplied it in the blank corner section. It stuck in place and once again sent a shimmer of light across the glass. He pulled his new violin from under the bed and took it out of its case. Then, with a few quick strokes, he played part of a Sibelius piece that had been running through his head, “Finlandia.”

As he watched the mirror, his eyes glowed yet again, becoming brighter than ever before. Soon, the glass surface flickered and transformed into a close-up of a man’s profile — Dr. Simon’s. As Nathan played on, the portrait clarified. Simon clutched a steering wheel, bouncing up and down as if driving over a bumpy road. The scenery through the window behind him passed by quickly, farmland of some kind. Several black-and-white cows grazed in fenced, grassy fields, and, in another lot, a big-wheeled tractor dragged a plow through rich black earth.

Simon’s lips moved. Soon, his voice became audible, a slow, careful speech seemingly designed for recording.

“Nathan Shepherd, if you can hear me, you have learned by now that music is the key to opening a video and audio portal between dimensions. You might have also learned that flashes of light allow you to move between the dimensions once the portal is open.”

Kelly walked into the room, her eyes widening. “Holy —”

“Shhh!” Nathan warned.

Dr. Simon continued. “You can use a flashlight, a flickering lamp, almost anything that surpasses a certain lumens minimum, but that is far too technical for this message. I need you to come here to help me stop a madman who is trying to manipulate these dimensions for his own purposes. I know you have lost your mother and father, but there is still hope. Come to
this place so that we can prevent interfinity. The entire cosmos is at stake.”

The message began again. Nathan lowered his bow and repacked his violin. Within seconds, Dr. Simon’s image faded, and the mirror returned to normal. Leaving his violin case on the bed, he grabbed the screwdriver from the shelf and pried his mirror loose again.

Kelly shivered. “I don’t like how he said that.”

“I didn’t like any thing he said.” He stuffed his mirror into his backpack. “What part bugged you?”

She picked up her bag and mimicked his voice. “The entire cosmos is at stake.”

“Maybe that’s part of the bait.” After sliding the backpack on, he picked up his suitcase. “He probably doesn’t know that you heard my parents talking about him, so he’s luring me every way he can.”

“So what are you going to do?”

He took Kelly’s bag and slung the strap over his shoulder. “Be a hero.”

“Don’t overload yourself, hero.” She smiled and pointed at the laptop case on the floor. “I’ll get that.”

They hurried out to the Camry. With the garage door rumbling open, Daryl lifted a bag into the trunk and tossed the keys toward Kelly, who snatched them deftly out of the air. While Kelly started the car, Nathan shoved the other bags on top of Daryl’s. When he opened the back door to get in, Daryl was already sitting there.

“Ride up front,” she said, reaching for his backpack. “When I get done with my story, I’m gonna lie down and snooze.”

As soon as Nathan hopped in and slammed the door, Kelly screeched out of the driveway and zoomed onto the main road. Now driving at a safer speed, she angled her head toward Daryl. “Okay. Time to spill it. Tell us everything you know about Interfinity.”

Daryl closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, a proud smile spreading across her face. “Interfinity used to be called ‘StarCast.’ They got a lot of press about their project to send radio signals into space, you know, hoping to contact any intelligent life out there.” She opened her eyes. “Remember the movie
ET
? This was bigger, like souped-up, extraterrestrial phone tag. Crazy, right? But, guess what? They got an answer!”

Kelly’s eyes shot wide open. “Not from an alien!”

“No! That’s the weirdest part of all. They got an answer from themselves!”

“From themselves?”

“Yeah. And a whole lot quicker than they thought possible!”

“Did the signal bounce off something?” Nathan asked. “Maybe it went in a circle?”

“Nope!” Daryl gave him a mischievous smirk. “You of all people should be able to figure it out. Keep guessing.”

“Keep guessing? That could take hours!” Nathan thumped his head back against the seat. As the countryside zoomed by, scenes of approaching autumn — a hint of color in the maple trees, withering corn tassels, and a flock of birds beginning a migratory journey — the theme from Vivaldi’s “Autumn” played in his mind. As the sweet violins eased his tensions, he closed his eyes and imagined the notes’ arrangement on the staff, each one sprouting in its proper position as it played. When the pages filled, a breeze picked them up and carried them into the sky, page after page joining in a musical chain reaching toward heaven. Finally, when the last page drifted away, he opened his eyes. “They sent music into outer space, didn’t they?”

Daryl pointed at him. “Smart boy!”

“What made them decide to play music?” Kelly asked.

Daryl restarted her rapid-fire chatter. “They tried everything, but when they sent music, they finally got an answer, and it was the same music they sent out. So they started experimenting
with different varieties. They recorded about a hundred songs, mostly classical, but some rock and country, even some polka, and they started broadcasting them in order. But do you know what happened? They started getting back song number five on the list while they were still sending song number three!”

“So it couldn’t have been bouncing back at them,” Nathan said.

“Brilliant deduction, Holmes!” Daryl grinned and pushed Nathan’s elbow with her foot. “So after all their experiments, they came up with a wild theory When Dr. Gordon presented his paper on it during a seminar at a fancy scientists’ convention, he got laughed out of the building, and he lost his grant from the National Science Foundation.”

“I’ll bet that really ticked him off,” Kelly said.

“Oh, yeah! He went out and got what you might call” — Daryl drew quotation marks in the air — “alternative funding from some kind of fringe group.”

“How do you know they’re fringe?”

“Are you kidding me? Anyone who would throw money at this crazy project has got to be fringe.”

Kelly glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “But you don’t think it’s crazy, right?”

“Normal people think it is, but, as you know” — Daryl pressed her thumb against her chest — “I’m far from normal.”

“No argument here,” Kelly said, rolling her eyes. “Go on.”

“Anyway, Dr. Gordon sponsored this seminar for students who were interested in learning about radio telescopes and broadcasting into space, which sounded reasonable enough to a lot of teachers, so he had about four or five hundred kids show up. But as he got to know the group, he pulled some of us aside into a special workshop and explained his newest theories.”

She lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. “He believes there are multiple dimensions exactly like ours, only they’re slightly off time-wise.” She set her palms close together. “While
something happens here,” she said, wiggling the fingers on one hand, “it happens a little while later in one of the other dimensions.” She wiggled her other fingers to match. “But it might have already happened in a third one.”

“So that’s why they got the music before they sent it,” Nathan said. “They were sending it to themselves from another dimension, only they were farther ahead in time.”

“Exactly!” Daryl leaned back and sighed. “It’s fun talking to smart people. I don’t have to spell everything out.”

“How many dimensions are there?” Kelly asked.

“No clue. Dr. Gordon identified at least three, but he thinks there might be more. We tried to pry more information out of him, but he went all Gandalf on us. You know …” Daryl leaned between the front seats and glanced at Kelly and Nathan in turn. “
Keep it secret. Keep it safe
.”

Kelly pushed her back with her elbow. “You and your movies.”