The Power of Un (12 page)

Ash flung himself inside and buckled his seat belt. “Come on!” he called. “What’re you waiting for?”

I stopped with one foot in the cage and one on the catwalk outside. “I … I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

“Move it, will you?” said the carny, frowning. “People are waiting.”

I stepped inside. My stomach was already spinning, and the ride hadn’t even started yet. A too-small voice inside me squeaked,
Don’t do this! Get out of here
! I told myself I was just being a chicken and an idiot and a baby. While I buckled my seat belt, the same group of four girls who’d been on the ride with us before climbed in, already screaming with excitement. I looked at Ash, and he rolled his eyes.

The cage jerked, grinding slowly upward. I grabbed the mesh with my fingers and stared through. Below us, the carnival seethed with moving bodies, lights, and colors. The music of the carousel floated up, rising and falling with the breeze. Maybe it was luck, who knows, but my gaze came to rest on the pony ride, and there was Lorraine lifting Roxy down from a little brown-and-white horse. I breathed easier when I saw that she was keeping a firm hold on Roxy’s hand.

Roxy pointed at the snack booth and the kindly woman who was keeping Ash’s plane for him. They walked toward it. Their voices were lost in the crowd and the wind, but I knew what they were talking about. Roxy would be asking for a candy apple, or Rainy would be suggesting it. The mangy dog ran past. Roxy gave a little leap of joy. Rainy let go of her hand to open her coin purse, and my heart went into warp speed.

Hardly anybody I know goes to church, except maybe a couple of times a year, on special holidays.
This includes my family. Ash’s parents met in a spiritual commune in California, which is probably why Ash’s name is Ashadha instead of something normal like Brian or even Julius. They never go to church at all. They just have a place in their house where they burn incense and practice “being mindful.” Ash and I have talked about this before. The thing is, when we need to pray, neither of us ever knows who to pray to. Sometimes a person just wants to pray for something small, like not striking out or getting at least a C on a big test. But other times, you want to pray because you feel lost and you don’t know what else to do. You want somebody bigger and more powerful than you are to be in charge. That’s how I felt, watching Roxy tear off after that dog and knowing what would come next.

I pressed my face against the mesh and screamed, “Stop her! Stop her!” I don’t know who I was pleading with. Anybody who might be listening, I guess.

Ash’s breath brushed the back of my neck as he leaned close, watching from behind my shoulder without a word. He smelled like corn dogs and peanuts.

Lorraine whirled and looked around, suddenly aware that Roxy was gone. I heard her shout rise up thinly, “Roxy! Stop!” as she sped after my sister, her coin purse yawning and forgotten on the snack lady’s counter.

I watched them dart through the carnival, the dog chased by Roxy chased by Lorraine, moving relentlessly closer to the street. I felt the line of heat from a tear trickling down my cheek. “Don’t,” I whispered. “Please, don’t let it happen.” Ash’s breath stopped abruptly as the dog jumped off the curb. Lorraine was so close. She stretched hard, snatching at Roxy’s sweater.

Somewhere in that moment before anything terrible had quite happened yet, I thought of using the unner—not waiting for the awful inevitable. But I was too late. The unner was only halfway out of my pocket when the dog ran in front of the truck. The driver stood on his brakes. I heard his tires squeal. Smoke rose from the pavement. Then the mysterious universe took over. Against all odds, Lorraine caught Roxy and spun her around, hurling her back to the sidewalk as if she’d been flung from the end of a crack-the-whip game. But Lorraine kept going in the opposite direction, unable to stop herself. The truck hit her and tossed her high, her body moving in ways that looked all wrong. I closed my eyes as the Devil’s Elevator roared toward the ground. Only a few seconds had passed, but it seemed like forever.

B
y the time that stupid ride had stopped and the carny opened the cage door, I was crying hard, and I was so out of it I didn’t care who saw. I stumbled down the ramp onto the midway, sobbing, the unner clutched in my hands. Ash sprinted ahead, dodging through the crowd toward the growing knot of gawkers in the street. He didn’t look back. He probably assumed I was right behind him.

But my legs felt like overdone spaghetti. Instead of carrying me after Ash, they buckled, and I sat down hard in the dust. My throat opened and closed noisily as the sight of Lorraine spinning through the air replayed itself again and again in my head. This outcome was as bad as the first—maybe worse, because I felt doubly responsible for it. If I hadn’t fooled around with fate, Rainy
wouldn’t even have been at the carnival. Even if she
was
annoying, I didn’t want to see her hurt. I liked her. And I loved my sister. How could I choose which one of them would get hit by a truck? I had no clue. I thought I could change things for the better. But instead I’d messed them up more than ever. Now I saw the truth: I was like an ant trying to figure out rocket science. I was never going to get it. My brain just wasn’t big enough. I grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled. It hurt. I was so mad at myself and at the world, I pulled it again.

“Are you Gib?” said a voice from above. I looked up. Someone stood silhouetted in one of the brilliant lights along the midway.

I nodded, squinting, thinking maybe the old man from the woods had returned to help me. But though I couldn’t see the face, I could tell the person’s shape was wrong. I saw no wisps of silvery hair or tendrils of steam—just someone in a hood or a scarf. The voice, familiar but knobby as rough cloth, belonged to a woman.

A spidery finger reached out of the looming shadow and came to rest on the unner. The finger had an Egyptian scarab beetle tattooed on it.

Madam Isis!

“I have been visited by a messenger, an old man. Where he is from, who sent him, and why, I cannot tell you. All I will say is that he did not seem entirely of this world. He instructed me to find you and give
you this message. You must have courage. Now is the time for action. Much hangs on this moment.”

I gulped down a sob. “But what should I do?”

Madam Isis shook her head. “That is all he said.”

Panic rose inside me, threatening to wash me away. I wished I could just sit in the dust and do nothing at all rather than risk doing the wrong thing again.
Now is the time for action. Much hangs on this moment
. The old man knew more about the big picture than anyone else, and he seemed to think anything at all was better than nothing. But why hadn’t he just told me what to do? Maybe not even he knew.

I felt small and scared, trapped in a dark place I couldn’t find my way out of. “Help me, Madam Isis! What should I do?” I cried, hiding my face in the crook of my arm.

I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder, and when I looked, I saw that the fortuneteller had knelt down beside me. “My friend,” she said, “it is not so very hard. Look into your heart and do what you find there. For as long as I can remember, I have seen bits and pieces of what might lie ahead. And I can tell you this: what happens matters less than knowing you did your best. Only the heart knows what that may be.”

She looked kind and wise. I believed her.

I tried to steady myself. I’d never felt so stupid before. Follow my heart? I couldn’t even tell what my brain wanted, let alone my heart. Then it came to me.
There was one thing I wanted with every speck of me. I wanted Roxy and Rainy both to be all right. And there was only one possible way to get that: use the unner again.

How much more of this night could I stand to relive? As little as possible, I thought. I considered the various versions of reality through which I’d threaded my way. One thing was the same in all of them. The Devil’s Elevator. Maybe if I didn’t get on that ride, if I just stayed on the ground near Roxy, I could change everything. I could grab her hand and not let go, no matter what else happened. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it had to be better than no plan at all.

I tried to estimate how much time had passed since Ash and I climbed into the Devil’s Elevator—maybe fifteen minutes. I turned the unner on. Goose bumps rose on my arms as the machine made the little silver bell sound that meant it was ready. I punched MMODE and keyed in 15. I looked at Madam Isis, and she smiled. I pushed
ORDER
.

The world jerked, and I found myself standing in line again. I’d made the mistake of keeping my eyes open, and I was dizzy. I bumped into Ash.

“Whoa!” he said. “What’s wrong?”

I blinked at him. His face glowed bright with eagerness and excitement. He was, after all, looking forward to a thrilling ride he’d never tried before.

“Nothing. I just … I just …” I figured I might as well tell him right then. “Ash, I can’t go on this ride.”

“What?” He looked as if I’d just told him I was growing a tail. “What’s the matter?”

I rubbed my sleeve hastily across my eyes, still wet with tears. How much more embarrassing could life get? “Nothing,” I said for the second time. “I can’t go on this ride, that’s all. You can go by yourself if you want. It’s O.K.”

“Are you out of your mind? We’ve been planning this for weeks! You have to go! It won’t be any fun without you.”

I shook my head. “Trust me. If I go, somebody’s going to get hit by a truck.”

For a minute, he didn’t believe me. I could see his eyes moving as he tried to figure out what was going on, wondering if I’d turned chicken and was just using a lame excuse to get out of the ride. But at this point in the last version of time, he’d known about the unner; he’d even used it himself. He knew about Roxy and the accident that hadn’t happened yet. I watched as he decided to trust me.

“You sure?” he said.

I nodded.

His shoulders and the corners of his mouth drooped. He wasn’t very good at hiding disappointment. “Can we try again later?” he asked as he turned around to begin working his way out of the line.

“Maybe,” I said, following him.
If there’s a miracle
, I thought.

It was a tight squeeze. The line behind us was longer than it had been before, and there were a lot of people packed between the two metal guide rails leading up to the ride. It was hard for them to make space for us.

I accidentally stepped on a girl’s foot. She shrieked. You’d have thought I was wearing jackboots with spikes in the soles—how much could an ordinary pair of canvas high tops hurt?

Then I saw her look up and bat her eyes at the guy she was with. He was big, and his T-shirt bulged with muscles, but I was so worried about Rainy and Roxy that somehow those facts didn’t register right away. What
did
register was that she was faking to make it look as if I’d hurt her more than I really had. I’ve seen girls try to start fights between boys a number of times, and I have to say I just don’t get it. What’s the point? It makes me
really
mad, and this time was no exception.

I said the first thing that came into my head: “Gripes, don’t have a cow.”

The boyfriend turned toward me, his chunky face twisted in an angry scowl. “Watch it, shrimp!” he said, and he grabbed the front of my jacket, jerking me right off my feet.

People around us grumbled and squealed, upset at
being jostled. Ash turned around and said, “Hey! Leave my friend alone!”

“You want me to leave him alone? O.K.” The guy sneered and threw me over the railing like a sack of potatoes. I somersaulted across the dirt and lay there gasping, all the wind knocked out of me.

“The unner!” I heard Ash cry.

Then there was another sound—the crunch of breaking plastic. I sat up just in time to see the unner spinning beneath the feet of people who didn’t even notice they were kicking it, pieces spraying in all directions.

Ash squeezed under the railing and scurried into the crowd on his hands and knees like a mad mouse. He lunged toward what was left of the device, covering it with his body. Somebody stumbled over him. I heard him grunt. He got to his feet, shook himself off, and hurried over to help me up. He was still watching the ground in a stunned way as stray bits of the unner continued to ricochet from one person’s feet to another’s.

I spit out dirt as Ash handed me the mass of unidentifiable parts and dangling connectors. “This can’t be happening,” I said, staring at it, unwilling to believe my own eyes.

“Sorry,” said Ash. “I tried to get it. I really did.” He looked almost as desperate as I felt. “What now?”

“Now?” I said. I felt half dead inside, almost the
way I had in our Roxyless house after the first accident. It was hard to think or even feel. Nothing seemed real anymore. But I guess some part of me knew what was going on, and that part took over, urging me forward into my last chance of saving the world as I knew it.

I looked across the midway toward the pony ride and there, just as before, stood Roxy and Rainy, hand in hand. In my dazed state, they seemed as joyful and radiant as a pair of angels outlined in carnival lights. I’d rather have croaked right there than watch anything bad happen to either one of them. They walked toward the booth where the blond woman hawked her candy apples.

“Can I please, please have one?” said Roxy. “I love candy apples!”

“Sure,” said Rainy, smiling. She stroked Roxy’s hair.

I walked over to them, trying a smile of my own. “Pretty hard to eat those without front teeth,” I said.

Lorraine looked up. “Oh, Gib! Ash! Hi,” she said. She started to grin but stopped halfway, probably remembering how rude I’d been when I left the house.

Roxy stuck her tongue out at me and said, “Doesn’t matter. I can so eat it without my front teeth.” Then she looked at me hard. “Eeeuuw! What happened to
you
?”

I looked down at myself. I was filthy. Pale dust caked my shirt and jacket, and unidentifiable carnival gunk was stuck to my jeans. I didn’t even want to know what my face looked like. The tip of my nose felt funny, and when I reached up to touch it, my finger came away red. I’d scraped it in exactly the same place as I had when I tripped in the woods an eternity ago.