Across the Universe (3 page)

Chapter Four

              I sit in the Watch Room, my universe floating above the transparent basin. Nim stands in the corner, hovering but not over my shoulder, and her stern gaze makes it hard for me to concentrate.

              “Do you have to be here?” I ask.

              “Not necessarily, but it
is
only your second time,” she replies, sounding hurt.

              I shrug and close my eyes, pretending she’s not in the room. It takes a long time before my body wisps into smoke, but then I’m off among the galaxies, winding my way around stars and planets with a rush of adrenaline pumping through my veins.

              I try to do what Nim told me—to find new places to visit, new life to seek out—but I’m drawn to Earth like a moth to a flame. I hover above the blue planet and find myself wondering what Noah and Lizzie are doing, if they’re on the beach where I left them or sleeping in their beds. From what I’ve heard, time works differently in The House, and there’s no telling if it will be night or day once I arrive there.

              The book I read in the Archives Room described the sun and how it shines, but when I land on the beach again I am unprepared for its brightness. Having spent the whole of the day trapped in the dimness of Elli’s tunnels and out of the bright illumination of The House’s halls, I am surprised by the blinding rays shooting through the atmosphere above.

              I throw one arm out to shield my eyes from the sun and clutch the other around me as the wind whips at my skin. The water of the lake raises white caps and sloshes hard against the shore, wetting the sand and causing it to turn a dark brown color.

              The same color as Noah’s hair.

              I look around, but don’t see him on the beach. My heart sinks a little. I almost walk into the grass, venture onto the road to look for someone or something else to watch, but a nagging feeling in my stomach tells me to wait.

              I take a seat in the sand and wind my hands into the cool granules as I draw my knees up to my chest. The water continues to lap erratically against the shore, the glare of the sun beating down on its surface and blinding my eyes.

              While I wait for Noah to come, I do my job. I watch as passerby walk on and off the shore, strolling near the tide in thick sweaters and pants. Some of the people I watch are small, like children. Others are large and looming, casting shadows over me as they walk by. They are all interesting in their own way, but none are like the boy.

              The sun lowers over the horizon, turning the sky an array of oranges, pinks, and reds. Its tendril-like rays paint the lake water a sultry hue that frames the crafts navigating across it in dramatic shadows. My hands dig deeper into the sand, finding the wetness there and pulling it to the surface.

              The crowd meandering about the beach thins and dies. Still, I wait for him.

              As the sky darkens and wanes into a deep and frothy purple, I begin to feel fear. The idea of never seeing Noah again stabs my gut, and suddenly I am torn into two parts. The first is like Nim, stern yet strong, and tells me to ignore the sensation boiling within me. The other yearns for friendship—something other than the blatant tolerance The House regards me with—and feels as if Noah’s my only chance.

              It’s not until the moon peeks out from between a spattering of gray clouds that I see him coming. He crests over a grassy hill and makes his way into the sand, his shoes sinking deep in the silt as he struggles to come nearer.

              When he arrives he drops down to the ground next to me, matching me by drawing his legs into his chest.

              “I’ve been waiting for you,” he says.

              “I’m the one who’s been waiting,” I reply. “All day I’ve been here. And where’ve you gone off to?”

              “Home. I have parents, you know. And my sister, Lizzie. They all think I’m crazy now after what I told them I saw.”

              “And what is it you said?”

              “That I witnessed a girl turn to smoke in front of my eyes. That she blew away into the clouds.” He locks his gaze onto mine, and it’s warm, radiating. “Is that even what I saw? Am I making you up? You could be a dream, or a hallucination.”

              I poke him in the shoulder, and though he strains in the opposite direction, he doesn’t leave. “I’m real. As real as you and Lizzie and this beach and the moon above us. I read about it all today. This planet, the life that exists here. It’s all very fascinating.”

              Noah adjusts his glasses, staring into the glinting silver of my irises as if I’m a project needing to be studied. “Where are you from, really? You say you live outside of this world, so what does that make you? An alien?”

              “I’m just a girl who lives in The House, and you’re a boy I’m supposed to watch. Nim would throw me into the void if she knew I was talking to you like this.”

              “Who’s Nim?”

              I picture her strict expression and folded arms in my head as I answer. “My mentor. She’s the one who I followed so I could become a Watcher, like her.”

              “And what’s a Watcher? Someone who looks over Earth?”

              I wave my arms out in front of me, gesturing at the whole of the landscape. “Not just Earth. Everything. The whole universe. There are others, you know. Universes, I mean. And there are other Watchers. Each Watcher oversees one universe, and each one is a member of The House, where I live.”

              “Tell me more,” he pleads.

              And so I do. I tell him everything, about Nim and Elli, about The House and its halls and walls and rooms. I explain the archives and the books and the drawers that hold the orbs in which the universes reside. He stares at me the whole time, his gaze intense, mixed with a cross of disbelief and excitement.

              “So how does that work?” he says after I’m done. “If The House is real and you were here before anything else, how is it all possible? Are you born? Are you raised? Do you have mothers and fathers?”

              I bite my lip in thought before replying with, “We just
are
. Kind of like the wind and the rain.”

              To my surprise, Noah slides his hand around mine. His skin is warm despite the chill in the air, and my palm tingles in his.

              “I’m not one of you,” I say. “You know that, right? I’m not—what do you call it? Human. I’m not human, though I wish I was.”

              “You don’t want to be human,” he answers. “It’s awful. People are mean. They stab each other in the back, start wars, fight with each other. Earth isn’t as amazing as you think it is.”

              I lean back, letting my head fall against the sand and my shoulders go flush with the ground. Noah copies me, lying down on the earth while running an absentminded hand through his hair.

              “You’re modeled after The House, you know. At least that’s what Elli says. Yours is the first universe among them all, and that’s why we’re so much alike,” I say.

              “I wish I could see it all for myself. The House. Nim. Elli. The Archives Room. All of it. It sounds so much better than sitting in the kitchen doing my math homework.”

              I loll my head to the side, giving him my most serious stare. “What’s math?”

              Noah laughs, and the noise of it carries off on the wind. It doesn’t echo like in The House, but it flows, just like the waves of water in front of us.

              A sound rustles the trees at the edge of the beach, drawing my eyes to focus there. The stars have long since risen and their glow barely infiltrates the branches and leaves that make up the patch of woods beyond the sand. Their illumination provides just enough sight, however, to see a wisp of black darting in between the foliage.

              “Did you see that?” I ask Noah.

              He tilts his head back toward the trees. “No, I—”

              His words are cut off when a figure darts by within the woods, a swath of black outlined against the midnight blue of night. Noah emits a string of words I don’t understand—they are harsh and volatile, like the hiss of a snake—and then he’s on his feet, brushing the sand off the backside of his pants.

              “Probably just Lizzie playing a prank,” he says.

              I stand, straightening my white sheath dress and squinting out into the darkness. The dim lighting reminds me of the tunnels of the Archives Room, only here there isn’t the comforting smell of books or parchment or ink.

              A blur of black flies by again, and this time it weaves in and out of the trees, coming near the edge of the sand before darting back inside. I don’t know where I find the courage but I begin to run, dashing for the beach line.

              I hear Noah take off behind me, following me into the trees. The ground becomes littered with leaves and twigs that snap and crackle underfoot. Still, I don’t stop. My lungs don’t give out like Noah’s do, and while he’s doubled over, gasping for air, I run on into the night, in search of the swath of black I saw within the trees.

              It moves again, to my left, like a shadow so thick it could block out the sun. I switch course and barrel toward it, but catch my foot on an exposed root. I go down with a thud, landing sprawled out on the forest floor with my nose buried in dirt.

              Two strong arms wrap across my chest and pull me to my feet, and I struggle and fight against them until I realize it’s Noah. I turn into him and bury my face into his shoulder. He smells of oak and spices and everything that The House lacks, and I want to stay there forever. His hand tangles itself in my hair and gently pulls me away until we meet each other’s eyes.

              There, again, over his shoulder, darts a black-clothed figure. I am torn from Noah’s intense gaze and stumble through the trees in search of what I see. Noah follows me, crashing through the brush and fauna.

              I break out from the edge of the woods back onto the beach, the sand sucking my toes back into its depths. Noah knocks into my back, stealing the breath from my lungs as I stare out at the lake.

              There, near the tide, stand three cloaked figures. Each one is hooded in black, causing their faces to recede into the darkness of the fabric. The hands that dangle from their sleeves are rotten and skeletal. At the sight of them I’m filled with dread, as if my stomach has been dipped in ice water. Chills course over my skin and sickness wells up in my throat. I can’t explain it, but part of me knows: these things are
wrong
, out of place, and something to be feared. I take one step toward the beings but in that time they notice me, and suddenly they are smoke in the wind, blowing up and up and away into the night, disappearing past the moon and onward into the universe beyond.

              “What the hell were those things?” Noah asks. “Are they members of The House, like you?”

              “No, they’re not,” I reply.

              He adjusts his glasses, struggling to draw air back into his lungs after the exertion of his run. “They turned to smoke like you. What else could they be?”

              I round on him, anger bubbling up my throat and cancelling out the bile. “You think I’m like them? They’re awful, I could feel it! And you think they’re like me? The House would never let those—things—into its quarters, and even if they did, I’d know about it, wouldn’t I?”

              Noah takes a step back, holding his hands up in front of him in surrender. “Sorry I asked. I just—well—people don’t turn into smoke that often around here, okay? What am I supposed to think?”

              I stomp off through the sand, the mix of emotions coursing through me leaving me unable to focus. “You’re supposed to think—I don’t know! Not what you just did! After all I told you, you think you’d have a better idea of who I am.”

              Noah replies, but I don’t hear his words. I slam my eyes shut and focus on The House, anywhere but here, and I am a swirling cloud of smoke floating into the atmosphere.

              When I dare to look out again I see Nim asleep in the corner, leaning against the wall, and the orb holding my universe floating serenely in the basin in front of me. There are no hooded figures or befuddled boys to deal with, and yet I find my skin prickling.

              I am not the only one that turns to smoke in the night, and whoever the cloaked figures are, I need to find out why they came for me.

Chapter Five

              By the time I return, half the torches in the Watch Room are extinguished. Nim is asleep in the corner, her head resting against the wall. I take the orb my universe rests in out of the basin and the sound of my fingers brushing the bowl awakens her.

              “You were gone a long time,” she says, rubbing her eyes with the back of a hand.

              I cast my palm against the glass ball, the heat of the magic held within breathing against my skin with a warmth I don’t expect.

              “I was waiting,” I reply.

              Nim rises to her feet and strides over to me, setting a hand on my shoulder. “Waiting for what, Amara?”

              “I was sitting on the beach, waiting for a boy.”

              She frowns, pulls her hand away. “The same boy you mentioned before?”

              “Who else?”

              “After all I’ve taught you, you still defy the rules that Watchers hold sacred?” she asks.

              I struggle to my feet, tilting my head up to look her in the eye. “You’ve told me the rules time and again. We’re not supposed to interact with the life we encounter. But what you haven’t told me is
why
.”

              Nim narrows her gaze. “Your job isn’t to know why. If it was, you’d be an Archiver.”

              “Then maybe that’s what I should’ve been. At least Elli tells me the
why
about things. I bet if I asked her, she’d—”

              “But you won’t. It’s my job to make sure of that, under penalty of being thrown into the void,” Nim snaps.

              I pull back, holding the glass orb close to my heart. Nim lets her cold gaze fall over me, and when she reaches my knees, she pauses and takes a sharp intake a breath.

              “What happened here?” she asks.

              I glance down at myself and see what she speaks of. Apparently, when I’d fallen in the woods the roots scraped my knees. Open wounds cut into my flesh, blood the same color of the silver in my irises seeping through and running down my legs. I’m about to tell Nim the truth—about the black cloaked figures and how Noah accused me of knowing them—when she pushes her hand roughly against my back and steers me toward the door.

              “Nevermind,” she says. “We’ve got to get you cleaned up. The Sick Room isn’t far from here.”

              She navigates the halls expertly, leading me around corners and down passageways that I’ve never seen before. All the while she keeps me in front of her, as if she’s scared that one look away will cause me to disappear. Halfway to wherever we’re going she guides me into the room of drawers, where I safely tuck my universe away, but then she takes me back into the hall again and leads me in a direction I’m unfamiliar with.

              Nim keeps walking until she reaches a plain wooden door like all the rest, except for a picture of a skull carved into the wood. I recoil, ready to turn in the opposite direction, but she pins my arm to her side and turns the knob.

              Before she can swing the door open it’s wrenched in the opposite direction and the man who performed my assignment ceremony, Dante, emerges from within the room. His shadow blocks out the view inside and Nim pulls me out of the way just in time to avoid a collision of bodies.

              “Nim! I’m surprised to see you here,” Dante says, letting his eyes slide across us to the floor.

              “I’m taking Amara to the Sick Room. She’s injured herself in one of her journeys to her universe.”

              Dante gulps, nods. “Right now might not be the best time.”

              “It’ll have to do. She’s bleeding; can’t you see?”

              Dante appraises my scraped knees. His head turns minutely and he casts a worried look over his shoulder before replying. “You should be prepared for what you find inside, then. One of the Watchers has fallen sick, and you know what that means.”

              The blood drains from Nim’s face. “I understand.”

              “Very well.” Dante turns his head away from the room and stares down the hall, pointedly avoiding the sight of me as if I’m nonexistent. “You do what you have to do.” Then he trails away, disappearing around the corner.

              I listen to his footsteps echo out until they dwindle down to nothing, and then Nim pulls me inside the Sick Room.

              The place is well lit like the hallways of The House, with marble altars aligned in rows against the wall. Each one has a sheet draped over the top with a pillow at one end. Next to the altars are metal tables filled with medical supplies. Most of the beds are empty, but one to the left of me is occupied.

              The person that rests there is a woman I recognize vaguely from my time roaming about The House. She is tall and lean, with the same platinum blonde hair and delicate features as me. Except this time, some of the strands sprouting from her head have turned a sharp shade of silver, and her eyes are hazed over with a milky white film. Her shoulder blades jut out from under her skin, stretching her paleness so that I can almost see the bones underneath. Her breaths come in ragged gasps as an Aider sits nearby and dabs at her forehead with a damp cloth.

              Nim rushes to her, taking the sick woman’s hand up into hers. “Oh, Dena! I wish they’d told me sooner!”

              “Who is she?” I ask. The Aider and Nim both stare at me with a look of confusion, as if they’ve forgotten I’m there.

              “She’s a Watcher,” Nim replies after a time, “and a good one at that. Now come, take a seat on one of the altars.”

              I do as I’m told, sitting down on one of the makeshift beds several lengths down from Dena. The Aider abandons his sick charge and comes to examine my knees as Nim stays behind and holds her friend’s hand.

              “That’s a pretty big scrape you’ve got there,” the Aider says, using a swab dipped in some kind of clear liquid that burns against my wound.

              “Huh?” I say, distracted by the sight of Dena’s skeletal frame lying nearby.

              “How’d you come about this?” he says, louder this time.

              I turn my head to him slowly, my eyes finally focusing on his concerned face. “I fell.”

              He blinks back at me, sighs, and wraps gauze around both my knees. “That should do it. Just don’t get into too much trouble again, okay? You don’t want to end up like Dena.”

              I glance over at the sick Watcher again. Her chest heaves against the sheet that wraps around her, and her frame shakes as if she’s freezing cold. Her skin has become so transparent that I can see the silver running through the veins underneath.

              Dena takes her sharpest breath yet, rattling her lungs in an attempt to draw in air. The Aider jumps to his feet and rushes to her side, reapplying the damp rag to her forehead and whispering soothingly into her ear. Nim stumbles away, coming to meet me at my bedside. I’ve never seen my mentor look so sad before, and the emotion does not fit her features. It’s like a mask molded for someone else’s face; it doesn’t quite cling to the sculpt of her jaw or the hollow of her cheeks.

              “I’ve never seen a Watcher so ill,” I say, biting my lower lip.

              “It’s a rare thing for us,” Nim replies. “It only happens once every several billion years. Suffice it to say, it’s something we don’t bounce back from.”

              “You mean—”

              Nim nods. “She will die. And from the looks of her, sooner rather than later.”

              “But how?” I ask. “I didn’t think members of The House
could
die.”

              “Only Watchers do. Once they’re assigned to their universe, their life force becomes linked to their charge. Their life hinges on the life of that world. If it begins to die, so do they.”

              “So Dena’s universe?”

              “I imagine it’s in peril. One planet dying after the next. A horrible thing to witness, really, should you ever get the chance to watch it.” Nim shudders. “I hate to think such terrible thoughts, but it’s true.”

              I lean my head against her shoulder for support as I roll the notion around in my mind. “Have you seen it? A universe dying, that is?”

              “Once,” Nim replies. “I visited one of the other Watcher’s charges after he fell ill. It was chaos, really. Exploding stars, meteors the size of The House itself, fire and rage and horror.”

              “And what happened to him? The Watcher who was in charge of the Universe, I mean.”

              “He was cast into the void, just like Dena will be, I imagine.”

              I shiver and cast a glance at Dena again. Her breathing has returned to a laborious rhythm as the Aider rubs her arm with his palm and straightens the sheet clinging to her thin form.

              “You cast them into the void before they’re dead?” I ask. “So you’ve never actually watched them die, then. They could still be out there, alive, and you wouldn’t know—”

              “Death is not something we watch,” Nim interrupts me. “I learned that the day I visited that universe. It’s a terrible thing to see and it’s not part of our job. You need to understand that if you ever expect to be accepted as a true member of The House.”

              “Maybe I don’t want to be. Maybe I want to be different, like Elli.”

              Nim lets a scoffing laugh bubble up her throat. “Elli! She’s mocked throughout the ranks. Hiding behind her books and parchment, she rarely ever feels the weight of what we do here in The House. The true importance of our work.”

              I fiddle with the tape securing the gauze on my knees. “What would happen, then, if we didn’t do what we do? If we just left the universes alone to take care of themselves?”

              Nim taps me on the nose with one finger, like the question is coming from a preposterous child. “We’ve got better things to think about than that. Besides, it’s not our job to ask questions. It’s our job—”

              “—to
watch
. I know.”

              I slide off the altar and walk out the door of the sick room, casting one last look back at Dena before I go. Her chest still heaves against the sheet, and as I leave she lolls her head to the side and stares at me.

              “I can see everything now,” she says, her voice as ragged as her breath. “You’ll see it all soon, too. You’re the one that finds him, after all. You’re the one that brings this House down.”

              My skin goes numb upon hearing the words, and I freeze in place, but Nim pulls me into the hall and slams the door closed behind her before I can reply.

              “Nonsensical ramblings made by a sick woman,” Nim tells me when she sees my fright. She glances down the hall and spots Dante standing amongst a group of other House members. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

              She heads in his direction and joins the conversation, listening fervently to Dante’s words as he speaks. I inch closer until I’m within hearing range and bend my ear towards his words.

              “—nothing we can do,” he’s saying, his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of him. “Dena’s universe is on the verge of collapse. We’ve got to hold her rite of passage tomorrow.”

              “Perhaps we could give her one more day,” Nim pleads. “Let those who know her say goodbye before we send her off for good.”

              Dante shakes his head. “The Harbingers have done their job. Now it’s time for us to do ours. Tomorrow, first thing, Dena will be cast into the void.”

              Nim casts a nervous glance over her shoulder, and I draw away into the shadows to avoid being seen. A million questions run through my mind. I’ve never heard the word Harbinger before, and yearn to know what it means—I make a mental note to ask Elli the first chance I get. And upon mention of the void, a morbid excitement kicks up in my gut. I’ve never seen the place before, but from the sound of it, tomorrow I might get to. Everyone in The House speaks of it like some terrifying place, but no one’s ever bothered to tell me what, exactly, it
is
.

              “Very well, then,” Nim gives in. “But I trust all Watchers will be invited to pay our respects.”

              Dante sets a firm hand on her elbow. “They will be, as well as the Archivers, the Seers, the Aiders—everyone in The House. Dena deserves the honor.”

              Nim nods and steps away, pointing in my direction. “I better be on my way, then. There’s much to prepare.”

              She walks over to me and steers me down the hall again, her pace twice as fast as normal, as if she’s eager to distance us from whatever lay behind us. Dante, maybe? Did he intimidate her the way he does me? Or perhaps it’s Dena that makes her rush. Even I felt a certain disgust being in the Sick Room next to her.

I wouldn’t admit it to Nim, but part of me wants her gone—the same part of me that’s worried that the longer she stays here, the more likely I’ll catch whatever she suffers from, however implausible that may be.