The Categorical Universe of Candice Phee (6 page)

I woke so violently that I sat up in bed in one movement. My heart was thudding, the pulse of blood loud in my ears. The night-light still cast its rosy glow, but the moon also washed my bedroom in silver. I glanced at my bedside clock, but the numerals were flashing on 2:22. A power cut, maybe. I had no idea of the time. I put my feet on the floor, snuggled my toes into ridiculous slippers that were in the shape of bunnies' heads, and padded over to Sky's crib.

She lay on her back and her eyes were open. Moon-shadows and night-lights play tricks, as memories do, and for a moment I thought I saw her gaze shift and settle on my face. But the moment passed and I saw . . . nothing.
The blue of her eyes was as intense as ever, but now there was no depth within them. It was as if the sky had become a shield, a plate of color that was in one dimension only. I touched her face. It was warm, but my fingers sensed the heat departing.

Then all I could hear was screaming. I suppose it was mine.

No one talks about that night. I suppose there isn't a great deal to say. Many months later, Mum and Dad took me to a man who tried to get me to say something about it, but I had lost interest in talking by then.

After a while, we carried on as a family. Not like everything was the same. It wasn't and we knew that. But we carried on because . . . well, what choice do we have?

I'm twelve years old and smart, apparently. I know what people think. That I blame myself for what happened to Sky and that my strange behavior stems from guilt. I'd put pressure on Mum and Dad to let Sky sleep in my bedroom. Would she have died if she'd stayed in Mum and Dad's room? Was it all, in some peculiar fashion, a way of punishing myself for imaginary crimes? It would explain a lot. My writing of notes, rather than talking to people I don't know well. Some of my . . . obsessions.

But I don't blame myself. It wasn't my fault. Sky died of crib death. Sudden infant death syndrome is the medical term, though that explains nothing because no one knows why it happens. It just does. For no reason. No one's to blame.

Unfortunately, the human mind doesn't work that way. Logic is no good here. Candice feels she is to blame, and that is the important thing. But all I can do is repeat:
I know it wasn't my fault
.

But
it
is unbearably sad.

Families are fragile. Mine did not die when Sky did, but it took a battering and came out bruised and limping. It was the start of when things fell apart. Mum's breast cancer. Dad's increasing distance from everything except the computers in his shed and a faintly buzzing silhouette in the sky. I never saw them touch hands after that night. Now I am surrounded by unhappiness. Mum. Dad. Even Rich Uncle Brian.

That is not my fault, either.

But maybe I can do something about it.

Before the last traces of warmth flee my family, too.

“This is it,” said Douglas Benson from Another Dimension. “My passport home.”

“Wow!” I said and meant it.

It looked like a tree, but apparently it was a passport home. It was a big, spreading passport with a gnarled trunk and loads of branches. Leaves blocked the sky, and there was a bare patch of earth at the base where the grass did not grow.

I stood on that patch and craned my neck. I made small cooing noises and hoped they sounded like appreciation. I had never seen a portal to another dimension before and the protocols were beyond me.

“How does it work?” I asked after a suitably awestruck pause.

Douglas looked at me as if I were crazy, which was a little strange since I wasn't the one claiming that a spreading tree was a gateway to another dimension.
But then
, I thought,
I
am
crazy
—so I suppose he was entitled.

“I climb into its branches and jump,” he said.

“High-tech,” I replied.

We were in his garden. I had come round for our afternoon tea date. Dad dropped me off, and when I'd approached the house I had seen Douglas sitting under his passport, though at that time I'd thought, in my innocence, that it was a tree. Inside his house, I imagined, were facsimile parents and I was nervous about meeting them, so it was good to chat a while and delay. I'd hoped to spy a postie's bike in the yard, but there was no evidence of one, which was disappointing. Still, I reasoned to myself, you can't have everything. A portal
and
a postie's bike was probably asking for too much.

“Come for a walk with me,” said Douglas. “I want to show you something, and the facsimile parents have informed me food will not be ready for another forty-five minutes.” His lip curled slightly when he made the parent reference. His eyes might also have flashed, but I'm not prepared to swear to that in a court of law, so it's safer to stick with the lip-curling.

“Okay,” I said.

Douglas lived five-and-a-half kilometers outside Albright on a five-hectare property. Dad had driven up a rutted path, avoiding assorted chickens and one small lake.

We retraced that journey up the path. It was a beautiful afternoon. The sky was clear and birds sang. It wasn't difficult to imagine we were the only people in the world. Douglas said nothing for ten minutes and although I like silence, generally speaking, I had questions that were, if not exactly burning, definitely smoldering around the edges.

“Douglas,” I said. “If traveling through dimensions happens when you jump out of a tree, are possums doing it all the time?”

He sniffed.

“It's not
just
jumping out of a tree, Candice,” he replied. “There are other things involved and the math is quite tricky.”

“Oh,” I said. I was a bit tired from my question. We walked for another minute or two.

“Do you have your pad and a pen with you?” he asked.

“Yes.” I knew that interaction with his facsimile parents was inevitable and had come prepared.

“I'll draw you a diagram when we get there,” he said.

“Okay.”

There
wasn't far away, as it turned out. We'd veered off the driveway and wandered down a rough path through thick bush, the kind of path that animals make when they can be motivated. The bush wasn't very interesting—flat and crowded with spindly eucalyptus trees—so I was surprised when we came to a clearing. Surprised and alarmed, since we were virtually on the edge of a ravine. I say “ravine,” but that might be flattering it somewhat. Then again, I am afraid of heights, so even modest drops are ravines to me.

I took a couple of tentative steps forward and cautiously peered over the edge. Slabs of rock lined the sides, and forty meters below, a small stream trickled in a picturesque fashion.

I quickly stepped back. It's not that I don't like small picturesque trickling streams, but I prefer them when they are on my level. Ideally in a photograph. Douglas sat close to the edge and I joined him. Perhaps a meter behind.

“Pretty,” I said to his back, though I wasn't referring to that. And the scenery
was
pretty. It was a little surprise, like finding a bright stone in a pile of manure. That, I should stress, has never happened to me (possibly because I have never looked).

“It's nice here,” said Douglas. “I often come here just to think.”

I was pleased to learn that Douglas had brought me to his special private place. It felt like an honor. I shuffled forward on my bottom so that I was nearly level with him.

“Have you got your pad and pen?” he asked.

I produced them from my bag. He found a clean sheet and drew a line.

“What's that?” he said.

“A line,” I replied. It wasn't difficult.

“Correct. A line. One dimension.” He drew another three lines and lifted the pad toward my face.

“And that?”

“A square,” I replied. “Or maybe a rectangle.”

“Correct. Two dimensions.” He scribbled some more.

“A cube,” I said, without being asked. I was on a roll.

“The illusion of a third dimension.” Then he went a bit mad with the pen. Lines appeared all over the place.

“And this?” he asked when he'd finished.

I screwed up my eyes and probably my forehead. I might even have tilted my head to one side.

“A mess?” I suggested.

“A tesseract,” he said. At least I got three of the letters right and in the correct order. “If a cube is a square taken into the third dimension, then a tesseract is a cube taken to the fourth dimension. For obvious reasons, it's difficult to draw.”

“I thought time was the fourth dimension,” I said.

“No,” he replied.

“Oh,” I said.

“What I'm trying to explain is that to travel between alternative worlds I need to take the tesseract to a fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and then a ninth dimension, wrap myself within that construct, and then use gravity to effect the journey.”

“That's where the tree comes in,” I suggested.

“Correct.” He sighed and placed the pad down on the ground. “That's how I got here. Logically, it's how I should get back.”

“But?”

Douglas gazed out over the ravine for a few moments. He cupped his chin in a hand.

“Timing is everything,” he said. “It must be at six-thirty in the evening. I've been over the math time and time again. But it doesn't work.”

“Any idea why not?”

“The only solution I can come up with is that gravity has a slightly different quality in this world.”

“So?”

He thought for a moment or two.

“So maybe I need to jump from somewhere higher than a tree,” he whispered. It was as though he was talking to himself. Douglas peered over the edge of the ravine once more and suddenly the afternoon felt chilly. I hugged myself.

Douglas's mum was called Penelope and she was very pleasant. Facsimile Penelope. She said she would take me for a ride on her postie bike when she found out I was interested in her work, but it never happened. She was small with a face like a walnut. Probably a result of riding around all day in the sun. Douglas's facsimile dad was called Joe and he had big ears and a bigger smile. I liked them. The parents I mean, not the ears, though I quite liked them, too. We even had a good conversation before I had to get my pad and pen out.

“Do you like vegetables, Candice?” asked Penelope.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Roast beef?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Gravy?”

“Yes. Thank you.” I was feeling confident.

“Is it okay if they are all on the same plate?”

I was ready for the
yes, thank you
, but the question stopped me in my tracks. I must have looked puzzled because Penelope continued.

“It's just that your mum told me that you like to have things a certain way, and Douglas mentioned your pencil case.” My puzzlement clearly hadn't diminished because she went on. “The way you like to have everything lined up just so.”

I didn't say anything.

“So I wondered whether you were okay about having different colors of food on the same plate.”

I might have raised an eyebrow. Possibly two.

“You
are
autistic, aren't you?”

“No,” I said.

It was facsimile Penelope's turn to look puzzled.

“Then what are you?” she asked.

“I'm me,” I said.

Dad had arranged to pick me up at seven, so I had time to watch Douglas make his attempt at returning home. Penelope and Joe didn't join us outside. I had the impression this was a spectacle they had witnessed before and were less than impressed.

Douglas climbed the tree with a practiced air and balanced on one of the lower boughs. He glanced at his watch and closed his eyes. It was obvious he was
concentrating fiercely, doing things with tesseracts taken to higher dimensions.

I stood well clear. I wasn't worried about flashes of light and the crackling of air that might accompany transportation to another world, but a boy's body falling from a tree was clearly something to be avoided. Actually, it was all quite exciting. Then again, I've led a sheltered life.