Never Enough Time, page 24
Listen to her, Hal, who’s been silent during this entire process, says.
“I’m removing the veil, aren’t I?” I say to Ivan. He blinks his eyes.
“Did I know I was going to live the path of the sevens the last time I chose?” I say.
“Yes,” both Ivan and Lachesis say. “That’s why hardly anyone chooses it,” Lachesis says. “Even the most rash shun it.”
“Even the most brave,” Ivan says.
“Why did I choose it?” I say. I’m still staring at all the cards. A magnificent blue heron gazes up at me, and I want to embrace this inspiring creature.
“Only you know,” Lachesis says. But I sense that not only am I not the only one who knows, but that Lachesis, Ivan, and probably Bennet know as well.
“Shouldn’t Bennet be here?” Something inside me aches for him, and it seems like he should be here. Maybe they can summon him.
“He was reassigned,” says Ivan.
“Because of the conflict,” Lachesis says. “Insurmountable.”
“Because I was in love with Raj?” I say. “Because of that one night?”
Ivan and Lachesis throw each other looks whose meaning is lost to me.
“Does Raj exist?” I say.
Ivan looks away. Lachesis looks at the scattered supplies on the ground by her feet.
“Do I exist?” I say.
“The cycle is over today,” Ivan says. “I think you understand that much.”
“And I’m choosing my next life,” I say, looking back at the cards. I’d ripped my stare away from them for a moment to study my companions’ reactions to my words.
“Yes,” Lachesis says. “Use your intuition. Logic, sense, and reason have no place here.”
“When do they have a place?”
“When they’re called for. But only then,” Ivan says. Finally, someone is answering my questions.
Yet I hesitate before choosing. “It’s all so beautiful,” I say.
“It is,” Lachesis says.
“There’s no wrong choice,” I say.
“Those who choose the path of sevens all remove the veil,” Ivan says to Lachesis. They’re across the table from each other, and it’s as though I’m no longer here. Just the two of them. As though I’m watching them and myself from a hovering cloud.
“It’s inevitable,” Ivan says. “And you were so damn concerned. You can be such a stubborn fool at times, Lachesis. You and your two sisters. Really.”
“I just thought Delaney could use a little help,” Lachesis says. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“No, there isn’t,” I say. “Thank you.”
“And just a moment ago you were cursing and blaming me,” Lachesis says. “Now you’re thanking me. There’s no understanding you. But I gather that’s the usual way with those on the path of the sevens.”
“Is there no one else who’s chosen this?”
“I can’t say,” Lachesis says, and I wonder if she means that she’s not permitted to say.
“Min-Jae was very concerned for you,” Ivan says. “But he’s like that. Too serious by miles.”
“What about Sara and Ryan? Are they in on this too?”
“They have their own lives. The sevens aren’t revealed to them.”
“And Chloe?”
“That’s different,” Lachesis says. “The threads of fate connect you.”
“And Raj?”
“Why have you never asked about Ezra Lomax?” Lachesis says. Is she trying to distract me? But why haven’t I ever asked about him?
“All right—what about Ezra Lomax?” I say.
“Don’t let the veil fall back into place,” Ivan says.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Lachesis says, ignoring me and my question.
“I’ve seen it happen,” Ivan says.
“Not with anyone on the cycle of sevens,” Lachesis says. They’re arguing again.
“Maybe not,” Ivan says.
I stare down at the cards. The blue heron looks up at me, the Andean bear looks over at me, the woman in the jewel-encrusted gown gazes at me with her sapphire eyes, the blond boy who’s holding a translucent green glass globe looks into my soul. I see the edges of colors and shapes and objects I recognize—a sextant, a lamp, a loom, a cascade of numbers, symbols, and lines—and objects I don’t recognize or can’t see enough of to identify.
I look at the card with the brilliant ocean waves, like a Japanese woodcut. A hawk with her wings spread wide, soaring on a current. The depths of the night sky, stars, planets, galaxies, in their infinite expansion.
“I’m ready to choose,” I say.
Chapter 84
The veil may be gone, but my destination’s still far off, and Lachesis isn’t accompanying me anymore. Her job’s finished. I sense that Ivan’s is too.
I could have chosen a similar vocation to theirs, but . . .
Hal’s silent, and I think perhaps his job is done as well.
The mountain looks no closer than it did when Lachesis and I started out earlier today. She put all the supplies back in the bag when we were done, saying they were for me.
Ivan gave me a hug.
Lachesis sighed the sigh of someone who’s just been through an immense ordeal and is relieved as fucking hell that it’s finally over with. But we hugged as well. And she smiled her enigmatic, unreadable smile.
It’s late afternoon. There’s so much desert here that the garden where the lots were cast seems to have been an impossibility. Yet I was there.
I sit down on the ground and stare up into the cloudless sky and remember the day on Coney Island when I lay on the sand, listening to the sounds of the day. But here there’re no waves, no ocean, no french fries. No silky dog to pet. There’s no shaman to heal my sunburn. And Bennet won’t be waiting for me at Grand Central.
Min-Jae and Marie won’t be having a séance for me. Raj won’t rescue my backpack for me. Sara and Ryan are thousands of miles away. Chloe’s grown up now, but even in our separation, the bond is still strong.
At least there’s no funeral today, I think, then laugh at myself. There might be death, but at least there won’t be a funeral. Fucking excellent.
If I chose the path of the sevens before, I’ve chosen an even more difficult path this time. Yet I had to choose it. I was compelled to. The inevitable can’t be refused, so instead I’ve embraced it.
I eat some dried apricots and drink flat, warm orange soda. The flavors are exquisite, as is the sand, the cloudless sky, the mountain, so far away. The thrill of what’s to come.
I get up and start walking again. It’s as though the mountain is moving back five steps for every two I take forward. Yet it’s drawing me onward.
“Delaney,” says an unfamiliar voice.
“Yes?”
“Down here,” says the voice. I look down and see a striped salamander.
“Hey there,” I say. “Are you going to the mountain too?”
“How did you know?” the salamander says.
“I’m a good guesser,” I say. “Sometimes.”
“Me too,” says the salamander. “Most of the time.”
“Don’t you need a river or a pond or a stream? How can a salamander survive in the desert?”
“Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not here. There’re rivers underground, and I’ve been in the desert a long time, so I know where to find the best spots.”
“That’s good,” I say. I take a deep breath. “You know my name. What’s yours?”
“Senusret.”
“Big name for a little salamander,” I say.
“I’m a pharaoh,” Senusret says. “Although right now I’m a salamander. But they’re the same.”
I lean down, Senusret climbs into my hand, and I put him on my shoulder.
“Do you know how far away the mountain is?” I say.
“It’s farther away than it looks,” he says. “But it’s not so far that no one can reach it.”
“How long do you figure it’ll take?”
“I could be there right now, but it will take you longer than that. Although it doesn’t have to.”
“Senusret, do you know anything about love?”
“I love the sky, the water, the desert, the rocks. I know at least that much about love.”
“It’s a pleasure to talk with someone who gives straight answers,” I say. “Who doesn’t hesitate.”
“Once the veil is gone, everything else falls into place,” he says. “But sometimes I still want to be in my native land.”
“Were you on the path of the sevens as well?”
“That’s how I recognized you,” he says. “But we have other things in common as well.”
“We both live in the desert,” I say. “But I was never a pharaoh.”
“You have riches beyond anything I could even have imagined those thousands of years ago. Had I seen and heard them then I would have thought you a magical being.”
“You are a magical being,” I say. “A salamander who talks. Who was once a pharaoh. Who is still a pharaoh. Who could be at the mountain instantly. But I don’t want to hold you back.”
“I like the company,” Senusret says. “It can get lonely here.”
“It can be lonely anywhere,” I say.
Neither of us talks for a while.
“I used to have a voice in my head,” I say.
“You still do,” Senusret says. “Hal, right?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s recovering from your choice. I think it shocked him.”
“Do other people have a voice too? And if they do, is it also Hal?”
“I don’t think so,” Senusret says. “I myself have no voice, but I have chatted with Hal a few times. He’s entertaining.”
“Can you see the future?” The mountain has moved closer to us when I wasn’t paying attention.
“As you can,” Senusret says. “In streaks and flashes. In sensation. It’s as clear as the past, but more malleable.”
“We’re almost there,” I say.
“So it seems,” says Senusret. “So it seems.”
Chapter 85
Now that the mountain is right in front of me, I see how gigantic it is. Not that it looked small from far away—it didn’t—but up close it’s so huge I can’t take it in but must look up, down, across, then back.
“I’m going to climb,” I say to Senusret. “You?”
“I have an errand in town,” he says, “so I’ll leave you here. Take the route to your left. The scenery’s prime there.”
I bend over and Senusret hops off.
“Thank you for accompanying me,” I say. “I hope to see you again.”
“The lots are cast,” Senusret says, “but I suspect our fates are intertwined.”
“I love you,” I say as my beautiful striped salamander heads off. I don’t say those words often enough or possibly ever. Now that it’s my last day, I must break through.
Senusret waves to me and I wave back. Then he’s gone.
The scenery on the left-hand path is prime. Extraordinary.
To the north—if north is in front of me—is a glittering city surrounded by a glowing aura of corals and pinks. To the east is a lush forest, and I spot an elegant deer as it leaps through the trees. To the west and south are more desert, each moment of its spare beauty more engrossing than the last.
The climb’s easy. I share what’s left of my stash of nuts with a visiting squirrel, who keeps her distance, but accepts my offering.
I fold up Lachesis’s blue bag, now empty, and put it in my pocket as the sun sinks lower in the sky. Or maybe it just seems lower here, since I’m so high up.
Delaney, says Hal as I near the top of the mountain.
“You’re still here,” I say. “I thought you’d gone.”
Why? Did you have that operation?
“I thought that operation was a myth, a rumor,” I say.
Gotcha, says Hal.
“Ha ha,” say I, but I do laugh. “You’re quite the joker.”
Are there jokers in Lachesis’s deck?
“Perhaps,” I say. “Perhaps we’re all jokers.”
You can be so philosophical at times, Hal says.
“At times,” I say. “Want to watch the sunset with me?”
In contrast to the desert I’ve just left, it’s cool up here on the top of the mountain. A clear breeze moves around and through me.
I wonder what the other side is like, Hal says.
The sun’s a huge red-orange sphere, and the horizon is at my feet. I reach out to what’s next.
Chapter 86
When you wake up in a different place every day—or every seven years, if you’re on the path of the sevens, or every lifetime—it’s no surprise when you wake up and you’re in yet another place you’ve never seen before, you’ve never experienced before, you’ve never even dreamed of.
Yet interest and beauty aren’t the outpouring of surprise, and surprise itself is unnecessary although it can be fun.
I asked for this, I remind myself. I chose this. To skip over the preliminaries this time, so I could be here. Now.
“When you choose the fourth of the sevens—the seven of hearts,” Lachesis said to me yesterday, “you are daring the universe to do her best. And you shall not be disappointed.”
“But everything she’s giving up,” Ivan said. “Twenty-eight years’ worth.” I thought he and Lachesis were going to start arguing again.
“Delaney knows what she’s doing,” Lachesis said.
“I had my money on the heron,” Ivan said. “She was very attracted to that card. I was sure of it.”
I assume he means this figuratively, about his money, but when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of shells—some polished, some rough, and none of them like any shell I’ve ever seen before—and gives them to Lachesis, I realize he meant it.
“You’ve never won yet,” Lachesis said to him, smiling. Then something passed between the two of them that made me think there was more going on than some spirit collaboration and a bit of adversarial bantering.
But I didn’t ask. That was my last day in the cycle of the sevens, and I had a mountain to climb. I will see Lachesis again, though, and feel her measure.
I snuggle under the covers. It’s spring and it’s cold. I enjoy lying here with my eyes closed. I enjoy each sensation.
Here I am in Westchester again, I think when I finally open my eyes. It’s not a room I know, but when I pull myself up to look out the window beside me, the scenery has Westchester written all over it—the cherry trees blooming, the lilac bushes, the way the curb and the street and the lawns are.
A knock at the door. “Are you up?” says a woman’s voice.
“Almost,” I say.
“Breakfast in a few,” she says, then cracks open the door. A beautiful young woman with red hair braided to one side smiles in at me.
“Chloe?” I say. But that can’t be right.
She laughs. “It’s Delaney. I live next door, and Mum wanted me to check in on you. She’s in London, like she always is. But, you know, this is her house you’re renting, and I do look a bit like her, you know, when she was younger, and people say we sound exactly alike, so I understand the confusion. Since she rented you the place.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“An old friend of the family left her all this real estate in Westchester. There’re another several houses, some lots, and a couple of office buildings too, and one huge monstrosity in the city.”
“An old friend of the family?” I sit up in bed.
“Yes. The very person I’m named after—Delaney Archer. She’s kind of a mythical figure in my family. A legend,” she says. “Come on. Get up. I’m making something special.”
She closes the door as she leaves.
I jump out of bed. In the bathroom I confront the woman I am now—no longer Delaney Archer, but someone else. Twenty-eight years old, or so I’m supposed to be. Dark black chin-length hair, thick brows, a serious-seeming face, dark dark eyes, maybe a bit taller than my previous self.
But I’m still here in Westchester, in a house that my former self once owned. As though a person can own a building, something they can’t even hold in their hand. Something that will live longer than they do. Something that can’t be possessed. Although possession is fleeting, simultaneously solidifying and evaporating.
I smile at my reflection, which returns the favor. Hal would probably get a charge out of this moment, but he seems not to be part of my current life. I kind of miss him.
I shower in the marble stall—my previous self seems to’ve favored this type of thing—and change into a flowy dress printed with hundreds of spring flowers on a background of delicate gauze.
Except for this dress, which was hanging in the closet, all my clothing’s packed in a suitcase—an object whose function still exists, although in another future, another time, a parallelish possibility time, perhaps it’ll be as unnecessary as handbags, phones, and the other appurtenances I thought were so essential when I was sixteen-year-old Delaney Archer.
A week ago. A lifetime ago.
I must have just arrived here.
I’m still chilly, so I put on a chartreuse sweater that’s balled up in a corner of the bag. It looks good over the dress, and I feel good.
It’s exhilarating to be here. To play out the new hand.
Chapter 87
In the gray and orange kitchen, a calm, clear room, Delaney’s finishing up with the pancake preparation.
“Ta-da!” she says as she pivots around and hands me a plate. “My specialty.”
“Looks great,” I say. I feel like I haven’t eaten in years, and perhaps I haven’t.
“Sit!” she says, pointing to the table, where there’s a teapot, two cups and saucers, and a glass vase with daffodils in it. I obey.
Delaney brings her own plate of pancakes over to the table and sits down across from me. “Maple syrup?” she says.
We both douse our pancakes with the stuff. So good.
“These are the most delicious pancakes ever,” I say. They are.
“I know,” Delaney says. She brushes her braid back over her shoulder. “I learned from my dad. He’s the best breakfast chef in London.”
