Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore (5)

Jane decides.

“Oh, hell,” she says.

“What is it?” says Kiran.

The thing that worries Jane most about choosing Ravi is that it feels . . . a little too tempting. And distracting, from other things in the house that are certainly more important. But, “There’s something I need to check on,” she tells Kiran. “I’ll join up with you later, okay?”

Kiran shrugs, disappointed. “Okay. I’ll be in the winter garden.” She wanders off.

As Jane steps onto the landing, Jasper blocks her path, clambering around her feet as if he thinks they’re a portal to his home planet.

“Fuzzball!” she says. “Desist!”

She rushes past him up the stairs but he’s utterly determined to follow her. It’s too pathetic. She slows down to let him catch up. “Jasper,” she says. “You’re breaking my heart.”

When she gets to the third-floor east wing, Ravi is standing right there, a little way down the corridor, his back to her. He’s bent over his phone, balancing his fruit and toast in one hand. Jane stops and waits, unseen.

Ravi pockets his phone, redistributes his food, and starts moving. Then, inexplicably, Jasper sneaks past Ravi, runs farther down the corridor, and begins frolicking and larking about in a manner that seems designed to distract Ravi, dancing and hopping in a way Jane wouldn’t have thought possible.

“Dog of little brain,” Ravi tells him fondly.

The runner muffles Jane’s footsteps as she follows them. When Ravi reaches the door with the doormat that says WELCOME TO MY WORLDS, he unlocks the door with a key from his pocket.

Jane hotfoots it forward, sticks her foot in the door before it closes, and applies her eye to the crack. Jasper joins her. She catches a glimpse of Ravi’s torso, legs, feet before he disappears up a squeaky spiral staircase.

A woman with a deep voice says something cheerful-sounding in a language Jane doesn’t understand. Ravi responds in kind. The woman says something else, at length.

“Thanks,” Ravi responds in English. “Here, I brought you some fruit, courtesy of Patrick.”

“Oh, thank you, darling,” the woman says, with a British accent that perhaps contains a hint of the Indian subcontinent. “I’d expected to eat in UD17, but my counterpart there is in no state for hospitality.”

“You sound worried,” says Ravi. “Did something go wrong?”

“The UD17 house is in danger of being boarded by pirates.”

“Pirates!” says Ravi. “What kind of pirates? Are they after the art?”

“Oh, Ravi, you always think everything’s about the art. No. They’re UD17 pirates, looking for the portal in the tower. Everyone’s very stressed out about it.”

“Oh,” Ravi says. “How do they know about the portal?”

“Unclear. The existence of the multiverse is common knowledge in UD17, but we’ve kept this particular portal hidden. They have it in their pea-sized brains that they’ll be able to use it to travel to alternate dimensions, locate alternate versions of themselves, then bring them back through, into UD17, to bulk up their numbers.”

At the foot of the steps, Jane is incredulous. “What on earth is UD17?” she whispers to Jasper. “And how can a house be boarded by pirates?” And how can pirates have alternate-dimension versions of themselves? And, seriously, just, what the hell?

“Why is that a pea-sized idea?” asks Ravi. “Wouldn’t that work?”

“Of course it would work!” the voice exclaims. “That’s why I’m so worried! Here, have your stupid UD17 Monet and stop pestering me with questions!”

“Oh, come on, Mum,” says Ravi. “Don’t take it out on me. It’s your own fault; you opened those portals. You and all the alternate versions of you.”

“I’ve never told anyone outside the family about the portals. You can’t blame me if alternate-dimension versions of me are indiscreet within their own dimensions. I am not they!”

“And yet I have an idea of what most of them are like,” says Ravi wearily.

“Be respectful,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “We’re your mother.” There is a pause. “Well?” she says, rather aggressively. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, Mum,” says Ravi, an edge to his voice. “Worried about Kiran. She still seems low.”

“Still blaming me for that, are you?”

“Ma,” says Ravi sharply, while Jane wonders if maybe Kiran’s depressed because her mother is delusional.

“What Kiran needs is a job,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “Such a brilliant child, and she’s wasting it, mooning about with no direction. I’ve noticed quite a motivational range across the spectrum of Kirans I’ve met, have I told you? I never know what Kiran to expect. Some of them are dynamos. The Kiran in Unlimited Dimension 17 is now—”

“Oh my god!” Ravi says. “I don’t want to know! Haven’t we done enough damage with that already?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. How’s Ivy? You could bring Ivy to visit me, you know. I could hide my little pets upstairs.”

“Ivy knows all about your pets. Kiran told Patrick everything; you know that. Patrick told the Vanders family and Ivy.”

“And you criticize me for being indiscreet.”

“It won’t go any further if Vanny has anything to say about it,” says Ravi. “Anyway, she’s decided it’s a fairy tale. You know how Vanny is.”

“She doesn’t understand it, therefore she thinks it’s magic, eh?”

“Precisely.”

“What do you tell Vanny when you bring her the paintings from UD17?”

“She makes a point of not asking,” Ravi says.

“Just like you make a point of not asking Vanny why she knows so many out-of-the-way collectors who want to buy your weird art for their personal collections.”

“It’s her field. Of course she has contacts.”

“I think there’s something fishy going on there. She’s mixed up in the art black market or something.”

“Oh, Mum,” says Ravi, sighing. “Mrs. Vanders is the world’s most respectable person. She helps me out of kindness. First she convinces herself that the pictures are normal, then she passes them on to collectors she met in grad school. It’s that simple. Are you going to show me what you brought me?”

There’s another pause. Then the first Mrs. Thrash says, “Well? Is it the sort of picture you hoped for?”

“Better than,” says Ravi. “You’ve done well. Buckley’s going to love the animatronic frogs on the lily pads.”

“There’s a Limited Dimension I’ve visited,” says Mrs. Thrash. “LD387. Their Monet didn’t paint frogs on his lily pads at all. In fact, I don’t think a single art movement in that world has ever focused on frogs, with the possible exception of their Muppets. Which makes me wonder, where did the Kermit of their world come from?”

“Is he any different?”

“Well, he’s not blue. He’s pea green.”

“Pea green!”

“And he’s in love with Miss Piggy.”

“Oh, just stop it,” Ravi says.

“Would you like a frogless lily pad Monet in your inventory? I’ll see what I can do next time I’m there. It’s trickier in a Limited Dimension because—well—we’re dealing with smaller-minded versions of ourselves, of course. Less imaginative. They may not want to sell.”

“I thought our own dimension was a Limited Dimension.”

“Well, yes, we’ve categorized it as one, for the moment. But the categorization is an ongoing process, and the more we learn about what’s commonplace across dimensions and what isn’t, the more our categorizations change. I won’t be at all surprised if our dimension is recategorized as Unlimited someday. There could be transnormal phenomena here we haven’t discovered yet.”

“Ha. You just don’t like to imagine yourself as limited,” says Ravi dryly.

“Oh, pah,” she says. “I’m a scientist. Transnormal phenomena are simply phenomena that we do not yet understand. Even now the scientific community in our dimension is dissatisfied with our explanations for, oh, I don’t know, why humans need sleep, or why it rains frogs. But everything everywhere has a scientific explanation, whether or not we know what it is. We’ll have to come up with better labels than ‘Limited’ and ‘Unlimited’ eventually. But—there’s Limited and there’s limited, my dear. When I appeared through the portal belonging to LD387’s me, where they have these frogless Monets, she actually fainted. She’d left her portal open, so she had to have known one of us might show up, but even she, it turns out, doesn’t entirely believe in the multiverse, or in transdimensional travel. Even now that I’ve met her! I gather her family considers her some sort of madwoman in the attic, to the extent that she almost believes it herself. She’s not certain I wasn’t a hallucination. They’ve got her taking medication.”

“Hm,” says Ravi. “Well. Is the frogless art any good?”

“It’s simple, but sublime. I think it’s lovely.”

“Then yes, if you can. Get me anything. I like making Buckley’s head spin.”

“I don’t see why you have to lie to him about where all these paintings come from,” the first Mrs. Thrash says. “You who can be so snotty about the provenance of the art in your own house. It’s not like they’re stolen, or pillaged in a war. You’re spending a fortune of your own money to import them and it’s only going to mislead the art historians of the future. Not to mention the dimensional archaeologists. Someday there will be dimensional archaeologists, you know.”

“First of all, I’m keeping records,” says Ravi in a scoffing tone. “Secondly, how can you suggest I reveal the secret just moments after you criticized others for revealing the secret? It could cause a lot of trouble if I told Buckley. What if he was indiscreet? We’ve got plenty of people in this dimension who’d take advantage.”

“Well, I don’t understand what you get out of it, Ravi.”

“It’s a game,” Ravi says, “and I’m winning. I get to plant transdimensional art all over the world and no one knows its provenance, except for you and me. And Kiran’s friend, who’s listening at the bottom of the steps.”

Oh hell.

“Ravi!” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “Is that why the door never slammed?”

“My best guess, anyway,” says Ravi.

“And presumably why you switched me to English. You wanted this person to overhear. Honestly, Ravi. Is this one male or female? I assume this is another of your conquests?”

“Oh, don’t be so haughty,” says Ravi. “You know it’s not like that.”

“You could be doing more with your time and your talents,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “When’s the last time you picked up a paintbrush? You were so talented.”

“Mum,” says Ravi impatiently, like the word is a small explosion. Then he finds his pleasant voice again. “You’d like her. What do you say? Want to meet a new friend who probably thinks we’re both delusional?”

“Or,” says the first Mrs. Thrash, “that I’m the delusional one and you just come up here to keep me company and humor my delusions.”

These are exactly the two possible conclusions Jane has come to. Transdimensional art-dealing. Alternate versions of house-boarding pirates. Kermit in love with Miss Piggy?

Jane takes a panicked step back from the door and immediately encounters Jasper, because he’s standing behind her feet. “Blaaaaaaaa!” she whispers frantically, windmilling her arms to prevent herself from stepping on him or falling on her back. “Jasper,” she whispers. “Stick your head in the door and pretend it’s all your doing!”

Jasper looks down his long nose at her in contempt.

And Jane supposes that when it comes down to it, she does want to know whether Ravi is delusional, or simply loves his mother that much. She stays in the doorway.

Ravi descends the stairs most of the way and sticks his head down to look at her. His grin, when he spots her, is triumphant. “I waited forever in the corridor for you to catch up,” he says. “Well?” His face contains both amusement and a kind of warning. “Care to meet my mother?”

“Fine,” Jane says, trying not to show how flustered she is.

“Let the dog in,” Ravi says.

Jane does so, then allows the heavy door to swing shut behind her. Ravi comes the rest of the way down the steps, saying, “Silly old dog.” He picks Jasper up and carries him, indignant and squirming, back up the stairs. Jasper is not made for carrying and he glares at Jane over Ravi’s shoulder. “Come see your pals,” Ravi tells him.

Jane follows, trying not to find Ravi attractive. It’s probably why he picked up the dog in the first place. Ravi is the type to know that his Adorable Quotient increases steeply when Carrying a Dog.

“I know you won’t tell anyone what you’re about to see,” Ravi tells Jane quietly as they climb. “Except for Kiran and Octavian. They already know, and Patrick and Ivy, and the Vanders family knows some of it too, though Mrs. Vanders wants as little to do with it as possible. She thinks my mother is upsetting the natural balance of the universe.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’ve been wanting you to meet my mother,” Ravi says.

“Why?”

He’s not facing her, but she knows the sound of his grin. “You remind me of her. You say what you think, without apology.”

“I remind you of your mother, and you’ve been hitting on me since you met me. That’s lovely, Ravi.”

“I assure you, that’s for other reasons.”

“That’s what Oedipus said too.”

“Mum,” says Ravi in a voice suddenly resonant and strong, stepping off the stairs into the room above her. “Allow me to introduce our eavesdropper. Janie, this is my mum.”

Jane emerges into a room tall and square, full of dappled light from small windows in every wall. With a stove, fridge, cabinets, and counters, it appears to be a kitchen. On a table lies Ravi’s bowl of fruit and a Monet lily pad painting both familiar and unusual.

The first Mrs. Thrash is a tall, dark-skinned woman, stately, with smooth black hair neatly tucked into a knot at the nape of her neck. She wears simple black slacks, a fuzzy gray turtleneck sweater, and an aspect of utter normality.

“It’s impertinent to listen at doors,” she says, even as she shakes Jane’s hand firmly.

“I’m sorry,” Jane says.

“Are you? I wouldn’t be,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “Some of my most rewarding experiences have come from sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.”

Jane is standing near a window. Enormous wind chimes hang on a bracket outside, and it occurs to her that she’s been hearing their sweet tinkling ever since she stuck her foot in the door. Looking out, she can see into the west attics, quite a distance away. Then a soft yipping noise comes from the floor above them.

“I apologize for my miniature velociraptors,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “It’s time for their second breakfast. Maybe you’d like to come up and meet them? It might help you accept the existence of the multiverse.”

“Er,” Jane says, with a quick confused glance at Ravi, who seems amused. “Okay.”

The first Mrs. Thrash begins a march up a second metal spiral staircase. “Don’t be frightened of them,” she says. “They’re from an Unlimited Dimension that’s bred them to be quite small and friendly to humans, and anyway, their portrayal in that dreadful movie was entirely unrealistic. Pinky likes to comb my hair gently with his enlarged claw.”

“I see,” Jane says, coughing.

“Ravi doesn’t like it when I import animals,” adds the first Mrs. Thrash. “He doesn’t like me to import anything but art.”

“With good reason,” Ravi says, starting up the stairs and motioning for Jane to follow.

“It’s because of the time I tried to bring him and Kiran two sparkle ponies from a high-level Unlimited Dimension and the poor things went mad and exploded.”

“I can still hear them screaming,” Ravi says.

“Well, I hadn’t come to appreciate yet the dangers of moving highly Unlimited creatures into uncorrelated Limited Dimensions. I’ve since refined my calculations. Of course it would upset a small boy. But honestly, Ravi, that was so long ago. Your tenth birthday!”

“Twelfth,” says Ravi.

“Eons ago,” says Mrs. Thrash. “Anyway, Janie, I’ll explain everything. Basically, what we’ve discovered is a thermodynamically reversible quantum boundary that allows for local recoherence. Boom! Interdimensional portals.”

“Oh my god, Mum,” says Ravi. “No one understands what you just said.”

“Too technical?”

“At least offer her an analogy first!”

“Schrödinger’s frog? Quantum superposition?”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” says Ravi, turning to Jane. “Do you know much quantum physics?”

“Not much beyond the basics,” says Jane.

“Well, all you really need to know is that everything that could conceivably happen does happen, somewhere, in alternate universes across the multiverse. So, you can imagine the possibilities. And Mum—together with a bunch of alternate Mums—has found a portal to cross from one to another. I mean, plenty of other universes have had portals before this, but this is the first known portal that allows travel to and from our universe.”

“If I’m being honest,” says the first Mrs. Thrash as she reaches the next level of the tower, “we can’t entirely explain how the portals work. But, observably, they do.”

Jane has decided to stop listening to all the nonsense. She’s focusing hard on her surroundings instead. This level of the tower is much like the one below, square with small windows and another spiral staircase leading up to yet another level, though that level is closed off by a bright red trapdoor in the ceiling that has an impressive number of locks. There’s a largish bed positioned against one wall. Next to it is a bedside table piled with dozens of haphazardly balanced paperback books. Romance novels. A pair of doors beyond the bed probably leads to a bathroom, or a closet, or both.

An animal is moving under the deep red bedcovers, a large cat or a small dog. It wriggles its way to the edge, slides down the side, and emerges into the light head-first. It scuttles forward on all fours, then balances itself on its hind legs. It stares at Jane suspiciously, with a canted face and blinking eyes. It’s got a lizard head, a tail fully as long as its body, and a coat of fine feathers. Jane has been to the museums, she’s seen the TV shows. She understands that she’s looking at a miniature velociraptor.

*   *   *

Jane wakes to find herself staring at the red door in the ceiling, the one with all the locks. She’s lying on the first Mrs. Thrash’s bed. She’s woozy, but otherwise unhurt.

She remembers now: She saw a velociraptor and suddenly had no legs. Ravi and Mrs. Thrash caught her. Fainting, while dramatic in stories, turns out to be deeply unpleasant in real life.

There’s a warm presence nestled against her left side. It quietly yips as it breathes. Jane has only just woken; she doesn’t have the fortitude yet to cope with the fact that she’s being snuggled by a velociraptor.

“Ravi?” she says.

His voice rises absently from the armchair in the corner of the room. “Mm?” He pushes himself up and comes to Jane, eyebrows deeply furrowed. In one hand, he holds an open romance novel. “You’re awake,” he says. “Feeling okay?”

“What the hell, Ravi,” Jane says. “What’s going on?”

“It’s just what we told you. Would it help if you pretend you’re inside a Doctor Who episode? It’ll take a minute, but just go with it,” Ravi says. “Listen to this passage, does this sound realistic to you? The main character, her name is Delphine, says, ‘I wouldn’t have you if you were the last man in East Riordan,’ and this man named Lord Enderby says, ‘You are the only woman in East Riordan. My darling, you’re the only woman in my world. We were meant for each other, can’t you see?’ Then Delphine is overcome and starts kissing him and shrieking.”

“Does she?” Jane says, becoming conscious of another warm, yipping presence resting against her ankles. Also a larger, warmer, silent presence against one knee. That one is Jasper.

“Why does my mother read this stuff?” says Ravi.

“You’re reading it.”

“Critically!” Ravi says.

“Maybe she reads it critically too.”

“I wonder if other versions of my mother read this crap,” Ravi says in annoyance. “I suppose there are versions of her that do every kind of thing. Like, there must be versions of her that aren’t even scientists and versions who don’t even know they have portals, just as there must be infinite universes where she doesn’t exist at all. There’s so much we don’t know about the multiverse yet. And you’ll notice I’m focusing on my mother, not me. I’m extremely uninterested in thinking about all the multiple versions of me.”

“Ravi.” Jane’s chest is tightening. Her eyes are tearing up; she can’t breathe. “Ravi,” she whispers. “Just stop.”

*   *   *

The first Mrs. Thrash has it in her head that she needs to send Jane to an alternate-dimension Tu Reviens in order to prove to Jane that there are alternate dimensions. She promises to send Jane to one of the more similar dimensions, where the house and its inhabitants correspond closely enough that she’ll be able to communicate, but not so closely that she doesn’t feel like she’s left.

“Though of course,” says the first Mrs. Thrash, “most of the universes I’m able to visit correspond rather well. My portal, as far as I’ve experienced, will only send me through to dimensions that have a correlating Tu Reviens with a correlating portal in their tower. And for this house to have been created elsewhere in recognizable form, nearly an infinite number of correlations between universes needed to have occurred across time. Add to that the necessity of my own existence—a theoretical physicist with the time, means, and necessary genius to discover and activate the portal—at any rate, you’ll see, my dear. You’ll be very comfortable in UD17. Despite the alien invasion.”

“Alien invasion?” Jane is still in bed. “It’s really not necessary. I’m happy to believe in alternate dimensions from the comfort of my own dimension.”

An hour of resting and breathing has gone by and Jane is feeling somewhat calmer. She’s even taken to petting the velociraptors, cautiously. Their names are Pinky and Spotty, they’re still nestled against her side, and they like to yip gently at Jasper and touch him with their snouts.

But when Mrs. Thrash talks, it brings on that airless feeling again.

“I can see you’re afraid,” says Mrs. Thrash. “Exposure is an excellent tool for learning to overcome fear. If you’re afraid of spiders, jump into a pit of spiders. If you’re afraid of the existence of alternate dimensions, go on a tour of alternate dimensions.”

Slightly hysterical, Jane decides that the best way to defend herself from Mrs. Thrash’s designs is to act like she accepts everything and isn’t afraid of anything. She sits up in bed. The velociraptors, disturbed in their sleep, yip in confusion. Jane directs the calmest expression she can muster at Mrs. Thrash and also at Ravi, who has, in fact, been arguing with his mother to leave Jane in her own dimension, with a quiet steel in his manner.

“I see your point,” Jane says, “but really, I’m not afraid. It just took me by surprise, is all, but now I’m one hundred percent on board. Of course there are alternate dimensions. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for any travel right now, because I need to be building umbrellas. You’re not an artist, so you might not understand artistic inspiration, but believe me, I’ve got no choice but to answer the call.”

“Umbrellas,” says Mrs. Thrash, sounding intrigued. “It’s true I’m not an artist. But I am a scientist, which may, in fact, be similar in spirit. I’m an inventor and an explorer. I understand the compulsion to follow where one is called.” The first Mrs. Thrash seems to make a decision. “Well then. I won’t stand in your way.”

Jane finds it unsettling that the first Mrs. Thrash imagines she could stand in her way. She suspects she’d be a fool to waste this reprieve. “Allons-y,” she says, then jumps up from the bed. At the resulting head rush, she steadies her hand on Ravi’s shoulder. Then she gives him a farewell pat and heads for the spiral stairs. Jasper thumps onto the floor and follows. Together, Jane and Jasper make their way down to the tower’s base.

The door to the tower is heavy and the threshold slightly raised. Jane stumbles a little as she enters the corridor, then feels a sturdy hand, strong on her arm. It’s Ivy, who’s holding her camera and looking upon Jane with concern.

“You okay?” says Ivy. She’s wearing black leggings and a ratty blue sweater and the ceiling lights burnish the edges of her hair to gold. She’s solid, real.

“Yeah,” says Jane. “Thanks. I’m a little disoriented,” she says, waving vaguely in the direction of the first Mrs. Thrash’s door.

“Oh,” says Ivy, in a different tone of voice. “Oh, god. Did she—did you—”

“What?” says Jane. “No. No! I just met her, that’s all. And her—pets.”

“I’ve heard about the pets,” Ivy says.

“I’m trying not to think about them,” Jane says.

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

“No, I mean, the fact is that I’d like to talk to you about it,” Jane says, realizing this to be true. Telling Ivy all about it would be a great comfort. “I’d love to, later, when my head is clear. I kind of—passed out when I saw the pets,” she says, pushing at her own forehead, “and I don’t feel like I’ve reassembled all my parts yet.”

“Can I bring you anything?” Ivy says. “Soup? Tea? Kumquats?”

“Kumquats?” says Jane in confusion. “You really have kumquats?”

“Mr. Vanders has a soft spot for them, so we keep some around when we can. But mostly I just wanted to tell you the word,” Ivy says, grinning.

Understanding, Jane counts the letters. “Plus, it has a q and a k,” she says. “High points.”

“Yep.”

Jane doesn’t want Ivy to feel like her servant. “I don’t need anything,” she says. “How’s the gala prep going? Need help?”

Ivy frowns down at the camera in her hands and Jane remembers the weird pictures she’s been taking. Ivy has secrets. Is there anyone in this house who doesn’t have secrets?

“You can come rescue me from it,” Ivy says, “later. We could go bowling or something, and talk about stuff.”

“Sure,” Jane says, just as the tower door opens again. Ravi emerges, the Monet under his arm.

“Hello, darling children,” he says.

“Don’t be a douche, Ravi,” says Ivy, with no malice.

Chuckling, he plants a kiss on her forehead. “Ivy-bean,” he says, “it’s nice to see the two of you getting acquainted. And you,” he says, leaning toward Jane. “You know where to find me if you decide you want company.”

Jane’s face is blazing with heat as he walks away. “Sorry,” she says to Ivy, not sure what she’s apologizing for.

“Don’t worry,” Ivy says. “I’m used to it.”

“Why doesn’t he hit on you?” Jane says. “You’re gorgeous.”

Ivy turns away before Jane can fully appreciate the wattage of her sudden smile. “He knows better,” she says. “See you later, Janie.”

*   *   *

Back in her morning room, the umbrella Jane was working on previously—the self-defense umbrella in brown and gold—no longer calls to her. She’s sure it matters to someone that Philip was lurking around with a gun and Phoebe was making allusions to the Panzavecchias and Patrick seemed in on it, et cetera, et cetera, but who cares? Ravi’s mother has velociraptors.

This circumstance calls either for a project so dull that she forgets everything, or so weird and complicated that all her anxiety can flow straight out of her and into it.

What, she wonders, would a transdimensional umbrella be like?

It would need to be able to blend into any scenario, in any kind of world, without drawing attention to itself.

Jane has never made a plain black umbrella before.

The canopy would need to be perfectly curved, the tips at the end of each rib and the ferrule on top perfectly straight. A plain black umbrella won’t have any frills or furbelows to distract from her mistakes. All her umbrellas have mistakes.

It’s going to be a disaster.

What would Aunt Magnolia say to that? It might. But you’ll learn something from it, sweetheart. Why not try?

All right then.

As Jane trims the shaft with her lathe, the world starts to make sense again. Explanations offer themselves. Pinky and Spotty are obviously not velociraptors. After all, since when is Jane familiar with every species of animal currently living on Earth? Why shouldn’t there be a small, lizardlike sort of animal that the first Mrs. Thrash, being delusional, found in the Sahara, or the Amazon, or the great desert of Rajasthan, then convinced herself are transdimensional velociraptors? Earth lizards, yes. With feathers.

And what had she said? Something about the house in the other dimension being in danger of being “boarded by pirates.” Ridiculous. Pirates attack ships, Jane thinks, not houses, and houses aren’t things to be boarded like ships. Anyway, pirates are something out of a bad fantasy story. The pirates offer the most solid proof that the first Mrs. Thrash is making everything up.

“Someone should help that woman,” Jane mutters to herself. It’s funny the way crazy people can cause you to start losing your own grasp on reality. Stunning, really, the things Jane had almost begun to believe. It’s so nice to be back in her morning room, surrounded by familiar things, with Jasper, a completely normal basset hound of Earth, snoozing under the bed in the other room. How wonderful to be making a deadly boring black umbrella. Her fingers move smoothly through her collection of runners.

Tu Reviens is making noises around her, pulling her out of herself. “Is someone shouting?” Jane says aloud, because it’s hard to distinguish the house’s moans, watery hums, and breaths of heat from other kinds of noises, and she thinks she might hear someone shouting.

When the shouting gets closer and resolves itself into Ravi’s voice, raised in anger, Jane goes to her gold-tiled bathroom, rifles through her toiletries, and unearths a pair of earplugs.

In her new, underwater sort of silence, Jane chooses a runner for the umbrella’s shaft. She threads ribs onto tying wire; she slices and sews gores together. It’s slow, focused work.

It should be meditative work, but Jane’s mind keeps spinning off. Had Aunt Magnolia ever stood in a boat, looking down at a deep, cold, unexplored stretch of ocean, and been terrified? Had she ever stood there, wrestling with herself over whether to stay in the boat or drop herself in?

As far as Jane knows, Aunt Magnolia had always eventually decided to drop herself in. Face what scared her and open herself to whatever she might learn.

Why not try, Janie?

Dammit, Jane thinks to herself, dropping her unfinished umbrella on the worktable. She covers her face with her hands and thinks to herself repeatedly, Dammit. She grips the table. When her fingertips find a rough patch, she opens her eyes to the discovery of a carving, a blue whale and its calf. Next, along the top edge of the table, she finds a carving of a peaceful whale shark and its babies. Ivy must’ve made this strong, beautiful table.

Jane takes a jellyfish breath.

Aunt Magnolia? Is this why you wanted me to come to this house? Is this what you wanted me to try?

Removing her earplugs and choosing two umbrellas, Jane leaves her rooms.

*   *   *

Ravi is in the corridor, headed in her direction. His face is stormy. “Where are you going?” he asks in an accusatory tone.

“I haven’t decided,” Jane says, which is true.

“Really?” says Ravi, his voice milder. He stops before her, too close again. Her body responds, moving until her back is to the wall and Ravi is almost up against her. He’s so close that she has to bend her head back a little to see into his face.

“Ravi,” Jane says, uncertain what’s happening, and alarmed. “What are you doing?”

He brings his mouth near to hers. Then, slowly, he takes her upper lip between his lips, lightly. Her breath catches; her lips part. His skin is scratchy, his mouth curious and insistent, and her mouth responds. His hands are on her, his body pressing her against the wall. She wants Ravi to press harder and fix her to the earth, and this terrifies her, because she knows, Jane knows, that Ravi is not someone she should do this with. It might be casual for him, but it would not be casual for her.

Maybe her hands are more intelligent than the rest of her body, or maybe the intelligence is in her umbrellas. Jane wedges both of them between her body and Ravi’s and pushes him off.

He backs away, unprotesting. He tilts his head, studying her face. “Okay,” he says. “Are you angry at me?”

“No,” she says. “But please don’t do it again.”

“All right,” he says. “I won’t.” He’s speaking plainly, sincerely. But if he’s the kind of person who understands so easily, then is she so sure she doesn’t want him to kiss her again? A feeling touches Jane, a feather touch. What is it? Resentment? No. Envy. Jane wishes she could be that casual about kissing, about sex. She thinks it must be nice to have kissed so much that it’s no big deal. As she continues down the hall, she hears his door shutting.

It strikes her as funny, what she’s just said no to, considering what she’s willingly walking toward.

Then Jane sees the figure up ahead, standing at the top of the corridor near the courtyard, watching her. It’s Ivy. Ivy is standing there in her ratty blue sweater, a daffodil behind her ear, tall and still, as if she’s been standing there watching for some time. Ivy saw the kiss.

What had it looked like to her?

Ivy pushes her glasses higher on her face, then raises a hand in greeting. It’s a friendly gesture. It tips Jane’s panic into immediate relief, then, just as quickly, into despair. Doesn’t Ivy care that Jane was just kissing Ravi? Is it completely irrelevant to her?

Jane’s own hands are again behaving intelligently, one hand passing its umbrella to the other, then raising itself in response. Jane hopes Ivy can’t read her face, because she has no idea what expression she’s wearing. When Ivy turns and walks out of sight, Jane stands there for a moment, wondering how a tiny, earthbound thing like the question of whom to kiss can possibly be as confusing as transdimensional velociraptors.

*   *   *

The first Mrs. Thrash responds to the bellpull so quickly that Jane wonders if she’s been waiting for her inside the door. Mrs. Thrash peeks surreptitiously up and down the hall, then says, “Come up, Janie dear, come up.”

Jane’s black umbrella is still uncompleted, the canopy unfixed to the ribs, flapping around like the robes of an absentminded professor in a high wind. It’s missing its finishings too, like the curved handle and the metal tips. Nonetheless, the first Mrs. Thrash is appreciative. “The elegance radiates,” she says. “I can see that it will be as graceful as a clean transdimensional jump.”

Jane grunts a skeptical thanks to this.

She’s brought the brown-copper-rose satin too, the one she used yesterday on the yacht to make herself feel better, the heroic-journey umbrella, just to keep from feeling misrepresented by her own work. “I don’t usually make plain black umbrellas,” she says. “But you inspired me to try something that’d be appropriate in multiple dimensions.” She adds, cautiously, “Metaphorically speaking, of course,” because while it’s true that she’s brought herself here, it doesn’t mean she’s decided anything.

“An honorable objective,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “Come up and visit the velociraptors. They’re very fond of you.”

As Jane climbs the stairs to the next level, she thinks of Jasper longingly, Jasper, the plain old dog, who she now remembers is sleeping under the bed in her rooms. “I need to get back soon,” she says. “The dog is closed in my rooms.”

“I understand,” says the first Mrs. Thrash.

The red trapdoor in the ceiling is ajar. Its many locks line the edges of the opening like teeth in the square mouth of a living house.

“Of course,” the first Mrs. Thrash adds, “there’s no rain in UD17.”

“What?” Jane says. “Rain?”

“They don’t have umbrellas,” she says. “But every invention is likely to find some use there, especially anything that might be classed as historical costume. Imagination and fashion are both valued in UD17.”

“No kidding,” Jane says, wishing someone, anyone, were here to share incredulous glances with. “Why is there no rain?”

“Because there’s no planet,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “After the UD17 earthlings lost their Earth, they fled to the edges of their solar system and built a huge number of ships and space stations, arranged in a sphere, to mimic Earth’s surface, but much smaller, of course. It’s like an empty eggshell, or a beach ball—nothing in the middle. Some of the space stations are truly gargantuan—Mexico City, Beijing, Los Angeles, Bombay—but even they aren’t large enough to have much in the way of atmospheric phenomena. Anyway, water reclamation is far too important for them to indulge in the whimsy of letting it rain.”

“Lost their Earth?” Jane says. “How did that happen?”

“Alien attack,” she says, her attention still on the umbrellas, which she’s opening and closing in succession, admiring the smoothness of their operation and their fine, sharp ferrules. “The planet was blown apart. Hadn’t I mentioned the alien invasion?”

“Sure,” Jane says.

“Consequently,” she says, “when you cross through the portal into my counterpart’s tower on the Tu Reviens of UD17, you find yourself aboard a cleverly representational spaceship-castle on its own island dock.”

“Uh-huh.” Then Jane understands. “The house is a ship, in danger of being boarded by pirates.”

The first Mrs. Thrash’s face grows grim. “So very worrisome,” she says. “We simply cannot have criminals doing what they like with the portals. What sort of havoc will ensue?” Then she peers at Jane with an intent expression that makes Jane nervous. “I don’t suppose you have any experience with pirates?”

“None whatsoever,” Jane says firmly.

“You might distract them,” she says, handing the umbrellas back abruptly. “You’re young, but you’re rather intriguing, with your umbrella-making and all. Funny I haven’t run across your counterpart in any other Tu Reviens, isn’t it? We could use you to create a distraction somehow, while UD17 Ravi and UD17 I rough the pirates up a bit.”

This is patently absurd, even for a delusion. “And how is UD17 you at roughing people up?”

“You’re right, of course,” says the first Mrs. Thrash with an enormous, gloomy sigh. “It’s an appalling plan. I’m no good at fisticuffs. I like an antagonist I can verbally manipulate or trick into performing my will, or, as a final resort, jab with a bit of live electrical wire. Here, come up and see the portal, it’ll help you stop presuming I’m crazy.”

“I don’t presume you’re crazy,” Jane protests with rising panic as the first Mrs. Thrash herds her toward the staircase to the level above. It’s like the woman can shove people along with the force of her will. Jane is halfway up before she realizes she’s acquiesced.

“It’s very sweet of you to say so, Janie dear,” says the first Mrs. Thrash. “The pirates fly these tiny little ships, you see. They’re much stealthier than the chappies in Treasure Island. They can dock themselves on the roofs and walls of the house. If they’re determined enough, and if the house is in a mild enough mood, the pirates will board.”

“I see,” Jane says as she passes through the red trapdoor in the ceiling. “The house has moods, does it?”

The room beyond is empty of furnishings and decoration. There’s not even a rug or a folding chair. Jane steps in cautiously, then sidles toward the wall. For some reason, the emptiness of the room makes her jumpy. Wouldn’t a delusional woman with an imaginary transdimensional portal have something set up in this room, some sort of silver capsule with seats and a steering wheel, and a sign on it that says CAUTION: TRANSDIMENSIONAL PORTAL?

“Good heavens, my dear. Don’t go that way,” says the first Mrs. Thrash in alarm, hastily grabbing Jane’s arm and swinging her toward the center of the room. “You’ll step right through the portal.”

“Oh! Thank you—” Jane begins to say, then loses her voice and her grip on the umbrellas. Jane loses her hands. She loses her breath, her need to breathe, her vision and her memory. The feeling of being in her body. Jane loses her everything, except for a frozen and stunningly focused sense of just exactly who she is.

*   *   *

When it all comes back again, Jane sees that the first Mrs. Thrash has changed her clothing. And her hair, and the décor, and the lighting. She is standing before Jane in a very odd hat, wearing an indignant expression.

“Who in the dazzle dance are you?” she says. “And where did you come from?”

Oh, hell.

Her green, leafy hat, part scarf and part necklace, is wrapped all around her upper half. With her brown shirt and pants, she looks like a tree. The room is familiarly shaped, but made of metal, not stone.

Jane searches for the words her own first Mrs. Thrash would use. “Your counterpart sent me through her portal,” she says. “I’m Jane. Janie.”

“Which counterpart?” says this first Mrs. Thrash. “You do realize I could have as many as infinitely many?”

“Oh, god,” Jane says. “I feel sick.”

“Aha!” she says. “A god-worshiping dimension. Likely a Limited Dimension, then. And you’re carrying—what are those artifacts? Are those what are known as umbrellas?”

“Yes,” Jane says, holding her stomach. “She tricked me. I can’t believe it. Is this UD17?”

“Yes,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “Remind me. What is an umbrella for? Self-defense?”

“It’s for shielding yourself from the rain. Here,” Jane says, handing her the unfinished one, opening the other numbly as a demonstration. “Some people think it’s bad luck to open one inside.”

“Superstition! A severely Limited Dimension, then,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “And rain. An atmospheric Earth with sufficient surface water. What has my counterpart from your world been visiting me for?”

“Art, I think.”

“Ah!” she says. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Did she recently buy a froggybank I got in UD33 for her android daughter?”

“No.”

“A Dali of melting clocks from LD107 for her son, Rudolfo?”

“No!”

“A Monet of speculative lily pads and frogs for her son, Ravi?”

“Yes,” Jane says, “that’s the one.”

“Yes,” she repeats. “That’s our own painting. My own Ravi hasn’t let me hear the end of it. Never said a word to me about that Monet, until I made an intelligent business decision. Now suddenly it’s his favorite painting in the house and all I hear is the foulest bile. My children!”

“I need to go back,” Jane says, trying to breathe. “I need to go home.”

“Why did she send you?”

“I have no idea. She tricked me.”

“Well then,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash, scrutinizing Jane with an aspect that makes Jane nervous, in quite a familiar way. “She must’ve had a reason.”

“I think she just wanted to prove to me that she wasn’t out of her mind.”

“Doubtful. I have not met many counterparts of myself who care if other people think they’re out of their minds,” she says with convincing finality. It’s impressive that she can be so convincing in that silly hat. The leaves bounce around as she talks, as if she’s a maple tree on a pogo stick. “She sent you here for some purpose. I wonder. You’re young, and the young are inspiring. Do you approach life with above-average gusto?”

“Um, I don’t know,” Jane says. “Probably my gusto is about average?”

“Did she mean you as a friend and influence for my Karen? Or as a lover? Oh, forgive me—you’ll know her as Kiran.”

“She hasn’t said much about Kiran,” Jane says in confusion. “I mean, her own Kiran. She hasn’t mentioned anything about anyone named Karen, I don’t think.”

“My Karen is a brilliant girl who should be engaged in a brilliant career, but lacks gusto. Hm,” she says, peering at Jane closely. “Do you have any experience with pirates?”

“No!” Jane exclaims. “Why does everyone think I have experience with pirates?”

“Aha!” she says. “So she did send you through about the pirates. How thoughtful of her. We need someone who can delve into the deepest depths of the mind of a criminal and anticipate his every move. Are you some sort of psychic, my dear?”

“Of course not.”

“Telepathic?”

Jane draws herself up tall. “No!”

“Right,” she says, seeming embarrassed by Jane’s outrage, though Jane senses she’s not embarrassed for herself, she’s embarrassed for Jane. “Silly of me. Sad little Limited Dimension.”

“My dimension is not sad!”

“No,” she says, patting Jane’s shoulder sympathetically, “of course it isn’t, dear. Are you, perhaps, a very young psychologist? A criminal behavioralist?”

“No!”

“A criminal yourself?” she asks hopefully.

“I’m an umbrella-maker,” Jane says.

“An umbrella-maker,” she says, sounding defeated. “How mystifying of LD42 Anita.”

“Is that her first name?” Jane says. “I mean, your first name? Anita?”

“Yes,” she says. “Both. Nice to meet you. We don’t even have rain here.”

This woman is a dizzying conversationalist. “Well, then, I may as well be going,” Jane says.

“Maybe LD42 Anita means you to serve as a distraction while I rough the pirates up,” she suggests brightly.

“Listen,” Jane says sternly, really rather tired of this. “You’ve got a problem with pirates. You’re afraid they’re going to pass through your portal and search for their own pirate counterparts in other dimensions, to strengthen their numbers. They fly little ships and have clever ways of getting on board. Couldn’t you just focus your energies on fortifying this room so that the pirates can’t reach the portal? And what is this, anyway, a lawless dimension? Don’t you have police?”

“Of course we have police,” she says, sniffing in indignation. “But why should I trust them around the portal?”

“If you don’t trust anyone,” Jane exclaims, “all the more reason to fortify the portal! What are your security measures?”

Jane begins to march to one of the windows—portholes?—then remembers the purpose of this room. “Where’s the portal exactly?” she asks, not wanting to step into it by accident and transport herself god-knows-where. UD17 first Mrs. Thrash points to a chalk square on the floor, right at the edge of Jane’s big black boots.

“At least yours is marked,” Jane says in a chilly voice. Then she crosses the room to a window, wanting to assess its potential for break-in by pirates.

The view from the window confuses Jane. She’s been informed that this house is a spaceship, but the view here is much like the view from a window in her own Tu Reviens. A green yard, and beyond that, an ocean. A sunny day.

“It’s not a real window, my dear,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “It’s merely a projection of what we imagine we might see, had we not lost our planet.”

This seems pointless to Jane. Surely the actual view must be spectacular. “Come down into the house,” UD17 first Mrs. Thrash continues, “to the command center. We have some real windows, and I’ll show you a model of the defenses we have in place for the ship.”

Walking through UD17’s Tu Reviens is like an off-kilter dream version of walking through Jane’s usual Tu Reviens. She recognizes rooms and staircases; the atrium; even the art, in some cases—with differences that give Jane the chills. The polar bear rug, for example, is not a polar bear rug. It’s a gruesome, grimacing, Abominable Snowman rug. Presumably made of synthetic materials, since there’s no snow here and monsters aren’t real. Are they?

The lighting is harsh, the oval-shaped doorways raised a few inches from the ground. Oddly dressed people pass Jane occasionally. Some of them wear small wheels on their shoes. One is dressed like the guards at Buckingham Palace, complete with a beefeater on her head. Another wears butterfly wings. A third carries a bucket and is dressed like a milkmaid. Are there cows in the house? There’s no milk in the bucket. The bucket seems to be full of . . . kittens? Jane wonders if when these people lost their planet, they lost their history too, and are trying to pull it back somehow, with the way they dress. Trying to recapture lost things. She touches the ruffles on her own sea-dragon shirt.

“This ship is constructed from the cannibalized parts of other ships,” UD17 first Mrs. Thrash tells Jane as Jane follows her toward the stairs. “Octavian Thrash the First had an eye for a bargain, and was a pushy bastard too. He lifted our atrium from an Italian pleasure cruiser.”

The atrium is eerily similar to the Venetian courtyard Jane knows, with marble floors, terraced gardens, tinkling fountains, even hanging flowers. Except that it’s shinier, more perfect. Of course: It’s fake. The marble is fake, the flowers are fake. It’s an imitation of something that no longer exists in this world. It’s soulless, like the atrium you might find in a Roman Empire–themed casino in Vegas.

“Is that real sunlight?” Jane asks, pointing at the light flowing through the ceiling.

“Dear child,” UD17 first Mrs. Thrash says. “We’re at the farthest reaches of the solar system. New Earth has no access to that kind of sunlight.”

Aunt Magnolia, Jane thinks, if you could see this. It’s frightening, somehow, to contemplate Aunt Magnolia while in this other universe. Jane’s been trying not to think about her too directly. “Do you know if there’s a version of me in UD17?” she asks UD17 first Mrs. Thrash, even though the question makes her breathless.

“Not that I know of,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “Come.”

She leads Jane to the east staircase—companionway?—which clanks hollowly under Jane’s boots as she descends. Instead of a tall painting of a room with an umbrella on the second-story landing, Jane finds herself looking through a doorway into an actual room, which contains . . . what looks like a crumpled spacesuit made for a horse, lying on the floor. People are walking in and out of the doorway. Crew of the ship? Guests of the family? “Is there a gala going on?” she asks.

“No,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “Why?”

“So many people.”

“Most houseships of New Earth house hundreds, if not thousands of people, my dear. It’s not like we have a planet to spread out across.”

Most of these people are strangers, but Jane could swear that a little girl who bolts into the room, glancing over her shoulder, is Grace Panzavecchia. She’s so fast, it’s impossible to be sure. Moments later, a version of Mr. Vanders hurries up the stairs and crosses in after her. He’s wearing chartreuse sequin suspenders and looks a bit fed up.

It’s the strangest thing, though: Once people pass through the doorway, they change. Jane notices it when the Panzavecchia kid glances back. She looks, weirdly, like some other little girl. As someone else steps out of the room onto the landing, Jane cries out in surprise, because she recognizes the person.

“Lucy St. George!” she says, amazed, really, that she can tell it’s Lucy. It must be something about the way Lucy’s carrying herself, because her face is made up as a sad clown, complete with a red clown nose and dripping black tears, and she’s wearing baggy pants and suspenders, floppy shoes, a white tank top, an oversized bow tie, and pigtails.

“Lucy!” Jane says again. “Is it Halloween?”

“Oh, it’s you,” UD17 Lucy says gloomily. “Of course it’s you. Who else would it be?”

“Me?” Jane says. “You know me?”

“Are you sure you know her, Lavender?” UD17 first Mrs. Thrash asks, surprised. “Janie’s a visitor from another dimension. Have you seen our dimension’s version of her here?”

“Oh,” says Lucy. “Then you’re not that Janie? Yes. I saw another version of her just today, in Ravi’s bed.”

“Ravi’s bed!” Jane says, but Lucy has already turned her shoulder. She tromps toward the east corridor, her big shoes requiring large, awkward steps, as if she’s walking in water. She turns back to look at Jane once. Her clown face burns itself into Jane’s soul, sad and reproachful.

“Ravi’s bed!” Jane repeats. She has no idea what to do with that information.

“Move along now, dear,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash.

“Why was she dressed like that?”

“Like what?” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash, nudging Jane forward down the stairs.

“Like a sad clown,” Jane says, continuing on.

“A sad clown?” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “Why on earth shouldn’t she be dressed like a sad clown?”

“But why—” Jane begins, then stops as a pirate—a pirate!—comes exploding up the stairs toward her. Instinctively, Jane adopts a blocking stance and rams herself into him, which sends him tumbling down the steps again with a high-pitched scream.

“Ow!” he yells once he’s arrived at the bottom. Lying on the floor in a heap, he presses his own head, his hip, his knee, inspects his elbows. Glares up at Jane in disbelief, and, Good god, it’s Colin Mack. Colin, with an eye patch, a skull-and-crossbones bandana over long, scraggly hair, and a tight silk vest with a puffy-sleeved shirt beneath.

“Colin!” Jane cries out.

“What did I ever do to you?” Colin calls up the steps. “You could’ve killed me!”

“Colin!” Jane says again. “You’re one of the pirates?”

“Who the flying flotsam are you?” Colin says. “Anita, where did you get this snollygoster?”

“Really,” UD17 first Mrs. Thrash says to Jane, chiding. “You need to remember, dear, that you’re in a different dimension. If you have a bone to pick with your own Colin, it’s hardly just to take it out on our Colin.”

“I didn’t knock him over because he’s Colin!” Jane says. “I didn’t know he was Colin! I knocked him over because he’s one of the pirates!”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “Colin is an art dealer.”

“Then why is he dressed like that?”

“Oh, and now you insult my appearance,” Colin says indignantly.

“Don’t take it personally, dear,” UD17 first Mrs. Thrash calls down to Colin, the leaves on her head swinging about. “Janie here is a visitor from a Limited Dimension. As such, she can’t help having a narrow conception of the multi-world.”

“Neanderthal! Go back where you came from,” Colin says, then picks himself up, brushes himself off, and marches away in a huff. His pants are ratty and unhemmed and he’s got a couple of pistols in holsters on either hip.

“So, he’s not a pirate?” Jane asks in confusion, then sees her Jasper, dear Jasper the dog, plodding his way up the stairs toward her. She’s never been happier to see a dog in her life. He looks like himself. He’s struggling with the climb just exactly the way Jasper does. She crouches down and holds out an eager hand.

Jasper pauses briefly, swings his nose around to her hand, gives an indifferent sniff, and continues on. He doesn’t even look her in the face.

Jane wants to sit on the steps and howl.

“Poor dear,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. She leans over Jane, her hat giving her the aspect of a weeping willow. “It takes all of us that way, you know. You need to remember that even though this world is familiar, you don’t belong here. You’ll never feel like you do.”

*   *   *

The ship’s command center has floor-to-ceiling windows, and Jane was right: The views are extraordinary. A vast purple ocean of space, across which tiny, bright spaceships zip now and then, twinkling like silver and gold fireflies. Beyond, a faint metallic line that must be the “mainland” in this planetless, floating, human community. Far, far beyond that, a single point of light, tiny, but so bright that it’s painful to look at.

“Do you recognize that star?” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “It’s the sun.”

“The sun!” Jane says in astonishment. “But it’s so small!”

“We’re much, much farther from ours than you are from yours, my dear.”

How is it possible that this morning Jane woke up in her ordinary life, yet now she’s experiencing what the sun would look like from the edges of the solar system?

“Come,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “I’ll show you the house’s security measures.”

She brings Jane to a holographic projection of the house that spins, or splits open, or magnifies its parts, based on the voice command of the ship’s captain, who is, unsurprisingly, Mrs. Vanders. Or, Captain Vanders, here. She’s got wheels on her feet and is zipping around the holograph, while wearing a chartreuse ball gown replete with shimmering sequins.

Captain Vanders and UD17 first Mrs. Thrash have a rapid exchange about the details of the ship’s current defense system, the majority of which Jane can hardly believe. It seems the ship can sense when a person has ill intentions toward one of its parts, and, like some sort of haunted fairy-tale forest, can turn parts of its floors to strange, boglike mouths, or twist the walls so that doors are inaccessible, or push books off the library shelves.

“You realize you’re suggesting that the ship is conscious?” Jane says, interrupting Captain Vanders, who has just predicted the ship’s willingness and ability to pitch a pirate over a balustrade into the atrium.

“Indeed,” says Captain Vanders grimly. “It’s a recent development, regrettably inconsistent, but observable as a phenomenon. Patrick and Ravi got into some sort of scuffle the other day. We found them both snagged on light fixtures in the Mercury Sitting Room.”

“Aren’t Patrick and Ravi friends here?”

“Oh, they’re wonderful friends,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “But Karen and Patrick are newly married, and Karen’s pregnant with twins, and Ravi’s planned some off-world adventure that coincides with the expected birth, and Patrick got all indignant and protective of Karen. He thinks Ravi should want to be around when his sister’s babies are born.”

“Of course he should!” Jane says. “Ravi isn’t that selfish, is he? And Kiran is married to Patrick here? How did that happen?”

“You keep forgetting,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “This is not your world. You can’t know what any of us are bound to be like.”

“Can’t I? When there are so many similarities?”

“The tiniest stone dropped in the water ripples far in every direction,” she says. “You should like that metaphor, coming from an Earth with water covering seventy percent of its surface.”

“Wait,” Jane says. “Kiran—Karen—is pregnant with twins, yet you’re criticizing her for not having gusto? And a brilliant career?”

“Oh, she’s only eleven weeks,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “She just sits around. Ravi makes appalling decisions, don’t mistake me, but at least he has gusto!”

“I see,” Jane says, feeling very sorry indeed for UD17 Karen, whose body is creating two brand-new humans with what some people consider to be insufficient gusto. Or is she happy for UD17 Karen? Isn’t it a good thing that this Kiran/Karen is married to her Patrick? Especially a Patrick who gets indignant on her behalf?

“Oh, honestly,” says Captain Vanders. “Could we please focus on the matter at hand?”

“Yes,” Jane says. “How can a ship change into a conscious entity?”

“She’s from a Limited Dimension, Captain Vandy,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash apologetically.

“Nevertheless,” Captain Vanders says bleakly, “it’s a valid question. I’m afraid I don’t understand it myself; it’s caught all of us unawares. I’m of the strong opinion that Anita should be looking to other dimensions for the explanation—and the solution.”

“Do you think there is a solution?” Jane asks.

“The universe is infinitely vast,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash huffily. “Of course there’s a solution. Maybe we need an architectural psychologist, or someone who specializes in imbuing inanimate objects with power. I’ve wondered if our own Ivy might have some potential on that front.”

“Ivy!” Jane says.

“I’m just not convinced the ship has a problem that needs solving,” UD17 first Mrs. Thrash adds.

“Because you’ve traveled so much that you’ve lost perspective on what’s normal in your own world,” says Captain Vanders. “And I’ll ask you to leave Ivy be, she has enough on her plate. You’d make more progress consulting the second Mrs. Thrash. Though unfortunately,” Captain Vanders tells Jane, “the second Mrs. Thrash left us just around the time the phenomenon began. She is a spaceship whisperer.”

“A spacesh—” Jane begins, then stops as a new person enters the command center. It’s Ivy, instantly recognizable, but also obviously not the same. Jane can’t put a finger on the difference but feels that it’s something to do with the particular balance of tension in this Ivy’s face. Jane’s Ivy could look like that. But she doesn’t.

Immediately UD17 Ivy notices Jane, begins to grin, then stops. Puzzlement furrows her brow. “Sorry,” says UD17 Ivy. “Have we met?”

“No,” Jane says. “I’m from Limited Dimension something-or-other.”

“Ah!” she says. “That explains it.” Her smile is warm and extremely Ivy-like. Her dark hair is streaked with ice-blue highlights, shortish and wispy, spiked like a star around her head. It probably should have been the first thing Jane noticed about her, but it wasn’t, maybe because it feels right somehow. Jane finds herself smiling back.

“Do you—” Jane begins, suddenly wanting to ask if this Ivy knows, or knew, an Aunt Magnolia. Then she stops. She’s not ready for the answer, whatever it is.

Suddenly the house holograph goes haywire and everyone in the room is crowding around it. The holographic roof of the east wing is flashing, bulging, and wrinkling. Captain Vanders runs to a nearby console and reads the words and symbols flying across it.

“Two intruders!” she cries out. “In two separate ships. They’ve landed, 02 level portside! They’re cutting through the hull!”

“Pirates!” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash. “Pirates with a nefarious transdimensional scheme! I’m sure of it!”

“Well then,” says Captain Vanders, “get going! Intercept them!” She takes Jane by the shoulders and gazes earnestly into her face. “Stab them with those pointy things you’re carrying!” she says, which is a reference, of course, to Jane’s umbrellas.

*   *   *

As Jane is running back down the eastern third-floor corridor with UD17 first Mrs. Thrash, feeling utterly unprepared to intercept pirates, a version of Ravi comes whizzing toward her on sparkly blue roller skates with red stars.

The version I’m sleeping with, Jane thinks to herself, then understands that there is no way to prepare herself for such a Ravi. Her face burns. She hopes he’ll pass her by. Instead, he rolls right up to her, grabs her arms, and says, “Hey. Are you okay?”

“I’m not who you think I am,” Jane says.

“What? But you’re dressed exactly the same,” he says, stepping back and examining Jane from top to bottom. He’s very tall, perched on those skates. “You’re carrying those same umbrellas. My mother didn’t send you through? She told me she tricked you so she could prove the existence of the multiverse!”

“Aren’t you UD17 Ravi?” Jane asks, then notices that aside from the roller skates, he’s also dressed the same as the last time she saw him, in addition to having the identical white streaks in his hair.

“I’m the home Ravi!” he says. “LD42 Ravi! I came to get you. Come on. I hate this dimension.”

“Ravi? Why the hell are you wearing roller skates?”

“My mother used to do roller derby,” he says with an impatient wave of the hand. “I wanted to get in, find you quickly, and get out, and I’ve been here before. I know how it is.”

“But don’t imagine for a moment that you blend in, Other Ravi dear,” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash, pityingly. “Come along now, we’re after the pirates.”

*   *   *

The house is so conclusively punishing of the pirates that Jane wonders why everyone’s been so worried. One of them, the tallest man she’s ever seen, comes shooting through the seam where the wall meets the ceiling as they approach. The seam widens and spits him out, its edges rough and splintery, like teeth. Then it emits a cavernous burp and resettles back into place. The pirate lies in a heap at Jane’s feet. He’s not dressed like a pirate. He’s dressed like a sad clown, which confuses Jane thoroughly.

UD17 first Mrs. Thrash rolls him up in the Abominable Snowman rug. Ravi—Jane’s Ravi—is making anxious noises around first Mrs. Thrash, uncertain whether she might be destroying a priceless work of art or whether the snowman rug really is as awful as it seems.

“Why are you dressed like that?” Jane asks the pirate, crouching down at his head.

“For the love of a woman who hardly knows I exist,” the sad-clown pirate says gloomily, his floppy shoes sticking out of one end of the rug and his curly rainbow wig out of the other. He resembles a sad-clown hot dog.

“Do people always dress up like sad clowns here when they’re heartbroken?” Jane asks, trying to find patterns. Patterns are comforting.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m dressed like this because it’s how she dresses,” the pirate says as UD17 first Mrs. Thrash rolls him to the side of the corridor, then presses a button on the wall that allows her to communicate with Captain Vanders.

“I’m so confused,” says Jane. “Are you in cahoots with Lucy? I mean, Lavender?”

A bit farther along the corridor, the ceiling spits out an orange. It falls to the floor, bounces, and rolls toward Jane.

“Oh! Well! That’s just insulting,” the sad-clown pirate says from his rug roll.

“What?” says Ravi. “The orange? An orange is insulting? What’s wrong with you? God, I hate this dimension.”

“It’s my friend’s orange,” the sad-clown pirate says mournfully. “My friend has become part of the hull of this ship. After he cut through it, I mean. The hull shook his ship off, but hung on to him. It stuck his body into the opening to plug it up.”

“Like a finger in the dam?” Jane asks.

“The damn what?” he says.

“Your friend’s ship is gone?” says UD17 first Mrs. Thrash with rising alarm. “What do you mean? Does he have any air?”

“No,” says the pirate. “I watched him turn blue.”

UD17 first Mrs. Thrash stares at the pirate in disbelief. “Are you telling me that the house has killed him?”

“But decided to spare the orange,” says the sad-clown pirate. “It’s a bizarre ship you call home, if you don’t mind my saying so. Has some peculiar defensive capabilities. We weren’t warned of this. Judging by how summarily we were defeated, I feel that perhaps I have been used.”

“By whom?” Jane says. “For what?”

“By her, of course,” he says. “To create a distraction. Is it pathetic if I hope she gets away with it?”

“Huh?” Jane says. “What are you talking about? You’re not here for the portal?”

“Porthole?” he says. “What porthole?”

“Wait—are you even really a pirate?” says Jane. “Are you here for the art?”

“It’s true I am a painter of great talent,” the pirate says. “But I think I’ve said enough. Don’t you?”

“I—don’t know,” Jane says, trying to understand. Is Lavender after the art?

A number of staffpersons Jane doesn’t recognize have arrived with a gurney and are surrounding the rolled-up pirate. They lift him and the Abominable Snowman rug directly onto the gurney, then strap him in. UD17 first Mrs. Thrash is telling the staffpersons something chilly and grave about the dead man who’s currently plugging up the hole he himself cut in the roof. The staff doesn’t believe her. The house has never killed anyone before. Jane wonders if Captain Vanders will be surprised. She has a feeling she won’t.

Jane has been trying to remember where Lucy—Lavender—was headed the last time Jane saw her. “Ravi,” she says quietly. “Come with me.”

*   *   *

With perfect manners, Ravi offers to carry one of Jane’s umbrellas and makes no reference to how he kissed her in the halls of their own Tu Reviens that morning. He also takes off the roller skates to match himself to the clomping pace of her boots. Jane finds him easy company, really, when he’s not flirting all the time. It’s strange that her relief is mixed with wistfulness.

“Where are we going?” he asks, the skates dangling from his hand by the laces. When Jane was little, Aunt Magnolia used to walk with her to the park, then sit on a bench and wait for her, offering words of encouragement while she skated. On the way there and back, Jane would tie her laces together and carry her skates the way Ravi is carrying his.

“Well?” says Ravi impatiently.

“Huh? Oh. Second story, east wing,” Jane says. “Or 01 level portside, I think they say here. I have a theory.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not ready to say yet. But I don’t think those guys were pirates after the portal.”

“Great,” he says. “Another mystery.” Ravi is not comfortable walking the corridors of this Tu Reviens. Jane can tell from his voice, and from the way he keeps glancing over his shoulders.

The lights in the second-story east wing are flickering wildly. They hold steady as Ravi and Jane arrive, as if they’ve been trying to get someone’s attention, and these two people will do. Jane supposes she’s not entirely surprised to find Lucy—Lavender—alone in the corridor. She’s standing there, whimpering, because her hand has been sucked up by the wall. It’s happened right at the edge of a small painting—really, almost behind the painting—of a woman writing a letter at a table while her frog stands peacefully nearby. It’s nighttime in the painting. The scene is softly lit by a swirling galaxy of stars.

“Lucy-Bear!” cries Ravi. “Clown Lucy! What happened?” Then, “Holy shit. Look at that Vermeer.”

“Vermeer?” Jane says.

“That gorgeous picture,” Ravi says. “A Lady Writing a Letter with Her Frog—or at least, that’s what it’s called in our dimension.”

“Oh, right,” says Jane, remembering. “Mrs. Vanders actually mentioned your Vermeer this morning.”

“She did?”

“She was worried about it, possibly?” says Jane. “She wanted you to look at it.”

“Worried? Hang on, what’s this?”

Ravi bends down to get a better look at a small canvas lying flat on the floor beside Lavender’s oversized clown shoes. Then he freezes. Putting his skates down carefully, handing Jane the umbrella he’s carrying, Ravi picks the canvas up and holds it at arm’s length. It’s a painting of a woman writing a letter while her frog stands nearby. It’s identical to the painting on the wall.

He turns to Lavender. Ravi, suddenly, is almost crying. “Lucy,” he says. “What are you doing?”

“My name is Lavender,” says Lavender, gasping. “And you’re not even my real Ravi.”

“All this time,” Ravi says, “you’ve been pretending?”

“It’s none of your business if I’ve been pretending!” Lucy—Lavender—cries out. “You’re not you. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to you! To any of you!”

“You told me you loved me.”

“Oh, listen to yourself. That wasn’t me and you, it was you and someone else, me and someone else. Anyway, you don’t even know what the word means!”

“Which painting is the real one?” Ravi asks, his voice choked.

“Figure it out,” Lavender says, “if you care so much! You don’t care who’s in your bed, but ohhh, it matters what painting is on your wall!”

“I will figure it out,” says Ravi. “I assure you. And I’ll tell your father and your cousin what you did. I’ll tell everyone!”

Lavender begins to laugh, a disgusted laugh that turns into a short scream as the wall sucks harder on her hand.

“I’m calling the police,” says Ravi, placing the canvas carefully on the floor where he found it. “Or the captain. Whatever it is you’ve got in this goddamn dimension for dealing with clown-nosed, lowlife art thieves. Guard the paintings,” he says to Jane stiffly. “I’ll be back.”

“All right,” Jane says. Then she waits, patient and still, an umbrella in each hand, until, swearing quietly, Ravi has retrieved his skates and rolled off down the corridor.

Jane turns back to Lavender. The wall, it seems, is steadily consuming Lavender’s hand. She’s in deeper now, almost to her elbow, and she’s gasping in pain. Tears are running oily tracks through her makeup; black is dripping onto her white shirt.

“Did you pay those two men to distract the house while you stole the painting?” Jane asks.

“I assure you,” Lavender says with a weak rush of fury, “you’re the last person in the multiverse I would ever explain myself to.” Her eyes go bright and flash at Jane. “The second-to-last person,” she cries out. “You’re just a copy! Of a nobody! Of Ravi’s latest in a string of nobodies!”

“What are you stealing it for?”

“Why does anyone steal anything?”

“Money?” Jane says, disgusted.

“It’s a painting,” Lavender spits at Jane. “It’s a thing. It doesn’t hurt anyone for me to take it. Other than Ravi, maybe, and he deserves it!”

“One of your associates died,” Jane says. “The house killed him.”

Lavender cries out as the wall slurps her arm in past the elbow. She’s lost the strength of her legs and is hanging from her trapped arm like a sad-clown ragdoll. Jane tries not to think about the state of her hand, her forearm, inside that wall. Jane tries not to wonder how far the wall is going to take this punishment.

“Is there anywhere you can run?” Jane asks her.

“What?” Lavender gasps, confused.

“Do you have an exit plan?”

Lavender swings her head up to look at Jane briefly, exhausted, her eyes glazed with pain. “I wasn’t supposed to get caught,” she says. “But yes. There are places I could go.”

Jane has the feeling that deliberation will only convince her of the impossibility of her plan. So, without deliberation, she jams her unfinished, flapping black umbrella into the wall, right at the edge of the spot where Lavender’s arm is being eaten. The wall shudders, growls, and squeezes. Lavender screams.

Jane grips her brown-rose-copper umbrella hard and jams it into the wall on the other side of Lavender’s arm. It’s hard to know what’s happening, exactly, as the wall shrieks and balks and drips a strange, glutinous, snotty substance around Jane’s stabbing places, but instinct causes her to use the umbrellas as crowbars, to pry open the hole that’s sucking Lavender in. The wall roars, then screams. Lavender pulls. Lavender screams.

Then her arm, bloody, mangled, and limp, slips out of the wall like some sluggish creature being born. Lavender falls.

“Run!” Jane yells. “Run!”

Lavender staggers, then, bent over her arm, runs. Alone in the corridor, Jane yanks the umbrellas out of the wall and jams them back in, stab, stab, stab, trying to keep the house distracted while Lavender runs. The wall buckles; it forms fingers that grab at the umbrellas; Jane stabs, keeps stabbing.

But then the floor beneath her boots begins to rumble and shift and she decides she’s risked enough. She lets go of the umbrellas, leaving them stuck in the wall. “Nice house,” she says. “Wonderful house. I would never hurt this dear, lovely house.” Jane breathes jellyfish-deep through her very sincere intention not to do a single thing to cross this horrifying house.

Lavender, when she ran, left behind both paintings. Jane leaves them where they are too, and backs away. The wall still seems to be having a bit of a tussle with the umbrellas, which jerk back and forth, but the floor is calming itself.

“I want to go home,” Jane says. “Please, god, let me go home.” It’s funny to find herself speaking words that sound like prayer. She’s never been religious, she doesn’t know what she believes, and she doesn’t really know what she means by home, either.

She does, however, give herself a second to mourn the brown-rose-copper umbrella with the brass handle. Her heroic-journey umbrella; she realizes she’s going to have to leave it behind. She thanks it for the important job it’s done.

As she leaves the second-story east wing, she understands that there’s one more thing she needs to do before she departs this dimension.

*   *   *

When she reaches the third-story east corridor, Jane finds that the mess has been cleaned up. No pirates, no paramedics. Even the Abominable Snowman rug is back in place. Judging by the thunks from above, it sounds like a team of people on the roof, or the hull, is retrieving the dead man and repairing the breach. Jane wonders if the house is giving the man’s body up willingly.

At the sound of skates, she turns to find Ravi gliding toward her from the direction of the atrium, looking like a stormcloud. “We got to the painting and Lucy was gone,” he says testily. “You let her go, didn’t you?”

“That wall was going to kill her,” Jane says. “And her name is Lavender.”

“The wall wasn’t going to kill her!”

“You didn’t see what it did to her arm,” Jane says.

Ravi swallows. He looks uncomfortable. “What did it do to her arm?”

“Maybe it’s better you don’t ask.”

“Well?” he says, anxious now. “Will she be okay?”

“I have no idea! But you know as well as I do that this house kills people!”

Ravi is fighting with some thought inside his head. “Okay,” he says. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it at this point, and given what we saw, I’d like to get back home now. I need to have a chat with my Lucy about a Brancusi. Maybe also take a closer look at our Vermeer.”

“One more stop first,” Jane says.

When Ravi raises questioning eyebrows, Jane holds out her hand. He takes it, puzzled, and Jane pulls him down the corridor.

“No,” Ravi says, when he sees where they’re going. “No way.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No,” he insists, breaking out of Jane’s grip. “I’ll meet you at the portal.”

“What are you afraid of?” Jane snaps at him. “The truth?”

“No,” he snaps back, finally, thoroughly losing his temper. “I’m afraid of exactly the opposite, of believing things of myself that aren’t true. You don’t get it, do you? UD17 Ravi is a prick. I know. I’ve met him. He’s like me, but without any—” Ravi waves his hands around in frustration, reaching for the words. “He’s cold. He has no compunctions. And he’s so much like me. It screws with my head. He’s not the only Ravi I’ve met and not liked, either. Kiran too. You know when Kiran started moping around all depressed, and pushing Patrick away? It was after she met UD17 Karen and Patrick, who’re so disgustingly motivated and happy and in love, and made her feel like her own Patrick was holding back, keeping secrets, being dishonest somehow. She’s decided something’s wrong with her, and she doesn’t trust her Patrick, and she feels like she’s stuck in the wrong world. This place will screw you up!”

“UD17 Ravi isn’t you,” Jane says. “Don’t you know who you are?”

“Yeah,” he says, “and I intend to keep it that way.” Then he turns and leaves her.

He has not left her alone. UD17 Ivy is walking calmly down the corridor toward Jane.

“Hi,” she says. Her grin is so much like the Ivy Jane knows that Jane flushes, remembering that other Ivy—real Ivy—saw her kissing Ravi earlier today. Though this Ivy, Jane realizes, doesn’t wear glasses. Her eyes are less brightly blue too.

“Captain Vanders sent me to do a last check of this passageway,” UD17 Ivy says.

“Is she your boss?”

“Yes. One of my bosses.”

“Wait,” Jane says. “If she’s a captain, does that mean you’re some kind of soldier?”

“It’s not a military ship,” she says. “But as it happens, I’ve been getting some pressure to train as a military officer.”

“Really!”

“My brother is one,” she says. “He’s in intelligence. Karen’s thinking about it too, after she weans the babies.”

Now Jane is trying to imagine the Ivy of her world as a military officer, involved in intelligence. “Do you want to be in the military?”

“Not particularly,” UD17 Ivy says, another smile transforming her face. “I have other interests.”

Jane is feeling a sudden urgency not to know this Ivy’s interests. She doesn’t want this Ivy to overlay her Ivy, whom she only met yesterday. Her Ivy does beautiful carpentry and this world probably doesn’t even have forests. And what carvings would a carpenter in this oceanless world carve, in lieu of Ivy’s whales, sharks, and girls in rowboats?

“Well,” Jane says. “I’ve got one more visit to make before I go home.”

“Here?” says UD17 Ivy, indicating the door behind Jane. “You know that’s Ravi’s cabin, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think you’re going to catch him alone,” she says. “You know who’s in there?”

“Yeah,” Jane says. “Someone told me. I was—surprised,” she says, leaving it at that. “It’s not Ravi I’m wanting to see.”

“Oh,” UD17 Ivy says, her eyes widening. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Jane pauses, swallowing. “There’s a question I need to ask.”

UD17 Ivy bites her lip. She’s trying, Jane thinks, to stop herself from telling me not to go in there.

Instead, UD17 Ivy says, “Would you like me to wait here for you?”

Jane’s breath comes out in a rush of relief. “Really?” she says. “Do you have time for that?”

“Sure,” says Ivy. “I could stand outside the door, if you want? You could knock if you need me.”

“Yes,” Jane says. “Please. That’s awfully kind. I won’t be long.”

*   *   *

Jane doesn’t knock. She pushes right in, takes one look, and perceives, immediately, why everyone’s been warning her.

It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the appearance of the person in Ravi’s bed. It’s something else, something more primal.

UD17 Jane and UD17 Ravi are in the massive bed together. He’s on the far side, asleep, turned away from both Janes. There’s some sort of metallic gold dye streaking his otherwise dark hair. One bare arm is visible above the sheets and he’s got the most gorgeous sleeve of tattoos. Jane sees Earth things curving and looping around his muscles. Trees. Poppies. Valleys. Cities of stone stretching away to the sea.

Jane had, of course, realized that she might walk in on sex happening, but it’s only now that she appreciates how strange and overwhelming that would have been. To see herself doing something so intensely private, something she hasn’t even ever done, and discover what she looks like doing it. To see it, but not be feeling it.

Instead, UD17 Jane is sitting up in bed, wrapped in a sheet as if cold, or shy of nakedness. The first thing that rocks Jane is how vulnerable she looks, how young, her expression uncertain, her hands twisted together. The second is how alone.

Startled at Jane’s entrance, this other Jane yelps, then makes an indignant noise. Then, finally, seeing who Jane is, sits wide-eyed and stunned.

“Hi,” Jane says. Real Jane.

“Hi,” UD17 Jane responds automatically, then, glancing over at UD17 Ravi, shifts to the edge of the bed, farther away from him. “I don’t want him to wake up yet,” she whispers. “Let’s keep our voices down.”

Is that how she looks when her face is moving, talking? Jane knows it is; it’s fundamentally familiar. But it’s also not quite what she’s imagined her own face doing. With a shock, Jane realizes it reminds her of Aunt Magnolia.

Something else: Why does she find herself sharp with immediate . . . resentment toward this person?

“You know about the multiverse, right?” she says quietly.

“Yeah, of course,” says UD17 Jane, a little breathless. “We all do here.”

“Do you—”

Jane had almost been about to ask, ridiculously, if UD17 Jane knows how to breathe the way a jellyfish moves. Then she remembers that in addition to this being a weird question to ask after bursting in on someone, there are no oceans in this world. “Are there jellyfish here?” she asks quietly, then presses her palm to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m overwhelmed. I can only think of stupid questions.”

“It’s okay,” says UD17 Jane. “Really. I’m overwhelmed too.”

Yes, Jane can see this. Her own feelings are reflected in the short breaths and guarded eyes, the baffled expression of this other Jane.

“But I don’t know what you mean,” UD17 Jane goes on. “Are you asking me about an extinct fish?”

Jane begins to roll up her sleeve. “It’s an invertebrate, jellylike, marine animal,” she says, hearing herself describing jellyfish to herself and resisting the urge to laugh hysterically. “Not a fish, actually. Look.”

Jane turns her shoulder so that UD17 Jane can see the golden bell, trailing arms, and tentacles of her tattoo.

“Wow,” says UD17 Jane. “That’s beautiful.”

“They’ve lived in the oceans for over five hundred million years,” Jane says. “They’re the world’s oldest multi-organ animal.”

“I think I remember hearing about them,” says UD17 Jane. “An Old Earth monster. They’re extinct now.”

Jellyfish extinct? When they’ve lived for over five hundred million years?

Jane begins to comprehend what it means that these people’s Earth was blown apart. How can she conceive of the loss of oceans? The loss of dirt, solid under her feet? True sunlight, warmth, rain? How would Aunt Magnolia have taught Jane to breathe in this world, if not like a jellyfish?

Jane doesn’t hate this dimension the way Ravi does. But it’s sad, and impossible, and scary.

And at least now she understands her resentment for this alternate version of herself. She understands it as it fades. Jane has felt as if faced with a person who’s stolen her identity. Stolen, even, her facial resemblance to Aunt Magnolia. Mocked her decision not to sleep with Ravi by sleeping with him anyway. As if everything special and unique about her has been appropriated by this person, whose existence, sitting there like a mirror, dilutes Jane somehow.

But Jane is not diluted. Jane is Jane and it doesn’t matter who this person is. Jane is a person who lives on Earth, in a world where jellyfish have floated in the oceans for five hundred million years. Jane has a home. This place is not her home.

Also, Jane is a person who decided not to sleep with Ravi. She decided to let Lavender escape. She sacrificed her umbrellas. She knows how to breathe the way a jellyfish moves. She has a girl named Ivy, whom she barely knows and whose counterpart is standing like an anchor outside this room. UD17 Ivy is doing that for Jane, not for this person, and Jane has no idea what will or won’t come of her feelings. She had a father who taught high school science, a mother who studied the science of falling frogs, and an aunt who swam with whales. Jane makes umbrellas. She can’t bear the thought of a world where there are no ailing oceans for Aunt Magnolia to try to save.

She is her own aunt Magnolia’s child.

“Are you happy?” Jane blurts out, because suddenly, despite all she’s just been thinking, she cares.

That face grows quiet, in a cellularly familiar way. Jane knows that UD17 Jane is considering the question hard. “Not really,” she finally responds. “Not since my aunt Magnolia died.”

It’s the answer to the question Jane came here to ask. The answer, now that Jane has it, is both crushing and not as crushing as she thought it would be. Would Jane really want to know a UD17 Aunt Magnolia? Would she really want to pile so much hope and expectation onto that person?

Jane realizes she’s been wondering if this, the multiverse, is why Aunt Magnolia made her promise to visit Tu Reviens. So that if anything ever happened to her aunt, Jane could surround herself with other, different Aunt Magnolias. But no, Aunt Magnolia would have known that she was the one Jane had, and the one Jane lost. The only one she wanted.

“I’m sorry about your aunt Magnolia,” Jane says to UD17 Jane quietly. “My aunt Magnolia died too. In Antarctica. She was an underwater photographer.”

A look of comprehension crosses the face of this other Jane. “Is your tattoo based on one of her photos?”

“Yeah,” Jane says, surprised. “How did you know that?”

UD17 Jane turns to show Jane her other shoulder. A comet tattoo streaks up the arm of this other Jane, reaching all the way to her neck. “My aunt Magnolia was a galactic photographer.”

Jane is speechless. The tattoo is so like hers.

“And a spy,” continues UD17 Jane. “She died on a mission.”

“Aunt Magnolia a spy?” Jane says, surprised.

“Yeah. I never knew it, until she died.”

“Wow,” Jane says, trying to imagine what that would be like. “Did that feel like a betrayal?”

“Not nearly as much as her dying,” UD17 Jane says with a quiet bitterness.

Jane feels the pressure of her own rising tears. Some instinct causes her to reach out, curiously, to touch the other Jane, to touch that familiar grief. The other Jane understands and reaches back. The two Janes grasp hands, warm, alive, and a perfect fit.

Behind the other Jane, UD17 Ravi shifts, snores. Their grip on each other tightens in a strange sort of instinctive, mutual self-defense. Jane has a feeling that if UD17 Ravi wakes up and sees her, he’s going to invite her into bed. And she realizes, suddenly, why her own Ravi, home Ravi, who’s a better Ravi than this Ravi, is not for her. Ravi makes Jane feel excited, delighted, but he does not make her feel anchored in herself. Ivy makes Jane feel excited, delighted, and anchored in who she is.

“Will you be okay?” UD17 Jane asks her.

“I don’t know,” Jane says. “But this has been a helpful visit.”

“For me too. I think you’ve inspired me, actually,” other Jane says, “with the jellyfish.”

“Are you an artist?”

“I’d like to be,” says UD17 Jane. “I’ve been designing some pretty wild lampshades lately.”

Jane’s mind flashes with images. Adornments for lights; jellyfish that glow in a world of no jellyfish. She lets out a laugh, surprised to recognize that she likes this Jane. Her next umbrella, she decides, will be a lampshade umbrella.

“I make umbrellas,” Jane says. “I’ll have to make a lampshade-inspired one next.”

The other Jane scrunches her face. “I think I know what an umbrella is.”

“Look it up, if you like,” Jane says. “Umbrellas might be inspiring too. I could totally see them coming into fashion here.”

“Thanks,” says other Jane. “I will.”

“I hope you’ll be okay,” Jane says.

“You too.”

“I really mean it.”

“Yeah. I do too. I feel like I have a vested interest.”

This makes Jane laugh again. “I have to go back now. But a word of advice for you?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t piss off the house.”

UD17 Jane raises an eyebrow. “Okay. And one for you?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t sleep with Ravi.”

Jane grins, then nods, not mentioning that she’s already figured that one out. Something is tugging at her throat. It’s a conversation she wants to have with Ivy. A few conversations, really; she wonders if Ivy will want to have them with her. She has no idea. Anything can happen. She’ll find out.

Holding the hand of this different version of her, Jane takes a deep, jellyfish breath. When a quietness suffuses her, she lets go and turns for home.