“Have you decided to stop sulking and come down?” That’s my mother’s voice. I poke my head through the doorway to see her in teal-green yoga pants and a racerback tank, rinsing off plates before putting them in an industrial-size dishwasher that looks absurd in an otherwise normal kitchen. She smiles at me, with none of the pain and loss from that last universe, and it strikes me suddenly how beautiful Mom is when she’s happy. “Oh, Marguerite, it’s you.”

I guess Josie must be in a bad mood upstairs. “Yeah. Hey, do you remember whether there was much Tylenol in this bottle?”

“Only a dose or two left, I think. Why?”

Wicked didn’t OD, at least not on this. “No reason.”

Mom returns to her washing. “I don’t know what got into your sister this morning. Trying to sneak out of the house at dawn? What could she have been thinking?”

Knowing Josie, she probably thought the surf was up. But then, Josie’s old enough to leave the house whenever she wants, and Mom and Dad would never try to stop her. Huh. Do I have a younger sister here? My memories of sturdy, obnoxious little Katya from the Russiaverse make me smile. “Not a clue.”

“Well, I told her she could come down for dinner, so I suppose we’ll see her soon. I do hope she’s managed to calm herself.” Mom sighs and smiles as she closes the dishwasher door. “Thank goodness only a couple of you ever lose your tempers at the same time.”

“Um, okay.” The way she put that was kind of weird, but not worth getting into. I need to figure out what’s up with this Marguerite, not her bratty younger sister. Before I explain the whole story to this version of Mom, I’d like to know exactly what kind of help I should ask for first.

So I continue exploring the house. In the kitchen, the appliances are all slightly odd—either too small or industrial-large, with rounded corners, and again the sink has slightly different fixtures that say we’re not in California anymore. We must be in Asia, I guess, but where? The dining room table is of course piled high with papers, on which are printed or scribbled equations that won’t tell me much. But wait—is that—?

I pick up the Nobel Prize, a heavy disk of solid gold. Alfred Nobel’s profile stares into the distance, hoping humanity will remember him for this instead of the invention of dynamite. Mom and Dad had already won the Nobel in the Triadverse, too, which means this is the second dimension where I’ve seen one of humanity’s top accolades being used as a paperweight.

“Heard from any alternate dimensions lately?” I call to Mom. If they won for inventing the technology, or at least proving their theory, she’ll know what I mean. That’s going to make this easy to explain.

But when my mother appears in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, she’s frowning. “Sweetheart, are you all right?” She steps forward and puts her hand on my forehead. “You were asking about the Tylenol. Is that because you’re running a fever?”

“No, I was just—I’ll explain in a minute.” Obviously Mom has no idea what I’m talking about.

If they didn’t win the Nobel for learning about parallel dimensions, then what did they win it for?

They might have been oceanographers again, I think as I keep going into a large living room where the windows all have heavy white cloth curtains, and look out on what seems to be yet more bamboo plants growing outside. In the distance is an urban cityscape. Or maybe Mom and Dad went into pure math.

The living room is more casual than the dining room, and about a jillion of my paintings are on the wall. Looks like I even do some sculpture, to judge by the molded clay hand on one bookshelf. And on the sliver of wall beside the main windows, I see some framed magazine covers with Mom and Dad’s faces. One of the covers only has an illustration, though—an enormous aqua double helix, framed on both sides by identical profiles. At the top, just beneath the magazine title, is the bold headline THE CLONE AGE.

Clones?

“It’s seven o’clock,” says a voice that sounds familiar and yet strange. “That makes it dinner time, right? Are you going to let me out of prison yet, or do I have to go hungry?”

I look back to see my mother in the dining room with her hands on her hips, facing a very angry . . . me.

“Prison.” Mom sighs. She is completely unfazed that my doppelganger just walked in. “Honestly, aren’t you a little old for—”

“You know what I’m a little old for? Being treated like a toddler who threw a tantrum,” snaps the other me. She’s wearing a skater skirt and a T-shirt in almost identical shades of blue.

“Apparently you’re not too old to act like one,” Mom retorts. I just stand there, staring.

There are two of us. Two of me. Do I have an identical twin, or—?

I look back at that headline, THE CLONE AGE. Now I notice the line at the bottom, which reads WHAT THE CAINE FAMILY MEANS FOR OUR FUTURE.

I’m a clone. We’re clones. In other words, in this universe, there is more than one person that the Firebird would count as being me. Multiple versions of me exist here, which means more than one Marguerite could travel to this dimension at the same time. . . .

Hurrying back into the dining room, I stare at this other version of myself. Sure enough, just at the neckline of her T-shirt, I can see the chain of her Firebird.

When I walk in, at first she’s surprised—as shocked to see me as I was to see her. But then the realization hits her, too.

Wicked and I are standing face-to-face at last.

 

 

20

WICKED WOULDN’T HESITATE TO HURT ME.

I’m going to hurt her first.

I launch myself at her, sending her smashing into the wall as Mom screams. Wicked tries to claw my face and winds up snagging my damp hair and pulling hard. Wincing, I grab for her Firebird and feel the chain give.

She pushes me down, but I have time to tug off my own Firebird and throw them both toward the corner before she’s on me. Wicked shoves my head onto the floor, hard, then does it again. This time I grab her hair and yank to the side, hard enough that she topples beside me.

“Marguerite! Victoire!” Mom goes on her knees beside us, trying to get in the way. “Have you lost your minds? Stop this—”

Wicked lets go of me long enough to savagely elbow Mom in the face, which is almost as shocking to see as it is for Mom to experience. “This is between us!” Wicked shouts at my stunned mother.