As we get off the train, Veronica can’t contain herself.
“Okay, are we all just going to act like we didn’t just get on the train at Ricks Street, turn around, and get off the train at Ricks Street?”
Too Tall and Crooked Eye look at V like she’s lost every last marble.
“Um, you mean Barclays Center?” says Tall.
“Yeah, that’s all she meant—get on and get off, what a fast ride, huh?” I say as we file out the turnstiles.
“What are you talking about?” she asks, eyeing my wheat Timbs, green bomber, and hoodie. “Those aren’t even the same clothes.” Then she checks her own outfit from yesterday, and she shrieks.
I take V by the elbow and whisper, “V, we don’t need to freak everybody out.”
“Are you sure?” she says, loud.
“Yes! No—I don’t know,” I say. “I sorta thought I was imagining it until just now.”
“What do you mean? You told me yesterday—wait, I mean today? After we ate Not Not Ray’s and Matteo gave you the cannoli and—oh my god, that hasn’t even happened yet, has it?”
I shake my head.
V rubs the shaved part of her head with her fingertips like she’s trying to make sense of where and when we are, exactly.
“I told you it feels like a dream,” I say.
“I mean, I get why this may be happening to you, with your hand and all. But why is it happening to me? Tweedledee and Tweedledum seem clueless,” she says, motioning toward Crooked Eye and Too Tall. “Why me?”
It’s a good question. I mean, we are related. Her dad’s been to the Realm just like mine. So, maybe it’s a James thing? But why doesn’t Ma or Crooked or Long Fingers remember?
“King, this is what it’s been like for you? You just keep living the same day?”
“I guess. I don’t know, V, it’s like I get to the same moment, and I know it’s happened already, but part of me forgets, you know? Part of me is totally in it, in each moment, as if it never happened. But part of me—”
“You guys coming?” Crooked Eye calls down from the top of the subway stairs.
Veronica and I have been exchanging rapid whispers in front of the subway booth.
“We have to get rid of them,” she says, and marches up the stairs.
I follow her.
So this is really real, I think as the streets go dark. It’s not all in my head.
“Okay, wow, what a crazy blackout, huh?” V says to Crooked Eye. “So dark! Say, Unc.” Veronica yawns. “I’m feeling kinda tired, what say we skip dinner and just head home, how ’bout that?”
Tall and Crooked are caught a little off guard, but it’s Veronica, so they’re used to not knowing what she’ll say or do next. We say good night to Tall, who looks particularly hungry for a cannoli as he shambles off.
We head home. V and I grab a couple croissants from the café before Mom throws them out and go upstairs. My room is a mess. Clothes in one corner like a pile of leaves. Threadbare books I borrowed from Long Fingers’s library stacked in another. The laptop Ma passed down to me last summer sits on the edge of my bed. My desk is littered with playing cards, coins, sketch pads, and journals.
On the wall above the desk, though, is one thing that’s always straight and always clean. The framed poster of Pops, Preston the Great. A lightning bolt in one hand and cards in the other. His classic porkpie hat on his head. My uncles took it off the wall downstairs before Ma and I arrived. After everything that happened this past summer, Ma had Crooked Eye put it up in my room.
Dad, I think. It always comes back to him. Every time the world turns and my stomach lurches because something happens that can’t be explained by logic or reason, he’s there, somewhere, the magician just offstage.
Veronica jumps onto my bed and turns to me with a flake of pastry on her lip.
“So, do I have to say it?”
“Say what?” I ask.
“We’re in an echo. I mean, right? We got on the train, maybe four o’clock or so, Friday evening. We get back on the train, what? Six o’clock, on Saturday? Do I have to count?”
“Twenty-six hours,” I say.
In the Realm, there are all these echoes of realities. Moments in time that loop over and over. Those echoes are full of copies of people, created every time a portal to the Realm opens, living life exactly as they did in those twenty- six hours surrounding that moment.
“In an echo, like Dad. But how? I mean, unless . . .”
“Unless we are echoes of ourselves and not actually ourselves?” she asks.
We take that thought in for a moment.
“Um, maybe?” I say.
“But I remember my whole life!” says Veronica.
“I think echo people do, too,” I say.
“But they never realize they’re in an echo. They never wake up. We did.”
“What changed for you? How did you wake up?” I ask.
“It’s weird. Remember you asked me about déjà vu and all that?”
“Yeah, I think that’s the first time I did that. I think every time before that we just talked about how much we like cannolis.”
“Interesting. Well, remember I suggested you touch every doorway and say ‘I’m not dreaming’ out loud?”
“Yeah. I tried that.”
“So did I. Not sure why, just thought it’d be cool if I had a lucid dream, you know? Like, if you’re aware you’re dreaming, you could maybe control it and fly around like a bird?”
“Did it work?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember my dreams at all. But then we get on the train at Ricks Street and I touch the doors and whisper, ‘I’m not dreaming,’ and next thing I know, we’re getting off the train at Ricks Street!”
“So it worked. It woke you up, anyway.”
“Maybe we need to wake everyone up?” suggests Veronica.
“Maybe,” I say, staring up at my poster of Pops. “The way I figure it, we have two options.”
“And those are?”
“One, we’re echoes of ourselves. We just woke up somehow. In which case, we’re better off going back to sleep.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, V. Remember what happened to Urma Tan when she left her echo?”
“Yeah. That wasn’t good. At all.”
An echo of Urma Tan slipped into our reality. To stay alive outside the Realm, she had to wear a charged Realm crystal around her neck at all times. She lived here, had a kid, but it was a bad look all around. She drained her son like a vampire, then opened a Realm portal and tried to absorb so much Realm energy that, when she lost control, it covered the whole theater and crystalized into the Black Rock of BK.
“I don’t really wanna go back to sleep,” says V. “What’s the other option?”
“The other option is, we’re in an echo loop somehow. And we gotta figure it out. Otherwise, remember this day you just lived? Well, get used to it.”
As we get off the train, Veronica can’t contain herself.
“Okay, are we all just going to act like we didn’t just get on the train at Ricks Street, turn around, and get off the train at Ricks Street?”
Too Tall and Crooked Eye look at V like she’s lost every last marble.
“Um, you mean Barclays Center?” says Tall.
“Yeah, that’s all she meant—get on and get off, what a fast ride, huh?” I say as we file out the turnstiles.
“What are you talking about?” she asks, eyeing my wheat Timbs, green bomber, and hoodie. “Those aren’t even the same clothes.” Then she checks her own outfit from yesterday, and she shrieks.
I take V by the elbow and whisper, “V, we don’t need to freak everybody out.”
“Are you sure?” she says, loud.
“Yes! No—I don’t know,” I say. “I sorta thought I was imagining it until just now.”
“What do you mean? You told me yesterday—wait, I mean today? After we ate Not Not Ray’s and Matteo gave you the cannoli and—oh my god, that hasn’t even happened yet, has it?”
I shake my head.
V rubs the shaved part of her head with her fingertips like she’s trying to make sense of where and when we are, exactly.
“I told you it feels like a dream,” I say.
“I mean, I get why this may be happening to you, with your hand and all. But why is it happening to me? Tweedledee and Tweedledum seem clueless,” she says, motioning toward Crooked Eye and Too Tall. “Why me?”
It’s a good question. I mean, we are related. Her dad’s been to the Realm just like mine. So, maybe it’s a James thing? But why doesn’t Ma or Crooked or Long Fingers remember?
“King, this is what it’s been like for you? You just keep living the same day?”
“I guess. I don’t know, V, it’s like I get to the same moment, and I know it’s happened already, but part of me forgets, you know? Part of me is totally in it, in each moment, as if it never happened. But part of me—”
“You guys coming?” Crooked Eye calls down from the top of the subway stairs.
Veronica and I have been exchanging rapid whispers in front of the subway booth.
“We have to get rid of them,” she says, and marches up the stairs.
I follow her.
So this is really real, I think as the streets go dark. It’s not all in my head.
“Okay, wow, what a crazy blackout, huh?” V says to Crooked Eye. “So dark! Say, Unc.” Veronica yawns. “I’m feeling kinda tired, what say we skip dinner and just head home, how ’bout that?”
Tall and Crooked are caught a little off guard, but it’s Veronica, so they’re used to not knowing what she’ll say or do next. We say good night to Tall, who looks particularly hungry for a cannoli as he shambles off.
We head home. V and I grab a couple croissants from the café before Mom throws them out and go upstairs. My room is a mess. Clothes in one corner like a pile of leaves. Threadbare books I borrowed from Long Fingers’s library stacked in another. The laptop Ma passed down to me last summer sits on the edge of my bed. My desk is littered with playing cards, coins, sketch pads, and journals.
On the wall above the desk, though, is one thing that’s always straight and always clean. The framed poster of Pops, Preston the Great. A lightning bolt in one hand and cards in the other. His classic porkpie hat on his head. My uncles took it off the wall downstairs before Ma and I arrived. After everything that happened this past summer, Ma had Crooked Eye put it up in my room.
Dad, I think. It always comes back to him. Every time the world turns and my stomach lurches because something happens that can’t be explained by logic or reason, he’s there, somewhere, the magician just offstage.
Veronica jumps onto my bed and turns to me with a flake of pastry on her lip.
“So, do I have to say it?”
“Say what?” I ask.
“We’re in an echo. I mean, right? We got on the train, maybe four o’clock or so, Friday evening. We get back on the train, what? Six o’clock, on Saturday? Do I have to count?”
“Twenty-six hours,” I say.
In the Realm, there are all these echoes of realities. Moments in time that loop over and over. Those echoes are full of copies of people, created every time a portal to the Realm opens, living life exactly as they did in those twenty- six hours surrounding that moment.
“In an echo, like Dad. But how? I mean, unless . . .”
“Unless we are echoes of ourselves and not actually ourselves?” she asks.
We take that thought in for a moment.
“Um, maybe?” I say.
“But I remember my whole life!” says Veronica.
“I think echo people do, too,” I say.
“But they never realize they’re in an echo. They never wake up. We did.”
“What changed for you? How did you wake up?” I ask.
“It’s weird. Remember you asked me about déjà vu and all that?”
“Yeah, I think that’s the first time I did that. I think every time before that we just talked about how much we like cannolis.”
“Interesting. Well, remember I suggested you touch every doorway and say ‘I’m not dreaming’ out loud?”
“Yeah. I tried that.”
“So did I. Not sure why, just thought it’d be cool if I had a lucid dream, you know? Like, if you’re aware you’re dreaming, you could maybe control it and fly around like a bird?”
“Did it work?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember my dreams at all. But then we get on the train at Ricks Street and I touch the doors and whisper, ‘I’m not dreaming,’ and next thing I know, we’re getting off the train at Ricks Street!”
“So it worked. It woke you up, anyway.”
“Maybe we need to wake everyone up?” suggests Veronica.
“Maybe,” I say, staring up at my poster of Pops. “The way I figure it, we have two options.”
“And those are?”
“One, we’re echoes of ourselves. We just woke up somehow. In which case, we’re better off going back to sleep.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, V. Remember what happened to Urma Tan when she left her echo?”
“Yeah. That wasn’t good. At all.”
An echo of Urma Tan slipped into our reality. To stay alive outside the Realm, she had to wear a charged Realm crystal around her neck at all times. She lived here, had a kid, but it was a bad look all around. She drained her son like a vampire, then opened a Realm portal and tried to absorb so much Realm energy that, when she lost control, it covered the whole theater and crystalized into the Black Rock of BK.
“I don’t really wanna go back to sleep,” says V. “What’s the other option?”
“The other option is, we’re in an echo loop somehow. And we gotta figure it out. Otherwise, remember this day you just lived? Well, get used to it.”
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