The Square Root of Summer(73)

“She fell out of the sky-aye,” Thomas sing-songs as he starts crab-walking towards me.

“Actually,” says the girl, standing up tall tall tall. “I fell out of the tree.”

She shields her face with a hand from the rain and peers at us. At me. “Hi, Gottie.”

I stare back, spooked. How does she know my name? She looks like my mami, who I’ve only seen in photos. They all look the same as this girl: dark and skinny, with a big nose, and choppy hair like mine.

“Aren’t you cold?” I ask. I’m wearing rain boots, jeans, a T-shirt, Thomas’s jumper, and a Windbreaker. The girl is wearing pajamas and a book bag and no shoes. She must be friends with Grey. And she’s not wearing a bra. I can tell. Her toenails are cherry red and chipped.

“Did you hit your head?” asks Thomas. I sidle next to him and take his hand. He squeezes mine back.

“No, I hit the hedge.” She giggles.

She’s loopy: there isn’t a hedge back here. The ginger cat comes running to her, and it purrs and rubs against her ankle.

“I knew I should have called you Schr?dinger!” she says to it, then turns to look up into the apple tree. “Holy long division—it’s a paradoxical time loop.”

What is she talking about? Thomas looks at me, and, slowly so she doesn’t see it, I point my finger at my ear and move it round in a circle. Mouth: “Cuckoo.”

But how can he smile when he’s going away today? Doesn’t he mind?

“But why here? Why does it open today and not somewhen else? Is it the time capsule?” the girl murmurs to the tree. Then she looks over at us. “Hey, Trouble Times Two. Can you do me a favor?”

“No,” I say, at the same time as Thomas says, “Yes.”

I glare at him.

“After I’m gone, climb this tree and see what you find,” says the girl, taking something out of her pocket and throwing it through the rain to Thomas. It’s small and silver.

“I’ve got a knife!” I blurt. It’s true.

“I know.” She winks. “And you really shouldn’t. Gottie. Listen. I know I should say something so ficken wise to you right now. Like, talk to Papa. Eat your vegetables. Phone Ned when he’s in London. Pay attention to the world. Say yes when someone asks you to bake a cake. Make grand gestures. Be bold.”

She laughs. “But … eh, we’re going to forget, and do everything wrong, anyway. But be careful with that knife, okay? We could get hurt.”

I think We? But the girl’s already darting off through the garden and Thomas is tugging on my hand, saying, “There’s something in the tree, I’ve got the key. C’mon.”

And he’s leaving me for forever in an hour and we have a blood pact to swear, so I climb up after him, the knife in my pocket.

*

Since it’s already happened, I can’t stop my idiotic younger self from getting stabbed in a tree, so I go and hide from the rain in Grey’s car. It’s parked askew, half in the hedge. One wheel is missing, propped up on bricks. We got an ambulance to the hospital today, so I’m safe here. I won’t bump into anyone else.

What did I cause by meeting myself just now? When Thomas asked me about time travel, I’d been absolutely certain in my explanation of why this could never happen. Cosmic censorship. Clearly, I was wrong—you can see beyond an event horizon. But, then, this: I still don’t remember what happened with the blood pact, but I do recall the part beforehand, when Thomas and I were in the garden, in the rain. It’s coming back to me.

And there definitely wasn’t a cat. There definitely wasn’t another me. What’s different about this time?

Rain slashes at the car windows as I try to figure out what’s missing from my theory, what could cause the memory gap. Then I hear a yell and turn to see little Thomas, running across the garden, clutching his bleeding hand, screaming fit to bust for Grey, for Papa, for tree girl—that must mean me, I think—for anyone, to come quickly.

Papa pokes his head out the kitchen door. When he sees Thomas, he turns green, turns away. A few seconds later, Grey strides out of the house.

And I’m verklemmt.

It’s been one thing, seeing him in my memories, reading his diaries. Remembering him, over and over. But this, this is him here now, flesh and blood and here and alive …

I ache with how much I miss him.

He starts crossing the garden, half running to the apple tree as Thomas wails and runs behind him.

Grey. Grey, alive, and here, and I’m here too, and if I could just follow him through the garden—he’s disappearing beyond the shrubbery, almost gone, if I could just talk to him … My hand is on the door handle, ready to leap out, to run across to him, one last time—

If I could just.

But I can’t. It’s the wrong time. It’s the wrong place. It’s the wrong me.

And anyway, Grey is moving out from behind the rhododendron now, carefully and urgently. He’s carrying other Gottie in his arms. I’m already with him. Another me, in another time, always I’ll be with him.

I laugh, a little, through my tears. Seeing my younger face, its stubborn, gremlin-y achievement, muddled with pain and confusion. And pride! I think that I look safe. I think that Sof was right—Grey was all of our dads. He was my daddy. There I am, in his arms.