The Multitude, стр. 78
Abelia jerked back. “But we didn’t get along! He still pines for Sarah.”
“Make a pest of yourself. Sleep in his garden until he takes you in.”
“I could be sleeping out there for months.”
The girl made a shooing gesture with her hands. “Go.”
Abelia rose and headed toward the garden gateway. The butterflies parted to let her in. She paused at the entrance. “Mother?”
“Yes?”
“You aren’t clipping my wings, are you?”
“Oh no, Abelia. I’m delighted with the way things turned out.” The girl flashed a smile.
Abelia beamed. “How long should I stay with him?”
“Stoddard? Give him a hundred years and we’ll see how things work out. Mind you, he’s grumpy. I don’t want to hear about you turning him to salt when things don’t go your way.”
“No, Mother. I would never again—”
“Go!”
Abelia disappeared into the garden.
The girl focused her attention on Brewster, drawing him out of the balcony and into the orchestra section. He blinked, but he couldn’t dissolve the fog from his brain. This girl’s eyes stirred up a better buzz than a double martini. What had he been worried about moments earlier? He’d lost the thread of his thoughts.
“My name is Asura Ito,” she said.
Did he have a name anymore? What if he’d died beside Carla, and this little meeting was a final reckoning? What if he’d been stripped of everything but the pain of his failure? Stripped even of his own identity?
“Who would you like to be?” she asked.
Easy answer. “Quintus.”
She arched her brows. “Why?”
“So I can be with her.”
“Carla? Maynya?”
“I guess they’re the same, right?” He tried to sit taller. Better posture stood a chance of clearing the fuzz from his head. And maybe he could take control of what might be the most important interview of his life. Or of his death.
Asura straightened more, too. Checkmate. “I know all the secrets,” she said. “Would you like me to share any with you?”
“Are you God?”
She grinned as wide as the Cheshire Cat. “Think of me as a varsity squad leader. In business speak, perhaps you’d call me a VP of Communications. I spin the tales.”
In business speak, a VP was only halfway up the corporate ladder—like the banker who’d swooped into Crestview Finance. He slumped. Where had he landed, in a Purgatory of wannabes? “So we aren’t in heaven then, huh?”
“We’re neither here nor there.”
“What happened to Carla?” Speaking her name brought on another fist-clenching fit.
“Gabriella triggered her rapture.”
His heart thought that sounded good, but his knee started twitching. “I don’t know what you mean, Asura.”
“Carla and Maynya are omniscient now, thanks to Gabriella’s little shove.”
He drew in a breath. “So she’s the one who pushed us onto the tracks.”
“Who else?” Asura shook her head. “That poor, confused girl can be amazing at times, but she disappoints far too often. The same can be said for all of mankind, I suppose.”
Philosophy lessons could come later. Metaphysics first. “I don’t follow what you mean by omniscient.”
Asura held out a hand. A pair of monarch butterflies left the garden entrance, fluttered over in swoops and curls, and perched on her index finger, side by side. “Carla’s and Maynya’s essences live in Maynya’s body now, sharing two sets of thoughts and memories. The twins are now one.”
“They’re both happy then?”
“Rapturous.”
Could he believe that? His bouncing knee needed proof. “And they’re safe?”
“One of them is. You and Quintus do need to rescue Maynya, though.”
He caught his breath. The knee had been right to worry.
“What else would you like me to share?” she asked.
“How will this turn out?” His last rescue attempt hadn’t accomplished much. But why waste questions on cause and effect in a world with untrustworthy realities? “Never mind. The more I learn, the less I know.”
“Well, I’m always curious.” Asura headed into the garden. She came back with a red-and-blue ball in her hands. “Let’s play a game while we talk.”
She settled onto the bench again and bounced the ball across the path. “Why did you consider killing yourself, Brewster?”
The act of catching the ball almost distracted him from hearing her. When he did, his reaction grew from the bottom up, lurching his stomach before heading north to his mind. “Just for a second, I thought about jumping with her, but I came to my senses.”
“Voices in your head? Flashes of light? Some things can’t be allowed to happen.”
“You mean you were the voices? What’ve you been doing, toying with us all along?” He bounced the ball back. Hard.
Asura handled the rebound off the flagstone with ease. She kept her composure for the most part but revealed a hint of anger by narrowing her eyes. “This game involves answering questions, Brewster, not yelling accusations at me. Why did you consider killing yourself?”
He fought against a lump in his throat. “Quintus needed whatever extra strength I could give him.”
“You would have sacrificed your own life for your brother?”
“And for Maynya.” He nearly dropped what he found himself holding. Through some crazy breach in the time-space continuum, the ball rested in his hands instead of hers. Its color had changed to match Asura’s kimono, blue as the sky with puffy streaks of white.
“Do you remember the story of Abraham and Isaac?” she asked.
“I’m having trouble remembering much of anything.”
“Abraham agreed to kill his son Isaac because he thought God wanted that. But God stopped him. He’d merely been testing the poor man.”
Several more butterflies fluttered out of the gateway. They circled Asura’s head like a halo. “You passed your trial, Brewster.”
He gripped the ball tighter. “Okay, I get it now. This is a dream, right? Wake me up. The last thing I need is some manipulative—”
“Suppose I say you can save both Carla and Maynya and spend the rest of your life with both of them?”
The possibility knocked the wind out of him. But he didn’t dare let himself believe in promises by a girl fully capable of destroying him with a simple comment such as I’m joking. You are,