“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 wher
e 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.