Jean blinked. “What?”
I knelt, and took hold of Ernie’s wrist. My grip was gentle but firm, and I bit the inside of my cheek as I made him show me the tattoo.
It was familiar. I had seen it before, on a scrap of human skin. But this was smaller, singular; perhaps a rose, though the coiled lines felt more like the tangle of an unending knot, or a particularly distorted ouroboros. Reminded me of the engravings on the armor encasing my fingers and wrist—still hidden beneath my glove.
I tried to speak, but my voice croaked. I had to try again, more softly, almost whispering. “She did this to you?”
Ernie nodded, shivering. Jean knelt beside me, peering at the tattoo. “And Lizbet? Winifred? What was done to them?”
He hesitated, and touched a spot above his heart. “Right there. She did us all at the same time. And then made the same marks on her body.”
I released the boy, rocking back on my heels. I stared at his feet. Bare, dirty toes digging into the floor. His breathing was loud, rasping. Like he was suffering from congestion in his chest.
It took all my control, but my voice finally sounded normal when I said, “It’s gotten quiet downstairs.”
He hesitated. Jean said, “Wait outside. I’ll go with you in a minute to check on your parents.”
I did not watch Ernie go. Nor did I stand until I heard the door shut behind him. I found Jean watching me.
“I wish you had never come here,” she whispered.
“You afraid?” I asked coldly, softly, certain that Ernie had his ear pressed to the door.
Jean moved so close I could taste the sweet scent of apple pie on her breath. “There’s a fine balance in this place. Upset that, and people will die.”
“People will die.” I pointed at the door. “You willing to sacrifice Ernie and his friends? Because I promise you, kiddo, that’s what you’re doing.”
“I’ve helped them all I can. I have to look at the bigger picture.”
I forgot she was my grandmother. I grabbed the front of her dress and hauled her close, frustration and disappointment mingling with desperate, weary anger. “You listen to me, Jean Kiss. Every life matters.”
She shoved back. “I’m just one person.”
Oh, God. It was like listening to myself. “You’re the most fucking dangerous woman in this world.”
“I can’t be killed,” she rasped. “That’s not the same as dangerous, and you know it.”
I released her. She sagged backward against the wall, eyes glittering.
“I try,” she whispered hollowly. “People think I whore for all the goods I get, but I don’t care. I pass out food and items for people to trade. I get work passes for some, if they have no other way. Medicine, messages…when there’s a need, I do what I can. Maybe where you come from life is different. Maybe you have the luxury of living in a world where people don’t suffer. But this isn’t it. I can’t do everything. There are too many. There will always be too many.”
I heard defiance in her voice, but mostly despair. Profound weariness. Have mercy, whispered a small voice in my mind. Have mercy on your grandmother.
Because she is right.
I drew in a slow, deep breath. And then, carefully, leaned against the door beside her. Red eyes glimmered from the shadows. I sensed a breathlessness in the boys; anticipation, even.
I almost asked about the Black Cat, but when I tried the words felt too heavy, too painful. I was a weak woman. I tapped my foot against the floor and said quietly, “The Japanese soldiers do this all the time?”
Jean closed her eyes, odd relief flickering briefly across her features. “More recently. Used to be that some of their best were stationed in Shanghai, but they’ve been sent into the Pacific to fight the Americans. All that’s left are kids who hardly know how to hold a bayonet. But here they are, in a uniform, with power. Goes to some of their heads.”
“What did they want?”
“Looking for American currency. Shortwave radios. Evidence of spying. That’s their excuse, anyway, but I bet if you smelled their breath for liquor, it would set your nostrils on fire.”
“It won’t last,” I whispered. “None of this.”
Jean tilted her head, studying me. “How much longer?”
I hesitated. “A year or so.”
But you won’t be here when it ends, I almost told her. And I don’t want to think about how the experience will change you.
Jean looked at the door and pushed herself away from the wall. “Stay here. I need to walk Ernie downstairs and make sure his parents are okay.”
I almost told her to be careful. Instead, I went to the door, and watched her slip out of the apartment. Demons faded away with her. All of them, except the two Zees. They stepped free of the shadows and crouched in front of me, perfect twins, utterly inscrutable. I knelt, needing to look them in the eyes.
“Well,” I said. “I hope you both know what you’re doing.”
“Doing life,” said one Zee.
“Fitting pieces,” added the other.
“Right,” I muttered, wiping sweat off my brow. “But what if I make things worse? Or what if I don’t do any good at all?” I looked at my Zee. “This has already happened before, for you. More than sixty years from now you’ll remember what goes on in the next ten minutes, but for me, it hasn’t occurred yet. But Ernie’s still dead in the future we came from, so whatever I did here…it didn’t work.”
“Think too much,” Zee rasped, tapping his forehead. “Just be.”
“That’s crap,” I snapped. “Is the future set in stone, or isn’t it?”
“Don’t know.” Zee held out his hands. “Nothing stays the same.”
“Except when it does,” said the other Zee. I wanted to strangle them. Instead I curled my hands into fists and pushed them hard against the floor. I could hear faint voices below me, speaking German. No more Japanese. The soldiers had gone.
“Whatever caused her to send that message through Ernie hasn’t happened yet. She doesn’t even want to get involved. And,” I added, tapping them both on the chests, “why is it her older self didn’t—or won’t—remember me? Care to explain that?”
Neither of them did, if their silence was any measure. I stripped off my right glove, holding up my armored quicksilver hand. My grandmother’s Zee flinched when he saw it, and rasped a single unintelligible word. I ignored him.
“Am I supposed to help those children?” I asked my Zee. “Or is there another reason you sent me here?”
His eyes narrowed. “All kinds of help.”
The other Zee’s claws raked lightly across the floor. “Help her.”
I stared. “Help my grandmother? In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s not the way it usually works. One dies, one goes on alone.”
Which, I had to admit, was about as petty and selfish as anything I had ever said. Knee-jerk reaction. Of course I would help her. Of course. But for one brief moment—just a heartbeat that lasted a lifetime—I felt a prick of resentment. No one had come to help me after my mother had been murdered. No one.
Floorboards creaked outside the door. I slid my glove back on and stood. Jean slipped inside, a faint flush in her cheeks. She glanced from me to her Zee. “I need some clean cloth and antiseptic. Cans of sardines, too, and a couple flints. Hurry.”
“Serious injuries?” I asked.
She shook her head and leaned back against the door, hugging herself. “But they blamed me. I could see it in their eyes. I think they were appalled that their son had gone to me for help.”
“They don’t know you spy.”
“But they know I’m not one of them.” Jean grimaced, bowing her head so deeply I thought she would be sick. “Does that ever get easier?”
“No.”
Bitterness touched her mouth. “You ever wonder what we’re doing with ourselves? You got that figured out in the future?”
I found myself shuffling close, heart so heavy my feet would hardly move. But I had to. I had to be near her. “You want to know what the point is.”