“I know,” Trix said.
“But sometimes it’s just not fair,” she said. “Sometimes I wish it had never happened…”
“What did happen?” Trix asked, but Sally was saying her own thing. Though she clung to Trix and rested her head against her, she seemed to be talking to herself.
“If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here now, and there’s so much responsibility. I can do it, normally. You know? Normally, when there’s only magic to make and people to find, and the soul of the city to keep safe. Normally. But not now. The collision, the damage, those Shadow Men, and the things, the terrible things I had to bring across to fight them…” She sniffed, then exhaled another heavy sob. “It’s all too much!”
“You’re doing fine,” Trix said, smoothing her hair.
“I’m just getting by,” Sally said. She pulled away from Trix and sat back on the small kitchen table, looking around the room as if she could learn something from that place. “But the soul of the city is bruised, and I’m making mistakes.” She looked directly at Trix then, and Trix knew what she meant.
“Maybe finding her wasn’t a mistake,” she said.
“No,” Sally said, shaking her head. “She’s not Jenny.”
“No, but-”
“I know all about adult stuff,” the Oracle said. “I’m too young to know, but I do. I have to. And I can see into you, Trix. See into your heart.” She wiped her eyes and seemed to gather herself, shrugging strength back into her shoulders. Perhaps having something else to talk about-someone else’s problem-was shielding her from her own.
“I’m not really thinking anything,” Trix said. It was a cruel denial to herself, a stale-tasting lie.
“You’ve had your time in this world,” Sally said. “Do I really have to show you your own grave?”
“I want you to find my friends,” Trix said.
Sally nodded, wiped at her eyes again, and then offered a tentative smile. “And if I don’t find them, you’ll still go back through?”
“No,” Trix said. “I won’t. I’ll stay here until they’re found.” I’m her safety net, she thought. If she doesn’t find them, at least I can go back to Veronica bearing her mark. She might not have believed a little girl like Sally could scheme like that… but she was not really a little girl. The last few minutes had shown that.
“I’ve promised to find them,” Sally said.
“And I thank you for that.”
The Oracle sat heavily in a kitchen chair and rested her forehead on her hand, a very adult gesture. She rubbed her head gently, as if to ease away a headache.
“The city is in such pain,” Sally whispered. “I feel its pain. Every fallen building is an ache in my bones and a fire beneath my skin.”
“That’s a big burden for such a little girl,” Trix said, and the Oracle looked up at her with such gratitude that Trix felt the burn of tears. She wondered when Sally had last been called a little girl, and how she would grow up, never having experienced a childhood. “What happened to you?”
“I was eight,” Sally said. “My momma and dadda were killed in a house fire. A black man came and pulled me from the basement window, and carried me away. I wasn’t scared, not for a minute. The man was ill. He was my friend.”
“Was he…?”
“The last Oracle. I never even knew his name. He took me to the house where you found me, his house.”
“And no one missed you? No family, no friends?”
“I think they did,” she said, frowning as if confused at a nebulous memory. “But the man kept me safe, and I never once feared for myself. Something was happening to me, something wonderful, and it kept everything at bay. The grief over my parents, the weirdness of what was happening. One night I went to sleep with the man singing me songs, and the next morning I woke up as I am now. He was dead, and I buried him in the basement. And that afternoon, the first person came.”
“He made you the Oracle?”
“The man? No.” She smiled and shook her head. “He just helped me along.” She sighed heavily, then sat back in her chair.
Trix blinked at the sudden, shocking change. The tears were gone, Sally’s eyes dry as though they had never been wet, and her face was stern once again. Hard, grim, an expression that only an adult should ever wear.
“We should go,” Sally said. “I’ve been wrong once; I won’t be again. I’ll be precise this time.”
“Go where?”
“Just outside, down to the road. I’ll find Holly and Jenny, and take you to them.”
“What about…?” Trix walked to the kitchen door and looked through the gap into the room beyond. Anne lay where Sally had sung her down, one hand waving slowly at the air before her face, orchestrating her dreams.
“She’s under a calming spell, for now. I can strengthen it, leave her so that she wakes up in the morning. That’ll be for the best.”
“No!” Trix said, remembering Anne’s lips against hers. “That’s not for the best.”
“Trix,” Sally said, painfully adult, “you’re a ghost to her.”
“Jenny’s stronger than that. She wouldn’t want us to leave, not after this. She’d want to understand. ”
“That’s not Jenny.”
“Yes,” Trix said. “Yes, it is.” And she meant it. It might not be the Jenny she knew, not quite, and she might be using her middle name. But Anne was a facet of Jenny, and Trix could not bear treating her as anything else.
“You don’t want to leave her.”
“I think she’ll want to come.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s strong. Imagine if we leave, and she wakes, and for the rest of her life she’ll doubt her own sanity. I can’t curse her with that. She’s had a glimpse of what’s going on, and I couldn’t live with myself if we didn’t show her everything else.”
“And she kissed you.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Trix said, but she glanced away. Maybe it’s me who needs to understand as well.
“Come on, then,” the girl said. “I’ve wasted enough time.”
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Trix asked.
“Of course,” Sally said. Her tone was dismissive, but Trix saw that flicker of gratitude once again.
They went back out to Anne, and Trix knelt by her side. Sally started singing softly again, stroking the woman’s hair and touching her cheek, and Trix began to explain. Anne did not look at her until she had finished. And then she sat up, holding on to Trix’s proffered hand and looking back and forth between her and Sally.
“My bedroom,” Anne said. “You’re in there.” She nodded to what Trix knew was the bedroom door. “You are. Go and see.”
Trix went to see. She saw herself right away, because the photograph was large, the centerpiece of a wall display of at least fifty other framed photos of all shapes and sizes. She smiled back at the camera, this face that was hers, and she and Anne sat close together on a park bench, comfortable with each other and so obviously together. In the photo she was wearing a T-shirt that said, WHO THE HELL IS MICHAEL JACKSON? and she laughed. She might not be quite herself, but so much was the same.
The other photos weren’t all of her. She saw her mother in a couple, and her cousins, but it was so obvious who was missing-Jim and Jenny. Of course. Because in this world, Trix and Jenny had been a couple, and Jim was long gone.
“I’m so sorry I died,” she whispered, staring back at herself for so long that she forgot for a moment which Trix she was, and on which side of the glass she stood.
Back in the living room, shaken and sad, she found Anne sitting on the sofa. She sat beside her.
“I’ve seen some things since the quake,” Anne said. “And maybe they explain this. But it’s still…”
“Unbelievable,” Trix said.
“Yeah. Fucking unbelievable.” Anne grinned, and Trix fell in love just a little bit more.
“Jenny!” Jim said, but of course this was not Jenny, either, and he was attuned now to the differences.
“Okay,” Jennifer said beside him. “Okay… okay…” She was looking at the woman who had emerged from the apartment building with Trix and the girl, and Jim saw her legs shaking.