The sekasha’s were rubbing off on her. She really liked the simple “hit it with a big gun” solution. Too bad they couldn’t simply make the shield go away so “a big gun” was a safe bet.
Her stomach growled. She realized that she had spent hours in front of the iboard.
“What time is it?” Maybe she should take a break to eat the packed lunch.
“I’m not sure. That clock is broken.” Stormsong pointed to an old alarm clock that Tinker had dismantling to use in a project.
We’re murdered time, it’s always six o’clock.
Wait — wasn’t that a line from Alice in Wonderland? During the tea party, didn’t they talk about time not working for them? She sorted through the things she brought from the enclave, found the book, and flipped through it. Under the drawing of the Mad Hatter, there was a footnote that caught her eye.
“Arthur Stanley Eddington, as well as less distinguished writers on relativity theory, have compared the Mad Tea Party, where it is always six o’clock, with that portion of De Sitter’s model of the cosmos in which time stands eternally still. (See Chapter 10 of Eddington’s Space Time and Gravitation.)”
“Oh shit.” Tinker took out her datapad and pulled up her father’s plans on the gate.
“Shit?” Pony asked.
“Excrement.” Stormsong translated. “It’s a curse.”
“Shit,” Pony echoed.
“That aside, what did you figure out?” Stormsong asked.
“I made a huge mistake in the variable for time on the gate equations. And if I did it — I bet the oni did too. These plans, as they stand — all the spaceships would have arrived at the same moment. That’s why they collided.”
“When did they go to?” Pony asked.
“I think — that they were held in time — until the gate was destroyed. They finished their journey — all five ships — three days ago.”
“Your mother found herself in great danger and you’re her only link to home,” Stormsong murmured.
“Yeah, at which point, she started to hound me with nightmares.” Tinker tugged at her hair. “But what the hell am I supposed to do? I mean, the good news is that obviously she’s alive — for now. The gods only know where she is. She could be on the other side of the galaxy. And which galaxy? This one? Earth’s? Onihida? We’re talking a mind-boggling large haystack to lose a needle in. Even if she was in space over Elfhome, what am I to do? What could I possibly do?”
“Forget the egotistical she-snake,” Stormsong said. “You have pressing duties here. Her problems are not your concern.”
“But why then, do things keep turning up? Like the pearl necklace, the black willow, and Reinholds? The dreams relate to me and my world, somehow. Don’t they?”
Tinker saw a troubled look spread across Stormsong’s face before the sekasha turned away, hiding her unease.
“Oh, don’t do that!” Tinker picked up the morning’s newspaper, still tightly folded in its bag, and aimed a smack at Stormsong’s back.
Stormsong caught the newspaper before it connected and gave her a hard look.
“I need help here,” Tinker jerked the newspaper free. “This is part of the whole working together. I need to know what you know about dreaming.”
Stormsong sighed. “That is a wound I don’t like to dig into. Everyone assumed that my mother had some great vision when she conceived me — and no one invested more into that myth than me. But I did not have the talent or the patience for it. I was too much my father. I like solving problems with a sword. And I don’t like feeling like I’m failing you.”
Tinker fussed with getting the newspaper out of its bag so she didn’t have to face Stormsong’s pain. “You’re not failing me.”
Speaking of failing someone, the newspaper’s headline was “Policeman Slain.”
Nathan’s body was draped with a white cloth in the island of light on the black river of night highway. Nathan Czernowski, age 28, found beheaded on Ohio River Boulevard. She stood there clutching the newspaper as faintness swept through her. How could seeing it in print make it more real than seeing his body lying in front of her?
Stormsong continued, “As you’re finding out the hard way, dreamers can join for a gestalt effect, but unless they share foci, the ending dream is conflicted.”
Tinker pulled her attention away from the newspaper. “What?”
“Dreams are maps for the future.” Stormsong held out her right hand. “If the dreamers share foci—” Stormsong pressed her hands, matching up the fingers. “Then the two maps overlaid remain easy to understand. But if the dreamers don’t share foci—” Stormstorm shifted her hands so her fingers crosshatched. “There is a conflict. It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to tell which element belongs to which foci. The pearl necklace was from your foci. The wizard of oz, it appears, to be from your mother.”
“Foci being…?”
Stormsong pursed her lips. “Foci reflect goals and desires. Among elves, that is one’s clan and household. I’m not sure humans can share foci like elves can. Humans are more — self-centered.”
The newspaper screamed at how self-centered Tinker had been.
“So, Esme, Black and I are operating at cross-purposes.” Tinker folded the accusing headline away and went to stuff it in the recycling bin. “And my dreams may or may not have anything to do with helping with the mess we’re in.”
“Yes, there is no telling. At least, I can’t, not with my abilities. Wolf has sent for help from my mother’s people. They might be able to determine something since they share our foci in regards to the oni.”
“Where my mother could care less.”
“Exactly.”
Tinker dropped the paper into the recycling bin, the top newspaper caught her eye. The headline read: Viceroy’s Guard Kill Five Snipers, Gossamer Slain. She lifted out the paper.
When did this happen?
The paper was dated Tuesday. Tuesday? Wasn’t she awake on Tuesday? Yes, she was — she had spent Tuesday at Reinholds — why hadn’t anyone told her? The paper also reported that the EIA declared martial law, that the treaty been temporarily extended until Sunday, and plans to screen everyone living in Chinatown. How did she miss all this? She dug through the pile of papers uncovering growing chaos that she been oblivious to. Wednesday’s paper had stories on the lock down of the city by the royal elfin troops, a wave of arrests of suspected human sympathizers, the execution of more disguised oni, and the start of a rationing system as fears of the Pittsburgh dollar collapsing triggered massive stockpiling. Above the headline was an extra banner proclaiming: Four Days to Treaty End.
Four days? Was that today?
The other unread paper was dated Friday. She had lost at least a day to drugged sleep. The top banner read: Two Days to Treaty End. The Pittsburgh Police had called a blue flu strike when the EIA closed Nathan’s murder case.
Oh, gods, what a mess.
“What day is this?” she asked Stormsong. “Did I sleep through Saturday too?”
“It is Friday.” Stormsong said.
“Domi,” Pony said from the door. “It is the lone one.”
Lone one?
The sekasha escorted in Tooloo, who must have walked up the hill from her store. Tinker stared at her with new eyes. Not that the female had changed; Tooloo was as she had always been Tinker’s entire life. There were no new creases in the face full of wrinkles. Her silver hair still reached her ankles. Tinker even recognized her faded, purple silk gown and battered high-top tennis shoes — Tooloo had been wearing them when Tinker and Pony helped her milk her cows two months ago.