Page 101 of Disturbing the Dead
“You will take out personal notices in the papers.”
Dad says, “Because, as I know from Victorian novels, personal notices were a common way of communicating.”
“I will also require your name in that world,” Mom says, “and any personal information you can supply.”
“Well, someone’s been chronicling our cases,” I say. “You can just read those… if you don’t mind seeing your daughter portrayed as a pretty and empty-headed magician’s assistant.”
Mom’s brows shoot up.
I sigh. “We were working on putting an end to them. I’m sure there wouldn’t be any trace of them these days. They were just serialized stories. The Mysterious Adventures of—”
“The Gray Doctor?” Dad says.
Now my brows shoot up.
“Your nan found a reference to it,” Dad says, “in relation to Dr. Gray. She wasn’t able to find any actual copies online. I can search my sources. There might be something in an academic collection somewhere.”
I shudder. “I hope not. All I do is exclaim over how brilliant Duncan is and bend over to check nonexistent evidence, as an excuse for the writer to wax poetic on my ass.”
“Your…?” Mom says.
“Catriona is blond, buxom, and very pretty.” I sigh again. “It is a trial. Useful, though, in its way.” My head jerks up. “I wonder what happened to her. I thought she might have crossed into my body, but it doesn’t seem she did.”
Mom shrugs. “If she did, then she was not there when you woke.”
“There was another coma patient,” Dad muses. “It was the oddest thing. She woke up and…” He waves a hand. “And that has nothing to do with getting you back to the past.” He smiles. “I will need to find those adventure serials, though. If only to get a laugh.”
“You will,” I say. “You get to see your daughter bumble about while her boss changes history.”
“At least in part because he met my daughter.”
I frown. “Is that a problem? Is it all a problem? All the changes I might have wrought? That damned butterfly effect?”
“Well, according to the latest quantum physics theories, changing one thing in the past would not have endless ramifications in our time. So you’re safe there.”
“But how does it work?” I say. “Six months passed there and two days here, which suggests separate universes. Is it the same timeline? Parallel ones that overlap?” I rub my temples. “It makes my head hurt.”
“And, not being a quantum physicist or a philosopher,” Dad says, “I’m not even going to try to answer that question.”
“Don’t look at me,” Mom says. “All I can see are enough loopholes and inconsistencies to make my lawyer’s brain scream.”
“How it works isn’t important,” Dad says. “It does work. At least for you. Now, you should watch your nan’s video.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Mom warns. “She was on a lot of drugs.”
Dad looks at me. “What your mom isn’t saying is that your nan has had prophetic dreams before.”
Mom snorts. “If by ‘prophetic’ you mean things like dreaming I made a surprise visit and then I actually did… a month later.”
“Your nan believed she had a touch of something,” Dad says, “and she thinks that might explain why you crossed over.”
“So many drugs,” Mom mutters. “Also, remember she was a young adult in the sixties, which meant more drugs and all that mystical counterculture nonsense—”
Dad cuts in, “Your nan also believed that, being on the cusp of passing into her next life, her dreams—which were particularly vivid—meant something. That she was seeing across the veil.”
Mom continues to mutter, only half under her breath. She’s never had any patience with Nan’s more colorful beliefs, and when I was young she’d have Dad take me aside to explain the role of superstition and folklore in people’s lives. This time, though, she only says, “I don’t want to get your hopes up.”
“If I stay here, I’ll be fine, Mom. I expect to stay, and that’s okay.” I manage to say it like I believe it. “But I agree with figuring out the personal ads, in case it ever does happen.”
