I sat on one of the gold cushions by the fire, next to Nareth, and took a length of string from my pocket, holding it straight between my hands. “Nareth…the Nareth we knew...was many women. She traveled in many times.’
Nareth turned her head, watching me. “Traveled...in time?”
"I went with her once,” I nodded. “Imagine time running a long this string.” I held up my left hand, then the right. "The past…the future." I could see Omega watching, Brit listening, her eyes unnaturally bright.
“It's a string, just a string,” Nareth said. “And…I do not believe this.”
“Imagine an ant crawling along the string, moving from the past to the future.” I brought my hands together and the string fell beneath them in a loop. “But there can be a wrinkle.”
“A wrinkle?” asked Nareth.
“If the ant were on my left hand, it could walk straight to the right hand. Over the wrinkle. Through time to the future. Or step back into the past.” I took the string and tied it, forming a circle.
Nareth laughed nervously. “And you are saying I am an ant?”
“I am saying you are a traveler,” I replied. “An unconventional one. Now suppose, there were many threads of time." I looped the circle over my hands and wove it around my fingers, making a web. “Each thread, running its own course. Some parallel. Some not. But when I bring my fingers together…there is the wrinkle.”
Nareth furrowed her brow, not quite understanding.
“A traveler might move from one world’s time to another over such a wrinkle. It is called a tesseract.”
Nareth whispered, "Tesseract….The woman...in the market today... She...”
“She may have tessered you when she touched you,” I replied.
Nareth continued, “She said something. I had...forgotten. It makes no sense...Joah. What she said...I mean. Maybe…poetry. I do not know.”
“Will you tell us?” I asked.
Nareth nodded. “She said...to me…before she touched me...there's always a siren...and she said...there is another shore you know, upon..the other...side. And then….” Nareth glanced at the fire. “And then I was on the beach...well...almost.”
Grr had come bounding back into the Library, with food he had prepared, offering two bowls to Nareth, one slightly larger than the other. There were spoons in each, a laksa of some sort, noodles and green things bobbing its redness. The scent of ginger filled the room.
Nareth looked at Grr then gazed back into the fire. “I do not think…I am hungry…after all. Joah, if you are right...how do I…go home? Back...across the string?”
I sat in silence for a moment, tracing the arc of the flames in the hearth with my fingertip. “First, you have to decide where home is. Then you must learn to tesser.”
“I know…where home is...or…I know when,” Nareth frowned.
I nodded. “The Nareth I knew…simply opened a vortex. And went.”
Nareth lowered her head and stared at the floor.
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