Relativity Read online

  “Did you figure out the spinach-artichoke label?” I ask.

  He nods, holds up a finger for me to give him a second. He scratches out what he just wrote, then writes something else. “I’m on to the gnocchi packaging now.”

  “Squishy pasta-potato things, only good with buttery sauce.”

  “I’ll try to remember that,” he says, smiling.

  “It’s catchy,” Willow agrees. She pulls the cheese off her pizza and rolls it into a ball before popping it into her mouth.

  “That’s kinda gross,” I say.

  “Ruby,” Dad warns.

  “She’s right.” Willow winks at me. She stacks her pepperoni slices, one on top of the other, and eats them all at once. “I’ve been eating pizza this way since I was a kid. Bad habit.”

  “It’s cute,” Dad says, squeezing Willow’s knee. “Adorable.”

  Ugh! I move away from them, pressing up against the armrest. There’s nothing worse than parental PDA.

  “I walked out to the oak tree today,” I tell Willow, trying to ignore the dreamy look in Dad’s eye.

  Willow raises an eyebrow. “That was brave of you. I see you survived.”

  “Yeah. It’s weird, you know? There’s this sort of humming noise around it, or in it. Maybe it’s bugs, or maybe it was just thunder rumbling. I’m not sure. But I was wondering if there are any underground caves around here.”

  She thinks for a moment. “There are some in Bellevue. They’re called the Seneca Caverns, or something like that. Why?”

  I shrug. “I get the feeling there’s something underneath the tree.”

  Willow frowns. “I’m not sure I like you going near that thing.”

  “What tree?” Dad asks. He grabs the remote from Willow’s lap and changes the channel again.

  “An oak off in the cornfields,” I say. “There must be an easy way to explain the noise it makes. I just need to collect some data, come up with a hypothesis.”

  Dad taps his finger against his temple. “She’s got a science noggin,” he says to Willow. “Let her figure it out. It’ll give her something to do until school starts.”

  “I thought you were going to the Natural History Museum tomorrow,” Willow says.

  “Oh,” Dad says with a sigh and an apologetic cringe on his face. “About that.” Yep, here we go: the clearing of the throat, followed by the repentant tone of voice. “Even though I finished the sauce label, now I’m on deadline for this. They moved everything up on the production schedule.”

  “It’s okay, Dad.” For once, I’m actually glad he’s ditching me. Because now I’ve got my own agenda for tomorrow. A trip to Cleveland would eat the entire day, and I wouldn’t have the chance to get back to the tree.

  Willow pats me on the knee. “I’ll take you to that bookstore you wanted to go to.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Thanks.” I can hit the library first thing, the tree next, then go with Willow after lunch. If the bookstore has a local history and geography section, I might find some useful info there too.

  Willow snatches the remote, and just as we’re settling into a show about poisonous snakes in Africa, Dad steals it back. After two hours of watching sixty shows, two minutes each, I go upstairs and tiptoe past Kandy’s door. It’s open, but the room is quiet and dark, except for a dim light, like a night-light. I sigh, relieved. The dragon slumbers. At the hour of 8:30. Why not, I guess, when there’s nowhere to go, nothing to do. So far I haven’t met any of Kandy’s friends, and it occurs to me that she might not have any. Gee, shocker.

  I unpack the last of my clothes, organize my bookshelf some more, and arrange a lamp, a wedge of amber with an insect inclusion, a meteorite chunk, and a few framed photos on my dresser.

  First, George. He’s smiling, holding a bottle of water, wearing a backpack. The blue of the sky behind him matches the blue of his eyes. That was the day we hiked Mount Diablo. From the summit, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Next to that, the photo of my old dogs, Isaac and Galileo. They’re outside our apartment in Walnut Creek, looking through the sliding-glass door. Their ears are straight up, mischief in their eyes. When the dogs both died of cancer within a year of each other, I kept that photo under my pillow. Dad bought a frame for it before it got completely wrinkled and ruined.

  And finally, the faded, out-of-focus photo of Mom and me. My only photo of her, after our roof leaked years ago and ruined a closet full of keepsakes. I’m about three years old, sitting on her lap, wearing a red-gingham blouse with denim overalls. Mom’s hair is long and black; the Cherokee in her blood also asserts itself in her cheekbones. She’s looking off to the side, like something has caught her attention. She seems not quite sad. Maybe wistful is the word. I know the feeling.

  “’Night, Mom,” I say, settling into bed with the Hubble book from George. I flip through the thick, glossy pages, stopping at 30 Doradus #016, a heavyweight star in the Tarantula Nebula. It’s ninety times bigger than the sun, and it’s zooming across space so fast it could travel from the Earth to the moon in an hour.

  Next page, a titanic collision of galaxy clusters. Followed by a photo of galaxies aligning to form an “Einstein ring,” which could help us understand dark matter and the curvature of the universe. I rub the tattoo on the back of my neck. Rμv−½gμvR = −κTμv. The Einstein tensor.

  I read for I don’t know how many hours. Dad and Willow have both ducked their heads into my room to say good night. The house is quiet when there’s a flash of light outside my window, then crack! Thunder. The room goes dark, the electricity out. I slide a metal ruler between the pages as a bookmark and flip my book shut. Nothing to do now but sleep.

  But I can’t. For hours, I turn from stomach to side, trying to get to REM, but every time I’m half dreaming, the thunder startles me awake. I let out a frustrated growl, push the sheets back. I listen for Dad or Willow, but the house is silent. Hurray for everyone else, snoozing through the storm.

  The pounding rain suddenly subsides to a rhythmic drip-drop-drip. The storm is tapering off. I press my face against my bedroom window, trying to catch a glimpse of the tree, but there’s nothing but darkness. As black as outer space.

  I press my forehead harder against the glass, wishing I had a better angle. Because that’s the tree … glowing! Light purple, like a pale neon sign. So it wasn’t my imagination.

  First it hums from within, and now it lights up? Forget locusts or underground caverns. Something more is going on here. I need to get a better look, so I pad across the hallway. Luckily, Kandy’s door is still ajar. I gently press my fingers against it, pushing it open wide enough for me to sneak in. She’s snoring.

  A battery-operated book light illuminates her desk, creating a dim glow throughout the room, just enough for me to safely dodge furniture. I’m shaking—anxious to see the tree and afraid that Kandy will catch me in her lair.

  The windowpane is cold under the palms of my hands, and my breath leaves a fog of condensation across the glass. There it is. The magnificent oak, illuminated by an eerie incandescence.

  Crack! I jump back from the glass, shielding my face. For a split second, I think the window has shattered. But it’s just the crack of nasty thunder—thunder that’s penetrated Kandy’s sleep. She thrashes in bed, and a surge of adrenaline rushes through me. Time to get out.

  I creep back past the desk and now notice that the book light is attached to an open journal. Handwriting on lined pages. I know, I know! I should keep walking. Instead, I pause and listen to Kandy’s breathing. It’s steady; she’s settled back into sleep. Besides, I’m already holding the diary. Think of Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion. You know—an object in motion will remain in motion in a straight line with constant speed unless acted upon by an external and unbalanced force. There’s no external force keeping me back.

  So I’m reading. For two seconds. Ten seconds tops.

  Kandy’s handwriting is all loops and bubbles. She dots her i’s with little circles, sometim
es hearts. All over the margins, she’s written the name Maddy.

  Ennis (aka Pissville), Ohio, day 694. Could we be about halfway through the bleak period??? Mom’s bright period lasted four years, so maybe. But by the time she gets through this stupid phase, I might be moved out anyway.

  There are a couple of sheets of loose paper folded together, so I carefully pull them apart and see that it’s an application for admission to the Miami International University of Art & Design, about half filled out. Kandy has checked the box for an associate’s degree in fashion design. Question number twenty-one is: Have you ever been convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, a crime other than a traffic offense? Kandy has checked the box marked “yes.”

  Lightning gives the brief impression that every lamp and chandelier in the house is on. A roll of thunder follows.

  Kandy committed a crime? Nobody mentioned that juicy tidbit. I’m dying to read more of her journal, but Kandy mumbles something in her sleep, which sends a fresh jolt of panic through me. Really, I’m pushing my luck here. I silently put the journal back on the desk, book light still flipped on, as it was. I sidestep through the doorway and pull the door shut to exactly where I’d found it, glancing up at the GET LOST, GO AWAY, DIE sign.

  Then I remember to breathe.

  Back in bed, I burrow into my pillows and start counting backward from one hundred. If I could just stop thinking about the tree. Eighty-seven, eighty-six, eighty-five. If I could forget about Kandy’s journal and the university application. Sixty-three, sixty-two …

  I’m asleep for what seems like two minutes. Daylight is suddenly streaming through my windows. The house’s electricity is back on. I feel like my electricity is back on too. I’m amped up, and I know exactly what I need to do today. First the library, then the oak. I slide out of bed and head to the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

  The shower gauge is cranked to hot, but nothing’s happening in the heat department. If I wait twenty minutes, it might happen. But this house was built in 1876, back in the days of outhouses. It was never meant to have indoor plumbing. I keep testing the temperature. Frigid … icy … hopeless. I hop in and make it fast. It was somewhere around eighty degrees outside yesterday. What’s going to happen when the pipes are cold, when it’s zero degrees in January? Yeah, tune in for more tales of torture here in Ennis, Ohio.

  After drying off, I throw on the usual—jeans and a T-shirt. I make three scrambled eggs for myself and a big glass of orange juice, which I practically choke on when I notice the wall clock. It says it’s 1:15! How could I have slept so late? I hurry back upstairs to decide what I should take with me: notebook, digital camera. I’ve just finished tying my shoes when Kandy appears in my doorway.

  “’Morning,” I say. “I mean, afternoon.”

  “What’s this?” She holds up a metal ruler. I recognize it as my bookmark. “I found it in my room.”

  Busted.

  It must have been caught in my pajamas, and it fell out while I was at the window. Or worse, while I was at her desk. I can just imagine my bookmark sitting next to her diary.

  “Kandy, I’m sorry, I—” I fumble for the right words. “I was just—”

  Remember what I said about Newton’s first law of motion? Well here’s where the external and unbalanced force comes in. Unbalanced, as in mentally. Kandy lunges on top of me, and we both crash to the floor. She pounds my sides, smacks my face. Her long finger-nails bite into my skin. I curl into the fetal position, thinking she’ll be done any second. But she’s not letting up, and it dawns on me that she doesn’t want to get one good punch in; she wants to beat the living crap out of me. I try to roll away, but she easily pins my arms to the floor and sits across my abdomen. Trapped.

  “Are you kidding?” I sputter, trying to breathe under her weight. “Get off!”

  “What did you read?” She leans into my face, her burgundy lip liner and overwhitened teeth an inch from my nose.

  “Nothing!” I flip and crawl for the door, but Kandy grabs my legs and pulls me back into the room. “Dad!” I sound like a pathetic little kid.

  “He’s outside,” Kandy says. “They went for a walk.”

  Then she smiles this really evil, creepy smile.

  “What?” I say, watching her eyes.

  “Run,” she whispers.

  So I do. I jump to my feet, bolt down the stairs, and crash into the glass-top coffee table, knocking Dad’s laptop onto the floor.

  “Ouch!” I scream. Did I just break my shin? I guess not, because I’m still running. You can’t run with a broken leg, right?

  I’m out the back door. Within seconds, my lungs tighten and I feel nauseated. I haven’t sprinted since phys ed in June, and on top of that, I hold my breath when I run. Brilliant.

  Kandy, on the other hand, is graceful, and she’s gaining ground. I abruptly change direction and look back again. She hasn’t missed a beat, but I do notice something—her bare feet.

  I need gravel. Broken glass. Anything nasty to run across. That would stop her cold.

  Fill your lungs with fresh air, Ruby. N2 and O2 in, carbon dioxide out. Breathe. Breathe before you pass out.

  Kandy is ten feet away, then five. Now I can hear her breathing—her easy, steady, in-great-shape breathing. My shin burns like hell, and my right pant leg is wet. Is that sweat or blood soaking through the denim? It might be rain, because the grass is wet from last night’s storm. Soaked and slippery.

  That’s when I trip, spectacularly. Hands forward, I try to break my fall, but my chin smacks the ground. The iron taste of blood fills my mouth.

  Kandy stands over me. I push my glasses back up my nose, gulping air like a suffocating fish.

  “Leave me alone,” I manage between breaths. “You’ve made your point.”

  “Aw,” she says. “Your leg is bleeding. I bet you need stitches.”

  I scan the rows of corn at the edge of the yard, then make a sudden break for the opening I found yesterday.

  “Get back here!” Kandy shouts, diving at me. She has my shirt sleeve, but I yank away, ripping the seam.

  The broad leaves are coated with rainwater, and soon I am too. The ground is a muddy mess; the water has unearthed rocks, worms, dried-out corncobs. Tough going for someone without shoes. I press through the towering corn, as fast as I can manage. Barefooted Kandy doesn’t follow.

  She calls calmly after me, “You’ve gotta come home sometime.” When I don’t respond, she goes berserk. “You snooping bitch!”

  I yell over my shoulder, “You’re one planet short of a solar system!”

  Kandy gives the F-word a serious workout. Her voice fades as I keep walking. Once I feel like I’m at a safe distance, I collapse to the ground, a shaking mess. Did she mean to kill me? She’s crazy, but she can’t be homicidal, can she? No. I mean, it’s possible, but probably not. She just meant to scare me. Badly. Same as Willa Mason, in fifth grade. A kid full of hate. For everyone. Instead of packed lunches, she brought other things from home: bruises under her shirt, a knife in her backpack. She got caught before she could use it.

  I lie in the mud, waiting for my heart to stop banging, for the veins in my forehead to quit throbbing. Mr. Burton said that Kandy had been in fistfights at school. So it’s not just me. It’s anyone. For some reason, she’s angry. Really, insanely angry.

  I swat at a persistent fly and wipe the sweat from my forehead. I’m not used to this kind of humidity. The air is thick with moisture, and the sun makes it boil. If I lie here much longer, I’ll be UV-fried and peppered with insect bites. I take a deep breath and stand, telling myself I’m fine, just fine.

  Same as yesterday, I walk in a straight line until I’m worried that I’m lost. The rainwater slides off the leaves as I pass, wetting my head, sending muddy trickles down my arms. I push forward, always looking skyward, until I see the upper branches of the oak—the leafy crown of the tree.

  Minutes later, I’m out of the cornfield and in fresh air, under the tree’s canopy of coo
l shade. It seems taller, more splendid than yesterday. Ancient, alive. I take my glasses off and wipe the water from the lenses.

  Now, in daylight, the purple glow is hardly detectable. But the humming is louder. And the trunk has changed. Significantly.

  A layer of bark has been shed, in the shape of a large, perfect rectangle. Jabs of fear, quick and strong like voltage spikes, tell me I’m in danger, that I should go back. At the same time, I’m pulled forward by a force that feels inescapable, gravitational. Push and pull. Goose bumps spring up along my arms.

  “Hello again,” I whisper. The ground beneath me feels charged, a steady thrum of power.

  I take a few steps closer and see that it’s not just a rectangle of smooth trunk. There are etchings all over it, and in the middle, near the right edge, there’s a metal knob.

  It’s a door.

  Chapter Three

  I stand in front of the door, frozen with excitement and disbelief.

  Calm down, Ruby. There’s no way it’s a functional door. It’s just a tree carving, more elaborate than John-n-Jane 4-ever, but the same idea.

  Tentatively, I run my fingers over the etched surface, a complex work of fine chiseling. This was all hidden underneath a layer of bark. The twisted lines remind me of illustrations from my physics books—grid patterns depicting the fabric of space. At the top of the door, about eight feet above my head, there’s a carved sign. Only I can’t read it.

  Gry kbo iye coousxq?

  Like Kandy said, I’m a geek. But this isn’t in my repertoire. I can read Latin and three words in Sanskrit—the result of an eighth-grade project. This? Nope. What kind of language has consonants pushed together into unpronounceable combinations? Maybe Russian, or maybe letters have been dropped, like in a text message.

  It feels absurd to knock on the door, but I do. “Anybody home?”

  I wait a minute, honestly wondering if someone—or something—will answer. A talking white rabbit, right? A three-headed alien? I look up at the oak’s vast network of thick branches, the canopy of leaves.