Tick felt as though his insides were melting. He’d spent the last few months wondering what had happened to her, wondering if she was dead. He’d been consumed by guilt for what he’d done. Seeing Jane’s hands for himself now, he made the only logical conclusion he could. She wore the robe and mask because the rest of her body looked the same as her ruined hands.
He wanted to run. He wanted to sprint up those stairs and run away forever.
Jane seemed to sense his thoughts. “No, Atticus. For what you’ve done to me, you will be by my side. You’ll make restitution, and you’ll help me accomplish what I set out so long ago to do. That’s the only way I’ll forgive you.”
Tick felt his mom tense again, and he couldn’t stop her before she spoke.
“Now listen to me, Jane,” she said. “My son isn’t responsible for what happened to you any more than my left foot is. We’ve heard every detail of that day a million times over. He can’t control what’s inside him. You tried to kill him. What did you expect!”
Jane’s mask moved fiercely to rage. “I did not try to kill him! He knew I was trying to release his Chi’karda. I wanted to stop Chu from driving every last person in the Realities insane. I told him that—he knew it!”
“That’s a load of horse poop!” Tick’s dad suddenly yelled, making Tick jump.
“You’re an adult, Jane,” his mom continued, surprisingly calm and collected. “You should’ve known what his reaction would be. Everything that happened to you was your own fault. You—”
“Shut up!” Jane screamed, her whole body trembling from the effort, the mask full of hate and anger.
Tick felt his mom and dad take a step backward. He went with them. The other Realitants did the same. A storm of emotions raced through Tick. He wanted to cheer for his dad yelling at Jane; he loved his mom more than at any other moment in his life for standing up for him, for acting so brave and leader-like. And he hated Jane. Hated her.
But laced through all the other emotions was fear. Pure, unsettling fear. Something terrible was going to happen. He knew it. And deep down within him, he felt the stirrings of his power, massing like a storm. Scared of what might happen, he forced the power away as he’d done earlier in the garage. If only he could learn how to use it . . .
After a long moment, the echo of Jane’s command faded away, and silence clouded the room. When she spoke again, it was very quiet. “You’ll all be coming with me. I want you to witness something.”
“Coming with—?” Master George began, but when Jane’s arm shot out and one of her hideous fingers pointed at his face, he shut his mouth.
Jane lowered her arm and folded her hands once again. “I remember in old movies, how the villain always said, through mad laughter, that he had a diabolical plan. As if anyone actually used such a word as diabolical.”
She stepped forward, the face of her mask smoothing back to normalcy, though Tick didn’t feel the tension in the room lessen, not one bit.
“But,” she continued, her voice icy and soft, “it’s the only word I can think of for what I have planned. My plan is, indeed, diabolical. For you, Edgar, slow-witted as you seem to be, that means terrible, horrible, awful, treacherous, and unspeakably nasty. Understand?” Her eyebrows arched.
Tick wanted to punch her for being so cruel to his dad, but did nothing. Next to him, his dad merely nodded. Tick hoped it was out of fear and not shame or embarrassment at her accusation.
“Yes,” Jane said, with a slow smile. “A diabolical plan. And every one of you is going to witness it.”
Chapter 9
Dead Ticks Everywhere
This was the eighth time Sato’d seen it now. A tomb for Tick.
Every place was unique. The wording was a little different every time, and the dates varied, but they all meant the same thing.
Tick’s Alterants were dead. All of them, by the looks of it.
Sato hoped this latest discovery would finally be enough to satisfy George and let him end gallivanting all across the Realities. Tick was alive in Reality Prime, but Sato had personally witnessed his friend’s grave in eight of the remaining twelve. Did George really need him to go through with making sure the other four were the same? Knowing George, Sato thought with a sigh, probably yes. Just to make sure.
Sato stood in a vast field in the Fifth Reality, dawn still a couple of hours away. He’d woken up in the middle of the night back at newly repaired Realitant headquarters in the Bermuda Triangle—Sato still missed going for walks in the Grand Canyon—and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep.
So he’d made Rutger roll his round body out of bed and wink him here to the Fifth Reality. He wanted to get the trip over with and be done. He was looking forward to getting back earlier than usual and having plenty of time to rest and relax. Maybe play cards with Mothball and Sally, though those two turned vicious when the stakes got high. Especially if the pot reached a whole bag of M&Ms.
The air had winter’s bite of cold—the place was far in the north with a high altitude—but he’d worn his thick coat and gloves, so he actually felt great, refreshed and full of life. Beaming his big flashlight this way and that, he’d slowly made his way across the huge cemetery, checking each and every tombstone.
It was easy to tell this was Mothball’s world. Each grave was a good couple of feet longer and wider than he was used to, and the markers had an almost disturbingly humorous edge to them: “Plank, please don’t come back and haunt us—you have stinky feet.” “Toolbelt, you were a wonder in life, despite your gigantic nose.” “Snowdrift, who died with a smile on her face, even after falling off that cliff.”
The strangeness didn’t completely surprise him, knowing Mothball. She had a very unusual sense of humor. But there was just something wrong about giggling out loud like a little kid, over and over, in the middle of a dark graveyard.
He finally found Tick’s marker after almost two hours of searching. Standing before it, he focused his flashlight on the large, rounded tombstone:
Here lies Atticus Higginbottom
Dead at the sad age of seven.
Atticus, you had more gas than
any normal child should,
but we still miss you terribly.
Rest in peace, our sweet, sweet son.
Sato clicked off the flashlight and stood in the dark for several minutes, surprisingly touched by the eulogy. It was impossible to separate these Alterants from the people you knew—hard not to imagine that lying beneath you was the person you’d grown to care for. In many ways, it was the same person. Although he didn’t quite understand how it worked yet, this boy who’d died of who-knew-what was just Tick along a different path. He’d probably been similar in personality, looked the same though much taller, had the same drive to help others—just like Tick had saved Sato’s life twice now.