A Million Worlds with You (Firebird #3)

But I’m tired. So tired. Body and soul. No sooner do I pull the quilt over me and rest my head on the pillow than I pass out.

Nightmares chase me all night long. Yet I never dream of the terrible fall in the Londonverse, that last fatal plunge. Instead I’m back down in the tomb with mummified corpses tumbling out of doors and passages, dozens and dozens of them.

And in the dream I somehow know—every one of those dead bodies is mine.

When I wake up in the morning, I try the Firebird again. Still no escape. Apparently Wicked’s having trouble coming up with something deadly this time. I hope, for the next Marguerite’s sake, that she lives in a place so safe, so guarded, that Wicked can’t find anything to do to her.

Although that would mean I’m staying in the Egyptverse for quite a while.

Well, I’ve dealt with worse dimensions.

Starting back in the Renaissance, many painters used a pigment called mummy brown. It had an umber tint to it—a natural, earthy shade that was never dull—and it could be slightly transparent, which made it good for glazes. The color remained popular right up until the middle of the twentieth century, when the Pre-Raphaelites first used it with abandon . . . and then realized the shade got its name because the pigment was made from actual, real, ground-up Egyptian mummies. Apparently a couple of painters actually buried the tubes of paint when they found out the truth. Even that didn’t bother some people, though, and the production of old-fashioned mummy brown only ended when there were no longer cheap mummies.

I think about this story a lot as I look at the various vials and tubes of paint in my art box. Please, let me not make my own paints in this world. Please don’t let me be somebody who would grind up a dead body for a painting. That’s something Wicked would do, not me.

If only I could manage to be useful in this dimension—but I don’t have the scientific know-how to build a stabilizer device. That’s probably going to be even trickier here than at home, since the level of technology is more primitive. I’ve saved this world’s Marguerite, but now I have nothing to do except wait for my next opportunity to move on.

Finally, accepting that I have to deal with my life here, I put on clothing nearly identical to what I wore yesterday, just less sandy. Although I couldn’t recreate the complicated hairstyle this world’s Marguerite wore, I use the lace scarf to tie my hair back in a ponytail. Hopefully that will look appropriate. Beneath my blouse hangs the Firebird, which I’ll keep trying throughout the day. Once I put on the pith helmet, I feel ready for adventure. So I walk outside, prepared to see an archaeological expedition in all its glory.

Instead, I see my parents, Josie, Theo, and Paul all sitting around the still-burning central fire. A metal coffeepot sits atop the grate, and Mom slices bread from a loaf wrapped in what looks like waxed paper. She’s still wearing her robe, and Dad is reading a newspaper in German. Paul’s eyes meet mine only for a moment before he shyly looks away and accepts the bread from Mom.

“Not like you to be late for breakfast,” Theo says, grinning. He’s got another jaunty scarf around his neck now, and his sunglasses are tinted dark green. “Did the mummy keep you awake all night?”

“No.” Somehow I think he’d take some weird satisfaction from my nightmares, so I don’t add anything else. “Sorry if I slept late. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Which is true. As long as I’m stuck here, I might as well take a good look around—and exploring ancient Egyptian tombs will be fascinating as long as no more mummies leap from the walls.

My parents exchange glances before my father says, “You do remember that it’s the Sabbath, don’t you, Marguerite?”

I guess Mom and Dad had to be religious in at least one universe. “Oh. Of course. I forgot.”

“Good thing you’re wearing that pith helmet,” Josie says. She lights a cigarette, which startles me until I remember that probably nobody in this world knows yet that smoking causes cancer. “Because otherwise I’d be worried you’re suffering from sunstroke.”

“Marguerite is only eager to get back to work.” Paul’s thick Russian accent—so like that of Lieutenant Markov—melts my heart. I look over at him just as he hands over a piece of bread on a blue tin plate and a mug of coffee. He fixed my meal before he served himself. I smile at him as warmly as I can manage, and he ducks his head. The moment should be adorable, but instead I find myself thinking of Paul as I left him back home: head bowed, as if the shame and despair he felt—the residual effects of his splintering—were literally weighing him down, making it hard for him to move.

“Are you certain you’re all right?” Dad peers at me over the rims of his spectacles. “You look pale, Marguerite.”

“I’m fine.” I try to brighten up—that way I won’t draw extra attention.

Time to concentrate on what matters most about Paul at this moment: He’s still this world’s Paul, at least eight hours after I jumped into this universe. My Paul remains in the Londonverse. Apparently he feels the need to find the body before he follows me here, but that can take a while. Dredging a river for a corpse is lengthy, tedious work with no guarantee of success.

This is a subject I know way too much about. After they told us my father had died crashing his car into the river, I spent a lot of time researching that, mostly after I knew he was actually alive and okay. Having him back with us didn’t erase the trauma of thinking he was dead. I don’t know why, but it didn’t. For weeks I had nightmares in which I found out I’d gone to the wrong universe, that the father I’d brought back wasn’t mine, whatever my brain could invent to convince me Dad had died after all. Learning more about what might have happened to him if he had gone into the river . . . well, it helped somehow. But now it means my knowledge about what a water-bloated corpse looks like is way, way too vivid.

Please don’t let Paul have to see that, I think. Please.

“If Marguerite doesn’t feel the need to rest, then I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t get something done today,” my mother says. “We need the work crews for excavation, but not for her sketching. In fact, she really should have more time down in the tombs when she can draw uninterrupted.”

“And the sooner you get down there, the better.” Dad lifts his coffee to me, as if in a toast. “We don’t want last night’s little incident to spook you.”