The Impossibility of Tomorrow Read online

  “Kailey, sorry, I didn’t realize you’d be here so quickly.” Noah appears, clomping down the stairs. “Do you . . . want to come up for a few?” He locks eyes with me, and I nod.

  “Yeah.” I have the strange sensation that he just rescued me from something. I could tell when we spoke earlier that he didn’t want me to come over, and now I’m beginning to see why. I follow him up the stairs, turning for one last look at Mr. Vander, but he’s already returned to his ripped leather chair in front of the TV.

  Noah’s house has an air of faded grandeur. The stained-glass window overlooking the landing is streaked with dust; the faded Persian runner in the hallway rubbed almost down to the cotton backing in parts. There’s no smell of food cooking, like there is at the Morgans’ house. No clatter of conversation.

  No Mrs. Vander. I recall Noah saying she threatened to leave when his father lost his job and started drinking again. It looks like she did, though I’m ashamed to realize I never asked Noah what happened. He doesn’t talk about his family much.

  Harker lopes up after us, but Noah stops him when he goes to follow us into Noah’s room. “Stay,” he commands. The dog lies down on the rug in the hallway, watching me warily.

  Noah’s room fits him perfectly. It’s cozy, with low, angled ceilings. A huge oak desk holds an old desktop computer, a pile of books, and an open sketchpad. My eyes are immediately drawn to the walls, covered in framed photographs, beautifully arranged.

  Some are reprints from famous photographers—Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe, Diane Arbus, and a few others I can’t immediately place. Others I instinctively recognize as his own work. There’s a portrait of Harker, his dark eyes liquid and full of love, rendered in black-and-white. There are shots of various locations I recognize from around Berkeley and Oakland: the clock tower at the UC Berkeley campus; a group of kids riding bicycles; birds clustered on a liquor store sign while a man with sad eyes stands underneath.

  On the wall above his dresser is a painting, the only nonphotographic piece in the room. It’s unmistakably one of Kailey’s. I move closer to study it.

  The painting shows Kailey from behind, in her room, looking out her window toward the Vanders’ house. The only source of light is the soft glow from Noah’s window, outlining his silhouette—but then I see the small dots of light surrounding the window, illuminating the gutters and the eaves. I smile. They are tiny fairies, their translucent wings delicately rendered. Kailey’s signature touch: magical creatures thrown casually into the real world.

  “I like your dress,” he says to my back, and I turn around.

  “Thank you,” I answer. “You too.” His brown shirt and dark pants follow the line of his lean, muscled frame. The scuffed combat boots peeking out from beneath his cuffs are the only indication of his usual rumpled style. It looks perfect.

  “Oh?” He arches an eyebrow. “You like my dress?”

  “Shut up,” I say. “I meant that you look nice.”

  He grins. “I was going to wear a tie, but I realized I don’t really know how to tie it.”

  “A tie? How fancy is this place?”

  He looks down, suddenly embarrassed. “It’s not, but I was having fun with the whole date thing.”

  “I’ll tie it for you,” I offer, picking up the tie draped over the back of his desk chair. “You’re going to have to sit down, though. I don’t think I can reach that high.”

  He obliges, and I wrap the tie under his collar, brushing his hair back with my fingers. A shivery feeling takes root in my belly. I can feel his breath in the air between us.

  “Where did you learn how to do this?” he asks. His voice is low, soft.

  “Um, I’ve seen Bryan do it?” I offer. My voice catches as I see the books on his desk and realize what he’s been reading about.

  Every one of them is about alchemy. Thomas Vaughan’s Coelum Terrae, George Ripley’s The Mistery of Alychymists, a title called The Alchemical Practice of Mary the Prophetess. I recognize some from Cyrus’s own collection, though these copies have Berkeley library stickers on them. I look past them to the sketchbook and almost gasp at what Noah was drawing—two people standing at the top points of a downward-pointing triangle, silver cords curving out from their navels toward strange symbols in the air. The cord connecting body and soul, the bond that the elixir is designed to destroy.

  My god. I hadn’t realized how much Cyrus taught Noah before he vanished. He was clearly grooming Noah for the coven. I’m not surprised—Cyrus loves intelligence and beauty. He especially loves those who are lost and confused, those he can rescue and brainwash and turn into his loyal followers. Noah is all of those things—although Cyrus would have never accepted Noah if he’d known I’d loved him.

  I want to reach out and grab Noah, keep him safe from Cyrus forever. But all I say is “How’s that?”

  Noah rises and studies himself in the mirror on the inside of his closet door. “Bravo. Should we go?”

  He leads me back downstairs, where Mr. Vander is passed out on the leather chair. I’m surprised, considering how alert he seemed only a few minutes before, but Noah barely gives him a second glance. Harker whimpers when Noah opens the front door. “It’s okay, buddy. I’ll be back later,” Noah says quietly. Harker settles down to wait, and I have the feeling he’ll still be right there when Noah gets home.

  We drive to downtown Oakland, toward Lake Merritt. It’s hard to be in this area without thinking of Cyrus—he staged his death so close to here—but I try to brush those thoughts away. I’m with the boy I love tonight. Noah sees me looking out the window and must sense my trepidation. “I swear I’m not taking you here because of Mr. Shaw.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” I counter softly. “Besides, it’s okay if you want to talk about him. I . . . I know he was important to you.” I realize that more now than ever.

  The restaurant is at the end of a long pier that extends over the lake. From the outside, it looks like a cottage out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, with its river-stone walls and alpine beams. The interior glows with hundreds of strands of Christmas lights, criss-crossing the ceiling in a hopelessly tangled web. Metal sconces light the way to our table, which sits next to a large window. Outside, the water ripples underneath the nearly full moon.

  “I love it,” I tell him. It feels like we’re on a boat.

  The waitress brings us mint tea in delicate porcelain cups. “I had a feeling this was your kind of place,” says Noah.

  The air is redolent with cardamom and nutmeg. I sink back into my chair, holding my teacup in a decidedly unladylike fashion, fingers of both hands wrapped around its smooth surface to soak up the warmth.

  “What should we order?” asks Noah, holding up his menu.

  “You pick.” I’m so happy to be in this magical place. I can almost believe in safety again.

  “What if I pick lamb brains?” he asks.

  I’ve eaten those before, simmered in butter and garlic. I’ve lived all over the world and eaten meals that would probably terrify Noah. “Yum” is all I say, then, “Wait. Do they have that?”

  “No,” he replies. “Lucky for you.”

  “Don’t hold back on my account.” I scan the menu, and a thought occurs to me. “Wait, Noah, this place is expensive. How are you paying for this?” Cyrus had extravagant tastes and bottomless wealth, but Noah’s family certainly isn’t rich.

  “You’re not supposed to ask that, Kailey!” he protests. “It’s a date. I’m a man of means.” I raise an eyebrow. “Okay, okay, I shot some photos for the restaurant last summer. They’re using it in a brochure or something. My dad knows the owner and hooked me up with the gig. Anyway, it’s taken care of.”

  I’ve been observing humans for a very long time, and I don’t miss the fleeting shadow that moves across his eyes when he mentions his father. It’s like a wayward cloud on an otherwise sunny day.

  “He’s not doing well, is he.” I say it like a statement, not a question. Noah meets my eye and shakes his h
ead. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I add, but I hope he will.

  “No . . . I want to talk to you. I’m just not sure it’s that interesting. He’s a drunk, my mom’s gone, and I’m stuck there.” His jaw tightens. I don’t say anything, hoping he’ll continue. “I think he wishes she’d taken me with her. So there’d be no one around to make him feel guilty. I know he blames me. He always tells me never to have kids because they ruin your life. Nice thing to say to your son, right?” His eyes are full of pain, shimmering in the candlelight that moves over them like moonlight on a lake.

  “Where did she go? Your mom?” No matter how much she hated her husband, I find it hard to understand why she’d leave her son behind.

  “She’s in Arizona with my grandparents. When she left, she said she was just going to stay with them for a while. She said she didn’t want to take me out of school. She said she’d call me every day.” He takes a sip of his tea. “I haven’t heard from her once. She’s not coming back. I’m not stupid.”

  “You never know,” I offer weakly.

  “No, I do know. And I don’t care. Things weren’t much better when she was here. But it doesn’t matter to me what they do. Next month I’ll be seventeen. And that means I only have one more year before I can do whatever I want. I can leave, I can travel—” He stops talking abruptly as the waitress interrupts to take our order. Noah lists several dishes, but I’m not listening.

  Noah and I have another year of high school—but what then? He wants to leave. We could go together. But how long could that last? How long before he finds out I’m not human?

  I don’t want to think about the future anymore. All I want is for this moment, right now, to last forever. I want it always to be the November that I fell in love with Noah.

  The waitress leaves. “Where would you go?” I ask. “If you could travel.”

  He smiles and looks out the window. He has a faraway look in his eyes, like he can see coastlines in other countries, like he’s memorized every map. “I don’t know,” he admits. “It’s a big world. I’ve always wanted to see the northern lights.”

  I desperately want to tell him about their colors, their shifting electromagnetic dance. I watched them with Charlotte from the middle of a volcanic hot spring, its steam billowing in a similar shape to the aurora borealis, our long hair trailing in the water like Nordic mermaids.

  “I’d like to see them with you,” I say instead.

  “Mr. Shaw used to talk about all the places he’d been. That guy was really well-traveled for being so young.”

  “He was certainly . . . interesting,” I say diplomatically.

  He reaches across the table and takes my hand. I feel my skin come alive under his touch, a feathery sensation that climbs up my arm to my chest. “You’re interesting.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I reply.

  “Yeah.” He lets go of my hand and reaches for my face, tucks a loose lock of hair behind my ear. “You know, honestly—this is going to sound really weird—but I always kind of assumed you liked girls.”

  “Why? Because I wasn’t obsessed with you? So typical,” I say smoothly, though his comment makes me wonder. I know so little about who Kailey was.

  He laughs. “No, I’m not that egotistical. It’s just that, well, you always had tons of guys asking you out. And you turned every single one down. I figured you must have some reason. And, you know, you’re kind of a private person.”

  I take a sip of tea, considering. It was certainly possible. I’d had the impression that she was hiding something from her family. Could this explain where she was going the night that she died?

  “Well, the last time I checked, I like you.” I feel bold. “So hopefully that answers that.”

  “Good. So . . . there’s that dance coming up at school. Would you go with me?” He lowers his chin slightly and regards me, and I’m surprised to see that he actually looks nervous.

  Seraphina Ames at a high school dance? The idea is comical.

  But dancing with Noah? Being in his arms? Being normal? The idea is intoxicating.

  “I know you’re Little Miss Rebel and stuff, but—”

  “I’d love to,” I answer quietly, and he grins at me with obvious relief.

  After we eat, we walk hand-in-hand along the footpath surrounding Lake Merritt. Noah makes sure to avoid the shore where Cyrus was supposedly killed.

  The temperature fell while we were inside, but with Noah next to me I can’t even feel it. Thoughts about our future keep arising in my mind, unbidden and undeterred by the moonlight. But when he pulls me into the shadow of a cypress tree I forget everything but now, this perfect moment. Because Noah’s hand is at the small of my back, and his lips are searching, and the lights of the downtown buildings are flickering across the lake. Our bodies are pressed together like a flower between book pages.

  I only wish I could tell him who I really am, what I really am. Because how can he love me without knowing my true name?

  Since I can’t tell it to him, I kiss him instead.

  TWELVE

  The next day after school, Noah raises his head from a nineteenth-century microscope in the antique store where I work. “This is the best toy ever,” he informs me. I laugh.

  “I dare you to find a kid outside who agrees with you,” I tease. I’m grateful for his company. There’s been only one customer all day, a thirty-something woman who was in the shop just for the five minutes it took her to pick out an Edwardian ivory hand mirror. I’m always amused at the things people buy in here.

  Noah pulls a piece of paper from his pocket and slides it under the microscope’s lens. “Did you know that paper is hairy?” he asks.

  “I think they’re called ‘fibers,’ not hair,” I say.

  “Okay, smarty-face. Come here,” he demands, waving me over.

  “You want me to look at hairy paper?”

  “Why not?” But when I approach him, he takes my hand and places it under the lens. The cold brass surface chills my skin. “Hmm, interesting.”

  “What do you see?” I move my body closer to his. I can smell the tea tree oil soap he uses. I want to run my fingers through the dark, tangled waves of his hair.

  He fiddles with the knob. “There,” he says finally. “I see it. It’s all silvery.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Your soul,” he answers.

  I rip my hand away.

  “Wh-what are you talking about?” I stare at him.

  “Jeez, Kailey. What’s wrong?” He looks hurt.

  “That’s just a really weird thing for you to say,” I answer, rubbing my hand. There’s a scratch on it from the sharp brass edge of the microscope.

  “It was something Mr. Shaw told me about,” he explains. “He said that the human soul isn’t a religious myth—it’s something physical. There was even a doctor who measured it. Did you know that the average soul weighs 21 grams?” He looks at me nervously.

  I force myself to be patient. I understand that he needs to talk about Cyrus. He’s grieving a friend. It’s not Noah’s fault that he has no idea that Cyrus is actually alive—or what a monster he is.

  “I didn’t know that,” I lie. I remember Cyrus’s brilliant smile in March of 1907, when Dr. MacDougall’s research was published. You see, Sera? Modern science is finally catching on to what the alchemists have known for hundreds of years.

  Noah leans back on a Victorian fainting couch, abandoning the microscope. I curl up next to him, and he puts an arm around my shoulder.

  “Yeah, Mr. Shaw told me that there’s no difference between the spiritual world and the physical one. He said that most people think of alchemy as a cheap trick. Turning lead into gold—that sounds so selfish, right? Like . . . the medieval equivalent of a get-rich-quick scam.” He strokes my hair as I bite my tongue. “But it was so much more. When the alchemists talked about transforming one thing into another, they were also talking about spiritual transformation. It was noble.”

>   I have a bitter taste in my mouth. “They were looking for immortality. I can’t think of anything more selfish.”

  “I don’t think it’s selfish, not in itself. It would depend on how you spent it, whether you used all that time for good or evil.” He pauses. “A lot of things are like that, I guess.”

  “Immortality is tragic, if you think about it.” My throat grows thick with unshed tears, and I swallow hard. “Can you imagine being forced to stay young forever, watching everyone you know die? How pointless would life seem if you saw that?”

  Noah’s arm tightens around me. “Hey,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I whisper. Now that I’ve tasted it, I want nothing more than to keep talking with Noah about alchemy, no matter the risk. My heart yearns to tell him everything, to let him see what I carry inside me. All my years, all my lifetimes.

  He’s so close to the truth and doesn’t even know it.

  “Of course, immortality would only be bearable if you had the right person to share it with,” he says, and my heart catches. I stare straight ahead, but I close my eyes when he turns and kisses me on the cheek.

  “Would you choose it, if you could?” My voice is barely audible.

  “I would,” he answers. “Maybe I’m just being romantic about it, but to me, immortality means freedom. You don’t have to get old. You don’t have to get a job you never wanted. You don’t have to regret the places you’ve never been, the things you missed out on. You could really, truly follow your dreams. Most people’s lives are a lot more tragic than that.”

  There’s a truth in what he says that resonates on the silver strands of my soul. “It sounds like Mr. Shaw gave you a lot to think about,” I say. “I’m starting to understand how much he meant to you.” And I do. Cyrus knew just how to play Noah, I think bitterly. He knew how attractive all of this would be to a boy whose home life was falling apart, a smart and sensitive and passionate boy whose world was just a bit too small.

  “I had a dream about him last night,” he says, and I stiffen. “I dreamed he was in my room, sitting at my desk. It was really weird—he looked completely different. Somehow I knew it was him, though.”