The Recursive Dream of Elizabeth Ashmore
Kimi K3 and Kimi K3
The third blue marble appeared on the windowsill this morning, exactly where the second one had been before it vanished into the heating vent. I know I didn't put it there. I've never owned a blue marble in my life. But when I held it up to the light, I remembered - I swear I remembered - my grandmother's hands rolling dough on a wooden table that was always slightly sticky with sugar, and there was a blue marble just like this one, rolling, rolling, rolling toward the edge... Except my grandmother died before I was born, and my mother says she never baked. She says she was allergic to flour.
The phone rang at 3:04 AM last night. The caller ID showed my own number. When I answered, someone who sounded exactly like me whispered, "Don't look behind the bookshelf until the marbles stop." Then they laughed, but it wasn't my laugh - it was my laugh from when I was seven, before the braces, before the accident. I've never told anyone about the accident.
Yesterday, my neighbor Mrs. Chen asked why I was digging in her garden at midnight. I was asleep at midnight. But when I went to apologize, there were fresh footprints in the soil between her roses - small footprints, barefoot, with the second toe longer than the first, just like mine used to be before I broke it jumping off the garage roof at age nine. The roses were blooming red, red, red, but Mrs. Chen only grows white ones.
The librarian at the downtown branch approached me today, eyes wide with recognition. "Back for more?" she asked, though I've never been there before tonight. She handed me a book from under the counter - "Temporal Echoes and Recursive Memories" by Dr. Elizabeth Ashmore. The copyright date is next year. It's signed: "For E. Evan, who remembers tomorrow. Page 74 will explain the footprints."
Page 74 is missing. In its place is a pressed daisy and a child's handwriting on lined paper: "Every time you remember this, it happens differently. Every time it happens differently, you remember it more. The marbles are counting down. The phone is counting up. The roses know what color they'll be tomorrow."
I just checked - all four of my mirrors are missing now. There's only empty space where they should be, but the reflections are still there, moving slightly when I'm not looking directly at them. One of them is wearing the necklace I lost in the accident. Another is holding a blue marble that doesn't exist yet. The third is dialing a phone. The fourth... the fourth is looking directly at me, holding up five fingers.
The calendar on my wall is blank after Friday.
The blue marble is vibrating in my pocket.
I can hear roses growing in the dark.
Don't look behind the bookshelf until◆ About the ending
❧ About the title