Page 34 of Installment Immortality

“I’ve never met him before, or if I have, it happened in one of the spaces that isn’t there anymore, and it’s gone,” he said. “But I know a cuckoo when I see one. That’s something I never have to question anymore. Whether or not I see a cuckoo.”

“Arthur—”

“I still love her, you know that?” His frustration faded, just a bit,replaced by miserable longing. “I love her with every part of me, because all the memories she used to make me came from people who knew her and knew Artie and knew how much they loved each other. I’ve talked to Annie and James, and I think I know more about growing up with Sarah than they do, because she deleted their memories of her when we crossed dimensions. She took Artie’s, too, but she didn’t build me fromhismemories. He was already gone when she made me. So I’m built from all the people who knew how much she loved me, and how much I loved her, and I can’t outrun the love, no matter how hard I try. But she can’t even stand to be around me. And when I say I love her, she says it’s not real, it’s just what cuckoos do to their victims, making them think they’re in love when it’s all just another lie.” He paused then, looking at me gravely. “If the love’s a lie, then everything about me is a lie, and all of me should be deleted. If I’m real, so’s the way I love her, because I’m made of the same memories.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur,” I said softly. “This has to have been so hard on you. On all of you.”

“She didn’t know what she was doing when she made me,” he said. “She just wanted to save someone she cared about, and she didn’t know that it was too late to save him. I just wish she’d stop running away from me.”

“Have you tried writing her a letter and telling her what’s going on with you? She might want to know, even if she can’t be in a room with you right now.”

Arthur blinked at me. “Writing her a letter?”

“I’m older than your grandmother, remember? We didn’t have email when I was your age—hell, I wasdeadwhen I was your age—and you couldn’t always trust the phones. So people wrote each other letters. It’s words on paper. There’s nothing in them but what you put there, and no one reads anyone else’s mind without meaning to. It might be a way for you to communicate with her without all that other stuff getting in the middle.”

“Where would I even send it?”

“Anywhere,” I said. “Here, Michigan, even to Verity in New York. As long as it’s a family address, she’ll get it eventually. Just don’t focus too hard on needing an answer immediately and it’ll work.”

“I may try that,” he said thoughtfully.

Outside the car, a door slammed. I twisted around to look out the windshield, and saw Elsie storming across the lawn toward us, hair wet and spiky, clearly furious. She jerked the car door open and swung in behind the wheel, slamming the door again before fastening her seatbelt. I blinked.

“Elsie?”

“Callmybrother a monster,” she muttered. “Saymybrother doesn’t belong. What the fuck ever happened to ‘family before all else’?”

I flipped myself around and settled, pulling my own seatbelt on. “It’s not Isaac’s fault,” I said. “He’s just a kid.”

“We were all kids once,” said Elsie. “I didn’t go around accusing people of being monsters.”

“I know,” I said soothingly.

“You okay, Art?” asked Elsie.

“I’m fine,” said Arthur.

“You don’t sound fine.”

“I’m not fine,” he admitted. “But can we get moving?”

“Sure. I’ve had a shower, so I’m good for another eight hours. We stopping in New York or not?”

We’d been trying to decide that almost since leaving Portland. Stopping in New York would mean dealing with a pregnant, hormonal Verity who might decide she needed to come with us. Potentially, it could also mean dealing with Sarah, and we needed to give Arthur time before we tried to force that again.

“I think straight to Boston,” I said. “The anima mundi didn’t say anything about the people in New York knowing anythingabout the ghost hunts, and I feel like we need to get this done.” Not least because we needed to get Arthur home before he fell apart further, and I didn’t like leaving Ted alone like this.

“Got it,” said Elsie, and pulled out of the driveway with a squeal of tires that would have woken the children if they’d been in bed, and would definitely guarantee that Shelby understood how unhappy she was.

And once again, we were off.

Driving with Elsie was an experience I would probably have enjoyed a lot less if I’d been alive. She drove like she wanted to get into an argument with the very concept of traffic laws, shifting lanes any time she felt like there was a sliver of speed to be stolen from the world, hitting the gas like slowing down was a personal affront. Arthur didn’t seem to realize how incredibly dangerous all this could become; he rode quietly and contentedly, humming to himself as she assaulted the American highway system like she resented it for not allowing her to become a routewitch.

Routewitches aren’t made, they’re born. It’s boring deterministic bullshit, but that’s the way the world works. No amount of wanting to be a routewitch will make you one if you’re not, and no amount of wantingnotto be a routewitch will save you from the Ocean Lady if she thinks you’re one of hers.

Elsie always wanted to be chosen for something. Not just a member of her family, but something big and important that she wouldn’t have to work to become, that she could justbe. But you don’t get to choose whether or not you’re chosen, and as time went on, she’d been forced to admit she was going to need to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Predestination wasn’t going to give her all the answers.

After we’d been driving for about five hours, Arthur clearedhis throat and said, “I want to eat food. Can we stop and eat food, please?”

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