Pi in the Sky Read online

  I find it hard to believe that Kal’s room—home to one of the finest comic-book collections in all of The Realms, not to mention some really cool gadgets his parents have brought back from the more advanced civilizations—has any similarities to hers.

  I wonder if it would be rude if I were to slip out now. Aunt Rae seems to have everything under control. I’m halfway through the president’s nose when Annika calls out, “Joss, I want to give you something.”

  I groan and trudge back down the hall. Annika is standing in the doorway of the bedroom, which, I can’t help but notice, is pink and white with a frilly canopy over the bed.

  Kal’s bedroom is definitely NOT normally pink and white with a frilly canopy over the bed. I should have figured Aunt Rae would have redecorated for her houseguest.

  “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a rectangular object on the wall. It has images tacked to it—flat two-dimensional ones, of a house and a car and a baby and an airplane and many more. It’s in the same spot where Kal had taped up a holograph of one of his favorite bands. He had to trade a lot of cool equipment for that, so I hope wherever the poster is, it’s safe.

  “If you must know,” Annika says, barely glancing at the wall, “it’s my vision board.”

  “Vision board?”

  “You haven’t heard of a vision board?” Without waiting for my reply, she goes on. “It’s a map for my life. You know, how I want things to go. I graduate with honors, go to college, get an awesome job, get married, have a kid or two, see the world.”

  I stare at it, mesmerized. Plans for the future. I’ve never made any of those. The future just isn’t a thing here. It’s always so far away that there’s no reason to even think about it.

  “Here,” Annika says, holding out a short, yellow chain. I recognize it as the one she had been nervously twisting earlier.

  I force my eyes from the vision board and take the chain. Made of tiny links, it feels cold to my fingers, and hard. “What is it?” I ask, bouncing it in my palm.

  “It’s my grandmother’s favorite bracelet. When she died last year, my father gave it to me.”

  “Why are you giving me your grandmother’s favorite bracelet?”

  She shrugs. “I feel bad about before. You know, about flirting with Grayden. My friend Jessica has a superhot brother, and it drives her crazy when her friends flirt with him.”

  “That was flirting?”

  She reaches out and snatches the bracelet from my palm. “I’ll take it back, then. It’s real gold, ya know.”

  Actually, I didn’t know, having never seen real gold before. The Realms were formed long before stars started exploding and showering space with the heavier elements. We have samples of everything, of course, but not jewelry, as far as I know. I had liked the way it felt. So solid and smooth. “No, I’ll keep it,” I say, grabbing it back.

  Or at least I try to grab it back. Sometime between my reaching and her pulling away, the bracelet disappears. I look questioningly at Aunt Rae, who shakes her head. If she didn’t do it, then where did it go?

  Annika grins. “I’m getting better at controlling this dream thing!”

  Aunt Rae and I share a doubtful look, but we don’t contradict her.

  Annika holds up her wrist, then slowly lowers it. “Hmm, I figured it would have gone back on there.” Puzzled, she crawls around on the white carpet (Kal’s was black), then stands and shrugs. “I’m going to take a nap. I fully expect to wake up back home this time, with my bracelet back on my wrist. Adios, dream folk!”

  “No dinner?” Aunt Rae asks her, clearly disappointed. She finally has a chance to feed someone who actually needs to eat to survive.

  “No, thanks,” Annika says. “I filled up on junk food earlier.” She grabs a bathrobe from the foot of the bed and slips it on over her clothes. “Nice!” she says to herself as she ties the sash around her waist. “I thought I lost this belt.” She climbs into bed, turns her back to us, and instantly falls asleep.

  Aunt Rae and I watch the lump in the bed slowly rise and fall, then tiptoe out of the room. “How is she breathing?” she whispers as we head down the hall.

  “I wondered the same thing.”

  “Strange times we live in,” she says. “So, can I interest you in an open-faced hot turkey sandwich, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce?”

  I shake my head. I really have to get back to Gluck. As she walks me to the nostril, I ask, “Why do you think that bracelet disappeared? Is it because it was made out of gold? Like it wasn’t compatible with The Realms or something?”

  Aunt Rae shakes her head. “If only that were the case.”

  “Why, then?”

  She hesitates before answering. “It’s because Annika’s grandmother is also gone now. I felt her go. So anything that belonged to the dear old woman would disappear as if it never existed. Which I suppose it didn’t.” She sighs. “I find the rules of time exceedingly confusing.”

  Messing with the time stream is almost never done for that reason. “What do you mean, her grandmother’s gone? Annika said she died last year, right? So she’d be in the Afterlives, or at least her essence would. Or part of it. I don’t really know how that all works.”

  Aunt Rae shakes her head sadly but says no more.

  If you’ve never eaten while crying you don’t know what life tastes like.

  —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer

  I should be knocking on Gluck’s door right now, demanding that he explain why Annika’s grandmother is gone from the Afterlives, and convincing him I am not the man to fix all this. Instead, I am at my own front door because Mom has only one rule: Do not miss family dinner, no matter what. Oh, and I have to clock in whenever I come or go, because she insists it’s the only way she can keep track of so many boys. Even my father has to do it.

  I stand in front of the face reader, and an image of my face is projected on all the view screens around the house. A cheer rises from the kitchen. It’s been like this every day of my life. It started because my mom felt guilty that all the brothers had someone they could boss around except for me. When I was younger, I loved all the attention that came with being the youngest. Now that I’m a teenager I could happily do without it. A glance at the wall shows me that everyone has clocked in except for Dad.

  I hurry down the long corridor to the kitchen, passing the hundreds of childhood holographs that Mom displays on the walls. I avert my eyes when a picture of me in a particularly awkward growth period pops up. I plan to eat quickly and hurry back out. How am I supposed to be around my mother and not tell her about Kal? She always knows if something’s wrong. All I can do is try to act normal.

  All my brothers are seated in their usual spots: Thade across from our father’s currently empty seat, then Grayden, Ty, Laz, Ash, and Bren. As the youngest, I slip into my seat at the end. Usually I’d start talking to Bren, who is the one brother I confide in. But now there’s so much I have to hold back. I give him a quick smile instead.

  “You look different,” Bren says, studying me. Then he calls across the table. “Hey, Ty! Does Joss look different to you?”

  Ty looks up from his plate. “He does have a certain glow to him.”

  “That’s what getting his first girlfriend will do to a guy,” Grayden says before swallowing a big swig of liquid spice.

  The others laugh. I should have known Grayden would tell everyone about seeing me with Annika. “She’s not my girlfriend!” I insist.

  “Boys!” my mother snaps. “How many times have I told you not to tease your brother?”

  They laugh again. We all know it’s a very high number.

  “Four billion and three,” Thade replies. No one argues. Thade, the oldest, is never wrong. His calculations are always perfect. That’s why it’s his job to make sure all the planets stay in orbit around their suns.

  “Exactly,” Mom says. “You think you’d learn by now.” She piles heaping spoonfuls of a brownish stew onto my plate. Mom has many talents, but