CHAPTER 3: LAW OF SYNCHRONICITY

"…meaningful coincidences that cannot be described by the law of cause and effect."

Past—Carl's POV

In an instant, Carl had lost all he had in the world.

He couldn't believe it.

Carl knew just one thing, focused in on that thing: he couldn't sense Tom. He couldn't sense him. Carl didn't know if he was dead, or alive, or in pain… because he couldn't sense him!

Deep breaths, that's all he could take, deep, uneven breaths—in, out, in, out—even though it felt like his lungs were on fire.

The dogs were barking at him. He couldn't understand a word of it. The koi were jumping in their pond. He didn't know what they wanted.

Everything—everything he believed in, everything he treasured—was gone.

Maybe it would be better if I were too… the idea trailed off in his mind, echoing, and—even though it would undoubtedly give the Lone Power an advantage—Carl couldn't stop the thought from surfacing.

A world without Tom wasn't a world he wanted to live in.

There was a flutter in front of him and his watery eyes glanced up and focused on a pair of black beady ones.

Of course…

"Peach!" Carl whispered incredulously. "You still remember me, right?—and of course, I can still understand you!"

He made a grab for the bird, but Machu Picchu flew just out of reach, landing atop the china cabinet.

"Peach?" Carl whispered in confusion; surely he had seen recognition...

"No more. No more. Braw, no more."

Oh dear God, Carl thought with trepidation, "Quote the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"

"Peach, stop that!" Carl pleaded with her. "I know you can talk, so why are you doing this? Please, Peach, just help me find Tom!"

"No more," Peach shook her head, looking defeated. "Tom is no more."

Whatever was left of Carl's heart turned to ice, "What is that supposed to mean?!"

Peach didn't say another word, just continued to gaze at him sadly.

"Machu Picchu, is there a way to bring Tom back?"

"Braw, ask the question! Ask the question!"

"The question? What is the question? What's the answer?"

For the very first time that night, Peach looked him square in the eye. "You," Peach said simply, in a voice that very closely matched the one she used when giving Oracles.

"Ask the question!" she continued, looking at him with such power Carl was locked in place.

"Where is Tom?" Carl demanded.

"Ask the question!" Carl took that as a rejection.

"How do I find him?"

"Ask the question!"

"What do I have to do?"

"Ask the question!"

Carl listed at least a dozen more that came to mind, out of the trillion he still had left, but none seemed to satisfy the bird.

Just remember why I did what I did… Tom's voice was like a ghost echoing in his mind as Carl summoned the recent memory.

"Tom, what did you do? Why did you do it?!" Carl broke down.

It was several minutes until he realized that Peach remained silent. He glanced up at the bird that was cleaning her feathers with a sense of purpose.

"That's the answer, isn't it—I mean, the question," Carl wasn't asking.

Peach, no longer pretending to be just a regular bird, focused a look of intense scrutiny on him.

She took flight and landed on his shoulder, her beak just inches away from his ear. He could hear her soft breath and felt her tiny heart pounding when he caressed her.

"Now, what was your First Ordeal?" She spelled out for him softly.

"Peach, this is ridiculous, you know I can't remember! Only Tom knew and he's…"

"Braw, focus."

"On what?"

"Focus, focus, focus."

Carl, defeated, sank back against the sofa, folded his hands on his lap, and closed his eyes.

That's when the world went dark.

September 29th, 1978—Carl's POV

An eighteen year old Carl crosses the street—filthy, grimy, and covered everywhere with motor oil. His clothes are torn and he scuffs his too-small shoes on the payment. His ma is going to scold him about the state he's in, but who cares?

He turns the corner...

Only to have someone barrel into him.

What the...? is all he can think before he meets the pavement.

"Jerk!" Carl says, or tries to say, his voice is muffled by the other man's shoulder. The other person has latched on tight. "Get off me!" He tries to pry hands loose from his shirt and thrust the other man away simultaneously.

"Please," he hears someone whimper. "Please, don't leave me alone..."

Carl rolls his eyes in exasperation. "I said get off!" Finally he stands up and simply lets the kid fall away.

"What's your problem?" Carl demands none too kindly, making a show of brushing himself off.

The other teen, as it turns out, just looks up at him apprehensively while sprawled on the ground. Prone. Vulnerable. Probably no more than sixteen years of age.

"Please," Carl hears him whisper, as though the boy was afraid the night air might carry his words, "Please don't leave me out here alone... I'm not from around here! I don't know where I am actually—someone just tried to grab me and might still be after me! My friends, well these guys I know, they dropped me off here—more like threw me out of their car actually—and then drove away and left me… I just got into NYU a month ago. I'm terrible with directions. I can't go more than a block from the University without getting lost. Please help me, I don't stand a chance on my own!"

"Shut up!" Carl hisses, bodily yanking the kid to his feet. "Do you want whoevah's after youse to find us?" The Brooklyn accent is thick as he checks in the direction the boy had come from. Carl knows from experience that his accent is only indecipherable when he is scared or angry. And right now he's both.

But there's no pursuer.

The other boy visibly flinches and shakes his head 'no'. Now that he's standing, albeit unsteadily, Carl gets a better look at him from under the flickering lamplight…

He's dressed in nice, nice clothes—way too nice to be off the street or living in this part of the city. Black pants that look pressed and a white button-down shirt complete with a collar and cuffs, though those were hidden as he had his sleeves pushed up. The only thing out of place was the dark, shoulder-length hair that looked like it was grown in rebellion.

He didn't know what, but something about him bothered Carl, angered him—his clothes? His reaction?—pushed his buttons in a way no one else did.

"You know I could pound you flat?!"

To emphasize his point, he hoists the other guy up by his collar and slams him against the nearest wall. The kid's teeth clack together and the gasp he forces out is a painful one.

But then, for some reason, Carl seems to hesitate. He could beat this kid to a bloody pulp, but what would that accomplish?

Plus, this kid, he seems…

Carl is virtually paralyzed.

Finally he wrenches himself away and lets the other kid slide down the wall to the ground. Carl's not a bully, not really.

"I'm sorry."

Carl blinks, the words aren't his.

"I'm sorry." The kid mumbles while rubbing at his bruised neck. He sounds... sheepish. "I shouldn't have run into you like that. It's my fault and—I apologize for it, really. I was just kind of spooked."

Carl looks at him intently again. The kid's the one apologizing?

Odd...

"What's your name kid?"

"Thomas, no—Tom! Tom Swale." He makes a face. "And I'm no kid."

Carl smirks at that. "Where you from Tommy?"

"God, I hate that name—I mean," Tom catches himself hastily, "San Francisco. Er—um—what's yours? Name, I mean. Wha—what's your name?"

"Carl."

He wouldn't volunteer his last name, in case Tom went to the cops.

Tom seems to accept it though. "Carl," he repeats to himself. "Nice to meet ya." And he actually smiles, offering his hand.

Carl just stares at him.

Tom lowers his hand slowly when it became apparent Carl wouldn't take it and shuffles his feet around a bit nervously. "Like I said, some jerks I know just left me out here and—where is here anyways?"

"Brooklyn. In the middle of the night. You're damn lucky I found you, you know, 'cause unless you got some sort of magic trick up your sleeve or something, you'd be a goner…" Carl trails off.

At some point during his tirade Tom's eyes had gone impossibly wide and then suddenly the kid is on the ground, frantically searching for something.

Carl eyes him suspiciously.

"I'm such an idiot!" He can hear Tom murmur as he feels around in the dark. "Oh God, what if I dropped it?! Do they send out replacements...?"

"What the hell are you mumbling about kid?"

Tom looks up at him innocently.

Too innocently.

"Oh nothing, I'm just talking to myself," Tom hastens to assure him. "You can go now if you like. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine—I know I must be keeping you from something. Thank you so much for your help by the way, but now that I've got my head together I'll be alright. I think I even know the way …"

Tom goes back to searching.

Carl starts looking around the immediate area too—and there, in a nearby gutter, he spots something. He walks over and picks it up.

It's a book.

And obviously what Tom's been searching for.

"Hey! Give me that! That's mine!" Tom scrambles to his feet and leaps up in the air…

But it's all too easy for Carl to keep the book well away from Tom and in his possession.

It is obviously an old book: the binding broken, the pages he flips through an aging yellow, and a few corners pressed down here and there as placeholders. The light's too dim to see any of the words but the volume itself is red and thick, yet small enough to easily conceal on a person. He closes the thing and feels along the embroidered letters on the front cover. Then he remembers…

"I have one just like it." He hands it back to Tom who looks more than a little flustered.

Upon hearing those words though, Tom's whole countenance changes. His face a study in wonder, he practically bounces himself off the ground in a sudden onset of eagerness.

"Are you serious? That explains it then! I knew I was drawn to you—that's the reason I was supposed to be out here! Well Dai'stiho and all that cousin, it sure is nice to finally meet another Wizard here!"

Carl just stares at him for a bit.

"What did you say?" Carl backs away a few steps in discomfort. "What the hell you rambling on about? You nuts or sumthin'?"

Tom's expressive face blanks. "I—ah—I didn't mean any of that. Really," he backtracks, "I, um, don't know what got into me. Listen, it was really nice talking to you and all but I, er, I gotta get going..."

With that he gives Carl one last parting smile, then breaks into a run.

"Hey! Where ya going?"

Carl chases him as far as the next block, rounds a corner...

...and completely loses sight of him.

The night, for once, is still. The area he's in completely quiet. Only the wind blowing a few rustling leaves across the street breaks the silence.

Dai'stiho Cousin, Carl thinks he hears echoed.

He shivers.

Present—Nita's POV

"Carl, there's something I don't understand…"

Carl reached for his coffee and took a grateful sip, "Go ahead Nita."

"If Tom doesn't exist, then how were you seeing him? Even in a vision of the past, of another reality, you said…"

"Yeah, I know what I said," Carl sighed. "Nita, it pains me to use this example but your mother existed didn't she? And she continues to exist in Time Heart. Why do you think that is? How do any of us 'exist'?"

Nita frowned for a few moments, then... "We exist because we know we exist."

"Ah, but that's only half the battle. We also exist because others know we exist. For me, Tom still existed. Even if for every other world, every other reality, even if for Time's Heart, he didn't. I learned very quickly that these weren't just visions of a different reality; they were of the same reality. They were memories of my reality."

"I still don't understand, didn't you and Tom meet at NYU?"

"Don't worry, I'll explain that later."