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Chapter 4
Liszt and the Beneficial Aspects of Growing Young
Elisa Willow Summers frowned at the Liszt score before her on the Steinway grand. Between the two heady bebop sets the night before at Dizzy’s and the morning’s sit-in with Revenant Dingoes, Oz’s latest managerial foray into the local music scene, she was having a very difficult time wrapping her brain — and fingers — around Liszt’s sadistic score.
That was a problem, considering that she was supposed to be performing it in recital in two days. Studies in Transcendental Execution indeed. More like Studies in Sociopathic Composition.
She sighed and turned the score back to the first page. She was just about to give it another go when she heard a knock at the door of the little A-frame cabin her father had bought her in New York state as a retreat from the high-octane insanity of the City. Julliard was a wonderful place, but there was much to be said for the meditative peace of the mountains, too.
Not sure whether to be grateful or annoyed at the interruption, she looked out the window to see a little Alfa Romeo convertible in the driveway. Willow!
Elisa hastily opened the door to admit her father’s old friend and most trusted coworker.
When they were both settled with iced teas, Willow said, “I’m sorry to bother you. I know you’ve got practicing to do. I won’t keep you long.”
Elisa adopted her best New York City accent and said, “Fuhgedaboudit.” Then, in a more normal tone, “I needed the break.”
Willow looked pensive and said, “I need to ask you something, and I know I won’t get an honest answer out of Oz or Angel.”
“Fire away.”
“Do I look different to you?”
It seemed like an odd question to Elisa, but then as she looked closely at Willow it became apparent what she was talking about.
“I don’t remember you getting cosmetic surgery,” said Elisa.
“I didn’t. That’s just it.”
“Whatever moisturizer you’re using, I want it,” said Elisa, smiling. The smile was returned warmly. Willow had always been more than just an “adult” to Elisa. She’d been surrogate mother, understanding friend, and unwavering pillar of support through a lot of difficult times, and Elisa couldn’t imagine the last twenty years without her.
Elisa looked at the other woman again. It was uncanny. Willow’s face was definitely smoother, the skin more supple than the last time she’d seen her. Her hair was redder, too, although it could have been coloring.
“That’s not all. That scar from when Xander shot me? It seems to be fading.”
Elisa whistled and sat back in her chair. “Weird.”
“Very.”
“You’re not dabbling in witchcraft again, are you? I thought magic went away when Mom destroyed the nexuses.”
“No, it’s not magic. I just wanted an honest second opinion before I start looking at this more seriously.”
“What do you think it is?” asked Elisa. “From where I’m sitting, it’s not a bad thing.”
Willow shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. If it’s viral, it’s the strangest pathogen I’ve ever heard of. Maybe all those years on the Hellmouth altered my genetics somehow and the factor’s been recessive until now. Maybe it’s the residual biochemical effects of a spell. And maybe my Evian supply just happened to get mixed up with the Fountain of Youth. I just don’t know. You’re right, though. Assuming I don’t revert to infancy, at the moment it doesn’t seem so bad.”
“Are you worried?”
“A little,” said Willow. “I don’t like stuff I can’t explain, and I can’t explain this yet. I will, though.”
She set her glass down on the table between them and rose. “I’m going to the DH Group’s lab. I need to get this thing figured out even if it does smack of giving a gift horse a dental examination. Do me a favor and don’t say anything to either Oz or your father until I know more.”
“Sure, no problem,” said Elisa. “You keep me informed though, okay?”
“Of course.”
“I mean it, Will.”
“Don’t you worry about it. I’ll see you at the recital.”
“Oh. You’re coming?”
Willow winked at her. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything. I’m sure it’s going to be unforgettable.”
* * *
“I get the impression this setup’s been in operation for awhile,” said Buffy as she and Cordelia followed the other Slayer to a door at the rear of the pub. “I thought I was Flynn’s first recruit for this.”
“You are. It’s kinda complicated. We were all recruited after you were, from Flynn’s point of view. But we got here before you — I think he’s been keeping you in reserve for something big. I’m not sure what. Anyway, you’ll find that time doesn’t really mean a whole lot here because we’re sitting on a hypernexus, outside of any time-space continuum. We call it ‘Pubspace’ in honor of Flynn’s Cross Dimensional Bar and Grill.”
“A hypernexus?” asked Cordelia.
“This isn’t exactly my area of expertise. Killing things and selecting a good lipstick to go with pastel blue silk is more my area. But as far as I know, it’s a nexus that joins parallel realities as well as linking universes and planes within a given reality,” said the younger Buffy. “Basically, it’s like living at an international airport. We can get to anywhere or anywhen from here. The problem is, it’s really hard to tell how long we’ve been here because time is highly observer-dependent on the hypernexus. From my point of view, I’ve been doing this for two years, but there’s a guy from the Van Helsing vampire-hunter family who was here when I first arrived, and he insists that he hasn’t been doing this for more than six months, tops. There’s no one-to-one correlation between time in the Realities and time here. I could be in a Reality for three months and come back here two minutes after I left. Before I left, even, although we try to avoid that as much as possible. It’s bizarre, what can I say?”
The one-eyed Slayer opened the rear door and they stepped through.
Her two guests stopped short as they suddenly found themselves in the midst of a quiet ornamental garden. There was no pub to be seen, not behind them, not in front, not anywhere.
“The higher dimensional architecture of this place takes a bit of getting used to,” said the younger Buffy. She stepped up to small panel set into a piece of Classical sculpture and waved her hand in front of it.
Instantly, a doorway appeared in the air before them, like a tear in space itself. Except that through this tear, they could see a room.
“Follow me,” said their guide, and they passed from the cool green garden into a white room furnished with several worn sofas and easy chairs, a soda and candy machine, an automatic drip coffee maker, and a round coffee table supporting an unsteady pile of magazines and newspapers from a dozen alternate realities. In one of those realities, to judge from the cover of an issue of Newsweek, Hulk Hogan had been President of the United States. On the far wall, next to a water cooler, was another door marked “Authorized Personnel Only Beyond This Point”.
The younger Buffy moved to a clipboard hanging on the wall, leafed through the several sheets affixed to it, then wrote something with the attached pencil and looked at the two newcomers.
“I need to sign you guys in. Did Flynn tell you what your Vauxhall designations are?”
“Our Vaux what?” asked Buffy.
“Your Vauxhall Reality Matrix designations. It’s a system to identify all these different realities. I’m from reality Three Echo Foxtrot, hence I’m officially Buffy Summers Three Echo Foxtrot, although everyone just calls me Echo Fox for short. Or blondie, in Faith’s case. You’ll find the VRM designation is just easier when there are multiple yous in the same room.”
“This is too weird,” said Cordelia. “And what’s with the eye, anyway?”
“Ah, Cordy, the master of clueless honesty,” said Buffy Echo Fox. “I always did like you, for some reason. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it was your complete and utter obliviousness to norms of civility. As for the eye, you can thank Angel for that.”
“Angel did that?” gasped Buffy.
Buffy Echo Fox shrugged and put the clipboard back on its peg. “Did your reality get into that whole Acathla nonsense?”
Buffy nodded.
“Well, in my world I had this really nasty sword fight with Angel and I ended up having to kill him to close the portal to Hell,” she said. Her voice grew somewhat quiet and emotional as she continued, and Buffy felt a surge of sympathy and kinship for her maimed counterpart. “He got his soul back, and I killed him, and I never forgave myself. It’s even worse now that I know some of us Buffies managed to get him back. It’s like I failed him. I did fail him, I suppose. In the worst possible way. Anyway, during that last fight, I lost the eye. No big deal. What’s an eye, anyway? That’s why you get a spare.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Buffy, her thoughts with Angel. She had been so bitter for so long about being separated from Angel and her daughter. But at least her Angel had lived. At least they’d known real happiness together, if just for a brief time. It was sobering and chastening to realize that not all of her selves were so fortunate. But Buffy Echo Fox was younger than she was when she’d brought Angel back from Hell. Maybe she still had a chance to do the same for hers. Buffy hoped so.
“You loved him too,” said Buffy Echo Fox, pouring coffee from the pot into a styrofoam cup. “I can hear it in your voice.”
Buffy nodded. “Yes. Very much.”
I still do, she added to herself.
“It would have been easier on both of us if we’d fallen for Xander, you know. Some of us have. It doesn’t change much — we always get ourselves killed eventually — but the actual relationship crap is a whole lot easier,” said Buffy Echo Fox.
Xander? What a strange thought. Yet Buffy had to admit that it wasn’t wholly inconceivable. There had always been a special spark in Xander, one that in her world he had never quite allowed to catch into a blaze, one that she could have loved. She felt the old guilt stab at her. Poor Xander. She never had done right by him, had never really taken him seriously. God, he’d brought her back to life, and yet she never once saw him on equal footing with Angel. Her love had blinded her to Xander’s naïve decency and very real courage, and damn her for never seeing how that blindness had eaten at him and turned that decency into bitterness and resentment.
She sighed and said, “Maybe. But we both know we could never do it. We both loved Angel too much. Far too much. I wanted to let the world die to save him, and I’ll bet you did too.”
“We’re tough Slayers,” said Buffy Echo Fox. “Nobody ever accused us of being smart lovers. Leading with the heart, isn’t that what they call it?”
“Have you asked Flynn if you could save him? It can be done. I’ve done it myself,” said Buffy.
Buffy Echo Fox shook her head. “No can do. In my universe, Angel’s really dead. Just dust now, a memory. In fact, just about everyone I cared about died. I got suckered into leaving everyone — Xander, Willow, Giles and Kendra — at the library, and they all got killed by Drusilla and company. And you know what sucks? They have to stay that way for my world to survive. I’ve had the event chains analyzed six ways to Sunday and it always comes out the same way. If I save my friends, I never develop the mile-wide mean streak that turned me into über-Slayer, I fail against the Avatar, and the world dies. I tell you, Fate really knows how to screw you hard sometimes. You want some Java?”
Buffy Echo Fox had changed gears so quickly that it took Buffy a moment to follow it.
“Huh?” she asked.
The other Slayer hefted the pot and said, “Coffee, girlfriend. You want some? It ain’t good, but it ain’t bad.”
“Coffee? I haven’t had legal coffee in a long time. Maybe later. I want my first non-felonious cup of Joe in ten years to be a good one.”
Buffy Echo Fox raised an eyebrow at Cordelia.
“Ew. I only do low-fat half-caf cappuccinos.”
“Suit yourself,” said Buffy Echo Fox, replacing the pot. She took a deep breath and looked at the two newcomers. “So, you guys ready for your induction to the Superhero Hall of Fame? Because there’s no turning back once we go into the ops center. You’ll never see things quite the same way again.”
“We’ll deal,” said Buffy.
Cordelia nodded in agreement. “If I’m booked on the tour, I want the full itinerary.”
Buffy Echo Fox smiled. It was an expression at odds with her ferocious and chilling visage. “Then come with me through the looking glass.”