Infinite Branches

This week, do future you (and past you) a favor by enjoying Mary Robinette Kowal‘s latest story! ~ Julian and Fran, November 17, 2024.

This month’s stories from LD Lewis, Michelle Muenzler, Christina Rosso, and Mary Robinette Kowal, arrive each Sunday, right to your inbox.

We hope you love these stories — and all the stories to come — as much as we love bringing them to you on Sundays.

Bringing out great short fiction each Sunday depends on the support of our readers. Our first story each month is free. We hope that you will subscribe to receive all our stories, and support the work of our authors. If you already subscribe — thank you! Please pass on the word, or a gift subscription if you can.

---

Infinite Branches

by Mary Robinette Kowal

The sandtimer on my desk hissed as seconds passed on their inexorable march into the future. But I felt frozen in time, staring at the letter that lay on the smooth oak. It was actual paper that had come through the actual mail. It was in my handwriting.

I hadn’t written it.

Or, if it was to be believed, I hadn’t written it yet.

Dear Past Me,

This is a quick note to let you know that your equations are correct. You will be visited by Future You, which sounds very Christmas Carol, but I’m telling you this hoping to reduce the shock of me just showing up.

This Sunday, March 31, at ten a.m. Eastern, I’ll come to your kitchen. Sorry about this, but I could not think of a single thing to tell you as verification that I couldn’t have found out some other way except this—you did not mean to kill the frog in the Pringles can. You were little. You thought you were keeping it safe. You didn’t know physics yet and that the foil lining in the can would turn into an oven in the sunlight. I still feel guilty about it.

Yours,

Dr. Jane Stills, age 55

PS I remember not believing this note, so I’m not offended.

It was probably a prank. My interest in time travel was well known even if people thought I was ridiculous. At some party, I must have told someone at some point about the frog I’d caught on my parents’ back deck. But it was enough to make me open my screen and pull up the time travel project.

With only a quick rap as warning, the door to my office opened. I jumped, knocking my mug of tea off its coaster.

“Whoa! Easy there.” Gerald stood in the doorway, with a red rose and a bag of takeout from Bella Cucina—our favorite Italian restaurant since we’d met in undergrad.

“Sorry, I was just . . .” Righting the mug, I snatched the letter off the desk before it could get wet. And before my boyfriend could see it. Gerald’s opinions on time travel had always been clear. If he saw the letter and that I had my theorem open, he would think I believed the letter. “Hi. How are you?”

“Better, now that I see you.” He set the rose on my desk as I started to mop up the tea with tissues.

Without looking, I knew the takeout bag would have my favorite risotto. I knew that we would have a delightful lunch. I knew that he would obliquely bring up the argument that we’d had the night before about my career choices and then would move on, to avoid upsetting me again. I knew that he would tell me how much he valued me.

I closed the screen with my old project just before Gerald pulled out the fragrant box and set it on the desk.

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I just want you to know how much I care. I don’t want you wasting your talents and getting laughed at because of a lark.”

This had happened before. It would happen again. I didn’t need time travel to experience time repeating itself.

#

It is five minutes to ten a.m. on Sunday. I am sitting at my own counter, waiting for my younger self to come into the kitchen. This is a moment that I remember but it is also different. I had been frightened and had had an asthma attack.

So, I have put an inhaler on the counter.

Will this small act of kindness change things? Yes, but the thing that we have learned about time travel is that my equations hold. Two things can be true. Time is like a head of broccoli: When I travel back, I can travel only to possible pasts that lead to my future. The farther back you go, the thicker the stalk and the more possible routes there are to the future. You can make changes, because those changes also lead to the present you came from.