Multiverse Test

This is the story of the hardest test Wanda Maximoff ever faced. It happened after she became the Scarlet Witch in Westview. It happened in a quiet cabin in the mountains. And it happened because of a book.

After Westview, after Agatha, after Wanda lifted into the air in her scarlet crown and chose, very quietly, to be good — Wanda went away. She needed to be alone for a while. She found a small wooden cabin high up in the mountains, far from any town. There were fir trees all around it. There was a stone fireplace inside. There was a kitchen with one teakettle. And there was a porch where Wanda could sit and look at the snow.

She brought just one thing with her into the cabin.

A book.

The book was called the Darkhold. It had once belonged to Agatha Harkness, who had once belonged to the witches of Salem. Its cover was a sickly green color, like old moss. Its pages crackled when you turned them. And every single night by candlelight, the Darkhold whispered to Wanda.

The book whispered something amazing. And the book whispered something dangerous. Sometimes the most amazing things and the most dangerous things are the very same thing.

The Darkhold told Wanda that the universe was not just one universe. The universe was a multiverse — millions and millions and millions of universes, all floating beside each other like bubbles in a bubble bath. And in some of those other universes, the Darkhold whispered, there lived other Wanda Maximoffs. Other versions of her. Some of them had never lost their parents. Some of them had never lost Pietro. And some of them — and this is what made Wanda's heart hurt — some of them had never lost Billy and Tommy. Some of them tucked their little boys into bed every single night.

The Darkhold promised Wanda that she could reach one of those other universes. She could find one of those other families. And she could have her boys back.

Wanda almost, almost believed it.

She read the Darkhold every night. The book's words crept into her dreams. They softened her edges. They made her sleepy. Slowly, very slowly, she started to forget that she had said goodbye to Billy and Tommy in Westview on purpose. She started to forget that she had walked away because real people mattered more than even the most beautiful dream. She started to think, instead, that the universe owed her her children back.

That is when there was a knock at the cabin door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Wanda opened the door. Standing in the snow was Doctor Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, wrapped in his red Cloak of Levitation. And beside him was a young girl, perhaps fourteen years old, in a denim jacket with a star patch on the back. Her name was America Chavez.

America had the most extraordinary gift in the entire multiverse. She could kick the air with her sneakers — kapow — and open a star-shaped portal to any universe she wanted. Whoosh. She didn't always control it perfectly. Sometimes the portals appeared by accident when she was scared. But she was the only person in the multiverse who could move between universes the way other people walked between rooms.

That was why Doctor Strange had brought her to Wanda. He thought Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, might be able to help him keep America safe from the bad things that wanted to use her gift.

But the Darkhold, sitting on the table in Wanda's cabin, whispered something dark.

"If you take America's gift for yourself," the book murmured, "you can travel to your children."

Doctor Strange saw the look in Wanda's eyes. He recognized that look. It was the look of a person being eaten by a book. He stepped back and held up his hands.

"Wanda," he said. "Please. The Darkhold always has a price. And the price is always too high."

But Wanda had been listening to grief for so long that she could not quite hear anything else.

What happened next was the longest chase in the history of the multiverse.

Doctor Strange and America Chavez ran. Whoosh. America kicked open a star-shaped portal and they tumbled into a universe made of green glass, where the buildings were grown out of leaves and the people wore robes the color of moss. Whoosh. They ran through a black-and-white universe where the sky was made of paint instead of clouds. Whoosh. They ran through a tiny pocket universe that was just one apple, with one tiny city built inside the apple's core.

Wanda chased them. Her red magic shone through every universe like a torch. Doctor Strange tried everything he could think of. He cast every spell he had learned at Kamar-Taj. He called on the Book of the Vishanti, the dustiest, oldest, kindest book of magic in any universe. He used illusions. He used time. He used mirror dimensions. Nothing was strong enough to stop the Scarlet Witch when the Darkhold was whispering in her ear.

Finally, Wanda did it. She used America's gift. She found another universe — a quiet, ordinary one. And inside that ordinary universe, inside an ordinary house with white walls and a yellow kitchen, she found another Wanda Maximoff who had never lost her babies. And there, playing on the sofa, were Billy and Tommy.

Wanda's Billy and Tommy. Sort of. Another universe's Billy and Tommy.

She walked toward them very slowly. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes were full of light.

"It's okay," she whispered to them. "It's Mama. I'm here. I came back."

The two boys looked up at her.

And they did not know her.

They saw a stranger with red magic glowing in her eyes. They saw a woman who was not their real mother. They got scared. They reached for the other-universe Wanda. They cried. They begged that other Wanda, "Mom! Tell her to stop! We don't know her!"

And in that one heartbeat, listen carefully — in that one heartbeat — the REAL Wanda Maximoff, the one buried underneath all the Darkhold's whispers, woke up.

She heard the sound of her own little boys being frightened of her.

It cracked her heart open. It was the worst feeling she had ever felt in her life. And it was, somehow, the most important.

She set the boys down very gently. She knelt in front of them. She whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm not who you thought I was. I'm not your mama. Your real mama is right here. I'll go." She kissed each of their foreheads, one at a time. And she walked away from them — for the second time in her life. Because real children mattered more than even the most beautiful dream.

Then Wanda Maximoff did the bravest thing she had ever done.

She lifted her hands. Red light filled every universe at once. And she pulled. She pulled at every single copy of the Darkhold in every single universe. The book in her cabin in the mountains. The book sitting in another Wanda's library. The book hidden in dusty old houses across a thousand other Earths. Every copy of the Darkhold answered her at once. Every copy rose up. Every copy crashed down on top of itself. Crack. Shatter. Dust.

And every single one of them was gone.

No other grieving person, in any universe, would ever again find the Darkhold's whispers in their candlelight. No other mother would ever read those promises and start to believe them. The worst book in the multiverse was gone, because the most powerful witch in the multiverse had decided to destroy it.

And then Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, the woman who had loved a brother and a man with a plum-colored face and two impossible little boys, slowly closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she was just Wanda. Just a tired, brave, kind-hearted woman with red light still glowing very softly around her fingers.

And the multiverse — the whole, enormous, branching multiverse — was a little bit safer that night. Because of her.