Worlds Apart

by James Riley

  Stop lying! Where were these words even coming from? This was not how she thought of herself. Being afraid of her nonfictional self? The idea was insane!

  “Ah,” the Magister said, and turned around. “Unfortunately, even if my apprentice’s idea were to work, you’d still lose. Nobody is far too powerful. Indeed, I believe the only chance to save myself might be to flee, though I know not where.”

  Don’t say another word, Bethany told herself, struggling as hard as she could against whatever spell held her, but it was no use. She frantically tried to think of something she could morph into, but her head flooded with images, just like Fowen had said, from airplanes to toy trucks to dust to skeletons to doorknobs to picture frames to Jet Skis to sheet music, and a million other things.

  “Does . . . Kiel know what I did?” the Magister asked, his voice sadder now. “I would spare him that knowledge, if it’s not too late. I care for the boy and would not wish him to think of me that way.”

  “He knows,” Bethany said immediately. “Now please stop asking me questions, I’m trying to think.”

  Argh! This truth thing was way too revealing!

  The Magister turned and gave her an odd look, and she silently cursed the truth spell. There was no other choice now: She’d have to rewrite herself before she came out and admitted she was thinking of ways to escape.

  Holding her breath, she quickly rewrote herself to be free of the Magister’s paralyzing spell. As soon as she did, the mystical powers loosened their hold, and she slumped just a bit. Catching herself, she stayed as still as possible, so as not to alert the Magister she was free. This way, she at least had a second chance at surprising him.

  “Thinking about what?” the Magister asked. “If you have any idea of how we should go forward, I’m willing to entertain it.”

  “I do have one, and I think it’s good,” Bethany said. “My idea is, I’m going to attack you again, because I rewrote myself out of your spell.” Immediately she clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late, and she screamed into her palm in frustration. The stupid truth spell—she’d forgotten to rewrite herself out of that, too!

  As the Magister stared at her in surprise, she shot her arm out like a rocket, straight at his face, and rammed her fist into his chin.

  The force of the hit sent the old man to the floor in a daze. Ideas of what she could morph into began exploding in her head, but she immediately shut them down. Instead, she went with a much more nonfictional approach: She leaped on the Magister, then punched him in the face. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell unconscious.

  Sometimes doing things the nonfictional way really could be satisfying.

  She took a deep breath, then slowly stood up, looking around for something to tie him up with, maybe even gag him so he couldn’t use his magic. Maybe she could find his spell book too, and not even need him. She’d found the location spell easily enough the last time. How hard could a Don’t Dissolve When Rewriting Yourself spell be to cast?

  As she turned around, she found a horrified Kiel Gnomenfoot standing in the doorway.

  “You knocked me out?” he said, almost in a daze as he surveyed the room. “Fowen woke me up using magic. Bethany . . . why would you do that?”

  Bethany winced. But before she could say anything, the door to the Magister’s office exploded open, slamming Kiel against the overturned bookcases. From the other side, a bunch of men and women in strange, reflective black helmets stormed in, all holding what looked like Science Police laser rifles.

  “See, here’s the thing,” said a voice from outside, a moment before Fowen came flying in the door as well, landing hard on the floor. “I swear I thought I just left you in the nonfictional world, like, five years in the future. Am I going crazy?”

  And then a man wearing a white lab coat and huge goggles stepped inside the Magister’s office, someone Bethany hadn’t seen since she’d first met Kiel.

  “This place looks familiar,” Dr. Verity said, holding a nasty-looking ray gun. “I haven’t been here since I tried to kill the Magister the first time, back when Kiel found the sixth key. Why don’t we see if this second try goes a bit better than the first one did?”

  CHAPTER 29

  Bethany!” Owen shouted in relief as his nonfictional friend appeared in the doorway of the portal room in Jonathan Porterhouse’s version of the Magister’s tower. It’d taken a lot of convincing to bring her here, and he half believed she still wouldn’t come.

  “Owen? Charm?! ” Bethany stopped short as she noticed the half-robotic girl standing before a large glowing mirror. “What is going on here?”

  Owen blushed as Charm hugged Bethany. “Glad to see you turned back from a beam of light,” the half-robot girl said. “I was planning on helping with that, but my planet ended up getting destroyed before I could really focus on that part.”

  “Thanks,” Bethany said. “And it’s good to see you, Charm. But how did you get here? Owen, what happened to that other girl? And what is that thing doing?” She pointed at the portal behind them, the mirrorlike surface whirling with some kind of weird, magical energy.

  “How about I just leave you to it, then?” Jonathan Porterhouse said, looking like he was about to vomit. Owen nodded, and the author quickly pushed past Bethany to sprint out the door of the tower. They all waited a moment until they heard the door to the mansion slam shut, then Bethany whirled on Owen. He thought she’d be mad, but instead, she almost looked like she was pleading with him.

  “Owen, we’re going to be in so much trouble,” she said, grabbing his shoulders, her eyes wide. “Look at this. We’re breaking every single rule ever, and it’s all going to get worse. Is Kara okay? Did you at least send her back to wherever she came from?”

  “Dr. Verity has her,” Owen said quietly.

  “DR. VERITY?!” Bethany took a step back in shock, then grabbed her forehead like she had a headache. “This is so bad. So bad!” She glanced at Charm. “And now you’ve pulled Charm into this too? Owen, we said we weren’t getting involved in this stuff anymore. It always leads to bad things!”

  Charm’s eyes narrowed, but Owen didn’t wait for her to start in. “Bethany, Dr. Verity was already here, in our world. In the future. Well, and in the recent past now too, I think. And maybe the present?” With his imagination barely intact, he had a hard time following his own logic, and Bethany didn’t seem to be having it any easier. “It’s a little confusing, but that’s not important right now. We’re not entirely sure where he went, but Charm thinks he used this portal just a few minutes before we got here, based on the fact it was already up and running, and—”

  “Owen, listen to yourself!” Bethany said, giving Owen an amazed look. “We left this all behind to be normal, to not have to worry about this kind of thing. The fictional world doesn’t need two ordinary people to save it. It has all the heroes it could ever need, and we couldn’t do anything anyway!” She took his hand and looked at him earnestly. “But it’s not too late. Whatever’s going on, we can just leave it all behind, and go back home. We’ll tell our moms what happened, and they’ll punish us, probably, but that’s okay, and we’ll get back to our regular lives—”

  “Everything won’t be okay,” Owen interrupted. “Things are bad in the future, Bethany. I’ve seen it. It all happens because we’re missing our imaginations, and some Kiel Gnomenfoot books turn into . . .” He trailed off as a memory of a man in a suit flashed into his head, back before Kara showed up. The man had given them a box of Kiel Gnomenfoot books and seemed to know who they were, but they hadn’t recognized him. The man said he came from Jonathan Porterhouse, too. Was he involved with all of this? And if so, who was he?

  “I don’t even understand what you’re saying,” Bethany told him, shaking her head as she derailed his train of thought.

  “That’s because you don’t have your imagination anymore,” Owen told her. “I got mine back just by touching someone or something fictional. It should work with you,
too, and you’ll realize that we need to save both worlds! Did you feel anything when you hugged Charm?”

  Bethany just stared at him. “You mean like happiness to see my friend?”

  “Not exactly.” Owen turned to Charm. “Um, would you mind touching her again, just for a moment?”

  Charm groaned loudly at him, but placed her hand on Bethany’s shoulder. Both girls turned to stare at Owen.

  “I don’t feel any different,” Bethany said.

  Owen frowned. “That’s weird. It works instantly with me. Maybe Charm is less fictional than Kara?”

  “I don’t know if that’s insulting, but I’m taking it that way,” Charm said to him in a threatening voice.

  “Here, touch my shoulder,” Owen said to her. “Let’s do a test.”

  “If I do, you’re going to lose it.”

  “Maybe my fictional self got all of my imagination,” Bethany said. “But that doesn’t make any difference. I’m still able to think logically, and common sense tells me we shouldn’t get in the way of people who actually can fix things, not when we’re just two regular kids!”

  Charm groaned loudly. “I don’t care who comes, but we don’t have time for this. Bethany, listen. I made a machine to help me fight Nobody, so I could rescue you and the boy I thought was Kiel but turned out to be a liar.”

  Bethany’s eyebrows shot up at that, but she didn’t interrupt Charm. “But Nobody found out about my invention, and used it to basically destroy Quanterium. I had to rescue my people, so I teleported them all into my ship, then took their stored information with me to the Magister and asked for his help.” Her hands clenched into fists as she spoke. “He then did what the Magister always does to Quanterians: made our lives much worse. He turned all of us into books and sent us here.”

  “That happened already, Bethany,” Owen told her. “The Quanterians are here, as we speak, in book form. At some time in our future, that book spell will wear off, leaving our world to believe there’s been an invasion from the fictional world. Things get dark a few years from now. Trust me, we have to do something. There’s no way you’d let that happen if you just saw it for yourself!”

  Bethany seemed to struggle with this for a moment, but her shoulders drooped, and she shook her head. “I’m not sure I understand everything, but even so, I really don’t imagine things could change that much, Owen. Look around—life is so normal here! Do you really think Quanterians are just hiding in books?”

  “They’re trapped in them. And later Dr. Verity brainwashes them to use them to invade Magisteria!” Owen said.

  Bethany rubbed her forehead again. “Ugh, this is so complicated it gives me a headache,” she said. “But I give up. Charm, what do you need to do to get back to your world?”

  Charm pointed at the portal, still whirling with magical energy. “It’s already set. Supposedly magic doesn’t last very long in this world, which is why the portal wasn’t working in the future, but whatever. Right now, this is set to take us to the Magister’s tower on Magisteria.” She glanced around. “I really don’t want to know why there’s a tower here, too, do I?”

  “Kiel knows, he can tell you,” Bethany said, looking at her sadly. “Anyway, I think it’d be best if you go home and leave us out of this. Please tell Kiel that I miss him, will you?” She patted Charm on the shoulder while the half-robotic girl stared at her oddly.

  “Bethany, we have to go too,” Owen said, grabbing Bethany’s arm.

  She just looked at him with that strange, sad gaze. “Charm, would you mind going through first? I have to talk to Owen for a minute.”

  Charm rolled her eyes, and with one half glance at Owen, stepped through the portal.

  “Bethany, we have to go,” Owen repeated, but she didn’t seem to be paying attention to him. Instead, she moved around the dusty room like she was searching for something. She picked up a sheet covering something large and dusty, only for whatever it was to rumble threateningly, causing her to drop the covering immediately.

  “Keep talking,” she said to him. “I just need to find something real quick.”

  “Dr. Verity has Kara, Bethany,” Owen said, following her around on her search. “We need to rescue her, among other things. She came here to help me. I can’t just leave her in danger!”

  “Charm will save her,” Bethany said. She picked up an elaborate candelabra and hefted it, then frowned and set it back down. “That’s what she does. She’s a hero.”

  “She probably will, but I’m going anyway,” he said. “You need to come too! This involves you as much as it does me. Things are going crazy in our future and over there, and it sounds like it’s all because Nobody separated the worlds. We can fix this. We can reunite you with your other half!”

  “Hmm,” Bethany said, and tried to pull down a sconce holding a burnt-out torch on the wall. It didn’t give way, and she growled in frustration.

  “What are you looking for?” Owen finally asked.

  “Aha!” she said, and grabbed a long, heavy-looking gold hammer from behind some boxes. “I hope this isn’t magical.”

  “I’d say it one hundred percent is,” Owen told her as she approached the portal. “What are you doing with that?”

  “What do you think?” she said, hefting it and taking a practice swing.

  His eyes widened, and he moved to grab for her, but she turned the hammer toward him, and he backed away. “You can’t do this, Bethany!”

  “You’ve lost your mind, Owen!” she shouted, swinging the hammer between them. “Think about it! If you go over there, you might get hurt, or even killed. You just talked about Dr. Verity’s army. You’re not a magician or half-robotic, you’re just a normal kid. So am I! If I let you go over there, I wouldn’t be your friend. I’m doing this because you’re confused about what matters, and I’m not going to let you get yourself killed, running off on another adventure, especially after what Nobody did to you last time!”

  Owen put his hands up in surrender, but slowly moved closer to the portal. “Bethany, think about what you’re saying. The fictionals are already here. They’re trapped in books right now, as we speak! Things are going to be just as dangerous here as they are there, soon enough.”

  “Unless your imagination ran away with you,” she said, thrusting the hammer headfirst at him, pushing him backward. “I’m not letting you get hurt. I might have had to leave my dad behind, and not be able to see my fictional friends anymore, but I’m not going to let you just run off into danger, not when I can stop it!”

  “Please, Bethany! They need me over there!”

  “No, they don’t, Owen!” she shouted. “You’re not a hero. You’re my best friend, but you’re just a nonfictional kid. They don’t need either of us!”

  “I can’t let you do this,” Owen said, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking as he said it.

  “You don’t have a choice,” she said, and pulled the hammer back.

  As she swung it forward, Owen jumped for it, knocking her off-balance. She shouted in surprise as the hammer went slipping from her fingers and plowed into the mirror frame with a large cracking noise.

  “Bethany, what did you do?” Owen whispered as glass began to fall out of the portal, breaking into shards as it hit the ground.

  “The right thing, I hope,” Bethany said, looking at him sadly.

  CHAPTER 30

  Oh, look, someone’s already been playing with the Magister,” Dr. Verity said, striding past Bethany as the black-helmeted guards surrounded her, their lasers all aimed at her chest. The mad scientist stopped right next to the unconscious Magister, kneeled down, lifted his head, then let it drop back to the floor. He frowned. “Not exactly sporting this way,” he said, then shrugged. “Not that I’ll let it stop me. Good-bye, you doddering old wretch!” He raised his ray gun at the Magister.

  “No!” Kiel shouted, leaping up from the floor to plow into two of the black helmets. All three ended up back on the ground, and Kiel wrenched one of their lasers away, knoc
ked the butt of it into both of their helmets, then aimed it at Dr. Verity, slowly rising to his feet.

  “Hold on a minute,” the doctor said, standing up too. He waved his ray gun at Fowen. “I thought that one was Kiel Gnomenfoot. How are there two of you now? If you tell me you cloned yourself, I’m going to be extremely upset. That’s my genetics too, you ungrateful little—”

  “How are you alive?” Kiel shouted as more black helmets came pouring in the door. “I left you in the Source of Magic with your own bomb about to explode!”

  “I already went through the whole story with that Kiel,” Dr. Verity said, nodding at Fowen. “Though if I’m being honest, I do prefer the classic look. It just feels right, you know? Like old times.”

  “What do you want?” Kiel said, his laser not wavering as black helmets surrounded him.

  “Kiel, my boy, what do I always want?” Dr. Verity said, looking frustrated. “How many times have we covered this? I want to wipe every Magisterian from existence. And now I’ve got an army of brainwashed Quanterians to help me.” He gave Kiel an apologetic look. “Honestly, I thought you weren’t even here, so your death would have to wait until later. But look at you, obliging me by showing up anyway! And killing two of you will hopefully be twice as nice.”

  “Drop the weapon,” one of the black helmets said to Kiel in its strange monotone voice. Bethany sidled along the wall, moving slowly so no one would notice her, getting ready to attack when the moment was right. But could these soldiers really be the missing Quanterians? How had Dr. Verity brainwashed his own people?

  And if they were just innocents, how much would she have to pull her punches?

  “Kiel, you might want to do what he says,” Dr. Verity said. “There do seem to be more of them than you.”

  “Maybe, but I bet I can still laser you before they can stop me,” Kiel said. “Want to test that?”

  Dr. Verity laughed, an evil, cackling sort of thing. “Oh, I’ve missed you, Kiel, I really have. That other Kiel wasn’t nearly so much fun. This you is so grown-up, and acting all tough!” He sighed deeply. “Remember when we first started all of this, and you could barely even cast a spell, let alone stop a war between two worlds? You didn’t even know you were my clone back then!” He shook his head, still chuckling. “Memories, am I right?”