But then I froze as a figure passed the open door—Penny, the past version of her, wearing a bathrobe with her hair up in a towel. “Mom!” she called. “Where are all my shirts?”
“Probably still in the laundry waiting for you to put them away,” I heard Mom reply.
I edged toward the door and peered out. There was Mom in the kitchen. In one hand she held a spoon poised over the steaming wok. With the other, she was swiping her finger across a tablet screen, probably going over the latest mission results. Especially in those last months before we left, it seemed like she’d been basically working all the time. We had a rotation of making dinners and doing other household chores, but I remembered that she had wanted to cook tonight because it was some recipe that she and Dad had learned while on their honeymoon.
There was Penny, returning from the utility room, the laundry cart humming along behind her.
“I see you found them,” said Mom.
Penny rolled her eyes. “We can go to another star system, but we can’t invent a way to fold laundry.”
Mom grinned. “I’m sure we could, but it builds character.”
“If your character is into suffering and toil.”
“That sounds like high literature.”
“Whatever. Hey!” Penny shouted. “Will!”
I actually opened my mouth before I remembered that she wasn’t talking to me, and instead I leaned away from the door.
“Yeah?!” My past self appeared, recorder out in front of him. It was so weird to see myself. And that version of me had no idea that this me was standing right here!
“Get your robotics junk off the couch so I can fold the laundry.”
“Can’t you just work on the floor?” the old me asked.
“Nope.”
“Ugh, come on!” The old me rolled his eyes and sighed—jeez, I looked kind of melodramatic—but then he started clearing stuff.
“What’s Dad’s ETA?” Penny asked as she dropped to the couch.
“Flight should finally be touching down in a half hour, then he just has the usual gridlock to contend with.”
“Is Judy deigning to join us?” Penny asked.
“Yes,” said Mom, “she has finals this week, but she said she’d be here.”
I watched my former self finish moving my gear and then pick up my recorder. “And here we have Mom making dinner,” the old me said, aiming the camera as he walked into the kitchen.
The safety line tugged again. In the cave, the girls were waving at me to come back. I raised my hands like, Why? but they motioned more emphatically.
I glanced back toward the living room and had to fight the urge to just step out there and be like, Hey! It’s me! From the future! I wanted to be part of this night again so badly. And then another thought crossed my mind: I could warn them! About the Resolute attack, the crash… but I reminded myself about the dangers of changing the past, and instead turned back to the doorway.
I was crossing my room when Captain Quasar caught my eye. I reached over and grabbed him, which made Judy freak out and wave her hands like, No, but she didn’t know how upset I’d been that I’d lost this thing. And given that I was going to lose it anyway, I figured that taking it right now wouldn’t matter.
I moved to the doorway, gritted my teeth, and stepped through. Another buzzing, and a white flash, and then I was back in the cool and dark of the cave. I shivered and all at once it hit me that I was literally a world away from home. I looked over my shoulder, thinking, I want to go back, but the doorway had returned to its neutral view of stars.
“Are you all right?” Judy took my wrist and felt my pulse.
“Yeah, fine.”
“Then what were you thinking, taking that thing?” She pointed to the action figure. “Didn’t you hear what I said about altering the past?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay! I lost this before we moved, so it won’t change anything. Also, I wanted to see if I could really transport something through the door. This proves that it’s not just a hallucination or something.”
“Well… that is technically a good point,” Judy admitted.
“Thank you.” I held up the little figure for the Robot to see. “Cool, huh?”
“What was it like?” said Penny, her eyes wide. “Bigger on the inside?”
“You mean my room?”
Penny rolled her eyes. “Never mind. How was it really? You know, being back there?”
“Super weird,” I said, “but also normal. You were there, doing laundry, and Mom was making dinner.”
“Teriyaki soba?” said Penny, inhaling. “Some of that came back through with you.” Then her nose wrinkled. “Ooh, and also some of the lair of stinky feet!”
“Shut up! My room didn’t smell like that.”
“You just didn’t notice,” said Judy. She was studying the side of my face.
“What?”
“Your burn looks the same. Pulse is in the normal range.… And you feel okay?”
“Yeah, a little light-headed, maybe, kind of like how I used to feel after doing the zero-g simulator… but otherwise I think I’m okay.” Just as I said that, my vision prickled with spots. “Actually, I need to sit down for a sec.”
The Robot turned his head toward me as I sat on the cave floor. “It’s nothing,” I said. “And see? No danger.”
The lights in his face bloomed for a moment, almost like fireworks, and then a small light began to flicker on the metal housing to the side of his face.
“What’s that?” I asked him.
The little light kept flickering.
“Okay,” said Penny. “My turn.” She stepped up to the doorway and held her hand out for the harness.
I slipped it off my legs and handed it to her.
“Be careful, Penny,” said Judy.
“Why do you say that to me? It’s no different than him going.”
“We’ll see,” said Judy. “Where do you think it will open for you?”
“No idea.”
“Wait!” I said. “We can test that. I mean, where it opens. For me, I didn’t even know what the doorway did when I touched it, and it picked that day. It’s almost like it was trying to anticipate what I wanted, the way a search engine uses predictive text.”
“Like a virtual assistant,” said Penny, “except for time travel.”
“Right,” I said, “so what if you think of a specific place you want to go before you touch it? That way we’ll know if we can control where this thing takes us.”
Penny thought for a moment. “Got it. I want to go to dress rehearsal.”
“When was that?” asked Judy.
“It was, like, four months before we left, remember? A Midsummer Night’s Dream? I was Hermia… as a freshman? Hello? Not like you were there.”
“I had a double course load,” said Judy. “Mom said you were really good in it.”
“She was,” I said. “I remember that.” I decided not to tell her that I hadn’t understood the play at all and had maybe fallen asleep for a little bit.
“Let’s see if it works.” Penny turned to the doorway and said, “Please take me to my dress rehearsal.” She reached out to touch the surface.
The view of space swirled and moved and spiraled, and once again, we were shooting through the stars, the map lines and symbols flashing, finding the Milky Way, diving into our solar system… and then the doorway stopped on a view of the high school auditorium.
“It worked,” I said, sharing a grin with Penny.
“Won’t there be a lot of people around?” said Judy.
“Nope,” said Penny. “Dress rehearsal was on a Friday morning during school. The show opened that night. Classes weren’t invited, so there was almost nobody around. Perfect time for a magical doorway to appear.”
We were seeing the stage from the back of the auditorium, with all the rows of empty seats between here and there. “Did you think of having the door in the back so nobody would see it?” I asked.
“Sure did.”
“So we know this thing is pretty incredibly accurate.”
“Okay, I’m going.” Penny tightened the harness.
“I still feel like this is pushing our luck,” said Judy.
“What’s the point of luck if you can’t use it?” said Penny. “It’s like you guys said, once Mom and Dad see this thing, the fun will be over, and I am not missing my chance.”
“Penny, you have to remember,” said Judy, “don’t interact with yourself or change the past at all. We can’t risk it.”
“Yeah, yeah. We already know that I don’t, same as Will, because I don’t remember any weird space-traveler version of myself showing up at dress rehearsal. Besides, Will even took that little space guy and nothing changed.” She tugged on the knot at her waist. “It will be fine.” Her eyes were wide with excitement. “Be right back!”
She breathed deep and stepped through. The doorway rippled and then there she was, standing in the dark auditorium.
“I hope she’s careful,” Judy said, crossing her arms.
“Did you say that about me when I was gone?” I asked.
“I didn’t have to.”
I glanced back at the Robot and saw that his little strobe light was still flashing, and his face lights were almost completely still.
Penny moved through the shadows and slid into a seat in the back row. We could see her earlier self onstage, her arms moving as she spoke her lines with the others, but we couldn’t quite hear what she was saying.
“Well, this is boring,” said Judy.
Something caught my eye. “Someone’s coming!”
“Oh crap.” Judy tugged on the line.
Penny twisted to look back at us, and then noticed the figure coming toward her.
“If she gets caught,” said Judy, “when she’s also right there on the stage…”
Our version of Penny looked from the figure to the doorway, like she was considering jumping back through—
But then the figure stopped and faced the front of the auditorium. I could see now that it was an adult, and he held up a tablet and began moving a finger up and down on the screen.
“I think it’s the light-and-sound guy,” I said.
He fiddled with the settings a bit more and then walked away.
Penny looked at us and made a gesture like a huge sigh of relief.
Judy tugged the rope again. “She should come back. This is too dangerous.”
But Penny didn’t move right away. She kept watching the show. Judy tugged again, and this time Penny’s head whipped around with an annoyed expression. She held up her finger as if to say, One more minute, then she got up and walked out of our view to the side of the door.
“What’s she doing?” said Judy.
“Probably just taking it all in,” I said.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
If I was being honest, I did, too, not that I wanted to side with one sister over the other.
Turns out, I should have. All of a sudden the line pulled tight.
“Hey!” Judy began—
And then it fell slack in her hand. “Oh no.” Judy pulled and the line started to flop through the doorway way too easily. A moment later, an object flashed through and landed at our feet.
It was the harness. Empty.
CHAPTER
Penny!” Judy shouted, her voice echoing in the cave.
“What’s she doing?” I jumped up and tried to look through the door, but I didn’t see her anywhere.
“We have to go get her,” said Judy. She bent and grabbed the harness. “I’ll go, and you get ready to—”
“Wait!” I put a hand on her arm. “I don’t think that will work.”
“Will, we can’t—”
“No, listen! The doorway reacts to whoever touches it, right? So as soon as you try to go through, it might change locations to somewhere based on your thoughts.”
Judy paused, but she was still gripping the harness tightly.
“And if the doorway changes locations,” I continued, “Penny will be trapped where she is, and there will be no way to get it back there, because it’s not our memory.”
Judy bit her lip. Then she huffed and threw down the harness. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. Ugh, she’s so irresponsible!” Judy craned her neck to see around the edges of the doorway view. “Where the heck did she go?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Any ideas?” I asked the Robot. He just gazed at the doorway with that strange little light still flickering.
A minute passed, then three. I felt another wave of light-headedness so I sat back down, crossing my legs.
“Five minutes,” Judy reported, looking at her communicator.
Then it was ten.
“You know, ever since we left Earth, she’s at least been a little more thoughtful about other people,” Judy muttered. “Figures that the minute she gets back there, she immediately reverts to good old Penny-the-center-of-the-universe.”
“Yeah,” I said, except I thought Judy was being kind of harsh. Sure, Penny had been wrapped up in her friends and the theater program and her writing, but she’d also played video games with me and stuff. But Judy probably hadn’t seen that, because she’d been off at medical school until late every night. I wanted to say something, but I also didn’t want to make things any more uncomfortable.
Then fifteen minutes had passed. Through the door, the play went on, the old Penny moving around the stage with the other actors.
“If she went to see that boyfriend, I’ll kill her,” said Judy.
“Andras? She wouldn’t do that. I mean, that would mess up her memories and stuff like we talked about. Plus, she broke up with him before we left.”
Twenty minutes.
Judy sat down beside me, her chin in her hands.
“At least the doorway is still open to the same spot,” I said. “That might be a good sign. You know, that everything’s okay.”
“Mmm.” She checked her communicator. “Okay, we cannot just sit here waiting forever. If she’s not back after thirty minutes, I’m going to try going through that door.”
“We still have some time,” I said. I could hear that determined tone in Judy’s voice, the one that could overrule her incredibly smart brain and make her do something crazy. And I didn’t think I’d be able to talk her out of it.
Twenty-five minutes.
Judy threw up her hands. “Does she have any idea the kind of trouble she could cause? Is she even thinking of how worried we are?”
“She probably doesn’t realize how long she’s been gone,” I said.
Twenty-seven minutes—
There was a blur of movement in the doorway.
“Danger,” said the Robot. That light on the side of his face was still flickering.
“There she is!” said Judy, leaping to her feet.
Penny—our Penny—appeared, creeping back into our view. She was hunched over with her arms cradled in front of her, holding something. Her face was red, and her hair was messy. As she neared, she couldn’t contain a huge grin on her face and a wild brightness in her eyes.
“I’m glad she’s back,” Judy said with a sigh, “but I don’t like that look.”
Penny lunged through the doorway and dropped to her knees, making a wheezing sound. Behind her, the doorway swirled back to its starscape.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She looked up and we saw that she was laughing. “Oh man,” she said, “that was insane.”
“Where did you go?” Judy shouted. “What were you thinking?”
“Sorry,” she said between heavy breaths. “I was busy having a genius moment.” She spread her arms. “Behold!”
Packages of candy tumbled onto the cave floor. “Whoa, score!” I said. There were Star Chews, Sour Fizz, Green Tea Drops, and Cocoa Pandas. We hadn’t seen candy like this since we’d left. The Resolute only had two desserts: rehydrated chocolate cake that basically tasted like c
halk and a tan synthetic pudding that just tasted sweet. I didn’t think we’d ever see this stuff again. “Is this for everybody or—”
“Nah, you kidding?” said Penny proudly. “There is no way I’m sharing this with the rest of the colonists. It’s just for us! Dig in!”
I picked up the lime-green Star Chews bag, running my fingers over its smooth surface. My mouth had already started watering.
“Go ahead and tear that sucker open, Will!” said Penny.
“Wait, hold on,” said Judy. “Penny, where did you get this?”
“You know, a simple thank you, my amazing sister would be sufficient.”
Judy crossed her arms. “Where?”
Penny cocked her thumb at the doorway. “I went over to Corner Market. The place near school.”
“You did what?”
“Relax, big sister, nobody even saw me. I didn’t pass anyone I knew on the way there or back. But even if I had run into someone, they would’ve just thought that I was, you know, me. And kids always run for snacks during rehearsal.”
I thought that made sense and turned my attention back to the more important topic, which was opening the Star Chews package.
“Okay,” said Judy, “but how did you pay for this stuff?” She pointed at Penny and made a circle with her finger. “It’s not like this you has a credit account that would work on Earth anymore.”
When Penny didn’t answer right away, I looked up and, even though it was dark in the cave, it looked like her face had gotten red.
“So… slight technicality,” she admitted. “I didn’t really think about that part until I was there. To be honest, I didn’t think about even going to the market at first. I just wanted to get outside and breathe it in and look around. You know, be there. Then it occurred to me: snacks! It wasn’t until I was inside the store that I thought about the money thing, but then it didn’t matter because the counter guy stepped into the back for something, and I don’t even think he’d really seen me come in, so…” She looked away.
“Wait, did you steal this?” Judy said, her eyes bugging.
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