by Pam Stucky
“Where are we?” Eve asked her mother as she pulled on a pair of dark green pants. “And how did you get here? And what were those creatures that brought us here? And what was that room they pushed us into, and how did they get the water out? And where are we now? How long have you been here? Why didn’t you come home?”
“Shhh,” said Kata, laughing and stroking her daughter’s hair. “One question at a time!”
“And I know you’re eager, Eve,” said Emma, wrapping the extra sleeves around her neck in the same way Kata had done with hers, “but the others will want to hear it all too. Let’s wait until we’re back with the boys so your mom doesn’t have to answer everything twice.” She extended her hand to Kata. “I’m Emma, by the way. I’m from Earth. It’s nice to meet you.”
Kata beamed a bright smile. “Nice to meet you, Emma from Earth. I’m Kata from Lero, but I’m guessing you know that.” She glanced at Eve. “Yes, you two finish up here. Put your wet clothes on the tiles in the hall and we can deal with them later. I’ll go make something hot to drink. Come on out when you’re ready.” She left the room. Emma opened what she thought was the closet. She wanted to explore more, but knew now was not the time. Looking on the floor, she found what she’d been seeking: footwear, including thick, soft slip-on shoes that would keep their feet warm. She slid her feet into a pair and brought an extra pair to Eve, then the two followed the sounds of the others back out into the main part of the house.
The boys had found clothes and changed quickly, made their introductions to Kata, and were already waiting for the girls, mugs of some sort of tea warming their hands. They were sitting in what appeared to be a living room, with couches and chairs, end tables and knick-knacks. What especially drew Emma’s attention was a bookshelf, chock full of books.
“Oh!” she gasped, pulling one book off the shelf. The cover was soft, smooth, almost silky in her hands. She opened the book reverently. Books contained worlds, she knew. She couldn’t even imagine what might be inside these. The pages of the book she held were made up of something quite paper-like, delicate and beautiful and covered in ink. “What!” she said, gasping again. “I can read this! Is this in English?”
Kata laughed and held up her arm. There, around her wrist, was a bracelet just like the ones Emma and the others all wore, complete with the stones that allowed them to breathe, to disguise themselves, to be understood when speaking to aliens, and to read. “It’s not English,” said Kata. “But I am glad to see Dr. Waldo equipped you with bracelets!”
“Emma, come over here,” Charlie said impatiently, patting the seat beside him. “We’ve been waiting for you guys so Kata can tell us what the heck is going on.” He noticed how Emma had wrapped her shirt’s extra sleeves around her neck, and followed suit.
“You haven’t been waiting that long,” Emma huffed. She sat next to her brother on the couch, bringing the book with her, cradling it like it was priceless. “Does this couch seem a little high?” she asked, noting that her feet were almost, but not quite, dangling above the floor.
“I think you’re right,” said Kata. “I haven’t seen anyone else since I’ve been here, but everything seems to be made for beings slightly taller than we are.”
“So where are we?” asked Emma, settling into the cozy couch. She had no idea what time it was or how long it was since they’d slept the night before, but she suspected nothing but adrenaline was keeping her awake at this point. “What is this place? And how did you get here?”
“You were gone so long!” Eve said, unable to contain herself any more. “Why were you go gone so long?” She was seated on a wide chair with her mother, head resting on her mother’s shoulder, her arm wrapped around Kata’s arm, holding her hand tight as if she’d never let go.
Kata gently kissed Eve’s forehead. “I wasn’t, though. That’s what happens when you start thinking you can control time. Time lets you know who’s boss.” She sighed. “Where to begin. So much has happened. Well, you know, I had a lot of thinking to do.” Eve nodded slightly, knowing her mother was talking about her relationship with her father. “I was out for a bike ride on Lero one day, just thinking, and I had my Universe Key on my necklace.” She pulled out her necklace, with its wishing rock secured tightly to its end: a small gray rock with a band of white around the center. Some of these wishing rocks, which could be found all over Earth and Lero and probably many other planets, were more than just rocks; they were keys that could unlock the entrance to the elevators they used to travel; keys, in essence, to the universes.
“Out of nowhere, I was riding along, and the key started to vibrate,” Kata continued. “You know how it does that?”
They all nodded.
Kata went on. “It started vibrating, so I knew I was near an elevator. One that I hadn’t discovered before; that no one had, as far as I knew. Of course, I had to find it.” She looked at Eve. “Can’t help it; I’m curious. You get that from both your dad and me. So I searched around until I found the elevator, and took it for a ride. It took me to a lighthouse out in the east of Australia. And you know,” she said to Eve, “I’ve always wanted to spend more time in that country. It’s one of the oldest places on Earth. Australia’s rocks contain an infinity of stories.”
“Dr. Waldo told me you liked Australia, but I didn’t know,” said Eve, her mouth in a pout.
Kata looked chagrined. She held Eve’s hands in both of hers. “Well, Dr. Waldo was right. So I started wandering around. After a while I realized I was seeing dark galaxy stones in stores everywhere. Just everywhere! I had the one your dad found long ago … I always carry it with me. He never knew, but back when we … when things started to go bad, I went into the storage unit and, uh, borrowed it. It reminded me of better times. The times I wanted to get back.”
Eve wriggled in her seat next to her mother, the turmoil in her mind clear on her face. Finally finding her mother after more than a year of searching was more than enough to deal with, let alone trying to sort out her parents’ relationship problems.
Sensing Eve’s discomfort, Kata moved on. “Anyway, I learned that the dark galaxy stones are mostly mined out at Lightning Ridge, so I hopped on a bus and headed out there.”
“How do you pay for the bus?” asked Chuck, ever curious. “Did you just happen to have Earth money?”
“Chuck!” said Emma. “Seriously?”
“Well, the company I work with, which does interuniversal research, gave me a credit card that works pretty much everywhere,” Kata explained.
“You have one, too?” Chuck said with envy. “I gotta get me one of those cards!”
Kata continued. “I wanted to have some time to think, and like I said, I’d always wanted to go back to Australia. I thought the universes were telling me something by randomly sending me there. Not so randomly, maybe. So, I got to Lightning Ridge, and I was just wandering around town, going in and out of shops. One shop I wandered into was what Earth people call ‘new age’—healing stones, incenses, soft music on pan flutes, that sort of thing. The woman at the counter took one look at me and knew I was lost. Not physically—I knew where I was—but emotionally. She just knew. She showed me some magnetic bracelets and told me about their healing power. She gave me one, saying she could tell I needed it. And then she directed me to the labyrinth, telling me to walk its path and meditate; that it would be good for my soul.”
“We met her,” said Eve. “Sophie. She’s the one who gave us the note you left.”
“Of course,” said Kata. “Of course, that’s right. We talked a lot, Sophie and I. She’s sweet. Well, she told me about the labyrinth and said I should go out there. I’m assuming you found that, too?”
They all nodded.
“I went out to the labyrinth, wearing the magnetic bracelet. As always, I had the dark galaxy stone in my pocket. As I walked the labyrinth, I took the stone out of my pocket to help me meditate on what I wanted, on the good times, on our family. At first, I carried it in my right hand, and the ma
gnets were around my left wrist. But before I reached into my right pocket again to get out a handkerchief—it was quite warm—I passed the dark galaxy stone to my left hand, just as I reached the center of the circle. And that’s when it happened. Through whatever combinations of forces and time and energies and serendipity and fate, the universes all opened up before me. You saw it, too.”
“It was amazing,” said Ben. “Just incredible.”
“I had no idea what I was doing,” said Kata. “I jumped in, stupidly. I know better than that. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. I thought it was all meant to be. I jumped into one of the first universes I saw, and I ended up getting caught in a vortex of time and space. I think …” she looked around at the teens, hanging on her every word. “Well, to be honest, I think it might have been a dead universe.”
“A dead universe!” said Emma. She remembered all too well her experience on a dry, desolated planet, where she’d confronted Vik about The Void. That planet had not, she thought, been dead, but it wasn’t far off. “What is a dead universe? How did you know?”
“I can’t say anything more than that,” said Kata. “Not because I don’t want to; I just don’t know. Something in me, when I was there, something told me, ‘This is a dead universe.’ I don’t know if I was right. I jumped back out immediately—I’m still not even sure how I did that—but in the moments it took to jump into and out of the dead universe, months had passed on Earth.” She looked at Eve. “I wouldn’t have known that except that the weather was different when I returned, and the time of day. I didn’t find out until later how long I’d been gone. Before leaving the labyrinth, though, I opened up the universes again—put the dark galaxy stone and the magnets together—and watched the planets unfold in front of my face. I saw this world here, a world under water, and I wanted to explore. But I didn’t want to leave again without telling you. I raced home, but you guys were gone.”
“We were out looking for Vik,” Eve murmured, calculating the timeline in her head.
“That’s when I left the notes,” said Kata. “You must have found them? The ones that told you about the dark galaxy and the magnet and the water?”
“We did find them, but why did you have to be so cryptic?” asked Eve. “We almost didn’t figure it out. We might never have found you if it weren’t for Ben.”
Kata scratched at her knee. “You can never be too careful in my line of work,” she said. “You know that, Eve. You don’t always know who’s on your side.” She lay her head down on top of her daughter’s. “I’m sorry.”
Eve let out a deep sigh. “I know, I know.”
“Anyway,” said Kata, resuming her story, “after leaving the notes, I went back to Lightning Ridge and left a note with Sophie, and then I went out to the labyrinth. I jumped into the water world and ended up here, just two days ago, if I’m measuring time right. The underwater creatures brought me here the same way I assume they brought you.”
“Two days?” said Charlie. “That’s not possible! You left Lightning Ridge weeks ago, according to that Sophie woman.”
Kata shrugged. She was familiar with the ways of the universes, and no longer tried to fight them. “This universe, or at least this planet, must not be on the same timeline as Earth. You get used to it.”
Emma’s forehead furrowed as she contemplated this new information. If Kata had been there for only two days, but in that time weeks had passed back on Earth, then had they themselves already been gone for a week? She shook her head. The more she thought about it, the more confusing it became.
“Okay, so we have no idea how long any of us has been gone, that’s established. Do we at least know where we are?” asked Ben. “We were under water, but now we’re not anymore, right? How did that happen?”
Kata laughed. “Oh, you’re still under water,” she said. She unwound herself from Eve, got up, and crossed to a large wall of curtains opposite the couches. Kata pushed a button on the wall, and with a mechanical whirr, the curtains parted. Behind them were two giant window panels framing another section of wall. The enormous center section was about the height and width of both windows put together, and resembled the section of wall opposite the bed that Emma had noticed in the bedroom earlier. Another glass-covered panel was embedded into the wall next to the button Kata had pushed.
“I don’t get it,” said Ben, looking out the windows into utter darkness. “Are you showing us that it’s night?”
“No, not night, said Kata. She tapped the panel, and lights on the other side of the wall illuminated the space outside the windows.
“Oh my gosh!” said Emma, jumping up. “We are still under water!” The field of outside lights filtered through the water to reveal fish of all kinds and sizes swimming by. Looking down, Emma could see that the building they were in did not rest on the ocean floor. Water distorted perception, she knew, but from her best guess they were still several stories above the sandy coral-covered bed below. The fish themselves ranged from those that looked quite Earth-like to creatures Emma never imagined possible. As she gazed out in wonder, a school of luminescent fish swam by, their bodies aglow in a bright green-blue.
“What are they?” said Eve, who, along with the others, had joined Emma at the window.
“No idea,” said Kata. “Your guess is as good as mine. Since those octopus creatures—they remind me of octopuses on your Earth—since they left me in the box, I haven’t seen another being up close. And I definitely haven’t talked to anyone.” She pushed another button on the glass panel by the window. “But I have been fiddling with all the gadgets. Watch this.”
In the blink of an eye, the middle panel seemed to change from wall to window.
Ben studied the windows on either side of the panel, and the panel in the middle. “Is that … that’s not a window is it?” he said. “The scenery is different. It’s not a continuation of the windows on either side.”
Emma looked more closely, comparing the scene in the panel to the scenes outside the windows. “You’re right. It’s not. It’s something else?” Her words were a question to Kata.
Smiling, Kata nodded. “As far as I can tell, it’s a projection from elsewhere in the sea, or ocean, or lake, or wherever we are.” She pointed at a section of the image somewhat to the right of the center. “See this here? If you look closely, I think that’s a collection of buildings. Not as sophisticated as what we might be used to when we think of buildings, but they definitely have structure. It’s not just random rocks. It was planned. I’ve been watching, and I think those might be homes.”
Emma nodded slowly, remembering that she, too, had thought she’d seen structures that were more than just caves on the ocean floor.
“Homes,” said Chuck, pressing his nose up close to the screen for a closer look. “Homes for whom?”
“Or what?” asked Charlie.
“Homes,” said Kata, “for those octopus creatures. There’s not enough light to tell for sure, but I think that’s where they live.”
“Are you sure they’re not just caves?” asked Emma. “Do octopuses live in caves?”
“First of all,” said Kata, “they’re not actually octopuses, as I know you know. We’re just calling them that because that’s the closest thing we can think of. That’s our frame of reference. But they worked together and communicated together differently, and they have nine arms, not eight.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Emma, recalling how she’d counted their tentacles earlier as they’d tumbled along in the net. “But did they make this building we’re in? How could they? I mean, not to be rude, but it seems rather … sophisticated.”
“I don’t think so,” said Kata, “but I don’t know. I’m really hoping someone will come along at some point and tell us something, because I can’t find a way out.” She put her hands on her hips and stared out the windows, thinking.
Charlie looked around the room for inspiration, seeing nothing. He cupped an elbow in one hand, holding his chin with the other h
and. His gaze rested on the blue tiles that led down the hallways. “The box?” he suggested. “The way we came in?”
“Code-protected,” said Kata, pulling herself back from her far-away thoughts. “We can get into it but not out the other side. I tried everything. And there’s another door, the one door I can’t go through, that’s also code-protected. I’m guessing it goes out, too.”
“Out where?” asked Eve. “Into more water?” The idea of getting out was appealing; the idea of being stuck under water again was not.
“Good question,” said Kata. “What’s interesting is that both mornings—or rather, both times I woke up from sleeping, which I guess I may as well call morning—there’s been fresh food in the kitchen. It wasn’t there when I got here. I snooped around the whole place, and I’m sure it wasn’t here before. And I’m definitely sure it was fresh the second day.”
“So someone’s coming in to feed you, but they’re not talking to you?” said Charlie.
“It would seem so,” said Kata.
“That’s sort of creepy,” said Emma, shuddering. If someone was bringing food when Kata was sleeping, that meant someone was watching, from somewhere, to see when Kata slept.
“Not the creepiest thing I’ve ever encountered,” laughed Kata. “I tried to stay awake last night to catch the person,” she continued, “but I couldn’t help myself. Fell asleep. Woke up, and there was food again.”
“So someone is watching you,” said Eve, echoing Emma’s thoughts.
“Watching all of us, now, probably,” said Kata.
“What I don’t understand,” said Ben, “is how those octopuses knew we weren’t from here?” He pointed to the bracelet on his wrist. “Isn’t this supposed to make other beings think we’re like them? Isn’t it supposed to disguise us somehow?” He plopped himself back on the couch.
Kata followed, finding a cushiony chair for herself. “I don’t understand that either. My best guess is that it has to do with the water. Their eyesight might be better, or maybe they see differently. I don’t know.”