A truck stop.
I’d never seen a truck stop!
I’d never even seen a gas station. I hadn’t realized they smelled this way, like when Dad prepped the grill on the lawn.
And the highway looked so smooth, so black and flat, nothing like the gray, bumpy, sometimes-cracked road by our house. It wasn’t like the raised seven-lane highways on TV, either.
It was dark out. I wasn’t used to that; we always had plenty of lights on the grounds.
I squirmed my feet into the grass and looked up. I nearly expected the stars to be different, too.
“I’m not dreaming,” I whispered, so soft I doubted the others heard. I closed my eyes and let moonlight spill across my face. How far had we gone? At least two mile-and-a-halves, I bet. I tried to imagine what I might’ve missed on the way, what I might’ve seen and touched now that I could.
I’d always thought that when—if—I ever left my perimeter, it’d be slow. I’d go on foot. Toe the line, then step across. Explore the world one footstep at a time. Mom and Dad and Carolyn would be there to cheer me on, Mom squeezing me close, and Dad excitedly making trip plans. Carolyn would be chatting nonstop about all that she wanted to show me—Disney World, I knew she wanted to show me Disney World, and the Philadelphia townhouse, and Eastern State Penitentiary after she visited it on a school trip, and she was always posting photos of her and her friends at that new frozen-yogurt place in the city . . .
Instead, I stood in the dark by an empty highway, and the only people by my side were skewed versions of myself. In the distance, a truck rolled up to the gas station.
“The town . . .” Red trailed off.
“That was the rift’s doing, right?” Rainbow said.
My first look at my hometown, and it’d been in chaos. My fault. Guilt gnawed at me. Should I try calling Director Facet again? My decision to leave felt much more real with my feet planted firmly on the ground. All because a freaking dragon claimed to have answers—this was ridiculous, I needed to go back, I’d walk if I had to—
“Your town will be fine,” the dragon said. “The rift’s already gone past it.”
She stated it as a fact. Everything about her was calm and assured, nothing like how I felt or how the others looked. Like she really did know what she was talking about.
I kept my feet rooted in the grass.
“But the rift is still on the move,” I said. “What if people are trapped or injured? Should we fly back and help?” It’d felt wrong to disregard those panicking people as though they were simply footage on the news.
“I’m here to help you. Not them.”
I breathed deep. “Well, that’s not weird at all. Um. Help me do what?”
Red crouched in the grass. Rainbow stood nearby, her arms crossed. The dragon had our full attention now.
“Haven’t you guessed?” Her head tilted. “You’re the Chosen One, Hazel.”
I didn’t know what response she expected.
A nervous giggle probably wasn’t it.
It shot up in my throat and came out as a strangled squeak. I clasped my hand in front of my mouth. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Chosen.” A forked tongue flicked out without her mouth ever opening. “You have a destiny. You’re meant to save the world.”
I clamped down on the urge to giggle again, the muscles in my cheeks straining. “I. Um.” I crossed my arms, uncrossed them. “What?” I repeated.
“Could you, uh, give details?” Rainbow said.
“Please,” I added.
The dragon sighed. “The Powers That Be chose you.”
“Why?”
“They saw something in you. Something more than a farm girl.”
“The farm hasn’t actually been used as a farm since—” A cold look cut me off. “Never mind.” I reached for other words and found none.
Chosen One.
What the hell.
The dragon went on: “Listen. Rifts are gaps in the fabric that separates dimensions. Those gaps allow the Powers That Be to reach inside a world to make tweaks and send anything from prophetic scrolls to magical swords to exasperated mentors.” At that last word, she gestured a lazy, clawed paw at herself. “That’s how Chosen Ones are trained to avert apocalypses. Unfortunately, your rift stretched too wide, and your rather enthusiastic government took notice. They intercepted everything the out-of-control rift pulled from other dimensions and spat out here, and everything the Powers sent you on purpose. Including yours truly.”
“You’re my mentor.” I said the words slowly.
“Yes. I’m also useful in a fight and can double as your main mode of transportation.” I’d expected her to sigh again. Instead, she stood straighter. I swear she puffed out her chest. “My name is Neven. I am a she, as we’ve established. And I’m delighted to meet you, Hazel Stanczak, even if it took a while.”
“Hi,” I said weakly.
“How long is a while?” Red wondered.
The dragon glanced at her sideways. “Three years.”
I sputtered. “I thought you arrived alongside them! I thought—You came through three years ago?”
“For a dragon, three years is . . .” She flicked a claw. “Pah.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry.”
Three years? Trapped in a barn I passed every day, and I’d never had a clue.
Director Facet had, though. Forget keeping the kelpie from me; the MGA had held the dragon—Neven—since I was twelve or thirteen, and never once let on.
I suddenly felt less guilty about leaving.
“Did you tell the MGA?” I asked. “About this Chosen One . . . thing? About the other dimensions?”
“MGA?” Neven repeated.
“Is that the agency?” Red said.
“Like CIA or something?”
I nodded. “Mysterious Government Agency. It’s what Caro and I call them. Ha.” It felt childish all of a sudden. “The actual agency is a state secret. They never gave us the name.”
Neven’s tail lashed over the grass. “I told them nothing. The rules say you must be the first to know. Anyway. This is not about me. This is about you.”
“So . . . you’re saying the rift was supposed to send items to prepare me?”
“Yes. A scroll with explanations came through when the rift first opened. Very traditional; looped handwriting and everything.”
“Half the grounds caught fire that first week.”
“Ah. Yes. The scroll may have burned.”
I gaped. I wanted to sit, but the grass was wet, and listening to a dragon muse about my destiny probably went better if I wasn’t distracted by my jeans getting soaked.
“It doesn’t normally go that way,” Neven said defensively. “You’ve had exceptionally poor luck. At least today’s note came through.”
“Where do we come in?” Rainbow asked.
Neven flopped to the ground, apparently unbothered by the wet grass. “The Powers That Be reached into your worlds and sent you two as last-minute support. Hazel missed years of training. Your presence may balance out that lack. The Powers aren’t supposed to bring in allies aside from myself, but there are loopholes. It’s not bringing in someone new if you’re technically the same person.”
“So we’re . . . backup?” Red said quietly.
Neven inclined her head in a yes.
“If one Chosen One isn’t enough, they’ll use three?”
“Apparently so.”
“In order to save the world?” I added.
Another incline of her head. “The role of Chosen One is a great honor.”
“It’s ridiculous,” I said. “I mean—I’m sorry. This is just a lot. You’re really not joking?”
“I did not arrive in a new dimension and spend years in a cell without stretching my wings, prodded at by infuriating humans, purely to play a practical joke on three traumatized teenagers.” She ruffled her wings. “I take my job seriously. Also, I’m not awful.”
Screw the wet grass. I plopped dow
n a few feet from the others. My phone pushed painfully into my thigh. I’d chosen way-too-tight jeans to wear on my birthday. (To impress Marybeth, maybe.) I regretted that almost as much as I regretted losing my coat somewhere between Franny’s and here.
I plucked at the jeans, peeling the fabric from my legs for half seconds at a time. Chosen One. Powers That Be. Dragons. Destinies. It was at once absurd and not much of a stretch when I considered that an interdimensional rift had hovered a stone’s throw from my bedroom for the past sixteen years.
I’d long ago stopped caring what the answer was. As long as I got one.
“Are our own, um, dimensions OK?” Red asked. “There’s no rifts there?”
“None like this. The Powers opened small rifts in your worlds’ fabric to grab you, then neatly shut them. The way it’s supposed to happen. The situation in this world is an anomaly.”
“So jumping in the rift won’t get us back home?” Rainbow rubbed her arms. She didn’t have a coat, either.
“It’ll get you dead, most likely,” Neven informed her.
“How do we go home?”
“The Powers That Be will send you back once the mission is completed.”
“The mission,” I repeated. Saving the world. It had to be about the rift spinning out of control.
How were we supposed to fix that, though? I looked away, churning over the question. My phone was still pressing into my thigh. A blue notification light shone through my jeans. Odd. I only emailed or texted for the barest, dullest necessities. Knowing that the government scrutinized every word on my phone or computer screen was a serious deterrent to spending time online.
I wiggled the phone from my pocket. The email had arrived more than ten minutes ago: Mom.
Sit tight, we’re on our way xx
I scrolled down. The email was in response to a message that’d arrived right before it.
One sent from my own address.
Mom, I’m really sorry, I swear I’m not making this up, please believe me!! I don’t remember what happened, but we were watching the movie together and I’m suddenly no longer in the movie theater. I’m in Philadelphia. I MEAN IT. I SWEAR I DON’T KNOW HOW. Am near the Reading Terminal Market. I’m so sorry I don’t know what happened, I just showed up here and suddenly my phone can’t even get service, I had to find wifi. I don’t have any money, please come get me!!
“Whatever we’re doing,” I said, “I think we’ll have to pick up Hazel number four, first. And we’ll have competition.”
CHAPTER TEN
I left my cell phone in the grass. The MGA had given me that phone; I suspected they could track it even if I turned it off. I couldn’t let them take me back. Not if there was a chance that Neven was telling the truth.
“Let’s go.” Neven lowered herself so we could climb on.
I stepped forward, but hesitated. None of us were dressed for the cold. The trip to Philadelphia took an hour by car; however fast Neven flew, we’d be clumps of ice by the time we arrived. We needed coats.
My first thought was of raiding my closet, which wasn’t an option. My second thought was to order online, but that wouldn’t exactly be fast enough.
My third thought: What about the truck stop?
I’d never bought clothes in a brick-and-mortar store before. If TV was to be believed, though, truck stops sold just about anything. I knew Red was carrying a wallet. Would it be silly to take a detour for clothing? We were racing against the MGA. I didn’t want to suggest an impromptu shopping spree if it would make Neven or the others think I wasn’t taking the situation seriously.
“Does anyone have money?” Rainbow asked. “I’m freezing, and I’m the only one here with long sleeves. We might find cheap clothes at the truck stop.”
I raised my hand. “I don’t have money, but I vote yes.”
“What about Hazel Four?” Red asked, even as she reached for her purse. “We don’t want the MGA to get to her before we can, right?”
I watched her go through her wallet, both glad that Rainbow had been the one to ask my exact question and unsure why it unsettled me that she had. We were the same person, weren’t we? Our hair might be different, but she had the same name, same family. I even recognized her socks when her jeans rose and exposed a strip of fabric. I knew her voice as mine.
Maybe all three of us had the same thoughts about the truck stop, and Rainbow had been the only one to voice them. Maybe all three of us had wondered about reaching Hazel Four on time, and Red had been the only one to bring it up.
“Do we need to find her?” I said hesitantly. “Or should we focus on, um, the other thing?”
“Saving the world,” Neven said.
I nodded. “That.” The words felt too ridiculous to repeat.
“How do we even do that?” Red wondered.
“Closing that rift, I assume.” Rainbow looked to Neven for confirmation.
“How—?” I started.
“No,” Neven said.
I turned to her. “Wait. No?”
“No.”
“That, that mission you mentioned. It’s not the rift?”
“No.”
As far as apocalypses went, I’d figured a frenzied interdimensional portal the likeliest suspect. I didn’t question Neven’s abrupt response, though; I was still marveling at hearing answers so direct in the first place. Not “We’re working on it” or “Here’s an unsubstantiated theory.” Answers.
“The rift is the concern of the Powers That Be,” Neven went on. “You have your own task.”
“Which is what?”
“You need to learn that for yourself. There are guidelines, I’m afraid.”
“So we’re supposed to save the world,” Rainbow said, “while . . . ignoring the out-of-control rip between dimensions that’s destroying it?”
“Yes.”
“Can you give us a hint?” I tried.
“No.”
“You have a lot of rules,” I said.
“No,” she said, “but the Powers That Be do.”
“Can you tell us about them?”
“No. Find the girl. The rest comes after.”
“But the MGA is coming for her, too. They have helicopters and a head start. She’ll be long gone by the time we arrive.”
“You’ve not even started and you’re ready to give up?”
A reply faltered on my tongue.
“Is it really necessary to find her?” Red asked. “Your—my—our parents and the government wouldn’t hurt her. Right?”
I wondered whether we were thinking the same thing: that we wished we’d been let off the hook, too. It sounded at once cowardly and tempting. If Hazel Four could sit at home and wait all this out, more power to her. With the farm no longer in meltdown, the MGA would treat her better than they had Red and Rainbow.
“She’s here. She’s involved already.” Neven rolled from her side onto her belly. “The Powers sent you for a reason.”
“Do tell,” Rainbow said.
Neven didn’t answer.
“I wonder what the MGA wants with Hazel Four,” Red said. “Simple damage control, grabbing whatever comes from the rift?”
“They’ll want to experiment in case she’s linked to the rift, too,” I said. “Since the rift’s behavior changed—”
“Experiment?” Red wore a concerned frown.
“Nothing bad,” I said quickly. “Practical tests. Like, they’d escort me in a van or chopper and measure the rift’s response based on how far away I was or how long I stayed there. They took blood and hair to keep near the rift as a potential substitute. They did similar tests on Mom and Carolyn to see if it was genetic. For a year, I wore various sensors and kept a diary to see if my mental or physical state affected the rift. Things like that.”
“That’s a lot.” Rainbow blinked.
“It doesn’t sound like they’ll harm her,” Red said.
“Of course not. Oh!” Finally, it dawned on me. “If they want to experiment, they’ll
study her effect on the rift. Which means they won’t bring her home—”
“They’ll take her to the rift.” Rainbow spun to face Neven. “And you said you could sense its location.”
Neven’s reptilian mouth twitched. “Go get those coats.” She lumbered up, slow and deliberate, but her eyes were alert. Like she’d been waiting for this. “You’ll need them.”
Rainbow and I went to the store while Red stayed with Neven. We didn’t need anyone boggling at a set of triplets. I rubbed my arms as we walked by the side of the road, eager for the heat the truck stop would provide. I kept sneaking sideways glances at Rainbow.
Once or twice, I swore she sneaked glances right back at me.
“So,” she said, “this is weird.”
I snort-laughed. “Just a bit.”
“You really never knew?”
“Which part?”
“Neven. Chosen One. You being special.”
Special? Another laugh. “I knew the rift was connected to me; hard not to. But not this. Nothing like this.” I hesitated. “I don’t think I really believe it yet.”
“Me neither.” Rainbow laughed, too. Hers sounded more comfortable than mine, more natural. She even walked differently. There was a confidence in her stride that wasn’t just from her clunky, tough boots. It stood out all the more in comparison to Red.
It probably stood out in comparison to me, too, if anyone saw us walking together. I tried to straighten my back and lengthen my strides, but felt silly more than anything else.
How could Rainbow be me? I couldn’t even work up the courage to cut my hair to my shoulders.
The doors slid open on our approach, and a jingle sounded. It startled me before I made the connection: motion sensors. Right. Those were a thing.
The clerk peered over his Nintendo Switch, nodded, and went back to gaming before I could nod back.
“It smells different,” I said, squinting at the overhead lights.
“What do you mean?”
“Inside. I thought it’d smell like gasoline, like outside, but I guess that doesn’t make sense.”
Refrigerated sandwiches in one corner caught my eye. The thought of walking up to the display, selecting any food I wanted, and placing it on the counter was captivating. The clerk wouldn’t even know. He’d think it was something I did all the time.
The Art of Saving the World Page 5