Down World

by Rebecca Phelps

  “Go on,” I said, steeling myself for what was to come.

  “The train came,” he said, his voice growing softer, but still continuing.

  The hot tears burned my cheeks, but I was ready to hear this.

  Kieren’s voice broke, and he started to cry, something I didn’t know he could do. “I thought he would jump.”

  One of his friends put his hand on Kieren’s back, but Kieren didn’t seem to notice.

  “At the last minute, when the train came, there was this flash. This flash of light. You know the light I mean, you all do. The yellow light. And right before the train . . . hit him, I swear I saw it.”

  “Saw what?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

  “Robbie . . . disappeared.”

  I gasped, and thought I might collapse. I put my fingers on my temples and tried to breathe. Was it possible?

  I felt an arm around me and realized Brady had come over to sit beside me. But I felt like I was floating away. Did Robbie go through a portal that night?

  “They never found the body . . . ,” Kieren continued.

  “They said it was . . . that there was nothing left,” I told him, repeating the story I had been told for years. Robbie’s burial was ceremonial. The casket was empty. I was told it was because there was nothing left to bury.

  “I didn’t understand what had happened until I got to the high school the next year. And I heard about DW. The first time I went down to the Today door, and saw that flash of light, I realized what had happened to Robbie that day on the train tracks.”

  I nodded, still thinking of my brother’s empty shoes, found by the tracks that night.

  “Robbie went through a portal,” Kieren continued. “There’s some sort of portal on the train track. I’ve tried to go through it a million times, but it’s not there. I think maybe it’s only there when the train comes. And I think Robbie is stuck inside it . . .”

  “Stop,” I demanded. “When you say ‘Robbie is stuck inside it,’ do you mean . . . you mean DW Robbie?”

  “No, M. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I mean real Robbie. Real Robbie is in DW. He’s not dead. He was never dead. And if I just get into that train portal and pull him back out . . .”

  “You’ll be hit by the train,” I answered, repeating what Brady had said. “If you pull him out when the train is coming . . . Brady’s right, it won’t work.”

  “But what if it could?” Kieren asked. “What if there was a way?”

  “Piper’s parents threw off the balance of energy,” I muttered, repeating what Brady had told me. “Because people from one side can’t stay on the other.”

  “Because Piper’s parents were never supposed to be here in the first place!” Kieren shouted. “But Robbie is.”

  “Why did he do it?” I asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Robbie wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t reckless. Why would he be on the track when the train was coming? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Kieren didn’t say anything at first. He just hung his head. I could see the tears falling off his face onto his shoes, and he clearly didn’t want his friends to notice. But we were all staring at him. There was no hiding it.

  I thought about Kieren, about the way we had been when we were kids. I looked around me at the beautiful old pyramid house, the one he had dared us to spend a night in. He was always daring us to do things. Everything was a joke then.

  “I didn’t push him,” Kieren said to his shoes. “I swear I didn’t.”

  “I know that,” I told him, voicing what I had always known, despite what my mother had believed. Kieren would never have pushed Robbie in front of a train. But then something occurred to me, and I knew it to be true as soon as I thought of it. “But you dared him, didn’t you?”

  Kieren continued looking down.

  “You dared him to go onto the tracks. Was it a game? Were you playing chicken?” I was getting angry.

  Kieren was crying hard. “I thought he would jump,” he said so softly I could barely hear it. And then he repeated, “I thought he would jump.”

  I wasn’t even angry anymore. I was just done with all these boys.

  “I was an idiot,” he said, finally looking up at me. “I’m sorry, M.”

  I wiped the tears off my cheeks. “My mom wasn’t trying to kill herself,” I realized. “She was trying to follow Robbie.”

  My mother grew up in this town. Did she know about the portals? Was it possible that she had always known Robbie wasn’t dead, and had kept it from us for over three years? How could she do that to my father? To me?

  I followed the thought one step further, imagining my mother, in her little blue earrings, looking for that magical spot on the train tracks. “But she couldn’t find it,” I said, mostly to myself, just as Kieren hadn’t been able to find it. The only piece I couldn’t fit into the puzzle was why she had gone to the high school. And if the doors were still sealed, then why didn’t she ever come back out?

  A respectful moment of silence followed, everyone lost in their own thoughts.

  “I have to tell my dad,” I said, standing up decisively.

  “No.” It was Scott who spoke, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Kieren. “She can’t do that. This is why I told you not to bring her here. She’s going to tell everyone.”

  “Shut up, Scott,” Brady said.

  “Screw you, Brady. This isn’t a game. What do you think happens when this stupid kid blabs to everyone that there’s a portal on the train track? You think we can keep this quiet after that?”

  I looked around at the sea of unsympathetic faces.

  “We can make it right,” Kieren said. “We don’t need to tell anyone, M. Your mother will come back when she can’t find Robbie and she’ll see that we’ve already saved him. He’s not dead. He’s just trapped in there. We can get him out.” The more Kieren talked, the more excited he got about his own idea.

  “You’ve done enough,” I said. I wasn’t leaving this up to Kieren. “Here’s what’s going to happen now,” I continued, looking straight at Scott. “In one week, I’m going to Oregon. I’ve already told my dad I’m going to a camp up north. It’s all arranged.”

  Everyone in the circle froze.

  “You’re going to the Mystics?” Brady asked.

  I softened my tone, realizing that this was a sore spot for him. “Yes. I need to find out what Piper couldn’t—if there’s a way to take people out for good.” Brady nodded slowly, his jaw muscles tensing.

  “You can’t go,” Kieren began. “M, think for a second. You can’t travel by yourself. You’re only sixteen. You’ll get caught and they’ll call your dad.”

  I was taken aback by this. Of course, he was right. Someone would call the cops on me for sure. I wasn’t one of those sixteen-year-olds who could pass herself off as eighteen. At five foot four, I was only about a hundred and five pounds, still waiting to fill out. If anything, I looked younger than my age.

  “I’ll go with her,” Brady said, standing up next to me. “I can say she’s my kid sister, that we’re going to visit an aunt or something.”

  “Absolutely not,” Kieren said firmly. “I’ll go.”

  “I don’t want you to go,” I said to Kieren. I knew it would hurt him, but I didn’t care. I needed some space from him. I knew he had been a stupid kid when he dared my brother to stay on the train tracks, but I still blamed him. I didn’t think I would ever stop blaming him.

  “How would you go, Kieren? What would your parents say?” Brady countered.

  Kieren had no response to this. He clearly realized the same thing. He had no excuse to leave town.

  “But it’s no problem for me,” Brady continued. “I was planning on going there anyway to see if I could find Piper. And besides, there’s no one here to wonder where I’ve gone.”<
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  I knew he said it to justify his argument, not to fish for sympathy. But it couldn’t help but sound pitiful coming out of his mouth. Again, I wondered what had happened to his mother, and when his father was coming back from Alaska or wherever he was.

  Even Kieren had to admit that the plan was perfect. But I was secretly terrified inside. Was this really happening? Was I going to Oregon with Brady? How would that even work? Where would we sleep? How would we find the Mystics? And what if they couldn’t help us?

  When Piper McMahon traveled west, she probably would have killed to have Brady with her. I should feel lucky. But somehow, knowing he was going just made it seem more real, more overwhelming.

  “It’s settled, then,” I said. “We leave next Sunday.”

  I looked down at the group, all sitting on the floor. No one had any objections, even Kieren. I looked over at Brady, and he nodded. “Next Sunday,” he agreed.

  The meeting was over. Everyone started to get up and mill about. But I didn’t have anything more to say. I turned and walked over to the window, climbed out, got on my bike, and pedaled home as fast as I could.

  I didn’t know how this would end. And I was scared out of my mind. But I knew one thing for sure: if there was a way to get my brother out of DW, I was going to find it. The truth was coming out, and I wouldn’t stop until I knew all of it.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 10

  The following Sunday was unseasonably hot for June. Even at 8 a.m., as I hauled my suitcase down the stairs and onto the driveway to wait for my dad to take me to the bus depot, the air was thick with an early-morning fog that made my hair stick to my forehead.

  “Ready, kiddo?” he asked as he came out the front door behind me, searching his pockets for something.

  “Yup,” I answered over my shoulder. The car was already idling in front of the house. When I closed the trunk, my dad handed me an English muffin with a scrambled egg stuffed inside. He had clearly been up for a while. “Thanks.”

  “You know, the project at work isn’t that urgent. Why don’t I take the day off and drive you up to the camp? You could even drive for a bit of it. You need more practice.”

  “Dad, I told you, you don’t have to do that. Everyone’s taking the bus.” My palms were sweating. The lies were starting to flow from my mouth so naturally. I hated this. I felt like I was already a million miles away from my dad, from our house, from the family we’d once had. “It’s only two weeks.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he agreed, a little too quickly. “Well, get in. Let’s not be late.”

  We drove to the bus depot in silence, and I stared out the window at our passing town as though I might never see it again.

  “Call me,” he said quietly as we pulled up to the parking lot of the depot, “if you need anything.”

  “We’re not allowed to use our cell phones,” I reminded him. Christy had planned out the communications. She said that cell phones are traceable, and that if my dad checked the phone record, he might see where I was calling from. So my cell phone needed to stay off for the entire trip. Instead, she set up an email from the “camp administration,” requesting that all correspondence be sent that way.

  I realized, as my dad took my suitcase out of the trunk, that part of the reason for the knot in my stomach was simply the precariousness of the plan. I was banking on my dad being too distracted about my mother’s disappearance to notice any of the holes in the story. And so far, it had worked perfectly.

  I got out to join him behind the car as he placed my suitcase on the curb. Several people were waiting in various stages of boredom. My heart was beating out of my chest, but I knew I needed to look like I had it together, at least until my father drove off.

  “Did you want me to wait with you?” he asked.

  “You’ll be late for work,” I responded, ready with my answer immediately.

  “Yeah.” He nodded sadly.

  “Will you be okay, Dad?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about me, kiddo. You just have a good time.”

  A good time. The idea of it seemed ridiculous, even cruel.

  I threw myself into my dad’s arms then, and I waited for the sting of tears to burn behind my eyes, but it never came. Why was that? I had never been away from my dad for two weeks before.

  I stood and watched him get into the car and drive away, waiting until his little Honda became nothing more than a speck of tan color at the red light of the intersection outside of the parking lot. And then the light turned green and he disappeared around the curve. I let out a huge sigh, and felt my body shake with nerves.

  A full five minutes went by before Brady showed up in his old muscle car and popped the trunk. I started hauling my suitcase over. Brady jumped out to help me, but I was already picking it up.

  “I got it,” I said, and he stood back a bit. I got into the passenger side and put on my seat belt.

  Brady got back in and sat next to me. He must have been able to tell that I was scared. I knew I was shaking, and I couldn’t stop.

  “You nervous?”

  I could only nod.

  “Listen,” he said, his tone gentler than I had ever heard it. “I’ve been thinking. Do you want me to go without you?”

  My head whipped towards him.

  “It’s not a problem. If they can help, I’ll call and let you know. But there’s no reason for you to make this whole trip.”

  “This was my idea.”

  “I know that. But you’re just . . . you’re so young, Marina. Maybe you shouldn’t be going so far . . .”

  “I’m going,” I said, my decision final. “Don’t worry, I won’t be in your way.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  We sat for another minute, neither of us saying a thing.

  “I can’t stay here, Brady,” I said, fully realizing it was true as I uttered it. “I have to see for myself. I lost my brother. And then my mom.”

  Brady nodded.

  “Would you be able to just sit here and do nothing? Knowing that Piper might be stuck in DW somewhere, and only you can save her?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  There was nothing more to say. Brady put the car into gear and we drove over to the train station, where he parked and then hid the ignition key under the floor mat.

  “Don’t lock the door,” he told me. “My cousin’s coming to get the car later.”

  “Cool.” I nodded, hoping nobody would steal it.

  I had over eight hundred dollars in cash that I had taken out of my savings account, mostly from old babysitting money and birthday gifts from grandparents. My dad had given me another one hundred dollars before I left, for “incidentals.” I gave almost half the total to Brady for the round-trip ticket, and I prayed that the remainder would be enough for the room in the hostel and some food.

  Kieren had been right, of course: I never could have made this trip on my own. Brady and I approached the station to buy the tickets from the vending machine, only to find that in the mornings the machine was locked up, and there was a real person inside to sell them. It was a surly old man in suspenders who looked me over, a young girl in a T-shirt and Keds with a suitcase next to her, and then looked at Brady.

  “She’s my kid sister,” Brady explained. “We’re going to visit our aunt.”

  The man looked back at me and I offered a weak smile, trying to be convincing though my stomach was still in knots and my mouth seemed wired shut.

  But the man seemed to believe us, because he sold us the tickets. Brady picked up my suitcase and carried it to the platform. He had only a large backpack on, and I suddenly felt ridiculous for having packed so much. I tried to look up the weather in Portland before leaving, but the report said to expect everything from driving rain to bright
sun, and I couldn’t figure out how to pack for that.

  Standing on that familiar platform, I realized there was only one thing I hadn’t done at this train station, and that was actually wait for a train. My eyes couldn’t help but wander down the tracks, to the place where my father’s work train used to pull in. Farther down the track, deeply set against the horizon, was the place where Kieren had made me the lucky penny, which, as always, I carried now in my pocket. Somewhere in between was where Robbie had disappeared.

  Brady had his headphones in, and his eyes down, and looked like every other teenager in the world—a blurred face under a hoodie. And even though he was standing right next to me, I felt completely alone. The heat had only grown worse since early morning, and I felt an uncomfortable stickiness under my arms and inside my shoes.

  That’s when Kieren appeared, walking up with his eyes averted as though trying to make sure no one was watching him.

  Brady didn’t notice at first, lost as he was in his own thoughts.

  “Hey,” Kieren said to me.

  “Hi. What are you doing here?”

  “Just came to make sure you got off okay.” He nodded to Brady, who took out his earphones.

  “Hey, man,” Brady said.

  “Do you mind if I talk to her for a sec?” Kieren asked Brady. I couldn’t help but feel like property being passed between the two of them.

  “It’s up to her,” Brady replied, echoing my thoughts.

  Kieren looked at me for a response, and my eyes flickered to Brady and the still-empty train tracks for a moment.

  “If you’ve come to talk me out of it . . . ,” I began.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Kieren insisted. “Please.”

  We stepped away from Brady a bit, and sat on the bench by the station where we had probably sat together dozens of times before. But now there was the wall between us.

  “I wanted to give you something,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

  “Another lucky penny?” I asked, sounding crueler than I had intended.

  Kieren laughed. “Not this time.”