Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

“Oh,” I nodded. “Just Kieren.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “That figures.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“I mean, I thought since he already knew about it, and—”

“It’s fine,” he cut me off. “I can handle Kieren.”

I swallowed down a sudden rush of apprehension. Brady didn’t say anything else; he just sat examining me like I was a math problem he didn’t know how to solve. “Brady, I have to ask you something,” I repeated.

He nodded. He reached for his jeans’ pocket, probably looking for that imaginary cigarette pack again but, remembering that it wasn’t there, he put his hands on his knees.

“What did Piper bring back from DW?”

He looked up at me. A smile cracked across his lips. “You’re so smart. You figured it out right away, didn’t you?”

“Well?”

Brady turned away from me a bit, fiddling with his sheets. It seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything. After a few silent moments, I grew afraid he might ask me to leave.

“Her parents,” he finally said, so softly I had to lean in to make sure I had heard him.

“What?”

“She brought her parents back. Her DW parents.”

“Why?” was all I could think of to ask. “What happened to her real parents?”

Brady stared at his feet for a moment.

I ducked my head a bit to try to meet his eyes. “Brady? Look at me.”

He did, and as always, I had to catch my breath for a moment. But I was feeling brave, and I wanted answers. “No more secrets.”

He nodded, still looking at me. “No more secrets.”

He got up and paced the room for a second. “Six months ago . . . ,” he started, “there was an accident.”

“Okay.”

“Piper’s parents were killed. They were up in the mountains last August. Camping trip. They were hit by a car and went off a ravine. Piper crawled out before the car exploded.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said, trying to wrap my head around it. “I saw them on the news.”

“They died in the ravine,” he said slowly, as though trying to help me understand. “And Piper, she went into Today. She found her DW parents in their room and she took them out.”

“So the people on the news . . . ?”

“They’re not real,” he said. “They’re from DW.”

“But they were crying on the news.”

“Yeah,” Brady said. “Piper said they told her they wanted to go home, back through the boiler room. Back to their own daughter, who lives on the other side.”

I didn’t know what to say. My mind was reeling, thinking of those people I had seen on TV. How could they be from the other side?

“She begged them to stay. She said she’d hurt herself if they left. That’s why they were crying. They’re afraid she’s done something to herself.”

I took a deep breath, imagining how terrified those people must be, living on the wrong side of reality and worried about both versions of their daughter, Piper.

“But they can’t stay here. Can they?” I asked, secretly thinking of my brother.

“No. Being on the wrong side makes everything unstable. It creates a void on the other side, and that’s when things start to fall apart. Buildings appear and disappear. People get hurt. And the longer you stay on the wrong side, the worse it gets. At first, just things that are close to the void are affected, which is why Piper and her parents were the only ones to see it. But after a while, it spreads.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s this thing, right? It’s like energy. It’s like . . . the balance of energy. When the balance is off, everything starts to cave in on itself. One day, Piper was walking to school and the sidewalk changed to a dirt road. One day the trees became a wooden fence.”

“Why?”

“Because she was seeing pieces of another reality. When the balance is off, the worlds can cross. That’s why you can’t take things out.”

“Oh my God.”

“She knew she had to put them back. Before it was too late.”

“But she didn’t do it,” I realized. “She got on the train instead. Why? Where does it go?”

Brady considered the question for a moment. “Oregon,” he finally answered.

I was surprised to hear that I had been right about the train’s destination this whole time.

“What’s in Oregon?”

“There’s this group of people. They live in a little town outside of Portland. They call themselves the Mystics. And that’s where Piper went. To ask them.”

“Ask them what?”

“You know what.”

“I don’t!” I insisted. “I have no idea.”

“If there’s a way,” he stated calmly, “to take people out and keep them.”

I stared at him, and I felt my mouth suddenly go dry. Piper McMahon may have found the answer I’d been looking for since I’d gone into DW.

“And what did she find out?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Haven’t you talked to her?”

“Of course.”

“And?”

Brady got up then and stared out the window. The dull humming of the car wash seemed almost to be taunting us, adding a hint of the mundane to his story.

“She stopped answering her phone two weeks ago,” he finally admitted.

I stared at his back, trying to process this bit of news. Piper had truly disappeared. Or at least, she didn’t want Brady to know where she was.

“I’m sure she’s called her parents—or, her DW parents, whatever. We’ll ask them.”

Brady chuckled, shook his head.

“Why not?”

“They’re gone, Marina. I went to their house last night. It’s empty. They must have gone home, snuck into the boiler room at night.”

So that was that, then. Obviously Piper hadn’t solved the mystery of how to keep people from DW on our side. If she had, her parents wouldn’t have left.

I felt like the universe was ripping my brother away from me all over again, and I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask for help. Unless . . . unless these Mystics could help somehow.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he continued. “You know where Boulder is? In Colorado?”

I shrugged. I had never heard of it.

“It’s