Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

took him so quickly, his phone and keys were still sitting on the counter.”

“I don’t understand. My father texted me that he was coming. That he knew where I was.”

“That was me,” Kieren explained. “I’m sorry. Somehow I thought that if you knew I was the one coming, you might not stick around till I got here.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Kieren shrugged, seeming to turn within himself. “Where’s Brady?” he asked, still not meeting my eyes.

“He stayed down,” I explained. “We think we found out where Piper went. So he followed her.”

Kieren nodded, appearing somehow relieved. I heard him exhale, and a slight shuddering sound made his breath uneven.

“What is it?”

He shrugged again. “I’m so happy you’re okay,” he said, finally looking up at me.

Sage approached the table then, after what had been a long and whispered exchange with John in the kitchen. She carried a large tray, with several bowls wobbling on top of it.

“Okay, hot soup! Watch that your tongues don’t get burned.”

“We actually have to go,” Kieren said, beginning to stand. “Thank you, though.”

“You’ll have some soup first.”

Kieren looked to me, and I supposed my face couldn’t hide the fact that I was starving. The last thing I had eaten was the stale bread that I had thrown up in the alley. I was finally feeling better, now that the antibiotic shot had completely kicked in.

We stayed and ate our soup, and I even went back for seconds. After a bit, Sage finally cleared her throat.

“About what’s down there,” Sage began, out of nowhere. “About what’s under the lake . . . we wanted to warn you.”

I sat back and listened. I was done eating, and didn’t really want to think anymore about that horrible world down there.

“You went into the hotel, I presume?” she asked. John came over and joined her, and for the first time, a sympathetic expression came over his face.

“Yes.”

Sage sighed. She turned to her husband. “John?”

John too cleared his throat, and for an awkward moment, this felt like one of those horrible movies where the parents sit the kids down to discuss the birds and the bees, and the children pretend that they don’t already know about them. Besides, there was really nothing to say. The plane that existed under the lake was an anomaly. Something horrible had happened down there, and it didn’t matter. Because it wasn’t real.

“We made a mistake,” John said, a deep sadness filling his voice. “We shouldn’t have created that portal. We’ve regretted it since, but we can’t undo it.”

Kieren looked to me, obviously wanting some explanation of what I had seen down there.

“But you should know,” John continued. “That’s not your mother. Your mother is a kind and lovely woman.” He exchanged a look with Sage, who nodded for him to continue. “She’s our friend.”

“She’s our dear friend,” Sage agreed.

“And our job now,” John continued, “is to keep that plane separate from ours. You remember what we said? About your brother, and the crossing of the planes? Marina, that is why it is so important for him to come out.”

“What are they talking about?” Kieren asked me.

“I’ll tell you later,” I promised. “Let’s just go.”

Kieren stood up and I joined him. “Thank you for the soup,” I said to Sage, and we turned to leave the apartment. “You’ll keep an eye out for Brady and Piper. They’re going to be coming back through the lake.”

Sage nodded. “Of course.”

Kieren and I began to leave, but I could hear Sage shuffling behind me.

“Marina?” she said, standing to watch us go. “With your brother—with Robbie, I mean—it has to happen soon, dear.”

“M? What’s she saying?” Kieren whispered to me.

All I could do was shake my head. “Can we go home, please? I want to go home.”

Kieren took my hand and guided me out the door. I could feel Sage’s and John’s eyes on our backs as we walked out, but I didn’t turn to face them. We swung by the room where I had stayed and grabbed my suitcase, then headed out the front door.

On the road in front of the hotel, which was blissfully back to its run-down state, sat a car I didn’t recognize.

“Where’d you get this?”

“It’s Scott’s,” Kieren answered.

“Does he know you took it this far?”

“He does now.” Kieren opened the door for me and I got in, the shadow of the tall, ugly hotel building falling like a cloak over the car and the road all around us.

As we drove off, I grabbed my phone out of my suitcase and turned it back on, waiting for it to find a signal. Then I sent a text to Christy: I’m so sorry. We’re on our way home. I didn’t know what else to say, and so I put the phone back in my bag.

I was asleep before we hit the edge of town.

I must have been more tired than I realized, because the day drifted by and slowly turned to night, the shadows growing longer and the sky turning pink, then purple, and finally black. I slipped in and out of awareness, vivid dreams of my mother’s cold eyes haunting me into waking up, only to have the exhaustion overtake me again. All the while, Kieren drove in silence. At some point, I realized he had his earphones in so as to not wake me, and the realization that we must have been close to home filled me with a warmth that I hadn’t even realized I was missing.

The peacefulness of that feeling was short-lived, however. Because when I woke up, we were stopped in a parking lot I didn’t recognize.

“Kieren?” I asked, coming to and rubbing my eyes.

“We’re here,” he answered, taking out the earphones.

I looked up at a large, intimidating building that did not look familiar, and I sat up, trying to get my bearings.

“We’re where?”

Kieren turned and looked at me, letting me put together the pieces by myself, I suppose. It was dark out by this point, and the parking lot was poorly lit.

The