Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

calm. “She’s been in too long. That other woman, the one you saw under the lake—she’s all that’s left now.”

The words fell over the crowd, and I finally grew silent, trying to understand.

“That’s why you’re never supposed to stay on the other side for too long,” she continued. “It doesn’t make much difference if you take your other self’s place for a few minutes or even a few days. But if you stay for too long, you officially fill their place in the world. And the other version—the one that was supposed to be there—can never come back. Matter cannot be created or destroyed.”

If you and your other self diverge too much from each other, it can be too late to go back. That’s what George had said. He had been right—it was too late.

“So the other Robbie,” I continued. “The one I saw last night at the pyramid house . . .”

I let the sentence trail off, and I could tell the others were staring at me. Robbie and Piper hadn’t been looking in the window the night before; they had never seen the other Robbie.

“He’s the only one who’s supposed to exist now,” explained Sage. “Your brother no longer has a place. That is why the planes were able to cross. Robbie’s defying the laws of physics by existing here, and these are the consequences.”

I felt the whole room turn and look at my brother, standing by my side. His face was stone, as it so often was lately. He didn’t even seem sad, just lost.

“What if I die?” Robbie asked. I fiercely shook my head, refusing to even hear it. But Robbie simply pulled me into his chest. I stood there, trembling. “If I die, will that make everything go back to the way it was?”

John shrugged. “If you weren’t here, it might make the planes uncross. Make this dimension go back to the way it was.”

“No, no,” was all I could say. I broke away from Robbie, glaring at the empty faces of the people before us, casually discussing his death as though it meant nothing to them. But it meant everything to me.

I turned to run, knowing I had to get far away from all these people, but having no idea where I was supposed to go next.

I stepped onto the rotating cylinder, which began to spin as soon as my foot was on it. I was thrown to the ground and struggled to right myself as carnival music started up, pumping through the speakers all around me. Its warped and tinny notes seemed to mock me as I found my footing, wobbled my way out of the spinning wheel, and ran across the grounds. All the rides started to move of their own volition, as though they were on a timer.

It wasn’t long before others began to appear—the well-heeled children of the new rulers of the town, hands clutching shiny new balloons or powdered pieces of funnel cake while harried nannies chased not far behind. I had no idea what time it was, or even what day it was. But since none of the children were in school, I had to assume it was a weekend. Christy said I had been gone for four months. When I left, it was June. So it must be October by now. That explained the chill in the air, the lingering gray of the morning.

Kieren came up behind me, not saying anything. I guess he realized I needed a moment to process. But I had run out of answers.

Think, Marina, I scolded myself. There’s always a solution.

Kieren, clearly struggling with all the information as well, stood silently beside me. Nobody seemed to be watching us. The children were too preoccupied with their rides and their candies. There were goldfish to be won, roller coasters to ride.

“Are the others still in the fun house?” I asked.

“No. They snuck out the back when the carnival started up.”

I nodded, not sure why I had asked. I didn’t really care if they got caught, sipping their coffees in the glow of their own warped reflections.

Mirrors. They do it with mirrors.

“Kieren, what is DW?” I asked, the pieces of the puzzle all floating before me—my first trip down; the stolen egg timer; Piper McMahon, who got on Robbie’s train at the station; the train with its ghastly conductor, his eyes piercing through mine, seeing through me. My mother’s eyes in the hotel. She didn’t know me. Or did she?

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s like a shadow, I guess. Like the echo of somebody screaming. But there’s no way to stop hearing it.”

I shook my head. “There must be a way.”

The planes intersected like a network, like a web. We had taken a wrong turn on our way home, and we had ended up on the wrong string. That was all. It was like a computer. Like a motherboard, the circuits wired together just so.

“And if we rewire it?” I asked of nobody, although Kieren was still there listening. “If we break down the pieces, put them back together?”

“What are you talking about, M?”

Robbie and Piper had come up next to us, with Scott trailing behind, but I wasn’t looking at them.

“Yesterday, Kieren,” I said, feeling a flood of adrenaline overtake me. The great high of solving a mystery, of being so close to a goal that you can smell it. “We go into Yesterday. We change the past.”

“You can’t go into Yesterday,” he reminded me. “It’s bricked up.”

Something John had said was stuck in my mind. It was about the coin made on the tracks, the one that I used to pay the conductor. He had already known about it. They all had. Which means my mother knew about it too.

And she was on the tracks the night she disappeared.

“She made a key,” I realized. “That’s why she was on the tracks that night.” I turned back to the others. “We assumed she was trying to go through the train portal—to