Chapter 1

Thursday, December 18, 2014, 9:24 p.m. The gate appeared. Busy at her desk, Rebecca didn’t witness the portal’s arrival, or the disheveled girl who stepped through. Grove’s assignment was due in the morning; she would never turn it in. She didn’t know that, of course; she only knew she hated biology in general and Grove in particular.

She glanced up and rested her eyes on the empty Diet Coke bottle. She wanted another. She was addicted to caffeine. Mom tried to restrict her input to 36 ounces of Diet Coke per day, but good luck with that. Rebecca usually drank twice that amount, or more. Her hands sometimes shook from caffeine overload; they shook now. She had a miserable headache coming on, too. “Fuck,” she muttered, dispirited. “I don’t even know what I’m writing, anymore!”

“Fuck it then,” the girl behind her said. “Grove’s such an asshole, anyway.”

Rebecca shrieked and spun around, almost tipping over the chair. She calmed a bit sighting the other girl--of course it’s a girl, her cerebrum told her a millisecond later--and gasped: “Where did you come from?” Her eyes involuntarily snapped to the bedroom door.

“Sorry, sorry,” the girl said. “I forgot how stressed out I was.” She looked past Rebecca at the MacBook and sighed, shaking her head. “Ignorance is bliss, I’ll tell you that much. Can I have a Diet Coke, maybe?”

Rebecca stared at the girl, speechless. Blinking, she looked at the door again, at her bedroom window, and back at the girl. She could not see the hidden gate, behind the girl.

“How did you get in here?”

The girl blushed slightly and stepped to her right, revealing a pencil-thin line drawn on the air. The oval stood 6’ tall and hung like a lion-trainer’s hoop 6” off the floor. Rebecca blinked twice, rose from the chair, and hesitantly took a step forward, raising her finger. The girl shook her head and placed a hand between Rebecca’s and the gate.

“Don’t mess with it, Rebecca.”

Rebecca stepped back. “What is that, anyway?”

“I’ll explain later. But first, I need that Diet Coke. I’ll get you one too.” Hesitating a moment, the intruder crossed to the bedroom door, opened it, and said: “Be right back. Don’t touch the gate, Becs.”

“Wait!” Rebecca objected. “My mom...!” Too late--the girl closed the door behind her and left Rebecca alone with the gate.

She stared at the portal, the impulse to touch it almost irresistible. She cautiously stepped forward and eyed the thin black line--it actually looked drawn on the air. Blinking, she realized the area framed by the oval altered slightly with her shifting perspective, like you’d see looking through a glass of water. She stepped back, shivering.

The girl returned within a minute and locked the bedroom door. “Here,” she said, handing Rebecca a 20 oz. bottle. Twisting the lid off her own, she pitched it into the trashcan beside the desk. Rebecca stared at her dumbly.

“Have we met before?” she blurted.

The girl laughed. She was Rebecca’s age, but haggard looking and obviously tired. Her battered face was a mess. So was her short blonde hair.

“Who are you?” Rebecca demanded.

“You don’t know?”

“How would I know?” Rebecca narrowed her eyes. “How did you get that black eye and busted lip?” She frowned. “Did a guy do that to you?” Incensed, she twisted off her bottle cap and tossed it at the trashcan. It ricocheted off the rim, bouncing under the bed. “You should complain to the school counselor, you know. What school do you go to, anyway?”

The girl laughed again. “That’d go over good. Look...” She took an experimental sip of soda and winced. “This ain’t about me, Becs. It is, but...”

“Do you at least have a name?” Rebecca asked.

The girl blinked. “Um ... Iris. You can call me Iris.”

Iris stood 5’2” tall, was slender like Rebecca, with the same blue eyes and blonde hair. The outfit she wore bore a striking resemblance to what Rebecca had worn to school today, what she wore now. Startled, she demanded: “Hey, wait a minute! Why are you wearing--?”

Iris raised her hand. “That thing I came through?”

Rebecca cast an anxious glance at the gate.

“It’s a portal, Becs. Going through it puts you a thousand years into the future.” She laughed at Rebecca’s bewildered look. “I know, I know. I didn’t believe it either. Trust me...” She gingerly touched her swollen lower lip. “It works.”

Crossing to the desk, she grabbed Rebecca’s prized Bizzy K ball cap, and sailed it toward the oval like a Frisbee.

“Hey!” Rebecca cried as the hat flew dead center through the gate. Her eyes bugged when the hat winked out of existence. “That’s not funny!” she cried as Iris laughed. “Where’s my hat!”

In consternation, she circled behind the oval and examined the floor. No hat. No thin oval sketched on the air, either, though she avoided the area enclosed by where she imagined the oval to be. “It’s a nice trick,” she admitted, “but you better get it back. Amy got me that hat.”

“Don’t want to piss off Amy, do we?” Iris deadpanned. “She might beat our ass.”

Bunching her fists, Rebecca huffed: “Get it back!”

“Get it yourself, dumbass.”

Bristling, Rebecca stomped out from behind the oval. “You need to tell me what’s going on, Iris. Right now!”

“Or what? You’ll blacken my eye?” She laughed again, caustically this time. “You’ll have to stand in line for that little trick.”

She made a sweeping gesture toward the gate and said: “You need only step through, to retrieve your hat, Rebecca. In fact, you kinda, really need to, anyway. Somebody over there needs your help.”

“Who?” Rebecca demanded.

“I can’t tell you. I can only say that once we go through and you see what the other side offers, then things start to make sense. You might not want to come back again. Think of it, Becs: never having to see that sorry-ass Amy again--and Jamie?” She shrugged. “I guess I’d miss Jamie. I know I’ll miss...” she colored slightly. “Never mind that. Look, come with me, okay?”

Rebecca stared at her extended hand. “I’m not going through that hoop! Get my hat back! No--just get out of here, okay! And why are you wearing my clothes, dammit?”

Iris laughed and rolled her eyes. “To think I’m only 10 hours older than you.” She grabbed Rebecca’s hand. “Please come with me ... please?”

Rebecca yanked her hand away. “Leave me alone!” she hissed.

“Leave her alone!” someone else hissed simultaneously.

Stunned, Rebecca whirled to find Iris’s twin sister standing before the gate. “Wait!” she exclaimed. “Again?” She glared at Iris accusingly.

“Don’t blame me. I didn’t ask her here.”

Rebecca spat an expletive and stamped the floor. “Who are you?”

Iris and her sister both laughed.

“This is not funny!” Rebecca cried out.

“Actually, it’s not.” Iris cocked her head at her twin. “What are you doing here, anyway? Are you--?”

Twin Sister shook her head. “I know more about it than you do; you probably guessed that, right? So maybe my judgment is just a tad better than yours?” She held her right forefinger and thumb an eighth-inch apart. “Rebecca shouldn’t go through the gate, Iris.”

Chapter 2 »