We all eventually split off into different directions. Mom and Kal’s parents to PTB headquarters, my brothers to their jobs, and Kal and I to Aunt Rae’s.
“I can’t wait to get home,” Kal admits. “Remind me never to complain about being bored again.”
“You never really do.”
He grins. “True! I always have you and my music to keep me entertained.”
I cringe. As much as I missed Kal, I sure didn’t miss his music. I bet Aunt Rae’s thinking about how she can unfix her hearing again. She immediately ushers Kal into the kitchen and plies him with food and pie. I give them some privacy to catch up, and head down the hall to Annika’s room. I mean, Kal’s room. This is all going to take some getting used to.
I push the door open slowly, half-expecting to still see Annika’s pink walls and vision board. But no. Kal’s room is just as I remember seeing it last. Bed unmade, electronics covering every surface except for the ones already covered in comic books. Seeing it like this only makes it harder to believe that it was ever anything different.
I take the note out of my pocket and sit down on the bed. I’ve never gotten a note from a girl before. Well, I’ve never gotten a note period.
I unfold it and am surprised when two small objects fall out of the otherwise blank paper. I pick up the shiny gold chain first and watch it shimmer against my palm. Annika’s grandmother’s bracelet. I can’t believe she gave it to me. I put it in my pocket for safekeeping. I’m going to take really good care of it. Much better than my holoscreen.
The other thing that fell out looks like a circular piece of metal, like a gigantic data dot, but with a small hole in the middle. I turn it over in my hand. A piece of human technology, certainly. But what’s on it? No place like Kal’s room to find out!
I try slipping the disc into one machine after another. Mostly it doesn’t fit, or the machine blinks out an error message. Finally I find one that makes a whirring sound when the disc is inserted. The dark screen suddenly lights up with Annika’s face. She’s sitting on her bed in her pink room and at first I’m confused. How could she have filmed this here? I don’t think she had a video camera with her. Then I realize that of course she didn’t. Her bedroom is back home with her. Or rather, she’s back home in her bedroom.
“Hi, Joss!” she says cheerily. “Sagan and I have something to say.” She leans over and picks up a huge black-and-white cat. “Sagan, say hi to my friend Joss.”
My stomach flutters a bit, which is kind of embarrassing. She takes the cat’s paw and waves it at me. I find myself waving back, which is even more embarrassing.
She puts down Sagan, who meows and scampers away. “Oh well,” she says. “I guess he didn’t miss me as much as I missed him. It’s so weird being back here, just like I never left. My parents and my brother don’t seem to realize anything happened at all. Isn’t that amazing?” She shakes her head with the wonder of it all. “Hey, notice anything different about me? No leaves in my hair. Yay!”
I smile. She looks kind of different without them. Younger, but older, too, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t.
“I was going to write you a real letter,” she continues, “but I knew you’d make fun of me for being so old-fashioned. So this is as close as I can come to sending a hologram. Anyway, I only have a minute because I know Kal’s parents are anxious to hop in that wormhole thingy and get back to The Realms.” She laughs. “Boy, those words sound weird! You don’t have to worry about me ever telling anyone about you because they’ll think I’ve gone totally insane.” Then she pauses for a minute, thoughtful. “I think I want to keep it all to myself, anyway. Did you know Kal’s parents used the information on humans that they took from Gluck to reconfigure the wormhole just for me?”
So that was the big project they were working on! I wonder how long they’d been planning this!
“If they hadn’t sent me to The Realms, I would have gotten pulled out of time with everyone else and there wouldn’t have been anyone to, you know, represent Earth. And, well, I never would have met a boy with weird hair, perfect skin, and a really nice smile. I’m talking about you, in case you didn’t pick that up.”
She likes my smile?
A knock on the door causes her to jump. “Just a second, Mom.”
“Go to bed, hon. Tomorrow’s a school day.”
“I will,” she calls out. “I’m just finishing something up.”
Hearing her mom’s voice flashes me back to the holoscreen image of a happy, laughing woman. Annika must have missed her more than she let on. She must have missed everything more than she let on.
“I’ve got to go, Joss. Promise me you’ll visit Grandpa and the real Sagan in the Afterlives and tell them I’m okay. And thank the professor for all his help, okay? I’m only reminding you to do this because you’re a boy and manners aren’t your strong suit.”
“They weren’t yours, either,” I remind her, then realize I’m talking to myself. I hope Kal didn’t hear that.
“Being in The Realms was an amazing adventure,” she says, blinking quickly. “I’ll obviously never forget it. Thank you for always looking out for me. And for…” Now she gives up on the blinking and just starts crying. “And for giving me my family back. And… please thank the Sheinblatts—I mean, Kal’s parents—for saving all of us in the first place and for giving Earth a second chance. I hope the Niffum find another planet they can live on.” She sniffs and wipes at her eyes. “When things get hard or sad or whatever, it’ll make me feel really safe to know you’re out there.” She waves her arms around her room. “Somewhere. I was never really clear on where, exactly, you are.”
I feel a burning behind my eyes. This is the closest I’ve come to crying myself. If I actually had tear ducts, I’m sure I would be. And I wouldn’t even care who saw.
“Okay,” she continues, “now that I probably look terrible, I better say good-bye. Study hard in school, and I bet in no time you’ll be the fifth-smartest brother, at least! Now that I’ll never have to find out what would happen if I turned my back on a Niffum in the rain, I’ve come up with a new catchphrase. Or, you know, a bit of advice for any future humans who find themselves stuck in The Realms.” She smooths down her hair and says, “Never turn your back on the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord of the Universe… unless you want a bucket of water thrown on your head.”
She winks, leans over, and switches off the camera.
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
—Albert Einstein, physicist
Sometimes Bren comes with me to visit her, sometimes Kal. But usually I’m alone. I like to go after my delivery route. Occasionally I’ll bring an extra slice of pie with me, but only if Aunt Rae made cherry, because that was Annika’s favorite.
It’s a long walk to the Hall of Species, but I don’t mind. Mom understands if I’m late to dinner on these days. I use the extra key Ash finally agreed to give me, and let myself in. As usual, I’m the only one here.
I spread out my picnic blanket in front of Annika’s holostatue (which Ash set up right between the three-eyed Zolta and a feathery Pollyphemus) and unpack my bagel with cream cheese and Red Hots. I don’t know if she still eats them, of course, since it’s been more than seventy years Earth time since I saw her, but I’ve found a supplier and developed a taste for them.
I’ve had some good adventures since the day Ash took this 3-D holo-image of her, but none as good as the ones we had together. Dad finally admitted that I hadn’t been allowed to leave The Realms before because they thought my having some kind of connection with gravity might cause damage to the sun of whatever planet I was visiting. Had they just TOLD me I had this connection, I could have learned to control it, as I eventually did. I’ve since visited three planets (never Earth, though) and managed not to blow up any suns during my stay.
The last time I played Annika’s video I couldn’t help but wonder
how many of the goals on her vision board she’d achieved. After that, I stopped watching it. I’ve also never used the video screens at school to check on her, or even asked Kal’s parents for any updates when they visited Earth. Every once in a while they’ll let slip that they saw her, but I always cover my ears. I want to respect her privacy, but I also kind of don’t want to know what she’s doing. It’s very strange to think how much of her life span she’s lived since she left The Realms, and not much has changed for me. I may be slightly taller, and hopefully more than slightly wiser, and my bowling score has improved, but that’s about it. She would have grown up, had a career, had adventures. Did she get married? Have a family? It hurts to think about it.
The communication network buzzes, and I jump. My bagel goes flying and winds up cream-cheese-side down in front of the Zolta, who, if he were alive, would no doubt have snatched it up already.
“Joss!” The voice fills the cavernous room. “Are you there?”
I reach for the bagel and brush it off. “Kal?”
“Why don’t you have your holoscreen? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
I pat my empty pockets. I still can’t manage to keep track of that thing. “Kal, unless you’re trapped in another universe again, can you come talk to me in person? The com system is only for emergencies.”
“This IS an emergency! That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Oh. What is it, then?” I can’t get myself too worked up. Kal thinks it’s an emergency when one of his drumsticks rolls under the drum set and he has to stop mid-banging to pick it up.
“She’s here,” he says.
I pick up a stray Red Hot from the floor and push it back onto the bagel. I figure the floors are pretty clean, since not many people come here and the small cinnamon candy is a valuable item. “Who’s where?” I ask.
“Annika! She just arrived at the Afterlives, so get your butt down here!”
The bagel goes flying once again. I leave everything behind and run out of the building so fast I don’t even remember standing up. I instantly turn my legs into wheels. I don’t even care about what I’ll have to pull out of them later. All that matters is getting there as fast as possible.
Deep down, I knew this day would come. I had tried to push it out of my mind. On one hand, it will mean Annika and I get to see each other again. But on the other hand, if she’s in the Afterlives, that means she’s dead, and a dead Annika is something I can’t even consider. But now I no longer have the luxury of denial.
The reflecting walls of the Afterlives loom in the distance, although I’m still far away. I had gone back there as requested, to give Annika’s messages to her grandfather and Professor Sagan. Annika’s grandfather was so happy he cried, which was awkward, what with the whole “no crying in the Afterlives” thing. And the professor was utterly amazed—and grateful—that we’d pulled it off. I have avoided going back, though. The dead should have their privacy.
Both Ty and Kal meet me at the main entrance to the huge structure. The two of them share a glance that I don’t like the looks of, and lead me over to a bench, which, like most things in The Realms, is more of a wispy suggestion of a bench. “Sit,” Ty commands.
“What’s going on? Is Annika… okay? I mean, I can’t believe she’s… she’s…” I can’t even make myself say the word.
Ty finishes the sentence for me. “Can’t believe she’s dead.”
I swallow hard and nod.
“Well, you don’t have to worry,” Kal says. “Because she’s not.”
I jump off the bench. “What? You said she was here. I don’t understand. Ty?”
Ty puts out his hand to calm me down. “She is here. Well, she was here. She just isn’t dead.”
I turn to Kal. “Did you see her come into the Afterlives or not?”
He shakes his head. “She snuck by me.”
“How? Isn’t it your job to escort everyone?”
He shrugs sheepishly. “She’s got skills, that one.”
I turn back to Ty. “Explain. Please, Ty. How can she be here and not here, dead and not dead?”
Ty tugs at his collar. Mom should really get him looser shirts. “Well, it’s complicated. This has never happened before.”
Kal cuts in. “The chick escaped. She tricked us, then escaped. Man, you’d think an old lady wouldn’t be so light on her toes.”
“Escaped?” I repeat. “From the Afterlives?”
Ty reddens. “Okay, so as far as we can piece it together, Annika used the same wormhole Kal’s parents set up OnWorld all those years ago. She must have been guarding it carefully, or she had some help.” He throws a suspicious glance Kal’s way.
Kal holds up his hands. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m not my parents’ keeper.”
“Anyway,” Ty continues, clearly unconvinced, “somehow she took the wormhole back here, snuck into the Afterlives when neither Kal nor I was on duty, then she tricked Trib, a perfectly decent fellow in my department, into starting a sim for her.”
I listen to his story with disbelief. I’m trying to picture an eighty-three-year-old version of Annika doing all this. It’s impossible to picture. “Then what?”
“Well, you know how we always check in on the newbies?”
I shake my head.
“Well, we do. Trib went in to her sim to make sure everything was running smoothly, and then she followed him right out! No one’s ever done that before. They’ve wandered accidentally, as you know, but never on purpose.”
I can’t help but smile. That’s because no one ever knew they were in a simulation before. “Why would she do that?” I ask. “Where is she now?”
“I have a feeling I know the answer to why,” Ty grumbles. “As to where she went, that’s anyone’s guess.”
“I know why, too,” Kal says. “She did it for you, Joss. The sim she chose was from the day she first came here. Breaking out in the middle of that one was the only way to get her youth back.” He shakes his head in admiration. “A live human, turning back her own clock by manipulating the system. Man, she’s good.”
I feel my pulse speed up. “I’ve got to go.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Kal asks.
“No, but thank you for everything!” I take off running toward the central Realms.
“I didn’t do anything!” he calls after me. But he did. Kal’s always been there for me, always been someone I can trust. Friends like that come around once in a lifetime. Or, if I’m lucky enough, twice.
I hear her heartbeats before I even get close. How did that guy Trib miss that sound? As a general rule, people entering the Afterlives do not have beating hearts. That’s kind of the point.
I burst into Aunt Rae’s kitchen just as Annika puts the last forkful of cherry pie into her mouth. She swallows and grins, pieces of cherry dotting her teeth. “Oh, hey, Joss,” she says, as though it’s the most normal thing in the world to find her here, eating pie, looking exactly the same as I remember her. Exactly like her holostatue in the Hall of Species.
“Hey, Annika,” I reply.
“Do I have pie in my teeth?”
I grin. “Yes. Yes, you do.”
She pushes back her chair. “Let’s go for a walk.”
So we do. We go for a walk. And it feels utterly, totally normal and right.
She points at my feet. “Your boots have color. And a pattern.”
I grin again. Or maybe I just haven’t stopped. “An old friend once told me I needed to brighten up my wardrobe. I’m also an inch taller.”
“So you are.” We keep walking.
“It’s a good thing you never dated my friend Lydia after all,” she says, as though it were ever really an option. “Remember how she used to like guys with weird haircuts?”
I nod, unable to stop looking at her.
“Well, then she grew up and stopped being cool and started playing bridge all the time and told boring stories about her boring kids and her even more boring grandkids
. You would have been totally bored.”
“Wow,” I say. “Really dodged a bullet there, didn’t I?”
“Sure did,” she says.
Neither of us speaks for a minute, and our steps get very small. Finally, I say, “So. Pretty sneaky, what you did back there at the Afterlives. Unbelievable, really.”
“Yeah. That was something.”
“One for the history books.”
“I suspect so.”
“And figuring out how to use that wormhole. Bet it took a lot of planning.”
“You could say that.”
We look at each other’s faces for a while. “Hey, you don’t have your leaf hat on.”
“I know,” she says, feeling the top of her bare head. “I don’t need it now. I think it has to do with breaking out of the sim, where I could breathe. Or maybe because I shut down the wormhole once I got here, making me an official resident of The Realms now. Either way, I’m not complaining.”
“Maybe I should be prepared with a bucket of water just in case.”
She laughs.
“Annika?”
“Yes?”
I reach for her hand. “I’m really, really glad you did this.”
“Softish,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Just like I remember.”
“Welcome home.”
“Thanks.”
We stand there like that for a long, long time. There’s so much I want to tell her, so much I want to ask about her life. But it can wait. Time is long here. And we’ve got a lot of it.
“Joss?” she says. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
She points at my left leg. “Is that a Red Hot stuck to your knee?”
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AUTHOR’S NOTE