HERE (On the Otherside Series, Book One)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I lean my head into his arm. I have no idea what we’ll do when we get to my world, but we’ll figure it out then. We just have to get there first.

Leaving the shelter of the church, the wind is sharp and cuts through my coat as we traipse through the woods, following the path we took the night Evan brought me here. Only in another world. The rays of the sun fade into the horizon. We’re protected from the sunlight, but now we walk in semi-darkness, the crescent moon our only source of light.

I think about the surveillance team wanting to follow us into my world. “Evan, your dad said there were other weak spots. Is that true? This isn’t the only one?”

“Yeah, there’s others scattered around.”

“So why choose this one to send people through? Why now?”

“Well, first, they didn’t know how. My dad just developed the technology to do it a couple months ago. Second, they don’t know much about the portals, but they’ve always assumed there were parallel universes. You know, a universe almost identical, but slightly different. So the other worlds would be just like ours. Worthless. But then we told them about your world and everything it offers. Now they want it.”

“But your dad said that your Julia and I were in the same exact spot in the road, at the same time. If our worlds are so different, how could that happen?”

He shrugs. “Every time you face a choice, or something happens, the opposite happens in another universe. It’s usually parallel though, because once the choice is made, the universe splits. Let’s say you get a job offer. In the original universe, you decide to take the offer. But in the universe that splits off, you don’t. It’s like the universe divides, kind of like cell division. In mitosis, the cells split with identical DNA. With universes, they split identically too, just the opposite result of the action that created the divide. Obviously, this means there are an infinite number of universes. That’s the theory, anyway. They’ve never been completely sure.

“But in your case, you both were in the same place at the same time and the two actions happened in alternate universes. In our world, Monica lives and Julia died.” His voice softens and he clears his throat. “But in your world, the opposite happened. I don’t know how to attribute it. Fluke? Supreme bad luck? But whatever happened, it created a larger abnormality than any of the others.” He pauses and looks at me. “Remember when I told you I didn’t think the accident was your fault?”

I nod.

“I really don’t think it was. The Julia of our world caused her accident, we know that as a fact. But I investigated yours. The police report says there were no skid marks. You simply ran off the road. I think that you both converged at the same place at the same time, which, I might add, has mathematically impossible odds. The weakness in the barrier between the worlds caused you to crash.”

“So it really wasn’t my fault? I didn’t kill Monica?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

I take a deep breath and it’s as though a boulder has been shrugged off my shoulders. For the first time in months, I’m shed of the tremendous guilt.

We walk in silence for a minute, Reece following behind.

“Can we stop them from following us into my world?”

“We can slow them down. I have the only box, and I screwed up the equations to create another one. But eventually, they’ll figure it out and go through.”

We trudge through the forest. The quiet is eerie, and I can’t figure out what’s wrong until I realize there are no birds calling in the trees. No rustling of leaves blowing the wind. No crunchy foliage underfoot to stomp through. They’ve been gone for years.