YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

Original Edition: Chapter Eleven

My whole body was sore.

That was the first thing I became aware of when I woke up in my own bed, the harsh mid-morning light illuminating my opaque green curtains. The remainder of our trip into Yesterday hadn't actually been any more physically exerting than the first time I'd done it, but the tension I had held in my body was now showing its effects in my tight muscles and aching forehead.

But relief also flooded over me as I remembered that the rest of our excursion had gone as planned: once we'd made it to the beach behind the Portland hotel, my friends had gone to hide in the woods while George and I buried the beaker that would have created the underlake portal.

There had been a brief moment of panic when it was time to return home and Brady could not be found anywhere. But he had reappeared a moment later, having wondered off to get away from Piper and Robbie.

And then we'd all returned through the door that George opened for us, which led us back to that night eighteen months ago. I had to wait until I'd reassured Kieren a dozen times that I didn't need him to walk me home, and after Piper and Robbie had headed back to her place to sleep, before I was able to break away and return to the school.

I was so exhausted at that point, I couldn't even think to be scared. I simply used Adam's coin to return to present day, retrieved my bike from where I'd left it outside the school, and came home to pass out in this bed.

My only regret was that I didn't get a chance to talk to Kieren or Robbie more that night, while we were all in the same time and place. Now my fingers itched to reach for my phone, to call and check in with them, to make sure it hadn't all been a dream. But I had to slow down, reminding myself that for them, a year and a half had passed since that night. I was going to have to play catch-up on that time, figure out what exactly I had missed.

Of course, I'd been down this road before, the first time I'd come back from Yesterday, when I'd been plunged into a world where Robbie had been raised thousands of miles away and Kieren had no memory of me. It had taken me weeks to put the pieces of my life together then, sitting silently at the dinner table while Laura and my father acted out a strange new reality in front of me.

No one had caught on that time. I had played my part well. Would I be able to do so again?

I grabbed my phone out of its charging station and started to open Instagram so I could see what they'd been up to, but I didn't even get a chance to start scrolling.

"Marina?" Laura called gently from the stairwell.

"Yes?"

"Aren't you going to work today, sweetheart?"

I looked at the clock on my bedside table. Shit. It was ten-thirty on Saturday. I was supposed to teach the junior-high class at eleven.

"Be right down," I called, throwing my phone on the bed and heading for the bathroom to brush my teeth. My image in the mirror was less than impressive, with blue half-moon shadows under my eyes and matted hair plastered to my cheeks.

I brushed with one hand and combed with the other while using my foot to open up the top drawer where I kept my concealer. I didn't even know what today's lesson plan was. Not that it mattered much to the thirteen-year-olds. We could convert the Lego robots into a drum kit and just bang away at it for half an hour, and they would be perfectly happy.

"Shall I make you a Pop-Tart?" Laura cooed from outside the door.

"Yeshh plesh," I called back through a mouthful of toothpaste.