I take my hand off the doorknob and pull the copied map of Ó Direáin from my backpack. The length of my pinkie finger is about three miles on the scale, which means the high school is about five miles from here. That’s a long way. Probably a two-hour walk. I look down at my wounded shin as if it can give me some input. Hey, leg, you wanna walk that far? Nah?
But I know I shouldn’t be here. I’m displacing my parallel self somehow, at this very moment. Is she desperately lost in some sort of cosmic limbo land?
Mental confusion plus physical pain plus a very full stomach equals inertia. I look for the phone, as if I can call Dad for advice, to tell him to come get me. Dad. What have I done to him? He must be wondering where I am, where I’m hiding. I rub my fingers across the phone’s number pad, knowing what will happen if I dial his cell phone. This number is not in service. This number does not exist here.
Does he think I’ve been kidnapped? Does he think I ran away? The last time I hid from Dad, I was six years old and raging mad because I wanted to draw on my bedroom walls. Millipedes and lizards. Or, better yet, lizards eating millipedes. Dad confiscated the Crayolas, and I made myself disappear. I can still see him, standing below me as I clung to a tree limb, leaning against the rough trunk. “Climb down, you little squirrel,” he’d said, shaking a bag of M&M’S, trying to lure me to the ground.
I look around Mom’s quiet little apartment. Dad can’t find me here. Can he? Is he wishing he could lure me home with chocolate? Has he missed his copywriting deadlines because he’s been frantic, searching for me?
I almost laugh out loud. No way. I mean, sure, Chef Dad was waiting for me in the driveway in Universe Three. He was worried, practically ready to call the police. But he’s not my real dad. Real Dad never misses deadlines. Real Dad doesn’t notice when I’m gone for hours on end.
But I miss him.
I don’t know how to weigh the choices. I don’t know how to balance the equation. On one side: Click through the universes—simply turn the wheel, full circle—until I get back home. Back to Willow and Kandy and their decrepit house. Back to smelly Ennis High, Home of the Bears. Back to Dad.
On the other side: Take my time in each universe, looking for the ideal. Mom and Dad could be in love in Universe Five or Seven or Ten. And it’s not like I’m ditching Dad. Not at all. Because Dad will be there. He’ll just be a better version of Dad, one who isn’t glued to a computer screen 24/7. We’ll be together. Everything will be okay. I step away from the door, let my backpack slide to the floor, deciding.
Ruby, the perfect universe might be one spin of the wheel away, and you have to find out.
Okay, I’m going, but … Universe Five can wait until tomorrow at daybreak. That way I get a little more time with this mom, a good night’s sleep, and my medicine. All things I desperately need. It’s a good compromise; it’s a plan.
A half-open closet to my right reveals a tiny stacked washer-dryer, and a bag with the name RUBY embroidered across it. Mine, but not mine. Ruby’s bag is full of clothes—a pink T-shirt, a lime-green polo with purple jeweled buttons, and more sparkle-pocket jeans. At the bottom of the bag are flannel pajamas. They’re pink—yippee—but they’re clean and soft. I take off my smelly clothes, toss them in the washer with some of Mom’s darks, then start the shower. I’m careful not to get my freshly bandaged wound wet, but otherwise scrub myself from top to bottom. Yeah, my leg looks nasty. It’s puffy and tender, but I convince myself it’ll be better in the morning. I breathe in the steam and the grape-scented shampoo, trying to let my nerves unfurl. The moment I’m toweled off and wearing the pink pj’s, the phone rings. The Caller ID says Sally Wright—Mom.
“Hi, Mommy.”
“How’s the pain, sweetheart?”
“It’s throbbing but not terrible. I’m wondering if I chipped a bone.”
“I’ve got your medicine. I’m going as fast as I can, but—oh …”
“What, Mom?”
“There’s this gorgeous buck standing near the entrance to Dublin Estates. I hope he stays away from the road. Okay, I’ll see you in five minutes. Should I stop at the grocery store? I thought I’d make you a big breakfast tomorrow. Can you wait fifteen minutes instead of five? Are you miserable?”
“I can wait fifteen minutes.”
“We should take you back to the hospital for X-rays,” Mom says.
“I’ll be okay tomorrow,” I say, dreading the idea of negotiating parallel universes with my leg in a cast.
“If it’s a fracture, it’s not going to feel better tomorrow.”
Mom hangs up, and anger wells up inside me. I could kill Kandy for chasing me into that table. Though I suppose she could kill me for reading her diary. Whatever. A sequence of events, starting long ago, eventually led to my leg connecting violently with a glass-top coffee table. I mean, going way back, Willow could’ve bought a soft leather ottoman instead of the table. Or she could’ve arranged the furniture differently.
If it weren’t for a million decisions and variables, I wouldn’t have fled into the cornfields and discovered the door in the tree. I wouldn’t be sitting on Mom’s denim couch, waiting for her to come home to me. It’s like it was meant to be. Maybe I should be thanking Kandy for chasing me? Yeah, right.
I settle back onto the couch, unzip my backpack and open my notebook. I’ve gotta force my eyes to stay open, to focus on the words inscribed above the oak tree’s door:
Gry kbo iye coousxq?
And on the surface of the steering disk:
Wkccsfo cyvkb pvkbo 1864 = Kdwyczrobsm ovomdbsm cebqo. Dboo bodksxon zygob 87 ryebc. Ceppsmsoxd cebqo boymmebboxmo sxmkvmevklvo.
Complex math equations written in abbreviated, encoded form? Several words end in the letter o, and there are two identical words: “cebqo.” Before I can make any headway, I hear Mom in the hallway, her key in the lock.
“I’m home,” Mom says, opening the door. “Don’t get up.”
“I won’t.”
She puts down a grocery bag, then pulls a small orange bottle out of her purse. “You’re supposed to take one every four hours, with food.”
“I finished my dinner while you were gone,” I say. “I’m stuffed.”
Mom hands me a sizable pill and a glass of water. “Bottoms up.”
I gulp it down, then motion to my notebook. “I’ve got some homework, then I’m calling it a night, okay?”
Mom ruffles my hair. “You need your rest. The homework can wait.” She peers at my notebook before I can close it. “What was that? Code?”
“Yeah,” I say, fumbling for an explanation. “Just messing around. It’s for, uh, English class.”
“English? I thought it was Mr. McBride who made his classes decode Ó Direáin’s journal. Did you already start the local history unit? I thought he saved that for second semester.”
Ó Direáin’s journal? My mind flashes to his bronze statue in the park, near the fountain. The plaque said he was one of the town’s forefathers. He was the inventor of the lightbulb.
“We, uh, yes,” I stutter. “We started the journal. Already.”
“I have to admit,” she says, smiling, “I love flipping through it at night, right before I fall asleep. I have this fantasy that my subconscious will figure out how to crack those uncrackable codes.”
There are codes in Ó Direáin’s journal? It can’t be a coincidence; Ó Direáin must have had some connection with the portal. He was a scientist! He might have discovered the wormhole and then invented a way to navigate it. Or maybe he created the wormhole himself. I need to get back to the library before I leave this universe, to see if I can get my hands on a copy of that journal.