Alosha (32 page)

She studied her watch, particularly the second hand. It was moving forward, quickly, and Ali took that to mean she was definitely behind them—time wise—but that she was probably catching up on them. She was not sure if the latter was true, but at least it gave her hope their time lines would synchronize at some point. Hopefully soon!

Ali watched as the gang studied the doors, found the two that opened. Standing like a ghost with her back to the wall, she listened as they questioned Farble about which way to go.

She glowed with pleasure at how great it was to see her friends alive again!

Most of all, she studied herself. It was unlike gazing in a mirror. She looked like a stranger. She did not like her hair, hardly recognized the proud expression she wore. The line of her mouth, too, it was so hard. Did she always look this way? It was a frightening thought.

The next few minutes were tricky, she told herself. She had to use the button, and at the right time. Timing was everything when dealing with a time paradox, she thought.

“We have to make a choice,” Steve said. “We have come too far to go back to the entrance.”

Ali watched herself turn to Paddy. The movement was disorientating.

Darn, she didn't look as pretty as she thought she looked!

Ali decided to think of her new self as Alison. After all, that was the name on her birth certificate. Yet it was a name Ali had always refused to go by.

“Do you know?” Alison asked the leprechaun.

“No,” he said.

“Have you been in here before?” Alison asked.

“Missy asked that before. Paddy said no.”

Ali watched herself stop to think. She could almost hear Alison's thoughts, as the red door called to her with the soft voice of a witch. She saw the resolve harden her face.

“I think we should take the red door,” Alison said finally.

“Why?” Steve asked.

“I have a feeling about it,” Alison said.

Karl was annoyed. She had not noticed before how annoyed he was. “That's not a good reason to choose it,” he said.

“It is to me,” Alison said.

“I agree with Karl,” Steve said, checking out the yellow door's entrance. “The troll's first choice probably has some meaning. I think I feel a faint breeze coming out of here.”

“You didn't say that a minute ago,” Alison said.

“I didn't feel it then,” Steve said.

“Let's flip a coin,” Cindy said. “Got a gold one, Paddy?”

“We're not flipping a coin,” Alison snapped. Ali was shocked at how arrogant she sounded. It was awful to watch herself act so bossy. Alison added, “I sense something about the first door—the red door. We have to check it out.”

“If you sense something in there, we should avoid it,” Karl said.

“Yeah. It might be a swarm of dark fairies,” Cindy said.

Good for you, Ali thought.

“I can handle them,” Alison said.

“I wouldn't get overconfident. Not down here,” Karl said.

“I don't like the red door!” Paddy suddenly shouted.

Ali watched as Alison turned on the poor leprechaun, and grilled him, and hardly listened when he tried to warn her. It was a lot to take in. Ali found it hard to believe that she did not even stop to consider what might be behind Paddy's words. Alison just saw him as a liar, a coward. What arrogance!

Finally Alison pronounced her decision.

“Look. We can hike some distance into the first cave,” Alison said, trying to sound reasonable but determined to get her own way. “Say a mile or two. If it doesn't look like it's going the right way, we can come back here.”

Again, Ali was struck by Karl's annoyed reaction. She had not really noticed it the first time.

“How will we know we're going the wrong way? We won't know anything until it leads us outside.”

“I agree,” Steve said.

“You can't simply ignore what Paddy's saying,” Cindy added.

“Trust me,” Alison said.

Famous last words, Ali thought.

The gang prepared to pass through the red door. Ali acted fast. Slipping out of the shadows, she stepped through the open
yellow
door, into the center of the
third
cave. She watched as Alison reached for a button on her shirt to tuck into the corner of the
first
door frame.

Right then Ali tore off the
same
button on her shirt and let it bounce on the floor.

On the floor of the
third
cave. Just beyond the
yellow
door.

Alison paused and looked over,
and she saw the button!

Why was Alison able to see it when she couldn't see her?

Ali was not sure. She had just hoped Alison would.

Yet when Ali had been stuck in Radrine's prison cell, it had been the buttons—and
not
her watch—that had reacted to the
two
time frames. She suspected it might have had something to do with where she had placed the buttons when she had hiked the length of the cave. The first set of doors they had come to were still a mystery to her, but it was possible they had something to do with time. There had been three, after all, and there were always three dimensions to time: past, present and future.

It was a mystery she would have to solve later.

Stepping away from the group, Alison walked over and picked up the button. Almost, Ali reached out and touched herself. At least her long hair, seen
from behind, looked better than she had thought. But she would have to do something about the front, maybe get bangs.

At least
Alison
still had her hair. Radrine had cut off her's.

Ali watched herself study the button, the confusion on her face. Actually, they were both confused. Because when she had dropped the button for Alison to see, the button on Alison's shirt had suddenly vanished. Now it was in Alison's hand, and it must have been freaking her out because she had not even torn the button off her shirt.

“Take the yellow door! Take the yellow door!” Ali shouted at herself. Maybe a part of Alison heard her, at least inside. Alison continued to stare at the button, thinking. The others were already a dozen feet into the first cave.

Then Ali saw something miraculous; they probably both did. For a few seconds the button in Alison's hand glowed with a faint green and blue light. The light was warm and hypnotic; neither of them could take their eyes off it. Suddenly it focused into a beam and Ali saw it pierce Alison's eyes and enter her brain. Shaking her head as if she had just been awakened by a slap, Alison looked around for the others.

“Take the yellow door! Take the yellow door!” Ali shouted at herself.

Alison called to the others. “Wait!”

The gang turned around and came back.

“What is it?” Cindy asked.

Alison hesitated. She looked at the button again.

“Are you changing your mind?” Steve asked.

Alison swallowed. “Let's take the yellow door.”

“How can you change your mind?” Karl asked.

Alison thought a moment, then shrugged. “I'm a girl. I can do that.”

The gang was agreeable. Ali shouted out with joy. Yet Alison paused to peek once more into the first cave, on the other side of the red door, just before she closed it. Did Alison suspect what she had just missed? The skeletons and the demons? Ali would have relished telling her twin that some tests were better taken only once.

The cave began to climb, not steeply, but bad enough. Once more they were forced to take frequent breaks, and their thirst grew swiftly. Ali felt so dry she would have traded everything she owned for a glass of water. But all she had were the clothes on her back, and no one could see her anyway.

Ali stayed close to Alison, feeling like a shadow, checking out the time on both their watches. She did not think the split between them could go on much longer. She noticed, as time passed, that the times of the two watches were coming closer together. She was now only nine minutes behind Alison, she seemed to be gaining a minute on her every ten minutes. In an hour and a half they should come into sync.

“What will happen then?” Ali wondered. She was still worried about a major explosion. What a mess that would make of their plans.

They passed what appeared to be a group of six tunnels—three round entrances opened on either side of the main cave. These possessed no doors, and without exception, they seemed to lead slightly downward. The gang passed them by without hardly a pause. It was unlikely any of them led to the outside.

Yet they intrigued Ali.

Ali found herself struggling to keep up. To her surprise, Steve seemed to have gotten a second wind. He walked up front beside Karl, with Paddy and Farble in the middle. Ali found herself in the back with Alison and Cindy, the three of them—or the two of them—huffing and puffing together like they sometimes did during PE class. But Ali was more exhausted than her double, who had not had to hang upside down for hours and then fight with Radrine. Yet she feared to fall behind, to be away from Alison when the two times met.

She watched as Alison glanced over at Cindy.

“How are you doing?” Alison asked.

“I would rather be home in front of the TV, drinking a vanilla shake,” Cindy said.

“Please don't talk about food or drink,” Alison snapped.

Cindy nodded. “Here we're near the end of this amazing adventure and it's all I can think about. I guess that means I'm a shallow person.”

Ali saw that Alison was about to agree with Cindy. The closer their time zones came to each other, it seemed the more she could read Alison's mind.

“Be nice to her,” she told Alison. Her double paused and glanced over her shoulder. Ali smiled and waved but Alison didn't notice. Yet Alison acted like she had heard something.

“It just means you're hungry,” Alison said sweetly.

“Probably,” Cindy agreed.

Alison paused. “Cindy?”

“What?”

“I want to apologize,” Alison said.

“For what?”

“For being so bossy. For acting like I know everything. I've been a real pain in the butt these last two days.”

Good girl, Ali thought. She felt like a guardian angel handing out sage advice over her double's shoulder. Everyone in the world should have the chance to see themselves from the outside, she thought. They probably wouldn't like what they saw.

“True. I accept your apology,” Cindy said.

“You don't want to yell at me first?” Alison asked.

“I'm too tired.”

Alison continued. “I think it was something I had to learn, that I could make mistakes. It was a test in its own way. That's why I think I had to go the wrong . . .” Alison caught herself.

“You had to go the wrong what?” Cindy asked.

“Nothing,” Alison said, puzzled by her own remark.

Definitely her double must be hearing her thoughts to make such a slip. Ali took it as an encouraging sign. She didn't want to rejoin her other half and end up schizophrenic.

The next hour and a half was a killer, for Ali more than any of them. Again, the time she had spent in the dark fairy's hive had taken more out of her than she had realized, and the slope of the cave kept getting steeper. Try as she
might, she could not get enough air in her lungs. She thought of wrapping her arms around Alison's waist and asking to be towed along.

Ali knew they were getting near the end of the tunnel, however. The air had cooled and she could smell the waiting snow. After all she had gone through inside the mountain, it would be good to get outside.

A light appeared up ahead. With a shout of excitement the gang rushed forward. Alison followed at first, but then began to lag behind. Ali herself had no choice but to plod along. Her head ached and her muscles burned—she was completely spent. But she managed to pull behind her double and recheck Alison's watch. Their time zones were now only seconds apart.

Perhaps Alison sensed that. She stopped in mid-stride.

Ali put her hands on Alison's shoulders, much as the bright green being had touched her after the accident, one year ago. The light at the end of the tunnel seemed to increase, or else it was the same light from that mysterious night, come to revisit. The walls of the cave shimmered with a green radiance—with hints of blue—and a wave of silence swept the length of the tunnel.

Ali felt herself split in two. She was as much in Alison's mind as her own. The green being had probably felt the same when she had held her. Yet she spoke to Alison and her double finally heard her with her own ears. The seconds on the watch continued to tick. Almost time, but not quite yet. . . .

“Stop,” Ali said. “Do not turn around.”

“Who are you?” Alison asked, stunned by the voice, the invisible grip.

“You do not know.”

“I know that.” Alison tried to turn. Ali felt the power of the earth element flow through her arms and she was able to stop her double. All her tiredness fled, and she was filled with a surge of wonder and joy. Her double struggled in her arms. “Why can't I see you?” Alison demanded.