Quantum (10 page)

It was hard to believe a whole year had passed since then. I could still graphically remember the dark basement that Kellan and I were held in, the excruciating pain that followed once the sedative drugs used to take us there had worn off. I remember the excitement when I first woke up back home in Princeton and then the desperation I felt when I discovered that Kellan was not with me anymore. The Wanderers rescued us. If it weren’t for them, goodness knows what would have become of us. It was because of them that we were back here by the lake, able to appreciate the calm and serenity of the evening. I turned over to face Kellan. I swept the strands of hair off his face revealing his gorgeous eyes. They were gazing right into my soul, or so it seemed anyway. I know that sounds a bit melodramatic, but
sigh
. He brushed his lips against mine and I moved in toward him.

“Mmm, this is so good. Shrimp, I want to lie here forever,” he whispered.

No argument from me there. I totally gave in to
snogging
–as they call it over in England–my boyfriend.

He suddenly pulled away from me. “Easy, Shrimp. We better stop,” he laughed.

Sigh.
Again.

I still lay as close to him as I possibly could and my mind wandered back to the previous year.

Though last October had been full of adventure and drama, life had since calmed. After Halloween, everything mellowed out. Life settled into a comfortable routine. Kellan and I became inseparable. Ice hockey still dominated my free time. It was great having my older brother as captain of the team. We had grown very close, spending a lot of time together both on and off ice. So it was very difficult to watch him head off to college. I really missed him, as did Ella. She was closest to him. Thank goodness for Skype, at least they got to see and talk to each other everyday.

Harry graduating from Mountain View High had left a big dent in the varsity hockey team. He’d been the clear-cut choice for captain last year and it was assumed that David would take over for our senior year. However, when David’s dad was stabbed by Raj, he naturally went over to Stevensland to look after him. We fully expected him to come back once his dad had recovered. But, strangely, David decided to stay over there.
Why
? It was a complete mystery. He was so close to his mother that there must have been some mitigating circumstances for him to make that decision–if it was, indeed, his decision. He was a Wanderer, after all, and they answered to their leader, Constance.

So, toward the end of last semester, Coach Stanislaw was pretty much tearing his hair out–the little he had– trying to decide on a new team captain. He needed to make a choice between Kellan and me. We were clearly the two best players on the team. His decision was made easier when I was asked to be the captain of the local all-girls travel hockey team. It would be good for me to show any lurking college scouts that I was a force to be reckoned with. I needed to be able to prove to them that I could play at college level for a girls’ team. So, Kellan was the new varsity captain, but I would play for them as much as I could, my priority being my own girls’ team. So, any spare time we had was spent at the ice rink, slamming pucks at each other and practicing the different drills.

“Kell, are you excited about captaining the team?”

He laughed. “Regretting your decision to captain the girls’ team?”

I nudged him sharply with my elbow. “No! I need to do this to be able to play college hockey.”

“I know. I’m going to miss having you on the team. Though I have to admit that I was dreading having to play
for
you!”

“Why?” That was hurtful. I mean I was as good as any of the boys–better, even. I pouted to make sure that he knew I was unhappy. And I moved away from his neck to make doubly sure he got the message.

“Oh, come on, Shrimp. You’re going to be a total control freak as captain.”

“And you’re not?” I challenged.

“No, I’m not,” he said, and grabbed hold of me. “You know I’m not.”

He was right, of course. I could already picture myself bossing the girls around. I would really have to rein myself in. I rolled my eyes and slid back closer to him and we continued gazing at the stars. We’d have to go home soon–school tomorrow. Our lazy summer days were over–we had homework waiting.

Our summer vacation had been great. We were busy with hockey camps and whatnot, but we’d also had plenty of downtime. Mom and Rupert discussed various travel plans with me, but I wasn’t really that into it. The school year had been busy and what I wanted most was to spend time with Kellan. And with Harry.

 
I toyed with the idea of traveling to England to check out the
Dillard Stevens
who lived in this dimension. By all accounts, he was still in Leeds. I spent some time googling him and learned that he was separated from his third wife–or whatever–and seemed to have a total of five kids, from what I could tell. That’s not including Ella or me. Though Ella and I were not his daughters–technically. I mean we weren’t conceived in this dimension, I would imagine.

There were two Dillard Stevens, the same person living two separate lives in two different dimensions. The one in this dimension had no idea that Ella or I existed. I was still Dillard Stevens’ daughter from
the other
dimension. So confusing! I wasn’t born in this dimension. But, could I have been conceived in this dimension? Was there a time when both the Dillards were the same person, in one dimension, and the dimension then split? I vaguely recalled the many-worlds theory that Kevin had tried to explain to us.

I was fairly sure a DNA test would prove I was the daughter of both the Dillards! I couldn’t work it out, and until I did it would perhaps be best to leave things be, no point upsetting the status quo, until we knew more.

Plus, imagine turning up in Leeds.
Hello Dad!
Imagine springing that on Dillard Stevens, perhaps to discover that he was not the least bit interested in getting to know us. He did have other kids! Besides that, I was not prepared to welcome a whole new family into
my
life, one that included multiple siblings and stepmothers. My life was complicated enough.

Additionally, how would I explain to Ella that she had another dad, no, two other dads? She’d never known anyone but Rupert as her dad. She didn’t even know about our real dad back in Princeton.

So, I decided to put those thoughts aside, it would open up a whole can of worms that was better left untouched. What I needed to do was to arrange to visit
my dad
in Stevensland. That would mean a trip through the portal, a not altogether comfortable thought, especially since the portal had been tampered with last year. Was it even safe? It was active again, thus the tremors. I would have to discuss it further with Mom.

How was I going to explain my year-long absence to Dad? What had he done when I went missing? Was the FBI out looking for me? I guess, even if they had been, with no results a year later, they would probably have given up on me. Dad would be devastated. I doubted that he would have remained at our house in Princeton; it would’ve been too painful for him.
 
Would I even be able to find him? Had he tried to contact Mom and Ella when I disappeared? If so, he would have hit another brick wall. Although I had asked Monica to let him know that I was okay, that wouldn’t be of any comfort when he came up against multiple dead ends trying to find me.

One solution would be to head back to the other dimension
back in time
, to last year, so that no time would have been lost there when I went back. That way, I could just tell Dad that I had been away playing hockey or whatever. I wondered whether it was possible to reset the other end of the portal back to last year?

The roar of a bike approaching from behind the trees interrupted my thoughts. Kellan and I were on our feet as we saw a beam of light flickering through the branches. The bike came to a dead stop right in front of us. After our misadventure at the lake last year, we were on guard. We braced ourselves. I clasped a rock in my hand, ready to pummel it into the biker. There was just one, no match for the two of us.

The darkness made it hard to identify whom we were dealing with. However, once the helmet was lifted from his head and a shock of blond hair and the intense gaze of blue eyes were revealed, well... I threw myself at him. He lifted me up and bear-hugged me.

“David!
 
What are you doing back here? It’s so great to see you. I’ve missed you!”

 
“Hey!
 
What’s up?” Kellan added.

“Good to see you, Poppet. Hey, Kellan. Rupert sent me out to get you. He wants you both to come back with me.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He’ll explain when we get there. Come on, he wants us back right away.” David indicated an urgency revving his engine.

He seemed pretty intense about it, so we reached for our helmets. Something serious must be going on. I climbed on behind Kellan and we took off, zigzagging through the trees to get to the main road. I wondered what was up. It was odd that Rupert had sent David out to get us. Why was he back? He hadn’t been around much in the past year. David had pretty much started living with his dad. He hadn’t shared anything about his life for a while. I guessed he was going to school in the other dimension. Boy, it would be so odd, yet cool, to experience the same school in different dimensions. I wondered if there was any overlap between students or teachers, probably not. I bet David was the ice hockey captain for their varsity team. Hopefully he would stay around long enough for me to be able to catch up with him. I had really missed him. The last time we’d had any real kind of chat was at the Halloween dance last year. That had been fairly short and was mostly about Simla and the very unfortunate news that her dad had murdered her mom.

David and I shared a special bond. His Wanderer abilities had saved us from Raj last year and brought us even closer. The weirdest thing is that he seemed to be able to read my thoughts when he made physical contact with me. It would be so cool if I could do that, too! There was definitely an unusual connection between us, though I had been aware that he also
like-liked
me–in the human sense as well. I say
liked
because I had a feeling that David had gotten over that emotion. I noticed that at Christmas. He seemed a bit more detached around me. No more deep, piercing gazes or stolen touches. His mind seemed preoccupied. Certainly any romantic feelings that he may have had for me in the past seemed to have completely disappeared. I missed them in a strange way. Though I didn’t have any romantic feelings toward him, I felt very close to him. I guess it wasn’t that strange that he had withdrawn from me, especially after seeing how committed Kellan and I were to each other. Still, selfishly, I missed his closeness.

Kellan and I tore down the road behind David toward my house and stopped just outside the front door. Rupert stood waiting for us on the porch. He was in his jeans and t-shirt. He was running his fingers through his dark hair, his blue eyes studying us intently as we walked up the steps.

“Hey, kids. Come inside.”

“What’s up?” I asked. “You look worried.”

“Come inside and I’ll tell you.”

We followed him in. After a year of living with him, I could still not figure Rupert out. I had somehow managed to avoid calling him
Dad
–it just didn’t feel right. He seemed really nice and utterly devoted to my mom. There was something about him, though.

“David, thanks for driving out to get them. You’d better get back to your house. Your mom is waiting to take you over to Constance.”

David nodded and turned around to wave at me, before heading toward the door.

 
I stopped him. “David, I’d love to catch up with you before you go back to your dad’s. Are you going back soon or are you staying for a while?”

“That would be great, Poppet. I may be around here for a while, so we’ll get a chance, no doubt.”

“You will? I mean, you’re hanging around? How long?”