I wake up on a couch in an office. The acoustic tile of the ceiling is riddled with pencils like darts on a dartboard. I recognize the odors of disinfectant and coffee. I have no idea how I got here. With a hand on my head, I sit up and slide my feet to the floor. For some reason I’m wearing shoes.
“Kallie, welcome back to the land of the living and just in time. Your mother is going to be here to pick you up any minute. Here, Coach Castillo said to give you this,” Principal Willard steps around her desk, “and have you drink this.” She’s offering me a bottle with one hand and a letter with the other.
I frown, so she continues, “It’s Gatorade. He said you’d probably be fine to return to class, but passing out twice in twenty minutes apparently warrants a trip to the doctor.”
“Oh, umm, thank you.” I accept the gifts. “I must not have eaten enough breakfast.”
“What, you mean that energy soda all the kids are drinking these days? Real juice my fanny. Besides, I’ve tasted the stuff. It’s like licking a rusty battery. Not that I’ve ever done such a thing, mind you.” She swishes into her swivel chair and instantly returns to jotting notes on her calendar.
I hold the cold plastic bottle to my forehead. “Wait, you said my mother is picking me up?”
“Uh huh. Any minute, honey.”
“My mother is still alive,” I mumble.
Principal Willard looks up from her work. “Kallie, honey, are you feeling alright?”
“Huh? Oh, fine. Sorry, just an inside joke between my mom and me.”
She eyes me for a second.
I smile. “I think I’ll wait for her outside, if that’s alright.”
“Suit yourself, but it’s hot out there. Lord almighty if it wasn’t 90 degrees already when I got up this morning, and it’s only mid-May.”
“I’m sure it won’t be long, and I don’t want my mom to have to park the car and walk.”
“Fine with me, honey. You get some rest and have something to eat. None of that energy bar crap, either. Scramble yourself some eggs or something. Hasn’t Mrs. Henderson showed you kids how to crack an egg?”
“Yes, Mrs. Willard. Last semester, and I will.” I open the door leading to the hall. “Thanks for letting me crash.”
“Honey, you did the crashing all on your own. I just gave you a place to park until the tow truck arrived.”
I pause in the doorway. “Does that mean you’re calling my mother a truck?”
“Heavens no.” Principal Willard jerks her head up. “You better not tell her any such thing.”
I smile and shut the door. Halfway to the front entrance of the school, my smile disappears. What’s happening to me? How do I know this place?
As soon as I round the front of the school, I head for the only shade in the parking lot; a rock rolled up against the trunk of a live oak tree creates a favorite hangout for students. I haven’t the slightest clue how I know this information. At the same time, it seems completely normal that I do.
I plop down on the rock, drink half of the Gatorade without pausing for breath, and then finally inspect the letter. The outside of the envelope is addressed to a “Kallie Bravo,” which I recognize as being me. When I open the letter, it’s addressed to Ms. Bluehair, which I also recognize as me.
Welcome to the multiverse. I stop reading and shake off a chill. I scan to the bottom of the page where the letter is signed, Instructor Turon. Hurried words beneath the signature read, Training reaches to the bone, Ms. Bluehair. Do not disappoint me.
I scan the parking lot to ensure I’m still alone before returning my eyes to the top of the page in order to read the entire thing.
Welcome to the multiverse. I regret leaving you nothing but this letter in regards to further explanation of your new situation. I could not risk occupying Coach Castillo’s body any longer.
By the way, if in need of an adult confidant, my doppelgänger in your current universe understands a large portion of what you are going through at the moment. He has come to grips with the same experience over the past few months.
While the science can be quite complex, put most simply, you are now two consciousnesses sharing one body. I apologize for my abrupt method of delivering you into said condition. Your brother understood the time limitations and the necessity to act quickly.
Olin. I remember my dream of him passing through the door marked, No admittance. I remember his last words to me: I only hope Turon can get through to you this time. Have I been betrayed by my own brother? I resume reading.
Do not be angry at Olin. In this instance, he has been more mature than you. In New Teo your physical body will remain in stasis for the duration of your mission or until the end of the academic term. At that point, I will no longer be able to explain your absence without drawing unwanted attention.
Therefore, you have one month of uninhibited time to locate each of the green ones, or rather their corresponding doppelgängers, in the universe of your new residence. Their names will most likely not be the same. Their appearance will.
I lower the letter and chew the inside of my mouth. I stop and then fiddle with the pendant hanging on a delicate gold chain around my neck. It’s too much to handle. How am I supposed to believe a man—one who I know has lied to me before—when he starts prattling on about locating doppelgängers in a parallel universe?
I gaze up at the branches overhead. The oak leaves are foreign compared to those of the oje or any of the broad leaf specimens I grew up with. At the same time, I’m positive I grew up surrounded by oaks. Clearly I’m not in New Teotihuacan, or even a domed city nearby. No, I’m in Sugar Land, Texas. This is where I’ve grown up.
Maybe Neca had been right. Maybe there is a greater world outside of New Teo filled with people living lives of freedom and abundance. Just because I’m not in New Teo doesn’t mean I’m in a different universe. I sigh. Either way, I have to finish reading the letter. I pick up where I left off.
And locate them you must. Each of the green ones are of extreme interest to the regime. At the end of this term you will be separated as the regime endeavors to mold you in its monstrous image. Nowhere within our own universe will we be able to meet together in effort to preserve and nurture your true abilities.
It is not my intent to be an alarmist, Ms. Bluehair. I trust you know me as a man who does not exaggerate. In that vein, believe me when I say, if by month’s end you do not locate your friends within your current universe, it is most likely you will never see them again in any universe.
I bite my lip and fiddle with my pendant. For the first time since waking up on the couch in Principal Willard’s office, I feel trapped. If Turon is telling the truth, he has my body held captive a universe away. Now he has given me a mission he claims is vital to my friends’ fates. I have no idea where I am. No idea how to get home. No idea if I’m even sane. And no idea whether I should do what I’ve been instructed, or even how to go about it. I continue reading.
Unfortunately, finding your friends will most likely prove the easier half. After finding them, you must convince them of their greater reality. Nurture a willingness in them to explore the truth. When this second more difficult half is accomplished, email me at Turon@masa.edu with a residential address and the name of the green one you have located. Within twenty four hours, Coach Turon will guide you in completing the process of awakening.
In the following weeks you will learn to share your mind. Please understand, Kallie is as much Calli as you. Her experiences are different. Learn from those differences, and you will become a fuller version of yourself. Ignore them at your own expense.
Finally, I should not will you to feel abandoned and alone in your mission. Thankfully you are not. During the past forty-eight hours, I have happily stumbled upon a residential address quite close to your current location. You will find it written on the back of this page. Go there immediately. (You may have deduced your mother is not coming to pick you up. Again, I apologize for the ruse. But it is of utmost importance you visit the address on the back of this letter before you attempt a reunion with your mother in this universe.)
I flip the page over and locate the address Turon mentioned: 12654 Roadster Ct. There’s no further detail or explanation.
That’s when I realize I’ve been battling one particularly huge emotion that I’ve not let roost in my thoughts until now. I have a mother. I have parents. But I was there when my parents died, when Olin’s outburst disintegrated them. I slow my breathing before passing out for the third time this morning. Turon is right about one thing, I’m not ready to meet Kallie Bravo’s mother.
What choice do I have?
The contents of the letter I’m holding are so impossible that I see no other option than to follow them to that end. I’m no more inclined to believe I will soon be reunited with my dead mother than I will find anyone familiar at 12654 Roadster Ct.
The only other course of action I can think of is to sit under this tree and do nothing. And doing nothing has never been my style, not in this universe or any other.
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