Page 30 of The Other World

“It’s so strange,” said Althea, as we climbed up the steps. “It’s so much like home and yet…”

“Everything is just off,” I finished. “I know.”

“Is she… I mean, the other Althea, from here. Is she okay?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “She seems pretty tough,” I said. “But she’s been through a lot.”

She nodded. “And…” She pointed to other-Tennyson.

I shrugged. “This world is a mess,” I said, suddenly terrified of what we were about to do. If they got captured while we were trying to save Sam, if not-dad did to them what he’d done to this world’s versions of them, I’d never forgive myself.

Althea grabbed my hand and squeezed it, picking up on my fear. “Get in, save Sam, get out,” she said.

I nodded. That was the plan. “Be home for supper,” I finished.

But that didn’t make it any easier to watch her and Tennyson vanish through the magical door.

We waited. Me, Mrs Spencer, other-Nikolai and other-Tennyson, who seemed less wolfish than before but still partly transformed. Not exactly an elite covert team for hostage removal.

Other-me had said she could get not-dad out of his office within ten minutes, but couldn’t guarantee the magic doorwould stay open that long. I waited as long as I could stand – four minutes, seven seconds – before herding our ragtag group through.

Thankfully, the office was empty.

“This way,” I whispered, motioning toward where the elevators were, but I couldn’t help but take a moment and go over to the windows that looked down over the forest below.

It looked different than last time. Large patches of the forest seemed barren now. Burned out, I thought, since some areas seemed to still be on fire, and a haze covered large patches. It was the result of my actions, I realized. Not-dad had obviously been hunting down all the escapees and without his surveillance equipment, he was burning them out. I felt sick, remembering those footsteps I’d heard behind us, not stopping to see if they were guards or prisoners.

“Lucy, come on,” Nikolai hissed from the doorway, breaking me out of my thoughts.

It was good to have him with us, I realized. Not just as a hostage, but he was more familiar with the layout than the rest of us. Other-me had given directions but without a frame of reference, it was hard to follow and I didn’t want to walk into my not-dad and Other-me by accident, that would be hard to explain. I followed Nikolai past where we’d taken the elevators the first time, to a stairwell. A few flights down, he led us through what looked like a large storage space, then into another stairwell. After a few more flights, he went to lead us through another door, but Tennyson put a hand out to stop him.

“It’s okay, there’s nobody there,” Nikolai reassured him but Tennyson just shook his head and didn’t let Nikolai pass.

After a moment, we heard voices on the other side of the door. Tennyson waited a long time after the voices had faded from my hearing before he let us through.

The place was even more of a maze than I’d thought, even after running through the prison area, but eventually we came to the room with the viewing platform, where we’d emerged from the ladder out of the prison. There was nobody around. All the lights were off; it was totally closed for business. I wouldn’t put it past my not-dad or sneaky Other-me to suddenly jump out from the shadows and zap us with laser bolts or something though, so we stuck to the shadows and made our way down to the hatch where the ladder came out.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked other-Tennyson. “If you don’t want to go down there, it’s okay, you can stand guard for us here.”

He just shook his head and motioned for me to go down the hatch first. Mrs Spencer went after me, then Nikolai, then Tennyson came last. Out of all of them, I trusted other-Tennyson the most, so it was reassuring to have him bringing up the rear. I wished I could talk to my Tennyson, ask him how it was going, but we couldn’t risk it and I had to just assume that no news was good news.

Climbing down this time, I paid particular attention to the drips. They were still there, still seemed to ring with some type of resonant energy that I couldn’t quite decipher.

“You hear that, don’t you?” Mrs Spencer whispered down to me.

I didn’t answer her. I didn’t need to. But the fact that she heard it too, that meant I wasn’t going crazy, right? I wasn’t sure I could use her as a barometer for sanity, but I felt sure that the lodestone was close. If only I knew what it looked like. Looking for a stone, in this place, was like looking for a grain of sand at the beach.

I tried to look around as I climbed down, but there wasn’t a lot of light, and looking at anything but the ladder made me feeldizzy. There was a point though, maybe about a third of the way from the bottom, where it felt as if the dripping began to fade.

“Stop for a second you guys,” I called up, as loudly as I dared. “Can you see anything weird looking, maybe a rock sticking out or something?”

There was nothing. It was probably inside the compound somewhere. It could be just on the other side of the wall, and I’d have no way of knowing. It was so frustrating, why couldn’t Vucari have sent me a photo of it or something, rather than this vague “sensing” malarkey.

I sighed and kept climbing. Even though I owed Vucari and I’d made a magical promise or whatever that I’d get this stone for him, my priority was Sam. If I couldn’t get the lodestone, I’d just have to do him a different favor.

When we got to the bottom of the ladder, Nikolai, and Tennyson both seemed to have a clear idea of where we’d found Sam the last time. I wouldn’t have trusted Nikolai on his own, but because Tennyson seemed sure too, I had no problems following them through all the twists and turns of the prison corridors.

A lot of the cells stood open, with nobody inside, I was pleased to realize. Hopefully that meant those people were free now, far from this place. There were only a few doors still locked, and I couldn’t sense anyone behind them. I hoped that was a good thing.

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