Part Five
“How are we going to do this?” Di asked Dan as they left the clubhouse. “I don’t suppose we want Regan to see us.”
He shook his head. “Not if we can help it.”
“And I don’t want to run into Honey’s aunt!”
“Look.” He pointed. “This is our chance. Run!”
A short distance from the stables, Vera Carlton was haranguing Regan on the whereabouts of Honey and his responsibility to look after her interests. But if they skirted the other side of the building, they would be able to enter unseen.
“Poor Uncle Bill,” Dan muttered, as they ducked inside. “But that was just what we needed.”
“We’d better do this quickly,” Di added, walking over to the latest location they had discovered for making portals, a patch of wall behind the last stall and hidden from view unless you were right in front of it. “Ready?”
He nodded. Di formed the portal and they stepped through together.
“Whoah!” Dan moaned, sinking to his knees.
Di sank down next to him, a hand on his back. “What’s wrong?”
He looked up. She could see the sweat beading on his forehead. His hands were shaking.
“What’s wrong?” Di repeated. “Can you move? What if someone comes?”
She left him in order to peek around the barrier that hid them. Horses stood in some of the stalls, but there were no human inhabitants that she could see or hear. She went back to Dan.
“Do you feel better now?” she asked, worriedly.
Dan shook his head. “I think I’m getting it under control.”
“Getting what under control?”
“Test your abilities.”
Di concentrated. “You’re going to tell me what’s wrong,” she said, her voice dreamy.
Dan made a noise that could be a grunt or could be a laugh. “Nice try, but no.”
“You know I’ve never had enough practice at that,” she chided.
He looked at her. “Try a different ability.”
Straightening, she jumped. And stayed up.
“Oh.”
Dan nodded. “And I can feel something really wrong here – two things wrong. But one of them involves… me.”
Di floated gently to the ground. “What are we going to do? And where do you think we are?”
He shrugged. “Some other reality, I guess. But there’s something strange …”
“Is Regan arguing with Honey’s aunt just outside?” Di asked, in a whisper. “Are you getting anything on that?”
He shook his head. “I can’t feel anything to do with her at all.”
“That’s strange,” Di murmured. “Any clues to why?”
Their eyes met and she saw apprehension in his face. “It’s something to do with Honey. She’s right at the centre of both… whatevers.”
“And what about the fragment? Or Bobby? Can you feel anything to do with either of them?”
He shook his head. “There’s something blocking them. I don’t know what it is.” He stood up. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
She followed him outside and they both ducked around the corner just as his uncle arrived on the scene.
“Not my fault,” the older man muttered, under his breath. “That’s what he thinks.”
Di shot Dan a concerned look. He shrugged and pointed away from the door. They skirted around the other side of the stables and took the path that led to the clubhouse.
“Wherever this is, it’s not where we’re supposed to be,” Dan reasoned. “Let’s try to get a portal back out of here.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” Di glanced back over her shoulder. “Duck!”
They hid behind the nearest bush as a car descended the drive. Peeking through the branches, they could see Vera Carlton sitting very straight in the back seat, a sour expression on her face.
“That’s her out of the way,” Dan commented, pulling Di to her feet. “I got a good read on her while she was close. She didn’t find anything to pick on Honey about, so she’s off to make someone else miserable.”
Di’s brows drew together. “But what does that mean? Especially if Honey’s in the middle of the mystery?”
He shook his head. “No clue.”
They kept on their way, reaching the clubhouse without meeting anyone else. Dan took his key out of his pocket and tried it in the lock. To both their relief, it opened. They entered the storage area, which had a long-neglected look to it, and Dan tried to make a portal.
“Damn!” He thumped the wall. “Now what?”
Di thought for a moment. “I think we need to figure out what’s blocking you from finding out about the fragment.”
“If it’s here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe I can’t get anything on it because it’s not in this reality. We don’t know where we are. How do we know that it’s even here?”
“But I thought you said something was blocking them?”
He shrugged. “Maybe this whole reality is blocking them.”
Di shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. Try picking up threads from our own reality, or the alternate one, and see if you get anything at all.”
He concentrated hard for a minute or so, then shook his head. “It’s completely blank.”
“Then I’m right, aren’t I? If there’s something blocking it, then it must be here.”
Dan nodded once. “Okay. I see your point. But I don’t see what we can do about it.”
“Well, what threads can you feel?”
He reached out again, frowning as he tried to sort them out. “There’s definitely something that I’m doing wrong. I have good intentions, to some extent, but I’ve made some bad choices. I think Uncle Bill is tied up in some of it, but mostly it’s to do with Honey.”
“Okay. What else?”
“There’s a second thing connected to Honey, but she doesn’t know it.” He sighed. “Trixie’s got hold of a couple of threads of each, plus a whole lot of threads of some other things, but I don’t think she knows yet they’re not all the same thing.”
“Is she nearby?” Di asked.
He shook his head. “I’m getting that through other people – Honey’s father and Uncle Bill, mostly. I don’t think any of the Bob-Whites are nearby.”
Di thought about this for a moment. “That doesn’t explain how you’re getting so much about you. I think you are around here somewhere. You’re what’s blocking you from getting a read on the fragment and so you’re what we need to get out the way.”
He gave her a dubious look.
“Think about it,” she went on. “You couldn’t even stand up when we got here because it was so bad. You must be near here. In fact, you must be very close to where we were. Reach out again from here and see if you can find you.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then changed his mind. “Fine. I’ll try it.” He concentrated some more. “I’m angry. Blindingly angry. Against… Honey? And against Uncle Bill – but with him less than with Honey. And I’m going to… No! I can’t do that!”
“What?”
He shook his head. “That can’t be right. I must be picking up on someone else.”
“What?”
Once more, he shook his head. “Nothing. Forget it.”
Di made an angry noise, but he took no notice.
“You were right. I’m in the stables right now, arguing with Uncle Bill. I’m blaming him for not knowing things he couldn’t know. And I’m taking out my anger with Honey on him.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “And that’s where we need to be. I guess we’ll just have to wait for both of them to leave.”
“There’s something else.”
She watched his face, seeing the tiny hint of worry in his eyes.
“I think someone saw us come in here, but I don’t know who it is. They’re outside, watching and waiting and I can’t tell what they want.”
Di looked at the window opposite the door. “I’ll go up on the roof and take a look around, if you like.”
He nodded agreement to the plan, so Di went over and opened the window. With a small and effortless jump, she hopped onto the windowsill, then swung up and out. Once standing on the sill, she boosted herself onto the roof in one smooth movement, not touching anything until she settled just below the ridge in the shade of an overhanging branch.
Peeking through the leaves, it took her some minutes to find the person Dan was talking about. A short distance down the path stood a woman, the breeze fluttering the wide, filmy sleeves of the kaftan she wore over leggings. As if she knew what to look for, her gaze travelled to the roof of the clubhouse.
Di ducked below the ridge, scrambled to the edge of the roof and swung herself back in the window.
“She saw me!” she gasped, as Dan turned to her in surprise. “I have no idea who she is, or what she’s doing, but I got the feeling that she knew, somehow, that I’d be up there.”
“Hello?” called an unfamiliar female voice. “Can I come in?”
Dan concentrated for a moment, then shrugged. “Why not? It can’t make things worse,” he muttered.
More graciously, Diana went to the door and invited the woman in.
“Why are you here?” Dan asked, before the woman had a chance to say anything.
She shrugged. The many bracelets on her arm jangled. “I was lost. I was looking for somewhere to stop for directions. Then I saw the two of you and I just knew, somehow, that you’re more lost than I am.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dan demanded.
A smile teased the woman’s lips. “You don’t have a twin.”
Frustration flashed across Dan’s face, but he pushed it down. “What?”
“The other man I saw. He’s not your twin. You don’t belong here.”
“How do you know that?” Di asked, before Dan could stop her.
The woman glanced up at the ceiling. “I was trying to get a look around the back of this building and I saw you fly. That’s not normal behaviour around here, as far as I know. Not that I know where here is.”
Outside, thunder grumbled.
“I like to keep an open mind,” the woman continued. “You have a power that doesn’t belong here. And he has a double. I think the likeliest possibility is that you’ve come from… somewhere else.”
“And we can’t get back,” Di confided.
“Di!” Dan chided, half-under his breath.
She turned on him. “We’re stuck. And if we can’t get Regan and Dan away from the stables, we might continue to be stuck indefinitely. I’m willing to take any chance to get us back home again.”
Dan eyed the woman for a moment, concentrating, then nodded. “I’m Dan. This is Diana.”
“I’m Indira,” she answered. “Nice to meet you.”
Di glanced out the door and gasped. “I think it’s about to storm. Just look at that sky.”
Thunder grumbled again, nearer this time. Indira and Dan joined her at the door to look out.
“I think we’d better stay here until it passes,” Dan decided, just as large drops of rain began to fall.
A rush of wind swirled rain and leaves in through the still-open door. As Di pushed it closed, the air filled with a sound of static, the sky turned brilliant white and thunder boomed at the same time. The clubhouse windows rattled. Rain lashed against the glass.
“I hope your car windows are closed,” Di commented to Indira as she took a seat at the table and waved for the others to join her.
The other woman smiled. “They are, but it wouldn’t matter much if they weren’t; it’s not that good a car.” She paused as thunder rolled again. “But we should use this time to make a plan. You said you needed to get some people out of the way?”
Di nodded. “We need to get back in the stables, but without being seen.”
“Both of you?” Indira asked.
“Yes,” Di answered, at the same time as Dan said, “No.”
They shared a look, then he turned to Indira. “Maybe not. If we can just get Di in there…”
“I’m not going to just leave you behind!”
“I’m not saying you should.” He managed a small smile. “That would be pretty awkward.”
“Definitely!” Di shuddered. “But, I guess, if I got in there, found what we need and get back out again, we could come back here.”
Dan nodded. “It’s worth a try, I think.”
“And all you need is a distraction,” Indira added. “So, if I go and ask these people for directions…”
Dan shook his head. “I’ve left. It’s just Regan. But he’ll be in the stables, trying to keep the horses calm until the storm is over. And if any of them panicked… well, he might be busy with first aid.”
Indira nodded. “Well, let’s see what’s happening when the storm is over. We can go and take a look around. If he’s busy, I’ll offer to help him. If he isn’t, I’ll ask for those directions. Diana, you can go and find whatever it is you need. Dan, you had better keep out the way.”
He frowned, but nodded once in agreement.
They talked of nothing in particular until the storm eased and the rain stopped. A few low grumbles of thunder could still be heard in the distance as they locked up the clubhouse and walked back towards the main house.
After a while, Indira stopped. “That’s not my usual kind of luck!”
“Is that your car?” Di asked.
Part of a tree had fallen across the road, only a few feet in front of the car, which true to Indira’s word was old and shabby.
“The lightning strike!” Di pointed. “That must be where it struck. Just look at the tree! It’s smashed to bits.”
Indira shook her head. “I’m just glad I wasn’t in the car at the time. Thanks for opening the door to me.”
“Let’s move,” Dan urged. “We can worry about that later.”
“And it gives you a good excuse why you’re here and not next door, or at Lytell’s store or something,” Di added, ignoring him. “Oh, quick! Hide!”
They all ducked out of sight as the other Dan walked down the drive towards the road. He paused at the place their path crossed it and picked something up from the ground, then tucked it into his pocket. The Dan that was with them patted his pocket and groaned. A moment later, he looked startled.
“What was that?” Di whispered.
Dan shrugged. “A bottle opener. Just a cheap one. It was in my pocket. I must have dropped it.”
“More importantly,” Indira put in, “what happened when he picked it up?”
He turned to Di. “I don’t know why, but everything became clearer. I know roughly where it is, now: it’s in Uncle Bill’s office.”
She gulped. “Okay. So, I just need to get in there and find it and Indira needs to keep Regan out.”
All seemed calm as they approached the stables.
“In case I don’t get to say it later, thank you,” Di told Indira.
“You’re welcome,” Indira answered. “We’re all searching for something. It makes sense to help each other when we can.”
Di nodded, not knowing what else to say. They split up to approach from opposite sides and took up their positions.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” Indira called.
From inside the stables, Regan replied, “Here.”
Di and Indira shared a glance as the latter entered the building.
“Oh! Is the horse hurt?” she asked. “I’m really sorry to interrupt. Is there something I can do to help? I don’t know much about horses, but I’m a pre-med student and I can handle gore.”
“It’s just a small cut,” Regan answered. “But if you could give me a hand…”
Indira strode over to the sink he indicated and washed her hands. “Now… what do you want me to do?”
Di took the chance that the first word in that sentence was meant for her and ducked inside. To her relief, it seemed she was right. She slipped into Regan’s office and started to search. Now that she was inside, she found that she knew what to do. The fragment was close; she could feel it calling to her.
She reached down behind Regan’s desk. As soon as her fingers touched it, the gem began to glow. Di scrabbled to get it covered before Regan noticed anything amiss. Then, she began to look for a way out.
“Do you need anything else… now?” Indira asked.
Di correctly deduced that she, at least, had noticed the light. She glanced back on her way out in time to see the other woman wink. A short time later, she reached the place where Dan waited.
“I’ve got it. Let’s go.” She held it up for him to see, the silvery-grey jewel still glowing.
“Where to?”
“The clubhouse, of course. We’ll be able to make a portal now; I just know it.”
He opened the door again and locked it after them. Di rushed to the storage area and touched the wall.
“Look! It’s going to be okay!”
Dan glanced back towards the door. “But we’re leaving them in a mess.”
Di hesitated for a moment. “Yes. But you said that Trixie had hold of some of the threads already. We can trust her to fix it up, can’t we?”
He looked away. “I hope so. But I’m not sure.”
She turned from him to the portal, enlarging and stabilising it. “Well, we need to get this back. I don’t know what will happen if we don’t and I don’t want to find out.”
Dan nodded and stepped closer. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
They stepped through together.
Continue to part six.
Notes are at the end.
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