Fractured

Part Six

Alternate Trixie paced the floor of the clubhouse, while her best friend sat on the sofa, her head in her hands. Trixie’s feet were bare. Honey wore multiple layers of hearing-protection and held a pillow over the top of them, but still needed things as quiet as possible.

“Out of the thousands of threads I can feel, there isn’t anything to do with them,” Trixie complained softly, not for the first time. “Not here. Not in the regular reality. I just don’t understand where they are!”

“I feel so helpless,” Honey added, in a whisper. “It’s my fault that we needed them. Maybe I should have just sacrificed myself to Aunt Vera and been done with it.”

Trixie glared at her. “That wouldn’t have helped.”

“We wouldn’t have asked anyone to go through a portal when we knew there might be a problem with them.”

Trixie fell silent, having no good answer for that.

“Any luck?” asked a voice from the doorway.

They both looked, but saw nothing but a pair of shoes.

Trixie shook her head. “You?”

“No.” The shoes walked over to the small bathroom they’d had installed a few years back and began to get dressed. “I saw Mart a few minutes ago. He’s discovered lots of buried and hidden objects – I won’t bore you with the details – but nothing actually useful about the problem. He just can’t see anything that hasn’t got a lot of things in the way.”

“And no one can get near Di without agreeing with her about everything,” Honey added. “She doesn’t even have to say a word.”

“Then, it’s getting worse,” Jim deduced.

Trixie nodded. “We had to find a bigger tree to tether Dan to. He’s tied to three of the biggest ones we could find, but the ropes aren’t going to be strong enough soon, if we can’t solve this.”

“How are you feeling now, Honey?”

She shrugged. “I’m a little better. I’m just glad that Daddy put such good sound-proofing into the media room – and that not even Aunt Vera could argue when I insisted that I needed to lie in there in the dark to avoid the thunder. Even so, it really hurt.”

“Any luck?” asked another low voice.

Trixie turned to Brian and shook her head. “Nothing! None of us!”

“Me neither. And I just lifted half a tree off the road.”

“You mean, you’ve got your powers back, too?” Honey wondered.

He nodded. “Or, some of them, at least. I don’t think it’s as bad for me as it is for some of you.”

“So, what do we do now?” Trixie wondered. “If we can’t find the others and we can’t find the pieces and only one person can go through a portal at a time…”

“We send Honey through, so she can have a break,” Jim suggested. “Then someone else can have a turn.”

“I don’t need special treatment,” she argued, in an angry whisper. “What about Dan? He’s about to float away, with three big trees dangling underneath him. All I need is some quiet, and for all of you to calm down so that your hearts don’t beat quite so loud.”

“Sorry,” Jim answered. “But consider it, please, Honey. You can’t go on this way much longer.”

“Shh! I can hear a portal forming.”

“Portals don’t make a noise,” Trixie argued.

Honey gritted her teeth. “Yes. They do.”

A light shone from the wall and Mart and Honey stepped through the portal. Honey, at once, collapsed to the floor. Mart’s face paled, he put a hand over his eyes, then pulled it off again, aghast.

Alternate Honey held out a spare pair of ear-plugs and alternate Trixie forced them into regular Honey’s ears. She looked around for anything else they could use to cut the noise. Jim provided two cushions and Trixie pushed one onto each ear.

“Thanks,” regular Honey whispered, opening her eyes.

“Oh, this is horrible,” Mart muttered. “How does my other self deal with it?”

“By staying outside as much as possible and only looking at the ground,” alternate Mart replied, from just outside the door. “There’s no one else around. Come out here with me. It’s better.”

“But first, did you get the part?” alternate Trixie asked.

Mart showed it to her, its deep red light reflecting on all their faces.

“There’s another one coming,” alternate Honey whispered.

The light shone again and this time Dan and Diana stepped through. Dan was thrown against the ceiling with a noise that made both Honeys whimper and caused cracks to form.

“You’re so right, Di, it is too crowded in here,” practically everyone else said in unison. Most of them started for the door.

“Wait!” she squeaked. “What’s going on?”

The wall glowed again. Trixie and Brian tumbled through together. Trixie sank to her knees, clutching her head.

Again, the wall glowed and Jim stepped through, instantly turning invisible as he did so.

“Did you all get them?” alternate Trixie asked, just as her double staggered to her feet.

Jewels in blue, green and silvery-grey shone out as those who held them opened their hands.

“We couldn’t make a portal until we had it,” regular Trixie explained and the others present added their agreement.

“What do we do now, Trixie?” regular Honey asked her alternate friend. “Can we put the pieces back together? Will that fix the problem?”

“I think we should all be involved in deciding how to put this back together,” she answered. “Brian and Brian, could you go and get our Dan and Di, please?” She added a short description of where to find them.

“Sure,” one of the Brians replied and they set off.

“And while we’re waiting, where have you all been?” alternate Trixie demanded. “We’ve been looking everywhere.”

Regular Trixie shrugged. “Brian and I didn’t see any of the others. But we saw me. And I was older. I thought I was Moms!”

“That’s not where we were,” regular Honey added, from the floor. “We saw a little girl with dark curls and she called your mother Mommy and she knew who we were, but Mart convinced her she’d imagined us.”

“There was something strange going on where we were,” Dan added, from just below the ceiling. “Honey was in trouble, somehow. And I was really mad at both her and Uncle Bill. But her Aunt Vera was kind of pleased.”

“Where I was, Honey and Mart were a couple,” Jim added, causing everyone to look at one or other of the Honeys.

“We’re all here, now,” one of the Brians added, as the two of them pulled Dan in the door. He bobbed up near the ceiling, next to his double. The two Marts and the other Diana entered, too.

“Is it just me, or is it getting better?” regular Honey asked, as she got up off the floor. “When I got here, I felt like I might explode if those ants didn’t stop marching, but it seems better now.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely better.” Alternate Dan gestured to his double. “We’re not pressed against the ceiling. I can’t get down, but I’m not going further up, either.”

“So, what do we do now?” alternate Trixie asked.

“I think we lay the pieces on the table,” regular Brian suggested. “We’ll need to figure out which order they go in, then we should push them all together at once.”

Everyone looked at him, not speaking. Then alternate Trixie asked, “Why?”

He shrugged. “I just have a feeling. I did, about the fragment, too. It was chest-deep in the lake, buried under a rock. And I found it.”

“So that’s why you’re dripping wet,” regular Di commented. “I wondered.”

“So, do we take regular Brian’s suggestion?” alternate Trixie asked. “Can I have a show of hands? Sorry, Jim and Jim. You’ll have to pick up some object.” She looked around. “It’s unanimous.”

Alternate Mart cleared off a side table and moved it into the middle of the floor. Alternate Trixie placed the centre piece, with its purple jewel, on it. Regular Trixie, Mart, Jim and Di placed their pieces around it, a short distance away. The two Brians each caught hold of a Dan and helped him down to hover over the table, holding on to one edge while the Brians held the table onto the floor.

“I think this piece goes on this side,” alternate Di mused, swapping the positions of the green fragment and the blue one. “This jagged edge looks like the other side of that one.”

Regular Honey and alternate Honey both reached for the blue one, then apologised as their fingers bumped.

“You go,” regular Honey urged.

“Thanks. I was going to say that this one doesn’t go next to that one, because they both stick out.”

Alternate Honey nodded. “I agree.”

She swapped it with the silvery-grey one, then both Honeys shook their heads. Regular Honey tried switching it with the deep red one, while alternate Mart switched the green one with the silver one.

“Now this one doesn’t look right,” alternate Jim commented with a frown. He switched the red one with the green one.

“That isn’t right,” alternate Brian complained. “You’re undoing the parts we’ve already done.”

He moved the green one back to where Di had put it in the first place, alternate Dan shifted the silver one out of the way and regular Dan moved the red one into the space where the green one had been. Alternate Dan slid the last piece into the empty space. The two Dans sank a little lower.

“Stop! That’s it!” cried alternate Di. “That’s perfect.”

“Now what?” asked alternate Trixie, turning to regular Brian.

He frowned for a moment. “They all need to go together at exactly the same time. And I think we all need to work together.”

Alternate Trixie sighed. “Fourteen isn’t divisible by four.”

“There are five pieces,” regular Brian pointed out.

“It’s not divisible by five, either!” regular Trixie added. “But maybe if two people touch the middle piece, three people could touch each of the other pieces. Or, do we just need one of each person involved?”

Regular Brian shook his head. “No. I think all of us need to do it. The first suggestion you made is the right one.”

They rearranged themselves so that everyone could reach.

“Ready?” asked alternate Trixie. “I’ll count down from three and then say ‘go’ and we move on ‘go’, okay?”

The gathered Bob-Whites nodded.

“Three. Two. One. Go!”

The five pieces came together and the jewels shone bright. All fourteen of them felt the surge of power as the broken edges fused.

Both Dans floated gently to the floor.

“Oh! Sweet relief!” moaned alternate Honey. “I can’t hear Aunt Vera criticising me in the house.”

“And I can’t hear any of those noisy ants,” regular Honey added.

Regular Jim turned to alternate Jim. “You’re fully visible. Am I?”

Alternate Jim nodded. “You even have both eyebrows.”

“I’m not seeing things I don’t want to see,” alternate Mart noted.

“So, we all feel back to normal?” alternate Trixie asked. “Can we all test our skills and make sure we still have them?”

For the next few minutes, they did this, finding that everything was normal for the alternate world.

“So, next we need to see if we can make a portal to our own reality,” regular Trixie suggested. “And I want us all to try to go together, just in case it takes us somewhere different.”

Regular Brian shook his head. “Whatever that did, we’ve fixed it.”

“What do we do with this now, Brian?” alternate Trixie asked him.

He took it in his hand. “It goes here.”

He touched it to the wall they used for portals, it flared with power and stuck there. A moment later, it seemed to fade from view. But when regular Brian waved his hand over it, it reappeared and the jewels glowed, one by one.

“That suggests some interesting possibilities,” alternate Trixie murmured, while next to her regular Trixie nodded.

Regular Honey nodded and smiled at them both. “It does. One day. But right now, I want to go home to my own reality.”

“Me too,” regular Trixie agreed. “Let’s go, gang.”

The next few minutes were chaos as the two versions of the Bob-Whites bade each other farewell. At last they were ready to leave. Regular Trixie made the portal and the seven of them surged through it.

“Our clubhouse!” Honey cried, smiling with relief. “Oh, it’s so good to be here.”

“Quick, everyone. Check your abilities,” Trixie urged, then slipped into invisibility. “Everyone okay?”

“Yes!” they chorused.

“And this is definitely our own clubhouse?” Trixie persisted. “It’s not any of the ones we visited?”

“No,” Mart answered.

“Not the one we saw,” Dan added.

“Nor me,” said Jim.

“We’re home,” she announced. “Where we belong.”

The End

End notes: A very big thank you to Mary N. (Dianafan), for editing and for all your encouragement of me. Both are very much appreciated!

This story is posted to mark my fifteenth anniversary of becoming an official Jix author. Jix has been a significant part of my life for a long time now. I would like to thank all of those who have been a part of Jix, past and present, for making it the best place on the web.

Story notes:

This story was written for the Same Day, Different Stuff Challenge, CWC#17, which was designed by former Jix author Meagan. It intrigued me, way back when it was first posted, and I even brainstormed some ideas for the two universes I had back then, but nothing ever came of it. But when I was trying to think of something that would represent the entirety of my writing for the last fifteen years, it seemed to fit the bill. I didn’t think of it at the time, but it’s also appropriate because Meagan inspired me to start writing in the first place.

The four universes the Bob-Whites visited are as follows:

The Long Way Home was visited by Trixie and Brian. At the time of posting, this universe is only up to 1998, so for this one we stepped into the future. The teenage girl whom Trixie watches has already been introduced, but she’s still very little. This is a semi-traditional universe, where the path to the Bob-Whites’ dreams is not so easy as they might have liked.

A Time and A Season was visited by Mart and Honey. I haven’t written in this universe for a very long time (though I did originally intend for it to continue and I have a half-written next story waiting to be finished). The original story was set in 2004, so again we stepped into the future, but not by as much. This is a traditional universe, which begins with financial difficulties for the Beldens and a surprise arrival (or so). The child at Crabapple Farm is Nicola Belden, now aged three. This is also the universe where Vera Carlton actually belongs.

Summer Secrets was visited by Jim. The date in question falls between the first and second scenes of the fourth story, Summer Blooms. In this universe, keeping secrets from each other leads to terrible consequences for some of the Bob-Whites (but there is an ultimate happy ending). This universe is complete and, while beginning traditional, does not stay that way.

Dark Places was visited by Dan and Diana. This one is a little more complicated. Technically, the date falls in the second half of the second story, Long Shadows, and does allude to some of its events. It also falls within an in-progress sub-universe story that I’ve been working on called Enigma. It will answer some of the questions that have been left hanging, especially relating to Dan’s actions and attitudes. Some of the things that Dan detects relate to that story.

The character Indira actually belongs in Summer Secrets, where she plays a small but important role, beginning in the fifth story, Summer of the Omen. She is a friend of Brian’s, initially, and seems to have practically nothing in common with him. Other than Vera Carlton, all other characters, buildings and objects stayed in their own universes.

Now, the challenge itself had a lot of requirements:

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