by Lee Strauss
“She probably just fell back asleep,” I said.
“And slept through her phone ringing?”
“Some people are heavy sleepers.” And some people take pills.
“Her roommate would’ve woke her up, wouldn’t she?” he said.
“My understanding is they’re not on the best terms.”
“That’s true. You’re probably right. She’s going to be pissed when we wake her up in the middle of the night.”
I hoped so.
Late night stragglers let us into Eliza’s building. Zed knocked sharply on Eliza’s door until it was opened by a sleepy Asian girl.
“Is Eliza here?”
The girl shook her head. “No.”
“Was she home at all tonight?” I asked.
“Um, for an hour or so.”
I continued, “What time was that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe midnight.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said. Zed was already out the door. I texted Sage.
Eliza dreamed she drowned by the dock. She’s missing. Zed and I are headed there now.
40

Zed
Zed wished he had his bike, but at least Eliza’s dorm was close to the dock. He cut onto the walking path along the canal, running as fast as he could, Marlow tight on his heels.
He didn’t expect to find anyone. This wasn’t something that could keep happening over and over. Eliza had gone out again, that was all. Maybe she was with that guy Marlow had talked about from the party. He hated to think she’d cheat on him like that, but he’d rather find her with another guy than dead in the canal.
Zed could hear Marlow’s quick breaths beside him. They were both fast runners, a skill that came in handy when you spent most of your formative years running from bullies. Sprinting was no problem, but longer distances like this brought on knife-like pains in Zed’s side. He gripped his flesh and pressed on.
The dock was in sight. Was someone there? He was still too far away to tell. He pushed himself harder.
Oh, God. There was someone. A girl with wild, curly blond hair.
“Eliza!” His voice came out weak. He couldn’t stop now. He kept running and shouting, “Eliza!”
She didn’t turn toward the sound of his voice, or the slapping of their sneakers on the paved path. She slowly stepped lower into the water as if in a trance.
“Eliza, stop!”
Stepping into the canal up to his knees, Zed grabbed one arm while Marlow took the other and they dragged her out of the canal. Her neck jerked and she stared at Zed in bewilderment. Her eyes moved to the water and at her wet clothes and back to Marlow and Zed’s red faces.
“Is she okay?”
It was Sage’s voice. She dropped her bike onto the ground and ran to them.
“Oh, no,” Eliza said. “Did I… ? Was I… ?
She burst into tears and pressed her face into Zed’s chest. He stroked her curls and spoke softly. “It’s gonna be okay.”
He wrapped his arm around Eliza’s shivering body, pulling her in as tightly as possible. “I’ll take her back,” he said to Marlow and Sage. “Thanks for… everything.”
Zed heard them talking as he led Eliza away.
“Where’s the observer?” Sage asked. “Did you see someone watching?”
“No,” Marlow said. “There was no one.”
Eliza begged Zed to stay while she had a hot shower. He sat in her chair, aware that her roommate was watching him from her side of the room.
“Is everything all right?” the girl asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You should be….” she began.
“Should be what?”
“Careful.” She turned to face the wall and pulled her blankets up to her ears.
Zed ran the blow dryer-along the wet part of his jeans. They were still damp but drier by the time Eliza returned wearing flannel pajamas and a towel on her head. Zed stood, reached for Eliza’s towel and pressed moisture from her curls. She stepped past Zed toward her bed and crawled in.
“Will you stay with me?” she asked. “I don’t want to be alone.” She kept the quilt open, scooted to the far side and patted the top of her narrow bed. “Please.”
Zed’s gaze darted to the roommate. It was obvious that Eliza wouldn’t be alone, but she looked like a lost little girl.
“All right.” He lay beside her, keeping on his jeans and T-shirt. This wasn’t the time for anything but simple comfort. She pressed her back to his chest and he held her, his eyes wide open. There was no way he was going to sleep after the adrenaline rush he’d just experienced.
“I can’t sleep, ” Eliza said.
“Me neither.”
She reached for a small jar on the top of her night table. “Take one of these. They’re not addictive and they really help.”
“I don’t usually take pills.”
Eliza turned to face him. “It won’t hurt you to take it one time. It’s okay, I promise. I’m going to take one too.”
41

Sage
I wasn’t even wet, but I couldn’t stop trembling. Marlow, who’d slipped thigh deep into the cold canal as he pushed Eliza up from behind, shivered beside me as we watched Zed and Eliza turn into silhouettes, and then disappear as they left the path.
“Marlow?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you think we should call the police?”
“Probably. I don’t know what we can tell them that would make any sense, though.”
“I’m really worried.” Actually, I was scared to death. I wrapped my arms tightly around my chest. “How is this all going to end?”
Marlow shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
I picked up my bike and we started walking. The dark strip along the horizon grew a smoky gray. Bugs slapped against the lamps that lined the walkway. The moon reflected off the canal turning the muddy water into an ethereal stream.
“I don’t think I can sleep after that,” I said.
“Me neither.”
I cast him a careful look. “Do you want to come over?”
His head jerked as he faced me. “To your dorm room? What about Nora?”
“She’s with Jake for the night.”
Marlow’s startled look didn’t ease, and I could sense his mental wheels spinning.
“Don’t worry, Mars. I’m not going to attack you. I promise I’ll behave like a lady. Besides there’s a lot we should talk about.”
He nodded briskly. “Yeah. Okay, sure.”
We walked in silence, and my mind went back to my disastrous date with Tristan, which had taken place at this very location only hours ago.
He’d apologized profusely, swore it was an impulsive prank, that he shouldn’t have scared me like that, that he was an idiot and oh, so sorry.
That all came after he had a good laugh at my expense. I’d turned my back to him as he rowed us back to the dock and didn’t say a single word. Once I was safely out of the boat I stormed home. Tristan tried to stop me, but I shook him off and told him never to touch me again.
Now that I had time to calm down, I wondered if I’d overreacted. Maybe it was just an impulsive prank, better suited for one of the guys. I was still mad at how he’d ruined a perfect romantic moment, though, something we’d never get back.
I wondered where he was now, if he’d watched Eliza’s dramatic rescue from a distance. Just because we couldn’t see the observer didn’t mean he wasn’t out there.
Oh God, did I really suspect Tristan? I didn’t want to, but at this moment I just wasn’t sure. He could’ve easily dumped me into the canal and left me to drown. Except I could swim. But if he’d drugged the shot I had before we started?
He hadn’t though. I’d been fine. Tristan was an idiot, not a killer.
But I didn’t trust him anymore. The only person I knew I could trust implicitly was hunched over beside me, shivering in wet clothes.
We arrived at my dor
m and I unlocked the door to my room and switched on the light.
“Make yourself at home,” I said. Marlow went directly to Nora’s desk chair. The first thing I did was rifle through my closet for some dry clothes for Marlow. I threw him a men’s-sized hoodie.
“I borrowed it from my brother.”
His gaze went from the hoodie and back to me. “It’s déjà vu.”
“Are you saying this happened before.”
“Yes.” He drew his damp tee over his head the way guys do, and I couldn’t help but stare at his chest. He wasn’t bulky like Tristan, but he had nice lean lines. I glanced away before he caught me staring and bent down to open one of my drawers. I removed a baggy pair of sweat pants. “These aren’t my brother’s, but they’re better than those wet jeans.” I handed them to Marlow. “Did this happen before too?”
“No.”
Marlow hesitated, and I sensed his awkwardness. “I’ll go make us coffee while you change.”
I made a half-pot of coffee in the lounge and prepared two mugs, adding cream and sugar to both when the coffee was done.
Marlow had changed into my sweatpants by the time I returned, and I had to work at not cracking a smile as I handed him his coffee. They were… tight.
I looked away quickly and bit my lip. “Are you comfortable in those?”
“Uh… not really.”
I sat on my bed and forced a straight face. Don’t think about Marlow! So he’s awkwardly adorable. So what?
I needed to get serious. “So Mars, what are your thoughts about tonight?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not sure. Eliza is an enigma.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw her at a party tonight… ”
I tucked my chin in surprise. “You went to a party? I didn’t think you liked parties.”
He sipped his coffee and peered sheepishly over the rim of his mug. “It was kind of a date.”
My stomach flipped. “With that pink-haired girl?”
“Her name’s Dakota and yes. So, I was at this party and Eliza was there too, but not with Zed. She was close dancing with another guy.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Close, close?”
He nodded slowly with meaning. “Close, close.”
“Did she see you?”
“That’s the weird thing. We made eye contact but it was like she didn’t recognize me.”
“Or she pretended to not recognize you.”
“Well, yeah, she had to be pretending, but she was pretty convincing.”
Interesting. I sipped my coffee, considering the implication.
Marlow’s forehead buckled and he added, “Unless… ”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the Eliza I saw tonight was an alternate version of her.”
“Oh.” I let the word draw out. We were back to his parallel universe story. “So you think she ‘jumped’?”, I finger quoted with one hand. “From one of your colored worlds.”
Marlow shifted uneasily. “I don’t know. She would’ve had to have survived the bombings and only a handful did.”
“The bombings?”
“I told you about the orange world, right?”
“Right, yes. You and me and Teagan survived. And there was a universe-jumping machine that only worked on you.”
Marlow scowled and mumbled, “Eliza’s not a jumper. Not likely.”
I looked away and took a long sip of coffee. Marlow was an intelligent guy. And if I truly trusted him, I had to believe him. Or at least believe that he believed this experience was real.
“You’re sure about that?”
His eyes cut back to mine. “I’m not sure about anything right now. I know you find it hard to believe I’ve jumped universes—to be honest, I’m starting to wonder if it actually happened or if it was some kind of magnificent dream. But weird things are happening in this realm, the here and now, and I have no explanation for it.”
“Did Eliza stay at the party long after seeing you?”
“No, I tried to find her again, but she was gone.”
Ha! “That proves she recognized you. Guilty conscious.”
“I guess.”
I pulled my knees up to my chin. “But what does that have to do with her trying to drown herself? I don’t get it.”
“Me neither.”
“Did you recognize the guy she was with? Maybe he has something to do with what’s going on.”
“I didn’t.” Marlow shifted in his seat, tugging at my sweats. “He was pretty standard looking. Six feet, slender build, brown hair just above the ears, slight beard.”
I cocked a brow. “You just described yourself, Mars.”
“I guess I did.”
I placed my empty cup on my night table and leaned back against my pillows. “There’s some kind of witchy-voodoo thing going on, and we need to get to the bottom of it.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Marlow tugged at his sweats again. He really must’ve found them uncomfortable.
His jeans were draped over a chair by the heat register, but they would take a long time to dry like that. I should offer to take them to the laundry room and toss them in the dryer. Only I didn’t want him to leave.
“Would you mind staying the night?” I asked impulsively. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Marlow blinked hard. “Oh, um… ”
“You can sleep in Nora’s bed. Didn’t you say you used to sleep in Teagan’s bed? In another universe?”
He looked at Nora’s messy sheets and his gaze took on that vacant look that happens when someone is remembering something.
“Marlow?”
“Nora won’t mind?”
“Oh, she will, but I don’t care.”
“Sure, I’ll stay.” He used the bathroom, and once again I had to bite my lip as I watched him move in those too-tight sweatpants. He returned and scooted under Nora’s sheets.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I have to take these off.” He wrestled under the covers and then dropped my sweatpants on the floor. “Don’t worry. I have boxers on.”
“Huge relief,” I said, teasing him. I grabbed my PJ shorts and tank and got ready in the bathroom. I didn’t think about what I was doing when I sauntered to my bed. Marlow’s eyes were wide and his expression, stunned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just, you know, déjà vu.”
“You’ve seen me in my PJs before?”
“Maybe.”
My eyes widened in alarm. “What else have you seen?”
“Nothing! I promise.”
His expression of horror made me laugh out loud. “Relax, Mars. I’m just giving you a hard time.”
Marlow fell asleep before I did and I took comfort in hearing his steady, heavy breathing. Soon I drifted off too.
We both woke up with a start two hours later. I clicked on the light and we blinked hard to adjust to the brightness.
I spoke in a hushed tone. “I just dreamed about Zed drowning.”
Marlow swallowed dryly. “So did I.”
42

Marlow
Sage and I raced to get dressed, she in the sweatpants I’d discarded on the floor earlier and me in my still-damp jeans.
“Does Nora have a bike?” Sage had hers, but I didn’t have one here, and it would take me too long to run to the dock.
“Better than that,” Sage said. She scooped up a set of keys lying on Nora’s dresser. “She has a car.”
I followed Sage, and we ended up at the parking lot behind the dorm. She ran to a beat-up two-door Toyota.
“She won’t mind us stealing her car like this?” I said as I hopped into the passenger side.
“We’re not stealing it, Mars. We’re borrowing. And hopefully we’ll get back before she does.”
Sage didn’t mess around. She zoomed through the quiet pre-dawn streets of DU like a race car driver. I held on to the door grip with white knuckles. “Uh, we’re not going to be muc
h help to Zed if we die on the way.” She flashed me a look and didn’t ease up on the gas. I was thankful the streets were empty and even the stray cats knew to dash for hiding.
My stomach was rolling by the time we approached the canal. The road ran parallel to the walking path about thirty feet away. I scanned the horizon for Zed. “There he is!”
Sage slowed so she could get a better look. A man’s silhouette walked robotically toward the dock.
“He’s sleepwalking,” Sage said. “Has he done this before?”
“No. I’ve known him my whole life, and he’s never been a sleepwalker.”
Sage pulled over to the side and parked. “We have to speak to him gently, Mars, and wake him up.”
We approached Zed quietly, one of us on each side until we were easily a foot or more ahead of him. His eyes were open but creepily vacant. At least his arms weren’t reaching out like a zombie’s. His hands hung stiffly at his sides.
“Zed,” I said softly. “Wake up.”
His eyes flickered, but other than that, no response. He kept walking toward the dock.
“Zed?” This time I poked his arm. “Wake up.”
“Hey, Zed,” Sage added. “Nice night for a stroll, right? But you have to wake up now.”
Zed slowed to a stop. I grabbed his arm. “Zed?”
He blinked several times, and awareness came to his eyes. “Marlow?” He took in his surroundings, the dimly lit path, the dark canal water. “What’s going on?”
“You were sleepwalking, man.”
“Sleepwalking?” Zed groaned. “Oh no. Don’t tell me I was about to drown myself?”
“I don’t know what you were going to do, dude, but we’re here, and you’re fine.
I led Zed to a nearby bench. “You should sit.”
Zed complied, his gaze moving from me, to Sage and back to me. Fear flashed through his eyes. “I was going to do it. I remember my dream now. A voice was calling me to the canal. I was helpless. I had to obey.”
“Do you remember anything else?” Sage asked.
