Sami still wasn’t sure what was happening here, but the intensifying, increasing pulse in the air made her feel as if her very bones had turned cold. “Wait! Wait for me!”
Catching up to Dorsom, Sami asked, “Where are we going?” They were walking swiftly and it almost felt more like flying. She barely felt the ground under her feet. They dodged around the back of a house very similar to the one she lived in—except this one had a soft orange glow. Sami started to turn toward it, but Dorsom said, “No. This isn’t the Actual World, Sami. It’s not your World.”
“What—where are—?” Sami didn’t even know which question to ask first.
He muttered with his thoughts, Please. For now—just keep going. They walked past houses that looked vaguely like Sami’s neighbors’ homes, but these glowed in tones of amber, sea green, and bronze.
“Wow!” Sami gasped, her head swiveling to take in all the colors. “Just wow, wow, wow. It’s beautiful.”
Once they’d covered several blocks, Dorsom slowed his pace. “Don’t look forth or back,” he said evenly. “Better to blend right in.”
Sami recognized the Flamingo Road neighborhood, and yet, like the backyard, it didn’t look right. The colors were too bright and unusual; there was little grass, just expanses of sandy pink rock and scrub. The street was narrow, coral-tinted cobblestone. She seemed to hear a faint jingling in the palm fronds, and a flock of glowing fuchsia birds passing overhead seemed to be murmuring to each other in some sort of language. Was her mother or brother seeing any of this? She didn’t have her phone or tablet; she wished desperately she could ask her family what was going on.
Dorsom gestured and they turned into a crowded street. Flickers strolled by, the way people did on Flamingo Road, but here they were dressed in long robes—women mostly in crimson and lemon yellow, the men in rich browns. Some wore headdresses, turbans or sand-colored headscarves. A few wore russet beads wound around their heads or their necks. There were no cars, but several Flickers walked past, leading goats or a line of sheep. One rode on a grunting, soft-eyed magenta camel. Instead of a sleepy beach town in South Florida, it all looked more like some bustling, Technicolor, Middle Eastern desert oasis, straight from one of Teta’s stories.
Sami tried not to stare but she noticed a few of the Flickers glancing at her. She had the weird sense that she was being scanned somehow—and that it wasn’t quite a polite thing to do either. In response, she felt herself doing something instinctive that was like sealing herself off; instantly the other Flickers looked away. She frowned, unnerved.
Well done, Dorsom said—or rather, thought—startling her again.
I didn’t realize I did anything, she tried thinking back to him. I don’t even know how we’re having this—conversation.
They all assume you are a Flicker, like me. He smiled. For an Actual person, that’s some excellent reflecting you’re doing.
They walked quickly, Sami panting and struggling a bit to keep her balance on the broken, uneven cobblestones. At last they turned into a place that in Sami’s World was called the Tropi Café—a squat, whitewashed stone structure with a flat roof. In this World, the sign out front had a bright chartreuse light, making it too blurry to read. They knocked, and the door opened. Dorsom led her to a table in the corner.
“This is good,” Dorsom said softly as they sat. “Most Shadows dislike going indoors. We should be all right for a bit.”
“We’re running from shadows?” Sami asked, incredulous. “But why? Please, you have to tell me what is going on. I can’t—I won’t go any farther until I know what’s happening.”
A young woman closed the front door, then hurried to their table and smiled at them. “Rebalancers, welcome!” Her narrow eyes had a pewter tint and her hair glowed down her back like a sheet of cream-colored satin. She wore flat silver sandals and billowing, filmy trousers tied around her ankles with silver threads. A row of bangles clinked on her wrist. She seemed to Sami almost too beautiful to be real. “We are honored that you are amidst. May I bring you trays from our chef?”
Dorsom shook his head. “Something simple, please. Tea, bread.” He looked at Sami. “The soup here is excellent.”
Sami hesitated, wondered if she should ask what sort of soup it was, and then nodded. “Okay, uh, soup for me too, please.”
The waitress bowed politely, backing away.
“Marvelous!” Dorsom said. “Not one discerns that you are an Actual.”
“Is that good?” Sami asked, glancing at the server, who was opening the elaborate lock on the door. “What would happen if other Flickers found out about me?”
“To say is difficult.” Dorsom raised his eyebrows. “I’ve not seen this sort of situation before. I mean, for an Actual person to Cross Over into our World. And there is less…tolerance…these days for new sorts of persons and ways of being and such.”
“Everyone is upset and anxious because of all the increasing Shadow soldiers,” a new voice said. Sami turned to see a woman standing near her chair. The waitress bowed and once again locked the door.
“You arrived!” Dorsom pulled out a chair, which she folded into gracefully.
The young woman had long purplish-black hair and deep indigo skin. There were silver tattoos covering the backs of her hands, a delicate line of dots from her lower lip to her chin, and a line of silver dots above each purple eyebrow. I heard your thoughts and rushed over here. She turned to Sami. “It’s recorded within The Book of Silver that in ages past, Flickers and Actuals used to regularly Cross into and out of each other’s Worlds. But I never believed I would ever see someone from the Actual World in person.” She gazed at Sami with such a wide, purple stare that Sami lowered her eyes.
“Natala is a rebalancer, like myself—a science and ritual specialist,” Dorsom said, gesturing toward the young woman.
Sami touched her own chin. “You look—you look like—the caravan women—the Bedouin traders—from my teta’s stories!”
“I’m not surprised,” Natala said gently, then smiled. “You must be so confused right now.”
“Try totally freaking out,” Sami muttered. “I have no idea how I got here. Or even what here is.”
Natala nodded. “Something…or someone…in Silverworld opened the portal and allowed you to enter. For now, we must avoid attracting attention, Sami,” she said. “Try to keep your voice and thoughts lowered as best you can. Any crowd or great excitement will alert Nixie’s soldiers.”
“Nixie?” Sami frowned. “I feel like…I’ve heard that name…somewhere before.”
Dorsom shook his head slightly as the waitress came out with a tray filled with small glasses. She placed sparkling lumps of something into the glasses, then lifted a Bedouin-style teapot with a curving spout high in the air, filling each glass with jets of tea. The air smelled like mint. “It’s so good,” the waitress confided, “to have rebalancers nearby. One feels much more secure.”
The Flickers murmured and nodded politely and the woman bowed several times before she ducked back into the kitchen.
Natala shook her head. “Foolishness. Some Flickers believe locks can keep out the soldiers.”
“We mustn’t linger.” Dorsom swirled a steaming glass. “Best for us to get back to headquarters.”
“Please, though,” Sami begged, turning to each of them. “Just—why do things look like home but not-home? How do I get back to my regular home? Where am I?”
Natala shook out a light veil and settled it over her head; tendrils of dark purple hair curled from the edges. “Sami, right now you’re in a parallel World. You’re an Actual being in a reflection-bound World—the other side of the mirror, you might say. Silverworld is shaped and changed by your thoughts, memories, imagination. And not just thoughts of your own life, but of the lives of your parents and grandparents, affect what you now see.”
“And how do you even know so much—I mean, about me? My name and my grandmother and everything? I don’t know anything about you guys!”
Dorsom laughed, resting one forearm on the table. His sleeve fell back so she could see a row of golden arrows tattooed above his wrist. “There is much to discover. But this is not the time.”
The beautiful serving woman emerged again through a rustling curtain of beads, and placed large bowls of soup before Sami and Dorsom. Its smell was so rich and delicious, she felt almost light-headed. It was like inhaling soup from her earliest childhood—a scent of cumin and onion and lentils. She recalled her mother’s contented hum as she bustled in front of a stove, Sami watching from the kitchen floor. Now she glanced back up at the waitress and Sami wondered if she’d been given soup that was on a menu or if she’d just tasted her own memory.
The server looked at her, startled. “Excuse me?”
Dorsom coughed loudly and asked, “Could you bring us more bread, please?” She nodded, but peeped at Sami twice over her shoulder.
As soon as she was gone, Dorsom whispered, “You must keep your thoughts lowered! In Silverworld, speaking through thoughts is as common as speaking out loud.”
Natala shook her head. “She doesn’t know how yet to control her abilities. And, Actual or Flicker, she’s just a young girl—it’s truly extraordinary that she’s come this far without being detected!” She placed a hand on Sami’s arm so her gray and black bangles jingled.
Sami bit her lip, surprised by her own emotions. This place seemed to magnify her feelings. Looking for a distraction, she picked up her soupspoon, enticed by the curling, warm aroma. The soup was a thick reddish brown and looked remarkably like her grandmother’s shorbet addis—lentil soup. She blew on it and sipped from the spoon; it was hot and creamy. In fact, she realized, it was the most delightful thing she’d ever tasted. And then it was gone. Entirely. As if it evaporated the moment she swallowed. She blinked in surprise, then quickly took another sip. Again, there was the taste of cumin and onion and lentils, and then there was absolutely nothing in her mouth. “My soup! Where does it go?”
Surprised, Dorsom tasted a spoonful of his own soup. “What’s wrong? It doesn’t taste right to you?”
“It tastes wonderful. But there’s nothing, like, after the taste! There’s nothing to chew or swallow—just—air.”
Natala’s brows lifted. “Oh yes—you’re missing the feeling of it.”
“Ah, that’s true,” Dorsom said. “You Actuals are much more physical than Flickers. You rely on the sense of touch. Flickers—we are air and light beings. We don’t actually eat or excrete in the ways that you do.”
Sami stared at him. “You don’t need to eat food? Why have cafés and, like, order stuff if you don’t eat?”
The two Flickers laughed. “We do ‘eat’—just not in the way you’re used to,” Dorsom said. “Our nutrients come through light itself. Photons instead of vitamins. For someone who was used to physical sensations, it wouldn’t seem like much was happening when you ate in Silverworld. In this World, we’re more concerned with what is seen than what is felt.”
Sami finished the delicious and strange soup in about ten seconds. For a moment she was full, but then just as quickly the feeling dissolved. Before she had a chance to ask more questions, though, she sensed something like a current of cold pulse through the room. She looked around but all she saw was their waitress, smiling and asking if they’d like anything else. Sami was startled to feel the woman’s pale eyes now pierce her like slivers of ice. Then, glancing over the woman’s left shoulder, Sami noticed the very same waitress coming from the other side of the room. There were two of them. “Wait. What on earth?” Sami blurted.
The Flickers snapped to attention. Dorsom stood up. “Sami, get back,” he ordered.
Sami felt another big throb pulse through the air.
This time it was deeper, a shock wave; it knocked the breath from her lungs. She seemed to be frozen in place as the waitress tossed her order pad, then began to grow, until the top of her head nearly touched the ceiling. Her features vanished and her entire body flattened into a shining white form. It was a deep swirling gray—just as if someone had cut out the shape of a person from the universe. The depth of the form was vast, and as Sami looked into it, it released a terrible, frozen shriek. With a gasp, Sami felt the thing reaching for her. Plates and cups were swept from the table as it wrapped her in its long talons. Shouting, kicking, arms flailing, she tried desperately to wrench herself free. The thing tightened its grip and seemed to press through her very body: Sami was falling into the emptiness and the emptiness was falling into her—a flattening void of sadness and surrender and loneliness.
She heard distant voices crying out, but the gray emptiness only intensified. Without thinking, she steeled herself, then shoved, hard, against the thing. She struck with her mind, her will, her breath, her insides, tightening herself mentally, saying a great NO in her mind. There was a tremendous, swaying, tipping moment in which it seemed almost as if the thing would swallow her whole. Then she felt herself tearing free, icy strands ripping and shriveling and snapping.
Strong hands grabbed her arms, pulling her away. Stumbling backward, she saw the thing crumple and shrink. Then it oozed into a puddle on the floor and vanished.