Two

Emma, A Few Minutes Earlier

Emma had just picked up the book Codes and Ciphers for Kids when she heard a car drive by outside. Her heart thumping, she raced to her bedroom window.

A rust-colored SUV was pulling into the driveway next door.

And . . . it was just their neighbors, the Hans, bringing their son Ian home from a soccer game. He had a smear of mud across his face, and his green uniform looked sweaty.

Perfectly normal, Emma thought. Nothing out of the ordinary.

She was pretty sure Ian had soccer games every Saturday. Still, it took a moment for her heart rate to return to normal.

This is . . . not very scientific of me, Emma thought.

If she made a pie chart showing her entire life, she could label almost all of it “Normal” or “Ordinary.” Or maybe “Happy and Fun.” Maybe that was the label she really wanted. Only a tiny sliver—the past month—would need the label “Weird and Scary.”

So didn’t it stand to reason that most of what she saw around her now would continue to be ordinary and normal?

Oops, she thought. I forgot about the first two years of my life, when we all lived in the other world. That was weird and scary, too. I just didn’t know it.

And, really, hadn’t her entire ten years of life always had weird stuff going on in the background? She’d just thought everything was ordinary and normal because she didn’t know about the other world or the secrets Mom had been keeping until about a month ago.

Anyhow, the labels shouldn’t be “Happy and Fun” vs. “Weird and Scary,” she told herself. Those aren’t opposites.

The happiest moment of her life had been rescuing her mom from the other world. And even though she’d been worried and scared, she’d had fun figuring out the codes that Mom had left behind. On their trips to the other world, those codes had helped the Greystone kids and their friend Natalie to rescue not only Mom, but also Natalie’s mom, a man named Joe Deweese, and three kids who were the closest thing this world had to doubles of Emma, Chess, and Finn. Those three—the Gustano kids—had been kidnapped by people from the other world who thought the Gustano kids belonged to Mom. The Gustanos’ mom was this world’s version of Mom, but their father wasn’t like the Greystones’ dad. So the kids weren’t exact duplicates like their mothers were.

And the Gustanos belonged in this world, where everything was normal and ordinary and sane. While the Greystones were . . . were . . .

Caught in between?

Emma decided it was too messy to try to figure out the right description—or a pie chart of her life. She liked it better when math and science gave her clear-cut, logical answers.

She liked it when life made sense.

She looked down at the book in her hand, Codes and Ciphers for Kids. She’d had the idea that maybe she should take the book with her to Ms. Morales’s house. Just in case there were more codes to crack as the Greystones and Natalie’s family decided what to do next. But after everything Emma had been through, the book looked babyish now. Nobody was going to slip her a message written in lemon juice. Nobody was going to send her codes as easy to decipher as pig latin.

She put the book back on her shelf. There really wasn’t anything she needed from her room. During the past month, the three Greystone kids had been living with first Natalie’s mom and then Natalie’s dad, so Emma already had all the clothes she wanted.

But Emma still slid open her closet door and dug past boxes of Legos and crumpled-up diagrams of inventions she might make someday. At the back of the closet, she found a little plastic safe that she’d begged for at Christmas one year. She spun the combination lock forward and back and forward again, and the door swung open.

The only things she kept inside were an old-fashioned calculator that had belonged to Mom when she was a little girl, and a piece of paper with columns of numbers scrawled from top to bottom. As far as Emma knew, the numbers were just scribblings, a scratch pad of notes. Gibberish. But her father had written those numbers. And even though Emma had been only two when he died, she could remember clutching this paper and saying to Mom, “Daddy did? Daddy did?”

And Mom would always say, “Yes, that’s your father’s math.”

Was that the only nudge Emma needed to fall in love with math, even as a two-year-old?

Emma heard another car puttering a little too slowly down the street. She tensed, listening hard.

Stop it! she told herself. It’s a public street. All sorts of vehicles drive by all the time. This has nothing to do with my family. Or the other world . . .

She shoved her thick, dark, curly hair away from her face and forced herself to go back to staring at the page full of numbers. With everything else they had to worry about, wasn’t it just silly and sentimental to want to take this paper with her?

Outside, the car shut off its engine. It sounded . . . close.

Emma stomped her feet with impatience, because she couldn’t stop straining to listen to what was happening outdoors. She tried to force herself to study her shoes instead: her favorite red sneakers. Emma could remember her joy at finding these shoes on a shopping trip with Mom a few months ago. It felt like Emma had been a totally different person then—someone who had no trouble concentrating on numbers. Someone who knew nothing about other worlds or danger.

Someone who thought happiness was as simple as a pair of red shoes.

Thud. Thud. Those were definitely car doors closing outside. Emma couldn’t help analyzing the sounds. Had a third or fourth door shut at the same time? Was each thud doubled?

Emma gave up and went back to the window.

A tan car sat in the Greystones’ driveway. It wasn’t one Emma recognized. But that didn’t mean anything, because ever since Mom had gotten back from the other world, people kept calling and stopping by to bring them casseroles and congratulations, celebratory cards and gifts. The Greystones’ friends didn’t even know the whole story, but they were so relieved that everything had turned out okay and the family’s long ordeal was over.

(At least, most of their friends thought the ordeal was over. Natalie’s family and Joe Deweese knew better.)

Emma heard footsteps. The tan car was close to the garage, and Emma had taken too long getting to the window. So whoever had been in the car was already on the sidewalk leading to the front porch. And Emma couldn’t see that sidewalk because the porch roof blocked her view. She had to yank her window open and poke her head out.

And she’d delayed a little too long doing that, too. She caught only a quick glimpse of the last person to step onto the porch.

No, it was too fast even to be called a glimpse. It was more like an impression—the idea of the person, not the actual view.

And still Emma recognized the person exactly: her stance, her bearing, the way she swung her arms when she walked, the way she clenched her jaw to brace herself for some unpleasant task or chore. Emma had never met this person before in her life, but she knew exactly who it was: Mom’s double from this world. Mrs. Gustano.

Oh no. Oh no . . .

They’d all been so worried about dangerous people from the other world showing up again. Why hadn’t any of them thought about how certain people from this world were huge threats, too?

Emma jerked her head back into the house, slammed the window shut, and took off racing for the stairs.