Amanda rested against the tree, mindless in the wake of her meltdown. She occasionally heard Theo mumble in his sleep. He called out to a woman named Melissa, then mumbled something about a girl with two watches. Amanda hoped he was at least having a good dream.
An hour and a half later, the others came back with fresh supplies. New clothes for all. Better shoes for some. A map. A compass. Two flashlights. Six knapsacks to carry it all.
Amanda wasn’t encouraged by Zack’s crabby expression. “How much do we have left?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Tell me.”
He sighed defeatedly. “About a hundred and fifty.”
“What?”
“We bought the cheapest stuff they had. But even bargain basement clothes add up when there are six of us.”
“So what are we going to do about money?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You think you can write the Harry Potter books from memory?”
Amanda fought a grin. “No.”
“Twilight?”
“Zack . . .”
“I have some ideas. We can talk about it later. In the meantime, you may want to have a chat with your sister. Or Mia. Or both.”
“Why? What—”
Hannah dropped her bags on the picnic table, then brusquely walked away. Her face was grim. Her eyes were red from crying. Mia soon slapped her own purchases on the table and shuffled off in the other direction. She looked even worse.
When Amanda turned to Zack, he chucked his hands in hopeless quandary. He had no idea what happened between Hannah and Mia. Neither one of them was talking.
—
They’d split up four ways inside the Harvey Mark, with a plan to reassemble in an hour. Mia wandered the aisles in a moony daze, marveling at the daft embellishments to this otherwise familiar environment. A stock boy pushed giant boxes on a hovering aeric platform. A two-dimensional ghost woman hawked the benefits of a Harvey Mark purchase account. A young boy hobbled after his mother on legs of pure tempis.
More alarming were the fashions, a mix of 1950s and 1980s clothing styles, flavored with a twist of madness. Mia saw two teenage girls dressed in sleeveless turtlenecks with cleavage holes cut in the fabric. One wore a bob of orange-red hair that was teased to looked like flames. The other sported blond bangs that were long enough to obscure her eyes. Mia couldn’t tell if the girls were cookie-cutter trend slaves or bold fashion rebels. All she knew was that she’d never be anything more than an alien here.
Soon Mia and Hannah spotted each other in the women’s clothing section. Their overwhelmed expressions were identical, enough to evoke a mutually nervous giggle.
“This place is like Wal-Mart on acid,” Hannah said. “It’s freaking me out.”
Despite Mia’s resolve to think nicer of Hannah, she found herself squinting with reproach at the box of black hair dye in her handcart. Your sister sold her wedding ring so we could eat and live, not touch up our roots.
It was actually Amanda who’d requested the product for herself. Though Mia had misjudged again, Hannah wasn’t entirely innocent this time. She’d convinced her sister to go black over blond just so she could use the leftover dye on her roots.
Peering into Mia’s cart, Hannah winced at the pair of dark, long-sleeved shirts she’d chosen for purchase. Oh sweetie. You’re going to bake like a muffin in those things. Is it worth getting heatstroke just to look slimmer for David?
Loath as she was to jeopardize Mia’s fresh goodwill, Hannah plotted a course of delicate pestering. “Uh, hey, listen—”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Mia spun a quick circle, urgently scanning all shoppers within eyeshot. From her panicked expression, Hannah feared the girl was on the verge of a gastric catastrophe.
“Are you okay?”
“No. She couldn’t have picked a worse time. What the hell is she thinking?”
“What? Who are you—”
A bead of light suddenly appeared ten inches in front of Mia’s chest. Hannah took a step back.
“Whoa. Jesus. Is that . . . is that the thing your notes come from?”
“Yeah.”
Mia raised her handcart until it obscured the glowing breach. Hannah skittishly peeked inside.
“Wow. I’ve never seen one of these before. It’s like a tiny sun. How long before a note pops out?”
“It varies,” said Mia, increasingly tense. Something wasn’t right about this delivery.
“And does it usually—”
“Hannah, I can’t talk right now. I need to focus on this.”
“Okay,” she said, dejectedly. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
Wincing with guilt, Mia bent her knees until she was eye level with the portal. She could see another Mia through the tiny circle, anxiously pacing the carpet of her Terra Vista suite. She was dressed in the same clothes Mia wore now, and radiated a sense of worry that was painfully easy to recognize. It was her just fourteen hours ago.
Mia’s skin blanched as she grasped the scope of her new problem. “Oh God. Oh my God.”
“What? What’s the matter?”
“This is a past portal. I’m not receiving, I’m sending. I know exactly what I need to write but I don’t have the right pen. You need to find me a red pen, Hannah. It has to be ballpoint and it has to be red.”