Hi.
That’s such a ridiculous way to start, isn’t it? I mean, it’s like I’m writing a letter to myself. Only I’m not, am I? Because that would be crazy.
Like this isn’t crazy.
I’m hoping you’ll be there in the mirror again tonight. If for no other reason than to prove to me that I’m not crazy. But just in case you’re not, I’m writing this letter.
I’ll start with the obvious, I guess: Who are you? Where are you? And why is it that I can see you in my bedroom mirror every twelve hours at the exact same time?
I’m Josephine Byrne but most people call me Jo. I live in Bowie, Maryland, I’m a junior at Bowie Prep, and it’s 2013.
If you get this, please write back. That way, I’ll know. Know I’m not crazy, that is.
Though I suppose if you do write back, that’s almost as bad.
Sincerely,
Josephine Byrne
4:10 P.M.
Josie must have reread the note a dozen times. Josephine Byrne. Same name. Same high school. Same year. Same girl.
The same girl but different. Of that Josie was convinced. Jo still had Nick, while Josie had lost him. She wondered what else Jo had: Were her parents happily married? Was she popular at school? Were they rich? Was she interested in science and math like Josie?
So many questions Josie was desperate to learn the answers to, the most important of which was why this was happening to them in the first place. Maybe together, she and Jo could make sense of what was going on? There was only one way to find out.
It was time she and Jo had a talk. Face-to-face.
SIXTEEN
3:59 A.M.
JOSIE WAS WIDE AWAKE, STANDING IN FRONT OF the mirror at the exact moment its surface undulated like the ebbing tide, opening the door between her world and Jo’s. There wasn’t any note gripped in her hand. This time, she planned to answer Jo’s letter in person.
She hadn’t slept at all that night. Not that she really needed to on a Friday night, but she’d tried nonetheless, setting her alarm for 3:30 again, just in case she drifted off, but the adrenaline that coursed through her body made her antsy and impatient, and as the minutes slowly crept toward the awaited hour, Josie actually got less tired, more alert, more eager to see what would happen.
But as the rippling waters of the mirror gave way to the room on the other side, Josie’s heart sank. Empty. No Jo.
Two things were immediately apparent, though. First, even though all the overhead lights were on, the late afternoon sun streamed through the open windows on the west side of Jo’s room. 3:59, but the wrong 3:59. Where Josie’s timeline put her in the wee hours of the morning, eastern Maryland still swathed in a heavy blanket of darkness, in Jo’s world, it was the afternoon. Their universes were twelve hours apart.
No wonder Josie’s dreams had always taken place at the end of Jo’s school day. No wonder Jo had been wearing her pajamas earlier that afternoon. And when she saw Jo sleeping with all the lights on, wearing a sleep mask, it must have been the middle of the night. Kind of weird that she slept with the lights on, but whatever.
Josie continued to stare into Jo’s room, Jo’s world. The space was the same: the room, the dimensions, the window and closet and bed all in the same exact place. But Jo’s room was clearly that of a wealthier girl. Instead of Josie’s mismatched bedroom furniture of hand-me-downs, roadside pickups, and craigslist purchases, Jo’s room had been decorated. The bed frame was brushed chrome, low to the ground, and piled with a giant pillow-top mattress, a far cry from Josie’s rickety wooden four-poster—missing a post and propped up at one corner by an old footstool. Jo’s dresser and bookcases were arranged with an almost meticulous precision. Where Josie’s bookcases looked as if someone had dumped their contents on the floor, then quickly shoved them back on the shelves, the books on Jo’s were neatly lined up, spines out, grouped by size. Perfume bottles stood sharply at attention, again in height order, and an array of silver jewelry stands flanked the dresser, each holding a specific bounty: earrings, bracelets, necklaces.
The entire room sparkled and gleamed under the harsh recessed lighting, like an ultrasleek hotel room that had just been visited by the housekeeping crew. Josie found it hard to believe that anyone lived in such a clean, controlled environment, let alone a sixteen-year-old high-school student. They looked so much alike, but clearly, she and Jo were very, very different.
Josie leaned closer to the mirror, trying to get a glimpse of the door to Jo’s room and perhaps down the hallway of her house. Forgetting that the glass pane of the mirror had dematerialized, Josie’s head went right through into the thick goo of the portal.