Magisterium

absently. For a moment the stars didn’t look like stars at all. They looked like millions of snowflakes caught in the sky, unable to fall.

Glenn could barely remember all the steps that led to what

happened two nights before. It happened so fast. She and Kevin came out of the theater laughing, making fun of the painfully ancient play their teacher had made them see. Then they were waiting for the train on an empty platform, high from giggling. It was the cold, clear kind of night when everything seemed fresh and clean and moving in fast motion. They were sitting on a bench, and Kevin was making a big show of mocking one of the actor’s exaggerated gestures.

It started to snow. Just lightly. A thin curtain of white swirled around them, caught in the station lights. It dusted the bench and Kevin’s shoulders. Flakes gleamed in his violet hair. Their breath made plumes between them, tiny clouds that tumbled into one another.

Kevin was saying something and then his hand fell onto Glenn’s, covering it. It was nothing at first, an accident, but seconds passed and his hand was still there. Neither of them was wearing gloves, so all the contour and warmth of Kevin’s hand lay along the back of hers, his fingers curling slightly and dipping into the flesh of her palm. He had stopped talking, and there was just the windy sound of the snow. Glenn was sure she was about to say something, but she couldn’t remember what it was. Her forehead and cheeks grew hot despite the cold. Was she getting sick? Did she have a fev-And then Kevin was kissing her, just like that, as if they had leapt forward in time. His hand gripped hers tighter, and Glenn was surprised to feel the muscles in her arm flex, drawing him in, her own hand rising up between them and falling on Kevin’s shoulder. Time jumped

forward again. Now Glenn was standing up and backing away from the bench, a whirl of panic inside her. Before she knew it, she was fleeing down the platform and out into the night. She looked back over her shoulder once as she ran and the snow had surged, wiping the train platform and Kevin away in a haze of white.

Glenn ran all the way home and up to her room, where she found the application for skipping her fourth year. She had received it months earlier but had let it sit, overwhelmed by its enormity. She stood over it, dizzy from the run home, her cheeks burning despite the cold. She could still feel her hand on Kevin’s shoulder, pulling him to her.

Glenn barely remembered filling out the forms and sending them off, but when she was done there was a wave of relief. She had come so close to veering off track. So close to ruining everything.

Glenn took a last look up at the sea of stars and then shut off the light show. The whir of the projectors was replaced by the sounds of her father’s footsteps, soft and shuffling, as he moved into his basement computer lab. Glenn closed her eyes and saw 813, a brilliant afterimage of green and blue. Her hunger for that other world burned inside her.

Glenn touched the tablet’s screen and it came to life. Still nothing from her father. Glenn stared at the blank screen for a moment and then flicked through old mail until she found another form, this one for a class trip into the capital city of Colloquy. At the bottom sat her father’s scrawled signature. It was nothing to break the encryption on the DSS form and drop the signature into it. After all, she was her father’s daughter.

Once it was done, Glenn sat back on her bed and looked at it, amazed that something so small could change everything.

Glenn paused, her finger hovering over the glass of the screen.

Downstairs she heard her father close the basement door and then leave the house, heading out to the workshop.

The house went quiet. Glenn touched one fingertip to the glass and sent the form flying away.

Her new life had begun.

4

“Glenn! Glenny! Wake up!”

Glenn bolted upright, twisted in her sheets. A dark figure stood over her bed.

“Dad?”

“It works, Glenny,” he said. “It actually works.”

Glenn rubbed her eyes. “What are you talking about? What

works? What time is it?”

“Get dressed and come see.”

Her father leaned into a shaft of moonlight. Glenn jerked away without thinking and gasped. His hair was disheveled and his clothes were stained with oil and soot. There was a long gash on his arm that oozed blood. Hopkins reared back and hissed as Dad reached down and grabbed Glenn by her shoulders.

“We’re really going to do it, Glenn.”

“Do what? What happened to you?”

He knelt down beside Glenn’s bed. His skin was sweaty and pale, ghastly as melting plastic.

“We’re going to get her back,” he said. “We’re going to march right over there and bring her back.”

“Go where? Get who back?”

“Your mom,” he said, his voice trembling. “We’re going to

rescue her, Glenn.”

It was like a fist slammed into Glenn’s chest. Her breath stopped.

Suddenly it seemed like he was too close to her, kneeling there on the floor. Glenn could feel the fevered heat radiating off of him.

“Rescue her from what?”

“It’s not something I can just — you have to come see!”

Before she could respond, he had leapt up and was running out of the room. Glenn stumbled out of her bed and followed, Hopkins trailing behind.

“Everything you’ve been told is a lie,” Dad said as they

descended the stairs and went out into the yard. “The Rift wasn’t an accident. And it’s not some kind of wasteland over there. Ha! I can’t believe they’ve gotten away with this for so long!”

“What are you talking about? What does this have to do with Mom?”

Dad tore into the workshop. He drew a stool from the corner and sat down between Glenn and The Project.

“Okay,” he said, one hand tugging nervously at the other. “Now, how to … yes. There’s a set of rules — physical rules — that govern cause and effect, gravity, nuclear and chemical reactions, time, momentum. All of those rules come together and we call the result reality. Is that right?”

The workshop was more of a wreck than usual. Tools lay

everywhere. Half of The Project lay in pieces on the floor, and the other half had been radically altered. The generator was now directly hooked into it, and the whole thing glowed a livid blue as if it were alive.

“Glenn?”

“Of course. But what does that — ”

“Think of a set of playing cards. The cards are always the same

— King, Queen, Ace, Jack — but the game you play changes

depending on what set of rules you decide to invoke. Use one set of rules and you’re playing poker. Choose another and you have solitaire.

What we think of as reality is no different. It’s a card game. Change the rules and you change reality.”

“Dad, that’s not possible. You can’t — ”

“Yes you can. That’s just … that’s the thing: It is, Glenn.

Possible. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The rules can change. They were changed. That’s what the Rift was. They’ve been so good about keeping it all under wraps. The border. The stories. The fake satellite pictures! They’ve made us so afraid of what’s on the other side that no one even thinks about going over and actually looking to see what’s there.”

“Who are you talking about?”

Dad leaned closer into Glenn. She could smell sweat and the blood from his arm.