Other Worlds Than These

the shiny skin of two nearby Quands. Jerkily, these carbon-black leaves articulated together, joined, swelled, puffed with visible effort into one great sphere.

Inside, she knew but could not say why, the two Quands were flowing together, coupling as one being. Self-merge.

For some reason, she blinked back tears. Then she made herself follow Al inside the lander. Back to…what? Checked and rechecked, they waited for the orbital resonance time with Venture to roll around. Each lay silent, immersed in thought. The lander went ping and pop with thermal stress.

Al punched the firing keys. The lander rose up on its roaring tail of fire. Her eyes were dry now, and their next move was clear: Back through the portal, to Earth. Tell them of this vision, a place that tells us what is to come, eventually, in our own universe.

“Goin’ home!” Al shouted.

“Yes!” she answered. And with us and the Quand together, maybe we can find a way to save us both. To rescue life and meaning from a universe that, in the long run, will destroy itself. Cosmological suicide.

She had come to explore, and now they were going back with a task that could shape the future of two species, two branes, two universes that dwelled a hand’s thickness from each other. Quite enough, for a mere one trip through the portal, through the looking-glass. Back to a reality that could never be the same.

ANA’S TAG WILLIAM ALEXANDER

William Alexander studied theater and folklore at Oberlin College and English at the University of Vermont. His short stories have been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and published in various strange and wonderful places, including Weird Tales, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Interfictions 2, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2008. His first novel, Goblin Secrets, debuted in 2012. Kirkus described the book as “evocative in its oddities.”

Ana and Rico walked on the very edge of the road where the pavement slumped and crumbled. They were on their way to buy sodas, and there were no sidewalks. They made it as far as the spot where the old meat-packing factory had burned down when Deputy Chad drove up and coasted his car alongside at a walking pace.

Ana was just tall enough to see the deputy through his car window and the empty space of the passenger seat. Her brother Rico was taller, but he wasn’t trying to look through the car window. Rico was staring straight ahead of him.

“Hi kids,” said Deputy Chad.

“Hi,” said Ana.

“I need to ask you both about the incident at the school,” the deputy said.

“Okay,” said Ana when Rico didn’t say anything.

“It’s very important,” the deputy said. “This is the first sign of gang activity. Everyone knows that. Gang activity.” He tried to arch one eyebrow, but it didn’t really work and his forehead scrunched.

Other cars slowed to line up behind the squad car, coasting along.

“What’s the second sign?” Ana asked.

“The second sign,” said Deputy Chad, taking a deep breath, “happens at night, on the highway. It involves headlights. Do you know that keeping your high-beams on at night can blind oncoming traffic?”

Ana didn’t. She nodded anyway.

“Usually a driver has just forgotten to turn them off, and the way to let them know is to flash your own high- beams, just briefly. But they drive around with the high-beams on deliberately. If you flash at one of their cars, they pull a quick and violent U-turn and follow you, very close. Sometimes they just do it to see where you live. Sometimes they run you off the road. Bam!” He smacked the top of his steering wheel.

Ana jumped. He grinned at her, and she grinned back.

“What’s the third sign?” Rico asked, without grinning.

“I can’t tell you that,” said Deputy Chad. “Ask your parents. It is the last ceremony of initiation, and it involves blonde ten-year-olds.”

“I’m ten,” said Ana.

“You’re not blonde, so you’re probably safe. Probably.”

“Oh,” said Ana. “Good.”

The line behind Deputy Chad was now seven cars long, coasting slowly. None of them dared to pass a cop.

“So,” said the deputy. “You can see why we need to put a stop to this kind of thing right away, before it escalates. Do you know anything about the incident at school?”

“No,” said Rico.

“What’s the graffiti of?” asked Ana.

“It is deliberately illegible,” said the deputy. “It’s in code. Probably a street-name. A tag. Graffiti is often somebody’s tag, delineating whose turf is whose. It looks like it could be in Spanish.”

Ana and Rico’s parents spoke Spanish. They used it as their secret language, and slipped into Spanish whisperings whenever they didn’t want Ana or Rico to understand them. Sometimes, in public, Ana and Rico liked to pretend they could speak it too. They would toss together random words and gibberish and use an accent because both of them could fake a pretty good one. They hadn’t played that game for a while.

Rico bent forward a little so he could look through the passenger window. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything about it,” he said.

“Good boy,” said the deputy, and smiled a satisfied smile. “Be safe, now.”

He drove off. Cars followed him like ducklings.

“Perro muerto,” said Ana. It meant dead dog, or maybe dead hair. It was one of their nonsense curses. “He thinks you did it.”

“Yeah,” said Rico.

“Did you?” Ana asked.

“Yeah,” said Rico.

“Oh. What does it say?”

“Not telling.”

“Oh,” said Ana. Rico pushed Ana to his right side so he could walk between her and the moving cars, and then he made a sign with his left hand. He tried not to let Ana see him do it. She saw anyway, but she didn’t ask. She cared more about the graffiti. “I’ll do all the dishes if you tell me what it says.”

“No.”

“Okay.” Ana thought about how long it would take to get to the East Wells high school, try to read the painted wall, write down all of her guesses and walk home. She decided she could make it before dinner. Maybe Rico would tell her if she guessed right.

They were almost to the gas station, which had a much better selection of soda to pick from than the corner store. The last part of the walk was uphill, and Ana had to work harder to keep up with her brother.

“Do you think there really are gangs?” she asked.

Rico shrugged, and smiled a little. “Gangs of what?”

“I don’t know. Gangs.”