Chapter Text
After such a bizarre night, a night that, in the early morning hours felt largely like a dream, there were still some things I wasn’t expecting when I opened my eyes to the somewhat unfamiliar bedroom the next morning.
Seeing my teacher, Erwin Sikowitz, standing in the doorway, his eyes narrowed, his arms crossed, was probably number one on that list.
“So wait, you’re with Cat now?” he asked, confused.
“Sikowitz!” I screamed, loud enough to wake up Cat. Though we were both fully covered, we were both absolutely naked underneath the blankets.
“What’s wrong?” Cat asked. She shrieked when she saw our teacher.
“I thought you were with Jade,” Sikowitz said. “Good gandhi, you teenagers change partners more than a pack of bonobo.”
“What do you mean I was with Jade!?” I shrieked. “And what the heck is a bonobo?”
“They’re monkeys,” Cat giggled. “Horny monkeys. They do it a lot. With like…everyone else.”
“Technically they’re apes,” Sikowitz said. “But nice to see someone paid attention in biology.”
I whipped my head between Cat and Sikowitz. “Okay, first of all, ouch! We are not horny monkeys!”
“Apes.”
“Whatever! And second, why on earth would you think I’d be with Jade!?”
Sikowitz shrugged. “Well, I thought that after the platinum music awards…” His thought trailed off as a new thought seemed to take its place. “Waitaminute. Where am I? Did it work this time?”
I glanced at Cat who shrugged. “We don’t even know where we are. We got lost going to the beach to meet everyone for Spring Break.
“What’s the name of this place?”
Sikowitz rushed to the window, prompting Cat and I to slide closer and cover ourselves more.
“Excuse you. This is creepy as it is, Sikowitz.”
“A Drange Place to Rest. Wait…Drange? Could it be? Then what is this place, a hotel?”
“Sort of. Didn’t you see the sign when you came in the front door?”
“I didn’t come in,” Sikowiz mumbled. He walked back toward the door to the room. “Could it be?”
I glanced at Cat, who seemed confused but less irritated by our circumstances. I guess to her, having our acting teacher show up in our bedroom at a bed and breakfast run by some creepy guy who thinks his daughter is a doll and creates impossible portals was just…normal.
Now that I say it, that might be the most normal thing that happened to us since we got there.
Sikowitz pulled out something that looked like a phone, only larger.
“Did you meet the person who runs this place?” he asked, pressing some buttons or doing something with the device in his hand.
“Yeah.”
“Was he freakish? Tall? Dark hair? Talked like he belongs in an old monster movie?”
“Kind of,” Cat said with a giggle.
“Carry around a doll that he called his daughter?”
“Yes!” I said, with maybe a little too much enthusiasm.
“I knew it. Drange.”
“How do you know him?”
“Quiet! Hold still.”
Sikowitz drew closer to the bed. He held out the device in his hand, and my heart nearly stopped. It was the same device Drange had used on Cat in the basement. He waved it at us for a moment, then smiled.
“Excellent,” he said. “This proves it. Tell me, where’s Drange now?”
I glanced at Cat, then back at Sikowitz. My brain was struggling to keep up with any of this; him being here, asking about Drange, thinking I was dating Jade, now waving that box at us. It was too much.
“He left,” I said simply.
“Tori!” Cat gently shoved me. “He disappeared, remember? Into that portal thing in the basement?”
Sikowitz’s eyes lit up at that. “The basement! Good gandhi, that’s where I came in! I need to get down there. Come on, you should come too.”
“Wait a minute!” I shouted, loud enough to startle Cat. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is happening here! What did you do with that box when you waved it at us? Who is Drange?”
Sikowitz sighed. He rubbed his eyes and leaned casually against the doorframe.
“This,” he said, holding up the box, “is a device for analyzing your quantum signature. Everything and everyone has a specific signature that’s native to their universe. It can’t be changed or altered in any way. With me?”
“No.”
“Good. Your signature…is different from mine. So obviously you know what that means.”
“Obviously it’s not obvious at all,” Cat said. She glanced at me. “Right?”
I smiled gently at her. “Right. Sikowitz, this doesn’t make any sense.”
Sikowitz sighed louder. “Teenagers. Okay…tell me something. Did you at one point during your days in highschool win a contest spelling out a pop star’s name using letters found in ice cream?”
“Of course,” I said. “You knew all about that, we talked about it for months.”
“And was that pop star Ke$ha?”
I glanced in confusion at Cat. “No. It was Lady Gaga.”
“Fascinating.” Sikowitz glanced around the room, as if in thought. His eyes landed on Mister Purple. “That thing. What’s its name?”
“Mister Purple,” Cat said with a giggle.
“And have you ever had a stuffed giraffe with that same name?”
“A stuffed giraffe named Mister Purple?” Cat giggled. “Oh Sikowitz, you’re so crazy.”
“What does this have to do with anything!?” I asked, growing more impatient and anxious by the second.
“These things I’ve asked you about…the events you describe. None of them happened that way. Not where I’m from. Ke$ha put on that concert. Mister Purple is, in fact, a giraffe. And Tori Vega and Jade West got together back around the Platinum Music Awards.”
“Oh my god, Sikowitz, none of that happened,” I insisted. “I think I know my own life.”
“That’s the point!” he cried. “I’m not describing your life. I’m describing the life of a different Tori Vega. From a different universe.” He waved the box at me. “My signature is different from yours. That means I’ve managed to travel between universes. I come from a universe where this…” Sikowitz waved his hands at us, then winced as if he were disgusted. “This doesn’t ever happen.”
My head throbbed. It broke my heart to say it, but I think our favorite instructor finally lost his mind.
“Okay,” I said, giving up. “And what does any of that crazy talk have to do with Mister Drange?”
Sikowitz’s eyes narrowed. “Because Mister Drange is loose, not just in this universe, but in all of them. In the entire multiverse. He’s trying to find his daughter…even if he has to tear apart every universe to do it.”
I stared blankly at Sikowitz. Glanced at Cat. She was even more lost than I was. As I drew my breath to speak again, a deep rumble began. It lasted only for a few seconds, but it shook my insides and made me nauseous. As it ended, there was a flash of light in the hallway. A moment later…and I swear I cannot believe I’m saying this…but Cat ran into the room.
Her hair seemed a little brighter, but there was no mistaking that this girl, whoever she is, could have been Cat’s identical twin.
“Sikowitz!” she said. “I think it finally worked. We…”
She noticed the bed. And its occupants.
Cat–the one next to me–gasped. “Tori, why does she have my face?”
Her hands closed around my arm as the newly-arrived Cat stared at both us.
“Well, shit.”
Coming later this year!
