It was yellow. Twisted. Almost my size. It looked like a plant—maybe a fungus—covered in a wispy layer of translucent hairs. Where the plant touched the road, the skin was damaged, revealing cracks of moist orange flesh.
Last year, something similar had come through the rift. It was the kind of thing that made the MGA wonder whether they were looking at an existing plant that hadn’t been discovered yet, an extinct or yet-to-have-evolved plant from another time, a mutation of some sort, or perhaps something from another planet or dimension . . .
There was only one reason for this plant to come falling onto the road.
My hand went to my mouth. How had the rift spat out something that landed all the way out here?
I turned off the flashlight and rang Director Facet’s cell. He always said I could call anytime, but I reserved it for emergencies. This counted.
With the phone to my ear, I ran. Past the van, where Valk was crouching by Holloway’s side. Farther down the road. (Facet should’ve picked up by now.) Left, onto the dirt path to my house that was just wide enough for a tank to drive down. The MGA kept it bump-free for a smooth ride, but didn’t want to pave it and attract unwanted attention. (The phone went to voicemail. That couldn’t be good.)
Deeper into the trees that grew alongside the path. The gate was already coming into sight, and the house and observation tower behind it.
The rift should be dead quiet right now.
It wasn’t.
I’d never seen it act up outside of video, but there was no doubt what was responsible for this chaos.
Noise scattered across the grounds. Shouting. Panicked voices mixed with barked commands. A strange searing thundering noise, like the kind airplanes made in movies.
I didn’t have to wait for someone to open the gate. Something had smashed right through the fence, causing the wiring to curl outward and leaving enough space for me to step through. Sanghani wasn’t on guard duty any longer. Nor was anyone else. The only people I saw were silhouettes in the distance, racing from barn to barn or whirling around in disbelief. The electricity was out. The only light came from small fires burning on the lawn and flashlight beams bouncing around the dark. Not the lights in the observation tower. Not the lights affixed to the house and the barns. Even the house inside was pitch-dark, although Mom should still have been awake and waiting for us.
I called for her, slowing my run. My voice sounded small in the havoc around me. I strengthened it: “Mom!”
An agent came limping toward me.
“Have you seen my mother?” I skidded to a stop.
“The rift,” he panted. “You have to get to the rift. Where were you?” He waved toward the central barn—as though I didn’t know precisely where the rift was.
“I have to go inside?” Being on the grounds had always been enough to calm the rift. Getting even closer couldn’t make a difference—and I never went inside the central barn without permission. I’d seen how livid Director Facet had been when Carolyn had tried to sneak in a few years ago.
“Just go!” the agent yelled.
“Agent Valk is down the road. The van crashed. Can you find Dr. Gates?”
“The rift—”
The urgency in his voice nearly jolted me. I spun and took off.
His words replayed in my mind: Where were you?
This was my fault.
I didn’t understand how, though: Franny’s Food was the same distance from the house as school, and I spent every morning there five times a week. An hour and a half at Franny’s couldn’t have this kind of result.
At the same time, nothing else ever affected the rift. Only me. I did this. Because I’d insisted on a silly birthday party, I might’ve . . .
People got hurt. Agent Holloway got hurt.
I tried Mom’s phone. Straight to voicemail. Facet’s rang uselessly, the same as before.
I sidestepped a fire, leaped over a collapsed chunk of wall, and finally faced the central building. The barn the MGA had built to contain the rift was gigantic, bigger than the house. The roof was damaged. That must’ve been how the yellow plant ended up on the road: The rift had spat it out with such force, it’d gone flying through the gap in the roof and across the grounds.
The barn’s doors were fake-wood ones twice my height, enough to get a helicopter or tank inside if needed. They stood wide open.
I hesitated, unsure whether to go inside on my own or to find an agent to accompany me in. The MGA only let me inside the barn for testing once a year. Even during those tests, I rarely saw the rift itself.
I didn’t have time to make up my mind. Amid all the panic, one voice stood out.
“Hazel! Thank God!” Mom.
I backed away from the doors, looking left and right. Her voice had come from around the corner. How had she even spotted me from there?
I opened my mouth to ask if she was OK, when . . .
“Mom?” another voice answered. It sounded shrill, scared.
I stumbled to a stop.
Carolyn couldn’t have beaten me to the house. Even if she had, Mom had said “Hazel,” and Mom would never mistake us, even in the evening dark. Carolyn was a pre-growth-spurt thirteen-year-old, part Chinese, her hair brown and neat, whereas I was white and gangly-tall and my hair was a dark blond tangled mess. We weren’t hard to tell apart.
It wasn’t Carolyn calling Mom “Mom.”
“Oh, honey, honey, thank God, I was so worried!”
“What’s going on?” The voice sounded frightened and familiar in a way no other voice was. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not safe. Where’s Dad and Caro? And what are you wearing? No, no, never mind, I’ll call them, I’ll find Facet, just go to the house, Hazel, wait in the garage, we have to get away . . .”
I approached with small steps, dreamy, unworldly steps that I was barely in control of.
Because the closer I got, the more I saw of the person Mom was talking to.
The more I saw of a gangly-tall shape. The more I saw of thick, tangled hair. Of a scared face, its pale skin alight in the dark.
The more I saw of me.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mom shoved the girl—shoved me, shoved Hazel—toward the house and took off around the corner.
The noise around me fell away as I watched. The other Hazel went for the house, her legs shaky. She stumbled on the damaged lawn. I could see why: She wore heels. Short ones, maybe an inch and a half, but taller than I ever wore. She had on white tights and a red dress that swooshed at the bottom. A red plastic flower sat clipped to her hair above one ear, the same shade as the dress. A handbag dangled from one shoulder.
I didn’t wear dresses. I didn’t wear heels or tights or flowers or handbags.
Yet there I walked, a bright blot amid fire and panic.
I was following her before I even realized I’d decided to. She went at an awkward jog, her heels in the grass slowing her down. She kept looking around, jerking up at every noise, then hesitating as though unsure where to turn.
“Hey!” I shouted. A screeching noise nearby drowned out my voice. I tried again—“Hey, stop!”—but all she did was pick up her pace, going from a jog into a full-out run.
We cleared the barns, headed right for the house. She was ten yards ahead. She stumbled again, and I saw her crane her neck as if studying the house. She went around, slamming open the front door before disappearing inside.