“I don’t think calling will work,” I told her.
She didn’t answer, instead unfolding the paper and flattening it on the carpet. “This isn’t mine.”
I edged aside to let the moonlight illuminate the paper. Its surface was littered with sketched lines and rectangles. It took a second for me to recognize what I was looking at. “The grounds.” I pointed at one shape. “That’s the house.” My finger followed a line surrounding the various structures. “The fence.” A scattering of rectangles. “The barns.” One barn had a small red X in one corner.
“Something is written on the other side,” she said.
She was right. A faint impression of letters shone through. I turned over the sheet.
Hazel Stanczak, it said.
We held our breath.
There was a red X below my name, same as the one drawn within the outline of the barn.
Find your answers.
CHAPTER FIVE
Our eyes met.
“That’s not mine,” she said.
“It was in your bag.”
“I’ve never seen it before. Where I’m from, that barn doesn’t even exist. What’s inside there?”
“No clue. That’s Barn F. It’s off-limits to me. Most of them are.” I studied the note. “Did an agent slip it into your bag?”
“Agent?”
“Yeah. They’re responsible for putting you in the cell, I’m guessing. I—I’m sorry they did that.”
“Why are there agents here?”
“The government needed to contain, secure, and research the rift. They couldn’t exactly move it elsewhere.”
“Can your agents get me home?”
I remembered what my parents had told me about the week I was born. The rake and the stone had gotten violently sucked into the rift, disappearing to who-knew-where. If the rift was a portal, perhaps this Hazel only needed to step inside and she’d be back home.
Or perhaps it’d wipe her from existence.
“I doubt they know how,” I said.
“Which Hazel Stanczak does it mean?” She tapped our name on the paper. “Me? It was in my purse.”
The floor shuddered. My head snapped up. All I saw out the window was the moon, distant tree tips, and part of the observation tower.
It didn’t make sense for the MGA to slip something into her purse. If they’d wanted to give us answers, they could’ve done so directly. They were always direct—they would’ve also told me about this Hazel once the situation blew over, I was sure of it. Even when they refused to tell me about their research or the rift’s activity level, they didn’t dance around it. They let me know straight up that I wouldn’t get any answers from them.
And that was exactly what this note suggested. Answers. The only reason someone would offer answers in this manner was if they wanted to do it under the radar.
Sanghani might’ve taken pity on us. Maybe another friendly agent or researcher. I should find out who, ask what was going on and what we were supposed to do . . .
Except the note was clear. We were supposed to go into that barn.
“What answers could it mean?” she asked.
I barked out a nervous laugh. Answers. I’d asked for answers a thousand times over the years. The words came rushing out: “Why did it send you through, the first—only—human in sixteen years? Why today? Why you? Why another version of me? How do we get you back? Why is the rift out of control even though I’m right here? What is it, even? Why is it linked to me?” Something was clenching my throat, making it hard to breathe. “I have no clue. I’m sorry.”
I wanted those answers—
But I couldn’t follow the instructions on the paper. Not with Mom wandering the grounds while the rift broke every rule we’d established over sixteen years and destroyed the only corner of the world I’d ever known. What if the researchers needed me in order to quiet the rift?
“I have to find Director Facet.” I stood.
So did the other Hazel—scrambling to her feet, note in one fist—but she had other thoughts. “Answers. Maybe they know how I can go back.”
A strange, apologetic smile flit across her face. I saw a glimpse of braces. I’d had mine taken out last year. She hadn’t been so lucky, apparently.
We descended the stairs together. There was less shouting outside, I thought, and fewer screeching noises I couldn’t identify. We stepped onto the lawn right as a crash sounded in the distance, loud enough to jolt us, but we kept going, the other Hazel unfolding the scrunched-up note while I scanned the smoke-filled grounds for Facet.
There weren’t as many agents as before. They’d either left or gone inside the barns. The smell of burned wood sent me flashing back to summer barbecues.
“I have to . . .,” I said.
She nodded. The movement caused the red flower to drop from her hair, but she didn’t seem to notice.
I didn’t know what to say. What if they spotted her and locked her up for questioning instead of letting her find that X on the note? What if they could send her right home? I wouldn’t get to see her again. I had questions, I realized now, questions about her home and life, what it was like being a Hazel who wore dresses and who could go past one-and-a-half miles and not even think twice about it.
But I needed to find Facet.
“OK,” I said, and took off. She did the same.
The closer I came to the barn that housed Facet’s office, the more obvious it was I wouldn’t find him there. The barn had been hit hard. Flames licked at the windows, and one corner had collapsed under something that looked like a boat mast.
If he’d been trapped, agents would be trying to get him out. Instead, the building was abandoned.
I spun, trying not to panic. The barns towered over me. People would be congregating somewhere, right, to figure out their orders? It felt like I was missing something, like I was making some giant mistake. Or maybe I already had, and that was why this was happening—maybe all along, I’d missed big honking clues about what I was supposed to do, and I was still missing clues, I had to be, or else I’d know why there was another freaking Hazel here and—don’t panic, don’t panic—
I wasn’t good at not panicking.
That panic battered at me like it was trying to get in and only needed me to give a fraction of an inch. Every move I made. Every thought in my head. I kept arriving at the same conclusion: One way or another, I had caused this chaos. The rift was connected to me. I was the only one who could be responsible and I didn’t have a clue how to fix it.
Find Facet, I told myself. He’ll tell you what to do.
I only got to take two steps toward the nearest intact barn when a deafening groan cleaved through the smoky air. I turned, ready to run toward safety, but the sound hadn’t come from anywhere nearby. It must’ve come from Barn F, a few dozen yards down—
Barn F. The barn indicated on the sheet of paper. Where the other Hazel was headed.
I broke into a run.
CHAPTER SIX
Dust billowed from one corner of the barn. I scrambled through the rubble until I made it to the barn entrance. The doors stood wide open.
“H-Hazel?” I called out, awkward as it felt to shout my own name.