Down World by Rebecca Phelps (best new books to read .txt) 📕

“It didn’t work,” Brady concluded, and for a second I agreed with him.

But then I noticed the light. The light was different, the sun high in the sky. In fact, everything seemed brighter. The birds were singing from the shore.

“Yes, it did.” My eyes caught a wisp of something then, a small plume of white smoke. It was coming from the little boathouse. Why would a boathouse have a chimney? I pointed it out to Brady as we both paddled on the surface, and he nodded.

We came up on shore, seeing that on this plane, our shoes were not there. I struggled to remain brave as we approached the boathouse. This was the portal Piper had gone through. So it was possible that she was nearby at that very moment. I wondered if that thought had occurred to Brady.

The window of the boathouse was not broken on this side. As we approached, we could smell something cooking. I was reminded of the first time I’d gone into DW, and the distinct smell of bacon that had immediately filled my nose. And for a moment, I was certain of it—I had found my mother.

I almost tripped over my own feet running to the window. My eyes took a second to adjust to the darker light within, but when they did, I saw that I had been wrong. In fact, I had been wrong about everything.

This wasn’t a boathouse. At least, not on this plane.

It was a small cottage. And inside, a man was leaning over a small metal griddle in the fireplace making breakfast. The boats were gone, replaced by a small, neatly made bed. The only other contents of the place were a small table and a rocking chair by another window with a perfectly folded blanket lying over it. Whoever this man was, this was his home. And I wondered how long he had lived here.

The man’s back seemed to freeze, and suddenly he whipped towards us, grabbing a shotgun from above the mantel and pointing it directly at my face.

I gasped. It took a moment to register what I was looking at, and that it was real and this wasn’t a movie.

Brady’s reflexes kicked in faster than mine, and before I knew it, he was pushing me to the ground. I landed on my hip, the sharp blow reverberating up my side and making me realize that we were in very real danger. I looked up and saw Brady still standing facing the window frame above my head.

Brady’s eyes were locked on the man, and he slowly raised his hands.

“It’s okay,” Brady said. “It’s okay, don’t shoot.”

“What do you want?” the man asked.

“Sorry,” Brady said, his voice trembling. “We didn’t know anyone lived here. We’ll be on our way, okay?”

I watched from the ground, too scared to move, wanting to grab Brady and drag him away from there, away from danger. After what felt like an eternity, I saw Brady bring his arms down and take a deep breath. The man must have lowered the gun.

“Who was that with you?” the man almost shouted. “Stand up, girl. Let me see you.”

“She’s nobody, sir,” Brady insisted, keeping me pressed down with his foot. “We’re really sorry we bothered you. We’re going now, okay?”

But I could hear the man approaching and had no idea what I was supposed to do. Would he get angrier if I stayed ducked down? Should I do what he asked?

The decision was made for me when the man stuck his head out of the window and looked down at me. I knew his face, but from where?

“Jesus,” the man said. “It’s you.”

I tried desperately to place him, feeling that I had seen him recently.

“You look exactly like your mother.”

And that’s when it all came back to me. He had been the man in the diner when we’d first met Sage, the one she had mentioned. His deep-set, haunted eyes were the same. And my mind flooded with questions. How long had he lived here? And why?

“I know you,” I told him. “You’re Sage’s friend.”

“George.”

“Yes, from high school. Right? She told me about you.” I was feeling more confident as I stood up next to Brady. This man was an old friend of my mother’s. He would never hurt me. “And you know my mother.”

“Go back,” he simply said. “Go back into the lake. You can’t stay here.”

Brady and I stared at him, neither one of us willing to go without finding out more.

This man remembered me from the diner. That meant he was the real George. “You’re not from DW. What are you doing here?”

But that’s when we heard the dinging sound, like a small bell on a bicycle. A man was whistling. Looking back at the path, no one was yet visible. But another dinging followed, and it seemed like more than one person.

“Damn it,” George said. “Now look what you’ve done.”

Brady and I both instinctively took a step back to examine the path, looking for the bikes.

“No, no,” George whispered. “Get in here.” He practically pulled Brady in through the window, then leaned over and pulled me in behind him. Once inside the warm little cabin, the man quickly ushered us away from the window.

He led us towards the back of the room and shoved us into a closet, pulling the accordion-style curtain closed in front of our faces. Brady and I both stood in shock, standing with our backs pressed against the man’s musty clothes. There were no more than a couple of inches to move in, and a hanger was stabbing me in the back. I started shifting some of the clothes over to make more room for myself, but Brady grabbed my arm to stop me.

“Wait,” he whispered. “Don’t.”

We heard the footsteps enter the cabin then. As I had suspected, there were at least two sets of men’s boots stomping into the room, mere feet away from us. One