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

Robbie led me to realize something new about my father. I leaned in close so the guard couldn’t hear us. “You don’t seem too surprised that Robbie is alive,” I continued. “Did Mom tell you, Dad? About DW? Is that what you meant by ‘she was right’?”

“No,” he insisted. “All I know . . .”

He trailed off, seeming to weigh how much to reveal.

“Dad?”

“When Robbie . . . was hit . . . your mother said she should go get him. And I asked her what she was talking about. She wouldn’t tell me. But then later she said that if she ever disappeared, if anything happened to her, that I should know she was okay. That I shouldn’t try to find her.”

“When did she say this?”

“Years ago, right after the accident. I thought she was just rambling. A depressed woman, in shock.” Dad buried his head in his hands. As brilliant as he was, I knew none of this made any sense to him.

So my mother had been planning this trip for a while, apparently. And she told my father that she’d be somewhere safe. That he shouldn’t go look for her.

But where? Where would she go?

And did her leaving cause the world beneath the lake to penetrate our own?

“And you really didn’t know about the portals beneath the school?”

Dad sighed heavily, looking quite tired and worn down. “No,” he whispered. “I mean, you live in this town long enough, you hear rumors. But no, I never believed them. I asked your mother once if they were true, since she’d gone to high school here. She just laughed. Said it was ‘kids playing games.’ I felt like a fool for even asking.”

“Ten minutes,” the guard announced from the corner of the room. There was so much more to say, but there was no way to fit it in.

“You’re going to get out of here soon, Dad,” I said.

“Don’t get in trouble, please,” my father pleaded. “Just stay together, you two. You have each other again.”

I looked at Robbie. “Yes, we do. But we’re not done, not until we’re all together.”

Robbie dipped his head for a moment, and my father kissed it. “My boy,” Dad whispered. “My sweet boy.”

Later that night, we didn’t even make it to the perimeter of Money Row or to the street that held the pyramid house before we realized that something was wrong. There was too much commotion, too many cars going back and forth, which would have been odd even if there hadn’t been a curfew in place keeping most people confined to their homes after dark.

Music was playing from somewhere, upbeat old songs. The people zipping by our bikes in their sedans and SUVs were all dressed up, completely oblivious to us. But still, we pulled over so we wouldn’t be spotted.

“What’s going on?” Robbie asked me. “Who are all these people?”

“I have no idea,” I told him. “Last time I was here, the whole neighborhood was abandoned, and the pyramid house was empty. That’s why they had the meetings there.”

“Who did?”

I hesitated for a moment. “Kieren,” I told him, “and some of your old friends.”

“I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“Robbie, they were trying to figure out how to save you.”

“Those guys couldn’t save a parking spot,” Robbie said flatly. “They’re idiots.” He turned to Piper, who had ridden our mother’s old bike. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling and catching her breath a bit. “It’s great to ride a bike again, huh?”

I was struck by Piper’s undying optimism. She may have been the happiest person I’d ever met. Normally I might have found it annoying, but Piper had a natural grace and honesty to her that made it all seem effortless, impossible to fault.

“People change,” I said to Robbie, even though he was no longer listening to me. “You haven’t seen them since you were fourteen.”

A pair of headlights whizzed by us and we all instinctively shielded our faces. The lights passed, and we decided it would be better to ditch the bikes by the side of the road and go the rest of the way on foot. Heading off the pavement, we made our way through a marsh, which was one of the few parts of town apparently unaffected by the changes DW had brought. Still cold, still wet, still abandoned.

Approaching the house from the side, we gathered at its low garden wall and saw through the window that a party was happening in the living room. About fifty people were scattered around, wearing fashions that were at once familiar and oddly dated. They were sipping champagne and laughing so loudly I doubted they would notice us even if we screamed.

I was staring at a woman in a large diamond necklace, sensing Piper shifting from foot to foot impatiently beside me, when another woman entered the room.

I had seen our mother three times since her disappearance—the first time in the hotel, when she’d looked right through me, then in the woods late that night, and finally in the newspaper announcing her new government position. And yet every time I glimpsed her, my heart leaped at the shock.

She was more beautiful than ever, her hair pulled back into a tight bun and her flawless face devoid of any wrinkles. Her dress was simple but very flattering. Long and black, cut perfectly to show off her tiny waist. She didn’t seem like herself, but instead like an actress who had been cast to play our mother in this strange movie. And she was surrounded by men in fancy suits, all jockeying for a chance to get closer to her.

I turned to Robbie to see if he had noticed her, but I didn’t have to ask. His face said it all. He looked like a little boy again, watching her walk through the room. After a moment, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he turned his back to the window, slumping down along the wall and sliding to the ground so he could