Westerfield Manor

Chapter 7

        Shannon stared at her friend with an astonished look.

"Okay, remember how I told you about my dream the night before last?" Grace said.

Shannon nodded.

"Well in the dream I was in the burning bedroom with the two children. At first they were screaming, but then they stopped and calmly got off the bed and started walked past me. I turned around to see where they were going, and just for a second I saw what looked like a doorway in the middle of all that smoke. Then I woke up. But Shannon, that's where they went. Through that doorway to safety."

Shannon looked confused. "A doorway? You mean like into another room of the house?"

"No, that's not what I mean. I had a think about what I saw in the dream, so tonight I set my phone to satellite mode and accessed a file from the Silver Star Research Centre. It was written by a Dr Jonathan Reid in 1981 when he used to work there. Mum told me about his research and how he had written this paper. It was considered high security so it was never published, just kept on file on the company computer. Anyway I think this explains what happened to the children in Westerfield Manor back in 1908. Listen closely to this."

Grace pressed a button on the phone. The soft female voice of the centre's computer started reading.

"The following is an extract from a paper by Dr Jonathan Reid at the Silver Star Research Centre, New South Wales, Australia, 1981. The following is theoretical. I believe, with some supporting evidence which I am unfortunately not at liberty to publish, that we are not alone in this universe. I believe in the existence of a number of worlds almost identical to our own, not in our own plane of existence, but in parallel dimensions or universes. These worlds consist of an identical Earth and counterparts of ourselves living lives which may be identical to ours, but also may be very different. My theory is that these worlds are self contained and completely separate from each other, but on rare occasions it is possible for someone to travel from one world to another through a dimensional portal or gateway which only opens in rare and exceptional circumstances. Such a circumstance would probably require a huge amount of energy to tear open a hole in the dimensional barrier, a smaller amount of energy for an image to be projected through, and a much larger amount for a person to physically pass through.

"It is also quite possible that these parallel Earths may be very different from our own world. For instance time may move much faster or slower. An hour on one of these other Earths may be a hundred years for us, or vice versa."

"Stop," Grace said to the phone. She turned to Shannon, "There's more on there but it's mostly technical. But do you see what I'm getting at?"

Shannon gaped at her friend open mouthed. "So you think a portal to another dimension opened up in their bedroom in the middle of the fire, and they went through it?"

Grace nodded.

"But Dr Reid said opening a portal would take a huge amount of energy. Where did the energy come from to do that? Oh of course, the lightning."

Grace nodded again.

"Thank God those kids got away safely. I had nightmares about them being burned in the fire. But Grace, what happened this afternoon in the barn? What were those shadow things we saw?"

"Well I'm not sure, but I think we were standing in almost the exact place where that portal opened one hundred and twenty five years ago. Maybe it comes and goes, but I think it partly opened this afternoon and those shadow images were projected through."

"Images of the children?"

"No. I got a distinct bad vibe from those things, and I thought I heard a voice whispering in my mind. It just said 'stay away, stay away.' I could be wrong, Shannon, or maybe I'm letting my imagination go a bit wild here, but I think Michael and Elizabeth are still there in that other world. Time has gone much slower for them. They're still kids. They want to come home but those shadow things are keeping them there."

Shannon took a deep breath, "Wow! That's so incredible. And this afternoon when Laura looked for us in the barn, we were there but she couldn't see us because....."

Grace finished her sentence, "Because we were temporarily inside the dimensional field of this other world so no one from this world could see us. It was less than a minute for us, but for Laura and everyone here we were gone for nearly an hour."

"So what do we do?" Shannon asked, "Do you really think those children are alive in this other world and trying to get back here?"

"I think so. That dream I had, and then the vision of the burning manor. I think it was a message being sent on a psychic plane through that unstable portal and I picked it up."

"If that portal thing has been coming and going as you said, why haven't the kids been able to escape through it before now? Those shadow things?"

"It could be, or maybe the portal has only just started becoming unstable recently. There are too many unknowns."

"But if the kids want to come home, what can we do? How do we rescue them? Can we actually rescue them?"

Grace thought for a few moments, then she slowly said, "I don't think we can."

*****

It was a dark night, and Grace stared out the window of the old house at the approaching thunderstorm. She was back in Westerfield Manor again in Michael's bedroom. She turned around to see the two children sitting on the bed looking terrified. Then there was a bright flash of light, the exploding crash of thunder, the flames and the smoke, Elizabeth screaming. Then, as before, the two children got off the bed and started walking towards Grace with calm looks on their faces. As they passed her, Michael stopped for a second and appeared to look right at her. Then he continued after his sister through the rectangular hole in the smoke following the beckoning arm-waving of a smiling man and woman. Grace tried to follow them, but something held her back near the opening. As she looked through it she saw the man and woman suddenly change...."

Grace sat up in bed wide awake. She wasn't completely certain before, but this latest vision confirmed it. Now she knew exactly what had happened on that night in 1908.

She retrieved her phone from her bag, set it to satellite mode and spent the following hour researching a number of websites. Finally she smiled to herself, turned off the phone and drifted off to sleep.

Is Grace right?
Are the children still alive in another world?
Can they be saved?
Read on and find out, but please vote first :)