Temporal Exploring 101 - Branch Cut

V.26 The Other Place

I took another drag from my cigarette.

"Did I tell you that my tutor Allie was disciplined, the other day? Both her and her friend Lena."

Natty whistled softly. "Seriously? Thomas got her ass beaten, and Atkins too?"

"Yes, seriously. And, guess what: it's because they got caught smoking."

My roommate laughed. "Sounds like a bit of poetic justice, to me."

It was half past ten in the evening. Natty and I were outside, standing next to each other under a willow tree in the park, smoking.

"I didn't expect that tutors would get disciplined that way, though," Natty mused.

"Looks like they do. By the way, your own tutor, Watts, did the honors. She is the head girl of the Upper Sixth."

"Ouch." Natty made a face. "You can tell Thomas that I sympathize with her, and with Atkins too. I know what it feels like when Mel smacks your butt."

There had been several occasions when I had seen my roommate's bare bum an hour or two after she had been sent to her tutor's office.

"I think I can imagine what it must be like," I ventured.

I took yet another drag.

"Which reminds me ... We need to return the science fiction novel that you took from Ms Delmond's apartment, before she realizes that it is gone."

"Probably she has been missing it already, in which case the best option for us might be to—" She broke off. "Speaking of the devil. Here she comes." Natty pointed.

Looking in the direction she indicated, I saw a distant figure advance towards the place where we were standing. A figure that even from that distance very much resembled Ms Delmond.

"Bernoulli be damned," I muttered. "And here I thought that history never repeats itself."

We turned away from her to hide the glow of our burning cigarettes, then dropped the precious cigs and stepped on them to extinguish them.

And then, sure enough, Ms Delmond – and it almost certainly was Delmond, wearing her customary backpack for the occasion – changed direction.

Natty groaned. "Two more cigs gone to waste, for nothing."

"Let's follow her, shall we?" I proposed.

"You think it's worthwhile to do that?" my roommate grumbled. "I bet you she will just find the portal, or whatever it is, closed again."

In the course of the last weeks Natty, Nancy, Erin, Mallory and I every so often had walked over to that spot where Mallory and I – and probably Ms Delmond, too – had crossed over into what we now used to refer to as The Other Place. Needless to say, we had never been able to enter that place again.

"Perhaps the gateway to The Other Place is closed for good now?" Natty suggested.

"If you believe what the oracle told me, the gate is open and will stay that way until I or somebody else closes it," I replied. "Now let's go and trail Delmond."

"I do not think spirits are necessarily a very trustworthy source of information," Natty muttered, but she fell in line as I set out on the path the teacher had taken.

We caught up with Ms Delmond as she reached the clearing, just in time to watch her push aside branches and twigs and step into the copse where she was out of sight.

We hurried to the clearing, then followed her example and entered the bushes. There were trees on the other side, lots and lots of trees. With growing excitement I recognized the place. It was the place I had ended up together with Mallory Carmichael.