YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

Original Edition: Chapter Twenty-Six

The statue of Stalin was coated in bronze. Sitting on a rearing horse with a flowing mane that just grazed the muscular leg of its rider, the figure towered over the stone base designed to hold it. And in the dull light of this cloudy day, it reflected a distorted golden version of Adam's and my faces back at us, our expressions unreadable in the dark metal.

"A fearless leader, boldly guiding the people into the future," I read the plaque out loud.

Adam said nothing in response, but simply turned away. "Sage's house is over by the old grounds."

"Okay."

We started walking in silence, taking in the streets and the people of our town as we went. It was nineteen ninety-nine, and the twenty years we had shaved off history showed itself in subtle ways.

Gone were some of the fashions I had been expecting to see based on Mom's photo album and reruns of old TV shows: black chokers, slips worn as dresses, and overplucked eyebrows. Fashion was as malleable as politics, I guessed, and the cultural influences that had inspired those looks were apparently absent in this version of history.

We had come back to a month in the dead of winter, and the thick coats and fur hats many people sported seemed instead to be inspired by Russian styles. The barefoot children were mostly absent as well, and in fact, the whole town seemed somehow less bleak than it had in the present-day we had just left.

Maybe it was the thin layer of snow dusting the sidewalks, or the dove singing on the bare branch of a newly planted tree that produced the effect. There was a promise in the air of this place that was nowhere to be found on the other side of those twenty years.

I shivered a bit with no protection from the chill. "If we have any of Sage's money left, we should buy some coats."

"Agreed. We'll find a store in town."

I inhaled a sharp gust of cold air, and my teeth began to chatter.

"Almost there," Adam assured, putting his arm around me and rubbing my shoulder.

"Okay."

It was awkward walking like that, and after a moment, he pulled his arm away again and we both put our hands in our pockets and continued on a few inches apart.

I realized that I needed to be careful. Down World can make people feel close to each other, like co-conspirators in a crime. It had happened with Brady too.

But Adam wasn't Brady.

After a while, we reached the old grounds, which existed now not as the shiny amusement park they would become after the Russians renovated them, nor as the gas station and fast-food restaurants they had been in my reality. Instead, they were somewhere in between: rusted and abandoned structures, vaguely meant to emulate a Nordic village, but sadly neglected by time and covered in a blanket of dirty snow.

Adam nodded to the neighborhood across the street, and we walked one more block to a small, simple house painted a dull white with two spiny, bare bushes plopped haphazardly on either side of the front door. Only a windchime of little moons and stars jangling into a shooting comet indicated that, somewhere inside this house, a woman of great spirit still lived.

We stomped out our feet on the cement stoop, leaving traction-shaped clumps of caked-on snow behind. Adam cleared his throat, and I offered him an encouraging smile.

"Lose the FitBit."

"Right," I stammered, loosening the band and shoving it in my pocket.