Parallel [ONC 2020] // Shortlisted

Chapter Twelve

"You're pulling my leg, right? This has to be some crazy wind-up concocted by you two to get me back for something or another. Did you have to drag the new girl into it? That's a new low, even for you," Mrs Likens said.

"We're not joking. I know it sounds like something we'd do, but for once this is genuine and we need your help to fix it," Mitch said.

"Yeah, no way. I'm not getting involved in another crazy stunt."

"Harriet, take your glasses off and untie your hair."

Mitch pulled a small device from his pocket; one I had seen but had not been identified to me with an actual name. I watched as he touched the front of the device and waited for me to do as I had been instructed. I pulled the hairband out of my hair and slowly ran my fingers through the plait to undo it. My hair fell down my back in its usual waves and I shook it slightly to separate the strands a little more. Mrs Likens watched as I removed the glasses, folded them over and placed them on the desk to prove that I didn't really need.

When I had finished, Mitch turned his device around and showed Mrs Likens one of the portraits of me. How it ended up on such a small screen was beyond me, but even computers were a marvel to someone who had spent their life gaining knowledge from books rather than having it at their fingertips. It would have made my lessons with Mother far more interesting if I could have had something else to do in order to pass the time. That and I would have been able to answer all of her questions just by pressing a few buttons.

Mrs Likens looked at the portrait on the screen and then at me, her eyes darting back and forth as though trying to understand what she had been shown. I didn't blame her. This certainly was a strange development in my life, and I expected that to be the same for everyone else. It wasn't every day that someone who lived hundreds of years before a persons time appeared in front of them looking the same as they did back then. It would take a lot of time to process, but time was not something I had at my disposal.

She looked from the portrait to me for several minutes, checking to make sure her eyes weren't failing her and that it really was happening. After a little while longer, she placed her pen onto the desk, stood up and walked around to the side of the desk to where we were standing. Mrs Likens looked me up and down, looked back to the portrait and then spoke.

"This isn't a joke? You really are Harriet Longdale? The Harriet Longdale?"

"Yes, just a few days ago I was getting ready to go to the theatre with my parents and the next thing I knew I was here, having no idea how I got here or why. We have been trying to figure out a way for me to get home ever since and nothing has come up."

"Are we thinking parallel universes or ghosts?"

"We were thinking parallel universes. That Einstein quote from the other day, we think he might be wrong," Ricky said.

"Einstein? Wrong?"

"Yup. What if every single timeline is running alongside one another, parallel to each other so to speak and what we know to be ghosts are actual where two timelines cross. Ghosts aren't dead so to speak, but the events of a separate timeline being visible to us. We reckon Harriet must have crossed through one of those interlocking timelines and ended up here. The only problem is, we have no idea how to get her home since we don't know how she got here."

"It sounds as though you've put Stone Tape theory alongside Parallel universes and ended up with something really complicated and confusing. Yet at the same time, it makes sense. Let me see if I can make this a little easier on the brain."

Mrs Likens stood up from the desk and shuffled over to a large whiteboard on the wall. I had seen one of those in the Library, but I had no idea what it was for or how it worked. We had had blackboards and chalk if we had to write something down and it seemed far more practical than whatever that may have been. My teachers at school used to drag their fingernails across the chalkboard to silence a class, but it didn't look as though that was possible with the board in this classroom.

I watched as Mrs Likens picked up a white pen with a blue lid, uncapped it and drew a straight line across the board. She then drew another line parallel to the first and turned to Mitch and Ricky for some reassurance that it was right, they nodded, and she continued. She drew a third line that crossed through the other two and then added two circles on the spot where the lines crossed.

"It looks like a Maths question," Ricky said.

"Hm. Let's say that this line- " Mrs Likens pointed to the third line "-is Harriet's timeline and this first cross point is where she came through to our timeline. Our timeline is the first line I drew and the other is a different time. In order for timelines to cross, Harriet's timeline may have shifted so that it runs perpendicular to ours rather than parallel. If so, it's possible the timeline has since righted itself and that wormhole has closed or moved. Something had to have caused the timeline to shift in the first place."

"So we have to recreate the event that lead to the timeline shift in order to reopen the hole?" Mitch asked.

"Possibly. But recreating that will be really difficult."

"I might have an idea."

Ricky turned to look at me and grinned, she had a strange glint in her eye that suggested she may have been up to something. Even if her plan seemed insane, I was willing to try anything if it meant I could make it back home. Mrs Likens explanation made little to no sense to me as science had never been my strong suit and a lot of what had been discussed never existed when I had been growing up.

Despite how ludicrous Ricky's plan may end up being, it seemed better than nothing.