“Lucas, Lucas, what happened? This can’t be... our reality, can it?”
Lucas sat up and looked around the room. “This is my room, the room at my mother’s house. We were here before we went to the temple in Lycenna.”
“I rember.” I sat up and looked around. It was his room, exactly. Unlike in the other realities, there was nothing unusual or slightly off. All the pictures, books, and trinkets were the sa. I’d only been in the room once, but I could tell it was the sa room I rembered.
There was even a picture of Lucas as a little kid with mud sared all over his face.
“We should talk to my mother. Maybe she can help us figure out what’s going on. This could be another reality just very similar to our own.”
“Yeah, we should figure out what the two that were in our bodies have been up to.”
We got out of bed and headed downstairs. I almost felt like I was in a dream, wandering through this reality. How could I be sure that whatever reality we were in really was our own?
Maeve was in the kitchen washing dishes and humming to herself. She was completely oblivious to our presence.
Lucas knocked on the doorfra. “Mom.”
“Ack!” Maeve threw a plate into the sink and it shattered into broken shards of porcelain. She sputtered and fanned herself. She whipped around, her eyes wide, chest heaving. She looked like she was seeing a ghost–or two ghosts. I’d never seen her look so startled and pale.
“Mom?” Lucas shot a nervous look.
“Lucas!? You’re awake....”
“Yeah... am I not usually?” Lucas arched an eyebrow.
“Oh, Sasha, you’re awake, too. It is so good to see you both.”
She rushed at us and hugged us both tightly. I was too shocked to react at first. This was definitely different than the last ti I’d seen her. Her arms tightened around us and she jumped up and down.
I slowly hugged her back, patting her awkwardly. This was getting weirder by the second. What kind of strange world did we wake up in?
I was so certain that I’d found the correct reality. Maybe I missed the mark by just a little.
“Mom, can you tell us... what you’re talking about?” Lucas pulled away from her.
Maeve had tears in her eyes as she looked us over.
“Sasha, you’re... I don’t understand... your pregnancy.” She motioned to my flat stomach. “Did you lose the baby?”
I looped my arms around my stomach and looked down. “I don’t think so. There was no evidence of a miscarriage. But I was pregnant?”
Maeve creased her brow and frowned. “Yes, you were pregnant. I’ve been monitoring you closely. The baby has been fine for a while now.”
“A while... did sothing happen to us?” I asked, biting my lower lip. I put my hands on my stomach again. Babies definitely don’t just disappear.
Maeve sighed. She took Lucas’s hand and patted the back of it.
“A few months ago, the two of you ventured to Lycenna in search of a magical artifact. There was a temple there that you wanted to explore.”
“We made it to the temple. That’s when things got... strange....”
I looked at Lucas sideways and he returned my glance. We’d told Maeve a little about the orbs, but that was before we got into tiline hopping and all that. I wasn’t sure how much to tell her and what she’d believe.
It could take a lot longer to explain everything to her when all I wanted was answers about what happened to my pregnancy.
“We didn’t hear from the two of you for a long ti. The guards that were with you made contact and said sothing happened in the temple, that the two of you passed out.”
“Passed out?” Lucas gasped.
“Yes. We had to send a special team to the temple to extract you. The two of you were in a coma and nothing could wake you. Doctors and healers ca and checked over the two of you. That’s how we discovered you were pregnant, Sasha.”
“And we were in a coma that whole ti?” I asked, gaping.
“The two of you are acting very strange. And pregnancies don’t just disappear.” Maeve arched an eyebrow at us. “What is going on?”
“Okay, Mom, we’ll tell you everything that’s happened. You might want to sit down.”
Maeve rinsed her hands and followed us into the living room. We all sat down together.
Lucas and I took turns explaining everything that happened after we went into the temple. It was a long story. We didn’t go too deep into detail about magic and the orbs, and I didn’t know how much of it she believed.
She nodded along with everything we said. I could tell she had a lot of questions but she didn’t ask. She impressed with her steady gaze and how she held her tongue. She must have been bursting with curiosity.
Or she was too shocked to put the pieces together.
“And we finally woke up here,” Lucas finished.
“This is all... very strange. We changed the two of you into comfortable pajamas for your recovery.” She motioned to us and the clothes we were wearing.
I looked down and noticed that I was wearing the sa clothes I was wearing when we were in the palace with Lena.
No pajamas.
I hadn’t given it a second thought at the ti, but when I saw Lucas and sleeping through the orbs, we had been in pajamas. I thought we looked cute and peaceful.
“We brought our clothes back with us,” I muttered.
“Honestly, we expected so other versions of ourselves to be walking around in our bodies and trying to make sense of our lives,” Lucas admitted.
“We must be in our own reality,” I said. “Things here are too similar.”
I looked over at Lucas and saw that he was also wearing the sa clothes from the other reality.
“What happened? What did I do wrong?” I shook my head.
“Sasha, it’s okay. We’ll figure this out, I promise. We’re back in our own reality, and that is the most important part.”
“But I still screwed up! Where are our bodies? Where is the baby?!”
Lucas put his arm around and pulled against his chest. “Shh. Sasha. We’ll figure this out. We’ve always figured it out.”
I leaned on him and breathed deeply. No baby, no magic–this was all wrong. I reached for my powers but still couldn’t feel them.
“I’m still in the wrong body. Is that even possible? I didn’t think I could bring a whole body back from another reality.”
Lucas’s steady hand kept calm on the outside but on the inside, I was panicking. I’d been looking forward to coming back to my body and feeling the baby.
“I can’t feel my magic powers anymore,” I told Maeve.
She looked alard.
Maeve placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "We’ll get to the bottom of this, Sasha. It won’t be easy, but we’ll do it together."
I nodded, grateful for their support. The room fell into silence as we each lost ourselves in thought. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that sothing else was off, that there was a piece of the puzzle that we were missing.
“Sasha, you had a tooth that was replaced when you were a child in our reality. Can you feel the tooth?” Lucas’s steady voice broke from my panicked thoughts.
I pressed my tongue against the replaced tooth. My tongue grazed against real tooth enal.
Sighing, I bowed my head and closed my eyes.
“The tooth is still real. It was never replaced. My teeth are perfectly fine. I didn’t just bring our souls back, I brought the bodies we were in back, too.”
Lucas took my hands and cupped them between his own.
I looked up at him. His face was soft and gentle. I could see the concern in his eyes, but there was strength, too.
“Lucas, what happened to our baby? Where is our baby? Did I... hurt it?”
“No. Sasha, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sure the baby is fine. If our bodies from the other reality are here, then it makes sense that our real bodies went to the reality we ca from. That includes the baby.”
“Okay... okay....”
I let out a deep breath and leaned back against the couch. Lucas’s words brought comfort. His reasoning made a lot of sense. It was logical but I couldn’t help worrying. All the conversations we had about baby nas and where we wanted to raise the baby had gotten excited about being pregnant.
To co back and still not have my baby, my heart ached in so many ways. I couldn’t shake off the feeling of guilt that was gnawing at . What if sothing terrible had happened to our baby? What if it was in danger because of our reckless actions?
I covered my heart with my hands, tears pricked my eyes.
“We have to get our baby back.”
Lucas cupped my face with his hands. He kissed my forehead and pressed his forehead to mine.
“We will. I won’t rest until we have our bodies and our baby back. Believe , Sasha.”
I nodded.
We parted and I looked around, realizing that Maeve had left us alone in the room.
Lucas pulled into a gentle hug.
His determination strengthened . I knew he was right. We could get our bodies and baby back.
I now knew how to look through different realities with them. It wouldn’t take as much effort to find our bodies and make the swap. I was more experienced now. I could hold back on the force I used to get back in our bodies.
I thought that I was so excited to get back, so maybe I didn’t focus my energy correctly. I just needed to focus on transferring the right soul into the right body into the right reality. I wouldn’t be as overwheld and confused by what was happening.
The priestess’s staff hadn’t been as bad as I thought. It didn’t overwhelm and I had a much better handle on it. The staff didn’t co with , though. I couldn’t rember seeing it or the orbs in the bedroom.
Suddenly, my stomach dropped into my feet. I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Sasha?” Lucas asked. He snapped his fingers in front of my eyes as I stared off into the distance.
“Lucas... how are we going to get our bodies back?”
“I told you, we’ll find a way.”
“No, I an, how!? I don’t have my powers in this body. How can I get our bodies back without my powers!?”
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