"Amalia?" I called out when we stepped through the front door. It had been locked, but she'd given me and Piper the entry code when we were setting up the wedding. The name echoed back toward me through the cavernous foyer.

Stairways ascended on either side, but I had a feeling I should check the sitting room where she usually hosted her afternoon teas. I could feel Adam walking behind me as though keeping his distance somehow. We hadn't really resolved our fight back at the house, and the awkward weight of Sage's ring on my finger seemed to be a constant reminder of that. But finding Amalia couldn't wait.

I didn't really start to panic, however, until we passed into the a clear view of the sitting room. All the furniture had been draped in white sheets, including that mauve-colored sofa where I'd spent so many hours with her. I scanned the room for any sign of life, and my eyes landed on the sliding glass doors that led to the backyard.

I crossed to them quickly. The yard was completely empty, and all the magical elements that had made Robbie's wedding into a fairytale had vanished, as though they'd turned into a pumpkin late that night.

"I'll check upstairs," Adam said behind me.

"Yeah," I nodded. Then I headed towards the kitchen. "Amalia, are you home?" A voice in my head was already chastising me for asking such a stupid question. The answer was obviously no.

The sour feeling in my stomach grew exponentially when I saw the kitchen. The large dining table had been pushed against the wall, with the chairs overturned on top of it. But I knew, even then, that there was one more thing I had to check.

I approached the walk-in pantry like it was the gallows, hearing echoes of my mother's voice from when we visited as kids: Marina, what did your aunt say? Stay out of there! I swear, you never listen!

I listen, mama, said the voice in my head. I'm always listening.

"She's not upstairs," Adam said behind me.

"I know."

I reached out a shaking hand for the pantry door and swung it open.

The pantry was empty.

All that expensive food, all those delicacies from around the world, vanished, as though eaten by goblins in the night. All except one thing—the Corn Flakes box that I now knew was just a decoy.

"Why would she leave that one thing?" he asked, standing over my shoulder.

Rather than answer, I pushed it in to expose the hidden closet behind the false shelves. But one glance into that little room revealed that someone had been in there too. The old costumes on the rack had been pushed to either side, and someone had been rifling through the old play scripts and headshots. They were scattered like confetti all over the floor.

I stepped gingerly into the soft yellow light of the room, feeling Adam looming over me—his body too big for this confined and oddly feminine space.

In the center of the floor, something had been left behind. Or rather, it had been placed, very carefully, almost like an offering. It was an old, weathered copy of the play Steel Magnolias, splayed open, its pages pinned down by two old theater anthologies. I didn't need to bend down to know which pages had been selected for this display. My eyes quickly scanned the text: "I'd rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special."

Amalia had left this here for someone to find.

"Look over there," Adam said, shuffling around me and finding one more object of note. On top of a pedestal it had been placed as carefully as the old script. It was very delicate. A small silver disc, almost like a watch battery, connected to some wires with receivers at the ends. "What is it?" he asked.

I picked it up carefully, noting that it had been left in its own beam of light, like an offering to the gods. But it wasn't until I had turned it in my hands a couple times, feeling a swell of intense fear almost choking me, that I knew for sure what it was.

I inhaled forcefully, the air stifling and hot, my hands trembling. I was aware that I was shaking my head, refusing to believe that it could be true.

"Marina," Adam said softly, a steadying hand on my back. "Sweetheart, what is it?"

"It's a neuron transmitter."

"A what?"

"The disc is a microcomputer," I answered in a quavering voice. "It emits software through the wires directly into the prefrontal cortex. It alters brain chemistry."

"Jesus," he said, his own voice starting to echo mine.

"Except it can't be," I continued, still shaking my head.

"Why not?" Adam asked, his intent eyes growing into turbulent seas as he sensed my panic.

"Because I haven't invented it yet."

*

In Amalia's kitchen, I leaned over the counter, trying to gather the facts together in my head. All the disparate pieces of information that had been accumulating for months swirled before me like jigsaw pieces:

Amalia had lied about not knowing Elaheh Farghasian, whom she had called her "mentor" in the yearbook; she said she didn't know if she'd be alive without her. Was that literal? Was Amalia really suicidal in high school? And if so, did she really owe Elaheh her life?

They were both gone now, both leaving the same play passage behind as a clue. But while Elaheh had written hers in black ink across the wall for anyone to find, Amalia had left her clue in a very secret place, for an audience of one.

And that one person was clearly me.

The brain-altering invention had been stewing in my thoughts for several weeks now, ever since my conversation with Jin that day in the coffeeshop. It was simple, really: it rewired the brain slightly, blocking certain messages from the amygdala that made people lie. But even as I conceived of it, I knew I would never really build it. It was a huge ethical violation—invading someone's brain like that. It could only be used in the most extreme of circumstances, like maybe to cure sociopathy or...

Or bipolar disorder.

No, I would never do that to Robbie's brain. And, besides, something like my invention would take years if not decades to develop. If Amalia had my invention, then it wasn't a question of where she went—or rather, where she and Elaheh had gone together— but when.

Adam stepped slowly out of the pantry behind me, hovering several feet away like he was trying to give me space, or maybe just trying to build up the courage to approach.

And suddenly, one more thought invaded my brain like lightning:

Brady.

I guess you wouldn't know, Kieren had said to me in this very kitchen, the night of the wedding. Brady is gone.

"Marina?" Adam said from behind me. I turned and saw that he had something small and white in his hands. A folded piece of paper. "It's got your name on it."

He handed it to me and I recognized my aunt's beautiful looping letters that formed my name, made with the same fountain pen she had used to leave Piper dozens of notes about the wedding. I unfolded it and saw three delicate sentences written in the middle of the page:

Time is only a measurement. How far does it go? When you're ready.

"Will you please tell me what's going on now?' Adam asked.

"A measurement," I said dumbly. "How far?"

"Marina, talk to me."

"There's a measuring tape in that drawer," I said, pointing in its direction. As Adam walked over to retrieve it, everything suddenly became clear: Nothing Amalia had ever told me had been an accident, even sending me to the kitchen for the measuring tape.

She'd been planning for this moment for a long time. How long? Since she'd met me?

Adam brought me the tape, shaking his head in confusion. "It was the only thing left in the drawer."

"That's because she left it for me."

"Why? To measure what?"

I shook my head. I didn't know yet. I furiously scanned the kitchen, the pantry—

"Wait a minute."

I walked back into the pantry, placing the end of the tape against the far wall. "Hold this for me?" I asked Adam, who seemed to be humoring me in complying. I knew he was dying to hear why we were doing this, but I wasn't exactly sure myself yet.

I pulled the tape through the pantry, and then through the hidden door to the opposite wall in the small closet.

"Well?" Adam called.

"Ten feet, three inches."

Adam released his end, and the metallic band zipped back into its casing in my hand. We came back out into the kitchen, and Adam had apparently caught on. He held his end of the tape to the kitchen wall, and I walked the length of the room until the band snapped taut. It had reached its full length of twelve feet, and I was still nowhere near the end of the room.

My eyes fell back on the pantry. There was something else beyond it.

Adam met my eyes, probably seeing the realization forming there. He let go of his end of the tape, which now ricocheted back to me with such force that it flew up and whipped my hand, leaving a hot red mark.

He was already in the pantry when I looked up. I raced to follow him into the hidden closet, where he was rapping his knuckles on the far wall and hearing the knocks echo back to him. "Hollow," he said. "There's another room behind it."

"There must be another secret entryway or..."

"There," he pointed to a well-worn patch of paint in the upper corner of the wall. Looking closely, I could just make out fingermarks. I scanned the rest of the wall and found another similar mark in the middle.

"And there," I said. "You must have to push them together."

Adam pushed on them both and the door clicked open, revealing that there was indeed another hidden room beyond the closet. I started to walk past him to enter it, but he stopped me. "Let me go first," he warned.

"I need to see."

"And I need to keep you safe. Please."

He kept both hands on my upper arms for a moment, like he was scolding me somehow. And in my anxiousness to see the room, I tried pitifully to wrestle away from him. "Stop, wait," he said. "We don't know what's in there."

"I think I do—"

"Marina, will you ever listen to me?"

I heard a small bitter laugh escape my lips. It was the same thing my mother used to say.

He was breathing hard. I had scared him somehow. Or maybe the house had. Maybe he was starting to suspect what was beyond the pantry, just as I was. "About earlier..." he said.

"We'll talk about it when we get home, Adam." I promised. "I need to know what my aunt has done first. It might... it might be bad."

"Just let me say this." He waited until he had my attention before he continued. "Everything I do is to protect you. You know that, right?"

I placed my hand on his cheek, and he kissed my open palm. "I need to see what's in the room," I said.

He nodded and took my hand, poking his head behind the door. But when his eyes fell on whatever was in there, I could feel his hand go limp.

"What?" I asked. "What is it?" I pushed my way past him, only to find that the next room had just one thing in it, illuminated slightly by its own faint purple glow:

A door. A brick door. With a sign on it, homemade out of wood, and hanging at an odd angle. Etched into the wood was the word HOME.

And the door, the portal, was still glowing.

"She must have just used it," Adam said, using his body as a shield to keep me away from the glowing bricks.

Amalia's letter was still sitting on the kitchen counter. When you're ready, it had said. And my invention—she hadn't just left it there so I would know she had it. She had left it for me to use as a token... so I could find her when I crossed to the other side.

It was an invitation. An invitation I was not allowed to refuse.

And an invitation for me alone.

"Adam," I said, fear flooding every inch of my body. I reached out a hand for him, and his beautiful sea-green eyes landed on me for just a moment. "Adam, stay away from the door."

But I was too late.

He disappeared into the glowing bricks before I finished the sentence.

And in the split second that it took me to run to him, the door sealed itself back up, like I knew it would. By the time my hands reached it, it was nothing but cold, hard brick. And I banged and banged on the door, screaming for it to let me in, until my voice grew thin and my hands collapsed against the wall, bloody and useless.

My screams reverberated against the tight walls, in the room where I was now alone.

"Coin," I muttered to myself, frantic, shaking. I glanced up at the brick door, seeing the telltale slit in the upper corner that I now knew was a coin slot. I could open it again, I could follow him. But I needed a coin.

"Where are they, you bitch?" I asked. "Where are they?"

I ran back into the little closet with her old acting things, throwing them around forcefully—books and pictures and those ridiculous costumes. I overturned the chest with her old CDs, props from some play she was in once. I could feel my heart racing faster and faster.

I couldn't breathe. I had to follow him.

"Where are they?" I asked again, my bloody hands leaving streaks on the walls like a dying animal had tried to crawl its way out of a trap.

Nothing is an accident, I thought. Everything she did; everything she said.

There's a formula to her actions, there's a math behind it. Escape velocity and mind control.

And then it hit me:

After all, you might need it yourself someday.

I ran to the living room, tripping over my own feet, until I came to the mantel. And there it was, just where she'd left it, now sitting alone on the narrow shelf: the figurine of the dancing couple.

I approached it slowly, warily, my fingers shaking. And I picked it up, that beautifully damaged couple, entwined in their permanent embrace, spinning on that silken box. And I smashed it with all my might onto the floor.

The flattened pennies went flying in all directions, metal clacking against hard wood like stones skipping across an infinite lake. I scooped them up in trembling fingers, plunging them deeply into my pockets, and ran back to the portal.

And there I waited. Two minutes. Ten. My forehead leaning against the cold brick door, a silent prayer. Would he come back to me? If I followed him in, would I risk ruining whatever it was he went in to do? Did he even mean to go in without me, or had it been an accident?

Or worse: did he do it on purpose, and his plan not to come back to me at all?

Aunt Amalia's sick gift for me—my invention—was in my hand, a nefarious reminder that with or without Adam, I had no choice but to walk through that door. I had always known it was dangerous, from the moment the idea for the device had sprung to life, fully formed, like Athena from Zeus's head. It was mind control, after all. What if it was weaponized in the future? What if that's what Amalia was trying to tell me?

I stood up and held my head high, wishing that Robbie were with me. But no. I wouldn't drag him back into this, not when he had his new life. Not when he was finally happy. This was my mess to clean up, my problem to fix.

It was time to do what I had promised never to do again. It was time to play the game.

Sliding the coin into its slot, I watched the bricks of the door begin to glow and hum, like burning embers of a dying fire.

The light and the heat slowly subsided, and I raised my hand against the darkness that enveloped me...

Just in time to see Adam's ring disappear.

END OF EVERWORLD PART ONE

COME BACK NEXT FRIDAY FOR PART TWO

https://youtu.be/OWbDJFtHl3w

****

I told you guys, she literally wrote a song for every chapter of this book. Love you all for sticking with Marina all this time. Can't wait to share part two with you guys. 

I LOVE reading your comments, by the way, and I can't wait to hear what you're thinking at this point.

XO, Rebecca