I didn't notice the owl until I was inches from the tree. The brown and white splotches on his thick wings blended so completely with the branch he perched on, that only his glowing eyes piercing through the night gave away his location. He didn't make a sound, as though waiting for me to leave before he could get back to the business at hand.

I was an intruder. And we both knew it.

But, in any event, this wasn't the right tree.

When using a token to portal to a new place, as I had done several times by now, a door would have to be created. Out of what? Well, it depended. When I'd gone through the Yesterday door to Portland in order to follow my mom, the parallel door had appeared for me on the side of George's cabin. When Adam and I had used a chunk of brick from the mural on Graussman's Pharmacy to go to the '40s, we'd landed in the building's alley.

So when I had entered Amalia's door and landed here, in this dome in the future, a receiving door had magically sprung up for me to enter. And the only surface it could have used would have been a tree.

A very wide tree.

And the tree that my owl friend currently inhabited was not big enough around the trunk. I stared at his fluorescent yellow eyes through the dark night air, and he let out a whooping "hoot" as if to confirm my findings.

I spun around. Which tree had it been? And would I be able to make it open again with the flattened penny I held in my hand?

But I didn't have to look for long, because the correct tree now called to me.

Or, rather, the door in the tree, suddenly springing to life like a lantern in the night, appeared before me against the breadth of a giant elm.

And I only had to stand and watch in awe as the door on that tree opened, and a tall figure stepped out, silhouetted briefly against the glow of the portal. And yet, though I couldn't see his face, I knew the shape of his shoulders, the straightness of his tall spine. I knew everything about him and, even in the darkness, I knew my Kieren had come for me.

He stepped forward, his blond hair mussed into a swoop over one squinting blue eye, and the portal closed behind him, leaving us both in the warm night air, facing each other.

"There you are," Kieren said.

And I threw myself into his arms before he could say another word.

His long fingers stroked my hair, and I let myself dissolve into his wide chest. I was crying before I knew it, and then angry at myself for not keeping it together.

"Shh," he whispered. "You're okay now. I've got you."

He squeezed me closer, and I couldn't help but enjoy his embrace for a moment longer. I had been alone for so long now.

"How did you know?" I asked, pulling away from him a bit and wiping my eyes.

"There was a letter in your room," he said with his familiar smile, "from your mom."

I nodded, realizing he must have read Mom's letter warning me about Adam, and cringing a bit at how it must have looked—a letter abandoned in my room saying Adam was an attempted murderer. And me missing. Kieren had already hated Adam so much, this must've sealed it.

And yet somehow, in the future, I knew they would become friends. How?

"Your brother thought maybe you'd gone to Portland after reading it. When you weren't there, he called me and asked if I had seen you. He said you were missing when he and Piper got back from their honeymoon. You gave everybody a heart attack, M."

"I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

"No one ever means anything in DW, do they?"

He gave me a wry look and I dipped my head to avoid the shame his words were causing me. "Did you fly all the way back to Boston?"

"Of course. I'd go anywhere if I thought you needed me."

"Kieren, don't say that."

"It's true."

I paced away from him for a moment, trying to process all that I'd put my family through. Robbie had been so worried, he'd called Mom and Kieren. He must have been desperate. "Thank you," I said meekly.

"It's Piper you should be thanking," he said with a shrug. "When she couldn't get your aunt on the phone, she thought to check her house. And Robbie and I found the portal in the kitchen."

"Is Robbie coming too?" I asked, my voice shooting up with anticipation. I raced back to examine the tree, but the portal that had formed with Kieren's crossing had already faded.

"They stayed behind," he answered. "I promised them I'd bring you back when I found you. But there was no reason for everyone to fail out of school." He winced then, seeming to catch himself in midsentence. "I mean..."

"I failed?"

"No, no, I didn't mean that. Robbie called your advisor and explained you were sick. And she said you could probably retake the classes next semester."

Still, I buried my head in my hands. After everything I now knew about the future and our inevitable fate, retaking a semester of college shouldn't have even registered as a blip. But it did. It really did. I was angry again, and then shaking my head and pacing as I thought about it.

"You okay?" Kieren asked.

"I just...I'm mad."

"I know."

"I worked so hard. I did everything right, and now..."

"Hey, hey," he said, his voice soothing like cool water. He wrapped me in his arms again, and I took a moment to just indulge in how secure it always felt to be there. But then a new thought occurred to me.

"You don't have your ICD," I shot out, panic seizing me.

"My what?"

"How did you end up on this side of the wall?"

"M, what are you talking about?"

"You should have been on the outside. I don't understand. How did you get to me?"

Kieren just smiled, flashing that knowing smirk that had gotten Robbie and I into trouble a million times since we were kids. He pulled out his sweatshirt a couple inches from his body, and it took me a moment to figure out why it looked so familiar.

"Is that...?"

"It's the sweatshirt I loaned you the night you stayed at my house. Remember? After your mom went missing. You had biked to the tracks when it started raining."

"I remember," I smiled, certain that I was blushing. That was the first night Kieren ever kissed me.

"I can always find you, M. I have a million tokens that all lead me to you."

He reached down and stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers, and for a moment I forgot about everything else. But then a fresh wave of fear seized me as I thought of that photo in Adam's room, possibly the last one he or Kieren ever took before they were killed.

"Kieren, we have to get you out of here. It's hard to explain, but you're supposed to have this thing in your head. This..." I pulled back my hair to show him the glowing light from my ICD, and I could see his eyes shoot open in panic.

"What the hell? What did you they do to you?"

"I'm okay," I answered. "But you have to go, or they'll kick you out of the dome. And on the other side, you'll be just like Adam."

"Just like Adam?" he repeated, his lip snarling slightly as the name escaped his mouth. "Did he make you come here?"

"No."

"Did he do something to you, M?"

"No!" I shouted, so frustrated I could barely think. "It wasn't his fault. It was...my aunt Amalia, and Elaheh. And my mother. All of them. They all knew, this whole time, how it would end. And they were just looking for somewhere safe because..."

"M, what are you talking about?"

"Kieren," I shook my head, "I have to tell you something. I've done something terrible. Or I will do something terrible."

"No, M. That's not possible."
"It is. Please go home. Please, Kieren, don't stay here." I walked up to him again, reaching up to place a firm hand on his shoulder. "Please go before they find you. Let me save you, at least."

But a new hardness took over Kieren's crystal blue eyes. He grabbed my hand forcefully. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "But I am not leaving this place without you. Do you hear me?" He took a flattened penny out of his pocket. "We are going home together. Now."

I could only shake my head as I looked into the depths of his eyes. "I can't," I said, realizing it was true as the words escaped my mouth. "It would just happen again."

"What would happen again?"

"Everything."

I had been so naïve coming into the forest, thinking I would simply go back home. After all, that's what the other Marinas had done.

And it hadn't changed a thing.

There is only one reality now. That's what Layla had said. Changing the past wasn't the way to prevent the war. Or at least, changing my past wasn't it. But could there be there another way?

"M..." But Kieren didn't finish whatever he was planning to say. Instead, something over my shoulder caught his eye, and he stood up straighter. His hand gripped mine with a new urgency, and he all but pulled me behind him, using his body as a shield to protect me.

I followed his sight line, and saw my mother standing in the shadows, watching us. She stepped out into a stream of moonlight now, her eyes fixed on Kieren. The owl in the tree let out a giant wallow that pierced the thick silence between us, and then the forest fell into an eerie quiet once again.

"Marina," my mother said in her calmest voice, "move away from that boy."

But Kieren didn't waver, his hand never letting go of mine—a silent warning that I should stay behind him. His voice was deeper and more certain when he opened his mouth. "Wherever you're taking her, you can take me too. Because I'm not leaving her."

A look of resignation took over Mom's face, as though she realized whatever she was going to say next was futile. She shook her head, and for a moment I wondered if she was going to laugh. There was something so sad about the energy seeping out of her petite body. I felt like I was finally seeing her—really seeing her—for the first time since she came to get me in the dead zone.

She was still beautiful; her life in Portland had been kind to her, and not just because it made her look ten years younger than her true age. Yet she was smaller now somehow. Her shoulders seemed closer to her ears as she stood in the streaks of moonlight, debating what to say to the young man who had once dared her son to stand in front of an approaching train.

"You won't be able to magically undo this one, Kieren," she said. "There's no saving the day with this one. Believe me, I've tried."

His head shook from side to side, almost imperceptibly. But his doubt was clear by the way his grip on my hand loosened.

Mom stepped closer to us now, and even though she was a foot shorter than Kieren, she looked up at him without a hint of hesitation in her squinting almond-shaped eyes. "Do you know how many years I hated you? Do you know how many nights I paced the house, holding Robbie's T-shirt, or one of his old toys, and asking God to take you instead?"

"Mom, don't," I whispered, though I knew she wouldn't stop.

"He never answered me."

Kieren cleared his throat, and his wide back tensed in front of me as I stepped aside to face my mother more fully.

"I knew He wouldn't, of course," Mom said with a bitter smile. "I've known since I was a kid that there was no God. No one to save us from ourselves. Life is just chaos in the end."

"My life isn't chaos," Kieren countered. "Not anymore." He took a deep breath before looking at me, and a warm sincerity took over his eyes.

I squeezed his hand, but I didn't know what to say in return.

Kieren turned back to Mom. "I've come to take M home."

Mom nodded. "Well, you'll have trouble doing that," she said. "Without me."

But Kieren simply held up the flattened penny he had brought with him. He led me over to the large tree trunk where his portal had been, though it was clear that it was gone. He touched the bark with his long fingers, and I tried to do the same. And yet, the tree was just a tree.

Mom continued to stand in her spot, frozen in the blue light of the forest like a forgotten statue. Finally she sighed. "Elaheh. Amalia. Come out now."

My hand shot out to cover Kieren's back, as though to protect him somehow, as Elaheh Farghasian stepped out of the shadows of the woods. My aunt was not far behind.

Elaheh offered Mom a small, gracious nod. "What do you want to do, Ana?"

Mom looked to me for a moment, then back to Elaheh. "It's time."

"Nothing will change."

"They need to see it for themselves."

But Amalia shot forward before they could say anything else, rushing up to take her sister's hand. "Wait, Ana. All of you, wait. I don't like this. I'm scared."

Mom took her sister in her arms, soothing her with some whispered words and a gentle hand stroking her hair. Again, it struck me that Mom seemed like the older sibling. Maybe it was because she looked more like my abuela had looked in the old photos on the wall in our den. Or maybe it was just because Amalia had always been weaker than Mom.

Elaheh approached the two sisters now and gently pulled Amalia away. "It's okay, love," she cooed. She turned to Mom, her lips pursed in indecision. "Are you sure?"

Mom simply nodded in return, and there was something so definite about it that it made both Kieren and myself back up a bit, as though in preparation for something.

Although I didn't know what yet.

Elaheh nodded, her eyes locked on Mom's. And then she reached into her deep pocket and pulled out a very small glass vial. It was luminescent against the dark shadows of the trees that surrounded us. And it was glowing a very unnatural shade of pink.

"Stand back," Mom said, and Kieren practically pulled me away from the giant trunk of the tree.

Elaheh closed her eyes for only a moment, saying a silent prayer, or making a final wish, and then she raised the vial into the air like it was a sword, and her hand came down with a fateful force, releasing the vial and smashing it into the oak.

Kieren pulled me closer, his large hand nestling my head into his chest, as the pink solution seized the tree and transformed it into the swirling yellow light of Down World.

The portal was now open.

***

OK, just curious: who are we shipping?