Into the Parallel: Parallelogram, Book 1

Chapter 8

8

It took at least three more rings before I felt oriented again. Then I reached over and answered my phone.

“Hey,” Lydia said, “what took you so long? Were you sleeping?”

I checked the clock. It was 11:30. I’d been gone three hours.

“No . . . I . . .” I rubbed my hand over my face, like I could dry-scrub it back to reality. Then I noticed my clothes. Not my warm, cozy camping outfit anymore. Back to my own boxers and sleep shirt.

“Audie?”

“What?”

“What’s going on? Why are you acting so weird?”

“I’m . . . .” Another dry scrub. “Okay. Sorry. Hi. What’s up?”

“Mom wants you over here tonight for a barbeque.”

Lydia and Will’s mom Elena always tries to keep me fed whenever my mother’s out of town. Since my mom and I hardly ever cook for ourselves, I’m always happy for the invitation.

“Okay, sure,” I said. “What time?”

“Six. I’m teaching until 6:30, but she says come early.”

“Is . . . Will going to be home?” I asked as casually as I could.

“Yes, and Hairball, too, of course.”

Great. “Okay, I’ll be there. Tell your mom I said thank—”

But Lydia was already off the phone, on to the next thing.

I turned my phone as off as I could. Off OFF. Stupid thing. I had been having the greatest experience of my life, and that i***t phone had to ruin it.

I sat there in bed and caught my breath. Caught up with my brain, is more like it. Three hours in another dimension, another universe, another life.

In-freakin-credible.

I needed to get back there as quickly as I could. I popped the earphones back on and rewound the CD and prepared to go back to some campfire discussion and a big warm dog curled beside me.

And I waited. And I tried. And . . . nothing.

I tried for a whole hour. Kept looking at the clock, then closing my eyes again and trying some more. Which might have been the problem—I wasn’t in that relaxed, meditative brain-wave state like before. If I had a vibration, it was an agitated one—not the kind that had broken me past the barrier before.

Or maybe, I thought, Halli had moved on. She wasn’t sitting there trying to reach me—or reach her grandmother—like before. Maybe it really was a two-way connection, and unless we were both exactly set up to match our vibrations, it wasn’t going to work.

Which was SO frustrating. I couldn’t get her a message, like, “Hey, turn on your brain at 2:00 this afternoon—meet you back at the cliff.” I had no way of letting her know when or if I was back in my meditative groove. So I’d just have to use the same trial-and-error as before—putting myself in the right frame of mind as often as possible, and hoping one of those times worked.

For now, the best I could do was sit down and write up my notes about everything that had happened.

Because if I ever ended up there again, I was going to need to ask a lot of questions.