The Mirrorverse
Chapter 43

Maya

Maya arrived at Steve’s house without walking through a portal, she just thought of it and then was there. Her gift had taken her there so quickly she hadn’t seen even a sliver of the silver portal.

Slightly disorientated, she stood in the empty house. It looked like nobody lived there, there was nothing on any surface to indicate inhabitation, the house was bare.

Quickly and quietly, Maya walked towards the bedrooms, checking each one in turn and finally the bathroom. Nothing. No-one. This house didn’t belong to anybody, and certainly not Steve.

Rage started building in her chest. Pain at the loss of Ellie, and pure unadulterated hatred to the men that had duped them before taking her. But why her? Why did they take her? If they had wanted her or Joe, why didn’t they take them? Nothing made sense and she didn’t know what to do, so she started slamming through the kitchen cupboards looking for any sign that they had been there, but every cupboard was empty.

Completely losing her temper, Maya started screaming and pummelling the cupboard doors and work surfaces. She wanted something to pick up and throw, but there was nothing there. On an impulse, she went outside into a large front garden on a deserted street of large houses. The silence was deafening as she looked around at the empty middle class neighbourhood. No cars and no people, and all the gardens were very overgrown below the blossoming trees.

She stood for a moment, wondering if there had been a nuclear explosion or something, but then the house wouldn’t be so empty. It was surreal that she was expecting zombies to come down the street at any moment.

There was nothing more to be done there, so she appeared next to the others on the hillside.

“Maya” screamed Ka and threw himself at her. It hadn’t occurred to Maya that he might worry. Nothing had occurred to her except replaceing Ellie and those bastards who took her.

Maya could hear Joe muttering something about spontaneous engulfing, then he pulled Maya and Ka apart.

“Were they there? They can follow, they have the tracker, we must go!” Joe shouted, shaking her.

“No, no-one, it was empty, a ghost town, not even any zombies!” she assured him, her voice sounding more reasonable than she felt.

“Come on, we need to move,” urged Rob, pulling a disgruntled Les to his feet.

“I’ll replace us somewhere to go,” said Maya. You guys start moving down the hill away from here.

Ignoring Les’s protests, Maya engulfed and appeared up the hill, reappearing within visual range so she didn’t end up in a tree. That would have made my day complete, she thought morosely.

At the top of the hill was a large U shaped cliff, with a lake at the bottom and a valley trailing off as far as the eye could see. Maya went down to beside the lake only to replace what looked like solid ground from the cliff top was actually swampland.

Soaked from the knee down, She re-materialised at their access point, before joining them marching down the hill.

“Cliff. Lake. Swamp.” She grunted at them as they stared at her soggy trousers. Maya then set off down the hill, hoping to replace slightly more solid ground.

She wondered where Ellie was, what they had done with her. Distracted by her thoughts, she narrowly missed a tree.

At the bottom of the hill was a river. Maya followed its course downstream, coming across a small settlement of wooden houses.

“Hey,” she called out, not caring if they were friend or foe. It seemed that part of her was after a fight.

“Hey,” called out a green creature with an extremely thick tail. “Welcome to Eden.”

Maya realised that he was making strange noises, and this small metallic thing with a screen in his hand was talking at her.

“Eden?” She repeated stupidly, still trying to take in the alien who was standing there speaking to her, and stop thinking of Ellie’s whereabouts.

“Eden. The one planet in the multiverse which is perfect in every way. We all arrive by accident, and some of us never leave.” The translation device yielded no emotion in it’s words, but Maya could see that the green alien seemed cordial enough.

“Perfect how?” she wondered, realising that trees, a river and a log cabin was perfection to some.

“Every creature on this planet is a herbivore. There are no predators, nothing to run from, nothing that will hurt you,” the green creature informed her, although she was still having problems imbibing the information, particularly separating his spoken alien language from the English coming from the translation device.

“The forest will provide everything you need in terms of nutrition, and nothing has ever been found to be toxic to any species who has come here,” he continued.

“Is there a spare house that we could use?” she asked, suddenly re-joining the conversation. “I’m sorry, but I have to replace someone and we’ve got nowhere to go.”

“Yes of course, come with me,” he replied most unexpectedly, walking downstream with Maya in tow. Under any other circumstances Maya would have given her right arm for a conversation with the strange creature, but right then all she wanted to do was get to the astral plane.

“Do you know William, or Steve as he’s called?” she asked, stopping abruptly.

“I have had no confrontation with him directly, but unfortunately I have met many who he has crossed,” green guy’s translation box revealed no emotion in its speech, but Maya could see in his face when he turned to speak that he was worried.

“He’s taken my friend,” she explained.

“I’m sorry,” he said, arriving at a slightly ramshackle log cabin. “It doesn’t look much, but it will do what you need. Remember that it never gets dark, as the two suns always illuminate the sky, so it is always a nice temperature.”

“Thank you,” she said, blinking back tears and resisting the urge to hug the alien.

“You are most welcome,” he said, turning to walk back.

“Why don’t you portal back?” she wondered out loud, realising how lazy she could become.

“But then I would miss the beauty of the forest and the river,” he replied smiling.

“Are there others here?”

“Yes, there are people scattered all over this forest, living in harmony with the finest of what nature can offer.”

“Thank you again,” she said, genuinely overwhelmed by his kindness. Perhaps he is the yin to Steve’s yang that balances the multiverse, she mused. Though that definitely left the multiverse rather heavy on the evil side.

Pulling herself together, shaking off the guilt of thinking about anything other than Ellie, Maya returned to the others, with a lop sided smile.

“Hey guys, we’ve been lent a house by this green dude, apparently this is Eden and everything is wonderful and nice.” she rounded on the surprised group.

“Ready,” said Rob, stepping aside to allow room for the portal.

Maya went to open the portal only to replace herself standing in front of the house. What she was expecting even less, and by the look of them they were equally surprised, was for the others to have come too.

“What the hell just happened?” demanded Les, looking a little queasy.

Rob looked at Maya in wonder. “You just took us without touching us.”

They all looked at Joe for the answer, but his jaw was hanging as much as anyone else’s was.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my five hundred and...” Joe frowned as if trying to remember. “Something years,” he finished, clearly unaware of how old he was. He had been in that mud hut for so many years, he had no concept of how many earth years had passed during his incarceration. “You engulfed us. I’ve heard of women engulfing themselves, but never others, they weren’t touching,” he continued, flabbergasted.

“Okay, well, here’s the house, let’s go inside so I can get to the astral plane and try and figure this out,” Maya pushed open the wooden door and entered the spacious living area. It had a high roof and a mezzanine which appeared to have the bedrooms in.

“What, we just get to borrow this house?” asked Ke incredulously.

“Apparently so. Go upstream and say hi to the green dude, he seemed really nice,” Maya advised, as she seated herself on the floor next to a sofa. She wondered how the sofa had got there. Someone must have passed it through a portal, she thought, as she doubted sofas grew on trees in Eden.

Joe collapsed onto the sofa, looking a little grey.

“You okay?” asked Ka, bending down in front of the old man.

“Yes, it’s just been an eventful day. I need to rest,” he sighed, sinking further into the overgrown piece of furniture.

“Hey,” Maya looked at Joe, inspiration striking her. “Do you know of anywhere Steve would have taken Ellie? Any places he might use as a prison?”

“I’ve been racking my brains,” his brow furrowed and he shook his head. “We never took prisoners, and he knows I’m with you so he would never take her somewhere I would know. But even if I did know, I cannot take you there, I cannot guide you.”

“Okay, it was a nice try,” she nodded at Joe. “Coming?” she addressed Ka, as he joined her on the floor and took her hand. She looked into his eyes and felt a wave of love wash over her. She realised how much she had been shutting him out, ignoring him. He was her faithful partner who’d been reduced to the status of a forgotten sidekick in the game of life and death they had been thrown in to. That she had taken him into.

Ka kissed her tenderly on the lips and they rose to the astral plane effortlessly.