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MY HAND SHAKES AS I BRACE MYSELF AGAINST THE BRICK wall Rain falls cold and sharp against my skin, from a sky I’ve never seen before It’s hard to catch et any sense of where I as aroundwith the heat of the journey

There’s no time I don’t knohether I haveat these unfamiliar clothes—the short dress and shiny jacket I wear have no pockets, but there’s a s from my shoulder When I fish inside, I can’t find a pen, but there’s a lipstick Fingers tre, I unscrew it and scrawl on a tattered poster on the wall of the alley This is the oal I have to reone

KILL PAUL MARKOV

Then I can only wait to die

Die isn’t the right word This body will continue to breathe The heart will continue to beat But I won’t be the Marguerite Caine living in it anymore

Instead, this body will return to its rightful owner, the Marguerite who actually belongs in this di the Firebird Her ain, any second, any ain in ti lost Being trapped inside her Whatever it is that happens to people traveling from another dimension

It hits me then The Firebird really works Travel between alternate dirief and fear, one slows, and it feels like the only heat or hope in the world Mom’s theories are true My parents’ work is vindicated If only Dad could have known

Theo He’s not here It was unrealistic of me to hope he would be, but I hoped anyway

Please let Theo be all right, I think It would be a prayer if I still believed in anything, but ht too

I lean against the brick wall, hands spread like a suspect’s on a police car right before the cuffs go on My heart hammers in my chest Nobody has ever done this before—which means nobody knohat’s about to happen tome back to my own dimension?

What if this is how I die?

This time yesterday, my dad probably asked himself that same question

I close les with hot tears Although I try not to picture how Dad died, the ies force their way intoater; brownish river lapping over the windshield; Dad probably dazed fro Gasping for the last inches of air in the car, thinking of me and Mom and Josie—