Foreverland Is Dead

The counters are covered with open journals and stacks of books, scattered pens and paper clips. A chair lies on its side. The computers are dead.
    Except for the one across from the tables.
    The one with the green light.
    Her heart thumps in her throat. Ears ringing.
    She’s hardly breathing when she reaches down, touches the green light. When the monitor flashes.
    Two photos appear side by side, separated by a column of data. One is an image of an old woman, liver spots on her puffy cheeks; her eyes, saggy. The gray hair is thin.
    The other is a young girl with blonde hair and a fair complexion. It’s Miranda. But that’s not what the name at the bottom indicates.
    Sandy, it says. Crossover complete.
    The young girl is Sandy. And the old woman has a name, but Miranda doesn’t read it. She knows what it says. She knows who she is.
    What she’s done.
    “ This is the Fountain of Youth,” Mr. Williams had said.
    For Sandy, the place is the River of Death.
    Suddenly, the house feels like a coffin. The walls are tighter and thicker. The world, heavier.
    She drops her hands, willfully inhaling the scent of death. Accepting it. Gagging on it.
    Staggers into the hall.
    Into the front room.
    Hand on the window. The glass is so cold.
    The empty world is cloaked in eternal winter.

60

    Time is erased by pain.
    There were trees and rocks, hills and valleys. And snow.
    Cyn is draped over Kat and Mad. At times she’s limp, her feet dragging behind them, carving a line in the snow. Fever rages inside, makes the shivering more violent. Her bladder swells with urine, but she resists the urge to let it go. What does it matter now?
    Roc keeps an eye on the old man, who is following behind at a safe distance. Cyn guides them, but she’s not sure. It’s hard to think, her thoughts flowing like molasses. And everything is white.
    The trees creak overhead, the branches waving, occasionally snapping. The storm batters the valley as they exit the forest. The girls sway like the trees but keep their balance. Cyn rests her chin on her chest, concentrates on each step, looking every so often.
    She’s just not sure.
    “There.” Mad says it. “Look at that.”
    They force Cyn to stand taller, pulling her arms across their shoulders. At first she only sees a canvas smudged with whites and grays. She blinks heavily, licking her lips.
    A hill.
    A tree.
    The branches without needles. Without snow. An artifact, of sorts, resisting the winter storm, not of this world. A gate to another.
    She tries to turn her head. The girls turn her to see the old man emerge from the trees, Sid at his side. Mr. Williams looks up.
    He sees it, too.
    He knows.
    “Go,” Cyn says. “Remember…to fall.”
    “We’re not leaving you,” Kat says.
    “I can get out, don’t worry.” Lie .
    The old man says something. Sid lets go of him.
    And the girls are running, pulling Cyn up the hill. Roc plows ahead of them, hopping through the knee-deep snow. Kat shouts, but Roc doesn’t slow down, bounding for the exit with a wolf at her heels.
    The girls struggle to breathe.
    Cyn’s head bounces; the world falters.
    She’s slammed through the snow and into the ground beneath, the frigid fluff falling over her. The shouts are muffled. A dull thud of a boot on her in the back.
    Her head cracks beneath another boot. Lights sparkle.
    Pressure on top. Someone holding her beneath the surface.
    Suffocating. Drowning.
    The weight rolls off. She pushes up, her face in the wind, gulping air. The world is blurry. Spinning. An animal is devouring Kat and Mad.
    Not an animal.
    Sid.
    His long arms are flailing. The girls covering up, screaming. They’re too far away. Cyn crawls, but she can’t reach them, can’t help them, can’t stop the animal thrashing— Another crash.
    Bodies tumble down the slope, slamming into her. Arms and legs, elbows and knees. Screaming. Roc growls like cornered prey, slashing at Sid’s face. Sid rolls over to get leverage, falls into Cyn’s lap.
    She locked her arms around his waist.
    She latches her hands together, clasping each wrist. She wills her arms to clamp her dead fingers down. Sid throws his weight backwards and they roll down the slope. She comes up for air.
    “Gooooo!”
    She can’t see them.
    But she feels them hesitate.
    Feels them bolt for the top of the hill. For the gate.
    And then she closes her eyes. She buries her head against Sid’s back, avoids the wild elbows, resists the twisting and rolling. Her fingers slip