Touchstone 1 - Stray

against. I didn’t reach out again, but leaned, feeling that thickness against my cheek, watching and willing those shadows to take on form, to let me see them properly.
    It became amazingly difficult really quick, like pushing against a rubber wall that resisted after only a little stretching, but with each millimetre came more details. The aunts were there, and Nick. It was overcast, but not raining. Everyone had come over for lunch on my birthday, even my Dad and Nick. Nick had bruises all down one side of his face. Mum had Mimmit, our calico cat, on her lap, and she looked so worn and tired and unlike herself and I knew that was all because of me and pushed harder and harder.
    Mimmit suddenly arched and spat and scrambled off Mum’s lap. And then Aunt Bet dropped her glass and Mum stared after Mimmit, then in the direction Mimmit had been hissing, and then she looked like she’d been stabbed.
    Thank all the gods for sign language. I’ve never been particularly good at it, but what I can’t remember I can spell. And I had no problems managing: “Not dead.”
    Jules reacted first, leaning forward and trying to touch my arm. He said something, while Mum squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Dad tried to grab my shoulder, but other than a little tingling I couldn’t feel him at all. I tried pushing against the wall, but I didn’t seem to be able to go any further, and was feeling really exhausted just staying as far as I’d managed. But at least I could finally tell them what happened.
    “Walk through wormhole,” I signed. “Other planet.”
    That made Mum look totally incredulous and everyone started talking and trying to sign back at once. Aunt Sue grabbed her bag and pulled out her mobile phone, pointing it at me. I looked at Nick and signed: “What happen face?”
    “Dad,” he signed, which was enough of an explanation. When Nick’s Dad gets really drunk, he stops recognising people, and thinks he’s being attacked. Nick can usually manage him, but it’s not his first black eye. Yet he won’t leave.
    Nick gave me that grin which has always been one of my favourite things in the world, where bad stuff has been happening, but he’s decided to sit back and make the most of the good. “WTF?” he added, pointing at me.
    Explaining all of what had happened to me seemed so enormous. I tried.
    “Walk home. Next, other planet forest. Walk days. Ruins. Empty. Then rescue psychic space ninjas.” I shrugged at their expressions as I spelled, but it was the best explanation I had for the Setari. “Many world, monsters. Astral plane? They fight monsters. Found me, took me their planet. Tare. People me, strays. Gates – wormholes – everywhere. Monsters, people, walk through. Earth hardly any gates.” I pushed at the air in front of me helplessly. “Looking for gate.”
    Mum’s expression had slowly changed while she watched me sign. She’d decided she wasn’t hallucinating, and being her took the story at face value.
    “Monsters there with you?” she signed back.
    “Not know. Not know how here.”
    “Why lab rat?”
    I was beginning to regret my mascot: I wouldn’t have told Mum that. All I could do was shrug. “Too many medical exams. But nanotech computer in head! Download language. Do school in bed.”
    Mum’s expression – everyone’s – changed in a way which made me look quickly over my shoulder, and saved me from being scared out of my skin by the Fourth Squad captain. He’s even better than Zan at being all business, never surprised or impressed by anything. After glancing past me at my world and my family he just removed some black straps from his arm and held them out to me. My uniform harness.
    I only just managed to say “Thank you,” because I was being very surprised that the Setari had found me when I couldn’t even guess how I’d gotten here.
    “Space ninja?” Mum signed, as I slipped on the harness. I nodded and she looked him up and down a moment, then added: “Friend or enemy?”
    Hopefully I didn’t look too doubtful when I looked back. But luckily the Fourth Squad captain was drawing off a pad of solidified nanoliquid which had been attached to his suit, and not looking at my expression.
    “There are no tears that I can see in this world’s wall,” he said. “If you succeed in breaking through here, Ionoth will flood to this point.”
    I flinched, because I hadn’t thought about that at all. “Say I put you danger,” I signed, and watched as