Together, we walked over to the mostly-empty campus. When we got to the Liberal Arts Building, we discovered the elevator was out, so Clarissa Too waited outside the building, leaning on her cane, while I went two flights of stairs to drop off my paperwork.
Afterwards, we walked across campus toward Woodward Avenue and the Wardell Building, which housed the Inland Ocean Archeological and Anthropological Institute on its topmost, thirteenth floor. It was from there that Doc Messiah had transported me to Clarissa Too’s dimension in the first place. Although Doc wasn’t in Detroit, I had arranged with Michele Selket to meet us there. She was coming over from the Charles Merrill Ferry House, in which the Helen Merrill Ferry Philological Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies at Warren Woodward University was located, where she lived, just a few blocks away.
“Michele’s the spooky chick who’s a reincarnation of an Ancient Egyptian deity, isn’t she?” Clarissa Too asked, as we started out.
“Who else would you expect to serve as Teaching Fellow to someone named Doctor Messiah?” I replied. “She should be able to guide you back to your home dimension just as easily as Doc could. Anyone who’s practically immortal has to know that mystical crossover stuff inside and out.”
With school out, there was less traffic on the street around the frigid midtown Detroit Cultural Center. As we walked alone past the main library and toward the museum, just the two of us, it struck me how odd it was to be conversing with a person who was a copy of me in almost every respect. Moreso than an identical twin or even a clone, Clarissa Too and I were completely the same chromosomally, if that’s the right word. Except for the invisible fact that her father had been a Civilian while mine had been a Megahero the moment each of us was conceived, and aside from a few incidental scars and blemishes that happened to differ, anyone would have been hard pressed to tell us apart.
Yet the lives we had lived were subtly but profoundly different due to our differing family histories and upbringings. I had grown up never knowing the Silver Age Megaton Man, who had gotten himself lost in another dimension, while Clarissa knew only too well the bitter, misanthropic recluse her test pilot father had become after a crash landing brought to an end his aspiration of becoming one of the first astronauts and left him an invalid.
We were both biracial, of course, and until I’d shorn my hair off to a short Afro I had worn my hair in the same straightened, dyed burgundy locks Clarissa Too still retained. But Clarissa Too had never so much as flirted with bisexuality, least of all to the extent I had explored it; the possibility of same-sex attraction never seemed to have crossed her somewhat inhibited, exclusively heterosexual mind. But each of us had had sexual relationships with our second cousin, begun unwittingly, although her Trent Phloog was something of an abusive, controlling jerk while mine was more amiably dense from time to time. We also both had the same smart mouth and wry sense of humor other people didn’t always appreciate—I had never fully understood how annoying those could be until my Counterpart had lived with me for more than a week.
Most importantly, Clarissa Too and I could almost complete one another’s thoughts.
“I’m going to miss you, Clarissa Too,” I said, feeling tears moistening my eyes. “It’s been nice having someone around who completely understands me without having to explain anything.”
“Same here, Clarissa Too,” said Clarissa Too, also getting teary-eyed.
She thought of me as the other one, too.
We could already smell the rich aroma of tea when we got off the elevator at the top floor of the Wardell Building. It was an unfamiliar scent I assume Michele had brewed special to put Clarissa Too in the right frame of mind to astrally project herself from one dimension to another. The way they talk about crossing between dimensions makes it sound like some difficult, arduous journey, although the way it was explained to me, all realities are really right next door to each, only a vibration apart. It’s simply a matter of having the right point of view or feeling about which one you belong to, or which one belongs to you.
Physically traveling between them, however, is easier said than done.
Walking past the stacks of books and original manuscripts of the Inland Ocean Archeological and Anthropological Institute, we came to the open area with an old oaken desk and the oriental rug covering the floor in front of it. Michele, dressed in jeans and a WJZZ T-shirt, stood with her back over by a window, stirring a pot of tea on a hot plate that sat on a low bookcase. Her feet were bare, making for a striking contrast with the snow flurries that began to appear outside.
She turned and took us in with heavily mascaraed eyes that flashed along with her medallion earrings. “Except for your haircuts—and the cane,” she said, “you two are exactly alike.”
Michele motioned to us to take seats in a couple of leather-upholstered armchairs as she brought over a tray with a steeping teapot and tea set. “So, which of you is going on an astral journey today?” she asked. “Romulus or Remus?”
“Her,” Clarissa Too and I both said, pointing to one another. Then Clarissa Too laughingly corrected herself. “I mean me,” she said, pointing to herself. “That’s somewhat ambiguous,” said Michele.
“I’m really grateful you agreed to help,” said Clarissa Too. “The thought of missing the holidays with my folks was weighing on me.”
“We should be able to drop you off at the exact moment you left your reality,” said Michele.
“That’s great,” said Clarissa Too. “That was right before the election.”
“Then you should still be able to cast your vote,” said Michele. While we sipped tea from antique China cups and saucers, Michele explained to Clarissa Too what she was in for.
“The first thing you need to understand is that Joshua Bar-Joseph is far more experienced at this sort of thing than I am,” said Michele, referring to Doctor Messiah by his mundane name. “Ordinarily, I’d recommend you wait and let him guide you across. But since I haven’t heard from him for a while, I can’t say how long you’d have to wait.”
“Don’t you know where he is?” I asked.
“I know exactly where he is,” said Michele. “He’s on a retreat in the Pacific Northwest—some hippie commune or other that time forgot. He just doesn’t like being disturbed when he’s spending his thirty days in the wilderness. He’s scheduled to teach in January, but knowing him, I could be covering his classes for him all the way until Easter.”
The idea of the Second Coming of Doctor Messiah struck me as overly dramatic.
“But I’m sure you’re perfectly capable …” said Clarissa Too.
“Oh, of course,” said Michele. “I’m an adept at astral projection from way back. It’s just that if you have any qualms …”
“I’d rather not wait,” said Clarissa Too. “I’ve said my goodbyes and I’m ready to go.”
“All right then,” said Michele. “I’ll need for you to join me on the carpet.”
Both Clarissa and I stood up and instinctively hugged; we were both sniffly.
“Don’t be a stranger,” I said. “Drop by this reality any time.” “Same to you,” said Clarissa. “If you ever get to the Civilian reality, I’m sure we can show you a real good time. There are a lot of interesting, quirky difference you’d find fascinating.”
“I’m sure I would.”
“Bring Dr. Sax.”
“I’ll do that.”
I sat back down on the chair, off to one side, as Michele and my Counterpart sat down cross-legged on the carpet. For Clarissa Too, it was a little difficult for her to situate herself comfortably, given the pain in her thigh, and took her a little time to get comfortable. While they took their positions, I looked outside the windows of the institute; from the top floor of the building, I could see across Woodward Avenue and the campus of Warren Woodward University beyond. The afternoon had grown steely grey and the flurries were kicking up into a blizzard.
From a silken pouch, Michele produced a palm-sized bronze artifact resembling an ankh symbol and set it between her and Clarissa Too on the rug. I had seen one of the Y+Thems use a similar object to allow Michele to join a meeting remotely up in Troy, Michigan, and assumed the objects were some kind of ancient, mystical transponders allowing communication over distances of time and space. Now it seemed it was going to aid in getting Clarissa Too back to her home reality from among all the myriad dimensions that made up the Multimensions.
“Are you ready?” asked Michele.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” said Clarissa Too, who was sure to clutch her cane so that it went along with her across the Dimensional Divide. She closed her eyes.
“It’s important for the astral traveler to want to escape her present reality and seek out another,” Michele said. “Focus on your desire to go home; visualize where you feel you belong.”
I flashed on the scene of from The Wizard of Oz, and all the mixed emotions Dorothy Gale had after her adventures with the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion, pulling against her desire to go back to Kansas. “There’s no place like home,” I thought to myself.
Unconsciously, I also concentrated on the ankh and on the mission at hand. I felt as though by contributing my own mental energies I would somehow be assisting Michele and Clarissa Too in accomplishing their goal.
Michele waved her hands over the Egyptian object, and suddenly the room darkened. For a moment I thought I saw volcanoes on the distant horizon, then stars swirling, then every sense in my body.
The ground felt like it vanished from under me, and that my body had no weight.
It took me a moment before I realized—
This wasn’t supposed to be happening to me; I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be taking an astral trip with Michele as my escort. I was supposed to remain seated on an upholstered armchair in my own reality.
But something unplanned was clearly happening. Something had gone wrong.
Maybe I had concentrated too much, or maybe the Multimensions got confused, but it was clearly me and not my Counterpart that was being sent on an astral journey.
Instantly, I was alone in a room filled with cardboard boxes. It was the same room as that which housed the Inland Ocean Archeological and Anthropological Institute in my reality, but gone were the stacks of rare books and manuscripts. And gone were Michele and Clarissa Too, too.
“Oh, shit,” I said, rising unsteadily to my feet. “Something tells me I’m not in Kansas anymore … at least, not my Kansas.”
I knew instinctively that somehow, some way, it had been I and not my Counterpart who had been transported to the Civilian reality.
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