cool rain. But she knew she had to do it. She knew she had to help the ahel, despite her own consequences. Gebrihl was assuring her that she would not be harmed; that he and Mikihl would somehow protect her. They were there now with her as she walked up to the door. But her heart was pounding so quick, that it felt like if it were a race horse it would shoot through her chest and dash to the finish line of her life.
She knocked on the door, and then stepped back, feeling her throat constrict as the words she was thinking of saying to Johann became clogged there like a fistful of gravel.
She glanced over her shoulder to look at Gebrihl, knowing he was still there, even though he was unseen, invisible. “I’m not sure how this – “
The door latch clicked, and Lupita turned her gaze upon the door again. At the peephole she noticed, too, that someone was looking out as the door slowly swung open.
Then Bernie stepped out onto the front step and wrapped his parka-covered arms about her. “Thank God you’re safe,” he said softly as he held her.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked the words out in a whisper.
Bernie’s chubby cheek brushed against hers, and in that instant Lupita turned her head, and kissed him on the cheek. He pulled her closer, smothering her body within the thickness of his zipped parka, and he turned his head to face her.
Lupita leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. She kissed him as tears welled up and mixed with the rain drops upon her face for the man she had left behind at the bottom of the world. She kissed him because her white knight had come for her. She kissed him because he was the only one who ever seemed to care about her. She kissed him because he was chubby-cheeked Bernie Skarpinski, the only man she had known in her life who had ever bothered to talk to the wallflower that she always assumed herself to be.
She kissed him in that one long moment, as if nothing else mattered - as if the fate of the ahel or of the world was no longer at stake.
She just kissed him.
Then Bernie pulled away, his smiling face now becoming covered in the rain as they stood there. “Where have you been, Alice?” he asked, making reference to the nickname he had given her that first time when she had fallen through her bathroom mirror and had ended up in Antarctica along with Raul.
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t go …” And then the tears poured as she once more leaned into him, burying her face into Bernie’s chest while he clasped her tight against him.
“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered. “I was just worried about you. Everything is going to be fine. But come on inside. We have to get back.”
She nodded as he stepped back inside, pulling her in with him. Bernie closed the door behind her, and they just stood there for a moment staring at one another while Lupita brushed the tears and the rain from her face.
“I was looking all over this town for you. Where were you?” Bernie then asked.
“I was in a church.”
“Oh, one place I didn’t think to look,” he said as he turned and started for the part of the house where Johann’s bedroom and master bath were located. “Don’t know why I didn’t think to –“
“Bernie, I have to tell you something,” she said, as she took a couple of steps to follow, but then stopped.
He turned back to her. “What is it?”
“I … I met some … people,” she said.
Bernie squinted at her. “People? Who?”
Suddenly, standing beside her, Gebrihl made himself translucently visible, glowing as if he were a being made of the sun itself.
“So we uncovered your means of transportation from your dimension to ours,” Bernie replied as he stood in Johann’s bedroom, moments later, after listening to what Gebrihl and Lupita had to say about the Mirror Anomaly. “I guess that explains quite a bit.”
Gebrihl’s facial features were not detailed enough to suggest a clear expression, and it just appeared as if he was staring blankly at Bernie. “Now you understand why it is important for us to return with you so that we can use the paa’riel to return to our home.”
Bernie shrugged. “Why, yes. Yes, of course. That’s not a problem.”
“It’s not?” Lupita asked. “But the mirror is not connected. How are we going to do it?”
“Simple,” and then Bernie rummaged around in the side pocket of his unzipped parka and pulled out a cell phone. “You know, you could have made things much easier for me, Alice, if you had brought one of these when you left for Germany.”
She blushed. “I wasn’t planning on calling anyone to come get me. Besides, mine is still on my kitchen counter in Corpus.”
“Yes, well, there is that. But still, what if something had happened to you here?”
“Actually, something did happen – “
“I know, I’m staring at him,” Bernie said, his lips drawing across his face in a thin straight line.
“So who are you going to call?” she asked. “Anyone who could help us is back at the research site, and I don’t think they’re going to be too –“
“Raul,” Bernie replied.
Lupita blinked hard as if it would make the word go away. “What? Raul?”
“Relax, Alice,” Bernie said, apparently seeing the nervous creases she felt folding upon her forehead. “He was the only one I could trust. None of the other research team could I be certain about. So, he’s sitting in his bunk with one of the sat phones waiting for me to call him.”
“Are we talking about the –“
Bernie shook his head. “I know what you’re going to say, but just think about this. You know he wants you back, and as far as he knows, he’s getting you back. He has the same invested interest in getting you back safely as I do.”
Bernie started dialing in numbers into the cell phone.
“I guess you’re right,” Lupita replied. Then she sighed, thinking about Raul being aware that she had jumped through the Anomaly, leaving everyone behind. “But what did you tell him? I don’t want him to know about – “
“Johann Mueller? Contactee number forty-three? Location, Rothenburg, Germany?” Bernie interrupted. “No worries. Your secret is safe with me. I told Raul you just made a random jump because you didn’t want to deal with the whole government debriefing now that they were coming to pick you two up to take you stateside.”
Lupita leapt forward, wrapping her arms around Bernie’s neck and kissing him on the cheek. She was so grateful that she would not have to explain to Raul about her romantic contact with the married German banker, despite being a bit embarrassed that Bernie was aware of it, now seeing how they apparently felt about one another.
“Okay, okay,” Bernie said, chuckling, as he pulled her away from him. “Let me make this call so we can get out of here.”
He put the phone up to his ear, and waited a moment.
“It’s me,” he then said, pausing for a moment. It seemed like he was listening to someone on the other end. “Go ahead … yes, she’s fine. Just be careful, we can’t have anyone seeing you or we’re stuck … The coordinates are already set from when I made the jump … Well, just remember what I told you. You haven’t seen me. Maybe everyone will get distracted enough with a search party to keep things quiet around the Anomaly –“
There was a distant shutting of a door somewhere in another part of Johann’s house.
“Johann?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Standby … I will call you back,” Bernie said as he disconnected the call and grabbed Lupita by the hand, pulling her toward the bathroom.
She followed after him with Gebrihl gliding along behind her to enter the bathroom.
Bernie gently closed the door but only just part of the way so as not to make whoever was in the house suspicious that someone was inside the bathroom. He and Lupita were both standing next to a full length mirror that was hanging on the wall beside the sink vanity and opposite the toilet where Lupita had nearly smacke
d her head when she had passed through the Anomaly’s portal upon her arrival two days previous.
Bernie put a hushing finger to his lips.
Lupita could hear someone coming into the bedroom. “Johann?” And then the woman said something else, speaking in German, Lupita supposed.
She could not see the woman through the partially closed door, but Lupita could hear her footsteps on the wooden floor of the bedroom as they approached, but then stopped. Lupita’s eyes were wide, and she was trying to calm her breathing, but not without much success. She glanced at Bernie, who was staring at the back of the door, his lips pierced, causing his otherwise chubby cheeks to narrow inwards against the contours of his jaws.
Then Lupita could hear the woman turning, and her footsteps sounded as if they were leading away from the bathroom.
Bernie’s phone rang.
“Shit!” he whispered as he went to try to silence it.
“Ullow? Johann?” said the woman in the bedroom as she stopped, and Lupita could tell she was starting to walk toward the bathroom.
Lupita shoved the bathroom door shut, turning the latch to lock it.
“Johann?” said the woman, her tone sounding quite irritated. And then Lupita could hear her talking again in German, unable to understand what she was saying.
The door handle to the bathroom was rattling, and Lupita could see the woman was trying to open it. She heard the woman call Johann’s name again, and then she knocked on the door, still speaking in German.
Then a man’s voice was heard in the bedroom.