The Mirrorverse
Chapter 20

Maya

Absolutely aghast, Ka allowed himself to be led through the silvery mass levitating in their lounge. Suddenly, they were no longer inside. The first thing that hit them was the cold, followed by the darkness and noise.

They appeared to be standing on a pavement in a wet, busy street. Cars were swooshing past them in the standing water everywhere. It looked like it had not long rained heavily. It also looked like they were no longer in LA.

Men and women in suits with briefcases walked past them, most wearing overcoats far more suited to the weather than what they were wearing.

“Told you to put some shoes on,” Maya teased, looking down at Ka’s bare feet. Hers were clad in trainers. Ka just stared blankly at her.

“Well, it’s not the first time I’ve landed somewhere strange,” commented Maya flippantly. “Albeit the first time not wearing a nappy.”

Ka knew a nappy was a diaper, but not very much else registered.

“Where are we?” he wondered, realising the traffic was driving on the left. He was still too stunned to even contemplate how he had arrived there.

Maya looked at him, before looking around her again. “It appears to be Bayswater Road, in London,” she deduced airily, as if working out a simple sum in the same country one had been in thirty seconds previously.

“And that,” she pointed at the black railings behind them. “Should be Hyde Park.”

Ka looked from the park railings to the grand Georgian houses opposite, beyond the steady trickle of cars and black cabs.

“Did I hit my head?” he wondered out loud, running his fingers through his hair to feel for contusions or swellings. He found nothing, but his feet began screaming because of the cold, and the rest of him was joining them.

“I told you, those silvery things take you places,” Maya reiterated, trying to make him understand something he couldn’t even conceive of at that moment.

“Can we go back now?” he begged. “I believe you, I’m sorry, please take us home.”

Maya looked up at him, her eyes shining in the sulphur orange glow of the street lights. “I need to know what’s happening to me,” she squeezed his hand. “I want to know why I keep waking up in a body that isn’t mine.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do it from home, without getting hypothermia?” Ka’s feet were in a great deal of pain. He couldn’t remember them ever being that cold.

“Okay, hang on, but I’m coming back when I’m fully dressed,” she conceded. Ka nodded his agreement.

The silvery thing kept appearing briefly and then vanishing again.

“I believe in you,” Maya told it, and most bizarrely it actually worked. She stuck her head through it, and it vanished through the iridescent mass. She returned, shaking her head.

“Only a forest,” she complained genially. Maya didn’t really care whether they went home straight away or not, she was just so excited at taking Ka through a portal.

Despite trying repeatedly she was unable to locate their house. Ka decided he wanted to see what she could see. He hoped that his head would return and reconnect to his body the same way Maya’s did. He stuck his head through to see a forest, but was dragged back by Maya.

He returned to replace a woman screaming at his apparently headless form which had been there just a moment before. Maya grabbed him and pulled him into the road, away from the woman.

Ka kind of half hopped half ran across the painfully sharp stones lying all over the road until they were back on the smooth paving slabs. Maya was glad she had thought to put shoes on. They turned right, crossing over an equally painful junction to reach a phone box.

Only in London, thought Maya, can you walk down the street in your pyjamas and nobody even stares.

By the time they reached the phone box Ka was swearing and inspecting the soles of his feet for holes, but there appeared to be only indentations.

They looked at the phone and it was the strangest thing. The numbers were written backwards, as were the words written on the payphone.

“What the?” Maya wondered in shock. At that point Ka started vibrating with the cold, and Maya quickly picked up the receiver, shaking her head.

Maya called the operator to reverse the charges and gave a number that Ka presumed to be Ellie’s. They were both surprised that it worked, given the strange backwards writing.

“No, okay, sorry that’s just the answer machine, can I try another number?” Maya then gave Les and Rob’s number as the paving slab beneath Ka started to warm up under his feet. Either that or they’d gone numb. Maya was too pumped full of adrenaline to feel the cold through her rain soaked t-shirt.

“Hey, it’s Maya!” she cried down the phone. “Les it’s me, please accept the reverse charge!”

Maya frowned at Ka. “It’s Maya, you know me, Ka’s girlfriend.” She handed the phone to Ka, so he moved further into the confined space.

“Hey Les, it’s me, Ka,” he greeted his friend with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. He wondered how Les had made it back home so fast, but there were more pressing matters.

“Hey Ka, what’s going on?” asked Les.

“Well, we’re kind of locked out in our pyjamas on Bayswater Road, do you reckon you could pick us up? I have no money or phone, nothing.” Ka knew Les didn’t have any form of transport but he might be able to get them a cab.

“I beg your pardon?” Les laughed. “You’re in London? Since when?”

“Oh you know, not long at all,” said Ka, skipping around the subject. “Please save us, sooner rather than later, I have no shoes on.”

Les laughed so hard, Ka wondered if he might lose his feet to frostbite before Les finished and actually came and saved them.

“I’ll come down on the tube, it’ll be faster,” he finally spluttered. “I’ll pick up a taxi at your end. Where are you exactly?”

“Corner of Bayswater Road and Lancaster Terrace,” replied Ka, after sticking his head out the phone box to look at the road sign of the perpendicular road. It’s a good job I’m long sighted, he thought randomly. “We’re staying in the phone box.”

Ka replaced the receiver, and pulled Maya close to him, shutting the phone box door. Her body heat was enough to set off a major case of the shivers, and they huddled together for warmth, the cold finally catching up with Maya.

“How did he not know who I am?” she muttered all muffled, as her face was pressed into Ka’s chest.

“He must have been joking,” rationalised Ka.

“He wasn’t. This is weird. Things are getting weirder.”

“Is that possible?”