Erik knew that he should be asleep at this hour, it was well past midnight, and he knew that there was a possibility that his experiment wouldn't work, but he had to try. He was what some call a Stravagante, but he was the first to not be in Talia or England, which is in the other world. He first met Signore Rodolfo IV when he travelled to Talia. Signore Rodolfo was his very distant cousin. After The Duchessa and her husband didn't have any daughters to carry on the line many of the family moved away. Erik's ancestors moved to Francia and have lived there ever since. The year was now 1881and Erik figured that is was high time to have Stravagante to come from someplace other than England and to go to some place other than Talia.
Amber was not very excited about the first day of school after Christmas break. She felt that is was too soon to go back. It was only January 3rd after all. But her mom wouldn't let her stay home from school with a fake headache. As she pulled into the parking lot, she realized that her day was already off to a bad start. She was later getting to school than she normally was and couldn't find a parking space so she had to park on the moon, which was the closer than any other place that was open. The bell rang as she entered the school. She ran to her first class and sat down right before the last bell rang.
Her day was the same as every other first day of the semester. Teachers reminded students of what was expected and what they would be covering in the semester. Finally she had her favorite class, choir.
As she was walking to class she found a piece of sheet music. The paper was thick and the notes were hand written. It didn't look like any music a high school student would have. She looked it over, then but it in her folder and continued to class. During choir she put the piece of sheet music out of her mind and focused on singing.
When choir was over she went home, since choir was seventh period of the day, and decided to do some homework.
As she pulled out her folder she remembered the music and decided to look at it. It didn't have a title but she tried to look up some of the words. Nothing came up. She set it down on her bed and got to work on algebra.
That night she felt the need to look at the music again, almost as if something would tell her what the music is. As she studied the music she fell asleep. She woke with a start in some sort of cave. As far as she could tell there was no one there. She was lying on the cold ground with curtains along the walls. Amber stood up to walk out of the strange room when a tall man hurried into the room.
"Ah, you've come at last. Welcome to Franca" The man said.
Amber stared at him without saying anything. She had been singing The Phantom of the Opera around the house for some years, now, but didn't actually think that she would have a dream about it. The man had a mask on one side of his face. He was tall and thin and was wearing a dress suit.
"Well?" The man looked at her expectantly.
"I can't believe I'm having this dream." Amber replied, half to herself, half to the man standing in front of her.
"I know you think that this is a dream, but it's not. See that piece of music? That is your talisman. It will take you from your world to mine."
"We live in different worlds? How is that even possible?"
"Nobody knows, but it's been known by people from your world since the 16th century. A man named William Dethridge came here by accident when he was trying to make gold. He translated to my world later on and lived there until he died."
"Why hasn't anyone heard of this? Why aren't we learning about it in school? There I just proved that this is a dream."
"Nobody has heard of this because there are people from England who have gone back and forth for a few of your years."
"Are our years different, then?"
"No, but sometimes one world can have a jump in time. It feels no different but when it happens we find times and people can change. When William Dethridge translated your world jumped forward centuries. A few years ago a boy in England Translated to our world and our world sped up. When a boy from our world moved to yours your world sped up. No one else has translated since then except for Ludo, but we kept the time in check. It's been three hundred years in our world since it started, but five hundred in yours."
"Why are the times so different?"
"We don't know. My theory is when a Stravagante dies the world that they lived in changes."
"Who's 'we'?"
"My cousin, Rodolfo IV, myself and a man I call Daroga from this world and Georgia O'Grady, Nick Duke, Matt Wood, Sky Meadows, Lucien Mulholland, Isabel Evens, and Laura Reid from your world. I understand that you have a way of communicating with people who are far away?"
"Yeah, we have computers and telephones."
"I know nothing about those things but I would suggest you contact them and learn more about being a Stravagante."
"Wait, you haven't told me your name."
"My name is Erik."
"Really? So the book was true?"
"What book?" Erik, as he is called, very quickly changed from friendly and helping to threatening.
"There's a book in my world called The Phantom of the Opera. It's about a man who haunted the Paris opera house." Amber answered quickly. She did not like to feel this man's wrath.
"Who knows of me? Very few people actually know that I'm a man and am no ghost."
"A man named Gaston Leroux knew of the rumors and investigated them later on. I had no part! It was before I was born!"
"I know. I am sorry; I should not have acted in that manner. Come, you must meet the others in the order."
Erik led Amber to a set of mirrors on the far wall. Amber saw nothing out of the ordinary, but after a while a man's face swam into view in one of the mirrors. Erik stared into the mirror for a little while than he waved Amber over to the mirror.
"Rodolfo wants to meet you." Erik said.
"How can he meet me? I'm only looking in to a mirror."
"I'll translate for you. You'll have to learn how to speak to someone through the mirrors."
As Amber looked into the mirror another man's face swam into view. He looked to be middle aged. His hair looked as if it had once been dark but was now streaked with gray. He had a kind face. When he saw Amber his smiled widened.
"He says that he is very happy that we have a new member of the brotherhood." Erik said.
"How can you tell that? He didn't say anything."
"We use a method called thought-speech. You think your reply and when you send it to the other person they will know. But it only works through the mirrors."
"Will I learn how to do this?"
"Of course, this and many other things."
Amber felt a sense of satisfaction knowing that she would soon know how to communicate through mirrors.
"Wait, can anyone do this? Speak through mirrors?"
"Anyone can do it, but only after a Stravagante sets up the connection. Very few actually know how. Any alliance of ours has the ability to thought-speak."
"Who are our alliances?"
"A branch of a very old family in Talia. In the past the Di Chimici would try to get us caught or killed but one of the brothers of the Grand Duke was friends with the Stravagante. His decedents have been friends with our brotherhood for many centuries."
Amber was in awe of Rodolfo. His stern yet kind face made her feel as if he was continually watching her.
"Rodolfo would like to ask a few personal questions, if that's alright."
"Yeah, I guess so." Amber replied.
"He would like to know how old you are."
"I'm sixteen."
Amber felt as though Rodolfo was judging her terribly. His gaze bore into her eyes. She was glad when Rodolfo turned away to look at Erik. They looked at each other for a few minutes, every once in a while one of them would look at Amber then back.
When the Mirror turned back to Erik's face Amber asked what the two men had been talking about.
"It was nothing, just some problems that needed to be worked out. You should be getting back, you need your sleep. If you will be coming every night you will be very tired."
"How do I get back?"
"It's simple, you just fall back to sleep holding the talisman."
"It can't be that easy. There has to be some sort of trick."
"It was rather easy to come here, was it not?"
"Yes, but I didn't know what I was doing. I just fell asleep."
"And that is all it takes to go back, just fall asleep holding the talisman and you will be back in your world right where you fell asleep."
Amber all of a sudden had a thought "What about my body?! Will my parents walk into my room and find me missing?"
"No, your body looks just as it does when you are sleeping. Nobody will be able to guess that you are actually in another world."
That piece of information somewhat comforted Amber. Erik lead her back to the curtained off area of the house so she could lay down and go to sleep. She woke with a start in her own bed. After a few minutes of processing what had happened while she had been asleep she stood up and went to her computer.
She set down her talisman and sat down at her computer. She looked up the name Georgia O'Grady on Facebook. A girl with a stripped hair came up. Her relationship status read in a relation with Nick Duke and it's complicated.
She clicked on the send message icon. Amber sat at her desk wondering how she could say that she was a Stravagante as well.
Finally she just sent a simple message saying, "Hi, my name is Amber O'Connelly. Please answer back."
Amber crawled back into her bed to try to sleep, but she couldn't sleep. I guess coming back to get some extra sleep was pointless, she thought. She debated over going back to Franca. Just as she was about to get her talisman she got a sudden urge to check her messages.
When her computer turned on there was a message. It was from Georgia O'Grady.
"Hello Amber, though I don't know why you would be sending me this seeing as you live in America. Is there anything I can do to help you?"
Amber opened up an instant message window.
"I went there, to the other world. I don't really know what to do."
Georgia immediately sent back a reply. "You went to Talia? How? You don't live in London."
"I didn't go to Talia, I went to someplace called Franca."
"I've never heard of that place before. Are you sure you went to Ta- the other world?"
"Yes, I'm sure, otherwise I wouldn't have found out about you and I wouldn't be talking to you now."
There was no answer for a few minutes, and then an unexpected answer came back.
"We have a break in school in a week. We're coming to America. Where do you live?"
"I live in New Castle, Delaware. You should be able to land in the airport."
"Two of the members of our side of the order already live in America. I'll see if they'll be able to fly out to New Castle."
"Really, you don't have to do this, I'll be okay."
"We all know what it's like to be caught up in a problem in another world. It's easier to handle when you have someone to talk about it with. Sky, one of the ones that are living in America, said that they can be at the in New Castle airport tomorrow."
"I really can't thank you enough for this."
"Don't mention it. It's a pleasure to help."
"I should go to bed. It's after 2 in the morning here."
"You should go. You'll need all the sleep you can get. Those of us still in England will be meeting tomorrow. I'll let you know who all will be able to come."
Amber signed off feeling very good about knowing that this wasn't a dream. She climbed back into her bed and lay down. Her eyes started to droop involuntarily. The made sure that the piece of music that was now her talisman was on the dresser and not in her hand, and then she drifted off to sleep.