Three hours later, Aunt Sophia was driving Lily and I back from the theatre, and after all I'd been through earlier in the day, it felt great, just great, to be laughing again. Aunt Sophia found the movie enjoyable, too, but not nearly as much as Lily and I did, even though the seventies setting should have made her better identify with the film. "It was better than Starsky & Hutch," she told us on the way out. "I'll give you that." What she didn't enjoy was the song her daughter and niece asked to hear on the car ride home. "Okay, no," Aunt Sophia said sternly. "We're not playing that song, girls."

"Oh, come on, Mom!" Lily said with a gleeful grin. "It's not that bad!"

"That's easy for you to say," Aunt Sophia replied. "You didn't grow up with that damn song playing all over the airwaves 24/7!"

"I think you're exaggerating," I said.

"Well, it sure felt omnipresent," Aunt Sophia, inadvertently giving me a new word to look up in the dictionary once we got back to the house.

"Did you happen to catch the words, Claire?" Lily asked, turning around to look at me in the back seat. "Maybe we can sing it."

"Holly's a better singer than I am," I said with a shrug.

"But did you?"

"Sure, I guess."

"You don't need to be a pro to sing well. It just takes practice."

"But doesn't lots of practice kind of turn you into a pro, anyway?"

"Well, it's not like I practice singing a lot," Lily told me. "Usually I just belt it out in the shower, when I'm alone and nobody can care. But if you put a gun to my head and told me to sing something, I could still do it."

"Lily, if someone put a gun to your head and told you to sing 'Afternoon Delight,' of all things," Aunt Sophia said, "I'd be more worried about what's going on in his head than the bullet he's threatening to put through yours."

"Wow," Lily said, "you'd make a terrible hostage negotiator, Mom."

"And he'd make a terrible hostage taker, Lily."

"Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight…" I began singing at random, and the sudden outburst of that particular lyrics and melody caused my aunt to stop much more suddenly at the red light than she would have.

"Claire!" Aunt Sophia cried. "Not while I'm driving!"

"Gonna grab some afternoon delight…" Lily continued.

"Kids, I'm moving around two tons of metal at thirty miles an hour here! Sing something else before we end up causing a crash!"

"You're taking this all very lightly," Lily remarked.

"Aren't we all doing that?" Aunt Sophia said. "Claire just discovered an inter-dimensional portal that allows us to be in places we normally couldn't go to and affect other people's realities with the slightest things we do while we're there, and instead of contacting a scientist, we go to see Anchorman?!"

Lily and I exchanged glances before returning to look at Aunt Sophia, who, like us, had an expression conveying both relief and confusion with regards to the situation. On the one hand, ignoring the trapdoor was probably a good idea, but on the other, we were sitting on the cusp of a major scientific discovery, one that could potentially change the future of mankind.

"People thought the automobile would kill us all," Lily said. "That didn't stop Henry Ford."

"I was just making a point," Aunt Sophia said. "I really think we should stay away from that trapdoor, guys."

"It's not an automobile, either," I added. "At least with a car, you at least have some control. When we go down inside that trapdoor, Lily, we have no idea where we're going."

"Which is exactly why we need to bring someone in!" Lily smiled back. "Give them the time and the money, and they just might find the secret behind the magic!" As we pulled into the driveway and stepped out of the vehicle, she enthusiastically added, "For all we know, maybe there are other doors just like that one!" while pointing towards the backyard. "But until we tell actually tell someone, we're never going to know! A little science never hurt anybody, did it?"

"What about the apple that fell on Newton's head?" I said.

"Bunk," Lily scoffed. "Bull. Myth. It never happened. Study enough history, Claire, and you'd know that. Most of what we learn along those lines has been romanticized so it's easier to digest. Yeah, Columbus discovered America, but not before the Vikings, and not without bringing diseases and helping to wipe out the natives."

"Speaking of responsibility," Aunt Sophia said while Lily did the honor of unlocking the front door, "let's not forget that what we do down there is affecting other people's lives!" She pointed her index finger downward, because that's where the trapdoor was, at least generally speaking. "We all heard what happened with Holly, didn't we? That's why we went to the movies instead of calling someone we don't even know in Egypt! Lily, if this trapdoor is as dangerous as it seems to be, I don't think of any of us should risk endangering the lives of others just so scientists can learn a little something!"

"But that's exactly the thing, Mom," Lily said. The three of us took seats in the den, relaxing on Bruce's recliner (me) or on the main sofa (Lily and Sophia), both a matching forest green in color. "We don't have responsibility. Not in this world. Going down there is like going to Vegas: what happens there, stays there, or at least our part in it."

"If those people in Egypt died inside that tomb—"

"…Then Claire didn't do it."

"Maybe not," I said. "But I sure as hell fell the guilt over it."

"The unnecessary guilt," Lily said, sighing and shaking guilt. "Look, Claire, were you in Egypt today? I mean, really, were you actually in Egypt today? Hell no! You were in another version of Egypt. That Mike guy, whoever he is, he's not going to know who you are if we were to contact him. This is the nature of a parallel universe, don't you see?"

"The same thing happens," I said, "except we're there. Yeah, I get it, Lily: I still have a clean slate here at home. But the guilt crosses over, damn it! And maybe, the events do, too!"

Lily grumbled. "We've been over this! You didn't cause Holly to fall, and you didn't cause that tomb to collapse either. Accidents, Claire."

"Fine," I said, "but what if I were to actually, physically kill someone?"

"Uh, Claire?" Aunt Sophia said. "What the hell are you talking about? You would never do something like that? …Would you?"

"No, but theoretically, if I were to kill someone while I was inside the trapdoor…would they be dead when I came back?"

"You wouldn't do that!"

"And I'm not insinuating that I would! Just listen to me!"

"Who would you kill?" Lily asked.

"Uh, nobody," I said, laughing uneasily at the question. "I'm not a murderer."

"Why not?" she continued. "You said so yourself: a clean slate back home. Claire, if someone were to actually do that while inside the trapdoor, they'd be a veritable Freddy Kruger; everyone's safe in the real world, but in the dream world, or in this case, the parallel universe, you better watch your back."

"See, this is exactly why we should just leave the damn thing alone," Aunt Sophia said. "It's just too dangerous. Even if scientists can figure out how it works, there's always going to some assholes who don't want to use it for good, and the whole world will go to hell in a hand basket." There was a pause after this during which the three of us looked back and forth at each other, all arguing both within and between ourselves but not saying anything to further those arguments. "In fact, no more going down to the trapdoor, ever."

"For god's sake--!" Lily moaned. "Mom!"

"Claire, I don't think I have to worry about you, but Lily, you heard me. Stay away from that door."

"This is bull—"

"Don't you finish that," Aunt Sophia warned, raising a threatening finger.

"I've heard worse," I said. "A lot worse."

"Sky rockets in flight…" Lily sang out of nowhere.

Aunt Sophia groaned and then angrily told Lily, "Stay away from the trapdoor."