Evvy had been five when it had first happened. She had been sitting at the kitchen table, next to her little brother Finn, who was three. She had been drawing a picture of an apple for her teacher. Sense bringing in a real apple would never work (she'd eat it before she ever got to school) she was trying a picture instead. At least she wouldn't wind up eating it.
When all of a sudden, her hand disappeared, leaving the crayon it had been holding up to drop to the table. She looked at where her hand had been, and then over a Finn, who was still scribbling with a vengeance at a piece of construction paper. Looking back at where her hand wasn't, she flexed her fingers. She could still feel them, but not the table underneath, or even the currents of air across her hand. What she could feel was cloth, but it had a special feel to it, like the wool carpet upstairs on a winter night, all statically. But it didn't feel bad, it felt right. Just then Finn looked over, and seeing that his dear sister was lacking a hand, burst into tears, crying loudly. Evvy tried pulling her hand back, and it suddenly appeared, right in time for Evvy's mother to rush into the room, demanding to know what was wrong with Finn.
It was then that Evvy lied to her mother for the first time.
"I dunno."
Finn grew suddenly quite and stared wide-eyed at his sister. Making the first intellectual leap of his life, he realized that Evvy didn't want Mommy to know what happened.
"I'm hungry!" He said instead.
"I swear, sometimes you are so demanding." Their mother said in exasperation, but she was smiling while she said it.
And so their mother lived in complete ignorance as Evvy began experimenting with what she had thought was her 'magical power'. Not to be left out, Finn had said he would tell Mom if Evvy didn't teach him how to do it, or at least let him watch. So for two years, Evvy got better and better at making first one hand, then both go to 'the other place'. She could never figure out how to make anything else disappear, though.
Finn was five when it first happened to him. He was so excited that he ran to find his sister, squealing all the way that, 'He did it! He did it!', leaving their mother very confused. Evvy, instead of being disappointed that 'her' special ability wasn't so special anymore, was thrilled that her baby brother could finally share in the magic.
So Evvy taught Finn all she had figured out, and together they began experimenting with this other place. It was Finn that first managed to make a portal. He had sat still for nearly an hour, a frown of concentration on his seven-year-old face. Evvy was nearby, thinking about what to get Mom for her birthday, when suddenly Finn shrieked,
"Evvy! Help!!"
Startled out of her musings, Evvy rushed over, and seeing that Finn's hands were not there, quickly stuck her hands in the other place as well. Using touch, she found out what Finn had been working on all that time. It felt like a woven hoop of strings.
"What did you do?" She whispered, terrified that Finn had broken a rule of the other place by messing with the fabric.
"It felt right." He said simply, also in a whisper. The hoop vibrated under their hands.
"Now what?" Finn asked, but then they both knew the answer.
They began to tug at the hoop, putting all their nine-year-old and seven-year-old muscle into it. Finally, the hoop came out of the other place, and hung shimmering, blue, and iridescent in front of them, a foot off the ground.
Just then, they heard the key turn in the lock on their front door. Shooting looks of terror to each other, they lunged together at the portal, trying to shove it back. Instead, they both ended up with their front halves through it. They found the front of themselves hanging a foot off the ground in a dense jungle, looking at a surprised, blue lizard. The lizard said, "Meep!" In a cat's voice, and hurried away. After trading astonished looks, they used the ground as leverage and hoisted themselves back through the portal as one, just in time to hear their mother call their names.
"I'll put it back, you go tell Mom I'm in the bathroom!" Evvy whispered to her shocked brother. He nodded mutely and scampered away.
Evvy quickly felt for the edges of the hoop, and finding them, braced herself and began pushing it backwards, all the while whispering, "Go back, go back, please go back..."
And, as suddenly as it had appeared, the portal was gone.
They had kept the hoop stored in the other place for a little while, having fun bringing it out from time to time and sticking their heads through it. They found that the hoop couldn't be moved from where Finn had originally created it, but the alien jungle was enough to satisfy them even with a limited view. It was too small for them to climb through, but even they didn't know if they'd have been brave enough to try. What if they couldn't get back? But eventually Evvy told Finn to get rid of it, so he could make another one and show her how to.
Then, six years later, a stranger approached Evvy as she was walking home from school. He stopped her on the sidewalk and said, "I know who and what you are, Evvy. I know people that can teach you and your brother to do things with your power you've never dreamed of. Call me if you're interested." And in a flash of blue skin that was mostly concealed under his rather large coat and cowboy hat, he pressed a card into her hand and hurried away.
All that week, after telling Finn about it, she pondered what to do. Curiosity ate away at her until finally, deciding that it couldn't hurt to just call them, she waited until her mother had left the house and dialed the number on the card. But instead of hearing ringing, she just heard an interment clicking sound.
Then, right next to her, a portal opened. A blue-skinned ogre stepped through, but even odder than the ogre were his three-piece suit and thick black glasses. He paused a moment to straighten his tie, then looked critically at Evvy. He looked her up and down, and said, "Ah, the newest recruit! Awfully young, aren't you?"
At this point, Evvy made a sound like a mouse being strangled and quickly turned to run and find her brother. The ogre followed her out into the living room and said, "I'll just wait here, shall I?" and preceded to make himself at home on their couch.
"Finn! Finn!" Evvy shouted repeatedly, hoping that Finn hadn't taken off on one of his spontaneous basketball trips again. She didn't want to deal with this on her own.
"What?" Asked Finn, his head poking out of his room.
Evvy made the strangled mouse sound again. "We have a visitor."
Finn frowned. "What?"
"Come and see." Evvy said faintly as she turned to go back to the living room.
Still frowning, Finn followed Evvy into the living room, where he paused to take a good look at their guest, then preceded to sit on the floor, hard.
"Ah! Hello there! And you'll be master Finn then, yes?" Said the ogre as he rose from the couch.
He
walked over to Finn and held out his hand. Finn craned his head back
from his position on the floor, then slowly and suspiciously took the
ogre's extended hand. Instead of pulling Finn up, the ogre simply shook
hands, with him standing and Finn on the floor. At this time it
occurred to Evvy that this ogre was hardly as tall as Finn, an inch or
so shorter than herself. This made him seem less threatening somehow.
Turning away from Finn, the ogre came to shake hands with Evvy. As he
shook her hand, he introduced himself.
"Hello Ma'am, Sir," with a nod to Finn, "My name is Klaud Ogre. I am the head of the World Determination and Exploration Co. I am here to, well, offer you two a job."
From there, it had taken off. Evvy and Finn accepted Mr. Ogre ("no, call my Klaud")'s offer, and became the fourth and fifth exploration units of the WDEC. As far as their mother was concerned, Evvy and Finn had been accepted to a prestigious-looking boarding school, and she now only to see them every-other weekend and on holiday breaks.
And so, for two years Evvy and Finn had worked for the WDEC, being paid in room and board and also in a substantial amount of the currency used in Spirit World, which had more interesting things to buy anyway. For the first six months of their stay they were trained by the first exploration unit the WDEC had ever recruited, a nice, 50-year-old African American who, besides having orange eyes, looked to be about 25. "You'll find that traveling between worlds does wonders for your health." He had told them with a wink.
According to Klaud, the WDEC had been started by his grandfather, and that only twenty humans with talents such as theirs had been recruited in all that time, with the first fifteen either dead or retired.
"Dead?" Finn had asked, wide-eyed.
"Ermmm, yes. Not all things in all the worlds are friendly. Which is why you are being trained to open portals faster than would be normally required. Also, my assistant will be teaching you some basic self-defense..."
All in all, the last two years had been the best of Evvy's life. But things were about to change, and Evvy's life was about to be rearranged again.
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