Chapter Text
“Why is there a door here? Has there always been a door here?” Sue looked between the door and Diana, who was frowning.
“Definitely not. Is that scrollwork? Who the hell installed a fancy ass door in the back hallway at Ted’s?”
They both stared at it, heads tilting right and then left, but Sue didn’t let them touch it. Weird shit happened in the middle of the night at Ted’s, and they hadn’t made it past graduation and some years into the W without knowing better. Which didn’t explain why they were willingly in the back hallway at Ted’s at five to midnight on a Tuesday in October.
“Why are we here again?” Sue asked Diana, who was hovering uncomfortably close to the door. Curiosity always seemed to get the better of Diana, even when she knew damn well it was a bad idea. Ask Sue how she knew.
“Because Kesha sent me a weird text,” Diana said, like that explained it. “And when Kesha tells you to be somewhere?”
“She’s scary as fuck,” Sue agreed. She was only four years older than Sue, but Sue knew better than to cross her.
As they stood there contemplating their life choices, the clock in the hall ticked closer to midnight. And as the clock ticked closer to midnight...
“Is the door glowing?” Sue asked, semi-rhetorically. It was definitely fucking glowing.
“I’d describe it as more of a pulse,” Diana said, just to be contrary.
“Stand back.” Sue put an arm in front of Diana to keep her from leaning any further in. She’d probably lick the door if Sue let her. She had the self-preservation instincts of a mosquito.
The clock ticked down, and the glowing pulsed faster and brighter until they both had to shield their eyes. With a shudder and a high-pitched whine, the door swung inward and the glowing subsided. They blinked, disoriented, and then Diana stepped forward into the doorway.
“There’s no way a room this size fits in the back of Ted’s,” Diana said, stepping inside.
It looked like a study from an old manor house in England. The walls were covered with wainscotting in a dark wood and wallpaper that looked like it cost more than they made in a year in the W. There was a massive fireplace at one end, with a fire crackling cheerfully within.
In the center of the room under a massive chandelier, a wooden table sat on top of a thick carpet. Two leather wingback chairs were pulled up on either side, as though waiting for them to sit down.
“Dee, I don’t think we’re in Ted’s anymore.” Sue said quietly.
“Yeah, ok Dorothy.” Diana scoffed.
“Guess that makes you Toto,” Sue shot back.
She walked over to the table, studying the items that lay on its surface. There was an ornate mirror propped on a stand, its surface dark and foreboding. In front of it a large notebook lay open to blank pages made of heavy parchment. There were no writing implements in sight.
Diana brushed past her and sat down in the chair on the right, making herself right at home. The second she settled, the top of the chair glowed briefly as “DT3” inscribed itself into the leather.
“Guess this one’s mine,” Diana said, entirely too unbothered for whatever woo woo shit was currently going down. “Try that one.”
Against her better judgement, Sue did, sitting gingerly and turning to look as “SB10” appeared on the seat behind her head. When she turned back to look at Diana, she noticed that the mirror on the table was now glowing.
“What the hell,” she started to say, but stopped when the glowing resolved itself into a very familiar face.
“Oh good, you made it,” Nykesha said, from her position inside a fucking mirror. “We can get started.”
“Started with what?” Diana asked, which Sue thought was only one of several questions she’d like answers to.
“The handoff. My time has ended, and you two are up next. We decided it might be better to have two going forward. The book agreed.”
“Two what? And who is we?” Sue asked, trying to keep her composure.
“Keepers of the book. Lobo did it first, then handed it to me. It’ll be easier together,” Nykesha said, as though that made any sense. She seemed to realize that they looked lost, so she continued. “Look, there’s more to the UConn sisterhood than basketball and beer at Ted’s. There always has been. When Lobo won NPOY, it unlocked something. She never gave me specifics, and I never asked, but I’m pretty sure she’s descended from witches – gotta love New England.”
“We win because of witchcraft?” Diana sounded both horrified and interested.
“No, nothing like that. It’s all above board, I swear. It’s more about togetherness. Family ties. That sort of thing. The book’ll explain better than I can.”
“The book will explain,” Sue echoed faintly. In front of her, the pages rustled in a nonexistent breeze. “What the fuck, Kesha?”
“Listen, I promise it’ll make more sense once you get into it. But I’ve gotta go.” Nykesha looked over her shoulder at something they couldn’t see. “Oh, before I forget – you only had to come in through Ted’s this first time. Whenever you need to get into the room after this, the door will appear wherever you are. Good luck!”
Before Sue could ask the additional thousand questions she had, Kesha disappeared and the mirror went dark. She looked across the table at Diana, who seemed more intrigued than horrified. Typical.
“Well, no time like the present,” Diana said. “Book, what do you have for us?”
The pages of the book began turning rapidly, all the way back to the first page, which listed the keepers of the book in order. Sue and Diana’s names had been inscribed directly below Rebecca and Nykesha’s. The pages then turned again, revealing what looked like some sort of family tree, with lines connecting names written in gold calligraphy.
As Sue focused her attention on different names, they seemed to swim to the surface of the page, bringing their linked names with them. She found hers, currently at the end of a line, anchored firmly to Jennifer Rizzotti’s.
“That checks out,” Diana said, nodding at the link Sue was examining. “I’m linked to Kesha. No surprise there either.”
“But what does it mean?” Sue wondered aloud.
The book opened to a new page, script unfurling across it at a rapid pace. It outlined the family ties linking all the players, going back to the mid-nineties. Just as Nykesha had said, it seemed to start with Lobo but focused on particular players over the years. Sue leaned in, trying to figure out the connections.
“Seems like it’s highlighting players with something special – broken records, all-americans, national champions, that sort of thing.”
“Jesus, look at Maya,” Diana said, pointing somewhere low down on the page. “She’s only two years in, but she might be the brightest of them all.”
“Please don’t tell me this book can predict the future.” Sue put her head in her hands. Then she looked up, startled, when the mirror began to glow again. “What now?!”
Images began to flicker across the mirror’s surface, so fast that they could only catch fleeting impressions of each one. Balls bouncing in high school gyms, little girls practicing shot mechanics in their driveways, wide-eyed kids signing commitment letters, hoodies being unzipped to reveal UConn shirts underneath, brightly colored braids, ponytails in every shade from blonde to brunette, players directing their teammates in foreign languages, Coach and CD in a thousand gyms all across the country and the world. It was overwhelming, but it felt familiar.
“I hate to say this, but I think we’re looking at the future of the UConn women’s basketball program,” Diana said.
“Shit.” Sue summed it all up in one word. “We cannot be in charge of all that.”
“And yet.” Diana gestured at the mirror, which was still hurtling through images as though it wanted to overwhelm them even further.
“But what do we actually do?” Sue asked.
She was still shocked but less surprised when the pages of the book turned once more. They both watched as Lobo’s name appeared at the top of the page, followed by a glowing thread that ran down the page partway before turning into a new name.
“Tina. Huh.” Diana said. She leaned over to get a better look.
The thread kept going, forming a straight line down from Tina’s name, but then it stopped. It almost seemed like it was waiting for something.
“Wait. Is that what we're supposed to be? Basketball yentas?” Sue asked.
As if in response, the mirror glowed again, flicking through a variety of young faces but never settling on one. Some of the faces were vaguely familiar to Sue, but she wasn’t sure why.
"Seems like it.” Diana went to brush her hand across the glowing line under Tina’s name, but the book closed before she could touch it. At the same time, the mirror faded back to black.
On the wall behind them, two doors suddenly appeared. They were both partially open. Through the crack in the one nearest her, Sue could see what looked like her bedroom in Seattle.
“Okay,” Sue said slowly. “I guess we’re done here for now?”
In response, the doors opened slightly wider. Through the other door she recognized what looked like Diana’s apartment.
“Sweet. No plane ride necessary.” Diana was taking this way more calmly than Sue was.
“Dee.”
“Yeah?” Diana stopped halfway to her door.
“You realize this is insane, right?”
“Obviously.” She walked over to haul Sue out of her chair and clapped her on the back. “But that’s what makes it fun. ‘Leap and the net will appear,’ right?”
“Sure.” Sue knew she didn’t sound convinced.
She watched Diana disappear back into her own apartment and resigned herself to doing the same. Once she closed the door behind her, it disappeared. Her bedroom looked exactly like she had left it two days earlier, save the luggage that she’d traveled with now set neatly beside her bed.
“I’m losing my mind,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head.
She thought through what had happened over the last couple of hours as she retrieved her toiletry bag and brushed her teeth. She was suddenly exhausted and couldn’t think of anything better than curling up in her safe, familiar bed. Tomorrow, she’d deal with whatever the hell that had been. Tomorrow, she’d call Diana, who would hopefully tell her it had all been in her imagination. They definitely weren’t the mystical keepers of UConn’s legacy for the foreseeable future. She would get up, start packing for Russia, and go about her normal life.
With that decided, she got into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Surprisingly, it didn’t take her long at all to fall asleep.
And then the dreams began.