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The door barring her way is heavy and wooden with a rusty iron handle and a keyhole - but a distinct lack of a key. Laura rattles the handle back and forth but it refuses to budge. She pushes. Then she pulls. Nothing.
“Crapsticks,” she mutters. Surely she hasn’t missed the path back to Carmilla and LaFontaine? It had only been a short journey to the vending machine, and retracing her steps shouldn’t have been that difficult - but then the Library does seem to have rather more ideas of its own than is typical for bibliophile labyrinths. She inspects the huge room in which she has found herself but draws a blank. There is very little in the bare chamber apart from debris and broken pieces of wood, and certainly not anything as useful as a key lying on the dust-covered ground.
There behind her is the door she came in by, which she should probably start retracing her steps through before too long. Creative path-finding is rarely a good idea in the Silas Library, but people will start to worry and brood more than normal.
Here right in front of her is the door she was hoping to return by – which is locked.
And there is also a third door but this is no use to anyone, least of all her. It is set about twelve feet up the stone wall over at the right of the room and there is nothing to stand on to reach it. What is the point of such a door? she wonders.
“Hello?” she calls. “Carm? LaF? Um... Library?”
There is the sound of her being pointedly ignored.
“Okay. Lost in the Library. Which is probably just playing a silly game,” she raised her voice significantly, “which will end soon when it stops being funny.”
The air ripples and a cupcake appears on the floor. Strawberry, with bright icing and even a smidgen of jam in the middle. Nice, but not a key.
She folds her arms and bites her lip as she thinks. The Library is capricious, and it is certainly not unheard of for doors to become unopenable for a period of time and then to change their minds later. Maybe she should wait it out. Or maybe she should simply accept her fate and go wherever it allows her to, since she won’t be able to force any other path.
Laura is still deep in thought when the door behind her, the one she came in by, slams open. She whirls around and there is a very familiar girl standing there in the entrance and hurriedly kicking the door shut behind her. She is about the same height as Laura. No, she is exactly the same height as Laura. She also has the same hair, the same eyes, the same clothes and the same smudge on her forehead from walking into a charred beam earlier.
“You’re-” she begins.
“That’s right, cupcake,” says the other Laura with a flourish. “This is where it gets complicated.”
Laura’s mouth hangs open. It’s like looking in a mirror. Or not quite, because in mirrors everything is reversed. It’s a bit more like watching oneself on webcam, only in the flesh.
“Who are you?” she demands. More importantly, Laura is keen to know, is she finally going mad?
The Other Laura’s face lights up in a grin. “I’m you! I’m actually, properly, you!” She has the same voice as well, the voice that Laura rather dislikes when she hears it played back from her computer speakers. She is definitely insane. “All right, cutie. I’ll prove it to you. Ask me questions – ask me something only you would know.”
“Well, the obvious first question is why you’re addressing me like Carmilla does.”
The Other Laura blushes. “Um… I thought it’d be funny. Since I’m bursting in unexpectedly like this. So. That fell awkwardly on its face. Actually I kind of had to as well, because – well, that’s what you did when you burst in on me.”
Laura frowns. “When did I..?”
“Oh, you haven’t yet. But you will – when you’re me. Just like I was you only, let's see, twenty minutes ago.”
The bizarre claims start to filter into Laura’s head. “Are you saying you’ve travelled in time? That I’ve – that I’m going to travel in time?”
“Exactly. I’m you from twenty minutes in the future. Come vith me if you vant to live.” She mimes holding a heavy gun.
“Prove it,” Laura challenges her.
“You have a stone in your right shoe. Last night you dreamed that Kirsch performed an elegant pirouette in a performance of Swan Lake where everyone in the audience was Danny Lawrence. You spent ten minutes this morning calculating the optimum way to say hello to Carmilla so that she would smile back.” The Other Laura smirks wickedly. “Even though you’re right handed, you only ever use your left when you touch y-”
“All right! Fine! No more! You’re me. Somehow. And since you’re me and seem to know what the hell is going on: what the hell is going on?”
The Other Laura digs her hand into her pocket and pulls out a heavy iron key. “For the door,” she explains.
Laura’s heart leaps. “You mean I can get back? Yes!” She dances forward to take it before the oddity strikes her. “Wait, where did you get this?”
“Oh, I got it from me. When I was you. And now I’ve come back to give it to you.”
Laura flicks her eyes up and to the right like she always does when thinking hard. “That... doesn’t make sense. Where did we get it from in the first place?”
“No idea,” Other Laura shrugs. “Don’t worry about it! Pretend this is an episode of Doctor Who and don’t think too much about the paradoxes.”
“So… what? We go through the door together? Or do we split up?”
“Ah. Well that’s the problem. See, that door,” she points to the locked one which impeded Laura’s progress. “is not actually the door back to base camp. That’s a time portal, and it takes you back in time by twenty minutes. You just end up coming back into this room again, like I just did.” She jabs her thumb back at the entrance.
Laura frowns. “But that can’t be right. I came in through the same entrance you did, so it must connect with the library normally.”
“It did when you came in,” Other Laura nods. “But once you unlock that one,” she nods at the locked door ahead, “the portal will connect through and you won’t be able to go forward or back – except in time. If you want to get back to LaF and Carm, you’ll need that one.” She points at the third door, twelve feet off the ground over to the right.
“But… how? I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but we’re sort of tiny!”
“Ah, well,” beams the Other Laura, skipping into the corner and slinging off her rucksack. Laura has to remind herself not to admire her own hair. Good hair dye and conditioning facilities in the bathroom the Library so thoughtfully provides. “This is where the portal comes in handy. You’ll like this bit.” She looks at her watch. “Twenty-nine minutes past two. And forty seconds. And fifty seconds. Fifty five, and-” she wheels around to face the door she came in by and extends a hand just as it slams open again.
“Please tell me I’m not late?” asks the Third Laura, rushing in. “I had a coughing fit on the other side and then I almost came without my rucksack.” She pats the snack-food filled bag.
“Nope, right on time,” says the Other Laura. “Hey, you.”
“Hey, you. Told you it was easy.” Third Laura takes Other Laura's hand and to Laura’s amazement plants a kiss on her lips.
“Um… what is happening there?” Laura asks.
Third Laura winks. “You’ll find out. Twice, actually.” Other Laura giggles. “Are we ready?”
“Yes, I think so. Laura,” says Other Laura, “Laura One, I mean. Drop your rucksack and stand underneath the high-up door.” She does so, an understanding building in her mind. “Now, give me a leg up.” Laura cups her hands for the Other Laura to step up onto. Balancing herself against the wall, Other Laura scrambles up onto her shoulders, leaning back against the stones to avoid toppling forward. Her head still does not quite reach the bottom of the elevated door.
“All that yoga paying off at last,” Third Laura comments.
“This is the complicated bit.” Other Laura reaches up and grabs hold of the protruding threshold of the door to steady her as Third Laura starts climbing the human tower. It is a difficult and wobbly process, and Laura on the bottom finds herself beginning to sway as the girl climbing up her tries to transfer her weight to the girl standing on her shoulders. Eventually, however, Third Laura succeeds in grabbing hold of the threshold and hauling her way up. Cautiously she takes hold of the door’s wooden beams, digging her fingernails in. Slowly, very slowly, she eases the door open. Then, in a burst of movement she launches herself upwards, managing to swing a leg over the threshold and plop herself onto the floor on the other side.
“I’m through!” she shouts in triumph.
Other Laura wastes no time in getting down from Laura’s shoulders and the two remaining Lauras straighten their identical clothes.
“How is it up there? That was brave climbing!” shouts Laura.
“It’s fine. Good straight corridor, some lighting. Anyway, I knew I could do it because I’ve already seen me do it twice. Time for me to get back before Carm starts worrying or LaF mounts a rescue plan more dangerous than the last - you know what they're like. Have fun, you two!” She leans out enough to pull the exit door closed behind her. Laura and Other Laura listen to her receding footsteps.
“That was… so weird,” comments Laura.
“But you understand now, right? In a little while, you’ll go through the time portal and come out into this room again. Only this time you’ll be me. And when you’ve been me you’ll go through the portal again and come out as the third Miss Hollis. Then you’ll climb up the tower of your past selves and get out. So we all do our stint – first at the bottom of the tower, then in the middle and then going through the door.”
“Won’t there be three of us running around when we get back?”
“Nope. It’s a closed system. Everything in this room happens only once, you just get to experience it three times from three different perspectives. Think of it like a knot in the middle of a piece of string – one strand goes in, one strand comes out – it’s just that there’s a lot of messy looping around in the middle.”
“Giving myself a leg-up,” Laura agrees.
“Self-reliance. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” They nod professionally at each other.
“So do I go through? Now?”
Other Laura looks at her watch. “Not yet. It’s a twenty-minute shift, remember? You need to go through the portal twenty minutes after I came in. And then I wait a few minutes more so that there’s enough time for you to explain things to your past self before I make my grand appearance as Laura Three. So we’ve got about ten minutes to kill before you have to go and be me.”
“Shall we start on the snack food? There’s chocolate with little bits of fudge in.”
A slow and dangerous smile appears at the corner of Other Laura’s mouth. “Nah, we’re going to make out.”
“We're going to ma- what now?”
“We're going to make out.” Other Laura positions herself neatly in front of Laura and taps her smartly on the shoulders with each hand. “What else?”
“You're very keen,” Laura says suspiciously. “Since when have I wanted to make out with myself?”
Other Laura raises her eyebrows. “Since when do you think? Since I found out good a kisser I was, obviously.” She looked very proud of herself.
“This is a foregone conclusion, isn't it?”
“Well, I gave in to curiosity pretty quickly.” She sidles closer in and her hands meet behind the nape of Laura's neck.
“Gee, I've got terrible game.”
“Yeah, but you fall for it every time, Hollis.”
Laura gives up. She makes a good point, and who's going to know? She leans forward. Shortly after coming to terms with admiration for her own lips, it occurs to her that the Library would know – but then this is probably not the worst thing people have done in the stacks and a sentient book nook probably doesn't have enough of a sexuality to count as a voyeur. So, whatever.
“So?” Other Laura asks when they break apart.
“You don't really taste of anything.”
“No, I noticed that. But I think we taste of each other, so...”
“Right, right. In the background. I hope you enjoyed grabbing my backside, by the way.”
“It's cute! Like we said when doing the pyramid thing, yoga's paying off.”
Laura checks her watch. “Do you think we have time for..?”
“Probably not. I mean I thought about it too, but we're on a schedule here. Your bra's staying on, cutie.” She sighs. “Right. Key.” She hands it over. “Check the time. Okay. And chin up, Miss Hollis. Things are a bit dark at the moment, but it’ll be all right.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. The Library’s going to help you. It’s on your side. I mean you adopted J.P., so it thinks you’re family now. It's kind of like a big dog.” She reaches over to pat the wall firmly but affectionately.
“Wait a minute.” Laura frowns. “How do you know that? I mean, you’re saying that because you heard it when you were me, right?” Other Laura nods. “So that means I’m going to tell it to… me… when I become you… and that’s how I learned to begin with?” The pronouns are starting to strain her mind. “So how did we learn it in the first place?”
Other Laura shrugs. “Don’t know. Like the key, I suppose. Maybe it’s the Library’s way of communicating - but doesn’t it feel better to be hearing it from someone you trust?” She looks at her watch. “Ooh, one minute to go. Ready with the key?”
Laura draws it out of her pocket, then stoops to pick her rucksack up.
“Ready?”
“I think so. I suppose I know it’s going to work because it already has, but somehow it doesn’t seem like that. I’m not sure I can remember all the things you said to me for one thing.”
Other Laura shrugs. “Don’t worry. Whatever you say will be the right thing because you’ve already said it. It’ll be easy, you’ll see!”
“Kiss before I go?” Other Laura smiles, and pecks her on the cheek.
“And I’ll give you another when I come through. Remember?”
Laura gives her a thumbs up and, tightening the straps of her rucksack, turns the key in the lock. She takes a deep breath, tries the handle, and slams the door open. As soon as she’s through she kicks it closed behind her to stop people seeing things they shouldn’t.
In the room before her is a girl of exactly the same height as her and with the same hair, eyes, clothes and smudge on her forehead.
“You’re-” begins the girl, her mouth dropping open.
“That’s right, cupcake,” says Laura with a flourish. “This is where it gets complicated.”