Subj: Charade: Chapter 20
Date: 1/2/02 1:24:02 AM Central Standard Time
From: Nicole

December 10, 2008, Collinwood, 1:15 AM-Normal Time

Gwynneth listened as the girl, Gwynneth Marie Blake, rattled off the facts of her life. To say the least, Gwynneth found her parallel clone to be boring. No matter which side of the Parallel divide you happened to be on, it seemed obvious that you had to have a little Collins blood in you to have any fun in this town. This girl had been robbed. That's not to say that Gwynneth expected her counterpart to be deranged, but she figured that the girl would at least have had a few stories to tell about life. This family was so normal! Julia had told Gwynneth about her ventures into Parallel Time. Did all the excitement dry up after 1970? "Shh," she whispered. "Stop talking for a minute and give me your hand."

"Why?" asked Gwynneth Marie suspiciously, pulling both of her hands into her lap and refusing to move them. "I don't see what that'll give you."

"I can see inside your head. I can see where you've been just by touching you. My telepathy and psychometry blend together." Gwynneth held out her hand and said, "It doesn't hurt . . . at least I don't think it does."

Gwynneth Marie stared down at her hands, her brows furrowed tightly as she contemplated what her double had asked of her. Hesitantly, she withdrew her right hand from her lap and gave it to Gwynneth. She nodded as she accepted the hand, cupping it into both of hers and pulling it to her chest. Gwynneth closed her eyes and concentrated on the girl before her. Slowly, the images began to fill her mind, expanding so much that it was soon all Gwynneth could see. She could see the smooth banister as a hand loosely gripped it. She immediately knew that this Gwynneth Marie had been in the foyer. The Collinwood of Parallel Time smelled damp, heavy. It was much too strong for her to stand! What were these people living in?

Gwynneth would have let go of the hand had she not began to see images of the girl moving toward the door. She too could see the light peaking out from beneath the doors. Closed doors, like the drawers of your parents' dresser, always held some secret that was either too good to be true or too horrible to ever mention to another soul. Gwynneth gladly followed the girl's residual memories left on her hands as they opened the drawing room doors. The sight of the man sitting at the fire made her squeal with delight. "Dad!"

"Huh?" asked Gwynneth Maire.

"Dad . . . no, wait a sec. He's not dad in your world. Um . . . Quentin! You saw Quentin."

"No, I didn't." Gwynneth Marie pulled her hand out of Gwynneth's and drew it back into her lap. "I don't know who you're talking about," said the girl as she shook her head. "There's no Quentin . . . at least not one that is alive. Mom said that Quentin died years ago."

Gwynneth stared at the girl in front of her. The girl was serious. Gwynneth tried to pry into her mind to find any sign or deception but she found nothing but the girl's strongly held sense of truth. She still refused to believe it. The man who looked so much like her father had sat in the Parallel Drawing Room. The girl had seen him with her own eyes and she refused to believe that he existed. "But I saw him in your thoughts," mumbled Gwynneth. "You're lying to me."

"No, I'm not!" Gwynneth Marie drew further into her corner. She looked as if she were afraid to take her eyes off of her counterpart, scared that the girl would go crazy on her if she let her out of her sight. "Just because something happens on one side doesn't mean it happens in the other. You just saw weird stuff. It's not your dad."

"I know it's not my dad. Jeeze! I'm not stupid. I'm just saying that I saw my dad's counterpart," explained Gwynneth angrily. With slit eyes, she glanced back to her counterpart and said, "How do you know he's not Quentin?"

"Well, I don't . . . but that doesn't mean that he is."

"Why haven't you ever asked him who he is?"

"He doesn't talk," explained Gwynneth Marie. "He doesn't really inform me of anything. He tries to mime to me what not to do and I end up doing it anyway."

"I take it that you don't listen."

"Do you really have the right to criticize?"

"I wasn't criticizing you?" Gwynneth inched closer to Gwynneth Marie and whispered, "I think that he would talk to me."

Gwynneth Marie gawked a moment before breaking into quiet but haughty laughter. "Talk to you? Uh-huh . . . right. How are you even going to get to him?"

"I'm going into the room"

"Hold up! I have to go home sometime. Am I supposed to take you inside and show you the man?"

"No," protested Gwynneth. "If you go with me, he'll not say a word."

Gwynneth Marie shook her head, her eyes failing to leave her counterpart. "Why do you care?" she asked. "Does it really matter if that man is or isn't the man you think he is?"

Gwynneth sat back to contemplate the question. Did it really matter who this man was? Probably not. But she was so curious! If he wasn't who she thought he was, then who was he? Why didn't he talk to this girl? Gwynneth doubted if she would be able to coax a few syllables from the man, but she was willing to give it a shot. Besides, she would go into the room, do the switch, meet the man, and run back into her time band with enough time to meet the morning sun. How hard could it be? She turned back to Gwynneth Marie and asked, "Don't you have a sense of adventure? Don't you like to explore?"

"Of course I like to explore, but I think this switch is too dangerous. You could easily be caught. Anyone who met you in my time would realize that you aren't me."

"Oh, then I'll just act like a quite little twit. They'll never know the difference," snapped Gwynneth.

"Okay, so should I act like a cavalier princess to make it in your world?"

Gwynneth ignored the last comment. "Well, I don't care what you do, but I'm going to have a minor adventure and then come back here. You can stay here, or you can go to the west wing, that's where I sleep."

"I'll go the west wing. I wanna go to sleep."

"Good idea. When I get back, I'll get you and walk you back here so that you don't get caught going back to you're own world."

Gwynneth Marie nodded. "Um . . . if I'm supposed to be sleeping over in this world, is there anything I need to keep in mind about the people who live here?"

"There's oodles of stuff to keep in mind," said Gwynneth, "but none of it'll affect you. Except . . . don't let Will touch you. Will has the same power that I have and he would instantly know that you're not me. If you don't want to be found out, don't touch him and don't let him get near you. Understood?"

"I guess so." She paused a moment before asking, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I don't see what why not. I mean . . . "

"Yeah, I know," sighed Gwynneth Marie, "‘What could go wrong?'"

"Everything," answered Gwynneth nonchalantly. "What I was going to say was that nothing is going to go wrong that the adults can't fix. We're going to be cool."

"If you say so."

"I do." Gwynneth rose to her feet and made her way to the room. Before she walked inside, she noticed her plush Tigger toy laying on the threshold. Carefully, she picked up her abandoned toy and handed it to Gwynneth Marie. "Take good care of this," she warned. "This is my favorite thing in the whole world. Keep it close to you. Everybody knows that I keep this with me at night. If you don't have it, they'll know something's up."

"Whatever." Gwynneth Marie clutched the stuffed animal tightly and turned away. With a shy glance over her shoulder, she whispered, "Just hurry up."

"You're really itchy to get back aren't you?" The girl nodded. "Jeeze! If you had been so attached to your own space in the universe, you shouldn't have come here."

"But I did . . . and I'm counting on you to be careful. Go on! Have your fun. What does it matter? It's not like life in my world is any better than yours."

Gwynneth began to ask her what she meant, but the girl had already turned away, hurrying down the hall toward the door. What had gone on in her world? Gwynneth Marie had seemed distant, lonely. She obviously came from a place that was unsuitable for children. Gwynneth wasn't planning on staying long enough to be instructed in the ways of the world, though. For that, she willingly relied on her eccentric parents. They wouldn't be pleased to know that she was going to search a Parallel Dimension for a man she didn't know. Then again, what her parents didn't know wouldn't hurt them, would it?

Gwynneth walked through the doors into the room. She glanced around the desecrated chamber for the best place to stand. She decided on the tried and true position of the middle of the room. It probably didn't matter where she stood; the room would change just the same. But how long would the change take? Would it hurt? Gwynneth decided not to think about it. She took a seat on the floor and shut her eyes. If the Parallel world was truly fascinating, Gwynneth wanted to be surprised.

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