Page 101 of The Same Backward as Forward

She grins. “You’ve been talking to Jackson.”

Not lately, I think, but that’s beside the point. Hannah the same Backward as Forward isbrutal.

I start the course again, climbing up on the mattress, then hopping down to board fifteen. It takes me three more moves—fourteen, three, and five—to realize what’s going on here.

“It’s not just a sequence.” I try for a scowl but fall short. “It’s a code.” A simple one. “Alphabetic cipher.Ais one,Bis two…” I don’t go any further than that before I cut to the chase. “Fifteen,” I say, referring to the first number in her sequence, “isO.”

The four moves I’ve already done spell out a word.O-N-C-E.I work my way through the rest of the course, number by number and letter by letter.

Twenty-one, sixteen, fourteen, fifteen.U-P-O-N.

One.A.

Twenty, nine, thirteen, five.TIME.

“Once upon a time…” I say.

Hannah takes three long strides to join me at number five. A crooked little smile crosses her lips, and she reaches up and wraps her arms around my neck. Her body sways, and so does mine.

We’re dancing.

And Hannah murmurs, “Once upon a time, there was you.”

Chapter 30

I?’m back in the stone room. I start at the center of the maze and try to work my way out, but every path is blocked. There is no way out.

“Unless…” I reverse my previous strategy. If there’s no way from the center of the maze outward, then there’s no way to get to the center of the maze from the openings at the edge. But maybe the star at the center of the mazeisn’tthe end point.

“Misdirection.” I trail my finger over the stone, beginning at one opening and trying to find my way to another. It doesn’t take me long to realize that there are multiple ways of doing so. The same is true when I try to connect the first opening to the third or the third to the second.

It takes me a bit longer to realize that there is one and only one point where three different paths overlap.Convergence.The word echoes through my mind as I bring my hand up to the wall, to the convergence point, and press.

The stone gives.A hidden button.Just like that, the entire wall begins to move. It swings slowly open, and the second that I am able to step through the opening, I do.

Sunshine hits my eyes. I blink and blink and blink, and then a garden comes into focus all around me, and in the garden, there is a woman.

“So,” she says brusquely, “you haven’t completely forgotten yourself.”

I know that voice. It’s the same voice that spoke to me when I was in the room.

My mother’s voice.

My eyes fly open. Some dreams drift away like smoke, but not this one. I can still hear my mother. I can still see her face. I can’tstopseeing it.

I have remembered something.Someone.

Hannah is asleep beside me, and I try to take comfort in that, but I cannot. I know that if she wakes up, I will tell her.

And if I tell her, I might remember something else, and I cannot shake the feeling that if I do, these eternities of ours will end. The real world will descend. And I don’t want it to.

I slip out of bed and make my way out of the shack. I expect it to be dark outside, but it’s not, and it doesn’t take me long to realize that I’m not alone. Jackson is leaning back against the shack, watching the sunrise. Beside him, also leaning up against the metal, is a shovel that has definitely seen better days.

I look at Jackson, and I look at the shovel, and I wonder what he’s thinking about digging up. “Don’t,” I tell him.

“Don’t what?”

I nod toward the shovel. “You know what.” The man buries his whiskey, just in case. I wonder if he’s truly gotten to the point that he’s considering using that shovel. I wonder if we’re the reason why, Hannah and me.