SAM

  “Cora?” I mumbled drowsily against my girlfriend’s neck. “Will it all amount to anything? Will the world ever change?”

  Sleep weighed on my mind, but my heart was heavy with the secrets we’d unearthed at Ree’s house.

  “Babies grow up,” she murmured into my hair. “I’m only twenty-four years old, but I’m nothing like I was a few years ago. Change seems like a constant.” She shifted, settling me against her as I nuzzled her skin.

  “But Sam, most people I’ve known don’t like change. I dunno why, but I’m strange that way. I like going new places and trying new things. Shake the world, and I’m happier, but not everybody’s like me . . .”

  Her voice faded along with consciousness. We slept.

  Orange. Green. Red and blue. Colors swirled all around me, then formed a funnel cloud, twirling ever higher. It pulled me in, a river of color flowing all around me, dazzling, shining, and spinning up. Always up.

  I jerked awake, grabbed my notebook, and slipped quietly out of bed so I wouldn’t wake Cora. Once I’d gotten the fireplace lit, I settled in the cuddle corner, writing my dream.

  I didn’t stop there.

  Those swirling colors reminded me of the map of Earth, so I flipped open Plebrum History, going straight to the maps.

  Colors.

  Star charts.

  China had been bright red pre-2337, when it was independent. I looked at the star charts of Andromeda. Bingo. Bright red spheres in the system next door to Plebrum.

  I flipped back and forth from map to map, studying the colors, and it lined up. Africa. Russia. Sorchen Duvald depicted the migration of Earthens to Andromeda by color-coding maps that looked like a kid’s book.

  I smiled. Clever.

  I wasn’t sure how it helped us, but it was a clue showing us what the Ministry didn’t want us to know: Earth wasn’t the world it had been pre-2337. And in the 500 years since, the map boundaries had not changed an inch.

  My eyelids drooped, so I picked up my notebook and wrote everything I’d learned. Ree and Jax. The maps. By the time I finished, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

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  I flicked off my hover lamp and rested against the sofa pillows, falling asleep to the sound of the crackling fire.

  The kitchen at Nanna’s was cheery with morning sunlight, tea kettle whistling on the stove. I reached for it and saw my right hand. My hand! The clue! I stared at my hand, remembering.

  This is a dream.

  I looked up and saw Cora’s shocked face in front of me.

  I rolled over, stunned. I did it! I remembered to look at my hand and recognize the dream! Finally!

  I grabbed my journal, but before I could write anything, Cora’s voice came down the hall.

  “Sam?”

  “In here.”

  She padded towards me, wrapping her robe tight, holding out her notebook. “I did it Sam!”

  “Me too!” I squealed. “I saw you in the kitchen!”

  “I saw you! Wait—were you in my Nashville condo?”

  “No, Nanna’s. Then the tea kettle whistled—“

  She cut me off. “It was a train whistle when I was getting water at the kitchen sink! Then I saw my hand and remembered it was a dream, and I looked up. You were standing there, surprised!”

  “No way! No way, Cora! We’re doing it!”

  “Yeeee!” she cried gleefully, and we opened our dream journals and wrote it all down.

  It wasn’t yet morning, so I put more logs on the fire so we could snuggle on my new fave couch. It didn’t take long for both of us to drift off to sleep again.

  A familiar smell wafted through Nanna’s kitchen: breakfast casserole. Sausage, cheese, grits. I headed for the coffee pot—

  “Ungh, I’m starved,” Cora’s voice jolted me out of the dream, and my stomach growled.

  “Me too. I was dreaming of Nanna’s sausage casserole. Wanna get breakfast delivered?” I asked, and Cora put in the order.

  She started on Moons Dancing at the kitchen table, and I settled into the easy rhythm of typing my new book Time Sleuths. Hours passed in companionable silence before Cora interrupted me.

  “Alright Sam, I gotta get up and move around. Maybe you can spend the entire day at your keyboard, but—“

  “You wanna go for a walk, Cor? We could get out and see Nineton during the day,” I joked.

  I’d nearly forgotten we were on a new world! Writing our story was so fun, I’d gotten lost in my memories of meeting Cora for the first time.

  “Actually, I found a place I wanna check out. It’s a fifteen-block trek into the burgh. Wanna give it a go?” she asked.

  Sounded great to me. We headed to a cafe perfect for work-from-home types wanting a place that was quiet but amongst people.

  “I can’t believe this is considered summer!” Cora said as we walked the sidewalks of Nineton, passing the white buildings and tall pine trees.

  Yeah, 75 degrees in the afternoon sun wasn’t exactly hot, but that was high summer here. Even colder than what I was used to in Wyoming.

  “Will you miss the heat, Cora? Maybe we could go to Shurwinn sometimes?” I suggested doubtfully.

  Cora stopped on the sidewalk, shaking her head, eyebrows furrowed. “No, Sam, I don’t think that’s in the cards.”

  She took my arm and walked on. “Buuuut I’ve been researching the other four spheres here, and Yellir is closest to the sun. They designed it intentionally so people from the colder spheres could get their warm-weather fix. It’s still nowhere near as hot as Miami, but it can get close to ninety degrees. How about we vacation there after we finish writing our books?”

  Vacation? I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but staying the in the Five Spheres system sounded like the safest idea. “How about Christmas time? That’ll give us a couple months here to write, and it’ll be winter then. We could take a break and visit Yellir’s resorts? Will it be warm then?”

  She nodded, “There’s resorts all over the sphere, so no matter what time of year it is, there’s always part of Yellir closest to the sun where it’s not snowy.”

  I smiled, “Then book it, love. Let’s have our first Christmas together on Yellir.”

  Cora nodded and kissed my cheek as we stepped into Chopping Block, my new favorite home away from home.