Swept Away Read online

  A Fawcett Columbine Book

  Published by Ballantine Books

  Copyright © 1988 by Parachute Press, Inc

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  ISBN: 0-449-90295-1

  Cover design by Dale Fiorillo

  Illustration by Rowena Morrill

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition: November 1988

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  BOOK ONE

  Swept Away

  JOSEPHA SHERMAN

  FAWCETT COLUMBINE GIRLS ONLY

  New York

  1

  Swept Away

  “I still don’t see how you can like that weird old Dr. Reit, Sheila.” Cookie Rogers, who was fourteen, plump, and an aspiring actress, gave a melodramatic shudder, hugging her schoolbooks to her. “He gives me the creeps.”

  Sheila sighed, shifting her backpack to a more comfortable position. Sheila was Cookie’s age, but they weren’t at all alike in anything else. Where Cookie was short and plump, with curly brown hair and big blue eyes, Sheila was tall and slim. But she was in great shape thanks to running and softball. Her face freckled in the sun no matter what she did, and her hazel eyes usually sparkled with warmth and good humor.

  But her eyes weren’t sparkling right now. She liked Cookie, she really did. They had a lot of fun together. But sometimes her friend could be such a pain! “Dr. Reit is not weird. Just because he’s a scientist—“

  “Sure! A mad scientist!”

  “He is not!” Sheila stamped her foot angrily. “Dr. Reit is a famous inventor. He also happens to be my friend.”

  “I thought I was your friend.”

  “You are!”

  “Well? You promised to come home with me after school so we could go over the math homework together, and instead you’re going off to that creepy old house to look at some creepy old books.”

  “I told you. I need them for my paper. The one on parallel worlds in science fiction and fantasy.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Parallel worlds? It’s a theory that there might be thousands of different dimensions, with a different Earth in each one. You could have a world where no one ever discovered America, or where magic works, or just about anything!”

  Cookie shrugged. “I don’t know how you can read that stuff. Spaceships and sorcerers and—and things . . . Ugh. I’d rather read a play any day. Or a love story.” She sighed romantically, pretending to swoon, and Sheila grinned.

  “Love stories are okay, but science fiction’s fun and exciting, too. Look, I’ve got to look through those books, but it won’t take me more than an hour or two. We’ll still have time to study. Okay?”

  “Well . . . okay.” Cookie grinned. “Give my regards to Dr. Reit.”

  Sheila looked up at Dr. Reit’s house. She supposed some people really might call it creepy. It was one of those old Victorian mansions—all funny angles and shapes, as if rooms had been added at whim. Every edge and comer was covered with that busy ornamental woodwork called gingerbread. Dr. Reit had inherited the house from his father. He had inherited a lot of money from his father, too, but most of it had gone into the laboratory attached to the house. It was a beautiful laboratory, with strange shining machinery and mysterious gadgetry. Sheila loved it when the scientist let her watch him at work, even if she didn’t always understand what he was trying to do. In fact, there were times when she wasn’t sure if even Dr. Reit knew what he was trying to do!

  Sheila rang the bell. As she waited at the door she wondered about what Cookie had said. Just why did she like the scientist? He was old enough to be her grandfather, and he didn’t know anything about popular music or anything like that. But he treated her like an adult. He let her ask all the questions she wanted and listened to her ideas. He liked to read science fiction, too. And he never made fun of her when she daydreamed about other worlds, worlds where she could be someone exciting, like a heroic adventurer out of one of Dr. Reit’s old fantasy magazines.

  Sheila pressed the bell again and laughed as the theme from Star Wars rang out. That was another thing she liked about the scientist: he had a great sense of humor.

  Dr. Reit’s voice, sounding metallic and faraway, said over the intercom, “Sheila? Is that you? Yes, yes, I see it is, the camera’s working properly. Wait a minute, now. I’ll get the door open. . . . There.”

  With a whir and a click, the door swung open.

  “Did it work?” Dr. Reit’s voice asked urgently. “It’s a new invention, a sort of remote-control door-opener.”

  Sheila giggled. “It worked fine, Hey, hi, Einstein!”

  Dr. Reit’s orange cat had come running to greet her, meowing happily as she bent to scratch him under the chin. Dr, Reit’s voice continued, “I’m in the laboratory, Sheila. Come on back. I want to show you what I’m working on now!”

  “Gee . . . I’m really sorry, but I can’t. I promised Cookie . .

  But Dr. Reit had already shut off the intercom. With a sigh, Sheila started down the hallway to the laboratory, Einstein padding along silently at her side.

  “Einstein! Watch it!”

  The purring cat had started to twine affectionately about her legs as she walked, nearly tripping her.

  “Einstein! Look, cat, I know you like me. I like you, too, but—Oh, all right.” She scooped him up into her arms. “Oof. You’re putting on weight, cat.”

  Einstein only purred.

  “Ah, there you are!” Dr. Reit’s tall, skinny figure appeared in the doorway to the lab, a grease-stained white lab coat not quite reaching far enough to cover all of his lanky height. His mop of white hair stuck up in wild tufts; Sheila knew the scientist had a habit of absently running his hands through it while thinking, even if his hands were covered with grease. “Come on, I’ve got something exciting to show you.”

  He caught Sheila by the hand. Einstein spilled to the ground with a startled yowl, giving Dr. Reit a reproachful look. “Sorry,” he said absently. “There, now, what do you think of that?”

  Sheila entered the laboratory cautiously, looking around. Nothing much seemed to have changed. Tools and bits of unfinished machinery were still lying all over the place. Plans scrawled in Dr. Reit’s wild handwriting and blueprints of mysterious devices covered every flat inch of desk and walls. She also noticed a calendar—a year out of date—showing photos of galaxies, a worn-out poster from The Day the Earth Stood Still, a misplaced bag of kitty litter, and a sketch she had once drawn of Einstein as a kitten.

  “I don’t see anything different…” Sheila began hesitantly, reaching down to pet Einstein, who had forgiven her for dropping him and was weaving about her ankles.

  “No, look over here. What do you think of this?”

  In an alcove stood what looked like the framework for a doorway, a rectangle of shining metal, taller than it was wide, Sheila blinked, “I don’t—“

  “Doesn’t look like much, does it? Aha, but watch this!”

  Dr. Reit darted to a console near the “doorway.” As he pressed buttons and moved gears, a low hum filled the air and grew more and more shrill. The vibration of it quivered through Sheila till she winced. “The doorway!” cried Dr. Reit. “Watch the doorway—there!”

  Sheila gasped. What had been empty space a moment before was now a mass of swirling blue, as though the opening had become a window onto a stormy sky. “What is it?”

  Dr. Reit grinned. “That, my dear, is the prototype for my grandest invention” my Molecular Acceleration Transport Device. I intended it to be a teleportation devi
ce. You know, put a package into one station in New York press a button, and—zip!—it appears in San Francisco the next moment.”

  “That—that’s fantastic! Does it work?”

  “Ah. Well. Not exactly the way I intended. You see Sheila, I may have stumbled across something very fantastic, indeed.” The scientist absently ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “Remember that paper on science fiction you were writing for school? It may no longer be mere fiction.” His voice trembled with excitement. “I think you may be looking at a gateway into another level of time and space.” As Sheila stared at him, he added gleefully, “In short, I have every reason to believe you’re looking at a portal that can take you right into another dimension!”

  Sheila gasped. “I can’t believe . . .”

  “I didn’t, either, at first. Go take a look for yourself. If the blue clouds are just some sort of bizarre electrical discharge, you should be able to see through them to the wall beyond. But you can’t! Go ahead, take a look. But be careful!”

  Heart pounding, Sheila took a wary step forward. Could it be true? Could that simple doorway really lead to the magical worlds of which she had dreamed? Chewing nervously on her lower lip, she peered into the mysterious blue swirling, looking for the wall that must be there, just a few inches behind the doorway. But all she saw were swirling clouds that seemed to go on for miles.

  “Be careful!” warned Dr. Reit again. “Don’t get too close. Remember that we don’t know what’s on the other side!”

  Maybe there wasn’t anything on the other side! Sheila shuddered. What if there were only clouds? If you fell through there, you just might go on falling and falling forever....

  She hastily turned away, saying, “Maybe you’d better shut it down until—Einstein!”

  The cat, unnoticed, had twined himself between her feet. Sheila stumbled over him and fell—right toward the doorway!

  “Sheila! No!”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dr. Reit’s panic stricken face as he leaped forward. For an instant his hand closed about her wrist. But before he could pull her to safety, an unearthly wind seized her. Sheila screamed as she was dragged away from Dr. Reit—

  Then she was tumbling helplessly down and down into a dizzying world of stormy blue.

  2

  Arrival

  Something was tickling her nose. Sheila groaned in sleepy protest. “Einstein? That you?” she muttered. “Cut it out, cat.”

  The tickling continued.

  “Einstein! Stop!”

  Sheila sniffed, then gave a mighty sneeze. Her eyes popped open. Jolted awake, she stared blankly, realizing all at once that she was lying full length on something hard and bumpy, her head cushioned by her arm. It hadn’t been Einstein tickling her nose at all, but what…

  Sheila blinked in bewilderment. This wasn’t the laboratory, was it? She was lying on what seemed to be a shaggy, mangy, dusty green carpet, a twist of which had been rubbing against her nose. Carpet? It didn’t smell like carpet. In fact, the air smelled funny, too, full of a sweet dry, deserty sort of scent. The lab had certainly never smelled like this!

  Sheila closed her eyes again, trying to clear her dazed mind. This is really weird, she thought groggily. Wouldn’t Dr. Reit have moved her to a bed if she had fainted? She had fainted, hadn’t she? It wasn’t easy to remember what had happened. The last thing she could recall was tripping over Einstein and falling. . .

  Yes! Falling for what had seemed forever through all those weird blue clouds!

  “Where—where am I?”

  Sheila sat up sharply, then winced as her head throbbed. After a moment things settled down again, and she glanced warily down, half afraid she would find parts of herself missing. But to her relief, everything seemed to be in place. No missing pieces. And she was still wearing her shirt, jeans, and sneakers; she even had her backpack.

  But she wasn’t sitting on a carpet. She was sitting on thin, spiky blades of grass scattered over bare, sandy earth.

  “This is impossible.” Sheila struggled to keep her voice steady. “This is absolutely impossible.”

  Carefully she got to her feet and looked around.

  Nothing. No lab, no house, nothing but mile after mile of rolling, empty grassland reaching to the horizon in all directions under a wide, clear blue sky. There wasn’t a sound, except for the hissing of a dusty wind and the faint, thin cry of what she guessed must be some kind of hawk.

  “I’m dreaming, that’s what it is, I must have hit my head on something, and I’m having a weird dream.”

  But she ached from lying on the rough ground. And she was growing thirsty under the intense sun. Sheila wondered uneasily if you could feel any discomfort in a dream.

  “If this is a dream, it’s an awfully real one. And I don’t know how to wake up and get out of it, either.”

  What if it wasn’t a dream? That could mean only one thing: the doorway, the Molecular Acceleration something-or-other, had really worked. It had thrown her right out of her own world and into . . . wherever.

  Sheila swallowed dryly. “All—all right,” she said. “If it’s a dream, I’m bound to wake up after a while. And if it’s not a dream, I’ll just wait here till Dr. Reit brings me back again.”

  Could he bring her back? After all, he had hinted that his invention was still in the experimental stage. Maybe when she had fallen through the blue clouds, she had somehow broken the whole machine Maybe she was trapped here! Sheila blinked, fighting back her tears. She wasn’t going to start bawling like a baby! And she wouldn’t let herself be scared! Not yet, anyhow.

  Time passed. The hot sun moved slowly across the sky till it was almost directly overhead. Nothing else happened, nothing at all. At last Sheila sighed and stood up.

  “If Dr. Reit could have gotten me back, he would have already done it. Whatever this is, dream or reality, I guess I’m not going to get out of it by just standing around.”

  Which way should she go? She spun around, trying to find something to give her a clue, but the grassland still looked the same on all sides. The sun beat down on her head so strongly that Sheila wished she had a sun hat.

  “Wait a minute! Somewhere in my backpack there should be . . yes, here it is. I knew I’d put a scarf in here.”

  It wasn’t as good as a hat, but it was better than nothing. Sheila looked around again. Nothing had changed, not even the dusty moan of the wind. She shrugged. Shouldering her pack once more, she randomly picked a direction and started on her way.

  By the time the sun had moved three quarters of the way across the sky, Sheila was too hot and tired and thirsty to care about any more hiking. For all she knew, this empty grassland went on forever, all the way around whatever world she was on. She had a quick, scary mental image of herself trudging on and on till she collapsed from exhaustion. Maybe she would die here, and her bones would lie bleaching on this plain forever. . .

  “No, wait! I think I see something on the horizon!”

  If only there was a tree she could climb to get a better view! But there wasn’t so much as a bush, so Sheila tried jumping up as high as she could. “There—it’s smoke—I’m sure of it.” Panting, she stopped jumping to catch her breath. “Maybe the smoke is coming from a campfire! That means there are people on this world after all! I’m not alone!”

  She started to run. But suddenly a shadow passed swiftly overhead, and Sheila staggered to a stop, staring up. What was that?

  It looked something like the golden eagle she had seen on a trip out West. No eagle she had ever seen was that huge! It was as big as a man, and its wings looked as wide as those of a small airplane. Bright, fierce eyes studied her for a moment, and Sheila wondered nervously what she was going to do if the eagle decided it wanted her for its next meal. But then, with a sharp cry that sounded almost like a mocking laugh, the eagle flew away, spiraling up to rejoin a whole flock of its kind.

  “But eagles don’t fly in flocks!” Then Sheila caught herself. “Well, m
aybe they do in this world.”

  The eagles were swiftly soaring off in the direction of the campfire. Shading her eyes with her hand, Sheila stared after them, then started forward again. She hadn’t gone far when a sudden cloud of dust erupted on the horizon.

  Sheila’s eyes widened in alarm. “That’s not a cloud! Those are horsemen—and they’re galloping right toward me!”

  For a hopeful moment she thought they were coming to rescue her. But those shrill, savage yells didn’t sound like the yells of friendly rescuers! And now she could see that the riders were brandishing swords and spears!

  Frantically Sheila looked for a place to hide. But there wasn’t any! And she certainly wasn’t going to be able to outrun galloping horses!

  As the riders bore down on her, Sheila froze, staring in wonder. Those five fierce riders weren’t men, but women—warrior-women dressed in a rainbow of bright silks and leather and pieces of armor glinting brightly in the sunlight, like something out of a fantasy story. And those weren’t horses they were riding—

  They were unicorns!

  3

  Captured

  Before Sheila could catch her breath, the warrior-women on their swift unicorns had surrounded her in a blur of color and noise. Choking on the dust the prancing hoofs raised, Sheila spun around and around, seeing fierce faces glaring at her on every side, trying to ward off the warriors’ weapons, terrified that she was going to trip and be trampled.

  A hand grabbed her arm, clamping down with painful force.

  “Hey! Let go!”

  Sheila, struggling wildly, glared up at her captor, a woman with wild red hair, a broad-featured face, and a solid body that reminded her of the gym teacher she had had in sixth grade. I never did like that teacher! thought Sheila. She punched at the hand holding her as hard as she could. The woman grunted, but didn’t release her. As the other warriors laughed sharply, Sheila was pulled off her feet and thrown across the saddle of the red-haired warrior’s palomino unicorn. One warrior, a beautiful young black woman whose armor glinted with gold, called out something in a melodious language. The others shouted in agreement. With that, the unicorns eagerly leaped forward.