Page 66 of Under Story

Ingrid almost bumps into Laurel with the trolley.

“Sorry,” she says, deferentially, as though they haven’t met.

Laurel stumbles into the dorms. Her bedroom door is unlocked. Inside, she sees Nita’s Panipat blanket, but none of her own belongings. Sam’s fuelie uniform sits, folded, at the foot of Laurel’s former bed.

She darts into the lounge, which is vacant, and collapses on the couch. A therapist once suggested that she count in moments of panic, so Laurel tallies stitches in her shawl. At the border, though, she stops short. The bind-off at the edge is one she never learned.

The door to the lounge opens abruptly.

“Eli, thank God,” says Laurel when he appears in the frame. She tells him what happened after she lost him in the galley.

“Let’s go to my room,” Eli says.

They walk briskly, without speaking. In the stairwell, they pass a man Laurel has never seen before.

He raises a hand to greet her. “Hiya, Laurel.”

She waves back weakly. They exit on the second floor. The hallway here is empty, and Laurel practically runs: soon, they can barricade themselves and strategize. Eli stops at his door and takes a key out of the backpack.

“What if it doesn’t work?” she asks—but the lock turns easily, as if to assure them that they shouldn’t have worried.

The first thing Laurel notices is that the bed is abnormally wide: twice the size of a standard station twin. There are two bedside tables. Eli’s glasses and cell phone sit atop the first, along with the legal pads he likes. On the other is Laurel’s gold watch—the same one she donated to Skua.

“That’s my watch,” she says. “How did it get here?”

Eli sets his backpack on the floor. She wonders what he’s thinking with a wave of trepidation.

“Laurel,” he says at last, “I don’t think that watch is yours.”

“I’m positive,” she says. “Who else would it belong to?”

But when she picks it up, Laurel sees that the watch is no longer broken: the hour is accurate, and the second hand ticks merrily. She sets it down with a tremor.

“Another you,” Eli says.

Laurel looks at the Big Red she found in the PistenBully. She assumed that it was hers, too. She has a sense of pitching into nothingness, like leaning too far backward in a chair.

“And your backpack?” she asks.

Eli unzips the main pocket. Inside is a dual passport wallet, with a booklet on each side. The first one opens to a bearded and thumbnail-sized Eli.

“Another me,” he says.

Laurel laughs, a streak of bald hysteria that curdles into fear. “No.”

“That’s why your friends seemed to recognize us in the galley. They didn’t recognize us. They recognized them.”

It feels, to Laurel, like some cosmic joke. “Did you think this was a possibility?”

“Everything was a possibility,” Eli says. “And if this room is any indication, I think the other Laurel and Eli were together.”

A blanket hangs over the bed. He pulls it off. Two single beds have been pushed side by side.

“Breathe,” says Eli.

“Trying,” Laurel rasps. She asks the most urgent question first. “What if they come back?”

Her mind would break. But Eli shakes his head.