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Wide-eyed in the dusk, she turned to look at Nellie. “Y’know when they tortured me with the Black Box? I think that whole thing was really to scare
you
. Because they didn’t have to scare me, I was going to be dead soon anyway, right? They knew you would feel it because of our mind link, and they were trying to scare you
ahead of time so you’d kill me when they told you to. Just think, Nellie — for four years they worked on you, did awful
awful
things to you, and still you said no. You threw away the gun and just said no. I couldn’t have done that. You’re better than me, Nellie. Much better.”

“Not really,” Nellie faltered, ducking her twin’s gaze. “I killed other people, lots of them. And ... our mother.”

A silence fell between them, a deep ache, and then Nell took a long breath. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t do it now,” she said slowly. “I know you wouldn’t. And Mom ... well, that was because you thought she
wanted
to leave you in Detta. Detta probably told you that, don’t you think? Made you believe it?”

Nellie breathed quietly, hanging onto her twin’s words. She hadn’t considered the possibility that she’d been told her mother had wanted to desert her. Nell was right — someone from Detta had probably told her that. And someday she was going to remember exactly who that person was and what he’d said.

“Who d’you think the Goddess was?” she asked slowly. “Was Ivana real or did they make Her up too, like the Great War?”

“I dunno,” shrugged her twin. “Maybe Ivana was real and maybe she was just a story. But I do know one thing for sure — the
Goddess
is real. Maybe not a person like you and me, but She’s real and She’s everywhere.”

“The Goddess!” came a strangely muffled voice behind them, and Nellie turned to see Deller coming down the hall toward them, his outline a faint glimmer in the dusk. On his heels was Nell’s double, the girl in the gold dress.

“You’re not still going on about the ooly-gooly Goddess, are you?” demanded Deller, sitting down beside Nell. Curious, Nellie shot him a glance and saw his butt hovering a half inch above the floor. Sitting or standing, Deller never quite connected with anything that went on around him. A wave of guilt hit Nellie and she ducked her head, staring at her feet.

“Of course I am,” Nell flared up immediately. “I’ll talk about Her forever and ever and
ever,
you know that.”

“Course,” Deller said agreeably. “But what else do I have to bug you about? A dead guy’s gotta get some fun out of the afterlife.”

Nell slanted him a dubious scowl, then said huffily, “Actually, we were talking about the sarpas — how they’re probably all in this level now, doubling people who lost their souls.”

“And how you’re going to track them down and get rid of them,” the girl in the gold dress interjected quickly. “So this level and the others can finally unfix themselves.”

Stunned, Nellie glanced at Nell’s double to see her leaning casually against the wall, studying them. “Track them down?” she said faintly. “All of them?”

“Of course,” said the double. “Otherwise they’ll keep everything fixed, in this level and all the others, and keep doing what they did before — run things by doubling people, and build more heavens out of star souls. But there’s no point in telling the Jinnet about it. They wouldn’t believe you because they can’t see the sarpas. Only people with sarpa blood can do that. Like you.” She pointed to Nell. “And you,” she pointed to Nellie. “And Fen,” she finished crisply.

“And maybe Deller,” added Nell. “He can probably see them too, since he’s ... “ Sucking in her breath, she hesitated.

“Dead?” asked Deller, quirking an eyebrow.

“Weasely,” Nell said quickly, then shot him a grin.

“I sure saw that thing in the priest before Phillip blasted him,” said Deller. “Tall and bright, with a huge stuck-out chin and snake eyes.”

“Sarpa,” agreed Nell.

Deller nodded. “My dad was half sarpa, remember? So they can’t all be bad, can they?”

“Maybe there were some good ones,” Nell said thoughtfully. “And they all went to live in the Outbacks. Maybe that’s what the
story of the Goddess’s five other children is about — the descendants of the rebel sarpas.”

“Us,” said Nellie, her heart thundering slow and deep. “Snake eyes.”

“Yeah,” grinned Nell. “You and me and Fen.”

“And me!” protested Deller. “Just because I don’t have oolygooly eyes.”

“I was going to say you too,” Nell said huffily. “If you’d just—” With a decisive snort, the girl in the gold dress straightened.
The slower levels,
Nellie could hear her thinking.
Everyone’s always got to have their own opinion.

“Look,” she said, stepping forward, her gold dress shimmering in the moonlight. “I’m taking off. You’re both safe now, and there are things in the other skins I need to check on. But you both know what you need to do next — track down the sarpas and get rid of them.”

“But how?” asked Nell, staring at her.

“It’s your level,” shrugged her double. “You figure it out.” Then she grinned. “C’mon Nell, you can do it,” she said. “You did good in Detta and in heaven, real good — for a double, that is. My slowest double. And you too,” she added, turning to Nellie. “You did even better. You unfixed yourself.”

For a moment the three girls remained motionless, their eerie gray eyes fixed on each other. Then a dense humming started up, and the girl in the gold dress began to fade.

“Wait,” cried Nell. “You haven’t told me how—”

But her double was gone. Silence settled over the small group by the door like a groan, and they sat watching the twin moons above the tree line.

“Weasely,” muttered Nell. “I’ve been bugging and bugging her to tell me how she travels the levels without gates, but she won’t. She knows I’m stuck here until she does.”

“Maybe she wants you to figure it out on your own,” said Deller.

Nell grunted sulkily.

“I bet he’s right,” said Nellie. Suddenly she was breathing quickly, her heart wide open and thundering. “Think about it — we beat Detta, the maze, the dogs in the tunnel, heaven and the sarpas. And we showed the people in the cathedral who the Goddess really is. We’re
possibilities,
Nell.”

Her twin’s eyes widened, and then she reached out and took Nellie’s hand. “We’ll do it,” she said fervently. “I’ll figure out how to get to other levels without a gate. If one of my weasely doubles can do it, I should be able to.”

A ripple of energy lifted the hairs on Nellie’s forearm, and she glanced down to see the pale outline of Deller’s hand settle on top of her own.

“We’ll all do it,” he said in his oddly muffled voice, grinning at Nell. “Phillip and Fen, and me and you. And you,” he added, looking directly at Nellie.

Tears stung Nellie’s eyes, and she nodded quickly.

“And the Goddess,” Nell added firmly.

“Yeah,” said Deller. “We’ll let Her come along too.”

Award-winning books
by Beth Goobie
The Lottery
ALA
Best Book nominee
CLA YA
Book Award nominee
International Youth Library White Raven List
“...an ambitious, thought-provoking homage to
both Shirley Jackson and Robert Cormier.”
—Booklist
Before Wings
Canadian Library Association
Young Adult Book Award
Mr. Christie’s Silver Seal Award winner
Governor General’s Award finalist
for Children’s Literature
“
Beth Goobie just might be the best
YA
writer in the country.
She is, certainly, the most intense, most poetic.”
—Tim Wynne-Jones
Flux
Winner,
Saskatchewan Children’s Literature Award
“...Goobie is a writer of huge ability and skill,
and
Flux
is a very impressive amalgam of action,
imagination and passionate, evocative prose.”
—Kenneth Oppel,
Quill & Quire

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication Page

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Part Two

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two