Leesha shut her eyes against the white light. It was too bright... she'd never been able to handle bright light. Her eyes were sensitive... her brother's were, too. So were her father's, and so were her son Jamal's.
Jamal... Leesha winced as she remembered seeing Jamal flying off the merry-go-round and hitting the ground. Leesha worried about him playing on the playground... she tended to worry about Jamal a lot, because he was kind of a rowdy boy. Seeing her baby fall from the merry-go-round, seeing him hit his head, seeing him unconscious on the ground... Leesha's heart had nearly stopped. She'd cried out and run to Jamal... but before she could even get a good look at him, there'd been that terrible white light.
Opening her eyes again, Leesha was surprised to see not the park, but a neat office with a large window overlooking the city. She was stitting in a comfortable swivel shair behind an oak desk, and looking at her clothes, Leesha saw that she was wearing what looked like a man's suit. There was a voice in her ear, chattering in a language she didn't understand; pulling her hand away from her ear, Leesha saw that she was holding a phone.
Where on earth was she? And how had she gotten here?
"I'm sorry," Leesha said, returning the phone to her ear. "I don't speak Spanish."
There was silence on the other end. Then the man who had been speaking said, in heavily-accented English, "Is this still Mr. Martin?"
Leesha wasn't sure what to say to that... but she didn't really care, either. Slamming the phone down, she stood and ran to the door of the office. She didn't know where she was or why she was here... all she knew was that she had to get back to her son. Now.
"I'm sorry," William Martin said--in English, rather than the Japanese he'd been speaking earlier--"I don't speak Spanish."
Haruto was silent for a moment, suddenly confused. "Is this still Mr. Martin?" he asked in English.
Nothing. The man on the other end didn't say another word. Haruto frowned. Had the line gotten crossed? He and William Martin had been in the middle of a very important--and expensive--business call. As the primary liaison with the New York branch of Kinoshita Motors, Haruto had shared many such business calls with Mr. Martin. It wasn't a pleasant duty; the time difference between Tokyo and New York City meant that Haruto had to stay awake well past his bedtime to place the call. It was a minor annoyance in a job Haruto otherwise loved, though, so he put up with it without complaint. This, however, had never happened during a business call before... he'd never suddenly had someone else appear on the line. But, of course, cell phones weren't perfect, especially when they were used to make calls between Japan and America. Haruto would just have to call back. He slid his thumb over to the disconnect button...
...but suddenly there was a bright flash of light. When it faded, Haruto was somewhere else entirely.
The room was dark. Very dark. Haruto could feel that he was lying in bed, and there was a blanket over him. Had he been asleep? Dreaming? He reached over for his bedside lamp... but it wasn't where he expected it to be. Fumbling around a bit, he finally found the lamp switch and turned it on... and saw that he wasn't in his bedroom after all. He was in someone else's bedroom. His teenage daughter's room, in fact. Why was he in Aiko's room?
Haruto threw the blanket off of him and stood... and as his feet hit the floor, he saw that he wasn't just in Aiko's room; he was also wearing her nightgown. The feminine nightgown looked strange on his masculine body. What was going on? Why was he here? Why was he dressed like his daughter? He frowned and headed for the door... but before he reached it, he saw something even stranger than everything else he'd seen.
Catching sight of Aiko's mirror, Haruto saw Aiko's reflection, dressed in a nightgown like the one he was wearing. He turned his head, expecting to see Aiko standing behind him... but she wasn't there. So Haruto crept toward the mirror... and he saw Aiko's reflecting walking toward him at the same pace. When he was standing directly in front of the mirror, Haruto lifted his hand to the glass and watched as Aiko's reflection did the same. "Aiko?" he asked, and saw Aiko mouth the same words.
What had happened to him?
