“Madame, you cannot be serious about zese door things,” Simone said, trying not to laugh at what Madeleine had just told her and Jon about the doors and how people could travel through them.
“So just because Karyn and Simone bumped into each other and one of these weak points, whatever is behind this got confused about where they belonged, is that what you are saying?” Jon asked Madeleine.
“Partly. Whatever is controlling zese things, it does not like things to be in ze wrong place. So when your young lady fell into ze dressing room, and Simone fell into ze corridor, it thought zat everything was where it should be,” Madeleine replied.
“Zat makes no sense at all,” Simone said.
“That it might be, but it is true,” the older woman replied calmly.
“Simone! If she is making this up, explain the clothes you are wearing. Besides, I told you that I came through one of these doors with Karyn,” Jon said to the younger of the two French women in front of him.
Simone said nothing; she simply looked down at the clothes she was wearing. Only minutes earlier she had been dressed in one of her stage costumes, before the blonde girl had seemingly appeared from nowhere and walked straight into her. Now she was wearing this instead, she thought as she tugged lightly at the green sweater.
“We can reverse this, right?” Jon asked Madeleine.
The older woman turned toward him. “I am not sure. We might be able to repeat everything, but have Simone bump into your friend. Zat would fix things, I think,” Madeleine said, lowering the final words so quietly that no one else heard them.
“That’s great, so when do we do it?” Jon asked.
“I think we must wait until everything stops again. Zat way, everything will be as it was when it happened before,” Madeleine explained.
“So we wait for everything to freeze? I thought it was a little cold tonight,” Simone said with a wide smile spreading across her face.
“Simone!” Jon snapped, glaring at her.
Simone said nothing in reply, merely sitting there grinning to herself.
Madeleine sat silently looking at the two of them in front of her. She wished she had told them the rest — that the longer Karyn was treated as belonging there, the harder it would become to separate her from that place and return her fully to her own life. At least, that was what she herself had once been told.
She had never seen something like this happen before, and for perhaps the first time in many years, Madeleine truly wished her old teacher were still here beside her. It had been that woman who taught her how to see the doors and the strange effects they left behind. But she was gone now, and Madeleine could do nothing except rely upon what she remembered, make the best decisions she could, and hope desperately that they were the right ones.
