It was a peaceful morning. The sunlight streamed through the red leaves of the canopy overhead. Bree kept Antares going at a moderate trot, not too slow, but comfortable enough that she and Evelyn wouldn’t fall off if they accidentally hit a tree branch again. They chatted along the way. It made Evelyn realize how much she had shut Bree off, before. Eve learned more about her sister in those few hours of riding a horse than she had in two whole months of living together.

One of Eve’s biggest surprises was discovering that Bree wanted to pursue a future career in astrophysics.

“Seriously?” Evelyn asked, stunned.

Bree nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“I don’t know,” said the other. “I thought you would be more the type to go for arts, or humanities.”

Bree smirked. “You know? For a queer anarchist, Eve, you’re actually pretty judgmental.”

Evelyn felt ashamed at herself again. “Sorry,” said the girl. “Um... I...” she cleared her throat, “I think it’s cool, you know, the astrophysics thing... I mean, honestly, I don’t know the first thing about it, but it sounds cool.” Bree laughed cheerily. It made her sister fell more at ease. “Say, do you think there’s a physics explanation for witchcraft?”

The question amused her. “I don’t know, actually,” said Bree. “But... who knows? Maybe I’ll find something out, someday. How many astrophysicists can say the have traveled to a different dimension with their sister?”

Evelyn’s eyebrows went up at that revelation. “So it is a different dimension!”

“Technically, it’s called a split world,” Bree explained. “I read about them in my grandmother’s book, before, but I had my doubts on whether they were real. I guess I have to believe, since we are in one, right now.”

“By your ‘grandmother’s book’, you mean the one you were reading the other night? The spell book?”

Bree nodded. “Ayup. My grandma was a witch, you see. She was the one who taught me everything I know.”

“Are there more worlds like this one?” Evelyn asked.

“There are,” said Bree. “Granny’s book says there’s at least thirteen split worlds, but those are just the ones we know about. You probably realized this, already, but there’s a lot of similarities between these worlds, and also a lot of differences. Like how the geography is mostly the same, but the countries and their politics are not. And how Cat speaks English like us, but with a different accent, and some different words. In music, you would say these worlds are like variations on a theme.”

“Variations...” Eve muttered, broodingly. Then she realized another unexpected thing. “Wait, you know music theory?”

Bree smiled. “I do,” said the girl. “I studied classical piano for three years, when I was younger.”

Eve laughed. “You keep surprising me.”

“And I have no intention of stopping,” Bree retorted. “Trust me, Eve, you still don’t know anything about me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Evelyn told her, grinning.

—

The duo found Cat waiting for them by the river, as planned. She was sitting with her back against a tree while Sirius grazed nearby. The brunette smiled when she saw them.

“Thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “You two took your time! I was starting to worry that the pigs might have gotten you.”

Eve dismounted Antares, and stared walking toward her. “Pigs?”

“Yeah, the castle guard,” Cat explained. “Isn’t that what you called them, before? Something about pigs and my scent?”

Bree dismounted as well, then grinned at her sister. “Well, congratulations, Eve. Thanks to you, now there’s two worlds where people refer to law enforcement officers as pigs.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “All worlds should refer to law enforcement officers as pigs,” she argued. Bree dismissed her with a wave, laughing.

They spent most of the day journeying through valleys and open fields, surviving on whatever supplies they had managed to gather from the castle and the town market before their little heist at the stables. By the time the sun was starting to approach the horizon, Cat made them stop on a grassy hillside near a stream. The three girls set about making camp. Bree started walking from place to place, drawing symbols on the ground.

“Mind if I ask?” said Eve, stopping by her side.

Bree looked up from her drawings. “Oh, hey, Eve. These are some runes grandma taught me. These ones help ward off wolves and snakes,” she pointed at one of the symbols, then another, “and the ones on the other side are called ‘look-aways’, they’re supposed to work so that any strangers who pass by this place conveniently fail to notice us here.” She sounded a little smug, when saying it. “It’s my first time using them for real, though, so I don’t know how good they’ll be.”

“I’m sure they’ll help,” said Eve, as encouragement. “Well... I’ll go see if Cat needs me for anything, okay?”

Bree nodded, and went back to work. Eve walked up to Catherine, who was in the process of picketing Sirius and Antares to nearby trees for the night.

“Cat?”

Catherine looked at her friend, smiling. “Oh, hey, Evelyn. Everything good?”

“Sure,” said Eve. “Do you... need help with the horses?”

“Nah, I’m finished already,” Cat retorted. “But if you’re not busy, I could use help gathering wood for the campfire.”

“I’ll help,” said Eve, and that caused Cat to smile again. Cat had a cute smile.

Cat untied Antares from the picket line, and the two of them rode together down the path to a nearby grove.

“I’m happy you’re here,” said Cat. Eve was a little surprised at that, and gave the other an inquiring look. “Really!” Cat insisted. “I was going to do all of this on my own, before. The whole journey to Sol and back. But it’s a lot better going with company. And you two are pretty fun.”

“Oh!” Eve exclaimed. “Well, I can’t say I’m terribly glad I’m here, to be fair,” Cat giggled at her declaration. It was true that Evelyn and Brianna really were just trying to go back home, after all. “But I’m happy I got to meet you, too. You’re also pretty fun.”

Cat beamed. “Sure, if a cursed horse-thief fits your definition of ‘fun’.”

“Oh, come on,” said Eve, lightly punching her upper arm. They laughed together.

The pair walked around in silence for a little while, collecting dry branches and twigs.

“Say... if you don’t mind me asking...” said Cat, sounding a little nervous, “what’s your relationship with Brianna?”

Eve looked at her friend in doubt. What a weird question. “Well, I don’t mind. What do you want to know, exactly?”

Cat shrugged. “It’s just... you two fight a lot, but it also seems like you care about each other a great deal. So it kind of... piqued my interest, I suppose.”

Eve could tell there was something Cat wasn’t telling her, something she was having trouble reading in-between the lines.

“Bree is my sister,” said Eve. “Well, stepsister, actually, ever since two months ago. We fight because we don’t get along very well, but we’re working on that.”

Cat’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Oh, is that so?” she asked. “That’s cool. I do wish I had a sister, it sounds fun.”

“Are you an only child, too?” Eve asked her. It was the first time she was hearing Cat talk about her family.

She nodded. “Mom died when I was little, and my father never remarried. I can’t understand why, though. I know father wanted a son. An heir. And yet, he got stuck with me, instead.”

“An heir?” Eve asked, surprised. “Is your dad some sort of nobleman?”

Cat pursed her lips, and remained silent for a moment too long. Eve understood that she didn’t want to talk about it, so she changed the subject before things got more awkward. “Say, this place is really pretty, don’t you think?”

The taller girl nodded, looking around. They’d been walking among sparse trees on a grassy hilltop. There was the sound of birds chirping, and of water trickling down the stream nearby. The air had a hint of that fresh smell of greenery after rain. Eve decided that, if this place had an equivalent back in her own world, she would definitely check it out once she went back. She just hoped she wouldn’t find it overrun with buildings and concrete.

“What is your world like?” Cat asked her, as if she could read her thoughts.

Eve frowned. “Well... mostly not as pretty as this,” she explained. “There’s roads everywhere, and really tall buildings, sometimes a hundred stories high. People don’t use horses anymore, it’s all machines. Machines to take us where we want to go, machines to connect us with the people we love, machines to try and convince us to buy stuff we don’t need. There’s machines for everything under the sun.”

“Sounds pretty interesting, actually,” Cat replied with honesty. “I’ve always dreamed of traveling to all kinds of places, to meet new people, and see different sights... Say, do you think there’s any chance that I could go visit you there? Maybe once we find a witch to send you back home, I could ask her to send me along for a quick visit.”

Eve winced. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Cat, looking at her friend with a smug smile. It made the other laugh.

That night, Brianna and Evelyn joined Cat around the campfire, for eating and telling each other stories. It was a lovely evening. Cleared of clouds, and with moonrise still a few hours away, the night sky revealed itself in a spectacle of a million stars. Eve and Bree shared some bread while listening to Cat tell them some funny stories about the people who have tried (and failed) to tame Sirius in the past. And for the first time in the last few days, Eve really started to think that being accidentally transported to a different world might not be so bad, after all.