Through the Looking Glass

The moment they crossed the doorway, everything changed. Polly felt her feathers stand up as they passed through something like electricity. Then—winter.

The change was so sudden that Astrid gasped. Her breath made clouds in air that had dropped forty degrees instantly. Snow crunched under her running shoes. Above them, a full moon shone in a sky full of stars. This shouldn't exist in Tromsø's June.

"This is impossible," she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. Her running clothes were perfect for the midnight sun marathon, but terrible for this cold.

Polly looked around carefully. They stood in a forest that was familiar but strange—the same trees, but covered in frost and snow. The entranced runners were ahead, still moving together, apparently unaffected by the cold.

"Look at them," Astrid said, her teeth chattering. "They're not even shivering."

It was true. Mikkel and the others walked through snow as if it were summer grass, their faces still blank.

"Whatever's controlling them must be protecting them," Polly observed. She flew ahead to look around. "Otherwise they'd freeze in minutes."

The moonlit forest seemed endless, but Polly's sharp eyes caught something shining through the trees—a building that hadn't existed in the summer forest. She flew back to Astrid, who was jogging in place to stay warm.

"There's another bunker ahead. Bigger than the one we entered. And it looks new."

"Or like we've gone back to when it was built," Astrid said grimly. "My grandmother said the experiments happened in 1943. What if this isn't just another place, but another time?"

Before Polly could answer, a new sound cut through the winter night. Searchlights blazed through the trees, and voices shouted in German.

"Hide!" Polly hissed. Astrid dove behind a snow-covered rock just as soldiers emerged from the forest.