lsewhere in the house, a clock chimed two, and Kat sat up, startled, looking at the sandwich in her hand. A glance at the clock revealed the time, and she quickly ate what was left of her sandwich while packing up her books with the other hand. Fifteen minutes later, she was locking her front door and making her way across the lawn to her office. The remainder of the afternoon was spent with her students, going over experiments, research and theories, and then, at 6.30 pm, Kat finally left the office and returned to her home. She had dinner alone, as she often did, and settled down in her lounge room with a two litre bottle of milk, made into hot chocolate, and the folder of notes she was currently reading. When the clock struck ten, Kat sighed, and topped up her mug with the now cold chocolate drink. A few moments concentration and the drink was steaming at the perfect temperature. Outside the wind howled through the trees and around the chimneys. Nights like this made Kat feel that something was missing. Something was wrong. That everything in the world was only half of what it should be. Kat glanced out the window, and saw lights were on in Lexcie's house, so picked up her telephone and dialed.

"Alex Lu."
"Lex, it's me."
"Good evening, Kat. Quite early for you to be calling, isn't it?"
"I saw your lights on. I'm calling about this manuscript you gave me. The Santiago one."
"Yes?"
"Did you take it seriously?"
"Of course I did. It was written by Santiago."
"It's not possible he was going mad? Lex, he says there were cat-people."
"This is going to be a long discussion, I can see. Warm up that hot chocolate of yours, and I'll come over."
"Alright."

The phone went dead, and Kat collected another mug, and another bottle of chocolate milk from the fridge, which was soon warmed to the proper temperature. Lexcie opened the door after knocking a tune, and locked it behind him.
"Feeling a bit vulnerable tonight?" he queried.
"Why?"
"The door was a bit reluctant to let me in."
"Just subconscious, I assure you," Kat smiled, pouring him a cup of hot chocolate as he pulled up a chair. "Now, about this manuscript."
Lexcie laughed.
"Straight down to business, I see. Well, tell me what you've gathered from what you've read."
"Right. Way back when, before we have records, we had magic. It was mainly earth magic - using herbs with a chant, making sympathetic magic, that sort of thing. Everyone could do it. There were a few people with more magic, who could do things like warm tea with their fingers, though that wasn't uncommon - perhaps a half of the population. There were also people who could do what you can do, basic energy manipulation, and glamours, but they were rarer - perhaps one person in a hundred. Then there were people who could do what I do. They were rarer still - one person in a thousand. which would mean there would be 6,600,000 people in the world who could do what I do."
"That's right."
"That's ridiculous. If there were even one hundredth that many, the university would be ecstatic."
"We'll come back to that. Continue."
"Ok, so back then, there were cat-people. Mostly human, but with fur and ears and tails. Humans lived happily with the cat-people, and it was widely known that your true soul mate would be with one of the other kind. Ie, I would have a cat-person as my soul mate, and a cat-person would have a human. Interbreeding produced children with magic, who were either all human or all cat-person, depending upon the sperm, much like sex is decided between humans."
"Correct so far."
"Then, a great something happened - perhaps a meteor hit the earth, or the 5th of the 5th five-fifty-five explosions, or whatever, but all the cat-people were wiped out overnight. Women who were pregnant with cat-people died as well."
"Not died, Kat. Vanished."
"Right. Vanished. Overnight."
"That's right."
"So we've now had 1500 years of "in-breeding", so to speak, and magic is dying out. Because we have no cat-people left to breed with."
"That's right. His theory went that the families which retained the most cat-people genes, when they married and had children with a family which didn't have many cat-people genes, the magic kicked in, and their kids have strong magic. But once the cat-people were gone, and thus, everyone's soul mate, people were just breeding with anyone they thought they were in love with, and as a result, magic is... diluted, for want of a better word. In another 500 years, there'll probably be nobody left who can do more than warm a cup of tea."
"I'll allow that magic is diluted. It seems like maybe one in every hundred people I meet can't do magic - but it's only one in a thousand or so who can do more than warm a cup of tea."
"Yes - it does fit in with his theory, doesn't it?"
"Making up a theory to fit with what we currently have isn't the same as forming a theory based on research."
"He did research, Kat. Lots and lots of research. He even wrote a paper on your topic, though it was never published because it was too controversial."
"Oh? Where's that?"
"I don't have a copy. They were all destroyed. But I was lucky enough to read an unfinished draft once."
"And did your memory have film in it that day?"
"Luckily for you, I'm used to your odd humour. Let me try and remember."
Kat smiled, and poured him another cup of steaming hot chocolate.
"Ah, yes, that's jogged the memory. His theory was the five-five-five-fifty-five explosions. A group of magicians were wanting to be powerful, as often happens. However, with everyone finding their soul mates, magic was becoming more popular, more common, and if everyone had magic, who would they rule over? They never considered that perhaps everyone was supposed to have magic! So the plan was hatched to separate the humans from the cat-people. And it was a great feat of magic that split the world in two - one half with the cat-people, and one half with the humans. That same night, their co-conspiritors blew up all the buildings to destroy all records of the cat-people, so that in a hundred years time, or two, or three hundred years time, nobody would believe there ever were cat-people."
"Alex, come on. That reads like a bad fairy tale."
"I'm not finished. They succeeded, but there was a problem."
"And what was that?"
"All the cat-people magicians were transported through as well. So their system of government they had in place to take over fell to pieces. The human magicians were all tried, and executed. So nobody knows were the cat-people went to."
"How does that tie in with the origin of magic?"
"That is the origin of todays magic. Original magic has been around since the dawn of time, but modern magic comes from that event."
Kat sat back in her chair, and poured another cup of hot chocolate.
"So you're saying I'm a dying breed."
"Not I," Lexcie smiled. "Santiago. However, I do think his theory has some merit. I remain unconvinced about the cat-people, and I can see that you are extremely skeptical about them also, but I do believe that the world was split."
"You do? That's almost as hard to swallow as the cat-people bit."
"I do, and I'll tell you why. I often get a feeling that everything in the world is only half of what it should be. And I sometimes sense magic where there isn't any. I believe that the world was split, but not into two separate planets as Santiago believed, but into two dimensions. I believe that they overlap each other."
Kat was startled to hear her own feelings echoed so closely.
"It's also nice to think there might be someone out there for me, a tired old bachelor."
"You're hardly old, Lex. Forty isn't that old. Besides, we magic wielders live longer, you know."
"Forty is old when you've never married, Kat. I hope you never have to find that out. That reminds me. How was your date last weekend?"
"It didn't happen. He only wanted to take me out so I could do parlour tricks for him and his mates."
Lexcie tsked.
"The youth of today. Don't know a good thing when they stumble across it."
Kat smiled at him, and looked at the manuscript on her lap. The cover of it was etched with strange symbols, and Kat absently traced her fingers over them.
"Do you know what the symbols mean?"
"No. I believe it was something to do with the spell that split the worlds, but I don't know."
"Hmm."
"Well, I'd best start my day. It's almost 2.00 am, and I have experiments to run."
"Alright, Lex. Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
He drained his cup, and moved to the door.
"If you want to discuss anything more," he added, "call me. It's a favourite subject of mine."
Alex let himself out, and Kat sat in the chair, studying the manuscript.

***

Kat sat in her office, playing with a small ball. Since her conversation with Lexcie, she'd been fascinated by the idea of splitting worlds. She'd done several simulations in the labs with small balls to simulate the earth, and although she'd managed to split them successfully, they weren't stable. They lasted a couple of hours, and then combusted. After two weeks of experimentation, she'd discovered that a tennis ball simulation had lasted a day, and a basket ball had lasted a whole week. It was confusing her, which was why she'd invited Alex to come and look. She had a basket ball, a tennis ball, a rubber bouncing ball and a pea all set up for him to witness their end. The pea only lasted 20 minutes, so she hoped he arrived soon.
"Sorry I'm late," Lexcie said, opening the door to her office. "I brought my PhD student with me, hope that's ok. Darryl, Kat. Kat, Darryl. Right, what did you want to show me?"
"Well, after our conversation the other night, I got to thinking about the splitting worlds thing. And I thought I'd try it."
Lexcie caught his breath.
"And did you manage it?"
"Well, yes and no. Come through into the lab and see."
A few minutes later, they were standing in front of the containment lab viewing window.
"This first one, a pea, I started 19 and a half minutes ago. And if you watch..."
As they watched, the pea combusted.
"The next one, the bouncing ball, I started a couple of hours ago. The tennis ball I started last night, and the basket ball I started on Monday. And as you can see," Kat gestured towards the window where the bouncing ball and tennis ball were combusting, "that's as long as they last. I can split them, and they appear stable, but they aren't. After a certain about of time - twenty minutes, two hours, a day, or a week, they combust."
The glow from the basket ball combusting lit their faces with light, though the heat was contained.
"Any suggestions?"

Alex was trembling with excitement.
"Kat, do you realise, I've been trying to do this for ten years? You wonderful, wonderful girl!"
"But I haven't managed it, Lex. If the world was split - and that's a big if - it's stable. The longest mine lasts is a week."
"Kat, my darling girl, you're just not looking at it right. Look at the different sizes of the objects, and compare that to how long it stays stable for. And then consider the difference in size between a basket ball, and the Earth."
"Oh my."
"Exactly! I've been researching this for 10 years! Give me your data and a calculator, please."
Kat exchanged an amused glance with Darryl, as she provided Alex with the information, and he set to with a pencil and the calculator.
"With your data, I can finally get an accurate prediction! And with something the size of the Earth, it would last... Oh."
"What?"
"Er - 1500 years. Give or take 20 years."
"Which means?"
"Well, if Santiago's theory is correct - about the timing, at least - we have a maximum of 30 years in which to set things right. Are you sure this data is correct?"
"Yes, Lex. I've done it about five times this week."
"And are you able to recombine the split, Kat?"
"No. There seems to be a step missing or something, it just doesn't want to recombine. It's like I'm missing some vital information. But I wouldn't be able to do something the size of the world anyway, that's a ridiculous idea."
"Kat, this is very serious. Have you told anyone else what you've been doing?"
"No, I wasn't aware I was supposed to."
"You weren't, that's good. But we have a problem."
"What's that?"
"As you know, Santiago's manuscripts were all destroyed."
"No they weren't, I have one."
"Yes, I know. I gave it to you. But it isn't supposed to exist."
"Right," replied Kat, mentally scrapping half her paper in her head.
"What if his theory were true? Completely true, I mean? Cat-people aside, it could have been something as simple as there were once humans with blue skin, and they were all transported. Or whatever the deciding factor was. But consider this. What would they have done on the other side? On our side, the government killed the members of the coven - but in doing that, destroyed the knowledge of how to undo what was done. What if on the other side, they took over? By Santiago's theory, the structure was in place - it was just coincidence that all the top people were cat-people, and when they vanished, the whole thing fell apart. But on the other side, the structure was in place. What if it went to plan on that side?"
Kat leaned against a wall, stunned.
"They would have taken over. They would have kept the knowledge of how to reverse it."
"Exactly! And if they know how to reverse it, all we have to do is explain what will happen, and they'll reverse it."
"Sounds simple."
"The catch is, how do we let them know what will happen."
"Of course."
"That's where Darryl comes in."
"Ah. I wondered why you'd brought him."
"Darryl has a similar passion to us. That's why I took him on as my PhD student. He has perfected a teleportation field between our dimension and the other."
"So you are certain it exists."
"Well, yes. I told you the other night I believed it existed. We've transported things through it before, and brought them back, but we never had any evidence to support my combustion theory. But now we do. And it's you. I want to send you through."
"You what?"
"It's perfectly safe," Darryl assured her. "Nothing to it."
"That's hardly the point."
"Look, Kat, it's easy. All you have to do is find out who's in power, because that'll be the members of the coven, or their descendants. Then you need to find out how they did it, what the missing component is, and explain about the combustion of the world. Then we'll just recombine the worlds. But there isn't any time to spare. Ten years of the predicted combustion time has already lapsed."
"That's lot of time, forty years."
"My calculations are accurate to 97.5%."
Kat snorted.
"And what about the whole cat-people thing? If there are cat-people, don't you think I'd stand out a bit?"
"You can do transmutation, can't you? Stop procrastinating!"
"Lex, you're being very pushy about this. Is there something you know that I don't?"
"Oh, amulets! The coven members will be identified by amulets. I've managed to collect most of the ones from our side, but keep an eye open for them on the other side. Now, Darryl."
"Wait just a minute," Kat said, hands on hips.
"No point to waiting," Lexcie replied. "Not a moment to lose. You can't take anything with you anyway, so nothing to prepare. We'll try and teleport you back in a week. If you don't return, we'll try for two days after that. Then a week after that, and so on. Safe trip!"
"Alex Lu, I'm going to kill you," Kat threatened, and then the floor dropped out from below her.

***