Sophia.

  I was sitting at my desk, absorbed in my laptop. I wanted to write my first play. I wanted to do it originally. I did have an idea for a play inspired by the old TV series Wij, Alexander. But that was my side project, a project I would take all the time I needed for.

  The play I was working on now, I wanted to finish sooner—preferably this year. I had decided it would be a fantasy piece in which three worlds existed: a neutral world where good and evil go hand in hand, a good world where evil is barely present, and an evil world where evil rules and good hides in fear in the shadows.

  My main character, a young man named Lorian Dawn, discovers in his excessively good world, called Solantica, an old mirror. Of course he knows mirrors, but this one is different. This is a portal. It leads to a world called Duskion, an excessively evil world. That’s where he ends up accidentally, only to then find a mirror leading to Equilom: a world that lives in balance, where both good and evil can exist.

  Here, Lorian learns that his world — where you are even punished if you don’t say Bless you. — is not the ideal world they claim it to be. And that Duskion, with its evil, where people are already afraid just to hold open a door, is only heading toward its own end. But Equilom has a chance, because there you can choose what you are: good or evil.

  I heard Lucy softly cooing. She was lying in the playpen, playing with some toys above her head. I smiled for a moment. “You have it so easy,” I said softly to her. “Just play, sleep, and cuddle.” Again she cooed softly. I smiled and turned back to my work.

  After a while I felt arms around me. “What are you working on?” Lucas asked, just before I felt his lips on my neck. “My play. I’m stuck. I already have the ending, but not the beginning,” I explained. He grabbed a chair and sat down next to me. “What do you have so far?” he asked.

  He quickly read through my scenes. “I’d start with a look into his world.”

  I nodded. “Let someone be punished because another person sneezes and doesn’t immediately say ‘Oh, bless you!’”

  I nodded again. “And what happens to those people?” Lucas asked.

  I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  He laughed and leaned closer to me. “What happens to the people who aren’t 10000% good?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked at me. “There has to be something that scares them so much that no one dares to do anything wrong. Look, in your evil world I get that everyone’s bad, so if you do even something 1% good, you get killed, I suppose. But what happens in the good world?”

  I shrugged. “No idea. Maybe I should give this up.”

  He kissed my shoulder. “No, come on. This is actually pretty good, my darling.” He looked at me. “Let’s take a look at it together. It just needs a bit of silver polish.” I laughed softly. That was Lucas.

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  “Let’s find a way to keep people afraid of doing naughty things,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse on the word naughty.

  “Behave,” I teased.

  “Alright. What happens in the evil world if you do good?” Lucas asked.

  Just as I was about to answer, Lucie let out a little happy squeal.

  “She already knows,” Lucas teased. He stood up and lifted her from the playpen. “You tell Mommy what you would write,” he said while tickling Lucy.”Yes, all that talent in such a tiny body and you can’t even tell us,” he said in an exaggerated dramatic voice. “That’s not fair, Lucy Ball,” he added teasingly, tickling her again. I enjoyed watching Lucas play with our little girl.

  “I think that in the bad world you’d go to jail for three years just for saying ‘sorry,’” I said.

  “Mirror that. In your good world, if you do something slightly wrong, you get a ridiculous punishment,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He laughed softly. “So you can see that both worlds have something in common: the ridiculous punishments.”

  I nodded — he had a point.

  “Let your character have questions about why. Let his parent or grandparent tell a legend about your portal.”

  I nodded. “And then he wants to see if it’s true, finds that old mirror in the school basement,” I called out.

  Lucas kissed my cheek. “See? You can do it,” he said.

  I sighed. “With your help, yes.”

  He wrapped his free arm around me. “Help is okay, you know. I get help from you and Amethyst too when I’m writing things.”

  I sighed. “I was always taught I had to do it myself.”

  Lucas chuckled. “You just had the wrong teacher for that. Take it from me: the greatest minds in film, TV, and theater have teams behind them. And if you don’t believe me, ask Teddy.”

  I knew he was right. But still, it felt a bit like failing.

  “When does this need to be finished, Phi?” he asked.

  “I’m hoping in about three months, so we can start rehearsing after the Hannah shooting.”

  Lucas nodded. “That’s doable. You can still adjust everything during rehearsals.”

  I nodded. A play always worked better when the script was still fresh in the actors’ minds.

  “Come on, Lucy Ball. Go convince Mommy to come eat,” he said, handing Lucy to me.

  She did indeed have her little hand in her mouth; that was her way of showing she was hungry.

  “Alright then, for you, Luce,” I answered, laughing.

  We had gotten into the habit of feeding her first and then having dinner together. Then Lucy could play in the playpen and we’d have some time to ourselves.

  While cooking, he told me how he already had an idea for how Hannah’s Chaos would end.

  “Do you want to stop after this season?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Of course not. I just want it ready, just in case,” he explained.

  “And what’s your plan?” I asked, interested, while feeding Lucy.

  “I want Hannah to fall in love,” he said.

  “On a job for Linda, Hannah meets someone, a young baron, without knowing it.”

  I nodded. “And how do you want to do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Not even who should play that role,” he said.

  “Simple, I’d say,” I replied. “You.”

  Lucas sighed. “Why me?” he asked.

  “You can cast someone else,” I began.

  “But?” Lucas asked, looking at me.

  “But… then there’ll be some unknown man touching me. And yes, Hannah probably falls for tall dark and handsome men,” I said, glancing at Lucy and winking.

  “That’s not going to work, Phi,” he said.

  “Alright then, cast someone else,” I said. “Just hope there’s on-screen chemistry. And what if thre is a real spark between him and me?” I teased.

  Lucy looked curiously from me to Lucas and back again.

  “Yeah, do you get it, Lucy?” Lucas smiled warmly and lifted her up. “Come on, you can play a little longer.”

  During dinner, we sparred a bit more about both our ideas, wishing, somewhere deep down, that I could stop time and just enjoy my little family.