Across the Universe Read Online Free PDF

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                  And so I do. I tell him everything, about Nim and Elli, about The House and its halls and walls and rooms. I explain the archives and the books and the drawers that hold the orbs in which the universes reside. He stares at me the whole time, his gaze intense, mixed with a cross of disbelief and excitement.
                  “So how does that work?” he says after I’m done. “If The House is real and you were here before anything else, how is it all possible? Are you born? Are you raised? Do you have mothers and fathers?”
                  I bite my lip in thought before replying with, “We just are . Kind of like the wind and the rain.”
                  To my surprise, Noah slides his hand around mine. His skin is warm despite the chill in the air, and my palm tingles in his.
                  “I’m not one of you,” I say. “You know that, right? I’m not—what do you call it? Human. I’m not human, though I wish I was.”
                  “You don’t want to be human,” he answers. “It’s awful. People are mean. They stab each other in the back, start wars, fight with each other. Earth isn’t as amazing as you think it is.”
                  I lean back, letting my head fall against the sand and my shoulders go flush with the ground. Noah copies me, lying down on the earth while running an absentminded hand through his hair.
                  “You’re modeled after The House, you know. At least that’s what Elli says. Yours is the first universe among them all, and that’s why we’re so much alike,” I say.
                  “I wish I could see it all for myself. The House. Nim. Elli. The Archives Room. All of it. It sounds so much better than sitting in the kitchen doing my math homework.”
                  I loll my head to the side, giving him my most serious stare. “What’s math?”
                  Noah laughs, and the noise of it carries off on the wind. It doesn’t echo like in The House, but it flows, just like the waves of water in front of us.
                  A sound rustles the trees at the edge of the beach, drawing my eyes to focus there. The stars have long since risen and their glow barely infiltrates the branches and leaves that make up the patch of woods beyond the sand. Their illumination provides just enough sight, however, to see a wisp of black darting in between the foliage.
                  “Did you see that?” I ask Noah.
                  He tilts his head back toward the trees. “No, I—”
                  His words are cut off when a figure darts by within the woods, a swath of black outlined against the midnight blue of night. Noah emits a string of words I don’t understand—they are harsh and volatile, like the hiss of a snake—and then he’s on his feet, brushing the sand off the backside of his pants.
                  “Probably just Lizzie playing a prank,” he says.
                  I stand, straightening my white sheath dress and squinting out into the darkness. The dim lighting reminds me of the tunnels of the Archives Room, only here there isn’t the comforting smell of books or parchment or ink.
                  A blur of black flies by again, and this time it weaves in and out of the trees, coming near the edge of the sand before darting back inside. I don’t know where I find the courage but I begin to run, dashing for the beach line.
                  I hear Noah take off behind me, following me into the trees. The ground becomes littered with leaves and twigs that snap and crackle underfoot. Still, I don’t stop. My lungs don’t give out like Noah’s do, and while he’s doubled over, gasping for air, I run on into the night, in search of the swath of black I saw within the