Physicists agree that the greater universe consists of an unknowable number of alternate worlds — the multiverse. Some theories suggest that worlds touch like bubbles in foam.

What if a thin patch in that contact could form a gateway?

Tama Jean Roy walks to another world by accident, and it will be a long hopscotch home, as she makes new friends, enemies, and family connections in her travels.

Each “Patchwork Universe” story allows a denizen of an alternate world to tell their story — one in which Tama’s presence changes their life course and upends events in that world as a whole.