“Yes, yes, of course,” Feslund replied. And finally they got down to work.
This would not be easy, Ploterus decided after a long afternoon of discussion with the prince. But of course it could be done.
Many men would die, but he was going to retake Egypt for the empire.
And as he began his planning, he thought of Cymbian’s plea: Save all of us.
Could he do that as well?
Thirty-Seven
Larry
Larry stepped forward, out of the portal, and the mist turned to snow.
What?
He looked around. He was in the woods. It was cold, and snowing lightly. He looked down. His shoes were buried in white.
He hadn’t thought about the weather on Earth. He had assumed it would be the same as on Elysium, but why would that be true? Why hadn’t anyone pointed this out to him?
He should just turn around, return to Elysium, to his friends, who would still be standing in the woods. Get a jacket and hat from Rigol, perhaps some boots.
But he didn’t go back. He couldn’t go through this again. He had made his decision, and he would put up with a little discomfort. He started walking.
He didn’t recognize where he was. Somewhere in that conservation land behind his house in Glanbury, maybe. Or perhaps he had screwed up, and he was in some random forest in some random world. At least he could follow his footprints in the snow back to the portal—unless the snow got heavier and covered his tracks. He kept going.
This was stupid, he thought after a few minutes. A horrible mistake. How far should he walk before he gave up? Maybe he was in Glanbury but headed in the wrong direction. Or maybe he was in some other world and wolves were watching him, waiting to attack. Maybe he’d get frostbite.
He trudged on, shivering and worried.
And finally he saw a jungle gym. Their jungle gym. His jungle gym. Oh, the hours he had spent playing on that thing! And beyond it, a house. His house. He started to run. Into the yard, past the jungle gym, up to the back door.
And he stopped.
What was he going to say? How was he going to act? Years had passed. Would they even recognize him? He had obsessed about this, but he had decided nothing.
All he knew was that he missed them so much.
He turned the knob. The door was locked. His heart thumping, he knocked.
No answer.
He went out to the driveway. There was a car parked in it, covered with snow. He didn’t recognize it: an SUV of some kind. They wouldn’t have the same car, of course. He went around to the front of the house and up the steps. The front door, too, was locked. He rang the doorbell over and over. No answer. Should he break in? Why not? He couldn’t just stand here in the snow.
Then he noticed the mailbox next to the door. He opened it and took out the mail. Bills and magazines and circulars. He read the names on the address labels.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Rossetti
The Rossetti Family or Current Resident
Ms. Lauren Rossetti
Gail Rossetti
He dropped the mail and went over to the bay window looking into the living room. He pressed his face up to the glass and stared inside. The furniture was different. The piano was gone. He saw photos on the wall: images of smiling faces that he didn’t recognize.
His family didn’t live here.
Maybe this was another version of Earth, and they had never lived here, and he had never been born. No, he was sure that wasn’t true. This was the right world. This was the right house.
His family had moved away. That was the obvious explanation. Why wouldn’t they? He had disappeared without a trace. Why would they want to stay here and be reminded of that?
He had destroyed their lives.
So now what? He sat on the Rossettis’ front steps and let the snow fall on him.
Destroyed their lives. They could be living in California now, or Canada. His parents could be divorced; Cassie could be an addict; Matthew could have dropped out of high school. Anything could have happened.
They were gone.
He stood up finally and walked away. Down the street and past the houses he knew so well. The McKenzies and the Gabbards and the Hitchcocks and the Bergsteins. There was the basketball hoop where he and Jimmy Hitchcock had played one-on-one. There was the big maple tree he had climbed with Jimmy, terrifying his mother when she spotted him. Did Jimmy still live there? Did anyone of their friends and neighbors still live where they used to live?
He kept walking. He didn’t feel the cold now. He couldn’t seem to feel anything, except a kind of numb dizziness. Maybe he would end up like Jubal or Veronique, trapped inside his own mind. Maybe it was impossible to avoid. In world after world after world, people were living out their lives, making choices that were right or wrong, good or evil, or just random—turn left or turn right, step on that crack in the sidewalk or avoid it. The worlds don’t care, the multiverse doesn’t care. There are no gods. It’s just you--this you, here and now, walking aimlessly in the snow through a town that no longer belongs to you.
No other.
Larry looked up after a while. He was downtown, standing outside the 7-11. He recalled the last time he had been inside the store, buying Doritos with Vinnie Polkinghorne. That was when he had spotted Valleia. That was the start of the choices that had led him to Terra—the choices that, finally, had led him back here.
He went inside. The sudden warmth took his breath away, made him dizzy. The lights were brighter than any on Elysium. The store seemed empty. He walked down an aisle at random. The packages for the food looked absurd: bold colors, smiling faces, cartoon characters. But he suddenly felt hungry. He grabbed a bag of ranch-flavored Doritos and brought them up to the counter at the front of the store. He put the blue bag down. Nothing happened. What was supposed to happen? It had been so long. The clerk behind the counter was staring at him.
He was supposed to pay for the Doritos. But he had no money, he realized. He should have asked Rigol for some.
Larry stared back at the clerk. Fat, with unwashed hair, scruffy beard, acne. He looked vaguely familiar. He read the clerk’s nametag: Julian.
It was Stinky Glover. His seventh-grade nemesis.
Oh, Stinky!
Stinky was older now, like Larry. Larry almost greeted him, almost said his name. How’s it going, Stinky? But he didn’t. “I guess I don’t have any money,” he admitted, stupidly.
“Gotta pay for stuff,” Stinky pointed out, also stupidly.
They kept staring at each other. Did Stinky recognize him? Larry didn’t think so. It didn’t matter, he decided. “Sorry,” he murmured. He left the Doritos behind and walked out into the parking lot. And suddenly he bent over and threw up into the snow.
Then he sat down on the curb and put his head in his hands.
After a while he heard a voice behind him. “Hey man, I think you need some help. The cops can bring you to a homeless shelter—there’s one over in Quincy, I think. The cops are okay—they won’t arrest you or nothin’. And then maybe the people at the homeless shelter can get you into a rehab place somewhere.”
Larry looked back. It was Stinky, standing coatless in the snow, trying to help. The bag of Doritos was in his hand, and he was holding it out to Larry.
“There’s no shame in it, man,” Stinky went on. “I’ve got a cousin, he got hooked on painkillers after he broke his leg skiing. You got to fight through it. But you can’t do it alone. Believe me.”
And somehow, Stinky’s words seemed to make everything okay.
Larry smiled at Stinky. “I love you,” he said to him. “I will always love you.”
But he couldn’t stay here. Not now, perhaps not ever.
And so he got to his feet and walked away from the 7-11, through the cold and snow back to the portal, and Elysium.
Thirty-Eight
Hieron
The others left eventually, but Hieron stayed by Larry’s portal, sitting on the grass, wanting to
be there when he returned. If he returned.
Hieron was in no hurry; he had all the time in the world. He closed his eyes. It was a hot, cloudy afternoon. Insects buzzed; birds chirped. A trickle of sweat made its way down his neck.
And he thought of Terra. Larry’d had the courage to return to his home. Why didn’t he? Were things as bad there as Affron and Larry thought they might be? Had all his work really been for nothing? He could find out, if he had the courage.
Finally he heard a noise and opened his eyes, and there was Larry, stumbling out of the nothingness of the portal—wet, shivering, snow in his hair. He collapsed onto the ground next to Hieron.
He didn’t speak for a while. Then, finally, he said, “It was winter. Cold, snowing.”
“Ah,” Hieron replied. “We should have thought of that. Did you come back for warmer clothes?”
Larry shook his head. His shivering had subsided in the warm air of Elysium. He sat up and took off his soggy shoes and socks. “My family moved away,” he said. “I don’t know where.”
When Larry didn’t say anything further, Hieron said, “You could find out.”
Larry shook his head again. “I don’t think I could face them. I don’t think I’m strong enough.”
“You can always change your mind.”
“Sure. I don’t know.”
“No need to decide anything now,” Hieron said. “You should change out of those wet clothes, perhaps have a cup of wine.”
“Okay.”
They arose and made their way through the woods and into the town, where they stopped at Lucia’s café to pick up a bottle of wine. “My poor darling!” she exclaimed when she saw Larry. “You must take off those clothes. Let me find you something to wear. And I’ll warm up some soup for you.”
Lucia bustled off to her room in the back of the café. Larry didn’t look happy. “I don’t want to stay here at the café,” he said to Hieron. “And I don’t want to talk to anyone besides you. Not yet.”
“Of course,” Hieron replied. “I’ll tell Lucia. She won’t mind.” Hieron went back and explained Larry’s mood to her.
“Then take a blanket and wrap him in it,” she instructed him. “And don’t argue. He’s a mess. It’s never a good idea to go back to your home world. You’ve never been home, have you?”
Hieron didn’t argue with her; he wasn’t likely to win the argument. He took a gray woolen blanket and returned with it to Larry, who accepted it gratefully. “Let’s go to my room,” Hieron said, picking up the bottle of wine.
Larry wrapped himself in the blanket, and they walked to Hieron’s small, bare room in a building on the outskirts of the town. Larry took long swallows of the wine as they walked. In the room, he quickly changed into one of Hieron’s robes, and then slumped in a chair and took another swig from the bottle.
“We should dilute the wine perhaps,” Hieron said mildly.
Larry nodded and sighed.
“Tell me what happened,” Hieron suggested. “You’re sure it was the right world?”
“Yes, the portal ended up right where it should have been—in the woods behind my house. What used to be my house. But another family lived there.”
“Ah, that is too bad,” Hieron replied. “But not unexpected, I think?”
“No, not when you think about it. Would’ve been strange if they still lived there, I suppose. After I found out, I just wandered around Glanbury for a while. Remembering stuff. I ended up going into a store to buy some food, but I didn’t have any money. And the clerk was someone I knew from school. Everyone called him Stinky, which was cruel, of course, but that’s the way we were. Stinky didn’t recognize me. He thought I was a homeless drug addict. He tried to help me. That was so…different.”
“And then you came back?”
Larry nodded. “Then I came back.” He was silent for a while. Hieron thought he might be falling asleep. But he wasn’t. “How do you deal with it?” he asked Hieron. “I lived on Terra for less than a year, I guess, but I think about it all the time. I think about Palta—this girl I met there—all the time. How do I leave her behind? How do I leave anyone, anything behind?”
Hieron felt a great wave of sorrow and regret wash over him. “I don’t know the answer to this, Larry,” he replied. “The problem is not unique to the people here in Elysium, is it?”
“I suppose not. What do I know? You’ve lived a lot longer than I have.”
“That is certainly true. To be human is to have regrets. And the longer you live, the more regrets you have.”
“Well, that’s certainly encouraging.” Larry took another swig of wine. “Do you mind if I stay here tonight?” he asked. “I’m feeling a little woozy.”
“Of course not.”
He brought Larry over to his narrow bed and arranged Lucia’s blanket over him.
“I told Stinky I loved him,” Larry murmured, closing his eyes.
“Was Stinky a friend?”
“No, not a friend. The opposite, really. But still—I think I love him. He’s Stinky. There’s only one of him, in all the multiverse.”
“That’s true,” Hieron said. “No matter how many worlds there are, there’s really only one of each of us.”
“Stinky,” Larry repeated. And then his breathing became regular, and he was asleep.
Hieron sat in the chair and watched him as the sun set on Elysium.
Larry would be all right, he thought. He was just growing up. It was an odd way to grow up, of course, but we do not control the trajectory of our lives, much as we’d like to.
Ah, but that was not entirely true, he knew. We are always making choices: to live in one world or another, to leave your past behind or to embrace it. Hieron had left his past behind. And now?
Now he should be wandering over to the café to spend the evening with the others. Perhaps afterward he would play chess with Rigol. Perhaps he would help put Jubal to bed. Small pleasures, small kindnesses. A good enough life.
He did not go to the café. Instead, as evening fell, he went to visit Rigol to borrow an item or two, and then he walked back to the woods, alone. With some difficulty he found the spot that belonged to him, in a small copse of trees near the brook.
He had not used his portal in years. He would use it tonight.
Thirty-Nine
Sulpicius
The harvest had been good, and it was a mild winter, but no one was happy. No one was ever happy anymore, it seemed. His wife didn’t like for him to go to the tavern at night. We haven’t the money, she’d point out. And: Wine doesn’t change anything. It just makes you feel worse the next morning. Which was true enough, he supposed. But it changed things for the time you were drinking it, and there was something to be said for that.
Anyway, she couldn’t stop him, and probably she was happy to have him gone from their cottage, so she could sit in peace by herself and mourn their lost son. So she let him go with only a little fuss.
The usual men were there—he had known them all his life. They were so familiar to him that he could tell what they were going to say before they said it. Which was not so bad. Too much had changed; he didn’t want his friends to change as well. They sat in the little tavern and drank their wine and complained, and reminisced, and even laughed a little bit. It was good to laugh. His wife didn’t laugh anymore.
And then the stranger entered. Who was he? Why was he here, in their tavern? This was a small village, far inland from the Via Appia. No one came here, except tax collectors and soldiers looking for recruits. But he didn’t have the cold gaze of a tax collector or a soldier. He was old, gray-haired and gray-bearded, although he seemed spry enough. He wore a dark-blue cloak, belted in an old-fashioned style. He seemed vaguely familiar, though Sulpicius couldn’t say where he might have met him. It was not as if he saw many strangers, year in and year out.
The old man bowed to them all, and then sat at one end of the long table and ordered a jug of wine and a loaf of bread from Flavio, who seemed delight
ed to have a patron who wouldn’t make a single cup of wine last the entire evening. “Please join me,” he said to the men, gesturing to the food and drink. “I’ve been traveling a long distance and could use some company.”
His Latin was odd, although Sulpicius couldn’t say why. He didn’t seem like a foreigner, though. And there was something about his voice…it was soft, like leaves rustling in trees. It made you want to listen. The men filled their cups and mumbled their welcomes and their thanks. They didn’t see many strangers, but they knew how to be hospitable. They would be sure to repay his kindness.
“How are you all?” the stranger asked after he’d taken a sip of wine. “The weather is mild, it seems.”
They agreed that the weather was mild.
“Very pleasant,” the stranger said. “And yet…”
His words hung in the air.
The men stared at their cups and said nothing. Sulpicius stole a glance at Marcellus, sitting by himself in the corner. It was dangerous to complain. They all knew that, especially Marcellus. Marcellus said nothing.
But perhaps the stranger was only talking about the weather. Better to take it that way, in any case. “The weather can change at any moment,” Sulpicius said. “It is in the hands of the gods.”
The stranger nodded deeply and didn’t respond, as if Sulpicius had said something so wise he needed to pause and contemplate it. And then he said, “It is hard to know what the gods are thinking nowadays.”
And what did this mean? Surely he wasn’t talking about the weather now. Marcellus looked at the man then. “The gods have much to answer for,” he muttered.
That was not a wise thing to say. The stranger seemed harmless enough, but one could not be too careful. Spies were everywhere; everyone had a story to tell. Marcellus had a story—a son hauled away to the mines for a mild joke he had told about the Gallians. No trial, no appeal. The son’s life ruined. The father’s life ruined.
“I was merely talking about the changeable weather,” the stranger said mildly, as if to give Marcellus a chance to retract his statement about the gods. We’re all just talking about the weather here.
HOME (The Portal Series, Book 3) Page 24