“Get out your gun,” Ploterus ordered Larry.
He did as he was told. How many bullets did he have left? Enough, he supposed. Would whoever was up ahead be able to see them in the darkness? It would be difficult.
Ploterus dismounted and started to move forward. Palta and Larry followed him.
Now Larry could make out Gretyx’s voice—impatient, imperious. And he could see that the carriage was tilted. It had veered into a ditch, perhaps, or a wheel had come off. She was angry about it, he assumed.
She knew that her life was at stake.
Larry realized that they were walking alongside the cemetery where they had met Ploterus. And suddenly, weirdly, he could feel the Roman dead all around him. The thought made him dizzy, as if he were experiencing the multiverse. So many people had lived their lives in Roma—working, loving, suffering…And so many of them had ended up here—cold, silent, uninterested in this little drama playing out on a cold December night. They had been as real as Larry himself was, and now they were gone.
The gun was heavy in his hand.
Up ahead, the torch stopped moving. Gretyx said something—a question, a command.
And then Ploterus spoke. “I am General Ploterus,” he called out. “Men, come out into the roadway and bring Queen Gretyx with you. I need to speak to her.”
A sharp command from Gretyx. No response from the soldiers.
“You are soldiers, and it is important that you obey me,” Ploterus went on. “No harm will come to you or the queen.”
The torch didn’t move. Gretyx spoke. Larry thought he could make out her words: “You are Praetorian guards, and you are sworn to defend me with your lives.”
Ploterus stopped. “It is time to use the gun,” he told Larry.
“I can’t make out Gretyx,” Larry responded. “I won’t be able to hit anyone from this far away in the dark.”
“It doesn’t matter if you miss,” Ploterus said. “The noise will be sufficient. Aim for the coach.” He stepped forward. “You are about to experience the magic of the priests,” he called out. “Again, we do not mean to harm you, but you must understand how important it is to obey my command. You must let me speak to the queen.”
He turned and nodded to Larry. “Now.”
“Cover your ears,” Larry murmured. He raised the gun, aimed at the coach, and pulled the trigger.
The night exploded with sound. Larry’s ears rang; the horses went crazy with fright. Up ahead, the torch dropped to the ground.
Ploterus took out his sword and walked swiftly forward. “Come then,” he announced. “The next time we use the magic, it will kill you. Give us the queen.”
They reached the carriage. Next to it stood three frightened men—two purple-caped soldiers and a driver wearing a short jacket. Palta picked up the sputtering torch.
“Where is she?” Ploterus demanded.
“My lord, we don’t know,” one of the soldiers said, his voice quavering.
“Must’ve run off into the graveyard, my lord,” the gruff, bearded driver said.
“Can’t be far, my lord,” the second soldier said.
Ploterus nodded. “All of you, stay here. You have done nothing wrong—you will not be punished. But you must not interfere. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Let’s go,” Ploterus said to Palta and Larry.
The three of them made their way into the cemetery. Larry’s ears were still ringing. Amid the ringing he thought he could hear the ghosts of the Roman dead whispering to him as he walked among them. Join us, they seemed to say. Stay here with us.
His knees wobbled. What was going on?
“You go over there,” Ploterus ordered Larry, gesturing to his right. “You take the center,” he said to Palta. “I’ll take the left.”
Larry didn’t reply. He held the gun tightly in front of him and started walking among the mausoleums, across the graves. He walked around each mausoleum to ensure that Gretyx wasn’t hiding behind it. She was lurking here somewhere, he supposed, hoping they’d give up and go away, and she’d find a way to reach Gallia and continue the fight. It seemed like an absurd hope, but in some universe it would come true, and she would defeat the priests and rule the empire again, finally dying triumphant and beloved in bed.
But not in this universe. Not if he could help it.
How far could she run in the darkness with a bullet wound? How far did she want to run? Would she risk tripping on a root, a rock, a gravestone? Call attention to herself and she was doomed.
He moved slowly, carefully, among the dead. The cemetery was huge. It would be easy to let her get away. They were so close to victory. They couldn’t let her escape.
And then Larry heard the noise. To his left: a scuffle, a cry. The light from Palta’s torch faded. He ran towards the noise.
He reached it in moments. Ploterus came from the other direction. The torch was on the ground by a mausoleum. Behind the torch Gretyx was holding Palta, a dagger pointing at her neck. Palta was struggling fiercely but couldn’t escape the queen’s grasp.
In the flickering light Gretyx looked wild-eyed, haggard. A cornered beast. A blood-soaked bandage was wrapped around her left shoulder. “No closer,” she ordered the two of them.
They stopped. Larry stared at Palta. She looked angry as she struggled, as if she blamed herself.
“Put down your weapons, back away, and bring me a horse,” Gretyx said. “Do you understand?”
“We will not do that,” Ploterus responded, his voice calm, unconcerned.
“The girl will die,” Gretyx responded. “I will enjoy killing her.”
“As you wish. Larry, use your gun. Kill the queen.”
Larry shook his head. He wasn’t a good enough shot, even at close range. He would miss, and Gretyx would cut Palta’s throat. Or the bullet would kill Palta.
“Go ahead, Larry,” Ploterus insisted. “This is why you have the weapon, is it not?”
It wasn’t. It was just supposed to be a way of convincing Ploterus to join them. But of course if you have a weapon, it will get used, just as the gants had been used on Terra. Just as he had shot Gretyx in the Forum. But he couldn’t shoot it now—he couldn’t risk Palta’s life for this awful woman. Let her ride to Gallia. Let her take over the empire. Let her die beloved in her bed. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
But it did matter, just as all these dead Romans had mattered as they lived out their lives. Everything and everyone matters.
And he knew what he had to do. He had always known, he supposed. One last time, here among the dead. Perhaps he would join them. But Palta would live.
He lowered the gun, and he opened his mind to the multiverse. It rushed in, and he sent it out towards the woman with the dagger at Palta’s neck. As he had promised himself he’d never do again. One last time, sending a human being out among the stars and the galaxies and the dark matter and beyond, into the infinite profusion of the living and the lifeless and the dead, knowing that it would destroy her and probably himself, because how can any one being survive such immensity?
The multiverse exploded around him and in him, and he felt himself falling, falling, down to a place where he never wanted to go, and taking the evil queen with him.
And then there was blackness, and utter silence.
Ploterus
The queen lay on the ground.
Larry, too, lay on the ground. Palta knelt over him, sobbing.
Ploterus felt unsteady, dizzy, short of breath. Something had happened inside his mind, and he had no idea what it had been. More priestly magic, it seemed.
It had been awful, but he was strong. He could overcome it. He walked over to Larry and Palta and took the gun from Larry’s hand. It was a strange, terrifying weapon—so much power in such a small object. All magic was terrifying. He had watched Larry use it; he thought he knew what to do.
He went over to Gretyx. She wasn’t moving, but he couldn’t be sure she was dead. He needed
to be sure, so he aimed the gun at her chest, and he fired. The body jerked from the impact, and then lay utterly still.
Now at last it was truly over.
Epilogue
Helen
The hardest time is after Christmas is over. If it were up to me I wouldn’t celebrate Christmas at all, but Bob and the kids insist. I go along without complaining, because I don’t want to hear any more pep talks about how you need to move on and how living a normal life is the best way to get over it.
I’m not getting over it, ever. And why exactly must I move on? Where should I move to? The kids are grown, mostly. And Bob shouldn’t have to deal with me, day after day, year after year. So why am I here? Why am I making life unbearable for everyone?
I have these thoughts every hour of every day. But I never do anything about them. The pull of the ordinary is too strong: brushing your teeth, making out the shopping list, getting the oil changed. And today, taking the ornaments down from the Christmas tree.
There was a time when Bob was afraid to leave me alone. And he was right to be afraid. But he couldn’t quit his job to be with me every second. Life must go on, right? And so there are days like this—too many of them. He’s at work, Cassie has gone back to her apartment in the city, Matthew is at school. And here I am, alone in this awful house, with nothing to live for but my memories.
But to be honest, I like being alone. There’s no one to stop me, no one to reason with me, if I want to sit down and wallow in those memories. I try to do the right thing—I’ll clean up the kitchen and put in a wash, I’ll exercise, I’ll pretend to read a book. But eventually I crack, and I return to the past. When I was happy.
Today, after the ornaments are packed up, I go upstairs, open a drawer, and find a piece of paper from Larry’s first day of kindergarten. It is a red handprint next to a printed poem:
Here is my hand so tiny and small
For you to hang up on your wall
For you to watch as the years go by
How fast they grow, my hand and I
Oh, how I loved that handprint, that poem. I left the paper taped to the refrigerator for years, until everyone, and especially Larry, was sick of it.
I look at a stick-figure drawing he made of “Mumma and Me” from later that year. I study the way he printed his name in the bottom right corner. He had trouble with his R’s for a while.
And he never liked his name. Lawrence. Larry. No one was named Lawrence anymore, he informed me one day when he was in the fourth grade or so. I explained that it was a lovely name, his grandfather’s name, and so what if you have a different name from everyone else? It makes you special. But he never softened. Somebody had made fun of it, I suppose.
When Bob catches me looking at drawings like this I say: At least I’m not still consulting psychics. At least I’m not still pestering the police with theories and suggestions. At least I’m not still sending money to random cranks who send us tips.
I think I have made my peace with everything and everyone. Except, I suppose, Kevin Albright.
Bob forbids me to talk to him about Kevin. I understand that. Bob his own limits, and having to hear about Kevin’s crazy story is one of them. I want to say: Does Kevin sound crazy to you? He’s a smart kid. He and Larry were so close…
We don’t talk about Kevin anymore. But I think about him. I allow myself to think about him now, even though it makes things worse. Because he is here and Larry isn’t, and why is that? Why is that?
Thinking about Kevin, I go into one of my states where I’m just not here. In a way these are good states, because time passes and I’m not aware of it. I shut out reality and I’m in the past. Larry’s a baby, or a toddler, or riding his bike. I am watching him, and strangely, I’m not worried. I was always worried in real life. I had reason to be worried.
I don’t hear the knocking on the door at first. Usually I don’t answer those knocks. It will be a reporter, or a creep, or just someone trying to be kind. I don’t want to deal with any of them.
But the knocking doesn’t stop, so finally I wipe my eyes and go downstairs and open the door.
And I gaze into the eyes of my missing son.
We sit together on the couch in the living room by the cartons of Christmas tree ornaments. He is trying to explain things—so many things—but my brain doesn’t make sense of his words. There will be time enough to understand. For now I just look at him, touch him, stroke him. My baby. My boy. A young man, home at last.
“How do you know? How do you know for sure?” Cassie will demand when I finally call her. Of course she doesn’t believe me. She is sure that I have finally gone crazy, finally fallen for a scam.
But I know. At some point I show him his handprint from kindergarten and he laughs. “How long did we have that thing taped to the refrigerator? Probably till you got Matthew’s handprint and replaced it.”
Do you see?
His laugh restores my life.
I call my family, and one by one they return home, worried, disbelieving: Matthew from school, Bob from work, Cassie from her apartment. They have probably texted each other: She needs help. She may do something dangerous.
And even when they see him they are all dubious at first. There have been imposters before, especially as the years went by. Children’s faces change; memories fade. Bob was always worried that I’d fall for one of them. I never did.
But Larry knows what he has to do. He tells them things that only he could know—late-night conversations with Matthew in the room they shared. Dinner-table arguments with Cassie. Going shopping for a Mother’s Day gift with Bob when he was seven. Oh, I still have the coffee mug he bought me that Mother’s Day! World’s Greatest Mom.
And so they finally believe. And eventually Larry tells his story, and it starts the way Kevin’s story did, and then it gets stranger, more incomprehensible. Larry is apologetic: I know this is all hard to believe, but…
Bob and Matthew are excited and curious, of course. They have many questions that he tries to answer. I don’t really care about those answers. I know something that perhaps they don’t: his story is even stranger than the one he is telling them. Things have happened to him, and he has changed, but he doesn’t want to talk about all of it. But that’s all right. I understand.
Cassie is angry with him, of course. “Do you have any idea what you put us all through?” she demands.
He nods. “I do,” he said. “And I’m so sorry.”
And then of course Cassie begins to list all the things Larry has put us through: the police interrogations, the endless searches of woods and rivers, the candlelight vigils, the tearful TV interviews…Finally I put my hand on her arm and she stops. She has gotten better over the years.
“Let’s tell Larry about us,” Bob said. “He needs to catch up.”
And that’s fine. But what can I tell Larry about me? My life has been a blank. I don’t want him to feel bad. He is smart and wise and he has experienced things unlike any we can possibly imagine. He can imagine me.
I get up to make supper, but Cassie pushes me back down into my chair and makes supper herself. We talk about food. We talk about his odd accent, the way his sentences sometimes come out wrong. We talk about clothing. Unexpectedly he takes out gold coins and tosses them onto the kitchen table. A present for us from some other world.
We don’t talk about what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the day after. Today is enough.
We eat and we talk, and finally we’re all sleepy. Cassie and I make up the bed for him in the guest room. He hugs us all. When he goes to turn out the light, he can’t figure out how to do it. He’s out of practice with light switches.
I get into bed with Bob. He holds me tight, but he knows not to say anything, he knows that there is nothing he can possibly say to make this moment any better, or to make up for all the time that has been lost. I feel like I can breathe again, for the first time in years. I feel like life makes sense, even though what happened is impossible to belie
ve. My son has come back to me.
I can’t sleep. I gently extricate myself from Bob and make my way into the guest room. I pull up a chair and stare down at Larry. I listen to him breathe. I watch him in the dim starlight. I could watch him forever. He’s handsome and strong. He’s a man.
Eventually he senses me sitting there and opens his eyes.
“I’ve been wearing a beard,” he says. “But I shaved it off. I thought that might make it easier for you to recognize me.”
“I would have recognized you anyway,” I reply.
He reaches out and takes my hand. I squeeze it. We are silent for a while.
“There is a girl,” he says finally.
I hadn’t thought about girls. “All the better,” I reply.
That seems to be enough. I don’t ask him anything more, and he doesn’t say anything more. Finally he falls back to sleep. I stay sitting beside him all night long.
Palta
I am in my room in the royal palace, waiting.
Larry told me his plan as we walked through the empty streets of Urbis, remembering our brief time there. The place felt cold and alien. The priests have plans to move back to Urbis and return it to what it had once been, but what did those plans have to do with Larry and me?
He felt better, he said as we walked. He had survived that terrible moment in the cemetery when he saved my life once again. It had been awful, but now it was in the past. And he felt satisfied. We had done what we wanted to do. The Gallians were gone; the priests had recovered their empire. They would control the future of Terra—this Terra, anyway.
It was time.
And so he walked into his portal and left me. He had left me before, of course, on that hill in Scotia. In Scotia he promised to come back, and he did. But it was long years later that he returned. Could I live through that again?
And now he is gone, and I cannot think; I can scarcely breathe. This can’t keep happening, I tell myself. We must figure this out.
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