by Patricia Bow
At first they tiptoed. But after a few minutes Simon realized there was no use trying to be quiet. The newcomer (the librarian? the door guard?) knew they were here and it (he? she?) was following them. It was walking even more quietly than they were, but it couldn’t help making the floor tremble. Glass jars tinkled together on the shelves.
“Better speed up,” Simon murmured.
They started off walking fast, but soon they were running — Ike in the lead, then Ammy, clutching the book to her chest, then Simon. Not far behind, a row of books crashed to the ground. The newcomer must be running too, its body scraping the shelves on both sides.
They leaped through a gap one after the other and passed the silver box with the open lid. “We’re close!” Ike gasped.
Simon looked ahead and saw the jar with the ferocious little specimen inside. At the same moment feet with hard nails scrabbled the floor behind and he knew it had squeezed through the gap and seen them.
He didn’t look back. No time. “Ammy! Get the door open!” As he reached the jar he slowed down half a second to grab it in both hands.
Ammy and Ike burst from the row of shelves and across the bare triangle towards the painted door. Simon saw Ammy reach out with the ring. He tossed the jar backwards over his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A CLOUD OF RUBIES
Simon expected a crash and a stink, but instead there was a crunch and something made a noise like the gears of a car grinding together. The footsteps behind him lost their galloping rhythm.
The door on the wall came to life, glowed, and flared. Ike looked back. “Simon, c’mon!” he yelled. Ammy, beside him, glanced back and froze.
Simon didn’t waste his breath shouting. He piled into Ike and Ike barged into Ammy and they fell into the shining blue tunnel in a tangle of arms and legs.
§
Amelia’s head was full of blue light. It hurt. She whimpered and tried to open her eyes. Saw rough grey rock. So they were back, safe and sound. Great.
“You okay?” Simon’s voice boomed in her ear.
Her head whirled with jagged bits of images broken up by rays of dazzling blue light. A shape was forming out of the jumble. There was something about that shape. She felt she would recognize it if she could just get a good look.
“What’s the matter?” Booming voice again.
“Head.” She drew up her knees and buried her face on her crossed arms. That shape... Relax. Let it come. The way it came from the cave mouth, bending low, then rising up, with the blue light streaming out around it like a crown.
“I’m one big bruise,” Simon announced, farther away. “But we’re all in one piece, right? Ike?”
“I’m okay. Hey, my watch is working again — 4:53! Yours?”
“The same. Looks like we just picked up where we left off.”
And leaped. Across the gorge. No, not leaped. Sailed. Glided.
“I wonder what time it really is?” Simon again.
“Well, there you go.” A distant bonging drifted from the cave entrance. “That’s the clock in the town hall.”
Shining like a cloud of jewels. Rubies, floating overhead. So beautiful. So...
“Two ... three...” They counted together. “Four ... five...” The bonging stopped.
“Five o’clock,” Ike said. “So, all that took us only eight minutes! That’s if this is the same day we started, and not twenty years from now.”
“We were in there a lot longer than eight minutes,” Simon said. “Ammy? What d’you — um, are you okay?”
Rubies sparkled overhead. Lightning tore at her mind, tore bits of it away. Something thudded to the ground a few feet away.
Amelia opened her eyes. They stood over her like gawkers at a car crash. Simon held the book under one arm. She felt like her heart was being squeezed in half.
She pushed herself up to her knees, then lurched to her feet. Head not so bad now. Now that the picture was complete.
“I’m just wonderful.”
Even Ike didn’t look as if he believed that, but neither of them disagreed.
Nobody suggested waiting to find out if anything interesting might come out of the cave after them, and nobody dawdled as they climbed down the cliff and slithered among the rocks and ice to the path up to Deacon Street. As Simon climbed out at the top of the path, the last in line, he took a look back along the gorge, where the rocks and ice gleamed pink in the afterglow of sunset. He let out a sigh of relief.
“That was some watchdog,” Ike said. “I don’t see how anything that big could have chased us between those shelves.”
“What kind of thing was it?” Simon asked.
“I had a split-second look, that’s all. It was big and the front end was all teeth.”
“Only eight minutes.” Simon shook his head. “Are we sure it really happened?”
“We have this for proof.” Ike tapped the book. “A genuine alien artifact!”
“That’s right!” Simon bounced as he walked. “We’ll make history! We...” He looked at Amelia. “Oh, right,” he said flatly. “We have to take it to Mara. It’s hers.”
Such a pair of kids, she thought. “Yeah, we better. Because now I know what Mara is.”
Her right hand went into her pocket. The ring was there, hard and warm. The pulse in her thumb flickered against the stone. It was like a friend’s hand in hers. Liar.
§
I’ll be cool, Amelia promised herself as she led the way up Founders Tower. I’ll just hand the things over and say, “Fine, you got what you came for, so long, goodbye.”
She half hoped the platform would be deserted when they reached it. But Mara was there, still sitting against the parapet, like she hadn’t moved a muscle while they were away risking their lives in another dimension.
“Well, here we are,” Amelia said, and was surprised to hear herself sounding so normal.
Mara opened her eyes. “You are not hurt?”
“Like you care?”
Mara’s head went up. “You are angry. Why?”
“Why not just rummage in my mind and find out?”
Mara looked at her. In the twilight it was impossible to read her face. Light from somewhere reflected off her eyes and made two glowing green spots in the gloom. Monster, Amelia thought. Simon was pulling at her arm. She ignored him.
“You remember,” Mara said.
“Yeah, I remember. I know what you are and what you did to me.”
“That was...” Mara pulled herself up and leaned against the parapet. Amelia felt a twinge of pity and stifled it. “Accident,” Mara finished. “I was afraid.”
“Right, like the other night, when you ran off to fight the Assassin, and blasted my mind so I couldn’t see what you really looked like!”
“No! I just ... made a little light in front, so you not see. I did not want you hurt.”
“Oh, yeah?” Amelia laughed. “So that’s why you sent us to get that book? We just missed being eaten! That’s what it’s all been about, right? You get in my mind and, and make me” — I won’t cry. I won’t! — “do things for you, risk my life to get that — that stupid book. Well, here it is. Take it and go away. Give it to her, Simon.”
She turned and groped for the doorway. Where was the darn stair?
“Amelia!” And in her mind, faintly: Amelia! She whirled around.
“Get out of my mind! I thought you were — I thought — thought you were my friend. And all the time it was this, wasn’t it?” She held out her fist. “You used it to control me.”
“That?” Mara straightened up. “It has no power. Only against me.”
“You made me like you!” Her fingers hurt. She unclenched them. The ruby ring had cut into the skin. She hurled it at Mara, who scooped it out of the air without looking at it.
“I have no words,” Mara said in a strange, small voice. “Right, like you haven’t been scraping out my entire vocabulary!”
“I —” Mara began, but Amelia didn’t stay to listen
. She wondered, later, how she made it to the bottom of the stairs without breaking her neck.
§
Simon let his breath out slowly. He’d been afraid Mara would get really mad and do something violent, but she stayed put the whole time Ammy was ranting and only moved when Ammy crashed down the stairs. Then she oozed back down the parapet and sat.
“So what was all that about?” Ike asked from the top of the stairs, poised for a quick retreat.
Mara said nothing. “I think Ammy remembers what happened, the night of the blue flare,” Simon said.
“But we were there too. How come we don’t get our memories back?”
“It was not well done,” Mara muttered.
Simon decided not to ask any questions. There was something about Mara that made him go on tiptoe. “Um, here’s the book.” He held it out. She raised her head and looked, then lifted a hand. “Bring. And after, do not touch me.”
After what? He wondered. He set it down on the stone floor beside her. Too dark to read, he thought, but she opened the book and turned the pages. Stopped — he couldn’t see where — and set her hand down firmly.
For about two minutes there was silence. He’d forgotten how quiet it gets at night in winter. No bird sounds, not even a crow. The wind had fallen. He heard his own breathing, and Ike’s, and the faint creak of the tower’s timbers down the stairwell. A bitter, burned smell hung in the icy air. He thought it came from the book.
Mara gave herself a shake. She closed the book and pushed it away. “I must go home. My brother is winning. My people are dying.” She started to haul herself up the parapet again. Simon found himself at her side, trying to hold her up and push her down simultaneously. She was all thin bones and papery skin and muscles like tree roots.
“You can’t go back like that! You’ll only get yourself killed!”
She went still. “And then they will truly despair. Yes. You are wise.” She slid back down.
“There’s a clinic here in Dunstone. Let me bring help.”
“No. I heal myself.” She pulled up her knees, wrapped her arms around them, and bent her head. Her hair fell like a glinting curtain. “I go home tomorrow,” said her muffled voice.
Ike poked Simon in the back. “She’s cocooning,” he whispered. “Is she through with the book? Can we have it?”
She did look like a cocoon. “Um, Mara? Shouldn’t you be someplace warm?”
A green glint opened in the curtain of her hair. “Go away.”
“At least put the coat back on!”
Mara growled like a dog. Simon took that as a no. He backed up against Ike, who hissed: “The book!”
“Take the Book of Lands,” said the muffled voice. “Take the firebird coat. Go!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
Ike hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth. “It’s okay. My dad says I can stay for supper at your place but I have to be home no later than eight. Can you beat that? I tell him we’ve discovered another world and he says, ‘That’s great, kid. Just make sure you’re home no later than eight.’”
“Like he’d believe you,” Simon said.
“Well, he’ll have to now, won’t he? Now that we’ve got proof.” Ike touched a corner of the book. Simon was holding it against his chest with both arms wrapped around it.
They’d had to walk west on Hill Street, a block out of their way, to find a phone outside a Mac’s Milk store. Even the milk store was closed, and the streets were deserted. At five-thirty on New Year’s Day every-body was inside, behind closed curtains and decorated windows, having dinner.
McNairn Street was brighter, with its rows of lit-up store windows. Simon stopped and held the book down where they could both see it. Proof, he thought. A book bound in the green, scaly skin of some other-world creature, with the family emblem of some alien ruler pressed into the cover. “A book of doors,” he said. “Or windows?”
“Windows,” Ike said.
“Right. Your mind goes through, so you can see, but not your body.”
“It must be like a really, really interactive CD.”
“Looking into a different world. Maybe a different universe.”
“And it’s ours!”
Simon took a deep breath. “This is going to change everything.”
They exchanged excited grins.
“What really gets me is the time,” Ike said. “How long d’you think Ammy was in that underwater place? From all she said, it had to be more than a few minutes, right? But how long was it on our side?”
Simon thought back. “A few seconds. And when we went though the passage? It felt like we wandered around that museum for an hour.”
“More.”
“Say eighty minutes. But when we got back it was only eight minutes. That’s a difference of ten times.”
“It must be a quantum thing. We’ll experiment.”
Simon clutched the book closer. Yes, everything would change once this came out. Not just for him and Ike. For the whole world! Every time he thought of that it made his heart jump.
They crossed McNairn. Not a car in sight. Then, to avoid another detour, they cut through the parking lot next to the school. The glow of the streetlights faded behind them.
Ike laughed suddenly. “We’ll be famous. You realize that?”
“That’s right. Everybody will want to see it.” Simon frowned. “Suppose they try and take it away from us?”
“We’ll need help. Somebody who’s really big in physics.”
“Somebody we can trust.”
“If only Carl Sagan was still alive!”
Simon suddenly thought of Mara and Ammy, both of them miserable. It almost seemed unfair he should be so happy. He didn’t even care that he’d lost a bit of his memory. That bit about the blue flare, and whatever came after it, that seemed unimportant. Which was odd, when you came to think of it.
“Now, that’s funny,” Ike said. He pointed. Behind them on the right, the school was a long black silhouette against the glow of streetlights on McNairn. “What’s that up there?”
Simon looked. The flat roof of the school changed shape as he watched. Not by much, but something was up there, all right.
Ike kept staring. “There, it moved again.”
“Nothing to worry about.” Simon pulled at him to get him moving. Whatever it was, it was big. The roof had taken on a strange, humped outline. He didn’t like it.
“We ought to get back to the street, where it’s bright. But...”
“But we’d have to pass it.” Ike blew out a cloud of breath. “Let’s get going.”
They set off across the school grounds, a sheet of unmarked snow that seemed to stretch forever under the black sky, like an Arctic waste. A row of buildings on Queen Street, on the other side of the grounds, looked far away and tiny.
Simon’s legs itched. He wanted to run, but he knew better. Running would open the door to fear. Right now, the door was barely closed.
To their left rose a high fence, with a row of houses behind it. To the right, more open snow and the dark bulk of a church. Not a living soul in sight, except for them. And no sound except their own breathing and the squeak of snow under their boots.
Simon gasped and whipped around.
“What?” Ike yipped.
“Thought I felt something.” He started to sweat inside his parka. There was nothing there, of course. Just snow and darkness and the faraway lights.
“Don’t get me started.” Ike looked back over his shoulder and all around.
Simon laughed. “Nerves!”
“Never thought you had any.”
Before they’d taken two more steps, it was there behind them. This time for sure. Simon knew it before he felt the wave of air on his cheek. Ike started to turn.
Then, darkness — sudden, warm, thick — closed down from above. It spread out hugely on both sides and folded them in.
§
When the darkness lifted Simon was lyin
g on his back in the snow. The town hall clock was striking six. He scrambled up, stiff and cold, but ready to run. There was nothing to run from.
Ike struggled to his feet beside him. “You okay?”
“Yeah. You? What was that?”
They were alone. The only sign that anything had happened was the prints of their two bodies, like badly done angels in the snow.
“Simon, the book?”
“It’s gone.”
As Simon stared down at the ground he noticed something. “Look!” A neat trail of tracks led back through the parking lot. Two sets of boot prints, side by side. His and Ike’s. Nobody else’s.
“And there.” He pointed a shaking finger. Footprints — different ones, not from boots — were spotted around the body marks.
“Like the ones outside the cave,” Ike said. “The ones with the crampons.”
“But where did they come from? The sky?”
“Well...” Ike pointed. The strange prints led away — one, two, three — then none. The snow beyond that last one lay clean and perfect.
Ike and Simon backed away, turned, and started running. They didn’t stop until they reached the Hammer Block.
§
“Ammy? I wish you’d open up.” Simon leaned on Ammy’s door. He was fed up with trying to talk through it. “I think you’re wrong about Mara. I feel like we weren’t fair to her.”
“She’s evil,” came the muffled answer. “Look what she can do to people’s minds! Remember the mall? The espresso machine eagle?”
“That’s just what I mean. If she could do that, she could’ve made us forget everything we’ve found out. She could have turned you back into her best friend, like you were at the start. But she didn’t.”
“She doesn’t care. She’s got what she wants.”
“I think she does care.”
“You’re wrong.”
Getting tired of this.... “Something stole the book. We got mugged, Ike and me.”
The door opened. Ammy looked him over. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Ike’s dad came in the car and picked him up. But the book —”
“Who cares about the book?” The door slammed.