Whirlwind

by Liparulo, Robert

  “Xander!” David screamed, pointing at the torturer skimming on the ice thirty feet behind his brother.

  Hugging his arm, David stomped up the slope.

  Xander was almost on him. His brother’s hands skittered over the surface, doing nothing but kicking up snow crystals that flew back into his face.

  David stomped, cracking the crust. Another stomp, and his right foot broke through. He did the same with his left foot.

  Wiggling, rocking, he dug himself in. He swung his injured arm out of harm’s way, and Xander slammed into him like a tidal wave hitting a ship. Anchored in the snow, David bent backward.

  Xander’s arms crumpled. His head struck David and continued moving over David’s chest and head. His body followed, sliding onto—over—David as though he were a ramp.

  When David realized Xander wasn’t stopping, he shot his right hand up and hooked his fingers into Xander’s waistband. The force wrenched David’s shoulder. He was yanked out of the hole, and together they slid toward the cliff.

  But David’s efforts had slowed his brother’s momentum.

  When Xander hit the stone ledge, he came to a jittery stop.

  David coasted into him.

  The sound of the torturer’s descent—like the ripping of paper—increased rapidly as he approached.

  “Roll!” Xander yelled “Roll!”

  David felt Xander twisting away, and he rolled with him.

  The torturer’s hand slapped at David’s arm and shoulder as he sailed past. David craned his head to watch the man hit the rocky ledge, slide, roll, and disappear over the edge: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh . . .”

  Then nothing. The sound of the sky breathing over the boys.

  David squeezed his eyelids together, feeling tears push against them. He was lying on his back, too aware of his body to care about anything else. Bolts of pain shot out of his right shoulder into his neck. His left arm formed a V on the ground beside him, like the wing of a dead bird. It blazed in agony. His fist was still locked onto Xander’s pants. His teeth gnashed together.

  “Holy cow,” Xander said, panting. “David? You okay?” He nudged David’s hand, then gently pried David’s fingers open. He crawled to him and cupped a palm over David’s cheek. “You saved me, Dae. You did it. I would have gone over the edge like that guy, if you hadn’t stopped me. Dae?”

  David could not stop crying. He hurt. His broken arm . . . his shoulder . . . his abraded chest and stomach . . . his legs and back . . . He cried from the pain, and he didn’t want to stop, because it eased the agony a little bit. His chest hitched in jerky motions as he took small gulps of air to fuel his sobs.

  “Oh, David,” Xander said. He carefully moved David’s arms for him, crossing them over his chest. David felt a warmth envelope him and knew Xander had covered him with the Union army coat. Xander pushed the two front halves under him on either side.

  “How are your legs?” Xander said. He brushed the snow off David’s jeans.

  David felt his sneakers come off and heard Xander knocking the snow out of them. His brother slipped them back on and tied them tight.

  David dialed down the tears. His breathing remained in choppy crying mode, but it was getting smoother.

  Xander’s footsteps crunched over the snow and stopped after a few paces. He said, “We gotta get out of here—fast, before we freeze to death.”

  “Where . . .” David’s voice was barely audible to his own ears, let alone Xander’s. He tried again: “Where are we?”

  Xander’s feet crunched back to David’s side. “No clue.”

  David blinked and found his eyeballs drowning in tears. He slipped a hand out from under the coat and wiped them. His temples and ears were soaked . . . and cold. The wetness had begun to ice up.

  Xander stood over him, looking out beyond the cliff. He was hugging himself, furiously rubbing his hands over his biceps. He wore a short-sleeved button-up shirt. His lips were turning blue. Through chattering teeth, he said, “Well, at least it’s beautiful.” Plumes of vapor came out with each word.

  David coughed out a pathetic laugh. “Yeah, the same way a great white shark is before it eats you.”

  “Guess we took care of that torturer guy, huh? Man! Bet he was surprised.”

  David tried to laugh again, but he hurt too much.

  Xander crunched beside him. “So?” he said. “Are you dizzy? Any mixed-up memories?”

  David squinted at him, uncomprehending.

  “You know,” Xander said. “Did cutting that guy from the rack . . . getting rid of the torturer . . . did it change history? Can you tell?”

  David closed his eyes again and shook his head. “Nothing like what happened back at the Civil War.” He breathed. “Maybe we didn’t save him after all.” He started to cry again. “Maybe we didn’t do anything but almost get killed.”

  He wanted to cry again. It wasn’t just the feeling that he’d failed or the pain or being tired . . . it was everything.

  “Maybe you just can’t tell what changed,” Xander said. “Could be not everything we do is noticeable. We made a difference, but it’s too subtle for us to know about it.”

  David draped his arm over his face, across his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have tried.”

  Xander nudged him. ”Don’t say that. Like Toria said, you feel bad when people on TV get hurt.” He paused. “Follow your heart, Dae, but try to keep it beating, okay? If you want to do it, you can help a lot of people using the portals. But you can’t if you’re dead.”

  “You really think we can do that—help people in the other worlds?”

  “While we’re looking for Mom.” Xander considered his words, then added, “But not that way. Not stupid.”

  David nodded.

  Xander tapped his arm. “How are you feeling?”

  David moaned. “Let me think about it.” And he did: his skin was warming up, a little; the sledgehammer-pounding in his broken arm had subsided into a throb; and the throbbing in his shoulder had settled into a dull ache. He said, “Better.”

  Xander grabbed his shoulders to help him up. “Then we better go.”

  “Where?”

  “Is the coat . . .” Xander looked at it with hope. “Is it pulling yet?”

  David held it up between them. It hung limp. “No,” he said. “You think it’s going to?”

  “It got us out of the torture chamber,” Xander said. “We just have to not freeze to death while we’re waiting for it.” He looked up the slope. The hill stopped just above the place where they came into this world—marked by the broken crust at the top of their slide-tracks. Beyond, the mountain continued its jaggy, rocky ascent into the sky. “I think there’s some kind of flat area up there,” he said. “Maybe a pass or a road. That’s the place to start.”

  He stepped off the gray stone ledge onto the snow.

  “Xander,” David said. He extended the coat to him.

  Xander scowled at it. “Are you kidding?” he said. “Put it on.”

  “You s-s-sure?” David’s entire body trembled from the cold.

  “Don’t be dumb,” Xander said.

  David slipped his right arm in, hissing in pain as he did. He draped the left side over his broken arm. Xander crouched in front of him to button it up.

  “Thanks for not being mad at me,” David said.

  “Who said I’m not mad?” Xander said, not taking his eyes off the buttons. His hands were shaking so much, each button took ten seconds. He smiled up at David. “Don’t worry about it. We’re still figuring all this out.” He finished and tugged the coat down. It was too big, hanging almost to David’s knees.

  “You were something back there,” David said, forcing a smile. “Swinging that sword. Man, you saved us.”

  Xander shrugged. “We watch out for each other. That’s what we do.” He stood, said, “Here, I should have thought of this before . . .” He unbuckled his belt and took it off.

  “What
?” David said.

  “A sling,” Xander said, “for your arm.” He buckled the belt and slipped it over David’s head.

  David tucked it inside the coat and rested his arm in the loop.

  “Better?” Xander said.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” He tried to smile, but his lips trembled too much. He said, “What if we’re too deep in the worlds for the coat to work?”

  Xander smiled. “Then I hope we like this place.” He started up the hill.

  CHAPTER

  forty

  They trudged up the slope, gaining traction from the gouges and depressions they had made on their way down. The final thirty feet were more treacherous. Several times one or the other of them slipped back to the holes they’d first made plunging into this world. They finally figured out that pounding their feet through the icy crust before taking a step did the trick. It was a slow, grueling climb.

  At the top, David collapsed onto his back, panting. He chugged out puffs of smoky vapor, like an idling steam train.

  Xander stood, then bent over to catch his breath. “Come on, man,” he said. “We gotta keep moving.” When David didn’t move, Xander grabbed his collar to tug him up. “I mean it.”

  David rolled over and pushed himself up, groaning like an old man. He looked down the length of slope to the cliff. “I can’t believe what a close call that was,” he said.

  “It won’t matter that we didn’t go over,” Xander said, “if we don’t find shelter soon.”

  “Shelter?” David said, in a voice more whiny than he’d intended.

  “Shelter first,” Xander said, “then the portal home.”

  They were standing on a path about twenty feet wide, the slope on one side, a steep rock cliff on the other. It followed the contours of the mountain, rising and falling, swooping left, then right. One direction sloped gradually upward. The opposite way headed down.

  Xander pointed at the ground. “Look.” The snow had been beaten down by the passage of what seemed to be wagons, vehicles, animals, people.

  “That’s a good sign,” Xander said.

  “If they’re friendly,” David added.

  “Hey, if there’s people, there’s gotta be a place to warm up.” Xander faced the upward direction. After a distance, the path curved left and out of sight. He turned the other way, where a longer stretch of path showed itself. Eventually, it bent right and disappeared. Beyond the bend, only sky.

  Xander pointed back in the other direction. “I’m thinking up. Just a feeling.”

  “Xander,” David said, shaking uncontrollably.

  “What?” Xander said, impatient and obviously baffled by the smile David had forced onto his face.

  “It’s the other way.” David gestured with his head.

  “What is?”

  “The portal.”

  “How do you—” Xander’s eyes dropped to the bottom hem of the coat. It was fluttering, one side billowing out away from David’s left leg, the other pressed tightly against his right. “Yeah! I knew we could count on it.”

  David laughed—despite the cold and all his aches and pains, he laughed, releasing big clouds into the air.

  “Let’s go!” Xander said. He gave David a little shove, and they started down the path.

  It didn’t take long for the cold to cut through their excitement. They shuffled along, pulling their shoulders, arms, and heads as near their bodies as possible.

  “Xander,” David said. His teeth chattered.

  “Hmmm?”

  “How do you think there were two portals?” He realized they could discuss it another time, maybe slumped on the family’s cozy sofa, wrapped in blankets, holding steaming mugs of hot chocolate. But he needed a distraction from the cold. Anything would do, and this was what was on his mind.

  Xander shuffled on and said, “Probably there always have been. We just never knew about them because we’ve relied on the antechamber items to show us the right one. Could be, an open portal automatically opens another.”

  Whoa, David thought. That was something that had never occurred to him. It meant that you could end up anywhere, not just the world the house showed you.

  “What if . . .” Xander said and stopped.

  “What?”

  “Did you hear something?”

  They stared at each other for a time, listening, freezing.

  David shook his head, and they continued on.

  “What if,” Xander said, “getting the doctor for that guy and rescuing Nana were two separate things we were supposed to do?”

  David shuffled, shuffled. His breath kept pluming out in front of him, and he kept walking into it. He said, “So, the two things just happened to occur at the same place and almost the same time, using the same antechamber items?” He shook his head, skeptical.

  “Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe not,’” Xander said.

  “What if our messing around there the first time triggered the other one. Looking for Mom—drawing Bob—kind of, I don’t know, kind of put Nana on the front burner.”

  One of Mom’s expressions. David knew it meant making something a priority, something that had to be done right away.

  When David didn’t reply, Xander said, “I don’t know, Dae. It’s something to figure out. Move faster.”

  CHAPTER

  forty - one

  The coat billowed in front of David, making him look barrel-chested and fat.

  As they approached the bend, Xander said, “Dae, it’s not pulling too hard, is it?”

  David glanced at him, saw true concern. “Not yet. Why?”

  Xander stuck his arm out, stopping him. “Maybe you should take it off.”

  “What? It’s freezing.”

  “Would you rather be cold . . . or hurled off a cliff ?” He nodded toward the end of the visible path.

  David hurried to unbutton himself. “Think it would do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Xander said, “but why find out the hard way? The pull does get strong.”

  Xander slipped the coat off him. “Oh, Dae,” he said.

  David followed his brother’s gaze to his chest and stomach. His torso was so red it looked like someone had beat him with a paddle. There were a million pinpricks of blood, like a really bad rash. “It’s from sliding down the slope,” he said. Looking at the damage to his skin, his breathing picked up. He swallowed, sorry for himself.

  “Holy cow!” Xander said, gaping at David’s stomach.

  “What?” said David, thinking: gushing blood, bruises, a shard of something jabbed into him that he couldn’t feel because of the cold.

  Xander flashed a grin. “You’re getting a six-pack, dude.”

  David smiled. “I wish.” As ornery as his brother could be, he sure knew how to pick up his spirits when he wanted to. “It doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks. Just a little.” He shivered.

  Xander said, “Let’s do this.” He draped the coat over David’s shoulders. “Hold it closed from the inside. Better?”

  David nodded.

  “Just let it go if it heads someplace bad.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  About twenty paces before the path curved around a steep outcropping of stone, David felt the coat starting to nudge him that way. He took that as a sign the coat—or any of the antechamber items—wasn’t going to lead them where they couldn’t go.

  Xander stepped close to the edge of the path and peered over. “Oh, man. It’s straight down. No slope at all. I mean, I can’t even see the bottom.” He backed away.

  Around the bend, the path wove gently back and forth, giving them a long view of it, maybe a half mile. It sloped down shallowly, then went up a hill and disappeared.

  “How’s the pull?” Xander said.

  “Getting stronger.”

  “Let’s move faster,” Xander said again, rubbing his arms.

  They started jogging. After a minute, Xander stopped. He crouched and pulled David down. He pointed to something up on the mountain above the
m, just ahead. It was a man, dressed completely in fur. His boots might have been leather, it was hard to tell at that distance. A tight-fitting fur cap covered the top of his head. Long black hair spilled out from under the cap and whipped around in the wind. He was facing away from the boys, and David could make out a quiver of arrows strapped diagonally across his back. His left hand held a bow.