Sensation screamed through him as his body churned into life in an instant. Unable to cope with the sensory overload, he collapsed into Curly's arms, his legs rubbery, his mind spinning.
"Woody," he heard Curly say, and realized that he had been pulled back by a lifeline of flesh and bone, and knew that if he had gone into that darkness without holding his friend's hand, he would have been either dead or something worse, beyond death.
"Woody? Are you okay?"
"You two are a trip," Keith said. "It's a hall, man. You're acting like it's the gate to hell. Well, if it is, we just got some pizzas there."
"Hold the anchovies and the brimstone," said Tracy, and laughed at her own joke when no one else did.
"We can't go through there," Woody said when he had his voice back. "I felt as if . . . as if I was dying. Or dead."
"What do we do?" Alan asked. "Are we trapped here? I mean, we're obviously not getting out that door, and no time is passing. I'm only a lapsed Catholic, but I remember Limbo well enough. This could be it."
"Hey," said Tracy, "I'm sorry you're all having such a miserable time. But don't you think maybe hell is more like it? I mean maybe your gate there is the way in. You've read No Exit?"
"Tracy—"
"Don't Tracy me, Woody! I don't know what you guys have been smoking, but it's made you all mean and paranoid and really freaky. If you don't like it here, go back to the future or wherever the hell you came from." She stood up and walked into the inner hallway, tears filling her eyes.
Woody stood for a moment looking after her, torn between his desire for the past and his unexpected terror of it. Then he felt Curly's hand on his shoulder, turned, and looked into his friend's pale face.
"Go see your girl," Curly said softly. "Then we'll figure a way out of this."
Tracy was in the bedroom, sitting on the bed next to the window, looking out at the night. She was not crying, but Woody could see that her eyes were moist with denied tears. "Tracy," he said as he stepped into the room.
She gave him a look both accusing and pleading. "What's wrong with you? Why are you acting like this, Woody?"
He sat next to her, not touching her. "I know. It sounds crazy, absolutely insane. But crazy or not, it's the truth." He took her hand, and felt the tears pool in his own eyes. "I love you, Tracy. I've loved you for over twenty years—"
"Stop it," she said, turning away from him, her voice cracking in fright.
"No, listen, please. I want you to know that—that I love you. I think that's what brought me back here, loving you so much, and maybe I dragged everybody else along with me, or maybe it was a communal thing, I don't know. But we can't stay here, because we don't belong. It isn't our time."
"What do you mean? Look at yourself—you're Woody, you're twenty-one years old, you're not some old man!"
"Inside I am. Not an old man, but older."
"Then where am I?" she asked, and he felt ice line his throat. "Where am I in this . . . future of yours?"
"You're . . ." He couldn't say it. In her presence, in the aura of her energy, her vitality, it would have been blasphemous. Just . . . do something for me," he finally said. "I know you want to go with Keith . . . to the ROTC building. Don't do it. For the love of God . . . if you love me, please don't do it."
She looked at him for a long time, her gaze hardening, the lacy lines between her brows growing deeper. "Is that what this is all about?" she said. "You're trying to scare me out of that? What, you gonna tell me that I'm in prison in the future? Or dead?"
"Tracy—"
"You know, being honest with me could work. You don't have to stoop to this."
"It's the truth. I'm sorry. But it's the truth."
Tracy got off the bed. "I wasn't going to, Woody. But now maybe I will. If a certain party we know decides to make a certain political statement. But don't worry, you won't know anything about it. I wouldn't want you to get your clean little futuristic hands dirty." She whirled around and walked out into the hall.
Woody followed her into the living room, where, as if in defiance of his request, she sat next to Keith and glared at Woody with undisguised anger. The look made his heart sick. He stood in the doorway, not knowing what to do, what to say. Limbo was right, he thought. Lost souls trapped forever. And how long would it be, if time could still be measured, before Limbo became, as Tracy had suggested, hell? The dream was already drifting into nightmare.
"Woody?" He turned, saw Frank standing by him. "We've got to try and go back. I was talking to Sharla and Curly, and they think maybe we could do it the way we came."
"The way we came?"
"Do the same things that got us here in the first place. Maybe if we get in a circle again, smoke that grass, join hands, whatever . . ." Frank frowned and shook his head. "I feel like such an asshole. I don't believe I'm actually accepting the . . . warped reality of this whole thing. But when in Rome . . ."
"Does Curly still have the grass?"
Frank nodded. "It's loose in the baggie, like he never rolled those other joints. And the Doors' album is here. The only reason not to do it is that there's no fallback position if it doesn't work."
Woody gestured toward the corner where Eddie was talking to Dale. "What about them? Dale, Keith. What do they think?"
"Keith doesn't believe a word of it, and I don't blame him. Dale, God love him, was trying to talk me down, for crissake. He seemed hurt when I declined his counseling." Frank shrugged. "Shall we try it?"
Woody felt his whole body tremble with a sigh. "We have to." Curly was near the stereo. "Curly," Woody said, "put on The Doors, huh? And then roll another fat one."
"We get a hit off this cosmic shit of yours?" Keith said.
"Sorry. Just us fucked-up travelers through time and space." Woody tried to smile. "See, it's a round trip. Only those who got on in the future can go back again . . . we hope," he added under his breath.
"Don't let the magic door hit you in the ass," Tracy said.
Her words and tone tore into him. He had wanted to come back, to see her and love her, and now everything had turned out wrong. He stood, his hands hanging at his side, while the others gathered in the awkward oval of friends in which they had come through before. They searched their memories to recall who had sat next to whom, for it seemed much longer ago than the few hours that must have passed. A space was left for Woody, and the others looked at him expectantly while Curly held the joint.
Woody did not step into the circle, but around it, to where Tracy sat on the sofa, and looked into her face with such sorrow that her adamantine expression softened, and her mouth dropped open gently, like the petals of a flower.
"I'm not going, not really," he said to her. "We'll all still be here, but changed. I'll be me again—the me you know." And then he said, with great sadness, "The me you love."
He kissed her and she responded with a kiss that tasted of tears and chances lost. He broke away, sat in the space provided for him, his back to her, choking down sobs, biting back the urge to return to her arms.
Instead he surrendered himself to the future, to the music that had brought him to the past, the pungent scent of the joint that Curly was lighting, breathing in deeply, holding, passing. He held Eddie's hand on one side, Sharla's on the other, part of the circle, part of (God, please) the voyage back.
Still, he felt Tracy's presence behind him, felt the air stir as Keith stood, moved closer to the circle, saw from the corner of his eye Dale kneel behind Fred and Judy, glimpsed the closed door to the outer hallway, prayed that when he opened it again it would lead into light instead of darkness, into the world he had left.
And now the joint came to him, and he released Sharla's hand, took it, breathed in the smoke, passed it on to Eddie, closed his eyes, held, held as long as he could, the smoke filling his lungs, his veins, his brain, pushing out the music so that only the overwhelming sense of oneness was left, oneness with the circle of friends, the living . . .
. . . and the dead
.
And there they were, near them, around them, within them, without them.
Without them?
No.
It was a universal, communal thought, as if the eight shared one mind. And as that mind began to glow white, to flame and fill the world with its fire, it commanded its arms and hands to reach out, grasp the lost, bring them into the circle of flesh and soul, and Woody's arms that were everyone's arms did as they were ordered, touched other hands, made them one with the fire, with the wheel of life, and he felt Tracy becoming part of him, felt Keith and Dale as spokes of the wheel, the wheel itself, as one, but greater than they had been before.
And the wheel and time and space rolled on, and they knew that they, that it had succeeded, had made the leap once more, but now were greater than they had been, and they drowned happily, stronger, singing in the cool flame as it began to fade once more into the welcome darkness . . .
And something shifted. Wrenched the universe.
Tore the fabric of the cosmos.
They had time to feel only the ghost of terror before the darkness fell completely.
Chapter 10
To Keith Aarons, coming to the present was like waking from a dream of his youth. But when he shook off the lethargy that had bound him, he quickly discovered that the dream was rooted in reality. Instantly he realized where he was, and why he was there. But the sense of amazement that he felt was swept aside by the far more important demand of survival.
He must not be there when the closed eyes of his friends opened. If he was, they would all have to die, and that was something he did not want to happen, for he owed his life to them, his life and his existence for the past twenty-four years.
When the eight had grasped the others, Keith had been the last to be drawn into the circle, holding back as the hands reached out for him. Only when he saw the others tremble, shimmer, and actually begin to fade before his eyes did he grasp their offered hands, allow himself to become one with them all, to return to where he belonged and had never been, to be born into a world where he had already lived over forty years, and had performed his bloody and necessary work for twenty of those. Perhaps, he thought, because he had been the last to enter the circle, he had been the first to come out, not as deeply affected by the experience as the others. Too, it might have been due to his ability to come to full wakefulness instantly from sleep, a talent partly hereditary, partly learned, and fully required.
Whatever the reason, he took advantage of his early awakening by gently disengaging his hands and arms from the limbs of those who held him, and rose to his feet. He moved silently and quickly, as he always did, moved like a ghost, like the spirit of the dead man he was.
For, he thought with a twist of irony as he opened the door and stepped into the hallway, he was a dead man. For well over two decades he had been dead to his friends and to the world. In order to continue his work, his quest, his holy war, he would have to remain so.
He stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at each one of his friends with a mixture of nostalgia, sorrow, and gratitude, remembering their faces and names, and thinking that perhaps a time would come when he could thank them. But not tonight. No, not tonight.
He dug his hands in his pockets, but found no money, nothing at all. Los Angeles was a long way from Pennsylvania, but he had crossed the country on his wits before. He could do it again.
When he saw Woody Robinson begin to move, he gently closed the door, and, with a heightened sense of wonder and a firm and renewed sense of purpose, took the first step on the road to California, reentering his legend.
~*~
As Woody Robinson slid into consciousness, the first thing he heard was the unmistakable squeal of the apartment door closing. The first thing he smelled was the scent of Tracy Zampelios's strawberry shampoo. The first things he felt were Tracy's hair against his face, and her hand clutched in his own.
And, when he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his wife sitting next to him.
Tracy.
But not Tracy Zampelios.
Tracy Robinson.
Tracy Robinson.
Tracy Robinson.
He heard the two words over and over in his head, as he looked at the face inches from his own, that face with closed eyes, a face that the years had lined as delicately as an artist touches his pen to rice paper. Her brown hair was as lustrous as it had been twenty-four years before. No gray edged it.
Yes, he thought impossibly, miraculously, unequivocally, she was here, she had not died, she had lived, and he had loved her and been with her all these years, with her, and with . . .
Their children.
He felt and heard the others stir now. Legs and arms moved, stretched, but still Tracy did not move, and panic knifed him. He shifted, so that he could feel her side, to see if the dream he held in his arms was alive, or whether God, fate, or what passed for them had played nothing but a cruel trick.
But her eyelids shivered, and opened, and looked into his, her gray eyes that had shared lives lived for over twenty years, but for him only in memory, like a dim and continuous film he had watched all that time with his mind's eye, never experiencing it, only seeing it, as his life, that other life without her, went on.
That life was over now. And the life with her, the life he had wanted to live, was just beginning.
She smiled at him as she had smiled thousands of times, waking up next to him on thousands of mornings, and squeezed the hand that held hers.
"I know now," she said. "Now I know."
He began to speak, to ask her how she knew, what she knew, to beg for explanations he knew she could not have, but his soul was so filled with her, with new knowledge of old time, that words would not come.
Only tears came, his tears and hers, and as they clung to each other he saw through a dim veil his friends, the people he had gone back with, and then come home again, some staring at him and Tracy, and some at Eddie and Dale, embracing and crying just as hard.
His friends, his fellow travelers between worlds, stared with love and knowledge and wonder, as Tracy whispered a name into his ear, over and over again, her sobs mixed with laughter, until he finally recognized the word, a name:
"Orpheus," she was saying.
"Orpheus? . . .”
"The musician. Who went into the underworld . . .” She looked at him now, her face shining with tears. "Orpheus, who brought back his lost love. But he looked back, and lost her." She pressed her face against his again. "Oh, Woody, don't look back . . . let's never look back . . ."
Then the others were with them, touching, holding, laughing, weeping, knowing and believing. They listened to the sounds of cars outside, watched the hands of the clock moving, twisted their wedding rings, and finally Tracy said to him the words that he had never thought he would hear from Tracy Zampelios, words for which he would have sold his soul.
"Let's go home," she said.
Part II
Chapter 11
When the soft and confused talk had ended, when ten awed people came out of a door where only eight had entered, when Woody and Tracy Robinson had returned to their room at the Holiday Inn (in which Mr. and Mrs. Robinson were registered), they sat and held each other for a long time. Then Tracy kissed him and said, "It's only nine on the coast. Let's call the kids."
"The kids," he repeated.
"I thought you'd want to talk to them. Hear their voices."
"Yes," he said, hoping the dream wouldn't end before he talked to the children he had never met, never hugged or kissed except in a new memory. He took the receiver she handed him, dialed a number he had never dialed before, but knew as well as his name, waited while it rang twice, and heard the click as a handset was picked up across the continent.
"Hello," said a stranger he knew so well. He could not speak, and again the voice said, "Hello?"
"Peter?" he said, his voice choked with joy and terror.
"Dad? Hey, how's your party?" They were the words of
a boy whose voice had not yet changed, shrill and piping, sibilants hissing over the wires.
"The party is . . . over," Woody said.
"Well, how was it? Was it fun?"
"It was fun. Yes. It was . . ." He looked into his wife's gray eyes. ". . . it was really great. The best party ever."
"Darn. Wish I coulda gone."
"Well, it wasn't for, for kids. Is, uh, is Louisa there?"
"Yeah, she's right here." Woody heard the phone being passed, and a female voice, much like Tracy's.
"Daddy? Hi! When are you and Mom coming home? Peter has been such a dweeb ever since you left."
"I have not!" Woody heard Peter say.
"All right, just tell . . . Teresa to keep him in line."
"Oh, Teresa thinks he's cute."
"Listen, Louisa, I just wanted to call and say . . . that I love you."
"I love you, Daddy."
"And tell Peter I love him too. Will you do that?"
He heard a theatrical sigh. "Oh, all right."
"We'll be home soon—Mom and I. Goodbye."
He hung up the phone and took his wife's hands. "Oh God, Tracy," he said. "Oh God, I missed you."
Then they made love. He left the lights on so that he could see her, and it was as if he had not embraced a woman in decades. When they came together, he flowed into her as if binding her to him, making her one with him so that she could never leave him again, so that time and memory would be concepts and nothing else, so that the vaguely remembered past would become, for him, the real one, the only one.
But just before he drifted off to sleep, his arms around her, he thought he remembered the door of the apartment closing as he woke from the journey into, and the reality of, the past, and, for just a moment, wondered what it meant. Then he was asleep, and dreamed of the beach, Peter, Louisa, Tracy in a bathing suit as white as flame.
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