by Paula Guran
—Ray was walking before him, moving with quick urgent steps, looking back now and then to make sure Jack was following him, letting out short yips, as if to say, “Come on, come on.” Jack knew he was dreaming, but also it was safe, for Ray was there, and in his aspect, his red fur giving off flashes of light. Ray was a Fox of the Morning, a solar emanation, and had been with Jack for years, ever since Jack had found himself under attack by demonic chickens.
They were walking through one of the desolated neighborhoods on the outer fringes of the city, with boarded-up windows, urine stench, and doorways and any empty spaces strewn with needles, condoms, and what appeared to be fragments of bodies. Jack didn’t look too close. “Hey, homey,” a voice slurred, “you wan’ some?” Jack couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman and figured maybe that was the idea. He just watched Ray.
The yipping noises speeded up until Ray suddenly stopped, right in the middle of the street, body all stiff as he stared at the courtyard of one of those gulag-like “projects” the city had put up back in the fifties and sixties with such good intentions.
It took Jack a moment to notice the old man picking up small objects, examining them, then throwing some away and stuffing the others in a large canvas bag. You had to look hard to keep track of him, for sometimes he became all shadows, then at other moments vanished in bursts of light. Half turning his head to the left and squinting, Jack managed to get a better view of the man. He wore an oversize dark green coat that might have come from some Soviet Army Surplus store out in the ’stans. It made it hard to see his shape, let alone his face. Jack started to move closer but Ray blocked him, yelping. “Just watch,” Ray seemed to be saying.
So Jack stood on the other side of the street and leaned forward, trying to make out what he was seeing. The man picked up everything—crumpled newspapers, condoms, bone fragments, bits of clothing, bandages, a broken knife. Most things he threw away as soon as he touched them, but every now and then he found something he wanted—Jack had no idea why—and stuffed it into his bag. When he did that, he would wave his right hand over his find before putting it with the others. It was a large hand, thick with muscle. Jack could see some kind of marking at the base of the first finger, what people used to call the Apollo finger.
“What is he?” Jack whispered to Ray. “Traveler? Some kind of Scavenger elemental?” These days, Jack knew, there were elementals of everything, from garbage to obsolete video games to spy satellites. But why was Ray showing him this?
Enough sneaking around, Jack thought. “Hey!” he called out. “What are you looking for? Maybe I can help.”
Startled, the man half turned without standing up. Jack caught sight of a grin, all sharp white teeth, and then a flare of light blinded him.
He came awake in his bed, gasping. “Goddamn it,” he said when he’d caught his breath. He sat up, pressed his left thumb and forefinger against his closed eyes for a second, then made a face at the dream netting. “Lot of good you are,” he said.
In the shower Jack turned up the hot water as far as he could bear it, and used lots of olive oil soap to make sure he got rid of any dream residue that might have passed through the net. The soap, made especially for Travelers from the two-thousand-year-old groves below Mount Parnassus in Greece, usually could be trusted to remove anything dangerous clinging to the skin. Jack was not so confident in this case.
As he dried himself off under the bright arc lamp in the bathroom, he noticed his skin in the full-length mirror attached to the door. Jack didn’t spend a great deal of time looking at himself. He knew he liked his slightly off-kilter face with all its small scars—he was never sure about the big one—his ropy hair that always looked like he cut it himself (actually it was cut by a hairdresser named Pablo, whose husband Jack had once rescued from a Red Dog pack)—his loose muscles, his long hands with their tapered fingers. He liked himself enough not to need reminders. But now something caught his eye, and he examined his skin, front and back.
There were marks on him, small sparkling dots of silver. Very few, and very small, unnoticeable except under the bright array of the arc lamp. He touched them. No pain. Hard to tell because they were minute, but they felt smoother than his skin. He scratched at one. It didn’t come off, and he wondered what would happen if he tried to cut it away. Probably a bad idea.
The one thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t like it. The marks signaled the start of silvercation, by which a Traveler eventually lost control of his body. If it went too far it could become irreversible, even if the cause—usually an enemy—was removed. Jack examined himself again. He found only four very small marks. Two or three, maybe four days, he guessed, before it became really dangerous. At least he hoped.
He walked over to his closet, where he made a face at the rack of clothes. When he was on a case, Jack dressed all in black—black shirt, black jeans, black boots. Otherwise, especially when he played poker, it was loose clothes and color. But was he working now?
He pulled on narrow black pants, primarily so he could wear his boots with the hidden knife sheath, and then a pale blue shirt untucked over the pants. He was half out the door when he turned around and returned to the closet, where he took down a long cardboard box from the back of the shelf. He examined the various things inside it, then selected a black spray can and a ragged red cloth with a frayed edge. He put them inside a black messenger bag and slung it across his chest.
Down in the hotel lobby, Jack saw Irene talking to Oscar, the night concierge. Jack hesitated a second. Should he warn her? Tell her to watch out for someone who appeared just like him, except without the scar? He noticed her looking at him oddly and feared the silver had spread faster than he’d thought. But then he realized it was the odd mix of clothes, black for work, color for time on his own.
She smiled, said, “Good morning, Jack. You’re up early. Or are you just coming home?”
He smiled back. “Nothing so exciting. I’ve got to go see someone, kind of an early-bird type.”
She gave a delicate shrug. “Enjoy the morning. Perhaps it will become a habit.” Jack was about to leave when Irene said, “Oh, Jack, I almost forgot. I dreamed about you last night.”
Jack managed to force a grin. “Really? What was I doing? Nothing too shocking, I hope.”
She did not smile back. “I’m not sure, actually. It was all a bit difficult to see, somehow. You said you wanted to show me something. You looked excited. Then we were walking down some long, dark corridor until we came to a stone door. It was a bit odd, really, it did not appear to be part of a wall. But you opened it, and I saw some dim shapes, and then there was a flash of light that hurt my eyes . . . and that was it. I woke up.”
The door to the Forest of Souls. Was the Rev threatening to send Irene Yao to the Land of the Dead? Take away everyone Jack loved?
He said, “Sorry, doesn’t ring any bells. Or open any doors.” Then, as an afterthought, he said, “You know, I have this odd netting that I found once when I was traveling somewhere. Some sort of folklore thing. Anyway, it’s supposed to protect you from bad dreams. Let me know if you want me to rig it up around your bed.” Who knows, he thought, maybe it would work better for a Non-Traveler.
Jack expected her to smile, and say something like, “How could a dream of my favorite resident be bad?” but instead she nodded, and said, “Thank you, Jack. I may give it a try.”
“Great,” Jack said. “Let me know.” He wanted to run up to her rooms and rig up the dream net right now, in case she went for a mid-morning nap. But Anatolie always told him that when you deal with Non-Travelers you have to let them take the lead.
Outside, the sun had risen all the way and was shining thinly through strands of clouds. Jack was chilly without a jacket but knew it would warm up quickly. He walked over to 34th Street and raised his arm. Almost immediately, a taxi cut across three lanes of angry commuters to pull up in front of him. The ability to summon taxis on command was one of the minor perks of being a Traveler in New York.
Jack leaned back in the seat. “Broadway,” he said, “between Eighty-eighth and Eighty-ninth, east side of the street.”
The driver stared at Jack in the rearview mirror a moment before heading into traffic. He didn’t say anything, but every half-minute or so he glanced in the mirror. It wasn’t until Jack saw the grin on the driver’s face that he realized he had to get out of the car, right now. He took hold of the door handle, prepared to roll into the street.
Too late. “Hey,” the driver said, “I think I dreamed about you last night.” And then Jack was asleep.
—He was walking into the bling lobby of the Palace Hotel, behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He was wearing a smoky brown silk suit and the oxblood wing-tip shoes he’d once taken off an investment banker who needed to follow his wife into the Shadow Valley where you can only go barefoot. Poker clothes.
His friend Annette was in town, from Vegas or Macau, and she’d set up a private game here in the Palace. Jack was excited as he walked up the wide marble staircase in the lobby. Then he stopped, confused. Something was wrong but he couldn’t figure out . . . was that Elaynora, over by the wall, reading the Times? What was she . . .
And then he was in the elevator, and he didn’t remember pressing a floor, but he must have, because it was rising. It stopped at Eleven, and when the door hissed open he headed down the hallway, as if he knew where he was going. “Move forward or get out,” Anatolie told him once. “Never hesitate.” And sure enough, when he got to 1121 he knew it was the room. Maybe Annette had mentioned it.
He knocked, and Mr. Dickens, Jack’s favorite dealer, opened the door. Jack smiled, but before he could say anything, the dealer told him, “I’m sorry, sir, but this is a private gathering.” He moved to close the door.
“Charlie,” Jack said, “it’s me.”
The white-haired old man, dressed in a bespoke black suit and crisp white shirt buttoned to the neck but without a tie, only said, “I’m sorry, sir, but this is a closed event.”
Jack wouldn’t let him push the door shut. “This is crazy,” he said. “Annette called me.” He looked over the dealer’s shoulder to where seven people were sitting around a conference table. All of them wore black, three of the men in Chassidic robes, two in business suits, and a sixth man in a black shirt and black jeans. The sixth man sat across from Annette, who wore a black dress with long sleeves and a low neckline. They appeared to be involved in a large pot, judging from the stack of chips in the middle.
“Annette!” Jack called out. “I got your phone call. Tell Charlie to let me in.”
Annette glanced curiously at him for a moment before turning her attention back to the game. “Raise,” she said, and pushed in nearly as many chips as were already in the pot.
“Call,” the man in the black shirt and jeans said, and suddenly Jack realized it was him. The Rev.
“Annette!” Jack said. “That’s not me. He’s a Dupe. I’m over here.” Now he could see that the Rev was wearing black boots along with the black shirt and jeans. Work clothes. That’s not right, Jack thought, you keep work and poker separate.
Annette glanced again at the door, squinting, as if trying to figure something out. But then the Dupe said, “I called you,” and her attention flipped back to the hand. As if Jack wasn’t there, as if he’d never been there.
She turned over a seven, eight of hearts. “Flush,” she said.
The Rev grinned. “Sorry, babe,” he said, and turned over the jack, three of hearts. Higher flush. Laughing, he scooped up the chips. “It just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?”
No, Jack thought, you don’t do that. When you win, you don’t gloat. He would never do that. Not now, anyway. Maybe when he was younger. Before the disaster, before the geist took control of his daughter and killed his wife. Suddenly, Jack realized—the Rev wasn’t just Johnny Handsome, the Man Without a Scar. He was Johnny Empty, the Man Without Pain.
Let him win, Jack thought, but it was almost like someone else speaking in his head, a message.
“No,” he said out loud, “I can’t do that.” For if Johnny Empty won, who would rescue Genie from the Forest Of Souls?
Jack woke up to find the taxi double-parked on Broadway. “Twelve seventy-five,” the driver said. He sounded annoyed. Tell a guy a weird story and the guy just falls asleep! Jack knew that by the end of the driver’s shift the dream passenger falling asleep would become the punchline.
The taxi pulled away and Jack stood outside Kimm’s Imports and Delicacies. Marty Kimm sold a mix of Asian groceries—dried mushrooms, packs of noodles, sauces—along with lackluster porcelain bowls, beginner Go sets, notebooks with children waving flags on the cover, cotton shoes, and toys so old-fashioned the neighborhood kids didn’t even roll their eyes, they just stared in disbelief. People wondered how “nice Mr. Kimm” could survive in such a competitive high-rent street. It was only a matter of time, they told each other, before another Pret-a-Manger took over and sent “poor Mr. Kimm” to some Korean assisted-living home.
For Mr. Kimm was old, the kind of old that makes you want to guess his age, like guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar. Short and thin, with silver hair cut short, and a constant smile on his face, as if everyone he met was a cute child, he always wore an ironed white shirt, and creased khaki pants. Jack had no idea how old Marty Kimm was. He might have been older than the world.
Jack knew one thing, though. Kimm’s Imports was not in any danger of closing. For while it was a genuine store—Jack and Carolien sometimes cooked dinners using only ingredients and utensils from Mr. Kimm—its reason for being there had nothing to do with noodles and chopsticks. Marty Kimm was a gatekeeper.
Every city has a range of gates, New York just has a few more of them than most. Along with the six Gates of Paradise (two in Staten Island, one each in the other boroughs), and most importantly, the Gate to the Forest of Souls in a garage on Fifty-sixth Street, there were several minor gates, such as the Gate of Flowers in the Bronx, or the Gate of New Skin in a basement in Brooklyn. Marty Kimm was in charge of a Gate of Knowing. On the other side was a Living Archive, and if Jack could get through and consult her he would learn more about Dupes than in weeks of research. Most importantly, he would learn what he needed to know, though it might be his job to figure out why.
Mr. Kimm was playing with a child’s abacus when Jack came into the shop. He looked up, nodded once, then said, “Hello, Jack. I trust you are having a good day?”
Jack said, “I’m having the kind of day where I need to find out things.”
“Ah, of course. Do you have a gift?”
All gatekeepers required some sort of offering. For Barney, keeper of the Forest Gate on Fifty-sixth Street, it was a stolen truffle. For Mr. Kimm it was a limerick, and it had to both say something and be “humble.”
Jack recited:
There once was a Traveler, Jack
Who everyone thought was a hack
He lost his old key
To travel for free
And now he can’t find his way back
“Very nice,” said Mr. Kimm, and clapped his hands once, the way you might for a four-year-old who’s done a somersault. He nodded toward the back of the store. “She’s waiting for you. Perhaps she will have your key.”
Jack looked and saw a bead curtain over a doorway at the far wall. Was it there before? Yes, of course, his cortex said. His amygdala wasn’t so sure. He glanced back at Mr. Kimm, who was once more playing with the abacus. The markers were just painted wood but they gleamed like bright marbles. For a moment, Jack thought they were entire worlds, and a dizziness came over him so that he nearly fell. But he looked again and saw they were just bits of wood.
He stepped through the curtain into a wide, bare room with a polished checkerboard floor. The walls were covered with mirrored panels, set off from each other by thin gold columns. It might have been an eighteenth-century ballroom, except instead of perfume there was a sharp smell, and instead of the minuet
there was a staccato of wings. When Jack looked at the back of the room he saw a woman covered by brown owls.
She appeared to be lying on a couch, though it was hard to tell because all he could really see was her face, round and kind, her unwrinkled skin a milky white. The owls, some with horns, others smooth, hid the rest of her. In front of her stood an old-fashioned black steamer trunk, the kind parents used to send with their kids to summer camp.
A Traveler with a strong need to learn about something had several options. The big city Travelers Aid Societies had old-fashioned libraries, complete with frail, ancient books bound in human skin, or even scrolls that might crumble if you tried to unroll them. More isolated Travelers, or just more modern, turned to the Cloud Archives maintained by Jinn-Net. Of course, this particular cloud was not something you could reach via Google. But when even that wasn’t enough, when you needed to know, right now, there was the Mother of Owls, and her treasure box of whispers.
“Hello, Jack,” she said, her voice dry and precise and very old. “Mr. Kimm approves of you. I believe he likes you.”
“I need help,” Jack said. “I need to know.”
“Of course. And the subject of your need?”
“Dupes. Duplicates.”
“Ah. A tricky subject. So easy to get lost, for the road keeps turning back on itself. One’s bird crumbs eaten by one’s own mirror.” The owls fluttered, lifted up and came back down.
Jack kept his eyes on their mistress. “Can you help me?” he said.
“Perhaps. And what of the other thing?”
“Other?”
“The Duplicate is only half of the quandary. Isn’t that true, Jack?”
He found it hard to hold her gaze. “Yes,” he said finally. “It’s all taking place in dreams.” He didn’t want to tell her the rest of it, how his Dupe had come back as a Rev, and the Rev had invoked Jack’s Guest.
But maybe it wasn’t necessary. Mother Owl smiled and said very softly,
“There once was a Jack who was proud
And believed he stood out in the crowd