by Barry Lyga
Moira had never really cared much for baseball, but she’d done her share of playing it during phys ed at school. And while sports weren’t her thing, physics and geometry were … and hitting a baseball was all about physics and geometry. The proper stance. The right swinging angle. The correct amount of force.
Aiming for center mass again, she thwacked him along his shoulder. Hard. He yelped and stumbled to his left, a look of pure shock etched on his face. He truly, honestly could not believe she’d struck him.
“What do you think—”
He didn’t get to finish, because Moira reared back and smacked him again. This time, the piece of wood glanced off his shoulder and fetched up alongside his head. The force of the blow was so terrific that the wood shattered at that end. The flesh of his cheek ripped; a spike of wood caught there and jutted out like the world’s ugliest piercing. The boy howled in abject pain and clapped a hand to his face to stanch the blood. Blood poured from his ear, too.
“What the … What are you doing?” he whined.
The wood in her hands was shorter by several inches now, but the business end projected with wicked, sharp spikes.
“Teachin’ you not to mess with the Irish, laddie,” she said.
He backed away from her, still pressing a palm against the gush from his face. “You’re in Dutch now! I’ll be back! You cow! You stupid, clucking hen!”
Before she could say anything in response, he turned and ran from the alley. Moira actually ran forward several steps, ready to chase him down and re-introduce him to the end of her plank, but she stopped herself almost immediately.
She couldn’t go after him. Her hair.
And besides. There was Zak.
“I’ll be back!”
She was sure he would be. And this time, she wouldn’t be able to surprise him. Despite the warmth, she began to shiver. Who knew what he would return with? A knife? A gun? Maybe just a couple of big friends. That’s all it would take.
She rushed to Zak’s side. He’d slept through the whole thing. His skin was pale and damp; when she touched his wrist to feel his thready pulse, his flesh was clammy.
“We have to hide, Zak,” she said, not knowing if he could hear. “You and me. We have to. I’m sorry.”
She pulled him out of the meager shelter she and Khalid had found, and struggled to loop his arms around her neck. After a few moments of trying, he surfaced enough to slur her name. His eyes were slits, unfocused.
“Walk with me,” she said, and then, without realizing she was doing it, switched to Mom’s brogue. “Can you do that, laddie? Can ya move yer wee footsies for Mama O’Grady?”
Zak scrabbled at the pavement with his feet. That was good enough for now.
She hoped.
They started to move.
THIRTY-TWO
The Meatpacking District looked nearly identical to the one back home, save for the lighting. Khalid’s family came to the High Line often, so he was familiar with the area. The High Line itself didn’t seem to exist here. An old aboveground train path, it had been converted to a park in his own world. In this one, there was something elevated parallel to Tenth Avenue, but it was enclosed and sealed off.
He’d walked another six blocks uptown, then three long blocks west. Subway entrances had tempted him, but he figured his MetroCard wouldn’t work in this world. There had also been entrances to something called a superway. Gazing straight up, he saw the tubes running between buildings.
Moira was right. They built a subway in the sky.
Shaking himself, he entered the Apple Store. It was crowded, so he pushed his way to the nearest display table. He planted himself in front of something that looked like an iPad, but one that had been on a serious weight-loss program. Like back home, it was free to use.
Good thing some things are the same.
He thought of what he’d witnessed on his way here—the brand names in the pharmacy, for example. Some the same as back home, some not. A quirk of cosmic chance, maybe. Or—he thought again of Moira’s apartment metaphor—maybe it was just that everyone needs a sofa and a bed in the apartment. Maybe some of these things were just fated to be.
Shaking his head, he focused on the task at hand. Leave the mysteries to Moira. He had work to do.
Like the Cohen & Co. guy’s phone, the thing before him was all screen, very thin. When he touched it, it gave just the slightest bit, and he realized that it was mildly flexible. A display sign next to it read WONDER GLASS III: STARTS @ 509. There was more, too, but he decided he didn’t care.
It took him a moment to figure out which icon on the screen meant web browser, but soon he had a window open. It looked familiar enough, loading the default page, which—according to the address field—was tim.apple.bus.
Khalid tried Google.com, but nothing came up. Then he tried tim.google.bus, and a search field popped up. He entered doctor near 14th street and tenth avenue nyc and got nothing.
Not NYC. Not here. Manhattan City.
Entering doctor near 14th street and tenth avenue manhattan worked. A pin showed up in a map just around the corner.
Hooting with joy, Khalid ran from the store, not caring who he shoved out of the way.
* * *
The building around the corner didn’t look like a doctor’s office or a hospital or anything like that. There was a coffee shop at street level and some stores in either direction, but nothing that screamed medical. Khalid wondered if he’d gotten the address wrong or if the online map was outdated.
But then he noticed a sign posted in the window of the coffee shop: DR. VICTORIO BOOKMAN—3RD FL.
There was a door off to one side of the coffee shop with buzzers mounted next to it. One was labeled V. BOOKMAN, MSF. Khalid tried that one and got no response, so he just pressed all of them, over and over, until someone buzzed him into the building. One more similarity to home.
He hauled himself up the stairs to the third floor. He’d walked miles in his own universe, then swum, run, and walked miles more in this one, without a break. His legs ached, and his back throbbed with pain.
On the third floor, there was only one door. A plaque mounted there read:
VICTORIO BOOKMAN
MAGISTER SCIENTIAE FERAE
ALL MAY ENTER
The plaque also listed office hours. Assuming it was the same day and date here as in his own world, Victorio Bookman wouldn’t be available right now, but that didn’t stop Khalid from knocking politely, then more urgently, then finally pounding on the door with both fists … and even giving it a good kick just to be sure.
The doctor was not in.
Khalid turned and leaned his back against the door, then slid down to the floor.
THIRTY-THREE
Moira knew they couldn’t leave the alley the way they’d come in. There were still people on the streets, and the sight of her hair might set them off. Besides, she had no idea how long it would take for the nameless boy who’d threatened her to come back, and she didn’t want to run into him while shouldering Zak along the sidewalk; she’d be defenseless.
But she and Khalid hadn’t bothered going deeper into the alley. Some alleys in New York were blind. Some led through to another street. Some bent. And many of them had back doors opening onto them. Maybe she could find an escape route.
Zak mumbled under his breath, leaning against her as she staggered beneath his weight. It took at least five minutes to get him up, steady (sort of), and moving in the right direction.
She sweated. Her T-shirt sprouted new damp patches under her arms and in a stripe down her back.
Deeper in, the alley darkened as they moved away from the glowing lights of the street. Fire escapes loomed above. “New York City pergolas,” her mom called them. But none of the ladders were within reach. Zak wouldn’t be able to climb, anyway.
The alley dead-ended fifty or so feet back. The wall was brick, easily thirty feet high. No way to scale it.
She allowed herself exactly thirty seconds
of self-pity. It was a control mechanism she’d developed as a child. She had become upset over some small thing or another, and Mom had clucked her tongue and said, “It’s worth bein’ troubled over, dear, but not for long.” Moira had taken those words to heart.
Thirty seconds was long enough to let a few tears drop and to stomp her feet. Then she clicked back in control of herself and slowly, carefully, lowered Zak to the ground. His head lolled, and she moved quickly to keep him from smacking it as he went down. She dragged some discarded panes of the strange not-cardboard/not-plastic over and arranged them around him in a sort of lean-to, shielding him from the street. Her exploration would go faster without him.
Maybe, she thought as she retraced her path back along the alley, she could hop up, grab a fire-escape ladder … get inside somehow, then come down and open a door … haul Zak in …
She paced deliberately, checking the walls for doors. There were three, all of them metal, all of them closed, all of them lacking doorknobs or handles of any sort. Yeah, she would need to open one from the inside.
“There! There, Jan, like I said!”
She knew the voice and wanted anything but to turn to it. Pretending it wasn’t there wouldn’t help, though.
Seven different boys—ranging from fourteen to maybe eighteen, she thought—stood in the alley. One of them was her attacker from before. He had a bandanna tied around his head, blotchy with his blood. They all wore the same torn gray jeans with boots, and red-striped shirts with top-hat patches. One of them stood out in front of the rest, fists on his hips. He wore a shiny stud in his nose and a hoop in one ear. He sneered.
“Well, hello there, chica. You’ve gone and run afoul of the Dutchmen.”
They certainly didn’t look Dutch to her. They were a motley conglomeration of different shades and races, a diverse thuggery if ever there was one.
Moira pursed her lips and drew herself up to her full height. She was a little taller than Khalid and the same height as Zak, though dismally shorter than even the smallest of the Dutchmen. She cast about for a weapon, but no lucky concrete or plank lay at hand.
“There was a guy, too,” her attacker chimed in. “Layin’ right over there.” He pointed.
The leader shrugged, his eyes never leaving Moira. “Who cares? We can’t do anything about the chap, but we can take the chica.”
“But the guy—”
“You see him? I don’t. He’s done scarpered, I’ll wager.” The leader cupped his hands over his mouth. “Hey, chap! Hey, chappie! If you can hear me, hear this: We’re the Dutchmen! Give us your frau and we’ll let you go.”
“The frau isn’t anyone’s to give,” Moira said hotly.
The Dutchmen hooted with amusement. “The hair don’t lie, boyos!” said the leader, chuckling over his shoulder at his comrades. “Temper like fire! Not bad.”
He turned his attention back to Moira. She saw something that looked like a sharp piece of brick. It was close to the Dutchmen, but she had no choice, so she ran for it. The leader shouted, “Snap to!” and before she’d made it halfway to the brick, there were hands on her, tugging, restraining, a half dozen hot breaths filling the air around her.
She smelled something strange and the world spun like water down a drain and the drain was in her head and she thought, I’ll come back, Zak, I pro—
THIRTY-FOUR
“What have we here?”
Khalid blinked his eyes open. They were gummy with sleep and seemed to have accreted a layer of lead at some point. It took great effort to open them. A pair of gray men’s slacks blurred into view before him. Crisp and well creased. Shoes that looked as if they’d waded through a swamp.
Asleep. He’d fallen asleep. His entire body ached as though he’d been crumpled up like a piece of paper and tossed in a trash can. He had slept leaning against the door, his knees drawn to his chest, head lolling. He could barely move his neck.
But move it he did, looking up. The man standing over him seemed amused. He was older than Khalid’s dad, probably, wearing impossibly thin spectacles and a loose jacket that matched his pants in color and condition. His shirt, though, was rumpled and stained. An explosion of dreadlocks erupted from his head and fell around his shoulders like a spider plant. He carried a white paper bag in one hand, keys in the other.
“I say again,” he said, “what have we here? Someone come to see old Doc Bookman?” He chuckled as if the very thought were highly unlikely.
“I need help,” Khalid croaked. His throat was clogged and dry at the same time. His mouth tasted like week-old beans.
Dr. Bookman arched an eyebrow. “Are you all right, young man? I thought this was some prank at first—”
“No, sir. No prank.” Khalid braced himself and tried to stand. He needed a second attempt, and the second only took because Dr. Bookman leaned down to take an arm and steady him. “I need your help. My friend is sick.”
Dr. Bookman nodded very seriously, then smiled. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”
“And,” Khalid realized with great urgency and great shame, “I have to go to the bathroom like you wouldn’t believe.”
* * *
The office looked like no doctor’s office Khalid had ever seen. Appointed in cracked-leather sofas and chairs, with a large walnut desk near the window and floor-to-ceiling bookcases crammed with books, stacks of paper, and thick magazines, it looked more like a college professor’s office than a doctor’s. Khalid would know—he’d visited Zak’s dad’s office any number of times over the years.
One thing he’d never seen in a professor’s office or in a doctor’s office was a large aquarium against one wall, its lid sealed. Instead of water and fish inside, though, it was filled with …
“Gross!” Khalid exclaimed. “Cockroaches!” They had weird ideas of what made for pets in this world, apparently.
“Ah, yes. A little experiment of mine. A very delicate and sensitive electroleum assessment. Please don’t touch or disturb it.”
Electroleum … It took a moment for Khalid to figure out why the word was so familiar. Tommy! Tommy had told them to use electroleum to bring him back to life. Something like that.
Now curious, Khalid peered closer. There were maybe a dozen cockroaches in the aquarium. Some of them were skittering about. Some were obviously dead, on their backs and still. He noticed that the dead ones had little red markings painted on them, while the moving, living ones had blue markings. Nothing exotic or outstanding; he was disappointed.
“I think you’ve proved conclusively that if you paint them red, they die,” Khalid said.
Dr. Bookman chuckled and showed him into a tiny bathroom off to one side. Khalid relieved himself, splashed water on his face, and drank straight from the tap. He stared in the mirror at the bag-eyed boy staring back at him. He was still exhausted and achy, but he could think, at least.
Out in the main office, Dr. Bookman was methodically emptying the contents of his white paper bag onto his desk, one item at a time. Two bagels, neatly sliced, a container of cream cheese, a bottle of something pinkish that looked like juice, and a tub of something black and pebbly.
“I assume you’ve not eaten,” Dr. Bookman said, “so you can do me the favor of preventing me from eating both of these bagels. With or without roe?”
Khalid’s stomach rumbled, and it took everything he had to ignore it. “My friend is dying. I need medicine. For his heart.”
Dr. Bookman looked up from his process of spreading cream cheese on the first bagel. “His heart.”
“Yes.”
“What, exactly, do you expect me to do about this?”
“You’re a doctor!” Khalid’s mouth watered at the sight of the food, and his stomach contracted so painfully that he winced and bent over slightly. “You can help him.”
Bookman finished decorating the bagel and handed it across the desk to Khalid, who crammed it into his mouth and chewed and swallowed so fast he hardly tasted it.
“I’m sorry
if you’ve misunderstood,” Bookman said, cutting into the cream cheese for the second bagel, “but I’m not that sort of doctor. You’d be better off calling 911.”
Khalid inhaled the rest of the bagel. “I’m not sure…” It was oddly comforting that they had 911 in this world, but he couldn’t call 911, because he had no phone. None that would work in this universe, at least. There was a slab of gray plastic and metal on Dr. Bookman’s desk that looked like some species of telephone, and he imagined the doctor would let him use it. But he wasn’t 100 percent sure exactly where he’d left Zak and Moira. They’d roamed through the night from the Broadway Canal to the alleyway, and he hadn’t paid attention to the street signs when he left the alley.
“I can backtrack and find my way back there,” he explained, “but I’m not sure how to tell them…”
Dr. Bookman nodded. He set aside his bagel without biting into it and rummaged in his desk drawer for a moment, producing a very thin, cloudy sheet of glass. He laid the glass on the desk. “Put your hand on this.”
Khalid did as he was bid, laying his right hand flat on the glass. Dr. Bookman touched the edge of the glass and muttered something under his breath that Khalid couldn’t quite make out. After a moment, the glass felt warm, too warm to be just the result of body heat. As he watched in amazement, the cloudiness dissipated, clearing the glass until it was almost invisible.
Dr. Bookman spread some of the black, bumpy stuff—roe, he’d called it—on his bagel and took a satisfied bite. “Very well, then. I believe you. Take me to your friend, and we’ll call 911 on my phone.”
Tears gathered in Khalid’s eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”
He just hoped he wasn’t too late.
THIRTY-FIVE
Zak’s eyes fluttered open, then closed, then opened again.
He was looking into a mirror, but there was no mirror.
He widened his eyes, but his reflection’s expression remained impassive.
Tommy? he asked.
Zak.