by Sarah Dreher
On the other side of the door there was darkness and… nothing.
* * *
David dropped a quarter into the pay phone and punched out his client’s number. He’d sat around entertaining the woman for more than a day now, catering to her, bringing her food from every restaurant in World Showcase, it seemed. Been beaten by her in gin. Humiliated by a trip to the drug store for women’s sanitary supplies.
He wanted to know what the client wanted done with her, and when, and why.
The client answered on about the hundredth ring.
“What?” the voice harsh and irritable.
“It’s David.”
“I told you not to call me here. Didn’t I tell you not to call me here?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I need to know what you want me to do with the package.”
The client sighed heavily. “Hold it until I pick it up. I told you that.”
“Yeah, but I was wondering if you’d give me an idea how long that might be.”
“As long as it takes.”
“I could...” He cleared his throat delicately. “...you know, dispose of it for you.”
“I don’t want that.”
“I mean, if it’s what you want done, but you don’t want to do it yourself... I understand how these things are. I can take care of it. It’s what I do.”
“I appreciate the offer.” The client’s voice softened a little. “I really do, David. But I have other plans.”
It wasn’t a satisfactory answer, but he sensed it was the best he was going to get. “Well, okay.”
“I know this isn’t easy for you,” the client said.
David chuckled a little. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“But try and bear with me. Trust me. We’ve always trusted each other, haven’t we?”
He felt himself blush. “Sure.”
“So just a little longer, okay, Dave?”
He liked it when people called him Dave. His mother used to call him Dave. Sometimes. When he’d done something to make her happy. And she was sober.
“I’ll tell you what,” the client said, “I’ll drop in tomorrow. That should make her good and nervous, don’t you think?”
Since he didn’t have the slightest idea what it was all about, he really didn’t know. But it seemed like a smart idea to agree, so he agreed.
He hung up and walked slowly back to the holding room.
He should feel better, after talking to the client. But he was still confused.
Sometimes he wondered if his Mom had been right. Maybe this wasn’t work to be proud of.
* * *
Stoner leaned against the far wall and waited for the shaking to stop. If she’d taken one more step... If she hadn’t caught herself, she’d have fallen into that pool of blackness, and who knows where she’d be now? Falling forever, maybe. Or smashed onto rocks at the center of the earth. Because that sure didn’t look like any two-foot drop behind that door. It looked like the Incredible Runaway Journey to Hell.
Nonsense, she told herself. It was just a hole. A very dark hole in a very dark hallway. Nothing to be concerned about, but nothing to mess around with, either. You don’t want to go twisting an ankle and end up no good to anyone.
When her heartbeat had returned to normal—or as close to it as she was likely to get before she saw the light of day—she crept back up to the door. It was closed again. This time she pushed at it gently, feet apart, weight on her back foot, giving gravity every advantage.
The door drifted open. There was the darkness again. Bottomless.
It seemed to be moving, swirling lazily, like fog.
Stoner reached into her fanny pack and dug out her wallet. She found a penny and tossed it into the black.
She couldn’t hear it hit bottom.
The inky fog went on swirling.
Well, she thought as she put her wallet away and rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms, this is certainly an interesting turn of events, and not one I am particularly drawn to investigate at this time, thank you very much.
The door was swinging shut.
For a split second, she thought she saw the blackness bleed over the sill. It curled around her ankle.
Leaving now.
She took the stairs two at a time.
* * *
“I don’t want to hear it,” Gwen said angrily. “You made me crazy. I thought you had died or something. There’s no excuse for that.”
“Honest,” Stoner said, “I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry. I wasn’t gone very long, was I?”
“An hour. An hour, Stoner. And considering that certain members of our party have disappeared, an hour is a very long time to be out of touch.”
An hour? It couldn’t have been all of an hour. It was only a few minutes, she was certain of that. “Are you sure?”
Gwen gestured in the general direction of outside. “It was raining when I came out of the Ball. Look at it now.”
Stoner looked. The sky was clear, the sun bright. There weren’t even any puddles. “It didn’t seem like…”
“Well, it was,” Gwen said.
That little jaunt to the edge of Whatever had been more disorienting than she’d thought. She scrubbed at her face with the heel of her hand. “There’s some really weird stuff happening.”
“There’s always weird stuff happening where you’re concerned.”
Stoner looked at her. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes, I believe you. I believe that you are the chosen one to whom all the weird stuff in the Cosmos is going to happen.” Gwen folded her arms across her chest. “The point is, Stoner, you have to own up to it and take some responsibility.”
“I am responsible...”
“I don’t mean on an everyday level. I mean you have to admit this psychic stuff, admit it’s out of your control, and start working on getting a grip on it.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Stoner snapped, annoyed, turning away. “Join a twelve-step program?”
“Oh, stop that.” Gwen took her arm and turned her around to face her. “I would like it if you’d let Aunt Hermione’s friend Grace teach you a few tricks. Psychic self-defense, at the very least. I mean, if you aren’t going to use it, you might as well learn to protect yourself against it.”
Stoner nodded. “Okay, I guess I could. One or the other. Something.” The trouble was, she didn’t know for sure which she wanted to do. Whatever attention she was attracting from the psychic world, it was frightening and annoying—and it made life infinitely more interesting.
“Thank you,” Gwen said. “It’s a great relief to me.”
“I didn’t know you were worried.”
Gwen rolled her eyes to Heaven. “I never know when you’re going to be warped off into another time or space. I never know when Things from some other world are going to attack you. Any day now, I expect you to be possessed by an evil spirit.”
Stoner had to laugh. “Don’t tell me you believe in evil spirits.”
“I believe in evil people. If they have spirits, I’ll bet they’re not cut from the same batch of dough as Eleanor Roosevelt and Mother Theresa.”
And she was willing to bet whatever that was under the ground beneath Spaceship Earth wasn’t the Pearly Gates, either.
“Yeah, okay,” she said.
“And another thing,” Gwen went on, “until you do get this psychic stuff under control, I don’t want you running off again.”
“I can’t promise that. There may be things I have to do. Places I have to go.”
“Then you’re taking me with you.”
Stoner shook her head vehemently. “Where I was today...no, you can’t go there.”
“And why not?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
Gwen closed her eyes and curled her hands into fists. “You make me want to scream.”
“Why?”
“Because you treat me like a child.”
“I don’t.”
> “You do. You’re always protecting me.” Her voice rose. “Do you know how demeaning that is, Stoner?”
Stoner glanced around. People were beginning to notice. “Please, Gwen, you’re attracting attention.”
“I don’t care. I’ll attract attention if I damn well want.” She scanned the crowd scanning the World Key screens. “Hey,” she shouted.
Several of the WDW guests turned around.
Stoner grabbed her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to tell everyone within the range of my voice that you’re an overprotective, stubborn…”
“All right,” Stoner said. “Okay, I won’t do anything without taking you along. But I think this overprotective business works both ways.” She touched Gwen’s face with her hand. “It’s just... I think, if anything happened to you... I wouldn’t be able to live, Gwen.”
“And you think I would?”
“I guess I don’t think about that.” She could feel a dampness behind her eyes. “You’re a miracle in my life.”
“And you’re a miracle in mine.” Gwen glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then gave her a quick kiss. “But I’ll bet this ‘I can’t live without you stuff’ is not politically correct.”
Stoner grinned. “That was last year. Who knows what’s in now? Cloning, maybe.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Gwen said. “It’s a beautiful day, the sun’s finally out, and you still haven’t told me where you went.”
CHAPTER 8
They sat on a bench at the edge of the United Kingdom pavilion, under the sign for the Magic Of Wales shop, and drank lemonade.
“What do you think it was?” Gwen asked when Stoner had filled her in on what she had found under Spaceship Earth.
“Beats me. It might have been anything, or nothing. It was dark down there. Maybe I just misinterpreted what I saw or something.”
Gwen thought it over. “But you’re certain about the smoke or fog or whatever.”
“Yes.” She shuddered. “It touched me. On the foot.”
Gwen looked down at Stoner’s sneakers. “Doesn’t seem to have left any residue.”
“Just an icky feeling inside. I still feel cold in my bones.”
Gwen frowned. “And you dropped that penny and didn’t hear it hit the bottom.”
“Right, but there could be a lot of explanations for that. Like maybe it just landed on something soft. Or maybe I didn’t hear it or...”
“Possible,” Gwen said. “But we still haven’t accounted for the time distortion.”
Stoner shrugged. “I could be wrong about that, too. You know how time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Ha ha,” Gwen said without humor. She looked around. “There’s supposed to be a rest room around here. Care to join me?”
“I’ll wait for you.” The sun felt warm and soft on her skin. She didn’t want to move.
“Will you promise me, really and truly and without any reservations, not to leave here?”
“I don’t feel like going anywhere, Gwen. Honest.” Especially not down long stairwells through the doorway to—whatever.
“All right,” Gwen said. “But if I come back and you’re not here, it’s over between us. I mean that, Stoner.”
“I mean it, too.”
She sucked on an ice cube and watched Gwen walk away.
The sun really was wonderful. It was a different kind of sun. Not like the steaming, stifling sun of the last day and a half, but a fresh, light sun with soft fresh air. The kind of sun that comes after a cooling rain. Almost like northern sun. She could feel it drawing away the dampness of the dark place. Turning her head up to the light, she closed her eyes. It made her dizzy, the warmth. She felt as if she were floating, relaxing to the hypnotic sound of footsteps on the cobble stone walk.
Gradually, she realized it had become quiet, as if the constant background noise of footsteps and talking and shouting, the chug of the boats crossing the lagoon, the honking of the horns on the double-decker buses—all of it had stopped. She could hear a dog bark, but it sounded as if it came from a distance. The rattle of a cart’s wooden wheels against stone. A rhythmic “clop-clop” like a horse’s hooves. And geese—it couldn’t be geese, it must be flamingoes, but it certainly sounded like geese.
“Prynhawn da,” someone said nearby. “Sut ryduch chi?”
She opened her eyes.
And found herself sitting on a bench in front of an unfamiliar building. A low, heavy stone building with a wood-shake roof. Two small windows looked out over the street. The window sills were deep and made of stone. It resembled the stores clustered around the U.K. area, but it felt old. Very old. She glanced down the street. A cart, driven by a small pony with large feet, was moving slowly but steadily through the town and into the countryside. Beyond the last building, grayish green rolling hills stretched endlessly under a pale sky.
Dreaming, she thought. I’m dreaming.
“Prynhawn da,” said the voice again.
Stoner turned and looked up at the woman. She was short, with wide shoulders and pink cheeks. She wore a dress of soft blue material, and an apron, and seemed to be about twenty-five. The sign that protruded from the building above her head announced that the building was a Dafarn. A bar, maybe. Maybe a restaurant.
“Hi,” Stoner said.
“Mae braf, eh?” She gestured toward the sky.
Stoner nodded. I’m dreaming. Dreaming in a foreign language. I know I’m dreaming, so I must be lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming in a foreign language. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Something to tell Edith Kesselbaum about.
“Ydych chi eisiau tê?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t speak...uh...whatever it is you’re speaking.”
The young woman smiled. “Cymraeg.”
“Right. Kim-rag. That.”
“Well, I can speak English,” the woman said with a heavy sort-of British accent. “But we speak our own Welsh language when we can. A matter of national pride, you see.”
“Of course.”
“You’re American, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Stoner said. “But I hope you won’t hold that against me. I didn’t vote for Reagan. Or Bush. And I wouldn’t have voted for Thatcher if I lived in England...”
“What brings you here?” the woman asked pleasantly. “On holiday?”
“Here?” She looked around. “Dreaming, I guess. Where is here?”
The young woman seemed a little puzzled. “You don’t know where you are?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“This is Twyl. Near Llamonddyfri—or Llandover, as the British call it.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought.” It may be a dream, but she was beginning to feel extremely foolish. Sitting on benches in front of bars or restaurants or whatever in unknown places and not knowing how you got there was a strange thing to do, dream or no dream.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
Why not? As long as she was dreaming, she might as well carry it through to the Message—which, Edith Kesselbaum was fond of assuring her, would be found embedded somewhere in the dream. And dream messages were to be ignored only at great personal risk, since the unconscious would continue to send them—in more dramatic and attention-grabbing form up to and including award-winning nightmares—until the message was received.
“Sure,” she said. “Thanks.”
She followed the young woman into the tavern.
The inside of the building was dark. Not surprising considering the few windows and deep sills. The floor was stone, the ceiling low plaster stained gray by decades of coal and tobacco smoke. Large round tables of dark wood, surrounded by dark, straight-backed chairs filled most of the available space. Around the walls ran a high-backed bench like a church pew. The bar was the most cheerful corner of the tavern, and it was only made colorful by the labels on the liquor bottles. The room was deserted except for an elderly, short-necked gentleman whose red-veined nose spoke of too m
any years of too much drink.
The young woman poured tea from a pot that was being kept warm by an ancient electric hot plate. She slid it across the counter. “There you go, Miss.”
Stoner perched on a bar stool, wrapping her legs around the rungs.
The old man, slumped over the bar and nursing a beer, looked at her dolefully.
She leaned across to the young woman. “Did I do something wrong?”
“He’s been the town drunkard half his life. Injured in a mine accident, he was. Too bad we don’t all have such good excuses.”
“Yes,” Stoner said. She took a swallow of her tea, which tasted a great deal like Aunt Hermione’s Earl Gray.
“You look Celtic,” the young woman said.
“Scotch, mostly. On my father’s side.” She held out her hand. “Stoner McTavish.”
The woman returned her handshake. “Eleanor Baddam.”
“I have a friend who’s Welsh. Owens. Gwen Owens.”
Eleanor laughed. “A name as common here as Smith in your country.” She poured tea into a glass. “You’ll want to see the Great Oak of Myrddin Emrys while you’re in Wales, no doubt. In Caerfyrddin. Well, sorry to say, it isn’t there any more. Only a marker. Cut down to ease traffic. Legend has it, if anyone should destroy Merlin’s Oak, great calamity would befall the town. And so it did.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Developers. With their blue prints and bull-dozers and yellow pencils stuck behind their ears. The worst kind of disaster, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes,” Stoner agreed. “I would say that.”
“Diawled.”
Stoner was willing to bet that was some kind of curse, so she nodded enthusiastically. “Where would you go,” she asked, “if you wanted to see something...well, different?”
“To the island of Enlli,” Eleanor said without hesitation. “Off the tip of Llyn. It’s said the ghost of Merlin lurks there, guarding the Thirteen Precious Curiosities.”
“I see.” This dream was beginning to qualify for the Fourteenth Precious Curiosity. Though she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. A tourism dream for a travel agent. “What are the Thirteen Precious Curiosities?”