Nightmare’s Edge (40 page)

Shielding his eyes from the brightness, Nathan stood at the edge and backed away as it expanded toward him. “What about the Earths?” he shouted. “What do we do to heal them?”

Patar’s voice rose from the depths, strong, yet somber. “You were right all along, Son of Solomon. If the supplicants were to die, their sacrifice had to be willing. I commanded you to carry out the task I feared to do myself, and for that, I am sorry. Now that they have joyfully acquiesced to their father’s will, our descent into the Womb, enabled by the energy gained by your sacrificial act, will heal every cosmic wound.”

His voice faded. Light exploded from the void and shot into the air like a geyser. It splashed against the ceiling and ripped a wide crack in the stone. The promontory that held the staircase plummeted. Rocks and dirt rained down. Everyone backed away as the debris cascaded into the hole.

“Look!” Kelly said, pointing upward. “The three Earths aren’t on the walls anymore.”

Nathan stared through the widening crack. The curved walls in the upper chamber were now just blank crystal without a sign of the planets anywhere.

Kelly bounced on her toes. “That means they’re healed, right?”

“You can see that far?” he asked. “I can barely see the walls myself.”

Grinning, she nodded. “Perfectly. Better than ever.” She grasped his wrists and turned them palms up. “And I see the most wonderful pair of hands in the world — healed, just like the wounds in the cosmic fabric.”

He lifted a hand closer to his eyes and flexed. His palm and fingers, void of any hint of injury, moved without pain. He looked at his other hand. It, too, was now free of wounds.

Kelly stared at him. With firelight illuminating her crystal-clear orbs, her vision seemed to penetrate his mind. He opened his eyes wider to let her in. If she wanted to read his thoughts again, that was fine. He let them flow.
You are a treasure. I have
been willing to risk my life to save the world
,
but if you were the
only one alive in any of the three Earths
,
I would give my life for
you
,
without question.

Kelly trembled. She pressed her lips together but said nothing.

Daryl Red shook Nathan. “Hey, we’d better do what the head paleface told us. I think this place is about to blow.”

The crack continued to widen above them. Stalkers peered over the side, shielding their eyes and backing away from the encroaching gap. Rocks and pebbles continued to fall, most landing on the floor instead of in the void.

“Join hands everyone!” Nathan called. He took Kelly’s hand as well as his mother’s. When they all had formed a line, he shouted, “Jump!”

They leaped into the hole. Nathan closed his eyes to protect them from the blinding light. A rushing wind met his body and seemed to buoy him. He couldn’t look to see how everyone else was doing, but the pressure of a clutched hand on each side let him know that at least two were still with him.

Soon, the light grew dimmer. Nathan opened his eyes. He floated with Kelly, the two Daryls, and his parents next to the interconnected vines.

“I guess some of the dream world ground survived,” Nathan said. “The trees are obviously still here.”

Still holding to his wife’s hand, Nathan’s father grabbed a vine and vaulted with her to the edge of the hole. Once they settled, he reached for the others. “Hurry. If my guess is right, the walls of the Womb will be restored soon.”

Kelly swung to the side, followed by Nathan and the Daryls. Nathan’s father withdrew a small pocket knife, reached as far as he could into the column of light, and sliced the vine. As the vines retracted toward the three trees, the light gathered at the perimeter of the central core. It darkened and solidified, recreating the dream world’s barrier.

Now in complete blackness, Nathan found a cool hand and grasped it. “Is that you, Kelly?”

“Yep, but I’m blind again.”

“No worries. I think we all are.”

“Tut, tut,” one of the Daryls said. “We will soon have light.”

A match ignited. It seemed to float in the darkness toward a candle. “I know this isn’t a real world fire, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

As soon as the flame crawled down the wick, Daryl Red blew out the match. “And I have something else in my bag of goodies.”

“I already got it,” Daryl Blue said. She lifted a mirror and set it under her chin. “Let’s see if this will take us home.”

Nathan looked at the reflection — an image of the telescope room at the observatory. But which one was it? Red, Blue, or Yellow? The details were so small, he couldn’t figure it out.

Daryl Red took the mirror and laid it on the ground. “Let’s just do a Mary Poppins and jump right in.” She handed the candle to Nathan. “I’ll go first if you don’t mind. This place is messing with my phobia.”

While Nathan held the candle low, Daryl stepped on the mirror. Her foot sank. Smiling as she lifted her arms, she shouted, “Geronimo!” and disappeared into the image.

Daryl Blue did the same, echoing the shout. Nathan’s parents followed, then Kelly.

Now alone, Nathan looked all around. Somehow he knew a visitor would drop by.

In a dazzling aura, Scarlet walked his way. Her dress, now a sparkling red gown, flowed behind her as she drew near. She smiled as she stopped and took his hand. “When you finally lay your head to rest after these days of danger, I will be there to ease your mind.”

“You’re physical,” Nathan said, lifting her hand.

She laughed gently, her breath making the candle flame quiver. “Only because you see me in the light of this world. I am real, to be sure, but not physical. We will not truly touch one another again until I see you in the everlasting city.”

Nathan firmed his chin and nodded. He gazed at her lovely face, then at the mirror. In the image, his parents and Kelly looked back at him, but they slowly faded.

“I have to go.”

“Of course you do.” She kissed him on the cheek, letting her lips linger for a moment as she whispered, “Thank you for releasing me from my prison. I always knew you would.”

Backing away, she waved, tears flowing. “You will always be my beloved.”

He set both feet next to the mirror and swallowed hard.

“And I will never, ever forget you.”

Nathan blew out the candle and dropped it on the ground. Scarlet disappeared. Bending his knees, he leaped onto the glass and plunged through darkness. One second later, light flooded his vision. As he stood at the center of the telescope room, several sets of eyes stared at him.

Kelly ran up and wrapped her arms around him. “Welcome home!”

He returned the embrace. “So is this Earth Red?”

“Yes!” She drew back and pointed at her eyes. “And I can see perfectly!” She turned him toward the other waiting travelers. “And look who else made it. Clara!”

Clara marched toward him, her gray hair a mess and her dress torn in several places. “And you wouldn’t believe what happened to me,” she said raising her fingers and counting them down. “I patched up Solomon Yellow, who now seems like a new man, much more like your father; I found a surgeon in India for Gunther who said he could remove that explosive chip from his skull; and I kissed a precious baby good-bye — little Nathan. Then, Francesca showed me her mirror, and the channel was tuned to this station.” Taking a deep breath, Clara spread out her arms. “I jumped in, and here I am.”

Nathan laughed, feeling so much joy he thought he might explode.

“And I’m home, too.” The voice came from the computer speakers. Nathan looked up. Daryl Blue stood in the middle of the ceiling mirror’s image, waving. “I don’t have Nathan or Kelly to keep me company, but I think a gorgeous, blue-haired hunk is going to visit me in my dreams. Things could be worse, you know.”

Nathan and Kelly waved. “Good-bye, sweetheart,” Kelly shouted. “I love you.”

The screen flashed and went blank. From the computer desk Dr. Gordon called out, “I’ve lost communication. The radio telescope isn’t picking up anything.”

Nathan’s father walked toward him. “Then the portals are all closed? The wounds are healed?”

“That’s my guess.” Dr. Gordon closed his laptop firmly. “As far as I’m concerned, my research is complete. I think I’ll practice my viola and audition for an orchestra.”

Something beneath Nathan’s feet moved. He stepped off the mirror square that had somehow traveled with him. As if sprouting from the ground, a man rose from the glass, a bearded man holding a crumpled hat in his hands.

“Jack!” Nathan patted him on the shoulder. “How’d you get here?”

A wide smile lifted his smudged cheeks. “I was wandering through the dream worlds, still looking for Felicity, and suddenly the whole place exploded with light. I just floated in nothingness until I heard a voice, a beautiful, laughing voice. She said, ‘You have no home, so I will send you to those who will understand your plight.’ Then . . .” He stepped off the mirror and bowed gracefully. “I showed up here.”

With a firm kick, Nathan slid the mirror across the floor toward Dr. Gordon, who rose from his chair and stepped right on the glass. “I heard from your father, Daryl. He’s fine and on his way back to Chicago.”

Daryl clasped her hands. “Thank the Lord!”

Dr. Gordon and Nathan’s parents walked to the center of the room, joining Nathan, Kelly, Daryl, and Jack.

Nathan scanned the company. Everyone looked exhausted. His father’s clothes, frumpy and still covered with spider-tree webbing here and there, smelled as bad as they looked. His mother, though smiling as brightly as the sun, had bloodstains on her forehead and chin. Long red marks striped Daryl’s cheeks, though they didn’t seem as deep as they did before. Maybe they would heal without leaving scars.

“Well,” he said, “I think just about everyone’s accounted for.”

“Except Simon Blue,” Daryl said.

Nathan snapped his fingers. “Right. I wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened to him. I didn’t agree with him all the time, but I think his heart was in the right place.”

“True,” Kelly said, “and we don’t know what happened to Gordon Yellow, either.” She looked up at the ceiling. Now only their reflections appeared. “I wonder if we’ll ever see any of our friends in the other worlds again.”

Nathan took Daryl’s hand, then Kelly’s, and gazed into Kelly’s sparkling eyes. “I don’t know about that, but I’m looking forward to just kicking back for a while and getting to know the friends I already have.”

Daryl pressed a palm against her chest and gave him a dreamy look. “Oh, Nathan, you’re such a romantic. Are you sure you don’t want to watch
Pride and Prejudice
with me?”

He laughed and linked arms with her and Kelly. “Just get me some popcorn, a tall Dr Pepper, and maybe a few Hershey’s Kisses, and I’ll watch just about anything.”

1

THE FIRST SIGN

Nathan watched his tutor peer out the window. She was being paranoid again. That guy following them in the Mustang had really spooked her. “Chill out, Clara. He doesn’t know what room we’re in.”

She slid the curtains together, casting a blanket of darkness across the motel room. “He parked near the lobby entrance. We’d better pack up and leave another way.” She clicked on a corner table lamp. The pale light seemed to deepen the wrinkles on her face and hands. “How much more time do you need?”

Nathan sat on the bed nearer the window, a stack of pillows between his back and the wall, and tapped away at his laptop. “Just a couple of minutes.” He looked up at her and winked. “Dad’s slide rule must’ve been broken. It took almost an hour to balance the books.”

Clara slid her sweater sleeve up an inch and glared at her wristwatch. Nathan knew that look all too well. His tutor’s steely eyes and furrowed brow meant the Queen of Punctuality was counting the minutes. They were cutting it close, and they still had to get the reports bound at Kinko’s before they could meet his parents at the performance hall for the company’s quarterly meeting. And who could tell what delays that goon in the prowling Mustang might cause? His father had noticed the guy this morning before he left, and he looked kind of worried, but that could’ve been from the bean and onion burrito he had eaten for breakfast.

Nathan frowned at the spreadsheet. “This formula doesn’t make sense. Dad’s trying to divide by zero.”

“Can you call and ask him on the way? We have to hit the road.”

Nathan pushed the laptop to the side. He knew how his father would respond. He’d just grin and say, “Dividing by zero reflects my creativity.” Nathan laughed. Dad knew a lot more about math than he ever let on; he just concentrated on spying and research and let Nathan do the number crunching.

As Clara peered out again, he looked over her shoulder. The driver of the black Mustang was parked under a tree, sloppily eating a sandwich as he watched the front door of the motel. An intermittent shower of leaves, blown around by Chicago’s never-ending breezes, danced about on the convertible’s ragtop.

“Don’t worry about him,” Nathan said. “He’s too obvious to be a pro.”

“True enough. But you don’t have to be a pro to frighten an old lady.”

As she turned toward him, he gave her the goofiest clueless stare he could conjure. “I’m not an old lady!”