I can tell myself that Polley might not have survived his assailant’s attack in any case—there wasn’t much to him and I’d taken his gun—but I can’t be sure. Nor can I be sure that the motive of the killing was the swag from the jewelry store robbery. Did he talk about it to the wrong person in an attempt to sell it, and pay with his life? I don’t know, can’t know, but in my heart I’m sure. I’m less sure that he died at the same time Red Molly was batting Peterkin out of her way with enough power to tear that unpleasant dwarf in half, but I think that may have been the way of it.
I can tell myself Polley brought it on himself, and that is true, but when I think of him raising his useless hands to ward off the knife-strokes of whoever was kneeling over him in that trash-littered underpass, I can’t help feeling sorry and ashamed. You may say I have no reason to feel shame, that I did what I had to do to save my life and the shed’s secret, but shame is like laughter. And inspiration. It doesn’t knock.
2
On the Saturday after I came home, a big snowstorm swept in from the Rockies. My father and I tramped up to Mr. Bowditch’s house—me wearing boots that didn’t cramp my feet—and went around to the back. Dad regarded the busted-out side of the shed with disapproval.
“That will have to be repaired.”
“I know, but it was the only way I could get out, once Andy padlocked the door.”
There was no need of the baby light, because we had two flashlights. We had left Radar at home. Once we came out of the tunnel, she would have made straight for the House of Shoes, and I didn’t want to see Dora. I didn’t want to see anyone from my time there. I just wanted to convince my dad the other world was real and then get out. There was something else, too—strange and probably selfish: I didn’t want to hear my father speaking Empisarian. That was mine.
We went down the spiral stairs, me leading. My dad kept saying he couldn’t believe it, just couldn’t believe it. I hoped to God I wasn’t pushing him toward a mental breakdown, but given the stakes, I felt I had no choice.
I still feel that way.
In the tunnel, I told him to shine his light at the stone floor. “Because there are bats. Big ones. I don’t want them flying around us. Also, we’re going to come to a place where you may feel dizzy, almost like an out-of-body experience. That’s the crossover point.”
“Who made this?” he asked softly. “Jesus Christ, Charlie, who made this?”
“You might as well ask who made the world.”
Ours, and others. I’m sure there are others, maybe as many as there are stars in the sky. We sense them. They funnel down to us in all the old stories.
We came to the crossover, and he would have fallen, but I was ready and put my arm around his waist.
“Maybe we should go back,” he said. “I feel sick to my stomach.”
“Just a little further. There’s light up ahead, see?”
We came to the vines. I brushed them aside and we stepped out into Empis, with a cloudless blue sky above us and Dora’s house down the hill. There were no shoes hanging on her crisscrossing lines, but there was a horse grazing near King’s Road. The distance was too great to be positive, but I’m pretty sure I knew that horse, and why not? The queen no longer needed Falada to speak for her, and a city is no place for a horse.
My father was looking around, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Crickets—not red ones—jumped in the grass.
“My God, they’re so big!”
“You should see the rabbits,” I said. “Sit down, Dad.” Before you fall down, I didn’t add.
We sat. I gave him some time to take it in. He asked how there could be sky under the ground. I said I didn’t know. He asked why there were so many butterflies, all of them monarchs, and I told him again that I didn’t know.
He pointed at Dora’s house. “Who lives down there?”
“That’s Dora’s house. I don’t know her last name.”
“Is she home? Can we see her?”
“I didn’t bring you here for a meet-and-greet, Dad, I brought you so you’d know it’s real, and we’re never coming here again. No one from our world can know about this one. It would be a disaster.”
“Judging by what we did to a good many indigenous peoples, not to mention our own climate, I’d have to agree with you.” He was starting to take hold, and that was good. I’d been afraid of denial, or a terminal freakout. “What are you thinking about doing, Charlie?”