by King, R. L.
“What—what happened?” Jason asked.
“She…didn’t give me the details. I don’t think she wanted to talk about them. Apparently it was…quite horrific.”
Jason picked his words with care. “This friend… You two were…close?”
Stone shook his head. “No, not close. We saw each other perhaps once a year or so. But she was—a lovely woman. Older. Kind, clever…a wicked sense of humor. I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Was she…a mage?” Verity asked in a near whisper. Jason looked at her sharply—he hadn’t thought of that.
“Yes.” Stone stared down into his liquor glass, which he hadn’t yet touched. “She was...one of the few truly ‘white’ mages I ever knew, in both magical style and morality. As I think I mentioned at one point, even most of the best among us these days have a few streaks of gray. Eleanor Pearsall…didn’t. She was one of the few genuinely good people I ever knew. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill her.”
Jason looked down at his hands. He never knew quite what to say in situations like this—his mind always tended to run to tactless questions about whether they had caught the murderer, or what were the details of the crime scene. Fortunately, Verity didn’t have any such limitations. “Will there be a funeral?” she asked, her voice gentle. “Are you going to go?”
Stone nodded. “She said it’s Friday, in the morning. And yes, I’ll be going. You’re both welcome to come along if you want to.” He glanced at Verity. “There should be at least a few other mages, if you’re interested in meeting them.”
“Friday—that doesn’t give us much time to get plane tickets,” Jason said, frowning.
“We aren’t getting plane tickets,” Stone told him.
“Wait a minute,” Jason protested. “Not—”
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. But the portal is much faster.”
Jason sighed loudly. “There’s one near there?”
“Yes. We’ll have to rent a car and drive for a couple of hours, but it’s better than trying to sort out flights on such short notice.”
Verity was clearly trying hard not to look excited. Stone had explained the teleportation portals to her a few days ago, and she’d been looking forward to trying out this new method of transportation, but this was hardly the time to say so. Instead she asked, “When are we leaving?”
“I’ll make the arrangements and we’ll go tomorrow so we can drive up and find a place to stay overnight. No need to pack much—I don’t see the point in remaining past the funeral itself and whatever gathering they have afterward.”
The next morning, they drove down to Sunnyvale. Murphy Street was quiet this time of day; parking was plentiful on the street in front of A Passage to India, but Stone waved Jason around the back. “David said we could park back here, so we don’t have to leave the car in front of the restaurant overnight. He’s showing up early to let us in, since they’re not open yet.”
After checking to make sure nobody was watching, they headed in through the back door; it would look odd for three people carrying bags to go into a restaurant at nine in the morning, especially if they didn’t come back out again. Even at this early hour, the spicy scent of curry hung tantalizingly in the air.
David, the portly, balding mage who ran A Passage to India along with his non-magical partner, waited for them inside. “I’m so sorry to hear about Eleanor,” he said. “I wish I could go, but Marta is out of town and I can’t close the restaurant.”
“We’ll give everyone your best,” Stone assured him.
The portal in the basement was just as Jason remembered it: large, vaguely round without defined boundaries, shifting and rippling with strange, multicolored lights. He remembered the first time he’d seen it, how beautiful he’d thought it was. After a disastrous trip through this one and nearly being killed by a collapsing temporary version at the Evil’s headquarters, though, he was less interested in its appearance and more in its safety. “You’re sure this is okay?” he asked after David left them alone. Stone was already calibrating the portal to send them to their destination, somewhere in Lowell, Massachusetts. “You said those things home in on emotion—you seem pretty upset about your friend. Is—”
“Don’t worry,” Stone said after a moment, stepping away from the portal. “That’s part of being trained as a mage—the ability to put aside one’s own emotional state when necessary. It’s probably a good thing that you two didn’t know Eleanor, though—it will make things easier.”
“So we just…step through?” Verity asked. Stone had explained the highlights of travel in the Overworld to her on the trip down, with Jason adding the layman’s interpretations, so she had a pretty good idea what to expect. Still, Jason knew hearing it described and actually experiencing it were as different as listening to a symphony and trying to understand it by hearing someone tell you about the individual notes. It didn’t translate well.
“Yes, exactly.” Stone nodded toward the portal. “Just stay close together and keep walking. And remember not to be afraid. The trip will be very short—no more than a minute, and we’ll be out on the other side.”
Verity didn’t look scared in the slightest—to the contrary, she regarded the portal with shining-eyed anticipation. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I’m a lot tougher than my big chicken of a brother.”
“We’ll see,” Jason said darkly. In reality he was proud of her courage; he just hoped he could match it. Even though Stone had fixed it so he could go through without attracting the attention of the Overworld’s occupants, the place still made him damned nervous.
“All right, then. Ready?”
“Ready,” Verity said.
“No, but let’s go anyway,” Jason said. He put his hand on Stone’s right shoulder, and Verity put hers on his left, and together they stepped through the electric mists.
Verity screamed.
Chapter Two
The cry wasn’t startled, or surprised, or mildly frightened—it was a full-throated, ear-piercing shriek of utter and complete terror. Verity ripped her hand from Stone’s shoulder and clamped it, along with her other one, to the sides of her head.
“Bloody hell!” Stone snapped, spinning to face her. She was doubled over now as if in some kind of agony, but nothing was near her.
“What the—” Jason started, but Stone didn’t let him finish. He picked Verity up, slung her, still screaming, over his shoulder, and whirled back toward the portal they’d just entered. “Come on!” he ordered. “We’re going back!”
Jason took a quick look around before following the mage. The flitting, hazy gray things in the Overworld—that generally ignored them on normal trips through the portal—hurried toward their location. “Oh, fuck, not again...” he whispered, and then he was back through, and the creatures were gone.
Stone had fallen to his knees, struggling to lower the still-screaming Verity to the floor without dropping her. Jason quickly got next to them and helped. “What’s wrong with her?” he demanded. Even he, on his disastrous first trip through the Overworld, hadn’t freaked out this badly.
“No idea.” Stone barely seemed to notice he was there. Bending over Verity, he took her wrists and tried to pry her hands off her head. “Verity! Pull yourself together!” he ordered. “We’re out of there now. You’re all right!”
Gradually she stopped screaming, and over the next few minutes she slowly got herself under control, although she still shook. Her breath still came fast and hard, as if she had just run several miles with a pack of monsters in hot pursuit. Eventually she opened her eyes and stared up at Stone and Jason. She swallowed once, tried to say something, but ended up just shaking her head. Her whole body was bathed in perspiration, her short, spiky dark hair stuck to her sweaty forehead.
“You okay?” Jason asked, kneeling next to her.
She g
ulped several deep breaths. “I—I think so,” she got out between them.
“What happened?” Stone asked. “Do you have any idea what caused that?” He too breathed hard as the adrenaline spike that had allowed him to pick Verity up and hustle her around like a sack of potatoes wore off.
She struggled to sit up. Jason hauled her to her feet and helped her to the wall so she could sag against it, since the portal room had no furniture. Stone followed, looking concerned. “I—don’t really know,” she said. “It’s like—the minute I went in there, I felt like my head was gonna explode. Like—things were trying to get in.” She took another deep breath. “Like something was pressing on me, and it was gonna kill me or drive me crazy or pull out my brain.”
Over Verity’s bowed head, Jason looked at Stone. “Have you ever heard of this before?” he whispered.
Stone shook his head. Returning his attention to Verity, he said, “You say you felt this as soon as you went inside the portal?”
She nodded without looking up.
“Nothing before that?”
“I—I don’t think so, no.”
“Was it when you saw the creatures?” Jason asked.
That made her look up. “What creatures?”
Jason’s eyes widened. “The gray foggy things flying around in there. You didn’t see them?”
Verity shook her head. “Like I said—pretty much the second I got in there I felt like my brain was coming apart. I didn’t really get much chance to see anything.”
Stone had the thousand-yard stare again, the one that Jason knew meant his mind was moving fast as it tried to make sense of what had happened. “Al—?”
The mage scrubbed his hand across his face. “This is new,” he said, still sounding preoccupied. “I’ve seen a few cases of people who didn’t react well to the Overworld—your case, Jason, and my own on my first time through, when I was a teenager. But I’ve never heard of a reaction that violent before.”
Verity looked concerned. “Does this mean I’m not gonna be able to go through?”
“You still want to after that?” Jason demanded, incredulous. “My freak-out was kid stuff compared to yours, and Al practically had to drug me to get me in there again so we could go home.”
Her expression was disappointed. “I’m gonna be a mage, Jason. This is what they do. They use this thing to travel around. If I can’t—” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Dr. Stone. I don’t know why—”
Stone patted her arm. “We’ll get this sorted, don’t you worry. There’s got to be some logical explanation. But for now—” He looked back at the portal, then at Verity. “I think it’s too late to find plane tickets that will get us to Vermont by Friday morning. Maybe I should just go on alone, and—”
“No!” she said with surprising vehemence, her dark eyes blazing. “I’m gonna do this. It’s just stupid that I can’t.”
Stone’s tone was gentle. “Verity, I admire your courage, I really do. But the creatures in there know what’s going on now. If we take you through and you have another—episode—I can’t vouch for my ability to get us back out before we’re overtaken. It’s not worth the risk.”
Jason tried not to look relieved. He felt bad for his sister, but that feeling was nothing compared to the fear that gripped him at the thought of being at the mercy of those things in there. If Verity was going to draw them like cats to catnip, it was better if they just didn’t go. They’d be fine for a couple of days till Stone got back.
“What if you knock me out?” Verity demanded. “Put me to sleep or something and carry me through? Would that work?”
“V—” Jason began.
“I’m not talking to you, Jason,” she said. She looked at Stone. “What about it? Would it work?”
Stone considered. “It might. As I told Jason, that was what they had to do to get me through on my first trip. But again, I didn’t have nearly the reaction you did.”
“Are you willing to try it?” Her eyes met his in challenge.
There was a long pause. “I suppose I am,” he said at last. He looked at Jason. “You can carry her—I suspect if anything’s to happen, it will be right away, and probably not quite as fast if she’s not actively sending up flares. We should have enough time to get out if things go pear-shaped. And it might give me some more data to try to figure out why it’s happening in the first place.”
Jason sighed. He supposed he should start getting used to being overruled by the pathologically curious. “Fine,” he said. “But I don’t like this.”
“Just stay close. If something goes wrong, I might need you to help me put up a shield.”
It wasn’t hard to knock Verity out: a simple deep sleep spell did the trick, and didn’t cause Stone more than a few moments’ dizziness. He motioned for Jason to pick her up, and once again they stepped into the portal.
Jason noticed the mage moved through with more caution than before. What had started out as a simple walk in the park had now become a walk in a park full of potential attackers lurking behind every tree. They were both on constant watch as they walked forward, and Jason glanced down at Verity every few seconds, checking to make sure she wasn’t either waking up or experiencing any difficulty. By the time they emerged from the other side, both of them were taut with stress. Verity slept on, unaware.
Jason examined their surroundings, carefully lowering his sister down against a stack of old clothes. They stood in what looked like a large, wooden attic full of dusty furniture and other junk, the only light provided by the portal itself which had been carefully hidden behind some old wardrobes and what looked like church pews stacked on their ends.
“Where are we?” he asked.
Stone, too, looked around. He didn’t answer until he was satisfied they were alone. “This is the attic of an old Presbyterian church in Lowell,” he said. “It’s one of the oldest portals on the East Coast. The church’s minister is one of us.”
Jason tilted his head. “A minister who’s a mage?”
Stone shrugged. “Why not? Nobody really knows where the magic comes from—why not believe it comes from God? It’s as good an explanation as any, if you’re a believer.” He knelt down next to Verity. “Now, then. Let’s wake up Sleeping Beauty here and get on with it, shall we?”
Verity’s eyes popped open instantly as Stone released the sleep spell, almost as if she had been struggling against something even in unconsciousness.
“You all right?” Jason asked.
“Did we make it?” she demanded, looking around. When assured that they had, she let her breath out in a long sigh of relief. “I had the most horrible dreams,” she said, shaking her head. “I was screaming, and they were after me, and—I didn’t cause any trouble, did I?”
“Not a bit,” Stone said, frowning. “But the fact that you had bad dreams even as deeply as I put you under concerns me. I’ll definitely have to investigate this further. But for now, we’d best get going.”
The minister, an older gentleman named Edwin Blodgett, was on the premises, and he allowed Stone to use the church’s phone to call a taxi after expressing regret that he’d be unable to attend Eleanor Pearsall’s memorial. “Nasty business,” he said sadly as they departed. “So many horrible things happening these days, all over the country. God help us all.”
After picking up their rental car, they arrived in Woodwich, Vermont a little more than two hours later. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about it being a wide spot in the road,” Jason said, leaning forward as they rolled into town.
There was hardly any traffic, so they were able to drive the three blocks of Main Street slowly, taking in the shops. Jason watched the scenery roll by: a post office, a small market, a couple of clothing stores, a larger department store with both of its display windows covered with paper and an elaborate floral display near its doorway, two bars, a gas station, a jewelry store, thre
e restaurants (pizza, a sub shop, and a gourmet burger place), a coffee shop, and some knickknack and candle shops that looked like they were designed to appeal to any lost tourists who managed to stumble into town. Old-style wrought iron streetlamps lined the street on both sides. Although it was midday, few people strolled on the sidewalks.
“You think they even have a place to stay here?” Jason asked. “It doesn’t look like they get many tourists, especially this time of year.”
Stone kept driving. At the far end of Main Street, after the blocks with the shops petered out, they spotted a large park on one side and library on the other, set back from the street. Jason pointed out a pay phone in front of the park, and they quickly found Woodwich’s single motel on the outskirts of town.
The grizzled old man behind the counter wiped his hands on his flannel shirt and looked the three of them up and down as they trooped in. Clearly he didn’t see groups looking like them every day. “Help ya?”
“We need a couple of rooms,” Stone said.
The man nodded. “You’re lucky,” he said, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. “Only got a couple left.”
“Really?” Jason asked, surprised. “Not exactly tourist season, is it?”
But Stone caught on. “They’re here for the funeral,” he said softly.
Something flickered in the man’s dark eyes, and he looked up. “Yeah. You knew Miz Pearsall?” He looked like he wasn’t sure he believed it.
“I did,” Stone said.
“I’m Ralph Gough,” he said, offering his hand. “Miz Pearsall was quite a character.” His tone suggested that this was the highest compliment he could bestow. “Such a terrible shame, what happened.”
“Indeed,” Stone said. “Our mutual friend who called to let me know—didn’t go into detail about the circumstances.”
Jason started to say something, but decided not to. He faded back to stand next to Verity.
“Terrible, terrible shame,” Ralph Gough said again, shaking his head. “Can’t imagine what got into them boys to make ’em do such a thing. And right there in the winda of Hillerman’s too.”
