The Portal

by Richard Bowker

  "That's great."

  The father took Kevin and me aside and spoke to us before we got back into the wagon. "I know every soul in Glanbury, and I don't know you boys," he said. "I've certainly never seen anyone wearing clothes like that, or heard an accent like that. Where are you really from? China?"

  Kevin shook his head. "No, we're from America."

  "Where is America?" the man asked suspiciously. "I've never heard of it."

  Kevin looked at me, and I felt a little more desperate. Just how different was this world? "What—what's the name of this country?" he asked the man.

  The man shook his head in astonishment. "Never heard of the like. We're in New England, lad. The United States of New England. Where's America?"

  Far, far away, apparently. "Samuel, please come!" his wife called out to him from the wagon. "If we don't hurry we'll not make it to Boston by dark."

  Samuel looked back at us. "I think you lads have some explaining to do, but now's not the time, I judge. Let's go, if you still want a ride to Boston."

  He headed off to the wagon. "This may be our last chance," Kevin said to me. "What do you think?"

  I shook my head. "It's too late, Kevin. We have to go to Boston."

  Kevin didn't argue, and we silently trudged back to the wagon.

  When we got in, the mother was feeding her kids apples and bread. She offered us some, and we took the food gratefully. Kevin ate his share like he didn't think he'd get another meal.

  We started up again. The sun was lower in the sky now, and it was getting colder out. After a while there were more shops and houses, and a few signs of life. Dogs barked at us. On one side street I saw a bunch of hogs eating garbage in the middle of the road. Another road merged with ours, and suddenly there was traffic—more wagons carrying furniture and frightened families. Some of the wagons had a cow, a goat, or even an ox tied up behind them. Everyone was headed towards Boston.

  Finally we crossed a bridge over a river, and a little ways beyond was a long high wooden fence that stretched out as far as I could see in both directions. There were slits for guns high up in the fence, I noticed. A pair of gates were open, but a group of soldiers stood by them, examining everyone before they let them pass through.

  They looked like soldiers, but their uniform was different from any I had ever seen. They wore short red jackets, black pants, and metal helmets with little brims, almost like batting helmets. Each of them had a rifle slung over his arm and a pistol in his belt. When we finally reached the gates one of the soldiers came up to us. He half-saluted Samuel and said, "Name, sir?"

  He had an accent that was almost English.

  "Harper. Samuel Harper. That's my wife Martha."

  "And where are you coming from?"

  "Up from Glanbury," Samuel replied.

  "Waited till the last minute, did you?"

  "They were right behind us. There was some skirmishing, and I thought it best to leave. If they weren't so interested in looting, they'd be right behind us still."

  "Why did you wait so long?"

  "I didn't want to yield my farm to any Portuguese, I tell you that. I fired my house and barn before I left. I don't know how it got to this."

  The soldier nodded and looked into the wagon. "This your family, sir?"

  "Except for those two strays back there," Samuel said, meaning us. "I don't know who or what they are."

  The soldier came around and took a close look at Kevin and me. "Strange outfits," he said. "And your family is where, mates?"

  "Murdered," Kevin blurted out. "By the Portuguese. But we managed to escape."

  Why did he say that?

  "But I thought you were in the navy," the little girl objected.

  "I know nothing of any murdering," Mr. Harper said.

  The soldier's eyes darkened. "Well?" he demanded.

  But just then another soldier called to him. "Move it along, Corporal! We'll be all night getting these people inside."

  He shrugged, and stepped back. "Any disease here?" he asked loudly. "Smallpox? Diphtheria? Drikana?"

  "No," Mr. Harper said. "We're all healthy, thank God."

  "Pray God you stay healthy," the soldier replied. "The city is getting more crowded by the hour. There is little food, and the water is bad. You are welcome to enter, but you'll have a hard time of it. If there is a siege, conditions will get far worse. You'll have to stay in a camp."

  "I have a brother in the city who will take us in," Mr. Harper said.

  "Then count yourself lucky, sir. The camps'll not be pleasant places. You may pass."

  Mr. Harper grunted and flicked the reins, and the horse started through the gates. "A siege," he muttered. "They want to delay as long as they can while they parley with the Europeans, as if any European has ever helped New England before. And meanwhile, all I've worked for has been destroyed."

  "You needn't have set fire to the—" his wife started to say, but he quickly interrupted her.

  "Better me than the Portuguese, woman. If we all did what I did, there'd be no food to sustain them, and they'd have to slink like dogs back where they came from."

  I looked at the fence. Soldiers were piling up sandbags against it. Getting ready for a siege, I thought. There were sieges in plenty of video games I'd played. Sieges could last forever.

  "Was your family really murdered?" the little boy asked Kevin.

  Kevin shook his head. "No, but I don't think I'll ever see them again."

  "Oh. That's sad."

  Kevin nodded and looked away.

  We were passing through a big military camp. The soldiers stared at us grimly as we went by. In the distance to our right I could see the ocean. I could smell fish and horse manure, and worse stuff. It was really getting dark now, and there weren't any street lights. I was hungry and stiff and still a little queasy from the bumpy ride. This was awful.

  "Are you sure John will take us in?" Martha asked her husband.

  "He'd better, hadn't he?" he replied.

  "What about these boys?"

  "What about them? I won't ask my brother to house and feed anyone who isn't kin, not with what's about to happen. Anyway, they haven't told the truth about anything since we met them. They can fend for themselves."

  "But they're so young, Samuel."

  "They're old enough to join the army, I daresay. The redbacks will need everyone they can get. They should be grateful to us. If we hadn't taken them with us, they'd be lying dead in the road by now. Or worse."

  Martha gave us a look full of sympathy, but she didn't argue with her husband. The little boy said, "I'd like to join the army," but she hushed him.

  My stomach started to growl.

  We were past the military camp now. The road crossed some marshland, and on the other side there were a lot of shacks and tents jammed together, and some of the people in wagons got off the road to join the crowd. Was this one of the refugee camps? "Fools," Mr. Harper muttered. "Camping in the swamp. Half of them will have the flux by morning." We kept going, and after a while some of the buildings were built of brick, the road became paved with cobblestones, and there were even sidewalks.

  "At last," Mr. Harper said. "Now, if I can only find the street."

  The sidewalks grew crowded as we traveled further into the city. Kids younger than Kevin and me, dirty-faced and dressed in raggedy old clothes, were selling newspapers or flowers. Soldiers walked alongside women wearing too much makeup. There were lots of old people—and some not so old—holding out their hands or tin cups, begging for food or money. Policemen, dressed like the soldiers except in blue, directed traffic at every intersection. Some people on the streets rode something that looked like a bicycle with very wide wooden wheels. There were no traffic lights, and only a few dim, flickering lamps instead of street lights.

  Mr. Harper made a few turns, asked directions a couple of times, and finally pulled up in front of a small house on a dark side street. A bearded man walked out of the house, holding a lantern. "Samuel," h
e said, "about time you came to town."

  "Held out as long as I could, John," Samuel replied. "I've lost everything but what we've got in this wagon."

  "I'm very sorry for that," John said, coming over to the wagon. "but of course you're welcome to stay here. Martha," he said, nodding to the woman. "And how are little Rachel and Samuel?" He reached into the wagon and patted them on the heads. Then he turned to Kevin and me with a puzzled expression. "And you are—?"

  Samuel had joined his brother and was unlatching the back of the wagon. "Passers-by," he said. "Everyone had to get out or be shot. We gave them a ride, out of the goodness of our hearts."

  We climbed down, followed by Martha and the children. Samuel and his brother walked back to the front of the wagon, unhitched the horse, and led it behind the house. Martha looked at us. "Will you be all right?" she asked.

  I didn't know what to say. "I guess so," I said.

  She reached back into the wagon and filled a small bag with apples, bread, and cheese. "Good luck," she said, handing me the bag. "I'm sorry we can't do more. It's a hard time for everyone." She turned to her kids. "Come on, children. Let's go inside."

  Kevin and I watched them go into the small house. And then we were all alone on the dark street, in the strange world, and neither of us had a clue what to do next.

  Chapter 6

  We walked away from the house, eating the food in silence. I was so hungry, I forgot for a while how scared I was. But it didn't take long for the fear to return. Where would we get our next meal? Where would we sleep? Would we ever get back to the portal? Would I ever see my family again?

  We didn't know where we were going. The streets were dark, and I kept tripping on the cobblestones. A dog barked at us out of an alley. There was a lump in my throat, and it kept getting bigger. From one house we passed I heard someone playing a piano, and at least that sounded familiar. But then I remembered my piano lesson, and I felt even worse.

  Pretty soon Kevin and I started arguing. "This is so stupid, Kevin," I said. "Why did I let you talk me into it?"

  "It's not like I twisted your arm or anything," he shot back. "I said you could stay behind, if you wanted to be prudent."

  "I don't know why I even told you about it. I should've figured you get me into trouble, with all your theories. And why did you tell that soldier our family had been murdered by the Portuguese? He almost arrested us."

  "Maybe we'd be better off if we were arrested," he pointed out. "Jail would be better than this."

  We kept walking.

  "You know what worries me?" Kevin asked softly after a while.

  I shook my head.

  "Even if we find the portal, what if we can't get back? What if it takes us to some totally different universe?"

  "It took me home yesterday," I reminded him.

  "Maybe you were just lucky. Maybe you go somewhere different every time you step into it."

  "We'll get back," I insisted.

  He didn't argue. I think he wanted to believe me. I wanted to believe myself.

  It was getting cold. Neither of us had a jacket. At least neither of was wearing shorts. I was grateful when we finally made it back to the main street. With all the people around, it just seemed to feel warmer.

  Now that we were out of the wagon, people were staring at us, but we were too tired and scared to care. We looked in the store windows as we walked. There was a dressmaker's shop, and a place that sold something called sundries, and a chandler, which had candles and oil lamps for sale. "No electricity, I guess," Kevin muttered. "Those streetlights are gas or something. This place is, like, two hundred years behind us." We stopped in front of a tavern called The Twin Ponies and listened to the laughter and smelled the cigar smoke and the stale beer. Someone was playing an instrument that sounded like an accordion.

  "Look at this," Kevin said. He picked up a sheet of newspaper from the sidewalk in front of the tavern. It was called the Boston Intelligencer. It had smaller type and wider pages than in regular newspapers, and no photographs—only a couple of drawings. We read the headlines:

  Portuguese, Canadians Advance on Boston

  Thousands of Refugees Arrive ahead of Siege

  Pres. Gardner Calls for Calm as Naval Blockade Tightens

  Talks with British Continue

  "It has today's date," Kevin pointed out.

  "Look at the British spellings," I said. President Gardner was at pains to dispel the rumour that he was negotiating terms of surrender with the Canadians and Portuguese.

  We couldn't make sense of a lot of what we read, but two things were clear: This place was in a whole lot of trouble, and there was plenty of disagreement about what to do about it. The paper quoted one guy as saying they should cut off all the refugees from entering the city, because there wasn't going to be enough food for everyone to survive the siege. Someone else said there was no way the city could survive the siege anyway, and the president (who apparently was in Boston) should "surrender forthwith." And the president insisted everything was going to be fine and not to worry.

  "What a mess," Kevin said.

  "No kidding."

  A tall man wearing a round black hat and a green cape came staggering out of the tavern. He stared at us for a second and shook his head. "Strange days," he muttered, and he headed off down the street.

  "So, what do you think we should do?" I asked finally. One of us had to ask the question.

  "I don't know," Kevin said. "Maybe we should, you know, turn ourselves in."

  "For what? We haven't done anything."

  "Well, we could, like, tell the truth."

  "You think they'd believe us?"

  Kevin shrugged. "I guess not."

  "But even if they did believe us, why would they care? They've got way more important things to think about."

  "Wouldn't hurt to ask. What have we got to lose?"

  We were lost on a strange world with no one to help us. There really was nothing to lose.

  "I think that's a cop over there," Kevin said. "Go ask him."

  The blue-jacketed policeman was across the street, standing in front of a building with his arms folded.

  "Why me?" I said. "It's your idea."

  "Because you're taller," Kevin answered. "He'll pay more attention to you."

  Seemed like a stupid reason to me, but I was tired of arguing. We crossed the street, picking our way through the disgusting horse manure. We walked up to the cop, who stared at us suspiciously.

  "Excuse me, officer," I began. My voice sounded thin and trembly in my ears. "We're not from around here, and—"

  He scowled at me. "I can see that, mate."

  "No, really. We're not just, you know, from another town or something. We come from a different world altogether. We'd like to, uh, speak to someone in authority."

  "Of course you would," the policeman said, nodding. "And, you'd like a meal. And a nice bed to sleep on, as well. Is that it?"

  I glanced at Kevin, but he didn't have anything to say.

  "We're in the middle of a war, in case you didn't notice," the cop went on. "We don't feed strays. If we don't get help soon, we won't be able to feed ourselves. Now run along."

  "But where?" I asked. "We don't have anyplace to stay."

  He gestured off to his left. "The Fens camp is where you strays belong. Don't let us catch you stealing on the way, or you'll wish the Portuguese had caught you first. And don't be wandering the streets after curfew, either. You farmfolk—or whatever you are—aren't going to overrun this city. Understand?"

  I nodded. "How far away is the camp?" I managed to ask.

  He laughed. "Not far. Just follow your nose. And you might watch your step going through Cheapside—they don't take kindly to strays." Then he turned and walked away.

  "Nice job," Kevin said to me. "You didn't explain anything."

  "You try, if you think you can do it better."

  We were silent then. We headed off in the direction the cop had pointed.

/>   "I wonder if the Fens has anything to do with Fenway Park," Kevin said after a while.

  "Who gives," I muttered.

  "They probably don't even have baseball in this world," he went on.

  I just looked at him. We kept walking. I was getting really tired. And I was hungry again. Would there be food in the camp? Everyone seemed worried about food.

  After a while we entered what I figured was Cheapside—a nasty-looking section of town where the rickety houses were stuck close together, the street had turned into a rutted dirt path, and piles of garbage were heaped up everywhere. Follow your nose, the cop had said. There were lots of nasty-looking taverns, and people lounging in the doorways shouted insults at us as we passed. We just kept going.

  Cheapside petered out after a while and we saw a bunch of buildings with soldiers guarding them. Beyond the buildings was the Fens camp.

  It was much bigger than the one we'd seen from the wagon on the way into the city. It seemed to go on forever; we could see wagons and tents, smoky campfires and snorting horses. There was a rough fence around it, and at the end of the path was a gate with lamps hung on either side. A few wagons were lined up in front of the gate, waiting to enter.

  "What do you think?" I asked Kevin. "Should we go inside?"

  "Do we have a choice?" he replied.

  Not that I could see. We got in line behind the wagons. It took a few minutes for them to enter. When we reached the gate the soldier guarding it laughed. He was short and stout and missing a couple of teeth. "Farmfolk get stranger-looking every day," he said, shaking his head. "Twenty minutes to curfew, lads."

  "Can we just, like, go in?" I asked.

  "You can go in, but you can't come back out—at least not till morning, and then you'll need a pass. But you'll find plenty to do inside, I daresay."

  "Is there any food?"

  "Not till morning, unless you want to steal some inside the camp—which I wouldn't recommend, since it'll likely get you killed. Now run along with you."

  We walked through the gate into the camp. There were muddy paths of a sort, along which people had parked their wagons and set up makeshift shelters. People sat in their wagons or on chairs outside their tents, the men smoking long pipes and the women chatting with each other by the light of the campfires. One man we passed was playing a guitar while his family sang what sounded like a hymn. There were a lot of babies crying. Older kids ran around, playing tag. It didn't seem all that bad, actually, if you could get used to the smell and the mud.