The Portal

by Richard Bowker

  "Think we can make it to Glanbury today?" I asked.

  "I don't know. It's a bit of a trek," he said. "Wouldn't want to be traveling after dark."

  "Well, let's see how far we get," Kevin said. "We can always break into another house and stay the night."

  "True enough." Stinky gave Kevin another what's-your-hurry look, but he didn't say anything more. We finished putting our shoes and socks back on and headed outside. The sun was bright, and the wind had died down now that we were off the marsh, so we weren't as cold as we'd been before. We pressed on towards the Post Road, feeling a little better.

  We had only a vague idea how far away the road was. We followed a rutted, curvy path that was headed inland. There was no one else around, and that started to feel kind of spooky, after being stuck in the crowded city for so long. It reminded me of being in Cambridge with Professor Palmer, and thinking of him made me sad. He wouldn't have any idea where we were, if we were dead or alive. I sure wished I'd had a chance to say goodbye to him.

  Stinky tried to make conversation as we trudged along. He had enough curiosity to want a better explanation of why we were headed to Glanbury. Did we have parents? Did they know what we were doing?

  "We're orphans," Kevin said. "Just like you." Why did he say that? I tried to remember if I'd told Stinky the lie about Professor Palmer being my father.

  "Then how've you been living?" Stinky asked. "Where?"

  "In an orphanage," Kevin said. "Where else?"

  "But you're my age, looks like. Wouldn't you be 'prenticed by now?"

  "Well, we're not."

  After a while Stinky gave up. And a while after that we reached the Post Road, smooth and wide compared to the path we'd been on, but just as empty. Behind us was the wreckage of the bridge over the river.

  "Look," Kevin said, pointing to the other side of the road. A wagon with a broken wheel lay on its side in a ditch. We went over to examine it. It was empty except for a few pots. "Portuguese," Stinky said, studying the lettering on the back. "Says something about cooking. The wagon's pointing south. They probably abandoned it during the retreat."

  We started heading south on the Post Road. Everywhere there was stuff that the Portuguese had dropped or left behind—clothing and utensils and empty bottles, even a cannon. And then we saw a blue-jacketed corpse, face-down by the side of the road. Stinky went over to it. He came back with the dead man's pistol. "Looks like a mighty disorganized retreat," he said, "if they didn't even stop to bury their dead."

  In the distance we heard some shots. People hunting? Fighting? "Julian, could you show me how to load this rifle?" I said. "I've got plenty of bullets."

  He gave me another look, as if to ask: who wouldn't know how to load a rifle? But he shrugged and demonstrated how to load the cartridges and cock it. "Simple enough," he said. "And we'll be needing this rifle before long, if we're to eat anything today."

  We walked along. The shooting stopped. After the roar of the battle yesterday, things seemed awfully quiet—there was no noise except the crunching of our feet on the road. Some of the houses and shops and inns we passed looked like they hadn't been touched; others had been burned to the ground. None of the fires looked recent, though. The Portuguese were probably in too much of a hurry to do any more damage.

  And then we saw people up ahead. "Not soldiers," Stinky said. "One of them's a woman, I'd say, from the shape of that bonnet." We quickened our pace to catch up with them. There was a woman, a child, and a mule, weighed down with baggage. "Good day to you!" Stinky called out when we were close enough.

  The woman whirled around and aimed a rifle at us. "Come no closer," she shouted back, "or I'll shoot you all."

  The woman was middle-aged, and had an upper-crust, almost-English accent. Stinky raised his hands. "We're New Englanders. We mean you no harm."

  The child was about six, and she clung sobbing to the woman, who lowered her rifle but still stared at us suspiciously. "We've been set upon already," she said. "There are evil people about, both New Englander and Portuguese. One of them has a bullet in his chest for his troubles."

  "I believe it, but I assure you we aren't evil," Stinky said.

  "How did you get past the fortifications?" I asked. "Are they open yet?"

  "No, but this morning they removed most of the guards to go fight the Canadians. If you've a mind to get out and have a few pounds to spare for bribes, you can leave."

  "How'd you get across the river?"

  "Some men have rafts down there now," she replied. "Making quite a good day's wages, too."

  "We're headed home to Glanbury. Where are you going?"

  "Braintree, God willing, and no more brigands attack us."

  Braintree was maybe halfway to Glanbury. "Why don't we travel together?" I suggested. "Safety in numbers."

  The woman continued to eye us suspiciously, but after thinking about it she said, "Very well. You're likely-looking lads."

  So we joined them. The woman's name was Mrs. Gradger; her daughter was named Cecilia. Their story was familiar: They'd been stuck in the Fens camp during the siege. Mrs. Gradger's husband and two older sons were in the army, and she didn't know if they were dead or alive. Mr. Gradger was a lawyer, and the family had been well-off before the war, so for a while she'd been able to buy extra provisions in the camp. But then food became scarce and money became pretty much worthless, and now the family was just like everyone else.

  Mrs. Gradger, though, was a tough woman. She had already killed one man today, and she sure seemed ready to shoot anyone else who tried to mess with her or her daughter.

  Cecilia was another story, however. She was so tired she was barely able to walk, and she kept complaining about how hungry she was. She wiped her tears on her sleeve as she tried to keep up. Mrs. Gradger didn't seem especially sympathetic. "Barney can't carry any more weight," she kept repeating, as if the amount of stuff on the mule settled matters.

  "C'mon, Cecilia," I said finally. "I'll carry you for a while." I handed the rifle to Kevin and squatted down so Cecilia could climb onto my shoulders. She was pretty light. "Thank you, sir," she said, wiping her face clean yet again.

  "Cecilia, don't dirty your sleeve," Mrs. Gradger said. But she didn't object to my carrying her daughter.

  We walked like that for a long time. It was good to have company, even if Mrs. Gradger reminded me a lot of Ms. Pouch, my sixth-grade math teacher, who everyone called Ms. Grouch. She spent most of the time complaining about the how badly the camp had been run and how completely President Gardner had screwed up the war and how uncivilized the Portuguese were. I think she was happy to finally get a chance to kill someone.

  We didn't run into anyone else, although off and on we heard more shots, which always scared Cecilia. "No more bad men," she said. "I don't want any more bad men." Once we spotted a skinny dog, who stared at us for a long time before slinking off down a side street. And that somehow reminded Cecilia of how hungry she was. "Please, Mother," she said from my shoulders, "please can't we eat?"

  I looked at Mrs. Gradger. Her face was hard, but there were tears in her eyes. "We'll be home soon," she said. "Now don't talk about food. It just makes things worse."

  Stinky came over to me. "Have to do some hunting, mate," he murmured. "Before we lose the daylight."

  The sun was low in the sky. It was starting to get colder. Miles to go before I sleep. I remembered that line from a poem we studied in English class. And then we were at a crossroads. Mrs. Gradger stopped and closed her eyes in relief for a moment. Then she snapped back into character. "Our house is along this road to the right," she said. "Cecilia, please get down. Thank you, lads, for the company."

  I stooped to let Cecilia off. My shoulders were stiff, but it had been sort of fun carrying her. Then we all stood there. I looked at Kevin. I could tell he was all for pushing on to Glanbury. Not me. It was Stinky who made the suggestion. "Ma'am, might you consider letting us spend the night? In return we'll go out and shoot you some supper.
"

  Mrs. Gradger said, "Oh no, we'll be fine, no need." And Cecilia started wailing.

  "It'd be a favor to us, ma'am," Stinky pointed out. "We could use the shelter."

  That was pretty clever of Stinky, I thought. Mrs. Gradger would rather grant a favor than have anyone think she needed one. "Very well," she agreed. "That's a reasonable suggestion. Come along."

  Kevin looked disgusted. I shrugged. "Just one more day," I muttered to him. "It won't kill us."

  "How do you know?"

  But he didn't argue, and we all followed Mrs. Gradger down the road to Braintree.

  Chapter 26

  A few minutes later we were there.

  The Gradger house hadn't been burned. It was bigger than most of the houses I'd seen in Cambridge, with a fancy black iron fence out front and a wide brick drive leading up to an entranceway supported by large white pillars. "We're home, Mother!" Cecilia shouted. "Home!"

  But things didn't look right. The front door was open. All the windows were smashed. Staring at them, Mrs. Gradger looked like she wanted to kill someone else. We walked quickly up the drive, rifles at the ready. For a moment we stood by the door, listening, and then Mrs. Gradger strode inside, with the rest of us following.

  The place had been trashed. Broken glass and dishes littered the floor. Furniture was overturned. Paintings had been taken down from the wall and ripped in half. We went from room to room—and there were a lot of them—and they were all wrecked. We headed upstairs, and it was the same there. Everything that could be destroyed had been. It was awful.

  Cecilia started crying again. Mrs. Gradger didn't say a word. "I'm really sorry," I said to her. She just shook her head.

  We went through the entire place to make sure it was empty, then came back downstairs. Kevin, Stinky, and I didn't have to say anything to each other; we all knew we had to pitch in. "I'll start a fire," Kevin volunteered.

  "I'll unpack Barney," I said.

  "I'll help," Stinky added.

  We went outside. "Quite a mess," Stinky remarked as we unloaded the mule.

  "Think the Portuguese did it?"

  "Don't see why they'd do this much damage," Stinky said. "Same for thieves. Maybe it was servants or townspeople, settling old scores. They finally got a chance to show what they thought of the Gradgers. I bet they weren't so fond of Mrs. Gradger."

  "She's not so bad."

  Stinky shrugged. "Tell that to the person she shot. Let's get this stuff inside and see if we can find some food."

  We talked to Kevin and decided that he would stay behind with the Gradgers while we went out hunting. Mrs. Gradger was starting to clean up the big living room, and Cecilia had lain down on a rug in the corner. Stinky and I headed out into the late afternoon.

  "Shouldn't be hard to find game," Stinky said. "With no people around for months, the animals are probably nearabouts."

  "Whatever we do, let's not get lost," I replied.

  We were in a residential neighborhood. None of the houses were as grand as Mrs. Gradger's, but they were still pretty nice. We didn't see anyone else, so it was like walking through a ghost town. It took us a little while before we found a patch of woods behind a church. "This'll do, I expect," Stinky said.

  We went into the woods. Stinky motioned for me to be silent. Once again I noticed how quiet it could be in this world, without traffic or radios or airplanes. We walked deeper into the woods, and then stopped again. I could hear the sound of Stinky's heavy breathing, the breeze moving the branches above us. It was getting dark; I hoped this wouldn't take long. And then I saw Stinky slowly raise the pistol he had taken from the dead Portuguese soldier.

  I looked where he was aiming. There was a large, strange-looking bird waddling along the ground. Could we eat that? Stinky fired, and the sound was deafening. The bird collapsed, squawking, and then there was silence again. "Got 'im," Stinky said.

  We walked over to it. "What is it?" I asked.

  Stinky looked at me with a puzzled expression. "A turkey, of course," he said. "Don't they ever feed you turkey in the orphanage?"

  "Yeah, of course. I love turkey. But to be honest, I'm about ready to eat tree bark."

  Stinky picked up the bird and handed it to me, and we made our way out of the woods. "A lot of turkeys'll be shot before this winter's over," he said.

  The dead bird was heavy, and it dripped blood as we walked. Nasty. But I wasn't going to complain. We made our way back to the Gradgers' house without a problem, although night was falling fast. Inside, the fire was roaring. Mrs. Gradger was hanging sheets in front of the windows to keep out the cold air. Kevin was sweeping up the broken glass; he looked relieved to see us return. Cecilia was fast asleep on some cushions by the fire.

  "Ma'am, if you'll pluck this turkey, we can have some supper," Stinky said.

  Mrs. Gradger didn't look happy about handling the turkey; that was probably something the servants did. But she stopped what she was doing and went out with us to the kitchen. Getting the turkey ready to eat was hard, disgusting work—chopping off the head, plucking the feathers, cleaning out the insides... Rather than get involved with that, I started a fire in the kitchen fireplace, then pumped some water out back. When the turkey had been prepared, Mrs. Gradger put it on a spit in the fireplace, and then we just had to wait for it to cook, while the aroma made our mouths water and our stomachs rumble.

  The table and chairs had been destroyed, so we had to eat on the floor in the living room. Mrs. Gradger found pewter plates that hadn't been smashed and some old silverware, while the three of us did more cleanup. Finally we took the turkey off the spit, carved it, roused Cecilia, and ate. The turkey was burned on the outside, then too dry, then barely cooked next to the bone. But it was probably the best food I've ever tasted.

  Mrs. Gradger ate with her fork, I noticed. It was the first time I had seen anyone do that since I'd been to Coolidge Palace. She looked stiff and uncomfortable eating on the floor, but as usual she didn't say anything.

  There was a piano in a corner of the living room that had been too big to destroy. After we had finished I went over to play it. It was a good piano—better than Professor Palmer's—but a little out of tune. I played the song the professor liked so much:

  Wanly I wandered

  Through the world far and wide

  Seeking some solace

  For dreams that had died...

  When I finished, everyone was silent. Mrs. Gradger's face was wet with tears. Cecilia was sitting on her lap, asleep again, and Mrs. Gradger absently stroked her hair as she stared off into the distance. Kevin got up and added a log to the fire. "We should all go to sleep," he said quietly. "We'll want to get started early."

  "Maybe we should stand watches," Stinky suggested. "Just in case."

  "I'll take the first watch," I offered.

  "Wake me for one too," Mrs. Gradger said.

  We arranged more cushions, and people visited the privy, and then everyone but me settled down to sleep in front of the fire. I sat next to a window, rifle by my side, and listened to the crackling of the fire and the regular breathing. Despite all that had happened that day, I wasn't very sleepy.

  Wanly I wandered...

  I thought about Kevin and how determined he was to get to the portal. It looked like we were actually going to make it back to Glanbury, and that was more than I had expected a couple of days ago. So maybe we'd find it; maybe we'd have our chance to step into it and see where we'd end up. I remembered the faint hope we'd had when we first came here that rescuers would follow us through the portal. So many dreams had died. But here we were, still alive, still struggling.

  Long had I lingered/In an alien land...

  I thought of my mother and father, and wondered if they were safe. Which mother and father? Both. Kevin would scoff, but I didn't think I could stand it if anything happened to the ones in this world. And I worried about Professor Palmer, who had probably been operating the electric fence against the Canadians. Would he be sh
ot like Professor Foster? I worried about Caleb and Benjamin and Chester and Corporal Hennessy. This world, and the people in it, mattered to me now. It wasn't a dream, they weren't a dream.

  I might be part of this world for the rest of my life.

  It is only by setting out that we can finally return home, the strange preacher had said. But where was home?

  I sat there for a couple of hours, just thinking. Outside it was utterly quiet. I got up once or twice to put another log onto the fire. Finally I started to get sleepy, so I roused Stinky, who groggily took my place. I lay down on the cushions and immediately fell into the best sleep I'd had in days. No dreams.

  When I awoke it was daylight, and everyone except Cecilia was already up. Stinky was out shooting more game for breakfast. Mrs. Gradger had found clean clothes upstairs and was laying them out for Cecilia. And Kevin was waiting for me. "Let's go," he said.

  "We can wait for Stinky," I replied. "We can wait for breakfast."

  "Why?"

  "Come on, Kevin. Relax."

  Kevin brooded. I wondered if he was thinking of leaving by himself. He certainly wasn't happy with me.

  We heard some shots, and a few minutes later Stinky arrived with a couple of dead rabbits. "Thought I spotted a deer," he informed us. "You'll need to kill a deer if you want to lay in a good supply of meat."

  Mrs. Gradger looked thoughtful. Stinky skinned the rabbits for her, and then she roasted them in the kitchen. We woke Cecilia and again ate sitting on the living-room floor. "Mother," Cecilia asked as we ate, "when will Father be home?"

  "Father is still fighting for our country," Mrs. Gradger said. "Along with Gabriel and Elijah."

  "But we need them here."

  Mrs. Gradger didn't reply. When we were finished eating, she sent Cecilia off to change. Kevin stood up to leave.

  Mrs. Gradger raised a hand to stop him, and the rest of us. "Please," she said. "Don't go. Stay here with Cecelia and me. Just until my husband returns. I can pay you well."