The Portal

by Richard Bowker

  "So we woke up before dawn and got ready and said our prayers, and before we really had time to think or worry or be afraid we were charging down towards the enemy, and they were firing back at us. I don't know how I survived. People were dying all around me. I just tried to stay alive and do my job, which was to kill as many of the Canadians as I could.

  "It was a terrible battle. Matthew, I know war sounds exciting, but I tell you, I never want to see another day like that one. And I was lucky—I was cut and bruised and punched and kicked, but I wasn't seriously wounded, I wasn't left for dead, like a lot of soldiers I knew. And I didn't end up with a leg amputated, a cripple for the rest of my days.

  "Well, in the end the Canadians retreated. It didn't exactly feel like victory—again, they didn't turn and run, we didn't slaughter them. But by sunset they were gone and we held the field.

  "At first we didn't know if it was going to be like before, and they were planning to fight again. I don't think we could have survived another battle. But it turns out they decided they couldn't survive one either. They retreated. And as I said, some of us just followed along after them—not to fight, but to make sure they were well and truly gone. We stayed on their heels for upwards of a week. They must be back home by now—and good riddance to them."

  "We won!" Matthew said.

  "Yes," Dad replied softly, "we won. At such a cost."

  "You've done a lot of soldiering, Henry," Mom said.

  "Too much, Emma, too much. This war did no one any good."

  "I'm glad you're home, Papa," Matthew said.

  "So am I, Matthew. So am I."

  They all fell silent in the kitchen. Matthew leaned back against Dad and closed his eyes. Dad kissed the top of his head. After a while he carried Matthew up to the attic and put him to bed.

  Mom came in to us. "Good night, boys," she said. "There's jam in the kitchen. Help yourselves."

  "Thank you, ma'am," I replied.

  She smiled at us; she looked so relieved. Then we heard Dad coming back downstairs, and he and Mom went off to their bedroom and left Kevin and me alone. I heard them murmuring to each other while we sat by the fire.

  "Want some jam?" I asked him.

  He shook his head. "No trip to Boston tomorrow," he remarked.

  "I guess not."

  "But you'll still have to tell them. Calling him 'Dad'—"

  "Yeah, I know. After the victory celebration, for sure."

  Kevin looked skeptical, but he didn't say anything. He lay down on the floor and pulled his blanket around him.

  I stoked up the fire and lay down next to him. "It wouldn't be so terrible staying here," I murmured. "Even if Lieutenant Carmody finds us. We've made a lot of friends. We know how to get along in this world. We'd be okay."

  I didn't think Kevin was going to answer, but after a long time he said, "We'll never be able to say 'okay' in this world. People will never understand us when we ask 'How come?'. They'll always look at us funny when we eat with a fork. There'll never be a Christopher Columbus or a Mark Twain. They'll never know who the Red Sox are. We'll never ride our bikes again."

  Will it matter? I thought. When we're twenty, or thirty, or forty—will any of that matter by then? We won't say "okay"; we'll never think about the Red Sox. So what? We'll be what this world made us. But I didn't say anything. There was no sense getting into an argument with Kevin.

  Instead I fell asleep, grateful that my father was home, and ready to celebrate the victory that we had helped win.

  Chapter 31

  Christmas Eve. It was a strange morning. The family was so happy; it was so sad. After breakfast Mom and Dad went to visit Cassie's grave, and they spent a long time there. Matthew, meanwhile, wanted to know if Kevin and I were staying.

  "We'll certainly stay for the celebration tonight," I said.

  "But you can live here forever," he pointed out. "Don't you want to?"

  "I don't know, Matthew. It's complicated. We'll see."

  Matthew didn't look satisfied.

  When they got back from the grave, Mom said Dad would take her to town so she could help out with the preparations at the church hall. "I understand you were going to Boston today," Dad said to us. "I think it's wise to handle that business as soon as possible. Perhaps we can take you tomorrow."

  "Thank you, sir," I said.

  He gave me kind of a puzzled look, and I knew he remembered what I'd said to him last night. But he didn't say anything. Instead he went to hitch up Gretel while Mom got ready to go to town. Matthew decided to go with them, so after they left Kevin and I were by ourselves for a while. I went outside to chop some firewood, and Kevin joined me. The day was cold and gray, and it felt like snow was coming. A white Christmas, maybe. I was nervous, although I couldn't exactly say why. "Something's going to happen," I said to Kevin. "You feel it?"

  "Yeah," he replied. "Maybe we should look for the portal. If there's a blizzard, who knows when we'll have another chance."

  "You go ahead. I want to finish chopping this wood."

  Kevin just shook his head and continued to sit on a stump while I worked.

  When Dad and Matthew got back, Matthew was worried, too. "We don't know where Julian is," he told us.

  "He said he was going back to his master," I said. "You know, Mr.—uh—"

  "Kincaid," Dad said. "We met Kincaid at the church hall. He hasn't seen Julian since they were in the camp."

  "Well," I said, "I don't think he liked Mr. Kincaid very much. Maybe he just decided he wanted to do something else."

  "Kincaid's a hard man," Dad pointed out. "He'll have the law on Julian if he tries to leave his apprenticeship."

  "I miss Julian," Matthew said.

  I did, too. I didn't know why, but finding out that he'd disappeared made me even more nervous.

  In the afternoon Dad went around the farm in that deliberate way of his, taking stock of what needed to be done. "You boys have helped a great deal," he remarked afterwards. "I was very concerned about how Mrs. Barnes would make out by herself. It seems that I needn't have been so worried." Dad wasn't much on handing out compliments, so that was a big one, coming from him.

  "We were happy to pitch in," I said.

  He nodded. "Still, it's strange that you decided to come here when your father died. Now how did you say you were related to Mrs. Barnes?"

  Dad was a lot harder to lie to than Mom. "I didn't, sir," I said. "I'm really not sure."

  He nodded again, and I felt like he saw right through me. But if he didn't believe me, he certainly couldn't imagine what the truth was. Anyway, he didn't interrogate me any further, and pretty soon it was time to get ready for the celebration.

  Matthew slicked back his hair and put on his best blue shirt. Dad trimmed his beard and wore a white ruffled shirt and a long dark coat. Kevin and I just had our usual clothes—but at least they were clean.

  I wondered what Sarah Lally would be wearing.

  There were a few snowflakes falling when we started out. Dad shook his head. "Hope this doesn't get any worse," he murmured.

  Matthew was so excited he started to sing.

  The church hall was stuck onto the back of the church, up on the little hill overlooking the town center. When we got there, wagons and carriages were already lined up in front of it, with the horses shifting and stamping their feet in the cold. We left our wagon with the others and hurried inside. The place was blazing with light—I hadn't seen a room so bright since the first time I'd been to Coolidge Palace. In one corner, musicians were playing a violin, an accordion, and a piano, and in the middle of the floor couples were doing one of those complicated dances where everyone's moving around and switching partners and ducking in and out of lines. Ribbons and flags hung from the ceiling. There was a roaring fire in the big fireplace, and the mantel over the fireplace was decorated with pine boughs and holly; the boughs made the room smell like Christmas, even if that's not what we were celebrating. Along the far wall were tables piled with turkey a
nd venison and ham and vegetables and loaves of bread and cakes... It was amazing.

  Mom was behind one of the tables, helping to serve the food. She waved to us when we came in. Other people started coming over to greet Dad, and Matthew ran off to join his friends. Sarah Lally was dancing, but she spotted me and waved too. She was wearing a bright green dress and had a green bow in her hair, and she looked gorgeous. I grinned and waved back.

  "Great music, huh?" I said to Kevin.

  "I thought Matthew said Stinky was missing," he replied. "Look, he's right over there, stuffing his face."

  Sure enough, Stinky was standing next to one of the food tables, eating from a very full plate. When he noticed us, his eyes widened and he put the plate down. "That's odd," I remarked. "Let's go find out what's up."

  The music stopped just then, and I was thinking I'd rather go talk to Sarah than to Stinky. And that's when I heard a little voice behind me say, "Look, Mama, the boys from the woods."

  The voice sounded familiar, so I turned, and I found myself staring into the faces of the Harper family.

  The Harper family—Samuel and Martha, with their little boy and girl. The family that had saved Kevin and me from the Portuguese when we stumbled out of the portal so long ago. The ones who had driven us into Boston when we were friendless and clueless in this world, and I was still worried about the piano lesson I was missing.

  It was the little girl who had spoken—was her name Rachel?—the one who thought Kevin had been in the navy because he was wearing an Old Navy t-shirt. They were all looking at us, though. And so was my father, who must have been talking to them.

  "Bless the Lord," Martha said, "I'm so glad you boys are safe. I've often thought of you since that day we took you to Boston."

  "I never did understand where you came from," Samuel said, still grumpy at us. "First your family was murdered, then they weren't murdered... Where did you say you were from? America, was it? Never heard of the place."

  "I don't understand any of this," my father put in. "What woods? What murder?"

  "Where's your watch?" the boy asked Kevin. "Do you still have that watch?"

  Kevin shook his head sadly. And then his face lit up—you could almost see the light bulb going off over his head, like in the comics. "Do any of you happen to remember," he asked, "when we came out of the woods and you picked us up on the Post Road—where was that, exactly?"

  Samuel and Martha looked at each other. "It was just past Joshua Fitton's place, wasn't it, Martha?" Samuel said.

  Martha nodded. "Yes, certainly it was. I remember seeing the smoke from the house, and we heard the Portuguese soldiers shouting to each other in the woods, and we were sure we'd left too late and be captured. And then you two boys came running out of the woods on the other side of the road. We didn't know what to make of you."

  "Thought you were pirates, or spies," Samuel said. "Those strange clothes. Those accents. You don't have so much of an accent now."

  "The Fitton place," Kevin repeated.

  "Yes, about three miles past the Barnes' farm along the Post Road," Samuel said. "You know where it is, don't you, Henry?"

  "Of course I know the Fitton place," Dad said. "But what the deuce is this all about?"

  "I can explain," I said softly.

  Everyone looked at me.

  "Well, um, I need to talk to Mr. Barnes—and Mrs. Barnes—in private."

  Dad nodded slowly. "I believe that would be a good idea."

  I turned to Kevin. He looked so happy. He didn't care about anything except the Fitton place. He knew exactly where to look for the portal now. "Want to come?" I asked.

  "Sure. Whatever."

  We started to walk off with my father, but all of a sudden Stinky was standing in front of us, still looking upset. "Larry, we need to talk," he said.

  I had more important things to do now than talking to him. "Later, Julian. I'm kind of busy."

  "But it's important," he insisted.

  I shrugged. Nothing I could do about it.

  "I'll talk to him," Kevin said. "You go on with Mr. Barnes."

  That worked for me. Stinky still looked upset, but he went off with Kevin. Dad and I made our way to the food tables. Mom smiled at us. "Look at this food," she said happily. "Two months ago, could you ever have imagined it?"

  "Emma," Dad replied, "Larry would like to speak to us in private."

  Mom's brow furrowed. "Is anything the matter?" she asked me.

  I shook my head. "Nothing's the matter. It's just—we need to talk."

  "Oh." Mom set down the platter she'd been holding and looked around. "Yes," she said. "Well, then. Why don't we go into the church?"

  She acted as if she had been expecting this conversation.

  I followed them through a door and along a short corridor that connected the hall to the church. The church was cold and dark. Through the tall windows along the sides I could see snow falling. Mom lit a lamp while Dad threw a couple of logs into an iron stove. The walls were plain white, and there was a simple pulpit at the front. I sat in the first pew. Mom and Dad sat opposite me, on the steps to the pulpit. Waiting.

  I wished I had Kevin's watch. That would at least give me a way of starting, something they could examine and touch and use. It had worked with Professor Palmer and Lieutenant Carmody and General Aldridge, and it was the kind of thing that would work with my Dad. But I had nothing, if you didn't count my sneakers and my pants with their amazing zipper. Nothing but my words.

  What words could I use?

  "There are other worlds," I began. "Not just this one. And these worlds have other Bostons in them, other Glanburys. I don't understand why or how, only I guess—if God could make one universe, why couldn't He make lots of them? The thing is: Kevin and I come from one of those other worlds. It's a lot like this one, but, you know, different—sometimes in little ways, sometimes in big ones. Like these sneakers and our clothes—they're not from China, despite what I said. They're what we wear at home. In this other world."

  Here's one thing I like about my Dad: he takes you seriously. Matthew will start explaining one of his stupid ideas about why we have hair or who invented checkers or something—just to hear himself talk, I think—and Dad will sit there and listen and nod and occasionally ask a question, like Matthew is some sort of expert on hair or checkers. He might smile a little bit, but he never tells Matthew to put a sock in it. Same thing with Cassie when she starts complaining about how awful her life is. Afterwards she complains that Dad never does anything to solve her problems, but just listening is a whole lot more than I'd do when she starts up.

  So I guess I shouldn't have worried that he'd laugh at me or something when I started the explanation. Instead he nodded like I was making perfect sense and said, "You're not talking about heaven and hell, I take it. You're talking about, er, real worlds."

  "Right. As real as this one."

  "And why don't we know about these worlds?"

  "Well, because you don't know how to travel between them."

  "But you do."

  "That's right," I said. "Or, well, somebody does. Kevin and I just happened to—see, we found a—a device, a machine. We call it a portal. We don't know who made it or why—it's probably not even from our world. It was just sitting there in the woods behind my house—except, well, it's invisible. Anyway, we got in it and just kind of like stepped through it, and we were here. By mistake. That's when the Harpers saw us—we'd just gotten out of the portal, and the Portuguese soldiers were chasing us, and we couldn't get back to it. So we sort of ended up, you know, stuck here."

  "An invisible machine," Dad said. Again, not sarcastically, but like he was just trying to understand.

  "And that's what Kevin is looking for when he goes off walking along the Post Road by himself?" Mom asked.

  "Yes, ma'am," I replied. "He's trying to get home."

  "And this other business," Dad said, "about your father being a professor and dying in the war—you made all that up?"r />
  "Well, yeah. Except there really is a professor." And then I explained some of what happened to Kevin and me after the Harpers brought us to Boston. I left out about Kevin's drikana. And I left out the—well, the complicated part, about why I was talking to them about all this instead of anyone else in this world. Not that I was going to be able to avoid that part for long.

  Dad kept nodding, as if this was the sort of thing kids told him every day. "So you're responsible for those airships and that fence—is that what you're saying?"

  "Well, more or less. On our world there are inventions that are much more amazing than those things, but there wasn't time to figure out how to build them here." I didn't really want to talk about computers and telephones and stuff like that—it would just make things more difficult to believe.

  "But this still doesn't make sense, does it?" Dad said. "Why did you come to the Fens camp? Why were you looking for us?"

  That was the complicated part. But strangely, I didn't have to explain. Mom understood. "Larry hasn't really finished describing his world," she said. "Have you, Larry?"

  "No, ma'am."

  She was staring at me hard, the way she had in the camp when I first gave that confusing lie about who I was. And then Dad got it. "'Dad', you called me last night," he said. "Not a word we use much in these parts. But I've heard it. I know what it means."

  I nodded. "Some people exist in both worlds. They're different in lots of ways—different jobs, different homes. But they're basically the same."

  "And you're saying that—that we're there in this other world?" Dad said.

  "Yes. And Cassie, and Matthew. And me—I was part of the family too. And that's why I went looking for you in the camp. And that's why I was so happy to find you. I had found my family."

  I fell silent and waited for a response. Dad couldn't just act like he was taking me seriously; he had to make a decision. He had to believe, or not believe. He's logical; he's a computer programmer. Professor Palmer had talked about Occam's Razor—I could almost see Dad struggling to use it on my story. "Larry," he said finally, "this is very interesting and, well, moving, but you'll have to admit it's a bizarre tale. You're saying that—that you're the son we buried as an infant. Still alive, grown up to be a young man."