Gatekeepers (21 page)

“Hey . . .” Keal said. “You said a picnic basket, parasol, blanket, and funny hat, right?”

“That's it,” Xander said.

“Wait,” Jesse said, but Keal and Xander had already stepped into the little room.

Dad said, “I've been there, Jesse. There's nothing—”

“You haven't gone over the hill, have you?” Jesse said. “The biggest hill, a few miles from the lush valley?”

“No, but . . . What's over the hill?”

“The reason this house called you back.”

“This house
called
me? I came back to find my mother. I—” Dad looked over his shoulder.

David saw frustration and confusion on his face.

Dad swung his attention back to Jesse. “What does it have to do with Taksidian?”

“It's the reason he's here, as well,” Jesse said. “The culmination of his work. Look—” His brows pinched in concentration. “So much to tell you,” he said, “and I've never been good at putting my thoughts in the best order. Age has made it worse.”

“Just tell me what's over there that's got you spooked,” Dad said.

David glanced into the antechamber as he walked past.

Xander was setting the floppy golf cap—the tam-o'-shanter—on Keal's head.

David drew up next to his father and Jesse. He leaned against the wall, absently rubbing his cast.

“The future,” Jesse said.

“But we've never found a future world,” Dad said. He waved his arm around, indicating the doors. “They all lead to times in the past.”

“Except that one,” Jesse said. “It's why you haven't found any other future worlds. It's—”

Xander's yells came from the antechamber: “Keal! No, wait!”

A door slammed. Xander came out of the room so fast he crashed into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. “He went through!” he said. “Keal opened the door, then he just
went through
!”

“Go get him!” Jesse said, wide eyes on Dad. “Please . . . he doesn't know what he's doing.”

Dad sprang up. He rushed to the antechamber and looked in. His head swiveled toward Jesse, then David, then Xander—unsure what to do.

“Dad, I think he
fell
,” Xander said.

“Go get him,” Jesse pleaded, wheeling himself forward.

“Bring him back. I'll explain later.”

Dad nodded. He went into the antechamber, and Xander joined him.

David slipped past Jesse and stepped into the tiny room. Dad had the picnic basket and blanket slung over his shoulders. He picked up a butterfly net. He turned toward the closed portal door and stood staring at it, as if he hoped Keal would burst back through. He reached for the handle.

“Wait,” Jesse said from his chair in the doorway. “Take this.” He reached under a knitted blanket that covered his lap. His hand returned with a pistol.

“Whoa,” David said.

“Jesse!” Dad said. “Where did that come from?”

“A friend overnighted it to me,” Jesse said. He held it out.

“I don't want it,” Dad said.

“Give it to Keal,” Jesse said. “He used to be an Army Ranger.”

Dad shook his head.

“You may need it,” Jesse said. “I hope not, but . . .
please
.”

Dad stepped across the room, hesitated, and took the gun. He said, “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Bring Keal back,” Jesse said, “and I'll tell you everything.”

Dad returned to the door and opened it. Hazy daylight flooded the little room. The fragrance of grasses and wildflowers wafted in. A warm breeze. Through the portal, a blurry vision of a meadow drifted by.

“I don't see him,” Dad said.

“The portal's moving,” Jesse said. “Hurry.”

Dad stepped into the light. He dropped away and disappeared.

Xander reached out as if to stop him. He said, “Why the gun, Jesse?”

Jesse turned wide, almost buggy eyes on him. He said nothing.

Xander spun and leaped through the portal.

“Xander—!” David said. He threw a glance at Jesse, who read his expression perfectly.

“Don't even think it about it, son,” Jesse said. “They'll be right back.“

David grabbed the edge of the door as it closed. “Dad! Xander!”

Wind blew his words back into his face. The door kept closing, pushing his sneakered feet along the hardwood floor. They protested with stuttering squeaks.

“Let it shut,” Jesse said.

The door shoved David into the frame. He couldn't hold it open. Pain radiated through his broken arm, spreading into his shoulders. His other arm, his legs, ached under the strain. He was sure that if he pulled away from it now, the door would catch a foot or arm and snap it off, as it had broken the baseball bat days ago. He tucked himself tight and let the door knock him through the portal like a pinball's flipper whacking a steel marble.

CHAPTER

forty -six

David fell into a patch of flowers. He rolled through them into tall grass and stopped. The air was warm and smelled like the perfume counter at the department store in Pasadena. He stared at a sky the color of a knife blade. Pollen, kicked up from his fall, floated past. He rolled over and got to his feet.

Thirty feet down a gently sloping hill, Xander rose from the grass. He gave David a stunned look, then turned to Dad, who was a little farther down the hill, beside Keal.

Dad spotted his sons. “What are you doing?” he said.Panic strained his voice.

“I—” Xander said. He swung back to David, as if for an answer. When David said nothing, Xander said, “I want to help.”

Dad grabbed Keal's arm and started up the hill. He pointed with the butterfly net. “Then catch that thing,” he said. “Stop it from disappearing!”

David turned to see what Dad was pointing at: the portal. It shimmered like a heat wave, showing nothing but the door that had slammed shut behind him. As he watched, it broke apart and scattered like dandelion fluff.

“Too late,” David said weakly.

“Great,” Dad said. “The portal home could be any-where.” He cast a hard eye on Keal. “What's the deal? Why'd you go through?”

“I was just looking,” Keal said. “I guess I stuck my head in too far. This . . .
wind
pulled me in.”

“Here,” Dad said. He handed Keal the gun. “Jesse said you know how to use it.”

Keal took it and held it up. “A .357 Colt Python.” He flipped his wrist, opening the cylinder. “Loaded.” He removed a bullet, saw the curious expression on David's face, and said, “I always keep the hammer on an empty chamber. Safer that way.” He dropped the bullet into a shirt pocket. He snapped the cylinder back into place.

Dad squinted at their surroundings. The slope they were on descended a long way before leveling off. Sunlight glimmered on a river down in the valley. To their left and right, trees formed dense woods.

“You think we need it?” Dad said.

Keal shrugged and pushed the weapon into his pants at the small of his back. “Man, I don't know anything about this place, but if Jesse thinks we do, I'm glad to have it.”

“All right,” Dad said. “Come on.” He started walking.

“Where to?” David said, hurrying to reach them.

Dad pointed at a far-off hill, past a swath of woods and several smaller hillocks. “Whatever Jesse's anxious about is over that hill. We have to find the portal home anyway, so we might as well start over there.” He looked at David and Xander, giving them a tight smile. “Stay close,” he said. “Give a holler if you hear or see anything dangerous.”

“Don't worry,” David said, “we will.”

CHAPTER

forty -seven

W
EDNESDAY, 5:59 P.M

Toria sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, facing her grand-mother, who sat propped with her back against the headboard. Between them was a collection of stuffed animals.

“And this one,” Toria said, picking up a bear wearing a stars-and-stripes shirt and holding an American flag on a stick, “sings ‘The Star Spangled Banner.' ” She wrinkled her nose. “Off-key. It's pretty bad.”

She tilted her head, studying Nana's face. She pushed the bear into her lap. Softly, she said, “I'm sorry. You must be very tired.”

Nana blinked slowly. “I am, but I'm also very interested in
you
. You remind me so much of my little girl.”

Toria giggled. “You mean Aunt Beth. I never thought of her as a little girl, but I guess she was . . . once.”

“She was only four when I last saw her.” Nana smiled at the memory.

“How can you
take
it?” Toria said. “Being back after so long. I think I would just . . .
explode
.”

Nana looked around the room. “Honey, after a while, you learn to adjust quickly, going from world to world.”

Toria sat up straight. “World to world? You mean you . . .
bounced around
?”

Nana nodded. “But now I'm home. In a way, it's just another world for me to adjust to. But it's the only world I
want
to be in. It's the only place where
you
are, and everybody else I love.”

Toria smiled. “You're supposed to be here.”

“It's where I belong,” Nana agreed.

Toria squinted at her grandmother's hair. A few strands were standing up, like what happens when you rub a balloon on your head and static electricity builds up. Except the hair standing up on Nana's head was also whipping back and forth.

Toria crawled over an array of stuffed animals and smoothed the hair down. “You're very pretty,” she said, leaning back.

“Thank you,” Nana said. “You are too. Does your mom have brown hair too, like you children?”

“Her hair's more blonde,” Toria said. “She calls it dishwater blonde, but I think that sounds gross. Who'd want dishwater-colored hair? She has pretty hair, cut like this.” She snagged her hair at the neckline and bent it in.

“Sounds lovely,” Nana said. “I'll bet you—” She stopped. Her eyebrows came together, and she looked upward.

Toria stared at the strange thing going on at the top of Nana's head. Her hair—not a few strands, but most of it—was standing up and swishing back and forth, as though she was nodding her head underwater.

CHAPTER

forty -eight

David, Xander, Dad, and Keal crunched through a beautiful forest of big trees—oaks or elms, David thought, but he didn't know much about trees.

“I can see the end, just ahead,” Dad said. “We're almost at the hill Jesse mentioned.”

“What's there?” David said.

“Beats me, Dae. Something scary, according to Jesse.”

“Then why are we heading for it?”

“We have to know what it is. Just a peek, then we'll get out of here, okay?”

David frowned. “I guess.”

“Hey, Keal,” Xander said. “If you need someone to help carry that gun . . .”

“I'm fine, Xander,” Keal said. “But thanks.”

“Dad,” Xander said, “in
The Shawshank Redemption
, these big bad guys kicked Tim Robbins's butt. You run into any of that?”

“Shawshank was a prison,” Dad said. “I was in jail. There's a difference.”

“So . . .
little
bad guys?” Xander said.

“No bad guys, except for the ones who locked me up.” Dad stepped past the last tree and into bright sunlight, where he paused. The picnic basket hung from his shoulder by a strap. He pushed it behind him and swung absently at the grass with the butterfly net.

David stopped beside him. He said, “Sorry about coming through after you and Xander.”

“Truth be told,” Dad said, “I'm glad you're here. At least as long as we don't have to use that gun.” He ran his fingers through David's hair and draped his hand over his shoulder.

“How'd Jesse get you out?”

“I wasn't there when he was talking to the police, but I heard some shouting.”

Keal came tromping out of the woods. He carried the folded parasol under his arm like a British lord expecting some weather. He turned his face up to the sun and held it there.

“Are we safe?” David said to his father. “They're not going to evict us or try to grab us again, are they?”

“For now we're okay, Dae. Apparently a few people in power overreacted to unsubstantiated allegations.”

“Xander said Taksidian bribed people to get us out of the house and you arrested.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Dad said.

“So you still have your job?”

“As far as I know.”

“Does that mean we have to go back to school?”

Dad laughed and mussed David's hair. “ 'Fraid so. Hey, Xander! What's taking you so long?”

“Watering a tree,” Xander yelled from the woods. “Be right there.”

Dad turned around and looked up the tall hill. The climb seemed about a mile.

“It's so beautiful,” David said. “And quiet. What can be so terrible out here?”

“That's what we're going to find out.”

“I hope nothing,” David said. “I hope Jesse was wrong.”

“I wouldn't bet against the man,” Keal said.

Xander jogged out from the shadow of the trees. He said, “My back teeth were floating.”

“Okay, then,” Dad said. “Let's go.”

David showed Xander a lopsided grin. He said, “This is serious. Couldn't you have said something more . . . gung ho?”

Xander slapped David on the back. In a deep voice he said, “It's an honor to die at your side.”

“Uh . . .”

“Not what you had in mind? How about—” Smiling, Xander raised his arm as if holding a sword. “Strong and courageous!”

“That's better,” David said. “Strong and courageous!”

CHAPTER

forty -nine