The Book Man, Chapter 44 (Revised)

44 THROUGH THE PORTAL

When their story was finished the two fairies looked at him expectantly as though he would immediately jump on the chance to go to the Otherworld, but now he felt less prepared than ever.

“But why me?” he burst out. “Don’t you understand, Conrad never chose me for this—at least, he never told me this was what he wanted—I’ve no idea what you mean for me to do. How should I find Morrow? I’m not cut out for adventures and danger and—I haven’t got, I don’t know, courage or an adventurous spirit or, or anything like that. I’ve nothing but books. I’m not good at anything at all except reading.”

Aurelia rose into the air to hover before him.

“That is why,” she said impatiently. “You say you have nothing, but how many others would risk their safety for a world not theirs? You could have stayed away, yet you returned to make sure Water Girl was safe. When you left this morning you could have decided not to come back, but you did, and with the intention to stay for quite some time and care for her. You brought new roses for my sisters to live in because theirs had been almost destroyed. You helped Water Girl water our roses and watered them yourself when she was unable. How can you say you have none of it? Whether the Guardian chose you for this task or not, you are our choice. You must go.”

“But—” Christian said, but a voice behind him said, “Christian?”

Mr. Catcher and Liza had been watching his conversation with the fairies open-mouthed and wide-eyed, but they, too, turned around to see Minerva, awake again, struggling to sit up on her pedestal.

“No, honey, don’t get up,” Liza said, hurrying over to her, but Minerva seemed determined. “Don’t—well, here, at least let me help you.”

Minerva’s face whitened as she straightened up, even with Liza’s help, but she sat in silence and breathed deeply for a moment and then seemed alright again.

“Christian,” she said again.

He went and crouched beside the pedestal. She was so beautiful, so brave, a hundred, a thousand times braver than he was or ever could be. If she had been able to come with him he felt he could have faced it.

“What is it?” he asked.

She put her hand on his face and said, “I shall be alright.”

He flushed at her touch, but she was looking at him so earnestly, her dark eyes serious and quiet, her face strained with pain but serene. Who would go if he did not? Mr. Catcher was too old, Liza still reeling from learning about the park and the Otherworld and Goblin, and the others were absent, stuck somewhere in the Otherworld until the danger was past. He sighed.

“Just let me get things ready first,” he said.

Mr. Catcher helped Christian move his things from the wagon to the tent. Liza picked up a stack of books with a frown, but instead of bringing them inside, she stared at the titles without seeing them. Tears slipped down her face and splashed onto the books.

“There should be enough food for a week or so,” Christian said. “I was planning just for me.”

Then he realized Liza was still standing by the wagon. “Liza?”

She drew a shaky breath. “Is Conrad in this—this Otherworld?”

“I believe so.”

She dropped the books back into the wagon with a thunk, stood up, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

“Then I’m going with you,” she said.

Christian blinked. “I—what?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she pawed through the shreds of paper in the wagon and collected things that might be useful on their journey: the gauze, the rope.

“Liza—” Christian started, but she rounded on him.

“Christian, don’t. Whatever you’re going to say—”She paused and let out a shaky breath. “I haven’t heard from my husband in a week, and I—I don’t understand what’s going on, not really, but if you’re going—wherever he is, then so am I.”

Christian opened his mouth but he couldn’t think of anything to say. He stood there with a quizzical brow and his mouth open, waiting for words to come out of their own volition.

Mr. Catcher, sitting just outside the tent with Rath, looked up and said, “Not without dinner, you’re not. If one of you would be so kind as to get a fire going, I’m sure I can cobble something together from what we’ve got.”

“A fire,” Christian said, still unsure of what to say at Liza’s pronouncement. “Yes.”

To everyone’s surprise (no one’s more than his own), he managed to start a fire in the courtyard from the matches he had brought. He felt more proud of himself than he thought he should for this achievement. Anyone could start a fire with matches, he told himself; but he had never started a fire before for any reason and couldn’t help his feeling of pride. He said nothing about it, however, but let it glow inside him like the fire itself.

Mr. Catcher made a stew-like concoction of canned meat and vegetables. It was more filling than tasty, but the old man beamed so heartily at his accomplishment that Christian ate without complaint. Liza sat in silence, gazing into the fire without touching the bowl beside her.

Christian set his own bowl aside. “Are you alright?”

She stirred her stew aimlessly. “I’ve been better.”

The firelight reflected in her dark eyes. He thought she had finished speaking, but then she said, “I still can’t believe it. We’ve been married thirty-six years, and in all that time—I never imagined anything like this could be real. It can’t be real. But it is.”

A pause, and then: “He never told me about any of it.”

“To be fair,” Christian said carefully, “your reaction when I told you—”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said you were mad.”

“No, it’s alright. I would’ve said I was mad, too.” He emptied his bowl and stood up, intent on sitting with Minerva until dawn and their departure. “You should eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” He was halfway to the bench and the marble pedestal when she said, without turning around, “Christian?”

He stopped and looked back at her. “Yes?”

It a moment for her to speak, and when she did, her voice faltered.

“What you told me about Conrad. About his leg. Is it true?”

Everything he had told her the other night was true, he thought; she simply hadn’t believed him. But he bit his tongue, remembering that his father had reacted similarly to his mother’s diagnosis so long ago, repeatedly asking the doctor this very question. Was it true his wife had cancer—was it true the chemotherapy wasn’t working—was it true, was it true, was it true?

Was it true Conrad was injured? She didn’t want to believe; after so long without word of her husband, she wanted to think he was safe and well. Christian saw it in the hunch of her back as she stared into the fire, waiting for his answer.

“I’m afraid so,” he said. Her head drooped into her palms. “But he was much better the last time I saw him—” (ashen and weak, he remembered, though he decided not to mention it) “—well enough to have a conversation, to sit up in bed.”

He smiled to himself, thinking of the balloon-animals littering the doorway of Imelda’s wagon the night before the attack. “Well enough for boredom. He was staying with the Rovers, and he’d filled the whole wagon with balloon-animals, from floor to ceiling.”

The balloon-artist’s wife smiled too, faintly, but then Christian remembered the harpies, and his promise, and his face fell back into lines of despair.

“He made me promise not to come back here,” he said. “He said it was getting too dangerous. I guess he was right.”

The fairies called to them; they were ready to open the portal. Liza set her stew aside, uneaten.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said to Mr. Catcher. “It was delicious.”

Christian looked at Minerva. She had fallen asleep again. Even in slumber her eyes were ringed with shadows, but to him she was as beautiful as ever. He hesitated, bent, and kissed her forehead. Her skin was cold beneath his lips.

“Don’t you worry a bit,” Mr. Catcher said, settling back beside Rath. “We’ll take care of her, won’t we, old boy?”

The horse snorted and whinnied back as if it understood.

When Christian and Liza stood before the trellis, Aurelia said, “It does not take much magic, thank heaven, but it is a complicated spell. Carina has not done it before—” She looked at her sister affectionately—“but she is stronger than I am at the moment, so she will perform the spell and I will assist her.”

It did not make Christian feel any better to be sent into an unfamiliar world by someone who had never opened the portal before, but he held his peace. Liza’s eyes were red from crying, but she threw back her shoulders and stood as tall as she could (only about to Christian’s shoulders).

“What must we do?” she asked.

“When we open the portal, you need only step through the trellis and you will be transported to the Otherworld. We will send you to the area of the Sunforest where the Fair-folk are sent each morning. They may be there yet, and if they are Morrow may be with them. Explain to him the situation and bring him and as many as are willing to come and fight. We will open the portal again at sunset.”

“Can’t you just leave it open?” Christian asked.

Aurelia shook her head. “We do not know what might try to come in or out. Carina, are you ready?”

Carina’s eyes glowed brilliant blue.

“I am,” she said. She and her sister clasped hands and glowed so brilliantly that the two humans had to look away as the fairies’ figures faded into a ball of blue and gold light.

“Focus,” Aurelia’s voice chided from somewhere within the light. “Time is imperative. You must focus on the Sunforest or they will be sent to the wrong place.”

Christian closed his eyes. Liza grabbed his hand. After another minute, Aurelia said, “Better. Keep true. Now, Book Man, the portal is open.”

He opened his eyes. The air within the trellis shimmered as though heat waves rose up beneath it, but beyond it he could still see Minerva’s pedestal and his tent, Mr. Catcher and Rath.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Go,” Carina commanded in an echoing voice.

“Focus,” Aurelia reprimanded her. “Concentrate.”

Oh, dear, Christian thought, but he and his companion stepped forward through the portal. He felt them get sucked inward, and then he couldn’t see anything. Liza’s grip tightened on his fingers until he felt she would crush them. He inhaled sharply.

“Sorry,” she whispered from beside him. “I just needed to make sure you were there.”

“I’m here,” he said in a trembling voice.

Something jerked him violently sideways, wrenching his hand out of Liza’s. He heard her screaming his name, heard Aurelia calling again for Carina to concentrate and Carina’s distant, panicked answer: It isn’t me!

“Liza!” he shouted, and then he was falling, falling through darkness with a horrible flipping of his stomach, but only for a moment—

Then he landed in something wet and squelchy.