

### THE CRYSTAL MAKER

VOLUME I

THE ANNALS OF AMARNA

BY

NEIL HETZNER

Copyright © 2019 Neil Hetzner

All rights reserved.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One - Misfits and Gifts

Chapter Two - Escape Times Two

Chapter Three - New Days, Old Ways

Chapter Four - An Angry God

Chapter Five - An Angry Girl

Chapter Six - Flight and Fright

Chapter Seven - Fight and Flight

Chapter Eight - Welcome

Glossary

Acknowledgments

I thank my readers, Martha Day, Phil Hetzner, Zoe Hetzner, Larry Rothstein, and Doris Rutz, for their fertile brains and sharp eyes in making this story better than it ever could have been without their help. I am deeply indebted to Mike Monahan, who has made a picture that is worth the ninety thousand words it took to tell this tale.

# CHAPTER ONE

### Misfits and Gifts

Astrid Berenson was about to begin her third year at the Peltdown Institute. Located twenty-three miles west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, between Noblestown and Raccoon, on a heavily wooded tract of land, the Institute had been started by Dr. Frank Bruer, an educator who claimed to have been influenced by the research on savants of J. L. Down and A. F. Tredgold.

The Institute, which given the paucity of Dr. Bruer's resources, was more like a lightly staffed year-round camp than a research institute, educated and studied what the doctor himself called disregardful children. Although some of the residents had committed acts that a judge would have branded delinquent, and others had long histories of doing things that caused their parents and teachers to call them disobedient or defiant, Dr. Bruer believed his students or subjects, (the doctor never could decide which term he preferred) should be called juvenile disregardants and their behavior thought of as unobedient.

A visitor coming to Peltdown would have found classrooms very different from what he or she might have expected. Instead of students sitting in rows of desks with a teacher in the front of the room telling all of the students the same thing at the same time, that visitor might have found a large ramshackle room, perhaps with splotches of paint on the floor and mathematical equations precisely written on the walls, with a handful of students scattered about. One student might be hunched over a battered table molding something out of a large block of clay. Another might be building a city out of cardboard, matchsticks and tongue depressors. A third might be drawing the pipework necessary for an oil refinery. Two students might be walking about, perhaps one in random loops and another in rigid patterns. One of those walking might be doing math problems in his head while the other could be figuring out if March 13, 3117 would fall on a Sunday. There might be a student lying on the floor in the corner of the room softly humming one of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies while playing the notes on a paper keyboard. In another corner a student might be sleeping.

All of the teenagers at Peltdown were unusual. They could be very smart in some ways—like mathematics or music, and very unsmart in other ways—like folding a pile of laundry or talking to a stranger. Some of the students had very clever hands, but almost all of the students had not-so-clever feet. If a visitor to Peltdown were to see a student only from the knees up, he might think the child was walking on a soggy mattress. If that same visitor were to spend several hours observing how the students talked with one another—sometimes with faces just inches apart and other times ten feet apart, but never directly looking at one another—he might think they were blind.

If a visitor were to tell Dr. Bruer what he or she had observed, the doctor would laugh, a noise that sounded very much like the triumphant caw a crow makes when it spies something shiny, and say that all of the children were just fine, that all were remarkable, that all were gifted in some way, that all of them saw what was important to them to see, and all of them said what was important to them to say ... and as far as other things went, they were just a little disregardant.

Astrid had come to Peltdown Institute when she was fourteen. When she had come home on Friday, September 21, 1962, her first day back in school after having been suspended for three days for flinging a sniggering girl's loaded food tray a quarter of the way across Ithaca, New York's high school cafeteria, two suitcases were packed. It was just like when Astred had come home on October 24, 1958 from Maumee Elementary School in Onabasha, Indiana and her suitcases had been packed.

Throughout the hours of the drive, Astrid had alternated between being silent and sullen and being very vocal about how much she hated wherever it was she was being sent. Her rage caused her to slam her feet against the car floor and threaten to open the door and throw herself onto the road. Regardless of Astrid's threats, her father, Dr. Berenson, kept his eyes on the road, his hands on the steering wheel, and his lips shut.

Father and daughter were supposed to arrive at the school between eight and nine o'clock at night, but driving almost all of the way through rain as well as getting lost outside Pittsburgh meant that it was almost eleven o'clock before Dr. Berenson drove down a wide driveway of broken asphalt and stopped in front of a five-story brick building that had started life as a factory to manufacture radios. Just before they got out of the car and for the first time in seven hours and twelve minutes by Astrid's watch, her father spoke.

"You aren't fitting in at high school, just like you didn't fit in at junior high. You're here because you are different. I'm told everybody here also is different so maybe you won't feel so out of place."

Astrid was wailing before they got to the front door. She continued to bawl as they waited for someone to answer her father's repeated knocking. The door finally was opened by a tall, thin man with an incongruously large, melon-shaped head, which sat almost directly atop his shoulders. The head featured bright pink jug ears, wispy white hair going everywhere, and a smile showing lots of large, coffee-stained teeth. Dr. Bruer's eyes, which were very small, very bright, and shiny black, reminded Astrid of a crow's eyes—looking everywhere and missing nothing.

"Dr. Berenson? I was beginning to worry. I'm Dr. Bruer and this must be Astrid."

When the doctor bent forward and extended his hand, Astrid's hand shot out and slapped his away as she screamed, "I hate you."

Dr. Bruer stepped back and made a slight bow as he said, "Just as I would expect. Almost everyone hates me when they arrive, but, strangely, no one seems to hate me for very long. I like to think it is because I am so wonderful, but it is more likely because there are so many better things to hate at Peltdown... like the abominable meals, the hot water that isn't hot, and our unfathomably ugly blankets.

"Come in. Come in so you can get started straightaway on the hating. Or, if you prefer crying, there is a little room right over here where you can cry just as much as you like, but without waking up the others. If it were earlier, you could go over to that even smaller room over there. It's where we keep the television that almost none of our students watch. At this time of the night, I don't imagine there would be anything that you would want to watch ... if you are a television watcher."

When Astrid didn't respond, Dr. Bruer asked, "Do you have a preference? I myself usually prefer being angry because it gives me so much energy and makes me feel wonderfully right, while crying makes me tired and sad. Occasionally, I try to do both at the same time, but that usually makes me feel like my head might explode off my neck."

Astrid thought that Bruer's neck was too short for it to be able to contain enough explosives to do the job. As she considered her choices, Dr. Bruer had her father sign several papers. He offered Dr. Berenson a room, which he made clear was not a particularly wonderful room, but one where he could spend the night. Astrid's father said that he would prefer to get back on the road.

Dr. Berenson shook Dr. Bruer's hand, stood for a moment looking at his daughter, reached out a hand, pulled it back, said her name in a whisper, and walked out the door.

"Well, Astrid, that might give you one more thing to hate, but before your mind is completely filled with that fine emotion, would you please tell me what is your favorite peanut butter sandwich?"

Because the only thing she had eaten since school lunch almost twelve hours before had been a package of Neccos in the car, where it had been so dark that it had been very difficult to pick out the brown ones to throw away, Astrid blurted out, "Peanut butter, olive, and mayonnaise."

Dr. Bruer beamed, "Perfect. With the crusts cut off to make the bread square? With the peanut butter spread to the very edges of the bottom piece of bread? With the mayonnaise spread to the very edge of the upper slice?"

Astrid shrugged.

The doctor cocked his head, which made him look even more like a crow.

"You're indifferent? Hmm. That is unusual at Peltdown. Our students tend to take the construction of their sandwiches very seriously. Well, then, what about the olives? That's often a critical question. Whole or slices? Twelve? Three across and four down, or four down and three across? Or, a four by four matrix?"

Astrid shrugged a second time.

"How astounding. And, does your indifference include the presence or absence of pimientos?"

"I don't like pimientos."

"Excellent. I myself fall into the anti-pimiento school. Astrid, someday soon, when you hate me less, you and I must have a discussion about why they put pimientos in olives in the first place. I have some theories I would like to run by you."

Dr. Bruer nodded toward the door he had pointed to earlier. "Would you like to do some crying while I make your sandwich?"

When Astrid shook her head the doctor said, "Well, then, I will see you back here in eleven minutes."

As she was watching Dr. Bruer's crane-like steps disappear into the shadows of the hallway, she wondered how such a strange looking man was so knowledgeable about the ways to make peanut butter sandwiches.

• • •

Soon after Astrid arrived at Peltdown, she learned that most of the students called themselves dizzies. When she asked why, Mrs. Corkle, a Mrs. Claus-looking woman who frequently wandered around Astrid's classroom, sometimes supplying pens and paper or wiping up spills, but mostly taking notes in a large red notebook, told her that Dr. Bruer's term for the students, disregardents, had over time been shortened to dissies. With the passage of more time, dissies had metamorphosed into dizzies. As there were no z's in disregardant, Astrid thought that was wrong and refused to use the word.

From the moment of her arrival, Astrid had known that she would hate Dr. Bruer forever. That certainty had begun to fade that very first night when he made her sandwich. Her father had not made her a sandwich in four years. Astrid, who had first become interested in evolution when the elm trees in her old back yard in Indiana did not change enough to save themselves from bark beetles, saw that peanut butter sandwich as a mutating factor. As a result of that sandwich, she began to keep a notebook about how her feelings toward Dr. Bruer mutated over time. In it she noted that it was on November 14, a Wednesday, fifty-five days after she had come to Peltdown that she stopped hating Dr. Bruer. By that time she had learned to hate Frederick Lawson, who made obnoxious sounds like water running out of a bathtub as he drew pictures of enormous banks that looked like castles using large, small, and microscopic dollar signs instead of drawing bricks or stones. She had learned to hate Robert William because he never stopped talking about breeds of dogs, even when he was eating so that a lot of his food ended up on other people's plates (especially when he was talking about bulldogs, beagles, and boxers). Astrid hated Hank, who worked in the kitchen and could whistle dozens of songs, but slowed down the cafeteria line as he made sure that that the foods on the other students' plates didn't touch each other. Astrid hated the horrible reception on Peltdown's television. Watching the fluttering gray images of old movies with Rita Hayworth or Loretta Young, or shows like Ben Casey was frustrating, although for Astrid it was far better than trying to spend time with Peltdown's pimply-faced hand flappers who took everything she said literally.

Even though there were plenty of people and things at Peltdown to hate, Astrid tended to forget those things when she was in her classroom. That room was on the top floor of the building. It was quiet and she could see birds and squirrels in the trees that towered outside the windows. Although the room was huge, there were only four other students. Christopher Lenz was a red-cheeked boy whose hair always looked like a sweater filled with static electricity had just been pulled over it. Christopher's paucity of physical gifts meant that he had never hit or caught a baseball; however, he spent his time organizing, studying, and making notes from several thousand baseball cards and two tall stacks of books about baseball. Raymond Bierstow was two inches shorter than Astrid. He spent most of his time sitting at a table set with three chessboards and three chairs on each side. While screwing his index finger into his right ear, he would study a board. After a while he would remove his finger and point it at the board, make a move, murmur something like "I've got you now, you idiot," get up and move to the opposite side of the table, put his finger back in his ear, study the board from the other side, point his finger, make a move, murmur something triumphant and move over to the next board. Whether walking or sitting, Raymond's head jutted past the rest of his body by several inches. Astrid didn't know whether to attribute Raymond's turtle-like behavior to years of hovering over chess boards, or a case of undiagnosed short-sightedness. Through greasy lenses Marcus Rheardon studied an enormous map of the eastern half of the United States upon which were marked scores of passenger train routes. Using a huge stack of train schedules, some going back to the turn of the century, and small differently colored wooden blocks for locomotives, Marcus improved and fine-tuned the passenger rail system of Eastern America to cut down wait times between connections. Like Raymond but with much lower volume, Lawrence Harrington had conversations with people who didn't appear to be present as he made kites. Lawrence's kites came in dozens of different styles made from many different materials. All of the kites were small, never more than two feet in length. As far as Astrid could tell, none of Lawrence Harrington's kites had ever been taken outside to see if they would fly; however, every one of them had to be presented to the classroom's four other students for their inspection and acknowledgment of Lawrence's genius.

Astrid spent as much time as possible time in her classroom—and not because of the birds and squirrels playing outside the windows or the interesting things the other students were doing. Astrid loved the classroom because before it was a classroom it had been a laboratory in the radio factory. Although the equipment that remained was not as good as what her father's friend Doc Sprigley had taught her in his chemistry lab at Cornell University, it was superior to what Astrid had found in the chemistry room at Ithaca High School and far superior to what she had assembled in her own basement to grow crystals.

• • •

By the end of her second year at Peltdown Astrid was less unhappy than at any time since the summer when she was nine. She had arrived at the institute when she was fourteen, still more girl than woman. That had changed. Despite her losses and pains since her mother had disappeared, Astrid's black eyes remained bright—distrusting, disdaining, disbelieving, and disgusted with the world around her—but still bright. In sneakers, the only shoes she wore, she stood five foot eight inches tall. Despite her indifference to what she wore, almost everything she did wear gave evidence that she had a chest, waist and hips. Her blue-black hair, which had not been cut since her mother had vanished, reached almost to her waist. After it was washed, it was thick and shiny, but because it took so much effort, it was infrequently washed.

Astrid was appreciating her diminished unhappiness on a day when she, her classmates, Raymond, Marcus, and Christopher, and two other students, Timothy McLaughlin and Randolph Mercer, were sitting on the edge of the abandoned loading dock at the back of the building. All of the boys had their feet dangling over the edge of the dock. Astrid was sitting cross-legged off to the side. All five of the boys were rhythmically banging their heels against the side of the dock. Like students in boarding schools over the centuries and across the continents, they were analyzing the horrors of the food they were served.

Marcus said, "Cheese that doesn't melt."

Raymond, who detested cheese, rejoined, "Maybe that is a good thing because then you know that it was manufactured by a chemical factory rather than being made from the rotting fluids of a bovine. I don't like cheese."

Astrid scooted herself over to the edge of the dock and dangled her feet.

"Do you remember your moms making toast that was crunchy with squares of butter, like little yellow rafts, floating around?"

Christopher violently shook his head and waved his hands, "I hate that kind of toast. It is like it was designed to be an automated crumb producer rather than food."

Astrid countered, "Then a Peltdown breakfast must be heaven for you since the toast is too soggy to make even a single crumb."

Randolph stopped beating his heels as he asked, "What is heaven? Where is heaven?"

Astrid took a deep breath and surprised herself when in a very quiet voice she said, "Heaven is where my sister might be."

"I didn't know you had a sister."

Timothy said, "I thought all dizzies were only children."

Astrid said, "I am the only child."

Mercer shook his head, "But, you weren't. Who came first? You or your sister?"

"My sister. By twenty-seven minutes."

"Well, then," said Raymond, "She was an only child until you were born, but you never were."

"But I am the only child now."

Timothy frowned, "That is not true if there is a heaven. What happened to your sister?"

"She had polio." For the briefest moment, Astrid started to say more. Instead, she asked, "Why are we weird?"

All of the boys spoke at once. In the jumble of words, Astrid heard, "Peculiar, gifted, unique, unusual." As the words died out she said, "And weird. We walk weird, talk weird, think weird."

Christopher shook his head so violently that spittle shot out of the corners of his mouth. "We are not weird. We're normal dizzies. You're the one who is weird. We all walk the same way. You don't. None of us have brothers or sisters. You did."

As Christopher was talking, Astrid felt like she was going to burst into tears. Even weird people thought she was weird. The happiness she had been feeling only minutes before was gone.

• • •

One July day at the end of her third year at Peltdown, Astrid was having trouble concentrating on trying to grow a potassium dichromate geode. It was a week after her seventeenth birthday, which had been celebrated like the previous two—with a cake that was covered in crumbly frosting from the school cafeteria and nothing from her father. Rather than considering the chemistry of the crystal she wanted to grow, Astrid was deep in thought of how her life had changed since her mother had gone away when she realized that Dr. Bruer was standing beside her.

"How is it going?"

Astrid shook her head.

The director looked at the shelves behind the table where Astrid was working that were filled with scores of crystals of different shapes, sizes and colors.

"It seems like you usually are successful."

Astrid shook her head again. "Those are all of my failures."

"So, you have a particular crystal you want to grow?"

Astrid, who had never told anyone what kind of crystal she was trying to grow, or why, just shrugged.

The director looked over at the shelves again. "It looks as though you especially like blue crystals." Dr. Bruer made his cawing laugh. "Could you grow some blue sapphires and, while you are at it, make some diamonds, rubies, and emeralds? That would be very helpful."

Astrid concentrated on the lab thermometer that was clipped to the side of a solution she was heating on a Bunsen burner while hoping that ignoring him would cause the director to go away. Lately, Dr. Bruer had been spending more time in her classroom. He paid attention to what Christopher, Raymond and Marcus were doing, but Astrid thought that most of his attention was focused on her. With the director's bright black eyes, long spindly legs, bobbing head, and constant movement from one foot to the other, Astrid always thought of birds when he was in the room. Sometimes a crow, sometimes a crane, and sometimes, when he hovered just behind her shoulders, a vulture.

"Astrid, when did you become interested in crystals?"

The teenager hesitated before saying, "Ten."

"And is there a special reason for your interest?"

"They're mysterious. The atoms of a liquid get together, organize themselves, and turn into something solid. Something hard."

Dr. Bruer nodded, "Something hard, and organized, and beautiful, and something that you can see through. And sometimes they are very valuable, valuable in many different ways. I agree with you that crystals are mysterious. Just like a crystal grower I know, although that person sometimes can be very difficult to see through."

The following day Raymond, who over time had become Astrid's best friend, if she even had a best friend, left his chess games and walked over to her while she was mixing up one more solution she hoped would grow a blue crystal that would have a honey-like center. After watching for a minute, he said, "How did you end up here?"

"My dad didn't want me. He probably begged Dr. Bruer to take me. Begged and begged."

"That is not the reason. Mrs. Corkle says that Dr. Bruer accepts very few of those whose parents ask to have their child come here. She says that some of the dizzies' parents can't even pay. So begging or money cannot be the reason. It must be something else."

"Looks, Raymond? Or, how about my charm?"

"No. I think it is your crystals."

"Why?"

"Yesterday, he made his joke about how good it would be if you learned to grow diamonds and rubies. In a way I think he meant it. I think he is running out of money. I think Peltdown will be shutting down."

Astrid's eyebrows shot upward in disbelief. "Why would you say that?"

"Leonard Pilsky and Steven Winston left their jobs and haven't been replaced. Towels and sheets get washed every fourteen days rather than every seven days like they used to when I first came. Samuel Langer told me that his paint supplies are running low and that Mrs. Corkle told him to make do with what he had. Dr. Bruer's horrible laugh is hardly heard."

Given how much she hated Peltdown when she arrived, Astrid was astounded at how frightening it was to think of the school being closed. If it closed, where would she go? What would she do? Her father had visited just once in three years, for an afternoon. He had called her twice. He had sent her a few letters that were written with ever larger letters on ever smaller pieces of stationery.

"If it closed, what would happen to us?"

Raymond glanced back over to his table filled with chess boards.

"I would go back to Euclid, Ohio to play unchallenging chess at the library with World War I veterans. I would stay in my bedroom so I wouldn't scream at my father and my father wouldn't yell at me."

"What can we do?"

Raymond turned back toward his chess sets.

"Play chess and make crystals."

• • •

It was after Astrid began worrying about Peltdown closing that the nightmares came. After the first one, which caused her to wake up screaming, she worried that she had gotten rheumatic fever again like she had after her mother disappeared. She couldn't imagine re-experiencing those nightmare horrors again: screaming for her mother, hiding from Tippy, crashing down the hill onto the roofs of the houses on Harp Street, chewing something that was like a dry sponge that sucked up all of her saliva, but couldn't be spit out, having egg yolks poured down her nose, being chased by something very fat and featureless. She couldn't imagine having the pains again. Her knees and elbows, ankles and wrists feeling like someone was pulling them apart. Waking up soaked in sweat and wondering if the bright red rash all over her arms was real or some other horrible thing she was dreaming.

When Astrid looked in the mirror, her neck didn't look swollen, and when she felt her forehead, she didn't think she had a fever. However, just because she decided she did not have rheumatic fever did not mean that the nightmares went away. In fact, instead of going away, they came more frequently. She was trapped in a bubble and was suffocating as she used up all the air. She was being compressed in a bubble that kept shrinking. Her feet were tied to something and rising waves of blue water were hitting her in the face. Her mother was ahead of her walking along a trail in dark, dense woods. A moment later the woods were gone and an unending desert of massive dunes stretched out before her and her mother was nowhere to be seen.

Astrid woke from this last nightmare with someone holding her hand and whispering, "I don't like yelling."

When Astrid opened her eyes the room was dark, but there was enough light coming through the doorway from the hall that she could see that it was Raymond who was kneeling beside her bed. If it had been daylight with Astrid feeling just normally weird, she would have jerked her hand back. She did not like to be touched by anyone, especially a boy. But, because it was night, because her heart was pounding, and because she was only a moment away from panicking, Astrid let Raymond hold her hand and breathe on her. When her heart finally slowed down and Raymond's hand began to feel like warm turkey stuffing, Astrid freed her hand.

"Who is Samara?"

"What do you mean?"

"Who is Samara? You were yelling 'Samara, Samara.' Why were you screaming that?"

Astrid was glad that the light coming into the room silhouetted Raymond so she could not see his eyes.

"Samara is the name of my mother."

Astrid heard what sounded like a gasp.

"What's wrong?"

Raymond whispered, "Samara is the name of my mother."

• • •

The following night, a half hour after supper, Astrid and Raymond met on the loading dock to talk about what seemed to be such a strange coincidence. By the end of that meeting they had considered how Raymond was an only child, but Astrid was not. Raymond had clumsy feet, but Astrid did not. Both had been considered weird by the few friends they had. Both had dads who were scientists and who didn't talk. Both had mothers named Samara who had said goodbye, had said they would return, and had not. Both had questions. Lots of questions.

It was not until their third meeting on the dock that Astrid decided to tell Raymond why she was interested in crystals. Although her voice broke and some of her words caught in her throat, she told him about the bubble in her backyard, the clanging sounds she had heard, someone angry screaming "Samara," and the blue crystal that her cat had dropped on the towel. Astrid made herself keep talking because she was hoping that Raymond would say he had seen a bubble or had a crystal hidden somewhere. However, when she finished, Raymond said, "That sounds like you were having a nightmare." Astrid shook her head, "It wasn't a nightmare, Raymond. It was daytime. Morning."

Raymond said, "But you said you had been sleeping."

"Napping. It didn't happen and, then, I woke up. I woke up, and, then, it happened."

"Maybe it was one of those dreams where you think you are awake, but you still are sleeping and dreaming."

"I have the crystal, Raymond, and I know it came from my mother."

"You don't have it. That is why you are making crystals."

"I did have it, Raymond. But, it got left behind in Indiana."

"You saw that bubble in the air and you heard those words. Like from another world. Your mother could be an alien." Raymond suddenly was so agitated that he staggered up from where he had been sitting, "Astrid, you could be an alien, too."

"I'm weird and I'm alienated, Raymond, which is what every teenager is supposed to be. But, alien? Something from another planet? That's crazy."

Now, Raymond was flapping his hands in excitement, "Maybe not another planet. Maybe another dimension, or another time."

"That's even crazier."

Raymond was spluttering, "Where do dreams come from? They don't just come from memory because how many times have you dreamt of people, buildings, landscapes, machines, plants, and flowers that you've never seen before? Buildings that never have been built—at least in our world. Machines that haven't been invented—at least in our dimension. What if when we think we are dreaming we actually are in some state where we can see through the wall of our own bubble into the bubble of the dimension next to ours?"

Astrid shook her head, "You are nuts, Raymond. This is nuts. Before you get even nuttier, let's try to figure out why two kids who have missing mothers with the same name end up in an old radio manufacturing factory outside Raccoon, Pennsylvania."

Raymond added, "The same unusual name."

Afraid of what she was about to say, Astrid took a deep breath, "We have to get into Dr. B.'s office. He picked us. He knows why we are here."

After the two friends spent twenty minutes whispering back and forth about how and when to sneak into the director's office, which one of them should go, and what they might be looking for, without coming to any conclusions, the meeting broke up.

As she was starting to walk back inside, Astrid felt a tug on the back of her blouse. "Don't you think it's possible that there are other worlds, other worlds that can intersect with ours?"

Astrid gnawed the backside of her lip as she considered. After several moments she swung her arms in front of her as she said, "Who knows, Raymond, but I do know that there are plenty of times when I don't feel like I belong here."

"Here being Peltdown?"

"Here being anywhere except, maybe, Peltdown. Peltdown doesn't feel like home, but, after my mom left, home never really felt like home."

Raymond drew so close to Astrid that she could feel the heat coming off his chest. "I've often wished for a place where I could feel like I belonged."

"You don't feel that here?"

"No, Astrid, I feel like a freak. I feel like a freak when Corkle, with her big eyes, stares at me, makes notes of what I do or say ... or don't do or say. There are dozens of dizzies here and I sometimes feel comfortable with only one."

Suddenly, Astrid wished Raymond would stop talking. "Let's go reconnoiter Dr. B.'s office."

"Do you trust him?"

"I don't know."

"Are we really going to sneak into his room?"

"We aren't, Raymond. I am."

"Why just you?"

Because you're clumsy. I'm not as likely as you are to knock something over, bang into something, make a noise, or be discovered."

• • •

To take advantage of natural light in the manufacturing process of growing crystals and assembling small components into radios, the factory had been built with enormous windows. Astrid had thought she would have no trouble crawling through one of those windows into Dr. Bruer's first floor office. To her thinking, the problem wasn't going to be how to get into the office. The problem was when to do it. The office door was often open during the day, but even if Dr. Bruer were off doing something, there might be a scattering of people, both dizzies and staff, wandering about the hallways. No one, including Dr. Bruer himself, might be around early in the morning, but Astrid rejected that time. She was not a morning person. She was barely alert enough in the mornings to brush her teeth without doing herself harm. The right time to investigate the office came about by accident. Christopher Lenz mentioned that he was jealous because Mrs. Corkle had told him that Dr. Bruer was going to Pittsburgh to see the Pirates play a night game against the Cubs. On the night of the game, however, Astrid discovered that because of their great size and the fact that the ropes holding the counterweights had frayed over the years, it took more strength than she had to open a window. The only results from her solo attempt were splinters in two of her fingers and a full set of skinned knuckles.

For her second attempt, which was planned for a Saturday night after she had inveigled Mrs. Corkle into revealing that Dr. Bruer was going to play bridge with friends in Noblesville, Astrid brought along Raymond to help her lift and, then, hold the window up while she scrambled through. As soon as she was inside, Raymond lowered the window and hid himself at the edge of the woods that the window faced. The plan was for Astrid to signal when she was ready to leave with three flickers of her flashlight. If, for some reason, Raymond was to see a potential threat that Astrid would be discovered, he was to rush forward and tap on the window.

Inside the office, Astrid took a moment to push the panic out of her body by breathing deeply and shaking her hands. Despite those exercises, she began her search with a pounding heart and tingling, trembling fingers.

Astrid had covered her flashlight with a piece of cardboard in which she had punched a small hole. Now, she used that narrow beam to guide her to the Peltdown director's enormous desk. Given that she and Raymond had begun to convince themselves that something mysterious was going on at the institute, Astrid was surprised, and even a little disappointed, to find that the five drawers in Dr. Bruer's desk were not locked. However, even though they weren't locked, the drawers themselves were not without a certain protection. As she opened them one by one, each drawer squeaked like a dying mouse.

The desk's center drawer was filled with supplies: pencils, two fountain pens, erasers, a bottle of blue and another of black ink, two rulers, many matchbooks, and a jar lid filled with coins. The top right drawer held business matters: bills, old receipts for food, fuel, and classroom supplies, two checkbooks, two savings books, and a thick gray cloth-bound ledger. Seeing the banking and accounting information caused Astrid to realize that she had no idea what she was looking for. Not knowing what else to do, she added up what had been spent in a month, looked at the checkbook and savings book balances and estimated that there was enough money to pay for almost four months of expenses. Things might be tight like Raymond thought, but she felt relieved that the institute wasn't going to close in the next few days.

The bottom right drawer held a wooden shoe shine kit and two bags, one opened and one sealed, of butterscotch balls.

The top left drawer held student files. Since Berenson came before Bierstow, Astrid pulled out her file first. However, just as she began to read she heard the click of footsteps, clicks that sounded like the ones Mrs. Corkle made, coming down the hallway. Immediately, Astrid's lungs tried to suck up all of the air in the room. She flicked off her flashlight and crawled under the desk. The footsteps slowed as they approached the office door. She heard a rattling noise and knew the door knob was being turned. A moment later the clicks began again. After several long moments, the clicks faded and the only thing Astrid could hear was the thumping of blood in her temples.

Shaking from all of the wild energy racing around in her body, the teen crawled out from under the desk. On quivering legs she walked toward the window where she planned to signal Raymond that she was ready to leave; however, before she was halfway across the room, she noticed a door. Wondering if it might be another way out of the office, she drew close, listened, then, tentatively, eased it open. Rather than an exit, the door opened into a small closet that held a raincoat, galoshes, several ties, a small metal-caged electric fan, and, astoundingly to Astrid, a small stone pyramid with its top cut off, what her mother had called a frustum, a frustrum almost exactly like the one in her old back yard in Indiana. Although she knew there was nothing remotely humorous about what she was seeing—raincoat and galoshes, and a pyramid—Astrid found herself giggling. She reassured herself that her inappropriate behavior was just a case of nerves, rather than madness.

Leaving the closet, Astrid walked back to the desk; however as she started to sit down, she heard a tapping sound. Turning around she saw Raymond, his face close to the glass, mouthing words and frantically waving his arms. As Astrid rushed to the window, his face disappeared. The teen grabbed the window's handle and pulled, but only managed to raise it a few inches before she heard footsteps coming down the hall. This time, instead of clicks, the steps were thuds, thuds like Dr. Bruer made when he was in a hurry.

Astrid darted toward the closet.

• • •

Astrid had been breathing through her hand for almost ten minutes. Even though she had been supporting herself by holding onto the top of the pyramid, she was beginning to feel wobbly from trying to stand stock still. She was terrified that if she were to move an inch she would go crashing into the fan that she knew was on the floor somewhere behind her in the pitch black.

When Dr. Bruer first came into the room, Astrid could hear him pace about. Thud, thud. Every time the thudding came close to where she was hiding, she was sure that she was going to faint. After several nearly unendurable minutes, she heard noises that she interpreted as Dr. Bruer sitting down at his desk. In the midst of what was already a brain filled with turmoil, a surge of adrenaline, like a rogue wave, flooded the teen as she realized that she had left the drawer, which held the student files, wide open. Her hand reached out for the door knob. It was better to surrender than to continue to experience any more fear and dread.

A drawer squeaked, then, squeaked again. A moment later, she heard scratching. She thought the director might be writing. The next sound was a phone being dialed. That whirring noises went on so long that the teenager was sure it must be long distance. Finally, the dialing stopped and a pencil tapping sound began.

"It's Dr. B. Good news. She seems to be getting close. Maybe very close."

There was a pause.

"Well, that's not good. Not good at all. Are you sure?"

Another pause.

"Of course, they are suspicious, but they have to be kept from leaving."

A long pause.

"Something has to be done. If they can't be kept from leaving, then all of our plans are ruined."

Another pause.

"A week? That might be enough, but are you sure? A week could do it, but beyond that it's just too dangerous."

Pause.

"If we're wrong, it will be a disaster for all of us. I'll be patient, but if anything changes, call me immediately and I'll take care of her."

Astrid heard Dr. Bruer nervously tapping away for ten minutes after he replaced the telephone. Finally, she heard thudding, the rattle of the door knob, and, then, miraculously, fading thuds.

The teen waited two more minutes before sneaking out of the closet and tiptoeing over to the window. She signaled with her flashlight and waited, then, signaled again and waited some more before accepting that Raymond had abandoned her.

The teen's ear was wet and aching from being pressed tightly against the office door before she felt safe enough to unlock, ease the door open, slip through, scurry down the hallway, and race up the stairs to the safety of her room.

Astrid had not even had time to get into her pajamas before there was a soft knock at her door. As soon as she opened it and saw Raymond standing in front of her, the fear of being caught, and the anger at being abandoned, turned into rage. Both of her arms shot out and hit the boy in the chest as she began hissing, "Go away. Get out of here. Go, you coward. Now. Leave. Coward. Go."

"But, what ...."

Astrid closed the door so fast that if Raymond had not jerked his hand back as quickly as he did, he would have had his fingers broken.

All of Astrid's body was drained except for her mind. Who was "she?" Was Dr. Bruer talking about her? If it was "getting close" was he talking about her crystals? Why was that dangerous and to whom? Reluctantly, she had come to like and trust Dr. Bruer. He seemed so kindly, but if Raymond was right and the school might fail, what would Dr. Bruer do to keep that from happening? She had been harmed before by trusting someone. Was that about to happen again? If it was, then what should she do? Was it better to wait to see what might happen or to run away before the world came crashing down on her again?

Astrid's mind got so tangled up in her thoughts of Dr. Bruer that if only for a distraction, she turned her thoughts to Raymond's cowardice. She imagined Raymond justifying himself. "I warned her. There wasn't enough time. I thought Dr. Bruer was in such a hurry that he would catch her. It didn't make sense for me to be caught, too."

Astrid considered rushing into Raymond's room and screaming, "One for all and none for one." However, a minute later, she stopped herself. What else would she expect from a boy who spent his days poring over chessboards? Had he ever had a scab, a scratch, a tick bite? Would he pick up a snake, or walk through a spider-web, or poke a dead squirrel like Pill, her neighbor in Onabasha would have done? With no warning, thoughts of Pill swinging a snake, repelling a Viking attack, leading a cavalry charge, collecting night-crawlers, and jumping out of the hay door on The Fort, the two-story barn next to her old house that was the center of their childhood play, caused a cascade of tears to run down her cheeks. After the tears slowed, Astrid wondered just how weird she had to be to be bawling about someone she hadn't seen in six years, someone she never really had trusted, someone who often had been mean to her, but, somehow, someone she suddenly was desperate to see.

• • •

It was three days later that Raymond came into the classroom and shuffled over to where Astrid was engrossed in her work. When she realized he was standing right behind her, breathing on her, her anger flared up. She didn't want to hit him. She didn't want to talk to him. She just wanted to think. She had grown a batch of crystals that were various shades of blue. Although their growth wasn't done, it looked like the centers might remain liquid. She thought that with their elongated diamond shape they might fit into the notches of the crystal hidden in The Fort's foundation wall back in Onabasha. She was getting close, but she wanted to try a new batch at an even higher temperature to see if she could get the blue color to be the same in each crystal.

Raymond blurted, "I had a dream last night about a blue crystal."

Although she said, "Because that's what I talked about," Astrid was thinking that it was more than likely that Raymond had invented the dream to have something to share with her.

"The crystal was in the middle of the floor of a big empty building. When I picked it up something sloshed around and I thought I could hear my name being called."

Astrid's hands, which had been busy preparing to measure out the chemicals she needed for her experiment, stopped. She had had many dreams, starting within days of finding the crystal, when she had heard her name being called. In most of the dreams the voice calling her had been her mother's. In a few dreams, there had been a harsh, angry high-pitched voice shrieking her name.

"What did the voice sound like?"

"Loud, demanding, angry, scary."

Despite wanting to stay angry, Astrid heard herself saying, "I've heard that voice."

"What does it say?"

"Sometimes it yells my name. Other times it yells that it wants what is hers."

"The crystal?"

"I guess so."

"Like Gollum and his ring?"

"The voice I hear doesn't lisp."

"Mine didn't either."

"Go play chess, Raymond. Do something you can do."

• • •

The afternoon was almost gone before Astrid finished working on her new batch of crystals. Christopher and Marcus were gone. Mrs. Corkle had clicked her way in, observed, noted, and clicked her way out. Raymond was still playing chess and hurling imprecations from both sides of the three boards he had set up. Astrid was feeling calmer, but she still was angry enough that when she walked over to his table she had to stand behind Raymond because she could not bring herself to look at him.

Astrid hissed, "Because both our mothers are named Samara we thought we must have something more in common. We thought that something, even though we didn't know exactly what it was, joined us together. But the very first time we tried to accomplish something together, something where we had to rely on one another, it turned into what could have been a disaster ... at least, for one of us." Astrid had had to practice this part of what she wanted to say over and over so that she wouldn't just blurt out how disgusted she was with Raymond's cowardice.

"Right now, we aren't acting as though we are linked in any way, but from what Dr. Bruer said on the phone, he and some other people think we are connected in some specific way. Just because you were a coward once, Raymond, doesn't mean that you have to stay that way. I heard Dr. B. say he has to get rid of us. I think Dr. B and some other people think that if the two of us work together we can accomplish something they don't want us to do, or stop them from doing something. You saw that Dr. B came back again today wanting to know what I was doing and how it was going. If it had been a month ago, I might have told him that I think I've made a break-through, but now I definitely don't trust him. I think he wants me to make crystals that are like what I left behind and then get rid of me. Or, get rid of us. On the phone he said a week. It's been four days. I think it is time for me, for you, for us to go."

A startled Raymond blurted, "Go? Go where?"

Astrid stared at Raymond, but said nothing. She didn't want to say. If Raymond stayed behind she was sure he would tell Dr. Bruer where she was going. Unfortunately before five seconds had passed, Raymond murmured, "To where the crystal is."

"It's August sixth. In five days, it will be seven years since the bubble appeared in the backyard of my house exactly a year after my mom disappeared. That was why I was in my back yard. It was the anniversary. After I had the crystal, I wanted there to be another bubble that I could jump through to be with my mom. But, looking back, I think if I had seen a bubble I might have chickened out. Maybe, I would have been too little. Now, I'm older. Not as afraid.

"Rather than waiting around to find out what Dr. B. is planning for me, in five days I'm going to be back in that yard, in the same spot where I was seven years ago, at the same time, holding on to a large blue crystal. And if that bubble shows up, I'm going to try to leap through that membrane. If something bad happens to me by doing that, I'm sure you'll cry your eyes out, Raymond. And, if something bad happens to you by staying here and doing nothing, you know I'll do the same for you. And if nothing happens except I fall on my butt, then ... then, I don't know."

"I'm coming, too."

• • •

As might be expected given his chess skills, when it came to planning, Raymond was better at thinking ahead than Astrid. While she had been considering when would be the safest time to leave and avoid being caught and what to take with her, Raymond had been thinking about how they were going to get from outside Raccoon, Pennsylvania to Onabasha, Indiana. The morning after they had talked about leaving, he got up early and made his way to their classroom and began poring over their classmate Marcus' railroad maps and timetables.

Since the Peltdown Institute was in the middle of nowhere and most of the dizzies had few interests other than their own compulsions, there had never been any particular need for money. Raymond himself had $3.17. He didn't imagine that Astrid had much more. As a result, after he spent some time studying passenger train timetables and fares, he turned his attention to freight train schedules.

Coming into the dining room, Raymond looked around before going over and sitting down at the table where Astrid was eating her breakfast. That in itself was unusual. Raymond and Astrid, along with almost all of the dizzies, preferred to eat alone. As soon as he sat down, Raymond whispered, "I think we should leave tonight. I looked at Marcus' maps and know how we can get there by train. Do you have any money?"

"Not much. Maybe two dollars."

"That won't be enough for tickets. We'll either have to find more money or jump onto a freight train."

When Astrid yelped, "What?" most of those in the dining room, including Dr. Bruer and Mrs. Corkle, and another staff person named McIllvaney, stared at her. Astrid dropped her eyes and used her fork to rearrange the mess on her plate that was supposed to be scrambled eggs. A moment later she whispered, "Don't say anything else. Dr. B. is staring."

After they were back in their classroom, Raymond told Astrid that there was a rail line eleven miles to the north that was used to transport coal from West Virginia to the steel mills in Gary, Indiana. Coal trains were heavy and slow. The destination he had picked was a section of track outside New Galilee where a train had to climb a long, steep grade. Raymond thought they should jump on the train there and ride it to Ft. Wayne. Once they got to the rail-yards in Ft. Wayne, Indiana between the two of them they would have enough money to pay the fare to Onabasha.

Astrid could not imagine Raymond, whose ungainly walk when added to the way he extended his head re-enforced her notion that he resembled a turtle, running alongside a train and jumping on board.

"How much money would we need to buy tickets?"

"From the nearest station, which is called Enon Valley, twenty-seven dollars and forty cents for the two of us."

"So, we need to steal twenty-two dollars."

"How? Who? When?"

"I don't know. What dizzy would have that much money?"

"I don't know. Christopher? He's always buying baseball cards."

"I doubt it, but it is worth finding out. At lunch, watch him. When he takes his tray back ask him about baseball. I'll run up to his room."

"What about baseball?"

Astrid wished she had a need for a chess player so that Raymond could be useful in some way.

"I don't know. Baseball. Wait ... wait. Ask him ... ask him why some teams name themselves after the color of their socks. After he gives you the history of that, ask him why more teams don't do the same thing. If he answers that and I'm still not back, ask him what teams he would like to see named after the color of their socks."

Raymond nodded, but, then, shook his head. "If you're still not back, then what do I do?"

Growing exasperated, Astrid said, "Let me think. Let me think. Baseball is the American pastime. Ask him if it's any other country's pastime and would players from those countries ever be good enough to play in America."

"And if ...."

Astrid cut Raymond off, "God almighty, Raymond, just knock him down, sit on him, and bite his nose off if he tries to move."

"I don't like biting noses. Any noses. But, especially Christopher Lenz's nose. It leaks."

"Raymond, it was a joke."

"Can you make a joke when you are angry?"

"Raymond, you are a genius. Now, leave me alone. I want to see what my new crystals are doing."

As Astrid opened the cupboard where she kept her latest experiment, she heard Raymond muttering. When she turned around he was holding a queen in one hand and a king in the other. With his hands two feet apart, he dipped the queen backward and then snapped it forward. A split second later, he swiveled the king. As she turned back to her work, Astrid swore she heard Raymond say, "Strike three, you idiot."

• • •

Astrid stole a five-dollar bill, two ones and 73 cents from a smelly sock in Christopher Lenz's room. As she was racing back to the dining room, she wondered if the dirty sock was intentional—a way to ward off thieves, or if Christopher was so wrapped up in White Sox and Red Sox that he couldn't be bothered about clean socks and smelly socks.

Astrid poked her head inside the dining room, caught Raymond's eye, which appeared to be glazed over from too much baseball information, nodded, then, went back to their classroom.

When Raymond arrived, Astrid told him that she had stolen Christopher's money, but that it wasn't enough to buy tickets for the entire distance. They discussed trying to steal money from some of the other dizzies, but concluded that two thefts, if they were discovered, would trigger too much attention from the staff.

"We can take the money we have and go as far as we can go."

"Or, maybe we can steal some more just before we leave."

"Which is when, Raymond?"

"It depends. If we are going to buy tickets, the nearest station is seventeen miles away and there is a train at 5:41 a.m. If we are going to try to jump aboard at the grade where the coal train slows down, that is eleven miles away. The train is supposed to be at the grade at 4:18. If it takes us 20 minutes to walk a mile ...."

Imitating a common Peltdown response to too much information, Astrid flapped her hands. "Wait. Two things. Why are we walking? Could you even walk two miles, Raymond? It's almost a full moon. There are those old bikes in the storage room next to the furnace room. We can take two bikes and be at the station in less than three hours. Why are you shaking your head, Raymond?"

"I don't like bicycles."

"What does that mean?"

"I fall over."

Unlike trying to imagine Raymond jumping onto a moving coal train, imagining him falling over while trying to ride a bicycle was something Astrid could see.

"When was the last time you rode ... fell over on a bicycle?"

"When I was six."

"That was ten years ago, Raymond. You're stronger, smarter. You'll be fine. Just to be sure, we'll leave at 11:30. Just about everybody will be asleep by then."

As Astrid had been talking, Raymond had continued to shake his head. "I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can ride a bike. I think I have to walk."

"Don't say you can't do something before you try. It's easy. Anybody can ride a bike."

"Don't count on it. What is two?'

"What do you mean?"

"You said there were two things when you interrupted me."

Astrid tapped her temple with her fingers in a way that resembled someone playing a flute. "I did? Let me think. Oh. 4:18. Eleven miles. 5:41. Seventeen miles. Bicycle. Walk. How long does it take two escapees. Doesn't it sound like an algebra problem?"

"If it is, I'm X, the unknown."

Astrid lightly slapped Raymond's hand. "Raymond, you made a joke."

After processing that information, which had caused his eyebrows to furrow, Raymond said, "I'm scared."

"Me, too. But I'm more scared to stay here and find out what Dr. B has in store for us."

After eating a big dinner and hiding slices of bread inside her blouse, Astrid snuck down to the storage room. Gathering dust in the back of the room behind a mountain of dizzy suitcases and steamer trunks were two English touring bikes and two old Schwinn bikes with battered fenders and rusted handlebars. All four of the bikes had been abandoned for so long their tires were flat. One of the English bikes had a pump, which Astrid used to fill its tires and the less rusty of the two Schwinns. While Astrid had never ridden a three speed, she was sure that she could and was excited at the opportunity, assuming she could reach the pedals. In a small cracked leather pouch behind the seat, Astrid found a wrench which she used to lower the seat. Bracing herself against the room's back wall she mounted the bike, began pedaling backward, and swore when only the very tips of her toes touched the pedals on the down-stroke. Disappointed, she studied the other Schwinn before wandering around the room working through her options.

Before going back to her room Astrid ran upstairs to her classroom. Her plan was to harvest her latest crop of crystals. However, when she opened the cupboard and checked she was bewildered that no further growth seemed to have taken place since she last had looked. She had been positive the adjustment she had made to the formula and, especially, conditions, would have grown crystals with liquid centers and uniform size and color. Instead, that seemingly minor adjustment appeared to have caused the reaction to stall. Reluctantly, Astrid took the six crystals from the previous batch and stuck them in her pocket. As she slowly walked downstairs the crystallographer pondered how and why things had gone wrong.

# CHAPTER TWO

### Escape Times Two

Astrid was surprised when Raymond arrived in the storage room holding nothing but a banged-up brown leather briefcase. With his smallish head, short neck and teardrop-shaped body, the idea crossed her mind that, if Raymond had been wearing a striped shirt instead of the tan and brown plaid one he had on, that she might be forgiven for thinking she was going on an adventure with Tweedledee.

"Is that all you have?"

"Yes."

"What's in there?"

"My chess sets, toothbrush, some books, and ... some other things."

"No clothes?"

"No. I wasn't sure what to bring."

"Maybe shirts, pants, socks, underwear." From the fragile look on Raymond's face, Astrid guessed she should not have mentioned underwear.

"Do you think that is what they wear ... there?"

"Onabasha?"

"There. The other dimension. Where we are going."

"I'm guessing, just guessing, Raymond, that they, whoever they are in the other dimension, probably aren't running around naked."

"Astrid, we might not even have bodies there. Or, our bodies might be as small as ants or as big as a planet. There is a lot of empty space between an atom's molecules."

In her eagerness to get away from whatever Dr. Bruer had planned for them, Astrid had not thought past the idea of getting to her old backyard and holding out the crystal to see if something might happen. Now, she was struck at how Raymond had moved ahead—assuming that they would be in another world, and assuming that world might be very different from their own. Knowing that it was not the time to be thinking those kinds of thoughts, Astrid took her partner's briefcase, stacked it on top of her suitcase, and tied both to the rack that extended over the rear fender of her bike. She pointed to one of the ancient Schwinns.

"Be quiet pushing it up the stairs."

Before Astrid followed Raymond out of the basement, she looked at the battered foot locker stuck in a corner at the back of the room. The locker was missing its leather handles. The teen had pried them off and wired them to the pedals of her bike so that her feet could reach the pedals. Inside the locker she had stashed her latest batch of failed crystals.

Coming out onto the parking lot Astrid put a finger to her lips and pointed to the left. Once they were on the road, she walked her bike a block before stopping.

"You can do this, Raymond. I know you can. Once you get on the bike, I'm going to push you to get you started. Once you get going, you just have to pedal, pedal fast, and look and steer straight ahead. If you do that, you'll be fine. Remember, pedal. Don't think about chess. Pedal, steer, and look straight ahead."

The fact that it took Raymond three tries to clamber on the bike caused Astrid to doubt her words.

"Okay, I'm going to hold your seat and your belt and start running to get you going."

"My belt?"

"Don't think about that part, Raymond. Think about your feet. Eyes straight ahead. Pedal fast."

Astrid's lungs were hurting before she let go of the bike. Even as she was holding him, Raymond had managed both to forget to pedal and to steer straight ahead.

After letting go, Astrid took a moment to watch Raymond zigzagging down the road like some gigantic lunar moth.

"Eyes straight!"

Astrid turned back to retrieve her bike, which was more than two blocks away.

As soon as she began to pedal the three-speed, Astrid felt an exhilarating sense of freedom. For the first time in what seemed a very long time, there was no adult hovering about—demanding, commanding, suggesting, observing. As she pedaled along the narrow, tree-lined country road, which gleamed and sparkled in the waxing moon's light, she flicked back and forth among her gears and enjoyed the unexpected pleasure of pedaling backward while she went forward. She practiced with her hand brakes and liked the feel when the front brake suddenly grabbed and jolted her forward. Running alongside Raymond had momentarily tired her, but with each rotation of her pedals she felt lighter and stronger. She pushed aside any worries about the impossibility of jumping on a coal train or finding money for fares. She didn't consider what might happen in the back yard of her old home. She thought of nothing except how beautiful the night was, how good the pine trees smelled, what lovely mysterious sounds the night birds made, and what a wonderful piece of machinery her bicycle was. Keeping her eyes looking straight ahead and pedaling hard, Astrid raced down the road with her long black hair, gleaming in the moonlight, flowing behind her like a wizard's cape.

When she arrived at a spot where the road began a long descent before veering off sharply to the right, Astrid had a premonition. Her premonition, which was really no more than remembering that Raymond was a literalist, proved to be true. At the bottom of the hill, where the road began to curve to follow a gap between two higher hills, the evidence was that Raymond had continued riding straight into the woods. Terrified at what she was going to find, Astrid jumped off her bike and plunged into the woods following a path of broken pine boughs.

"Raymond! Raymond!"

She heard groaning.

Fifty feet into the woods, she found the badly mangled Schwinn and what seemed to be a miraculously mostly unmangled Raymond.

"Are you okay?"

"No. I've fallen off my bicycle. Just like I knew I would. Just like I told you."

"What happened?"

"I pedaled fast and kept my eyes straight ahead. Those are good directions for most of the time, but not all of the time. Especially if the road turns."

"Can you get up?"

"I could if I wanted to."

"Why don't you want to?"

"Because I don't want to get back on that bicycle. I don't like bicycles. I don't like riding bicycles. And, I especially don't like riding bicycles that crash."

The tension built up in Astrid from Raymond's accident dissipated in a laugh so loud and maniacal it silenced the night birds' chatter.

"Raymond, no one, not you, no one, is ever going to ride that bike again. Here."

When the girl extended her hand, Raymond stared at it as if he had never seen one before and had no idea of what to do with it.

"Here. I'll help you up."

When they got back on the road, Astrid tapped her wrist. "What time is it?" Raymond held his wrist out toward the moon, looked, moved his arm, and looked again, then held the watch to his ear before declaring, "It's broken. The bike broke my watch."

"Rats. Now we won't know if we are running late."

"Yes, we will. I always know what time it is. It is thirty-eight minutes after one o'clock, a.m."

Since Astrid knew two other dizzies who always knew what time it was, she was not surprised that Raymond had the same skill, but it did make her wonder enough to ask, "Raymond, if you always know what time it is, why do you wear a watch?"

"I like watches. I like the sound. I like how they are like little cats. They make a sound like a purr. They don't like water. When you wind them, it's like petting a cat. If you do it too much, something bad will happen. But, they are better than cats because if you get busy playing chess and forget about them, they just stop. They don't die. You can pay attention and they start purring again. Unless a bicycle breaks them."

As Astrid walked over to her bike, she shook her head as if she was trying to get rid of a bug caught in her hair.

When she had rushed off to find Raymond, the girl had been so worried she had not bothered to be careful with her own bike. As a result, her suitcase and Raymond's briefcase had broken the twine she had used to tie them to the luggage rack. As she re-secured their luggage, Astrid tried to decide what to do. She guessed they had traveled less than half the distance to the grade outside New Galilee and probably less than a third of the way to the passenger depot at Enon Valley. If they pushed her bike and walked, they might make it to the grade on time, or they might not. If they rode double, unless there were big hills to climb, they should get to the grade in plenty of time. However, there were two questions. The first was whether it was possible to ride double with Raymond. If he rode on the luggage rack, where was their luggage to go? She couldn't even imagine him riding on the handlebar, but if he rode side saddle on the frame, which one of them was going to feel weirder?

In a split second, the best solution surfaced from a darker part of Astrid's brain. She began to untie the knots she had just tied. She would set Raymond's briefcase on the ground, tell him that before going on, she needed to test the bike to see if she had damaged it when she jumped off. She would jump back on her bike, pedal hard, and, if not always looking straight ahead, she would, at least, be sure not to look back. Astrid was desperate to regain that feeling of untethered lightness she had been feeling just a few minutes before.

As Astrid was untying a knot, Raymond walked up brushing pine needles from his hair, his tan and brown plaid shirt, and brown corduroys.

"Adventurers need partners, don't they, Astrid?"

_Partners._ As she retied the twine, Astrid wondered if it were really possible for dizzies to be partners.

• • •

"Stop wriggling."

My buttocks hurt."

_Buttocks._ Ninety-nine percent of American teenagers had a butt. Raymond had a buttocks. Astrid fought the urge to lean forward four inches so that her mouth was right next to her passenger's ear and scream that her calves, thighs, palms, neck, and lungs in addition to her buttocks hurt, and that as she grew more exhausted from bicycling through the night his wriggling was ever more likely to cause them to crash. A crash now would be much more serious than the mini-crashes they had had when they first started to ride double. Those had resulted in nothing more than scratched legs. Once Astrid had figured out how to use the guard rail as a mounting block, she had managed to keep them upright and moving at a modest speed for what she guessed must be close to an hour. However, over the last ten minutes, and, particularly, the last five, Raymond had been shifting back and forth on the bike frame. Each time he had done so, the bike had lurched, her heart rate had accelerated, and she had expended considerable panicky energy getting the bike back on an even keel.

Less than a minute passed before Raymond wiggled again.

"Stop it, Raymond! Stop moving! You'll make us crash."

"My buttocks hurt."

"Not as bad as a broken arm or your head split open with your genius chess brain splattered everywhere."

"I believe brains are too thick to splatter."

"Let's not find out. What time is it?"

"It is fifty-six minutes after two o'clock a.m."

Astrid was surprised it was that late. She guessed they must have spent more time figuring out how to ride double than she thought. If it really was two fifty-six, that only gave them an hour and twenty-two minutes to get to the track and figure out where the best chance of jumping on the coal train would be ... if there was any chance.

"We have to hurry."

When Astrid's legs began to hurt even worse, she realized that rather than watching the road, which had become harder to see as the moon began to set, she had been staring into the small black hole of Raymond's right ear. She had been imagining being small enough to walk through that entrance and down a winding corridor to a balcony overlooking a room filled with hundreds of gears—some small ones whirring so fast they were hard to see and others, large ones, not moving at all.

"Ugh."

When Raymond turned to look at Astrid, his face was only two inches from hers.

"I can't do it anymore, Raymond. I have to stop. Get ready to jump off."

"Jump off? We're moving."

"Jump, Raymond! Now!"

Raymond didn't jump and Astrid had slowed so much that there wasn't enough momentum to right the bike when it began to list. A moment later, the bike and its two riders toppled to the ground. Although she could tell that her shin was scratched up, Astrid was very grateful that the handlebars and the right side pedal had kept her leg from being crushed. Raymond's shoulder, smelling like a mix of rubber and beef gravy, was covering most of her face.

"Get off of me!"

As Raymond worked to get himself clear of both Astrid and the bike, his floundering movement reminded her of trying to climb onto a slippery inner tube back when she and Tippy had taken swimming lessons at Silver Lake.

"Get off!"

Once Raymond was clear, Astrid worked herself free of the bike, righted it, and then walked a few yards to see if it had been damaged. Satisfied that the wheels and frame were not bent, the teen checked the knots on the luggage and began to walk down the road.

"C'mon, Raymond. We have to walk. I'm too tired to pedal both of us up this hill."

"What hill? I don't see a hill."

"Keep walking, Raymond, and even if you can't see it, believe me, you'll start to feel it."

Once they crested the hill, they could see the gleam of railroad tracks far below. Coming from the east, from Pittsburgh, the tracks wound through a valley between two formidable hills before climbing a long low hill to the west. When the teens arrived at the bottom of the hill where the road crossed the tracks, Raymond said they had eighteen minutes before the train was scheduled to show up.

While Astrid got their luggage off the bike, Raymond walked ahead along the tracks looking for a good place to jump aboard. By the time Astrid had ditched the bike in the high weeds that grew along the edge of the track's ballast, Raymond was walking back toward her with his hands flapping.

"This looks hard."

"It is hard, Raymond. We have to run in what is left of the moonlight along a moving train and, while hanging onto our luggage, somehow grab hold of something, then somehow climb to the top of a car filled with tons of coal, hope the coal doesn't swallow us up like quicksand, and then stay there all the way across Ohio with no water and three slices of bread."

"On television and in movies it looks easy."

"They're usually riding a horse."

"Yes, riding a horse." Raymond looked up and down the track. "We should have a horse."

"Or two."

"Two would be better."

When the coal train passed by, only eight minutes late, the two adventurers watched from the weeds and were amazed and appalled at how immensely large, how deafeningly loud, and how incredibly fast, the train was as it slowly ground its way up the long grade.

After the shock of noise had subsided from their ears, the teens recovered their bike, re-tied their luggage, and began the six mile walk to the Enon Valley station.

They had been walking for less than five minutes when Raymond stopped, turned around, stared at where they had been and said, "Even with two horses it would have been hard."

• • •

They were two miles outside Enon Valley when the passenger train they had hoped to catch hurtled by them. Other than the night-shredding light of the locomotive, the red and green fairy lights on the caboose, and a dull glow from the dining car, where the hungry teens imagined big breakfasts were being prepared, the train was dark.

By the time they stepped onto the wooden planked platform that stretched three hundred feet either side of Enon Valley's small weathered station, the sun was up, Raymond was hobbling badly, and Astrid was desperate for a bathroom. Raymond made a whooshing sound, like a cheap couch cushion, as he sat down on a wood and wrought iron bench bolted to the platform. Astrid made a groan when she tried the door to the station and found it locked. A sign on the door said the station was open from 6:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.

"Raymond, what time is it?"

"Seventeen minutes after six o'clock a.m."

"Where is everybody?"

"Who?"

"Whoever is supposed to be here to open the stupid door." Astrid fought off a nearly unbearable urge to grab her pants and begin hopping up and down. Instead of reverting to something that had been useful as a young child, she walked behind the station, across a small parking lot of cracked asphalt, and into a patch of tall weeds that bordered the lot. By the time she returned, Raymond had a small chessboard set up on the side of his briefcase. As the now calmer girl drew close Raymond barked, "Idiotic move, idiot. Foolish feint, fool." As Raymond moved miniature pieces, which, Astrid realized, were magnetized, she removed her sneakers and socks, knocked the gravel from them, and began to rub her feet.

For more than two years Raymond's challenges and criticisms while playing chess had been background noise to Astrid as she had run her experiments. Now, sitting at the opposite end of the bench, she realized that not only did he have a separate voice when he played black rather than white, the kinds of comments black made were very different from what white said. As Astrid was wondering how Raymond's mind worked, a short, middle-aged man with one untied shoe lace and smelling of beer opened the door, stepped out on the platform, and yawned in a way that reminded Astrid of pictures of stalactites and stalagmites in caves. When she realized that the man must have been inside sleeping rather than doing his job, her anger flared; however, because she was afraid of the consequences if she said something to the man, the teen directed her anger at Raymond.

"Give me your money."

"Why?"

"I'm going to buy tickets."

"To where?"

"To as far as we can go."

"Then what do we do?"

"Just give me your money."

"I'm hungry."

As the adventurers continued to argue about their money and their plans, a mother with two sleepy looking girls, an elderly man dressed in a new suit and holding an ancient suitcase, and a young man dressed in an Army dress uniform and smoking a cigarette walked up into the station and came out minutes later holding tickets.

Hearing the faraway moan of a locomotive, Astrid grabbed Raymond's wrist as it hovered over the chess board, "Give me your money right now." When Raymond started to say something, the girl squeezed harder and in a fierce whisper threatened, "Right now, Raymond, or I'll knock your board onto the track."

"That's cheating."

"Now."

When Astrid came out of the station with two one-way tickets to Crestline, Ohio, she could see the headlight of the approaching train shining even brighter than the the rising sun. Raymond had packed his chess set and, in his eagerness to get on with their adventure, was obliviously close to the edge of the platform. Astrid yanked him back two steps as the train whooshed into the station.

As soon as they were onboard, Astrid began walking through the cars as she considered how to avoid being put off the train in Crestline. She wondered if there was a way to hide in the bathrooms or sleeper berths. She dismissed the bathroom option because she figured it wouldn't be long before someone would be banging on the door.

In the end, staying on the train past Crestline was not a problem. In fact, the two of them could have ridden the train all the way to Chicago if that, rather than Ft. Wayne, had been their destination. By the time Astrid had finished her reconnoiter and returned to where she had left Raymond, he was playing chess with a well-dressed man wearing a wide yellow tie and a blue shirt. It took Astrid a moment to realize that the man had seen Raymond playing with his set, challenged him to a game, and bet a dollar that he would win. At first, Astrid was nervous because they did not have a dollar to spare; however, she began to relax as she saw Raymond play. When Raymond won, the man challenged him to play another game, double or nothing. After the man lost at double or nothing four times, he gave Raymond sixteen dollars. As soon as that man moved down the car shaking his head, another man, with a tan bald head, caterpillar mustache, and brown suspenders holding up green work pants lost three two dollar games. Although she could not be sure, Astrid suspected that both men had kept playing Raymond even after they had lost their first game because of his muttering and murmuring phrases like "Banzai. Idiot. Kill the king. Fool. That was stupid. I've got you now, you idiot."

When an extremely obese man came lurching up the aisle, swaying ominously with the movement of the train, and banging his hips into the backs of the seats as he looked into his wallet, memories long suppressed in Astrid broke free. She smacked Raymond's shoulder, "Pack it up. Let's go eat."

In the dining car both Astrid and Raymond were shocked at how expensive the food was. Trying to conserve Raymond's winnings, each ordered peanut butter sandwiches. While eating hers, Astrid watched Raymond study his. The crusts had not been cut off the bread; the peanut butter was not evenly spread; and the sandwich itself had suffered some kind of trauma, which had left two corners broken and the middle smashed. After making a loud disgusted sigh, Raymond took a tentative bite.

When the train arrived in Crestline, Astrid darted into the ancient station, and using Raymond's twenty-two dollars in winnings bought tickets to Ft. Wayne, and hurried back out. As soon as she shoved open the door of the car where they had been sitting, she saw the huge man she had noticed earlier squeezed in next to Raymond. Fighting off the panic surging through her, she made herself walk up the aisle. In a strange way it was almost a relief to her to see the agitation on Raymond's face. When she got close enough to see the board, which sat precariously on one of the man's pickle barrel-sized thighs, Astrid could see that Raymond was losing. She watched the man's fingers, as big around and short as rolls of half dollars, try to grasp the tiny chess pieces. She listened to his breathing, which reminded her of the coal train grinding its way up the hill west of New Galilee. She smelled the man's sweat, which stunk much worse than the sock which had held Christopher Lenz' baseball card money. She was horrified to hear the man's high-pitched tittering each time he took another of Raymond's pieces. Thoughts of the bloated thing that had chased her in her rheumatic fever dreams and twisted images of the fat policeman in Onabasha who had questioned her over and over about her sister Tippy's death, memories which had surfaced full blown the moment she had seen the man come down the aisle, began to overwhelm her. Astrid fought to slow her ragged breathing as she watched the game progress.

Even before check-mate, Astrid had reached into her pocket and pulled out a rumpled dollar bill; however, as soon as the man's fingers, which were sweating so much they were leaving shiny marks on the chess pieces, lifted Raymond's king, he said, "Again. Double or nothing."

"No."

"Sure. Again. It'll be fun."

"No!"

"Yep, sonny, again."

When Raymond's hands began to flap, Astrid shoved the dollar she had been holding at the man.

"What's this, missy?"

"A dollar. You won."

"Only once, missy. That's a game. We're playing a match."

"He can't."

The man studied Raymond before turning his head back toward Astrid and asking in a falsetto voice, "Can't? Well, just why not, missy?"

"Because he doesn't want to, do you, Raymond?"

The man brought his hand to his mouth, pretended to yawn, and leaned his massive arm into the space between Raymond's shoulder and chin.

"Well, missy, I think you're wrong. I'm pretty sure sonny here wants to keep playing. Isn't that right, sonny?"

Although Raymond's mouth remained still, his hands flapped frantically.

"Sonny, it's impolite not to speak when you're spoken to."

As another titter spurted out of the giant's mouth, Astrid's hand darted forward as fast as a cat grabs a bird. She snatched the chess board, raced down the aisle, pushed through the door, staggered across the bouncing metal platform, yanked open the door to the next car, hurried to the end, and locked herself in the bathroom. The girl stayed in the bathroom. When someone tried the handle, waited, jiggled the handle a second time, then, gave a hard knock, Astrid mumbled, "I'm very sick. I'm sorry, but I'm very sick," before groaning and making a loud retching noise.

Seconds after the conductor called out "Van Wert," Astrid heard a heavy-footed lumbering pass by the bathroom door. While the train slowed, Astrid came out of the bathroom and made her way back through the puzzle of passengers and luggage getting off in Van Wert to where she had left Raymond.

Her partner was scrunched up against the window as if the fat man were still sitting next to him.

"Here's your set, Raymond."

"Where were you?"

"Hiding in the bathroom."

"I hope there are not fat, smelly people where we are going."

"Me, too. Because of that horrible high voice and even more horrible laugh, I kept thinking that an evil dwarf was going to jump out of his fat body. That he was a puppet."

"He was a very large puppet."

"You're a genius, Raymond."

"I can still smell him."

Raymond's hands began to flap. To distract him, Astrid asked, "Raymond, what should we call where we are going?"

"There."

"Just There? Nothing more?"

"Astrid, we can't call it anything other than There. We don't know anything about it. It must already have a name so anything we call it would be wrong. We will have to wait until we get to There to find out its real name. Or, if the beings of There don't name things, we will have to see what happens and then name it. Like Indians do."

"Raymond, do you know what your name means?"

"No. It's just my name."

"I wanted to know what kind of name Samara was. Remember in the Bible, there is a good Samaritan."

"I don't know anything about the Bible."

"Samara means guarded by God. Your name means ... Oh, god. Here comes the evil puppet."

Astrid had barely finished saying "puppet" when Raymond's hands began flailing wildly. He started making a series of short groans as if he had a bad stomach ache.

"Don't look at him. Don't say anything." Astrid slid right next to Raymond and looked out the window.

"Don't do anything until I say so."

Astrid stared out the window at the approaching curve and estimated the number of power poles that ran along the side of the track. An instant later she scooted back over to be as close to the aisle as possible. She braced her left foot against the back of the chair in front of her as she counted to herself. Despite the juddering of the couplings as the train hurtled along at sixty miles an hour, the teen was sure she could feel a trembling in the rail car as the fat man made his way toward them. Even as he put his hands on the seat backs just in front of theirs to steady himself, Astrid continued counting.

"Well, lookee here. It's my Jim dandy friends Sonny and Missy. I've missed seeing the two of you together sharing the joys of adventures ... of which I am one."

"Leave us alone. Go away."

"My, my, Missy. What an impolite thing to say. Where I come from, children who are impolite are punished."

"Well, where I come from, people who are as fat and stink as much as you stink are teased, taunted and laughed at. Why don't you go back to your pen and eat another trough full of slops. Gross."

When the man just smiled, Astrid started to panic. There wasn't much time left.

"Missy, I'll have to think up a special punishment just for you."

When the man leaned forward, Astrid turned her head aside and darted a look out the window.

"You touch me and I'll start screaming."

"Your screaming just might turn to bawling awful quick and I just might start laughing."

"I'd rather be bawling than laughing like you with that high-pitched titter you make."

Once again Astrid's eyes darted toward the window. She saw the car just behind the locomotive shimmy as the engineer applied the brakes as he approached the sweeping curve.

"That's quite a mouth, Missy."

"You act like a queer. A fat, gross queer."

At the word "queer" the man's hands came off the chair backs. As he reached for Astrid she stomped on his foot as hard as she could. Just as the man leaned forward toward the unexpected pain, the train suddenly decelerated and he was thrown forward. He tried to break his fall by grabbing for the seat arms on either side of the aisle; however his attempt to recover himself was too late. He crashed to the floor. Immediately, Astrid was balancing on the backs of the man's mammoth thighs as she reached into the overhead rack for their luggage. Even as she was handing his briefcase to Raymond, she was thinking how walking on the man felt like walking on a soggy mattress.

"C'mon, Raymond. Move it!"

As she grabbed for the door-handle at the far end of the car, Astrid heard swearing mixed up in a groan. When she turned back, she could see the fat man flailing his arms as he tried to get himself off the floor. Given how enormous he was, how narrow the aisle was, and how the rail car was rocking back and forth as it slowed, she thought that it might be awhile before he would be able to get himself back on his feet.

Taking no chances, Astrid led Raymond through the next two cars. The third car was almost half full. She walked down the aisle until she came to an empty row that had occupied seats both in front and in back of it.

"Go on, Raymond. Take the window seat."

"Why are we stopping here?"

"He won't bother us in here. Too many people."

Just in case she was wrong, Astrid slid her suitcase into the row and propped her feet on top. If the man appeared in the doorway, they could be on their way in a second.

Minutes after they had settled in their new seats Raymond asked, "Why did you make him so mad?"

"So he would get so angry he would take his hands off the seat and grab for me."

"What do you mean?"

"When I looked out the window, I saw we were coming to a curve. I estimated the poles and counted how long it took for our car to pass from one pole to another. Then, I guessed how long it would be before the engineer would begin to brake. He was so smirky I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make him reach out to grab me. Fat and gross wasn't enough. Making fun of his laugh was. As soon as I felt the train slow, I stomped his foot and let physics take over."

"Physics?'

"Momentum."

Raymond turned his gaze from the window to his hands, which were resting calmly in his lap.

"You should play chess, Astrid."

"I have been, Raymond, ever since getting into Bruer's office."

• • •

When Astrid and Raymond disembarked at Ft. Wayne's Baker Street Station they were relieved that there was no sight of the fat man. After the ticket-master told them it would be just about a two-hour wait before they could board a passenger train for Onabasha, Astrid asked where there was a cheap place to eat.

"Just cheap, or do you want good and cheap?"

Astrid considered before saying, "Good and cheap and close."

The ticket-master, a tall thin man with narrow silver sideburns that reminded Astrid of short lengths of railroad track, gave them directions to a place that had been serving Coney Island hotdogs for fifty years.

Although both teens were ravenous, they remained outside the restaurant staring through a large plate glass window at dozens of hotdogs rotating on a shiny metal grill.

"I want that one on the right side, the fourth row in. See how it's a little browner?"

"Just one, Raymond?"

"And, two rows over and one down. I want that one, too."

An unbidden thought of Tippy, before she got sick, standing in front of the Petite Pet Shop on Market Street and picking a favorite from among a large litter of Cocker Spaniel puppies tumbling around behind the window surged into Astrid's mind. A second later she was giving a violent jerk to the restaurant's door.

After each had consumed two hotdogs, a bag of chips, and a bottle of Coke, Astrid and Raymond felt greatly revived.

"Now, all we need is a nap."

"Once we get to Onabasha, Raymond."

As they approached the brick grandeur of the Baker Street station both teens kept watch for any sign of the fat man. It wasn't until they were just about to board the Wabash Cannonball along with two dozen other riders that Astrid felt the hair on her neck rise. When she whipped her head around, she thought she saw four short fat fingers snap back from the sill of a large station house window. Because she wasn't sure what she had seen, if anything, she followed Raymond up the steps into the faded luxury of the train without saying anything to him. Five minutes later, if she had had a change of heart and yelled at Raymond, "I saw Fatman," he would have heard nothing, so deeply was he asleep.

As Raymond slept, Astrid thought about Fatman. She tried to recall the face of the policeman who had questioned her after Tippy's death. She had hardly ever looked him in the face. She had been too frightened. Was it possible that the man on the train was the same person, just six years older and even fatter? Probably not. The hair on the policeman's hand was orange. Fatman's hair was brown. Given how he beat Raymond at chess and how interested he was in them, could Fatman be some kind of dizzy? Someone who had left Peltdown years before. Someone Dr. Bruer had sent to find them. While those things didn't seem possible, Astrid wasn't able to dismiss the idea that there was some connection between Fatman and them and that whatever that connection was, it was not a good thing for them.

Astrid was relieved to put aside her worries when the train slowed coming around a curve on the outskirts of Onabasha. She rousted Raymond by shaking his knee.

"We're almost there."

Raymond's eyes shot open and he jerked his head toward the window. Within the space of five minutes the scenery changed from small stands of trees mixed with neat fields of corn and soybeans, to the dark hulks of factories with parking lots filled with cars, to the small back yards of small houses. As the train made a final screech before it stopped, the window Astrid was looking out slid past neatly stacked piles of lumber.

In a moment that surprised Astrid as much as it did Raymond she grabbed his wrist as she blurted, "That's Millnerson's Lumber Yard. They let us take scraps to make swords and shields and spears and doors for dungeons."

"I don't like killing."

"Except kings, queens, rooks and knights and armies of pawns. Grab your briefcase, Raymond."

As she stepped off the small metal step, which the conductor had put down to make it easier to go from the train to the platform, Astrid blinked back a gush of unannounced tears. Thoughts of holding Tippy's hand before she had polio as they raced across the tracks after the warning signals began flashing erupted from deep within her memory. She wanted to race into the station, drop a penny in the gum machine slot, slide the lever over to the spearmint column, push the lever down, and snatch up her purchase.

While walking down Hillside Avenue, what had been going on inside Astrid became more of an unnamable ache than anything that could be called thinking. Old memories were stirred. Three bricks from the Ridley's low retaining wall were still missing. The Schultz' Pomeranian, which had yapped at Astrid each and every time she had passed in front of the large bow window where it kept watch, had not changed its behavior.

"I don't like dogs that bark."

"That is wise, Raymond. How do you feel about dogs that growl or snarl?"

"I would prefer they bark."

As soon as she turned the corner onto Main Street, Astrid looked down the block to her old house, which was the next-to-last house on the opposite side of the street. It took her a moment to realize the red and white thing at the top of the steps was a small red bicycle with white trainer wheels. After a moment of wondering who in the neighborhood would have left a bicycle in her yard, the realization that it wasn't her yard and hadn't been her yard for six years hit her so hard she had to sit down on the Lackwilder's cobblestone wall. She closed her eyes and surrendered to her past....

"See how beautiful the Lady of All Women is?"

Samara moved the picture book of ancient Egypt so that her nine-year old twins, Frances and Astrid, who were sitting on either side of her, could see.

"Don't you think you look like her?"

Frances was quick to nod that, indeed, she looked like the woman. Astrid just stared at the picture of the famous limestone and painted stucco bust of Nefertiti excavated in el-Amarna in 1912.

"See those beautiful, full lips? Those are the same lips I kiss goodnight. And that perfectly straight nose? How many times have I nuzzled a nose like that? Big, almond-shaped eyes? Oh, I think I've seen eyes like those before. Let me think, let me think. Oh, yes, now I remember. Look at her beautiful blue headdress. Anytime I see that color of blue I always think of Nefertiti. If we could find headdresses just like that, tapered and that blue, you two would look just like her."

Samara dropped the book into her lap and wrapped an arm around each of her daughters.

"My beautiful daughters, Nefertiti was famous for her beauty, but she was much more than her beauty. She was married to the pharaoh Akhenaten and together they built el-Amarna, a beautiful city along the Nile River. The same city where your dad and I were digging this summer when you went to stay with Doc and Delia. Akhenaten was the pharaoh and Nefertiti was his queen until something happened, no one is quite sure what, that suddenly greatly increased Nefertiti's power. She became equal to her husband and, after he died, she became the pharaoh."

Astrid, the younger sister by twenty-seven minutes, reached out and touched the picture as she was asked, "This statue was buried for three thousand years?"

"Yes, it was. Can you imagine, if something as beautiful as this was buried and forgotten for that many years, what else might be buried? What else might be forgotten? Sometimes the past isn't gone. It's just lost. It's wondering about those things and events and ideas that have been lost or forgotten that make your dad and I leave our beautiful daughters every other summer to go to Egypt with our little shovels and brushes."

Frances asked, "Did you and Dad find anything really special this summer?"

Samara was quiet for so long that Astrid reached into her mother's lap to turn the page to a picture of King Tut.

"After Nefertiti died, there was a boy," Samara's finger flicked the picture, "this boy who became pharaoh when he was your age. Nine. Can you imagine you two being in charge of a country?"

Without hesitation Frances shrieked, "I can!" The dark-haired, dark-skinned girl jumped up from the couch and raced toward a large, black, long-legged cat that was sleeping on the window seat that overlooked the backyard. "Bow down and worship me, slave."

The cat's response to the girl's command was to stand and arch its back in a slow stretch before jumping off the window seat and slowly padding out of the living room. Huffing in aggravation at the cat's disobedience, Frances raced back to the couch and plopped down next to her sister.

"The reason you dad isn't here is because he is in Chicago at the university with two of the other archeologists we worked with cataloguing what we found. He'll be home tomorrow night."

Both girls clapped their hands.

Samara hesitated before deciding to say what she had been delaying saying, "I know I've only been home for three days, but I have to go away tomorrow morning."

"No! No! You just got home, Mom!"

As often happened, the same words came out of the twins' mouths at the same time. Even though they were upset at their mother's news, they laughed, as they often did when one duplicated the other's thoughts or words.

"I won't be gone long. It's just something I have to do before the semester starts. Your dad is looking forward to being with you. He said he wanted to get the canoe out and take you to Silver Lake. You'll be so busy with him you won't have time to miss me."

Samara reached an arm out to encircle her daughters.

"It's getting late. Go brush your teeth and get ready for bed. I'll be up in a little bit."

Hearing the twins' bare feet racing across the upstairs' hallway, Samara flipped back to the picture of Nefertiti. After a long look at her ancestor, she closed the book and slipped it back onto the bookshelf alongside dozens of books about ancient Egypt. She massaged her forehead as she walked to the corner cupboard, which mostly held china figurines collected by her husband's late mother. Stretching out a hand she reached over the railing that decorated the top of the curio cabinet and retrieved a camel-skin bag small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. She loosened the drawstrings and eased a large blue crystal onto her other hand. The crystal was a semicircle nearly three inches across at its diameter. On the arc side of the crystal there were seven deep notches. When Samara held it toward the light, the interior appeared to be molten. When she shook it, the liquid sluggishly moved from side to side in a way that reminded her of honey.

Samara stared at the crystal for several minutes as she considered whether she should take it with her or leave it behind. Finding what had been lost for two millennia would bring hope to those who long had been hopeless. But, hope also meant the possibility of change and where she was going almost all change was perceived either as a threat or a sacrilege.

Samara dropped the crystal in the bag and returned it to its hiding place. She would go to Amarna and reveal to the Tjati that she had not one, as they thought, but two daughters. Twin muta daughters, and that both of them showed promise, and with Astrid, more promise than any mutas she had given life to over the last three hundred years. Depending upon the council's response she would tell them that after all the centuries of looking, she had finally found the Mother Lapis. Depending upon the Tjatis willingness to accept and welcome both of her daughters, she would return with the Mother Lapis. However, if the birth of Astrid was proclaimed by the Tjati or the high priest Anubis to be a sacrilege, then she would keep her discovery from them. She would return to Earth and seek counsel with those mutas who had chosen to stay on Earth rather than live on Kemet.

The mother slowly climbed the stairs to say goodnight to her daughters. As always, Astrid's door was closed. The latch clicked as she turned the smooth glass knob. She was surprised the bedside light wasn't on. With the hall light shining behind her, she brought a shadow with her when she entered.

When her mother bent over the bed, Astrid murmured, "I'm awake." Samara touched her lips to her daughter's warm, moist forehead. "Of course, you are. You are an amazement. Do you ever give that quick mind of yours a rest?"

"Daddy calls me a dunderhead on the mornings when start to run out the door without tying my shoes."

Samara brushed damp, thick, dark hair from Astrid's' cheek as she considered how to say the words that must be said.

"I love you, Astrid. I tell you that every day. But, tonight I want to tell you that I love you more than any day that has come before."

A small, hot hand gripped Samara's wrist. "Don't go, Mommy." Samara's hand reached out and encircled Astrid's wrist.

"I feel the same way, my darling. I don't want to go, but I have to go. At least, my body has to go."

Samara lifted her hand in the shadows.

"This hand has to go, but my love will stay here in this room, and in a few days, my body will be back in this room planting someone's beautiful face with a whole garden of kisses."

Samara leaned forward to kiss her daughter's high forehead, her slender, aquiline nose, her smooth cheeks, and chin.

"While I'm gone, hold tight to thoughts of how much I love you. Keep that ever-bright brain of your busy. Look out for your dad. Make sure his socks match and his buttons are buttoned. And remember Nefertiti."

In a voice that was strained because she was on the verge of sobbing, Samara said, "While I'm gone, keep yourself safe. Try to keep from jumping out of The Fort's windows or crashing down the Iron Steps on a piece of cardboard.

"Give me your best hug, my lovely daughter."

By the time the hug was over the cheeks of both mother and daughter were wet.

.... "Raymond, the next part of our adventure is a little tricky. See the house down the block where the bicycle is? That's where I lived and that's where we have to be at eleven o'clock tomorrow."

"Eleven o'clock a.m.?"

"Excellent conclusion, Raymond."

"That was not a conclusion. That was a question."

"Do you remember my telling you that I was in my bathing suit lying on a towel when the crystal fell from There?"

"Yes."

"That's the a.m. clue, Raymond."

As they approached the house, which was sited fifty feet back and six steps up from the sidewalk, the teens slowed their steps. In addition to the bicycle, there was a small banged-up wagon half-shoved into the left side of the hedges that grew on both sides of the front door. Astrid heard voices, but she thought they were wafting up from the bottom of Connor Hill rather than coming from the house itself.

They moved down the sidewalk until they were standing by the driveway. Although no one seemed to be about, Astrid restrained herself to jerking her chin to the large gray structure at the end of the driveway, and murmuring, "That's The Fort."

"Is that where we are staying? Does it have bugs? I don't like bugs."

"More or less than barking dogs?"

Raymond dropped his briefcase and stood stock still. After a half minute he concluded, "I like big bugs less than I like small barking ... but not biting ... dogs."

Astrid reached down, picked up Raymond's briefcase and handed it back to him. "Noted, Raymond, and understood. That information will be factored into the master plan."

Not knowing what else to do, Astrid led Raymond to the end of the block, crossed the intersection, and walked past the first four houses before ascending three steps onto the gloomy porch of the fifth. She rang the doorbell and waited for Debbie, Debbie's mother, or her whiny little brother Cryin' Bryan, to appear. Instead of any of the Pollums, a boy Astrid didn't know, a boy she guessed might be about her own age, a boy with a patch of ripening pimples on his nose and heavy black eyebrows anchoring his forehead came to the screen and stared.

"Hi, is Debbie home?"

"Who's Debbie?"

"Debbie Pollum."

"Not here."

"She used to live here."

"Not anymore."

The boy turned back toward the deeper shadows of the hallway.

"What about Pill?" Jerking her thumb toward a small, green bungalow across the street and two doors down, Astrid asked, "Does Pill still live over there?"

"Who's Pill?"

"Phil Buckley."

"That guy? Yeah."

The boy disappeared into the gloom.

When Astrid had left Onabasha six years before, Pill Buckley might have been an inch taller and five pounds heavier than she was. The Ringo-mop haired young man staring at her through the screen was at least six inches taller and probably outweighed her by fifty pounds.

"Pill?"

The boy cocked his head as if he were listening for an echo.

"Pill, it's me, Astrid. Wow, do you look different."

The boy's face broke into a smile as he pushed the door aside and stepped out onto the covered porch stoop. He took a few seconds to stare at Astrid's face before letting his gaze slide down to her chest and hover, before continuing down to the rest of her changed body.

"Nasty Asty. Wow . You sure do look different. Where have you been? What have you been doing ... except growing? What are you doing here?"

In a booming voice, Raymond said, "I'm Raymond Bierstow. We are here to go to There."

Astrid felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

"This is Raymond. We go to the same school. We ... we ... decided to do some traveling, see some country, before the semester starts."

Pill smirked as he lazily said, "We're a big tourist attraction, Nasty. People come from all over to see the sights of Onabasha."

Even to herself, Astrid's laugh sounded nervous.

"Who lives in my old house?"

"Two teachers and their kids. The Orstwalts sold it about three years ago."

"Do the kids use The Fort?"

Pill shrugged his shoulders, "Why? Are you looking for a war?"

Raymond's arms shot up in defense, "I don't like guns."

Pill studied Raymond for a minute before asking Astrid, "Can I talk with you for a minute? Alone."

"Raymond, wait here."

"I don't like guns."

"Maybe play some chess." Pointing to a large white wicker rocker, Astrid suggested, "Use that chair."

"It rocks."

"It's better than Fatman's knee."

Astrid followed Pill into the once familiar living room. The green scratchy sofa, which had dominated the room, seemed smaller when measured against a new blonde console television.

"Who stepped out of The Twilight Zone?"

Astrid waffled between telling a long story or a short lie.

"He's a little goofy. He was in a car wreck. When I told him I had to get away from my dad, he wanted to come and I couldn't say no."

Pill stared at Astrid. At first she thought he was considering whether to believe her, but, then, she realized that his eyes had dropped from her eyes down to her mouth before his gaze had dropped even further.

"You hungry, Nasty?"

"Starving."

"Let's go to The Kettle."

"What's The Kettle?"

"The place to go. It's a couple of years old. Out past the high school on old 24."

"That's a long way."

Pill reached in his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife that had a key attached to it.

"Red Rover. She's out back."

Pill turned to walk toward the back of the house.

"I'll go get Raymond."

"Not needed."

"I can't ditch him."

Pill hunched his shoulder in theatrical disinterest as he disappeared into the kitchen's gloom.

Astrid led Raymond around the back corner of the house as he grumbled that he had been on the verge of destroying the idiot he had been playing. Pill was standing by the driver's door of a fire engine red car with a gleaming white roof and rear quarter panels.

"Wow! What's this?"

"Fifty-six Bel Air. Cherry."

Astrid was surprised when Pill told Raymond to climb in front with the two of them until she felt Pill's thigh push against hers. On her other side, Raymond managed to squeeze himself close enough to the Chevy's door so that he wasn't touching her.

When Pill turned the key, the motor made a low rumbling sound that made Astrid think of a giant clearing his throat. Pill slowly backed out of the double dirt track where the car was parked alongside a sagging one car garage from which most of the green paint had peeled. As soon as all four of the car's wheels were in the alley, he revved the engine and popped the clutch. The car fishtailed and Astrid heard gravel hit the garage.

Raymond's left arm shot out to brace himself against the dashboard. "I don't like car wrecks."

"Red Rover's too cool to wreck."

While she devoured a deluxe cheeseburger, something called a Humdinger, onion rings and a lemonade, Astrid studied the faces behind the windshields of the cars facing them on the other side of the concrete divider where the carhops walked. The passage of six years, six years involving puberty, plus the distortion from the glass and the glare from the late afternoon sun made it difficult for her to decide if she recognized anyone.

"In the black car over there, is that Peggy Briston?"

Pill laughed, "Peggy Briston weighs about eight hundred pounds. That's Susan Lakely."

"Who's Susan Lakely?"

"She came a couple of years ago. Her dad's some kind of manager at the tire plant. She's a tease."

Feeling better from being fed, being in her old hometown, and safer than she had felt for a couple of weeks emboldened Astrid to bang her fist against the steering wheel as she yelped, "Aren't you and Red Rover irresistible?'

"Red Rover is, and I'm getting there."

Astrid tapped an intrepid finger against Pill's thigh, "I can tell."

Pill pushed his thigh tighter against Astrid's leg. She pushed back.

Raymond boomed, "I don't like squirmy people!"

Astrid had almost forgotten that Raymond was sitting next to her.

"How was your burger, Raymond?"

"Not good. They put the pickle on the same side as the ketchup even though I told them not to."

"But it looks like you ate all of it."

"I moved the pickles where they should go, but then I got ketchup on my fingers. See?"

"Wipe it on your napkin."

"My napkin is messy."

"Then, lick it off."

"Fingers should not be licked. They are dirty."

Before she had a chance to stop him, Pill pulled Astrid's hand to his mouth and licked the tips of her fingers.

Astrid yanked her hand back. "Jesus, Pill, what are you doing?"

"What I always do ... the things I'm not supposed to do. Like licking someone's dirty fingers."

When Astrid turned to look at Raymond, his ketchup sticky hands were holding tight to his knees.

Feeling sorry for Raymond, Astrid said, "Let's get out of here."

"Where to?"

"Skinders."

"What for?"

"To buy something."

In the ten minutes it took for Pill to drive from The Kettle to Skinders Hardware on the southwest edge of Onabasha's small downtown, Astrid's eyes flicked back and forth from familiar houses, churches, and businesses, to four shiny wet fingertips. When Pill started to park in front of a weathered wooden building with two large dirt-streaked windows filled with a haphazard display of hand tools, paint brushes, and canning equipment, she said, "Don't park. We'll jump out and catch you later."

"Where?"

"Your house."

"When."

"I don't know. Later."

Pill's face turned stony. "Later. Like six years later?"

"Jump out, Raymond."

"I don't like to jump."

Astrid pushed her knee against Raymond's leg. "Get out. Now."

Raymond got out. Astrid followed. Red Rover peeled away before she had time to close the door. For a moment, Astrid worried about Pill being angry. She might need his help, but she dismissed that worry when she thought of how he had pressed his leg against hers. If she did need Pill, she thought she had a good chance of getting him to do whatever she wanted him to do.

Mr. Skinder was a pasty-faced man with red-rimmed eyes, tobacco-stained fingers, and coffee-stained teeth. While he was busy cutting a piece of rope for the only other person in the store, Astrid stole a flashlight and four batteries. After the rope buyer left, the proprietor asked, "What for you?"

On the drive from The Kettle Astrid had thought of what she might need if the stones in The Fort's wall where the crystal was hidden had shifted.

"Can I see your chisels?"

Mr. Skinder's hand started pointing the way before he said, "Next aisle, about a third of the way down on the left side. That's the wood chisels. Cold chisels are at the end on the other side. By the crowbars and sledge hammers."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference? You use a wood chisel on wood and a cold chisel on everything else."

As Astrid walked deeper into the store, Raymond considered Mr. Skinder's words then asked, "Does everything else, everything that is not wood, have to be cold?"

The owner studied Raymond. "Don't start, kid."

"Don't start what?"

Raising a nicotine-stained index finger, Mr. Skinder cautioned, "Anything."

Coming out of Skinders holding a paper bag containing a cold chisel with a one-inch edge, Astrid looked both ways before turning right.

"You're walking funny."

"It's temporary, Raymond."

Half-way down the next block, Astrid ducked into an alleyway and walked another twenty feet.

"Why are we stopping here?"

"So I can fix my walking."

The teen lifted her shirt and pulled a metal-cased flashlight from where it was tucked in her waistband of her jeans. She reached deeper and removed four batteries. After putting those items into the bag, she snaked a hand behind her back and retrieved an awl from a back pocket.

"That was the scary one. When I walked I could feel it poking my butt."

In amazement, Raymond pointed at the shiny tip of the awl. "That touched your ...."

"Think about something else, Raymond."

"Like what?"

"A fatman playing chess."

"No. I don't want to think about that. I will think about There."

"Have fun."

As they walked through Onabasha's business district, where owners were beginning to roll up awnings and close their stores, Astrid replayed the tingle in her arms as she had shoplifted the flashlight, batteries, and awl. She had had the same sensation when she was going through Mr. B.'s desk and when she had stolen Lenz's money. It was not exactly a pleasurable feeling, not like feeling Pill's thigh against her own, but it had the same result. It made her feel very much alive.

At the east end of downtown, the teens came to the Folson factory, a four-story limestone building built into the side of the west end of Connor Hill. A flight of metal steps, Astrid remembered there were eight-seven of them, climbed the hill alongside the factory. Standing at the bottom she remembered walking up the steps in winter and looking through grimy steamed-up windows into the different floors of the factory. In the summer the factory's barn-like doors would be open and she would see the flame of welders and hear the grinding of metal. Coming down the stairs there had been no time to pay attention to what was going on inside the factory. Her attention would be riveted on staying alive. Although there had been a red and black metal sign at the top of the steps that commanded, "Do Not Slide Down the Hand Rail," Astrid and Tippy, and Pill and Debbie, as well as just about every other kid in the neighborhood, and even some of their parents had hurtled down the railing scores of times.

As soon as she touched the round metal railing, as warm and smooth as in her memories, the teen felt tears well in her eyes. Without turning around she said, "I can hear what you are thinking, Raymond. Stop. Just stop thinking and start counting. Take one step at a time and count to eighty-seven. Once you do that I'll be happy to listen while you tell me how much you hate climbing stairs."

"I don't like stairs."

"I know, Raymond. Believe me, I know. Start counting."

Before the teens reached the halfway point, Raymond was panting and Astrid was wishing the person making huffing noises next to her was Pill rather than the fear-filled boy she had been traveling with for the last day.

"Sit down, Raymond. Catch your breath."

After watching Raymond study the rough, rusted edge of the steel step, Astrid bent over and brushed it with her hand.

"It's okay."

As she listened to Raymond's breathing grow less ragged, Astrid tried to decide what they should do. They had eighteen hours to kill before they had to be in her old back yard. From their time in Red Rover, she was sure that Pill would be happy if she showed up on his doorstep again; although she wasn't sure his parents would feel the same way. In addition, it was hard to imagine anyone in the Buckley family welcoming Raymond with open arms. She wondered how late the kids who lived in her old house were allowed to play outside. She guessed that it might be possible for her and Raymond to sneak into The Fort after it got dark and the kids were inside for the night. She pondered how she might get Raymond to sleep on an splintery wooden floor.

"Raymond, it won't be dark for a couple of more hours. Do you want to sit here, walk around some more, or go to a park that's about six blocks from here?"

"I want to play chess ... or take a long nap."

"You keep surprising me. Let's save the nap. Where do you want to play chess?"

"I want to play chess on a table. I do not like to play chess on steps, or railroad benches, or a rocking chair, or on Fatman's knee."

"So much to endure, Raymond. What kind of tables do you imagine are in There?"

"Will they play chess in There?"

That question caught Astrid short.

"Let's go find a table in the park."

Astrid reached down to tap Raymond's shoulder, "C'mon, more steps to conquer."

As the teens walked east toward Hanna Park, their shadows preceded them. While Astrid studied the long dark ghost that began at her feet and stretched out twenty feet in front of her, she asked herself just what she thought she was doing. Why was she wandering around in her old hometown? Why did she think that by standing in her old back yard late the following morning holding a blue crystal that, somehow, she was going to be transported? And, where did she think she was going to be transported to? And, if there was another world, a There, why did she want to go there? Did she really believe that she would find her mother there? And, if she did, why would she think it would be any better after she had told her mother what had happened to Tippy? Would telling her mother make her memories go away? Time hadn't. Wouldn't her life always be miserable? Wouldn't Tippy still be dead? Could it possibly be any less miserable somewhere else? How would There be better than the life she had here?

As the sun continued its fall, Astrid's shadow grew even longer, but its edges weren't as clear. Her shadow was fading into the night, becoming ever more ghostly.

Hanna Park, which was only one block square, contained two sets of three swings, a sliding board, a drinking fountain, two picnic tables, and four girls, who Astrid guessed might be ten, sharing two Hula Hoops. After Astrid brushed away leaves and crumbs from one of the picnic tables, Raymond set up his small chess board. She drifted over to the swings. At first, she did little more than use her feet to back herself up, tuck her legs under the swing, and coast forward. As she went back and forth, she continued trying to sort out her thoughts. It was not until she whispered "Samara" that some of the questions she had been asking herself were answered. She was going to There to find Samara. She was going to find her mother. Even though her mother had abandoned her, even though her mother might not want to see her, she needed to tell her everything that had happened, especially what had happened to Tippy.

A moment later Astrid was swinging so high the chains made a chunking sound as the swing transitioned from soaring up to hurtling down. The teen closed her eyes and pumped. She had an urge to let go, to jump when the swing was at its apex. She would let go, fly through the air, land in a better place, a different life. A life where Tippy was alive, her mother kissed her hair, her father called her Starlight.

The teen's reverie was broken when she heard Raymond yell, "I'm not talking to myself!"

Opening her eyes, Astrid saw that three of the four girls were hovering near where Raymond was sitting. One of the girls was keeping her hoop moving around her hips. A second girl was flipping her hoop back and forth over her head so that it alternated between hitting her shins and her calves. The third girl, who was the tallest and who had a very serious look on her freckled face, was standing right next to Raymond.

"Go away!"

"Why are you talking to yourself? Are you a crazy person? Crazy people talk to themselves."

"I'm not crazy and I'm not talking to myself. I'm talking to my opponent. Go away! Leave me alone!"

When Raymond raised his hand, the tall girl jumped back. Once she was at a safe distance she yelled, "Crazy people talk to themselves. Even crazier people talk to people who aren't even there." In a singsong voice she began. "Crazy, crazy, crazy as a loon. He yells at a ghost and barks at the moon." As the quartet hurried from the park all of them began chanting, "Crazy, crazy, crazy as a loon ...."

After the girls left Astrid went back to swinging and thinking about Samara while Raymond continued to taunt his opponent until the sun went down and the black chessmen disappeared into the shadows.

Finally, Astrid jumped off the swing, "Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Pill's house."

"Pill is a squirmy boy."

"Science has proved that most teenage boys are squirmy."

"I'm not squirmy."

"You definitely are not like most teenage boys, Raymond."

In a voice that was so quiet Astrid could barely make out his words, Raymond said, "I know."

As they approached Pill's house walking along a faintly lighted sidewalk whose cracks were filled with weeds and pioneering tufts of grass, Astrid could see the flicker of a television screen through the Buckley's drawn curtains and hear tinny voices interrupted by hysterical laughter. Suddenly, Raymond stood still.

"Are you going to make me sit in the chair that rocks while you go inside and do squirmy things?"

Astrid laughed in embarrassment. She had been asking herself the very same question although in somewhat different words. She grabbed Raymond's shoulder.

"Hold on a minute. Let me think."

As she thought of what might happen if she could park Raymond for a couple of hours on the Buckley's scratchy couch and go somewhere with Pill in Red Rover, Astrid's gaze drifted down the block to the intersection where a swarm of moths were rioting under the street light. She considered that if Pill's parents were home, and they probably were, what they would think if she were to ditch Raymond and go off with their son. Astrid's eyes moved past the intersection to where she could barely make out the entrance of the driveway to her old house. As she considered possibilities, she noticed a shadow separate itself from the bushes that bordered the driveway and angle across Main Street toward the intersection. The shadow waddled. In a split second Astrid realized that if she were to wait a few more seconds the shadow would be in the intersection and she would see yellow light from the street lamp bouncing off a bulbous head.

Astrid gently squeezed Raymond's arm. When he turned to look at her she pointed and whispered, "Ssshh. It's Fatman. We have to go. Ssshhh."

"I don't ...."

"Ssshh."

Astrid tugged on Raymond's sleeve to pull him off the sidewalk and onto the grass. She continued pulling until they were hidden by a bush.

"Stay here. Don't move."

Astrid skirted along the hedge that ran in front of the Buckleys' neighbor's porch, darted across open space, crept up to Pill's porch, and tiptoed onto the steps. She panicked when her suitcase and Raymond's briefcase weren't where she had left them, but throttled her sigh when she spied them tucked away in the corner behind the wicker rocker.

Looking down the street to her right as she snuck off the porch, Astrid saw that the shadow had crossed the intersection of Main and Fisher Streets and was making its penguin walking way along the Nephersons' hedge, three houses away from Pill's house. The teen hunched over and scuttled back to where Raymond was waiting.

"I don't like ...."

"Ssshhuutt up," she hissed as she thrust the briefcase into his hand.

Astrid grabbed Raymond's arm and began tugging him deeper into the shadows. As they passed into the backyard, which was illuminated only by a dull light shining from a room at the back of a house across the alleyway, she slowed down. She didn't want to break a leg tripping over a watering can or decapitate Raymond on a clothesline. As she and Raymond moved deeper into the back yard she was surprised to see that Red Rover wasn't parked alongside the Buckleys' garage. Pill hadn't waited for her. Crossing from the yard to the alleyway, she was even more surprised that with her heart pounding and Fatman close by that she was even thinking about Pill.

Astrid decided to make their escape using the alleyway. She guessed getting away in the dark would be easier and safer by going down the alleyway than by trying to run through people's back yards. However, a major fault in her plan became evident the moment she stepped into the alley and heard the crunch of gravel beneath their shoes. She froze. Just as she pushed Raymond back onto grass, she heard a whistle much louder and closer than she could have imagined possible.

Dum de dum dum. Dum de dum dum duh.

The theme song from _Dragnet._

Astrid grabbed Raymond's hand and ignoring the crunching noises of the gravel and the thudding sounds of suitcase and briefcase banging against their bodies, she yanked her partner down the ill-lit path. She had taken less than ten steps when she felt resistance.

"I don't like running in the dark. It is dangerous."

"So is waiting around for Fatman."

"I don't like ...."

"Shut up and run. Or, stay here and wait for your surprise."

Over the noises they were making in their escape, Astrid heard whistling and thought of the words intoned at the beginning of each show. "The names have been changed to protect the innocent."

• • •

Even after the courthouse clock tolled midnight, Astrid and Raymond stayed hidden behind a yew hedge that separated the side of St. Benedict's from its parking lot. She had chosen the church as their refuge because she thought there would be no one around.

"I'm tired. I don't like staying up late."

Astrid realized they had been awake for over forty hours with only an hour catnap for Raymond on the train from Ft. Wayne. As soon as the idea of being awake that long entered her consciousness, she had an overwhelming urge to put her head on her suitcase and fall asleep where she was. So much had happened. Twenty-four hours ago, they had been bicycling down a moonlit road. A little more than twelve hours earlier they had been sneaking aboard a train in Ft. Wayne. Stealing away from Peltdown, rescuing Raymond from his bicycle wreck, escaping Fatman on the train, seeing her old home, being with Pill. It didn't seem possible that all of those things had happened in a little over a day. It made Astrid think of how uneventful her life had been in the six years since she had left Onabasha. Nothing had happened in Ithaca except that she had managed to be ignored by her father, her classmates, and her teachers, ignored by everybody except for Mrs. Sprigley and Doc. She stretched out her legs and reached into her pocket to feel the bag of crystals. Those crystals and the knowledge of how to grow them were just about the only fruits of her last six years.

"Raymond?"

When he didn't answer Astrid looked over and saw that he was asleep. She decided to let him sleep for a few minutes before they left for their next destination—The Fort.

Astrid startled awake when the courthouse clock tolled two o'clock. She looked over to where Raymond was lying on his side with his head pillowed on his arms. He wasn't stirring. She herself was so groggy that it took her several moments to realize that she had been so deeply asleep that she hadn't even heard the bell ring one o'clock. She leaned over and shook Raymond's shoulder.

"Raymond, Raymond, it's time to get up. We have to go. Raymond."

"I want to sleep."

"We have to get to my old house. We'll hide in The Fort until it's time to go to There. As soon as we get to The Fort you can go back to sleep."

"Is there a bed and sheets and a pillow? I don't like sleeping on the ground."

"Not quite. Let's go."

Astrid stood up and swayed as she waited for her body's balancing mechanisms to engage. Once those systems were working, she pulled Raymond to his feet. He, too, wobbled. He reached out and balanced himself against the damp stone of St. Benedict's before lifting a foot and shaking it like a cat which had stepped in snow.

"My legs are tingling."

"Mine, too. It'll go away in a minute."

"It feels like when I would shock myself."

"You used to shock yourself? Why?"

"Sometimes I would get bored with things ... even chess."

"Well, I don't think there will be much chance of being bored anytime soon. Let's go. Fatman is probably somewhere eating a cow or snoring like a train, or tittering like a crazed bird, but, even so, we still should stay in the shadows and be very quiet."

"And listen for whistling. Dum de dum dum whistling."

"Good idea, Raymond."

As they crept carefully along, Astrid thought that Onabasha felt much more threatening at night than it did during the day. Houses that were just old houses in daylight hulked at night. Clumps of flowers waving in the breeze during the day were lurking enemies at night. A day's roar of cars and lawnmowers, or the shouts and screams of kids, were much more innocuous than the creaks and scurrying sounds she heard as they made their way down Hillside toward Main Street.

When they were a half block away from the house, Astrid nudged Raymond toward the skeleton of a large elm tree on the tree-lawn in front of the Paiges' home.

"I'll go take a look. If you see Fatman, run away." She put her suitcase down. "And don't worry about this. Just run."

"I don't like being afraid."

"Neither do I, Raymond, except on roller coasters and in movie theaters."

"I don't like roller coasters."

"Well, we've been on one lately."

"When?"

"To be continued."

"When?"

Hugging the edge of hedges and darting from tree to tree, Astrid moved down Main Street until she was right across the street from the driveway that led to The Fort. Although there was a sliver of moon, The Fort itself was almost invisible. She guessed that the boughs of the ancient mulberry tree next to the old barn were blocking the moonlight. Astrid held her breath to listen and opened her eyes wide. She slowly turned her head and reconnoitered from the low wall that bordered the small yard of Gilead's Mortuary on the corner of her side of the street, to the Jamisons' treeless yard that abutted her old home, to the bushes lining both sides of the driveway to The Fort. She studied each shadow in the front yard. Her heart fluttered when she saw something hidden in the bushes to the left of the front door until she remembered the wagon she had seen when they walked by in the afternoon. She continued the slow turning of her head until she was staring back along the way she had come.

Having seen and heard nothing, Astrid started back toward where she had parked Raymond. She stopped when she was about fifty feet away from the tree. She couldn't see Raymond or his shadow. She could make out the outline of her suitcase, but that was it. She edged forward while being careful to stay on the tree lawn and make no noise. She used the giant hulks of two dead elms to hide her approach. After she tiptoed to the trunk of the nearest tree, she held her breath and listened, but she didn't hear anything other than the whoosh of blood in her ears. She tried to carefully look around, but she discovered that her eyes were skittering. Twenty feet ahead was another tree trunk, larger than the one where she was hiding and larger than the one where she had left Raymond, and, she thought, maybe even large enough to hide Fatman. Astrid wished that she hadn't put the awl along with the rope and flashlight into her suitcase. If Fatman was behind the tree and she had the awl she would stab him, stab him over and over and over, until the screams she barely had bottled up just behind her clenched teeth didn't need to break free.

The girl stepped out from where she had been hiding and began creeping toward the lifeless trunk. She had just reached the tree when a hand lunged out and grabbed her arm. What started as a shriek accelerating its way to an even higher pitch turned into a moan, then shuddering and a sudden cloud-burst of tears as Astrid realized that the attacking hand was attached to Raymond's arm.

Raymond whispered, "Ssshhh." The word that exploded back at him from Astrid's mouth was so transformed by sobs and shuddering that what it meant was unintelligible.

After a half minute of sucking gouts of air into her lungs, Astrid hissed in a way that was half spittle and half venom.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm hiding from Fatman and waiting for you."

"You moved. I told you not to move."

"I didn't like that tree."

"Did you hear my scream?"

"Yes, it was very loud and very close. I don't like loud screams."

"I'll bet Fatman does."

Astrid was debating whether to smack Raymond in the face or punch him in the belly when a light came on in an upstairs window of the Paiges' home.

Astrid hurried off to retrieve her suitcase. Twenty seconds later she stomped past Raymond.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

Despite knowing that if Fatman was close by he would have heard her shriek and despite feeling that her ankle, knee and hip joints were close to failure, Astrid stepped off the curb and began a gangly walk down the middle of Main Street toward The Fort.

It wasn't until she was standing in the pitch black in front of The Fort's sliding door that any notion of caution returned to the angry, exhausted teen. In a way that reminded her of a rabbit, she pricked up her ears and twitched her nose. Fatman's breathing had been so raspy and loud when he played chess with Raymond, she was sure she would hear him if he were close by. His smell was so strong, a mix of lemon and musty socks and old scrambled eggs and lots of sweat, she was sure that, even if he were to hold his breath, she would smell him ... unless he was on the other side of the door she was about to roll open.

The Fort's door was massive and the wheels that moved it along its track were ancient and rust-pitted. When she was little Astrid had had to grab the handle and push a foot against the door's frame to get it moving. Back then, once the door was opened eight inches, she would slide sideways into the gap, brace herself against the frame, and use both arms and knees to force a bigger opening. Closing the door had been even more difficult. Back in the days of neighborhood wars and sieges, getting the door open and closed at the right time was of constant strategic concern.

Now, as she pulled the handle, Astrid was surprised that the height, weight, and muscles she had added in six years gained her so little advantage. It seemed that as she had grown stronger, the door had grown balkier. Just as it had years before, it took all of her strength to get the door open far enough for her to slip through.

Stepping into a dark even inkier than what lay outside, Astrid felt her body sag in relief that a fat arm did not yank her deeper into the dusty, oily-smelling interior. She knelt, felt for the catches on her suitcase, opened it, and patted the contents until she felt the heft of her flashlight. Tucking the light into her armpit, she closed the suitcase, stepped away from the entrance, removed the light, covered the lens with her fingers, and flicked it on. The gaps between her fingers glowed like lava. She slowly spread her fingers until she could make out the dirt floor in front of her.

When she stepped deeper into the gloom of the barn, the century old dust squeaked beneath her soles. That sound caused Astrid to recoil as if she had dragged her nails across a blackboard. The teen stood still as a flood of memories of shrieking nails overwhelmed her. After Tippy died, Astrid had taken advantage of every opportunity to scratch the dusty boards at Maumee Elementary School. Before school, during recess and lunch, and after school, she would walk the school's black and red checkerboard tiled halls searching for an empty classroom. Finding one, she would dart to the chalkboard. Like a drunk disciplining his body for the slug of warm gin he was about to drink, eleven-year -old Astrid would hunch her shoulders and draw a big breath before dragging her nails across the board. Too, like the drunk with his gin, while the shriek brought discomfort, it also brought desperate relief. As the noise from her nails filled her ears it would drive out thoughts of Tippy and the sound she had made when she had landed on the stairs. On a lucky day, there might be five or six times where, for several seconds, memories and sounds of Tippy would be gone.

Astrid made her way on tiptoe toward the narrow stairs in the back right corner of The Fort. When she reached the stairs it was as if she herself had polio. Her legs wouldn't bend; her feet wouldn't move. For some inexplicable reason it was much more frightening to start up the worn, cracked wooden treads than it had been to push open The Fort's door. To reverse the paralysis, Astrid tried to reason with herself. Fatman could not possibly be in the loft because it was impossible to move across the loft's plank floor without it creaking. She could remember being down below and how the sounds Pill made gliding along the floor in his Tonto moccasins made it seem like he was a giant. It was logical that no one, certainly not Fatman, could be upstairs. No one could remain that still.

Astrid held her breath and imagined her ear detaching itself from the side of her head and, still tethered to her brain by a slender cord of nerves, floating up the stairs.

A slight fluttering noise caused Astrid to suck more air on top of the oxygen-empty gas she had been holding in her lungs.

A rustle. Like a page or two of a magazine lifting and falling back in the slightest of spring breezes.

To relieve the thudding in her temples and chest, Astrid slowly released the air she had trapped in her body. Even before her lungs were half empty of old air, they were desperately seeking gulps of new.

Another noise. Not even a rustle. In a way, not even a sound. More like a slight tamping of The Fort's musty air against her eardrums.

As fear and tension built in Astrid, one part of her brain, drowning in an adrenaline-rich broth, whispered to another part that the most reasonable thing to do would be to start shrieking and bolt for the door. Astrid's legs began to quiver, like a thoroughbred's at a starting gate. A split second later, after her skittering eyes spied a rusty sickle hanging from a nail, the surfeit of chemicals deluging her body made an instant decision to fight rather than flee. She jerked the sickle, which once had been nominated by her father as the most dangerous of all garden tools, from its hook and raced up the stairs.

Even before the upper half of her body had cleared the stairs, the arm gripping the sickle was slashing back and forth like a medieval wheat harvester gone berserk. Astrid's feet pounded up the rest of the treads. Once upstairs she spun herself, her flashlight, and the sickle around like a dervish. It was during one of those revolutions that the sickle decapitated the wren that had spent its last hours of life trying to escape the loft.

As the flood of chemicals slowly leached from her body, Astrid brought her suitcase upstairs, disgorged its contents, ignored the small body and splotch of blood, made a sparse nest for herself, and descended into an exhausted sleep so deep that Fatman could have jumped rope next to her and she would have been as unaware as she proved to be when Raymond tentatively climbed the stairs and, even more tentatively, made an even sparser nest nearby.

The Fort had a metal roof. With her face sweating and her lips sticky with drying drool, Astrid woke to childhood memories of just how hot it could get in the loft. Milky Ways and Snickers would turn to sludge inside their wrappers. Neccos would soften enough that they could be bent in half. The air would smell like tar and creosote. The rust on nails and hinges would stink like butcher paper which had held calves' liver.

Astrid was so foggy from her sleep that she didn't even turn her head to confirm that the half-wheeze, half-gagging noise she was hearing was being made by Raymond. The amount of time she had endured with Raymond over the previous two days made her decide to sneak away from him while he slept. She started to push herself up, but stopped when she realized she needed to know what time it was. It wasn't until she turned her head to see if she could see his watch that she remembered that his watch was broken. She wondered what might happen, if anything, in the next few hours. Would she be reunited with her mother? Would she be in the fat-fingered clutches of Fatman? Would she be in the police station explaining why she had been trespassing?

Astrid stood up when the court house clock began its deep-voiced toll.

... Seven ... eight ... nine.

The teen began tiptoeing toward the stairwell before she stopped, turned back to her suitcase and put the awl and chisel in her back pocket.

A shaft of light coming through the narrow opening of The Fort's door made Astrid feel like someone was pointing a spotlight at her. To relieve that feeling of exposure she moved off to her right deeper in the shadows, then crept through that gloom until she was right next to the gap in the doorway. As she listened it came to her that, like the hound of the Baskervilles, what she wasn't hearing could be more important than the bird twitters and car sounds that she could hear. A moment later she realized that what she wasn't seeing was even more important than what she did see when she darted her head past the edge of the door.

Astrid remembered that Pill had said that two teachers with their children lived in her old house. At nine o'clock on a sweltering August day, she thought she should be hearing those children's voices and, since the parents were teachers and it was summer vacation, there should be a car in the driveway. The girl concluded, since neither was true, that whoever was living in the house must be gone.

In seconds, Astrid was scrambling along its side down the weed-infested incline toward the back corner of the barn where she had hidden the crystal six years before. Halfway along the side wall, just where Connor Hill started its steep decline, Astrid saw that someone, probably the new owners, had strengthened the stacked limestone of the original foundation by adding a layer of concrete. Seeing that concrete barrier, which prevented her from getting what she had come so far to reclaim, acted on Astrid like a nail in a car tire. Hissing in disappointment, she slowly slumped to the ground.

Within days after first finding the crystal, Astrid had decided that it was like a key that allowed communication, passage, something from where she was to wherever her mother was. Over the last two days and in a way not much different from standing at the Enon Valley train station with ticket in hand, she had imagined that if she were holding the crystal and, to the degree that she had thought it through, if Raymond were holding tight to her, then if the bubble appeared, they would leap on board. Now, with the crystal imprisoned behind a layer of concrete, she felt like she was back standing at a station, but with no ticket in hand.

Astrid was wondering what she should do and where she should go when she heard the sound of gravel being carefully crushed. As she jumped to her feet, an eye, a cheek, and then a face appeared at the corner of The Fort.

"You left me."

"I didn't leave, Raymond. I'm right here."

"Why are you out here? What if the fat man sees you?"

"Raymond, just call him Fatman. Do you think he wants us, or does he somehow know about the crystal and want that?"

"I think he wants us and the crystal."

"Why?"

"So, he can get to There."

"Why would he want to go to There?"

Raymond swiveled his head as if there might be a piece of paper with the answer tacked to one of the nearby trees.

"He's probably from There. Or, it could be he knows There has a lot of food. Or, maybe everybody in There is small and going there will make him small. Or, maybe, There is filled with bad chess players with lots of money."

"Well, that would be a good reason for you to go there, Raymond."

"That is true. I could be rich."

"If there is money in There."

"I wonder if they have chocolate. I guess we'll know in two more hours."

Astrid took a deep breath.

"We might not be going, Raymond." She pointed to the concrete wall. "Look."

"I see a wall."

"Which didn't used to be there. When I lived here the old wall was made up only of stones, like over there. The crystal was hidden behind some of those stones. Now, it's hidden behind some stones but also behind this concrete."

"So, we will have to break up that part of the wall to get to the crystal."

"What time is it, Raymond."

"Thirteen minutes after nine o'clock a.m."

"if the bubble shows up, it will be sometime around 11:15. That gives us about two hours to knock a hole in the wall and find the crystal."

"We better start."

Although Astrid knew that it was futile, she nodded her head and started up the hill. "Wait here while I see what else I can find for tools."

A few minutes later, Astrid was standing in front of the smooth concrete wall holding a wooden-handled hatchet and the chisel.

"What are you waiting for?"

"I'm trying to remember just where in the wall the crystal's hidden." Astrid looked at the corner of the foundation before tapping the wall with the back side of the hatchet.

"I think maybe about here."

"Are you sure?"

"No, Raymond, that's why I said 'maybe.'"

Astrid eyeballed from the back corner of the foundation to where she stood, then, moved the hatchet four inches to the right before drawing it back to hit the chisel.

"Here."

Raymond shook his head. "No, not there."

"Shut up, Raymond."

"Where you are tapping will be too high."

"I said, 'Shut up, Raymond.'"

"Yes, definitely too high."

Astrid extended the hand holding the hatchet toward Raymond.

"Probably six or seven or, even, eight inches too high."

Brandishing her weapon the infuriated girl took a step toward her partner.

As he staggered backward up the hill Raymond said, "You were younger ... smaller ... shorter. Try to remember the place where you hid it, could you look right in, or did you have to look up or down?"

Astrid shut her eyes trying to recapture images from six years before. Her eyes jerked open when Raymond grabbed her wrist.

"What are you ....?"

The frantic shaking of Raymond's head and the flapping of his free hand stopped Astrid from finishing her sentence.

Raymond whispered, "There! Look there!"

Looking downhill through a gap in the trees Astrid could see Fatman laboriously making his way up the sidewalk that ran alongside Fisher Street as it climbed Connor Hill. Astrid pushed Raymond away.

"Go. We have to get our stuff."

As Astrid scrambled up the hill, she lost her grasp on the hatchet and chisel. After a moment's hesitation at losing what might be used as weapons, she left them behind and followed Raymond as he scuttled around the corner of The Fort. As soon as he slipped through the doorway, Raymond started toward the stairs.

"No. Help me close the door."

When Raymond hesitated, Astrid hissed, "C'mon."

As the door screeched closed and The Fort became dark, Astrid couldn't help thinking that the same thing was happening to their chances of getting to There.

Once upstairs the teens gathered their belongings.

"What do we do now?"

"We wait."

"For what?"

Astrid realized that she didn't have an answer to Raymond's question. Instead, she shrugged.

Raymond shambled off to the hay door at the front of The Fort. The door, which did not hang exactly square in its frame, was slightly ajar. As Astrid watched her partner bend his knees so that he could look through the slight opening, she thought it must have been that opening that had provided an entryway for the wren she had killed.

While Raymond continued to watch, Astrid scouted the loft. To her it looked like the kids who were living in her old home were not taking full advantage of The Fort. The cardboard and lath rooms she, Tippy, Debbie and Pill had made were gone. The ancient footlocker, which they had used to cache food, was missing. The rusty coffee cans that once had held pieces of charcoal and chalk, which they used to make the boxes and lines for hopscotch, were rustier, but empty. What was new was a rope hammock hanging from the rafters in the opposite back corner from the stairs.

"I see him. He's walking down the sidewalk. Now, he is standing at the end of the driveway."

Astrid dashed to the loft's back window. Although the pane was so begrimed that she couldn't see through it, she knew what was on the other side. A twenty-foot drop to the base of The Fort's foundation wall.

Nothing happened when Astrid first tugged at the window; however after she remembered the trick of alternating pushing on one side of the flaking frame and then the other, it began to open. The girl hopscotched her hands from one side to the other until the window was open wide enough that she could crawl through. She ran back to her suitcase and snapped its lid closed.

"C'mon, Raymond, we're going."

"Why? He can't get up here, can he?"

"Probably not, but he could keep us trapped here and we would miss the bubble."

"You said we couldn't go to There without the crystal."

"Maybe, Raymond, I said maybe. C'mon. We have to try."

The boy picked up his briefcase and made for the staircase.

"Not there. The window. We have to use the window so he doesn't see us."

Raymond veered quickly toward the window; however as soon as he looked out and then down, he froze.

"It is really high. I don't like falling."

"You're not going to fall."

Astrid brought the hammock she had just unhooked and worked the curved wooden spreaders out the window. She took the rope at one end of the hammock, threaded it through the handles of the suitcase and briefcase and secured it with the S-hook that had attached the hammock to the eye-screws in the rafters. She lowered the luggage until all she was holding onto was the other S-hook. This she wedged under the window sill.

"Okay. You go first. Just use the spaces between the knots for your feet and hands. When you get down to the luggage, just hang and drop. It's probably less than a four foot drop."

"I don't like dying."

"Then I suggest you climb out the window before Fatman throws you out."

"I don't like Fatman."

"Go, Raymond."

Raymond's descent was both so slow and so hair-raising that Astrid stopped watching. It wasn't until she heard a thud and a winded voice whispering, "I don't like hammocks anymore," that she looked back out the window. Whatever technique Raymond had used to land had caused him to roll twenty feet down Connor Hill.

Astrid was through the window and down to where the luggage was suspended in less than ten seconds. Hanging by one hand she unhooked the luggage and tried to toss it on top of a patch of milkweed to soften the blow. Her aim was true, but her reasoning was faulty. The milkweeds did nothing. Astrid watched Raymond's briefcase break open and spill chess pieces. She dropped to the ground and had what she thought were all of the chess pieces back in the briefcase before Raymond managed to claw his way back up the hill.

While he was still on one knee, the boy's finger stabbed at Astrid as he hissed, "You dropped my chess men."

"Don't worry about it, Raymond." Astrid wiggled the chess set. "I got all of them."

"Liar." Raymond opened his fist, which held a pawn.

"Raymond, we don't have time for this drama. We need to hide. C'mon. Now!"

Raymond shoved the chess piece in a pocket and reached for his briefcase.

Astrid grabbed her suitcase, which she thought was beginning to look like something an impoverished Russian fleeing the KGB might carry, and began walking along the faint trail that ran at the bottom of the ten foot tall retaining wall that kept her former yard from tumbling down Connor Hill.

"I hope There is flat."

"Shut up, Raymond."

"Is this poison ivy? My arms and legs don't like poison ivy."

Disregarding the plants with shiny leaves clumped in threes growing along both sides of the path, Astrid said, "No ivy, Raymond. Just weeds. Keep walking."

Astrid stopped at a point just shy of the western border of her old yard where she, Tippy, and Pill had removed smaller pieces of stone to make hand and footholds.

"If we climb up here we'll be behind some really thick forsythia bushes. No one will be able to see us from down here and they'll have to look really hard to see us through the branches up there. Give me your belt."

With a horrified look on his face Raymond whispered, "I like my belt."

"Off."

After threading the belt through her suitcase handle, Astrid cinched it around her waist and began climbing. She disappeared over the top of the wall, then, reappeared moments later. She repeated the climb with Raymond's briefcase. After climbing back down a second time, she proffered the belt to Raymond.

"You're safe."

As Raymond concentrated on snaking the belt through his pant loops Astrid said, "It's your turn. If you fall, I'll catch you. Or, if I don't, I'll make sure your fall is fatal."

Raymond's eyes jumped from watching the metal tip of his belt come slowly around his waist like a cautious snake to Astrid's face. After several seconds he asked, "Is that a joke?"

"You tell me, Raymond. You're the genius. But, while you're thinking about it, climb."

With the intense care and concentration of someone climbing a Bryce Canyon wall and with a medley of tortured grunts and wheezes, Raymond successfully accomplished in five minutes what took Astrid less than thirty seconds when she followed him. Once she was curled up under the forsythia branches, she felt like she was inside a hot green tent.

The teens had been hidden in the forsythia for only a few minutes when they heard whistling. Before Raymond could blurt anything, Astrid touched a finger to his lips. Raymond's eyes grew as big as an owl's. Although Astrid knew immediately that the tune was familiar, it took several repetitions before she recalled that what Fatman was whistling was a song she and Tippy had often sung a dozen years before.

"Oh, where, oh where has my little dog gone? Oh, where, oh where can he be?"

The whistling continued for several more minutes growing neither louder nor quieter. It seemed strange to Astrid that Fatman would not be looking for them. It was not until she heard a voice interrupt the whistling by asking, "Where, oh where, indeed."

"They're around. If they're planning on using the Door, they can't be far. You can be sure of that.'

The new voice, which Astrid thought had an accent, something that sounded like French, continued, "Any worries about the owners?"

"They don't seem to be around."

"What's in the barn?"

"I haven't looked. I was waiting for someone lighter on his feet."

"Well, if they're still in there with you out here whistling like Jack Smith, they're dumber than I thought."

"Jack Smith was a whisperer. Not a whistler. You're probably thinking of John O'Neill."

"And, I thought I was the professor. Keep making up facts, I'm going to take a look in the barn."

Seconds later the teens heard the screech of The Fort's door opening.

Astrid whispered, "Raymond, we have two options. To run away right now. Maybe we can hide for a while, then, come back when it seems safe. Somehow we'll break through the concrete wall, find the crystal, and then come back next year."

"Hide for a year?"

"It might be sooner. We can't go back to Peltdown. Do you want to go home? And, even if you did, how do you know it would be safe? We don't even know what Fatman wants."

"What is the other option? You said there were two options.'

"We try to jump into the bubble."

"Without the crystal? You said we need the crystal. You said the crystal is like a key that opens the door to There."

"We think we need the crystal. We think it opens the door, but we really don't know. It was just my idea of how it works. Maybe it doesn't work by a crystal, but, instead, by wishing. Or, maybe, it works by running fast enough and, then, just jumping into the bubble. Maybe it works as long as someone is holding something blue. Or, maybe, my crystals, like the ones in my suitcase, the ones I grew, will work."

"You brought those crystals?"

Astrid whispered, "Of course, I brought them, Raymond. They're in here." She tapped a finger against her suitcase.

"Let me see them."

As the girl quietly unlatched her suitcase, Raymond stared at her mouth. After a moment he murmured, "When you whisper right next to my ear, it is very hard for me to listen."

"Let's save all that for prom night, Raymond."

Astrid opened the bag and spilled the crystals in the palm of her hand. Raymond stared at the six gleaming stones nested in Astrid's palm.

"I think we should each hold three crystals and at the right time run as fast as we can and wish as hard as we can wish."

"And if that doesn't work, Raymond, then what?"

Raymond cocked his head as if trying to better see Astrid in the murk of the tangle of forsythia.

"Then, I will have to listen to Fatman's horrible breathing and smell his awful smell while playing chess for the rest of my life."

Astrid turned her head to the same angle Raymond had used just a moment before.

"Raymond, are you trying to be funny?"

"I think so."

Astrid tipped three crystals into her partner's hand.

For more than an hour the two teens lay curled up on the ground with a trio of small blue crystals held tightly in a hand. While they waited, they heard intermittent whistling and talking that was much quieter than before, really no more than a murmur. Occasionally, there would be the scrape of a footstep and twice Astrid thought she could hear Fatman's breathing. When she heard that raspy sound it took all of her will power not to snake a hand out to push aside a cluster of forsythia leaves to see where he might be.

The day her mother had disappeared, Astrid knew that it had happened within a minute or two of 11:15 because, when she and Tippy had run outside and found their mother gone, the small round clock on the stove had read 11:18. The following summer, when she had anticipated her mother's return at 11:15, she had been horribly disappointed when that minute passed and nothing happened. It wasn't until Tippy had told her she had set her watch forward that Astrid realized that the crystal had been pushed through the bubble at nearly the same time that her mother had disappeared the year before. Astrid had told Raymond that the bubble would arrive at 11:15 because she knew that Raymond tended to become paralyzed when things were not precise; but she was not counting on that precise moment. Instead, she just wanted to be ready when ... if ... if the bubble appeared. If Fatman hadn't shown up, they could have waited behind the lilac bush where she had hidden six years before. But, now, because of Fatman's arrival, they couldn't afford to be in the backyard a minute early. Yet, Astrid was terrified that they might get there too late. Given the two men hovering nearby, she decided that their best strategy was to keep close track of the time but also to listen.

Astrid nudged Raymond and tapped her wrist. He whispered, "Nine minutes after eleven o'clock a.m." Astrid nodded before putting a finger to her lips and pointing at the edge of the wall. Five seconds later, saddened at the need to leave her suitcase behind, she was sliding backwards until half her body was over the edge. As the toes of her shoes found crevices, she began moving toward her former neighbors' yard. It was her plan for the two of them to climb over the top of the wall onto the Orstwalts' property, and hide behind the massive old sycamores that separated the two yards. When the bubble appeared or they heard the clangor, they would dash from behind the trees, race across the yard, leap onto the pyramid, and throw themselves at the bubble. And, then ... something ... would or wouldn't happen.

Astrid tugged on her partner's shoe and motioned for him to start moving. She had to dig a thumbnail into a sliver of white flesh showing above the top of a very dirty sock before Raymond nodded.

With her need to concentrate on traversing the wall, it wasn't until Astrid was onto the Orstwalts' section of the wall catching her breath that she turned her head to see how Raymond was doing. Although he had managed to slide over the edge of the wall, he had made very little progress as he was trying to make his way with his feet searching for crevices and his hands holding onto the top of the wall while having his briefcase wedged between his elbows.

Astrid repressed her nearly overwhelming desire to scream at her partner and his idiocy. Instead, she freed her right foot, bent her knees, teased out a foothold and hauled herself up. She began crawling along the top of the wall trying to get close enough to Raymond so that she could grab his briefcase.

Minutes later, as Astrid was pulling him up the wall, Raymond whispered that it was thirteen minutes after eleven o'clock. Terrified that they were going to be too late, the girl gave a powerful yank on her partner's arm. In response he yelped as she succeeded in pulling him onto the wall.

"What was that?'

"Over there behind those bushes."

"Go see."

Simultaneously with hearing Fatman's throaty command, Astrid thought she heard the sound of metal clashing. She jerked Raymond to his feet.

"C'mon, hurry, hold your crystals."

Raymond tugged in the opposite direction in which Astrid was trying to pull him.

"My chess set."

Those words were the final straw.

Astrid shoved Raymond away, raced down the Orstwalts' worn driveway, and pulled up short behind the trunk of a towering sycamore. She peeked out and saw another fatman, although he was not nearly as enormous as the one who had been following them for the last day, kneeling down on one knee and lifting up the branches of the forsythia bush where they had been hiding.

"Hey, there's a suitcase here."

Astrid looked up. She thought she could see the shimmer of a bubble hovering over the frustum. Because of the angle of the sun it was hard to be sure. But there was no mistaking Fatman, who was on the far side of the yard, as he started moving toward the forsythia. Suddenly, Fatman stopped and seemed to stare at the same spot where she was staring. He quickened his waddle.

Just two strides into her sprint, Astrid felt something holding her back. When she half-turned her head she realized Raymond was grabbing hold of her shirt with one hand while his other hand was holding on to his briefcase.

"Let go!"

"No!"

"Then, run!"

Looking ahead Astrid saw a shimmer above the top of the frustum. Beyond that, she saw a pair of elephantine legs lumbering in her direction.

"Stop them!"

In her peripheral vision Astrid spied the other man, the one who had been inspecting the forsythia bush, respond to Fatman's command by twisting around and churning her way.

"Faster, Raymond!"

Astrid's attempt to surge forward was thwarted by her partner's fierce grip on her shirt.

"I don't like ...."

"Shut up. Run!"

Even with Raymond holding her back, Astrid guessed she would reach the frustum before Fatman; however, another glance to her side showed the second man was catching up.

In a broken voice as he gasped for air, Fatman screamed, "Not him! Her! Stop her!"

The man, who was just a step away from intersecting Raymond's path, veered toward Astrid. She was sure he couldn't catch her, but she had forgotten that her hair was streaming out behind her. A split second later her head was yanked backwards. Hot sticky fingers grabbed her arm. She was so close. The pyramid was less than ten feet away. Her hair was jerked so hard she thought she might fall. Tears of frustration, tears of defeat burst free. Her vision clouded. Just as she started to sag to the ground, she heard a clunking sound. First, her arm came free, then her hair. A glance back showed Raymond had smashed the man's head with his briefcase.

"Checkmate, you idiot!"

Extending the arm holding the crystals out in front of her like a weapon—a lance, a battering ram— Astrid screamed, "Samara," leapt onto the apex of the frustum, stretched, ... and was gone.

# CHAPTER THREE

### New Days, Old Ways

She was falling ... and falling. Looking down she could see something an immense distance away. Although she was so stunned at what was happening that she had stopped breathing, a part of her brain did record there was no sense of air rushing by despite how fast she seemed to be falling.

Astrid came to when her hand began cramping from holding the crystals so tightly. She was on her back. To relieve the pain she slowly opened her hand and let the crystals drop onto her belly. When her hands drifted to her sides the material she felt was cool and smooth, like a worn stone floor. When she gathered the courage to open her eyes, it was dark except for a triangle of bright light that she guessed was twenty feet above her. Other than an extreme weightiness that made her want to sleep, she felt fine. She fought off the urge to close her eyes and drift away. Instead, after gathering the crystals from her stomach and shoving them deep into a jean pocket, she sat up and looked around. Her eyes tried to pierce the deep shadows that formed just outside where the triangle of light fell onto the stone floor.

When the teen whispered, "Raymond?" his name echoed back four times. She wondered if he had jumped too late, or if the man who had tried to stop her had succeeded with Raymond. She tried to understand the complicated feeling, part fear and part freedom, she was having about Raymond not being with her. Losing someone was a familiar fear that she had been trying to evade in the years since she had found the crystal....

Astrid jumped when Tippy yelled, "Where's Bastet?"

Astrid turned around to see her sister leaning more against the corner of the house than on her crutches.

"I don't know. Why?"

"She had something in her mouth. She was up on the corner cupboard and found something. When I tried to see what it was, she ran out the door."

Tippy's eyes shifted to Astrid's hands.

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing. What is it?"

Astrid closed her fingers around the crystal. "Just a rock."

"Where'd you find it?"

It took Astrid a second before she thought to nod toward the ten-foot stone embankment that kept the back yard from falling down Connor Hill.

"Back there."

"Let me see it."

Astrid considered whether to do what Tippy wanted or to run off. If she took off, Tippy couldn't catch her. She could hide the crystal and, if Tippy even remembered to ask about it later, she could say she thought she had left it at the park.

In the angry voice that she had contracted along with the polio, Trippy screamed, "Let me see!"

Astrid reluctantly walked across the yard and handed the crystal to her sister, who had removed a crutch and wedged it under her arm so she could have a free hand.

Five minutes later, Tippy had the whole story—the mist-filled bubble, the clash of metal, the shouting of their mother's name—and she had the crystal.

As she hooked her crutch back onto her wrist and turned toward the back door, Tippy said, "Give me back my watch."

When Astrid started to hand that over, Tippy smirked as she said. "Fix the time. I set it an hour ahead to mess you up. Turn it back, stupid."

It was three days before Astrid found where Tippy had hidden the crystal. It was stuffed between the mattress and box spring on their mother's side of their parents' bed. Once Astrid had it back in her hands, she didn't want to lose it again. Her first thought was to hide it in the small triangular opening near the top of the garden pyramid. Tippy would never look there because one time she had poked a stick into the hole and a squirrel had jumped out onto her shirt before leaping away. But, Astrid wasn't sure that she herself would have the courage to reach in and get the crystal back when she wanted to see it.

Holding the crystal, Astrid rushed into the gloom of The Fort, the two story barn that sat at the back of the driveway. She raced up the creaky wooden stairs. Once she was in the loft, she used a rag to wipe the dust from the window on the back wall that looked out over Connor Hill, the dilapidated houses at the bottom of the hill that fronted on Harp Street, the railroad yard beyond, and, behind the tracks, the towering sycamore trees that bordered the Onabasha River. After the window was clean, Astrid held the crystal so that the sun's rays illuminated it. She slowly rocked the jewel back and forth and watched whatever was inside the crystal slide from one side to the other. It took a couple of minutes before Astrid thought that she saw more than just liquid. Holding it so that she was looking at the crystal from the side, she was sure she could make out a face. A moment later, she was convinced that what she was seeing was her mother's face. As tears began filling Astrid's eyes, the face faded. Pressing the cool crystal against her hot cheek, Astrid let herself sob before whispering, "Come back, mommy. Please come back and get me."

Even with her arms aching from holding the crystal for more than an hour, Astrid was reluctant to put it down. Knowing that her mother's face had been inside the crystal brought the girl more comfort than she had had in a year. She wished that she could keep it by her plate when she ate dinner and under her pillow when she slept, but she knew that if she brought it back in the house, Tippy would steal it from her. And, if Tippy did take it and if she told her dad that it was hers and not Tippy's, Astrid was sure that he would say, "She's sick. Let her keep it." If he said anything at all.

Although it happened far less frequently than before she got polio, back when she was still called Frances, Tippy still sometimes came to The Fort to defend it alongside Astrid, Debbie, and Pill from marauding Apaches, traitorous Johnny Rebs, or heavily armed redcoats from the neighborhood. Astrid decided that the crystal wouldn't be safe if it was hidden inside The Fort, but, she thought, it might be very safe hidden under The Fort.

The dirt floor at the front of The Fort was level with the gravel driveway. However, because of the steep slope of Connor Hill, the back of the barn sat atop a ten-foot high stone wall. Two thirds of the way along the eastern side, Astrid found a spot where two small pieces of fieldstone had come loose. Using one of the stones as a hammer to loosen another stone deeper in the foundation, Astrid created a cavity large enough to hold the crystal. After she replaced the loose stones, the girl was so satisfied that it was well hidden that she started for the house to treat herself to a peanut butter, olive, and mayonnaise sandwich.

Even though Tippy knew, Astrid managed to keep the secret of the bubble and the crystal from Pill and Debbie. At the end of a day spent defending The Fort from the attacks of nine and ten-year-old Vikings armed with lath swords and forsythia spears and screaming blood-curdling yells, Astrid had to fight an overwhelming urge to lead her friends down along the side of The Fort, through the burdock and thistles to the place where she had hidden her secret. She wanted to, but she was afraid of what could happen. Pill might take it. After all, she was almost positive that he was the one who had taken her robin's nest and black snake skin. Debbie might yell, "You're not my friend. You're getting too weird." Since the time when she had rheumatic fever and had fallen from her bed and struck her head, there had been times during a battle defending The Fort when the action would become so loud and chaotic that Astrid would start flailing whatever weapon she might be holding and not be able to stop. It had been after one of those times that Debbie had threatened not to be her friend. Because Astrid never had had many friends, and had even fewer after Tippy got polio, she didn't want to lose Debbie. Sometimes she thought that if it weren't for The Fort, she wouldn't have any friends at all.

Each evening after recovering the crysta, Astrid would slip along the side of The Fort, carefully remove the rocks, retrieve the crystal, hold it to the dying light, and talk to her mother.

Because she herself needed to hold it every day, Astrid was surprised that it took Tippy a week to realize that the crystal was no longer under the mattress. The first result when her sister found that the crystal was missing was a bump on Astrid's shin that grew almost as big as the crystal itself after Tippy smashed her with a crutch.

The second result happened three days later. The start of school was less than a week away and Astrid was in her bedroom pulling clothes from her closet and dresser drawers and wondering if her dad would remember to take them to Walffmann's to buy new clothes to replace those she and Tippy had outgrown. She had heard the thump of Tippy's crutches, but she had been so engrossed in how old and worn everything she had spread out on her mattress looked that she really hadn't paid attention until Tippy yelled, "Where's my crystal?"

Seeing her sister leaning against the doorway with one crutch half-raised, Astrid retreated to the far side of her bed.

"It's not yours. It's mine."

"No, it's not. It's mine. I want it."

"You wouldn't even come outside that day."

Tippy banged a crutch against the door frame.

"Give it to me now."

In a way that reminded Astrid of a praying mantis, Tippy crouched, planted her crutches far in front of her, and bounded forward. Astrid leaped on the bed, bounded off, juked past Tippy, and escaped through the doorway. Before she got to the end of the hallway, she heard the sound of things being smashed and knew that her collection of ceramic camels that her mother had brought back from Egypt was being destroyed.

Rather than turning right and continuing on to the stairs, Astrid turned left and dashed into Tippy's room. A feeling that she had been having, a feeling that went far beyond anger, propelled her across the room. She yanked the top drawer from Tippy's dresser and dumped its contents on the floor. She stomped on the beads and barrettes, lacey handkerchiefs, underwear and socks that scattered onto the floor. Astrid heard screaming, but her rage was such that she couldn't tell if she or Tippy was doing it. But, when she heard two quick thumps, she knew her sister was coming for her. She raced back to the doorway, ducked underneath as Tippy swung a crutch at her, and sped down the hall toward the stairs.

Astrid was four steps from the bottom of the stairs when Tippy leaned over the narrow railing and swung the crutch at her head. The younger sister managed to grab the tip of the crutch before it hit her and yanked on it as she leapt over the last three steps. A combination of circumstances—the metal cuff of the crutch that encircled Tippy's wrist, the fact she was leaning far over the railing when she swung at Astrid, Tippy's withered legs providing very little weight as a counter-balance—caused the ten-year-old to balance for a split second before pitching head first over the railing and onto the stairs. Astrid had landed on the floor and was regaining her balance when she heard a sound like a mewling cat followed by the most horrible noise she had ever heard. She half-turned her head, saw a large crumpled doll, took one step, and fainted.

When Astrid came to, she kept her eyes closed, stood up, felt her away along the hall that ran from the front door foyer to the kitchen. Once she was safely in the kitchen, she lifted the receiver and told the operator what number she wanted. When her father answered, she told him that Tippy had fallen and was hurt.

Less than ten minutes later, Professor Berenson rushed through the front door. He found Tippy on the stairs. He found Astrid on the living room couch with the heels of her hands pressed tightly against her eyes. When he asked what had happened, she told him how Tippy had gotten really angry. When he asked why, Astrid told him that she had said she was going to go to Hanna Park and didn't have time to wait for Tippy. After that, Tippy had come into Astrid's room and begun smashing her camels. Then, she threw some of Tippy's things on the floor. She told her dad how she ran down the stairs to get away. Tippy came after her. Tippy leaned over the railing to try to hit her. But, she leaned too far. Astrid told her father how she was so shocked she fainted.

"Stay here. Don't move."

Astrid heard her father walk into the kitchen, get something from the mudroom and walk down the hallway. For several moments there was no sound, then, she heard steps on the stairs. She heard more steps as he walked down the hallway to her room. It took the child a moment to realize the next sounds were her father sweeping up the broken camels. Minutes later she heard her father walk into Tippy's room and begin cleaning up the mess she had made.

Five minutes later there were footsteps in the hallway and on the stairs. She heard him go down into the basement. When he came back up, there was silence until she heard, "Please give me the police."

When that call was finished, the girl's father came back into the living room and stood towering over her.

"The police are coming. When they ask you what happened, you say you don't know. You were outside playing. You came in to get a glass of water. You saw your sister on the stairs. You felt woozy. You think you fainted. You called me when you came to. If they ask, you loved your sister and she loved you. That is all you know."

Astrid's father paused as he studied her. Finally, he said, "If someone asks how you got that bump on your leg, you banged it on the monkey bars at the park."

A fat policeman man with bright orange hair and a fat freckled neck, which oozed out of his shirt in a way that reminded Astrid of a snail stretching out of its shell, sat at the kitchen table with her. There was a glass of water in front of her. She stared at the water. She was so thirsty that the words she was trying to say were sticking in the back of her throat. She wanted to pick up the glass and take a big gulp, but she was afraid that her hands would shake so much she would spill it.

"You were outside playing?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In the back yard."

"What were you playing all by yourself?"

"I was watching ants."

"Did you hear anything? A door slamming? The door bell ringing? Your sister making any noise? Yelling, maybe?"

"No."

"Most of the windows are open."

Astrid stared at the calm surface of the water and pretended that it was blue and that something deep in the water was moving.

"You didn't hear anything?"

Astrid shook her head.

"You were playing in the back yard. You came in to get a glass of water. If you were in the back yard, the easiest thing would be to come in the house using the back door. What made you walk out of the kitchen and down the hall to the front door?"

As the fat policeman asked the last question his hand, looking to Astrid like a creature from the bottom of the ocean, crawled across the table until one slug-like finger touched the top of her hand.

"Nothing to say? Nothing? You heard nothing. You saw nothing. And, you know nothing. You are a very lucky girl because something tragic happened in this house today and you did not have to witness it."

The day after Tippy's funeral Astrid spent most of the afternoon standing by the window of The Fort looking at the crystal and whispering explanations to the face she saw floating inside.

In the first year after Tippy's death there were three times when Astrid was walking home from school that her name was called. Each time she would come back from wherever her mind had drifted to see a puffy freckled hand covered with orange hairs drumming slug fingers against the car door. Each time the policeman asked her how she was doing, did she miss her sister, was her dad doing okay, and did she still get thirsty when she was watching ants. One time he told her that if she was a boy, she might make a good policeman because policemen liked watching things, too.

It was a clear October day with enough leaves having fallen that Astrid was making a rustling noise as she scuffed her feet through the leaves when she heard, "Girlie, come over here a minute. I want to ask you something."

The clear afternoon light was so bright on the man's pink face that the now eleven-year-old could see deep furrows, like a newly plowed field, in the fat of his forehead. Astrid walked over, but she stopped far enough away from the car that he couldn't touch her.

"I was wondering, after more than a year of her being gone, if you still miss your sister. I was wondering that because one of your friends told me that you and Frances didn't get along after she got sick. What do you say about that?"

Astrid was so caught up in wondering which of her friends—could it be Pill? Now that he had turned twelve, he didn't play with Debbie and her anymore—that she said nothing.

"After I heard that, it got me wondering if you two had a fight that day."

Astrid shook her head. "I was outside playing."

"I know. Watching ants. I keep wondering what Tippy was watching so hard that she would lean over a railing so far that she fell. It could have been ants, I suppose. But I've been thinking it might have been something bigger."

That night, after watching Astrid push her food around without eating any of it, her father asked her what was the matter. When she started crying and told him what the fat man had said, he told her to stop thinking about it and eat her dinner. Astrid couldn't stop thinking about the policeman. The next day at school, she was so lost in her thoughts that she bumped into the back of Alice Scherey on the way to recess. When Alice turned around to protest, Astrid's fear transmuted into instant, overpowering rage. Alice ended up on the black and red checkerboard hallway floor with blood pouring from her nose and oozing from her lip. Astrid ended up in Mrs. Webb's office crying and shaking and stunned at what she had done.

Two days later when Astrid came home on Friday afternoon, her father, who had taken a last-minute sabbatical from Onabasha College to try to cope with all that had gone wrong since his wife had disappeared, handed her a roll of cherry Lifesavers and told her to get in the car. They had to go somewhere. It wasn't until the sky turned orange, then red, then dark red, and finally black that he told her they were leaving Onabasha for good.

After hearing that astounding news, Astrid felt like the gravity that had been holding her to her seat was slipping away. Each minute, which added another mile to the distance between the crystal with its link to her mother and herself, eroded more of her feeling that she was connected to the earth. She imagined opening the Desoto's window and, with the slightest push of her hands against the seat, floating out the window up and up into darkness.

Her mother was gone. Tippy was gone. Now, Onabasha was gone. The crystal was gone. It seemed to the eleven-year-old girl that with almost no effort at all, she, too, could be gone.

.... To get away from her memories, Astrid pushed herself to her feet and turned full circle. The space around her was equally dark. Being careful to hold an arm extended in front of her and to slowly shuffle her feet so as not to fall down an unseen hole, she began exploring.

In less than ten minutes the girl had come to the conclusion that she was inside a stone pyramid that she guessed was twenty feet on a side. It wasn't until she was making her way a second time around the pyramid's perimeter with her hands above her head feeling the slope of its sides that she felt a small stone jutting out from the wall directly underneath the triangular opening. On the upper side of the stone her fingers traced the edges of a shallow trench that seemed to have been carved into its surface.

Astrid turned her body toward the wall, dug the fingers of one hand into the indentation, braced her feet against the angle of the wall, and reached as far up the wall as she could. When she touched another protruding stone with a channel, her suspicion was confirmed that the stones were a ladder, a very challenging ladder.

Astrid began climbing. As she got closer to the opening, the shadows grew lighter. Looking upward, she could see that there were no more climbing stones. Stretching up as far as she could still left her fingertips several inches shy of the opening's sill. As the strength in her fingers faded, hopelessness at her situation grew. The angle of the walls and distance between the steps prevented her from climbing back down. She was wondering just what harm she would do to herself by dropping from fifteen feet to a stone floor when she looked back at the stones over her head. Although they were tightly fitted together, they weren't seamless. Letting go with one hand, Astrid reached behind her and was relieved to find the head of the awl sticking out of her pants pocket. She reached up and began poking at the cracks between the stones. The fingers holding onto the stepping stone were losing their grip when she found a gap wide enough to wedge two inches of the awl into it. Praying that the slender steel spike would hold, Astrid grabbed it, pulled herself up and managed to get her finger on the sill.

By the time Astrid managed to get herself through the opening, the tips of her fingers were bloody and her arms were quivering like she was being shocked. After catching her breath, the teen shifted herself so the upper half of her body was back inside the pyramid. Leaninf down she managed to work the awl free. Twisting around she sat on the sill and looked around from her vantage point. The four-sided stone pyramid occupied the center of a six-sided stone platform, which rose out of the middle of a small pool that might have been fifty or sixty feet across. The pool water was a deep blue. The pool itself was surrounded by a band of knee-high weeds, grasses, and flowers. Beyond the meadow were woods with trees of varying heights and varieties rising above a layer of shadowy underbrush. Overhead was a brilliantly blue cloudless sky.

Astrid rolled onto her belly, and using the toes of her sneakers against the smooth surface of the pyramid as brakes, slid down the steep slope. Once she was down, she began walking around staring into the perfectly clear water, which looked to be ten or twelve feet deep, to see if anything was lurking that would make swimming in it a bad idea. She had decided the pond was safe and was tying the shoestrings of her sneakers together when she was startled by a sound like the grumbling of distant thunder. When her head jerked up, she saw a camel standing in the shadow of the tree-line. A moment later she realized something, someone, was sitting on top of the camel. When the camel started walking toward her, now making a noise like the world's largest and most aggrieved bullfrog, the teen saw that the rider was a thin, white-haired man with an ancient leathery face. The rider was dressed in dirty white blousy pants and a ragged long-sleeved loose shirt and sandals. When the distance from the woods to the pond had been halved, the camel, which Astrid could see had just one ear, stopped at a slight touch of a finger to its shoulder. The dark-skinned rider stared at Astrid for most of a minute before calling out, "Frances?"

Astrid was too shell-shocked to speak. She shook her head. For a split second she wished there was a bubble she could leap through and end up back in her old back yard.

"Astrid?"

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Who is your mother?"

"Samara Berenson. Who are you? Why are you here?"

"I've been sent here to meet you and Frances. I've been here on this day each year for the last six years to greet you. Where is Frances?"

Astrid paused only for a second before blurting, "Frances couldn't come."

The old man touched a finger to the camel's neck and it lumbered forward and didn't stop until it was at the edge of the pond. The camel lowered its head and began to drink so enthusiastically that Astrid had a hard time hearing what the old man was saying.

"Do you have the Mother Lapis?"

"What is that?"

"A large blue crystal shaped like a half moon."

"No."

The old man seemed surprised by her answer. "Then, how did you get here?"

Astrid reached into her pocket and carefully pulled out just one crystal.

"I have my own."

"How can that be?"

The teen held her crystal toward the man and twisted it so that a beam of blue light shone toward him. "I made it."

"A crystal maker? How can that be?"

"Who are you?"

"Bes."

"Well, Bes, I'm not going to answer any more questions until I see my mother. You can either tell her to come see me, or you can take me to see her."

It was a long time before the camel rider said, "I will take you to where she is."

Astrid deliberated whether she should say anything about Raymond to the old man. Raymond had been right behind her. If he had jumped right after she had, then, she thought, he should have arrived just after her. She decided that the fact that he hadn't arrived must mean that he had been caught or, much more likely, had lost his courage.

"Alright."

Bes turned the camel toward the woods. "I will bring the bridge."

Astrid slung her shoes around her neck before reaching behind her and wedging the awl sideways into her pocket.

"Not necessary."

A look of horror crossed the camel rider's face as Astrid jumped into the water.

By the time the teen had pulled herself onto the shore, dripping wet but feeling cleaner than she had in two days, the camel was sitting and Bes had dismounted and was busy filling what looked like four tan leather pillows with water.

"No one on Kemet knows how to do what you just did."

Astrid shook her head, "I didn't know how to do it. I just held the crystal ... the lapis ... and jumped."

It was Bes's turn to move his head. He nodded toward the water.

"To go across the water, not down into it."

The rider reached into a large leather saddle bag.

"If you are hungry."

He withdrew a smaller bag that appeared to be woven from leaves and offered it to Astrid. When she opened it, the girl thought she was looking at a pile of large beetles before she realized that it probably was a mound of dates. To be sure she asked, "Dates?"

"Hayani."

Suddenly overwhelmed with how hungry she was, Astrid reached in and grabbed a handful of soft, sticky, dark red fruit. When her teeth bit into something hard, she murmured, "Unpitted hayani." When the girl started to spit out the seed, Bes held up a hand to stop her. He reached back into his saddle bag and opened a small pouch half-filled with pits.

Astrid added her pit. Over the next half-hour she dropped dozens more into the bag as she sat behind Bes dodging the tree branches that overhung the narrow path along which they were traveling and learning how to balance on a precarious seat that seemed to move in any direction by nothing more than whimsy.

Astrid wanted to ask a thousand questions, but after her first three questions, which were about her mother, went unanswered, Astrid decided she would save those questions until she was reunited with her mother.

Although Astrid had been shocked when she first had seen the camel, she hadn't really considered what that might mean until the woods began to thin. The trees became shorter, their foliage thinner, and the few leaves they displayed were covered in dust. The underbrush, what there was of it, was so dusty that it looked brown rather than green. The path became nothing more than hard-packed dirt topped with a layer of fine dust that eddied up with each hoof beat the camel made. When Astrid leaned out and looked past Bes's shoulder through the leafless limbs of small gnarled trees all she saw was an unending expanse of gray-brown. Before they had passed through the last of the skeletal trees, whose empty uplifted branches looked to Astrid like they were pleading for water, Bes pulled a dirty, gray strip of cloth from his saddle bag and handed it back to Astrid.

"What's this for?"

"To cover yourself."

Pinching the cloth between reluctant fingertips, the girl studied the stains, flicked her eyes to the scorching red sun, twisted her hair into a lank knot, took a deep breath, and draped the oily cloth around her shoulders and up over her head.

Despite the erratic swaying of the camel and the oven-like heat, physical fatigue and mental exhaustion dragged Astrid into a dreamless sleep. It was the camel's sharp turn, which nearly threw her from her perch, that woke her. Opening her eyes and seeing what was before her—baked dirt covered in gray-brown dust—a landscape which looked exactly the same as when she closed her eyes—Astrid wondered if the camel had gone to sleep at the same time she had.

Bes stopped the camel, leaned far forward, and put a dark, scarred hand across his forehead to cut down on the sun's glare. He held that pose for several seconds before giving a tap and a cluck that caused the camel to move faster than she had been moving.

• • •

Although Raymond had swung the briefcase as hard as he could, it had only slowed, not stopped, his attacker despite the satisfying thunk it made when it smashed into the man's head. The man's fingers were digging into the space behind Raymond's collar bone. The teen's feet were churning frantically, but he wasn't able to break free. Just ahead, Astrid leapt onto the cropped pyramid. From what he could see, she seemed to hover for an instant with her hand holding the crystal inside the shimmering membrane while the rest of her body remained outside. A split second later he heard a whirring sound that reminded him of a mosquito and Astrid disappeared. Looking past the shimmer, Raymond saw Fatman's face explode in rage.

Of the thousands of chess matches Raymond had played, he knew none of his losses would compare to not following to where Astrid had gone. He struggled forward, but, with the man hanging onto to him, it felt like his feet were mired in ankle-deep mud. Tears of frustration burst from his eyes. The boy dropped his briefcase and used that hand to clutch at the fingers digging into his collar bone. The fingers tightened their grip. Looking up, Raymond thought the bubble was fading. Changing tactics he slid his hand under the man's forearm, wedged it upward, bent his head and bit down into the flesh of the man's arm. His attacker screamed; Raymond bit down even harder. The fingers released their grip. Raymond lunged forward, struggled onto the pyramid and stretched his fist upward. It seemed like the membrane compressed but it would not allow Raymond's hand to pass through.

Raymond watched Fatman, in a surprisingly graceful manner, move closer and grab for him. When Raymond thrust his hand out to push the arm away, he realized his mistake. The hand countering Fatman was his right hand, the same hand that had fought off the other man, and the one he had used to try to penetrate the bubble, but it was his left hand that was holding the crystals. Raymond leaned sideways to get away from his assailant, started to lose his balance, desperately jerked his left arm upward, felt resistance, shoved harder, then, felt a giving. Raymond bent his knees, lunged upward, screamed, "You lose, dimwit!" and disappeared.

• • •

Long streams of black and white were whipping around him. Or, he was whipping around them. Or, he was turning somersaults. An unending series of somersaults. Faster and faster. Like he was an atomic particle that was so charged it was going to break free of its orbit. The rotations came so fast the white was absorbed by the black. He was still spinning, but the black was so thick that he felt like he was suffocating. Even with nothing to measure against in the utter black he could feel himself going even faster. There was a tugging and then something much more than a tugging. An irresistible force tore at him. Finally, the force was so strong that his head ripped free from his body and both caromed into nothingness.

Raymond awoke to nothingness. His back was burning. He knew there was air to breathe because his lungs were desperately inhaling it. The air was so hot it seemed to sear his hungry lungs. When he lifted his head, all he could see was an unending expanse of gray-brown. There was no sound. At least, there was no sound until a wisp of dust, which had eddied up when he had lifted his head, drifted into his nostrils. In a chain reaction, the massive sneeze meant to expel the dust caused even more dust to blast upward into the boy's nose, which triggered an even bigger sneeze.

Being careful to stir up as little dust as possible, Raymond slowly pushed himself to his feet. When he turned full circle to see where he was, he saw nothing—not a tree or bush, not even a rock, nothing but a barren, dust-covered plain.

"There is bare."

Raymond was startled at how loud his voice was in the emptiness. Despite seeing nothing around him except more nothing, he yelled, "Astrid, where are you? This doesn't look very promising. Astrid? I don't like dust."

Raymond slowly turned around a second time to see if there was some feature of the land that he had missed. Just as he was ready to accept that the land was unchanging in every direction, he thought he saw something on the horizon, something no bigger than the head of a pin, which appeared to be a shade lighter than its surroundings.

As the teen began walking toward the brighter dot, he looked around at the flat featureless land and said, "There would be a very good place for bicycles. Look straight ahead and keep pedaling."

Without food or water, walking across a desiccated land under an intense sun, it didn't take long before the boy's only focal points were his feet and the sound of his pant legs rubbing against one another as he took a step and, then, another step.

Lift the right foot and move it forward. Lift the left and move it forward. Ignore the explosion of dust as each foot landed. Left. Right. Left. And again. Again. Again.

As lifting his feet became ever more difficult, Raymond let his mind drift back from where he was until he was on a train crossing Ohio and his chess board was sitting on an immense thigh. He replayed the game to understand just where and how he had lost. In those first hours after the game when they thought they had escaped Fatman, Raymond had told himself that he had lost because his opponent had outplayed him, especially with his bishops. Now, as he reviewed the game he concluded that he had lost because he had been so distracted by Fatman's overpowering size and smell.

"He got you with his smell, you idiot!"

Hearing those words ended Raymond's reverie. He realized that at some point while he was analyzing the game, he had stopped walking. He was staring at a foot that hadn't moved for so long that all the dust it had raised had settled. Looking up from his foot, as unmoving as Lot's wife, Raymond saw one, two, three dots wavering on the horizon. He raised his hand. A moment later, hunger and sun sickness knocked him to the ground.

• • •

After too many unsettling thoughts of what might have happened to Raymond, Astrid asked, "How does it work? Going from Earth to here, or from here to Earth?"

Since he hadn't answered her earlier questions, Astrid was surprised when Bes turned in his saddle and said, "Give me your lapis."

"Can't you just explain?"

"You don't trust me?"

"Should I?"

"Samara does, but even if she didn't, given where we are and who we are, if I wanted the lapis, I would have it."

Astrid reached behind her to make sure that the awl was still stuck in her back pocket.

"Hold on." She dug into her pocket and felt for the smallest crystal.

"Here."

Bes clucked and the camel stopped. He held the crystal between his dust-grimed thumb and forefinger and moved it back and forth in the sun until a beam of blue light fell on Astrid's knee.

"Imagine you had another crystal and you focused it so that its beam crossed this one. What would happen?'

"What do you mean?"

"Wouldn't they pass through each other? If you did the same thing with sticks or rocks or swords they would bang against each other and stop. Like sun beams, like the light from lapis, my world and your world pass through one another. You passed from yours to mine."

"I had a friend who jumped with me. But he didn't end up in the pyramid."

"Then, he didn't jump with you. He either jumped before or after you. He jumped at a different time. The crystal is called a lapis. It acts like a key to open the door from one world to the other, but it also acts like a magnet that draws those crossing back and forth to the Khiui. Your friend jumped at a different time and he might have had a weaker lapis. One not strong enough to be pulled to the Khiui. He might still be on Earth, or he might be caught in-between, or he might have been somewhere in the oasis we rode through. Or," Bes nodded his head, "he might be making a little dust storm out there."

Almost an hour later, as they approached the small hump rising from its surroundings, Astrid went from hoping to being sure that the small anomaly in all of the flatness was Raymond. She started to yell his name, but stopped when the idea came that if she did it might jinx things. Yelling would mean that she would find that Raymond was dead. If she could just be patient for a few more minutes, maybe, despite how still the mound was, she might find that her partner was alive.

As soon as the camel was on its knees, Astrid leapt off and raced toward Raymond. After three strides she realized what a bad idea that was when billows of dust began whirling around her. She forced herself to slow to a walk and, then, tiptoed the last ten feet. Upon touching Raymond's arm, Astrid was immediately relieved to find that he was alive. Dead people were cold and Raymond's arm was warm. A moment later she realized that given how hot the air was that he could have been dead for hours and would not have grown cold. She moved her fingers down to the boy's wrist, but before she felt for a pulse, she leaned down and whispered, "Raymond. It's me. We made it. Wake up."

Astrid closed her eyes and concentrated on finding a pulse.

"What are you doing?"

"Feeling for a pulse."

"What is a pulse? Why do you feel for that? He is alive. Look at his nose."

Opening her eyes, the girl saw small rills of dust being raised by Raymond's breathing.

"Help me ... please."

In less than ten minutes and with Bes's help, Raymond was sitting up and alternating sips of water and bites of what Astrid explained were dates but were called hayani. Once he had had enough to drink, Raymond looked up at Astrid who was hovering over him.

"You are very dirty."

"Some boys like dirty girls."

Raymond, whose skin was sun-burned, turned even redder as he croaked, "I don't like your scarf."

"That puts you on my team, Raymond."

He looked at Bes.

"He's not fat."

He turned his head and studied the camel.

"A camel's uglier than a horse."

"Not so loud. It's our ride. There isn't much more to observe, Raymond, but if you do see something that you feel doesn't suit you, please just keep it to yourself."

When he realized that all three of them were going to ride on the camel, Raymond couldn't decide whether it would be worse to be in the middle with Astrid holding onto him and probably breathing in his ear while he was holding onto a skinny man who looked like he smelled or whether he should sit behind Astrid holding onto her with his mouth very close to her ears.

Before Raymond could make a decision, Bes handed him as square of cloth even dirtier than the one that covered Astrid and told him to sit in the middle so if he passed out again, Astrid could keep him from falling.

They hadn't gone one hundred yards before Raymond said, "This camel is very squirmy."

Astrid gave her partner's stomach a slight squeeze as she whispered, "What's worse, Raymond, a squirmy camel or squirmy people?"

To keep himself from thinking about that, Raymond asked, "Does this camel have a name?"

"Maysa."

"Where are we going?"

"Amarna."

"When will we get there?'

"Two days."

"Is Amarna big?"

"Yes and no."

"What does yes and .... "

Before Raymond could finish his question, Bes tapped Maysa's neck twice. The camel picked up its pace and Raymond was forced to pay attention to staying in his seat.

The sun set suddenly. Within minutes the temperature of the air dropped forty degrees. The sky filled with stars, millions of stars. The starlight turned the ground silvery. The land, which had been hot, empty and harsh, became magical, but cold. Astrid went from sweltering to shivering. A few minutes later Astrid and Raymond started coughing as winds, given birth by the interaction of the rapidly cooling air and the heated land, raced along the ground raising swirls of dust. As the dust swirled and rose above them, it made the stars twinkle. Astrid lowered the rag from her head onto her face to keep the dust out and wrapped what had been protecting her arms from the sun even tighter against the cold. Knowing how nervous it would make Raymond if she snuggled next to him to keep warm, she decided to try to distract him with questions.

Her tactic worked. By the time Raymond answered all of her questions about what had happened to him after she had leapt onto the frustum and after all of Raymond's questions about the pyramid, which was called a Khiui, and the oasis, which was called Wahih, were answered by Bes, her front was tight against his back and both were warmer. Resting against one another and hiding behind Bes to protect themselves from the whirls and spouts of dust, they rode deeper into the night.

By the time Bes decided it was time to rest, the teens were so sore from jouncing on Maysa's back they could barely dismount. Bes showed them how to make a bed in the lee of the camel, but before she could think of trying to sleep, Astrid knew she had to get some of the dust out of her hair. She bent over at the waist and began to run her fingers through the filthy tangles. When she lay down next to Raymond, it took both of them, huddled as they were right next to one another under a stinking saddle blanket, much longer to fall asleep than it did for Bes or Maysa. While Astrid thought of her mother, of what she would say, of whether she would have more tears or more angry words, of whether she would fall into her mother's arms to be hugged or to stand off in resentment, Raymond thought of Astrid, of the girl whose front had been pressed against his back, and whose words and warm breath had wriggled their way into his ear and beyond.

When the sun rose and spread orange light over the bleakness of the Dustlands, the teens woke to find Bes a dozen yards away on his knees facing the sun. Twenty minutes later, while the old man saddled Maysa, the teens ate more hayani and drank musty water. The groans Astrid and Raymond made climbing onto Maysa were echoed by the camel when it was time for her to get on her feet with the three riders on her back.

It was mid-afternoon when Astrid noticed the land ahead somehow seemed different from what they were passing through. She leaned past Raymond to tap Bes's sleeve before pointing, "What's that?"

"Nothing. It used to be fields. Now it is just nothing."

Less than an hour later, they came to a ditch that Astrid guessed was just over ten feet wide. On the western side, Astrid could see the bottom, which looked to be about five feet deep. On the eastern side a swale of dust came half-way up its side. Looking to either side she saw that the ditch, which Bes said was an irrigation channel, ran for miles. He explained how Amarna had been built along the river Iteru, which flowed down from the Gabal Mountains. When Amarna was small, the fields and orchards were planted alongside the river. As the city grew the channels were dug to irrigate the arid land that bordered Amarna. With more land brought into production, Amarna continued to grow and more ditches were dug until they extended far beyond the city. The channels had an extensive system of sluice gates that could be raised or lowered to water land that was in production or divert water from land that was fallow. As they rode along the trench, Bes pointed out a lowered gate.

They rode south until they came to a sluice gate that was raised level with the ground. Although the gate was less than two feet wide Maysa did not hesitate to cross it. When Astrid felt Raymond tense, she took her hand from his waist and patted his knee.

As soon as they were on the far side Bes steered Maysa in a diagonal from the direction from which they had just come.

"Why aren't you going in a straight line?"

If we go straight there wouldn't be a raised gate we could cross."

"How do you know?"

"Because it is my job to know which gates are raised and which are lowered so I can go back and forth from Amarna."

Even though Bes hadn't really answered him, as they continued to angle from one gate to another, Raymond thought that he knew the answer. The lands that had been irrigated by the channels were a grid. The channels themselves were the lines separating the squares within the grid. Raymond theorized that at one time it might have made sense to raise and lower the gates to direct water to where it was needed. However, they had already crossed over and ridden alongside miles of dry ditches. With no water in them to direct, as far as Raymond could tell there was no logical agricultural reason for so many of the gates to be lowered. Raymond concluded that the gates were lowered to turn the land into a maze. What he wondered was whether the maze was to make it difficult to get to or to get away from Amarna.

The threesome wended their way through the maze. Under the punishing sun both Astrid and Raymond drifted in and out of troubled sleep. When they woke, they washed down liquefying dates with more musty water. They scanned the land around them trying to see something, other than the channels, that could be distinguished from the nothingness they were passing through. It wasn't until the blood red sun was plummeting toward the horizon that they crossed a gate that had a narrow stream of muddy water puddling against it. Just before nightfall they rode alongside a field of a sparse grassy crop. When Astrid asked if it was wheat, Bes said that it was emmer. Astrid didn't know what that might be.

As the hours passed, the distance between gates became shorter, but the complexity of the maze grew greater. After a dozen turns and turn-backs in two hours, Astrid began to worry if Bes knew where he was going. Late in the night Astrid woke up to find that Maysa was walking along a path that was bordered by scraggly palm trees. Whispering so as not to wake Raymond, who was slumped back against her, she asked Bes, "Are those the trees where the dates come from?"

The ghostly silhouette of the rider nodded his head. "Hayani."

By the time another hour had passed, the trees had become taller. Just after they crossed a channel with water running a quarter of the way up its side, Astrid made out something rising over the treetops.

"Is that Amarna?"

The rider's head nodded.

Astrid waited until the dawn's pale pink light was hitting the top of a massive wall before waking Raymond.

"We're there."

It was full daylight and the heat was multiplying and merging the smells of one exhausted camel and three sweaty, dusty riders as they passed through a gate guarded by two soldiers armed with short swords into the walled city of Amarna. Inside the walls, which were several times higher than the irrigation channels were deep, the air was cooler. Most of the buildings, which were built of gray, tan or black stone, rose three stories over the stone paved street. The ground floor of all the buildings had slanted walls while the walls above the first floor were straight. At the base, the foundations were set so close together there was barely room for a person to walk between them, but, because the walls of the ground floor were slanted like an A, there was more space between the upper floors for sunlight.

Many of the buildings appeared to Astrid to be in bad repair. Some were crumbling. From the combination of the wall surrounding the city, the worn stone-paved streets, and the crumbling buildings, Astrid had the sense that she had drifted back in time hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Along the streets they were traveling, none of the buildings seemed to be occupied. They rode for twenty minutes before Bes directed Maysa into a large, two-storied building. The first floor of the building was a stable with dozens of stalls. Besides the one Bes led Maysa to, all of the other stalls were empty except for two, which held camels much smaller than Maysa. After Bes had unsaddled, fed and watered the camel, and brushed pounds of dust from her long, thick coat, he led Astrid and Raymond upstairs.

"You'll stay here. Like Maysa, eat, drink, clean yourself, and sleep. The Tjati will see you at sunset."

"I want to see my mother."

Bes took his time before answering. "You will see the Tjati first. If that goes well, then you may see your mother. The Tjati do not know the Mother Lapis has been found. Only you, your mother, and I know. Say nothing about the Mother Lapis to the Tjati."

"What are the Tjati?"

"They are the wise ones."

Bes showed them a room which held a long stone table and benches on both sides. On the table was a large pitcher of water and two deep bowls filled with hayani and almonds. Bes guided them further down the high-ceilinged hallway to a large room with several small stone tubs with urns set next to them. At the back of the room was a large stone cylinder half-full of water. Past the bath were a series of small rooms, each of which had a slab of stone jutting from the wall. The slabs were three feet by six feet and were covered with roughly woven mats. At the end of each bed was a hairy mound that Astrid decided must be a camel skin. She wondered what would happen when Raymond figured out the skin was to be used for a blanket.

After showing them their bedrooms, Bes said, "The Tjatis' boy, Apep, will come for you just before sunset."

As they heard Bes's footsteps recede into the gloom, Astrid turned back toward the bath as she whispered, "If it's the wise ones who have gotten this society to this point, I hope we don't have to meet the dumb ones."

"You must be feeling better, Astrid."

"Not really. I just happened to find I had a few molecules of sarcasm left rolling around in my head and thought I better use them while I had the chance. Wise people don't like sarcasm."

"I'm glad you found me."

"Raymond, I can't stand being filthy another minute, so we have two options. You can go eat more hayani and splurge on almonds while I take a bath. Or we can both get clean at the same time and then eat together."

Astrid was shocked that Raymond didn't immediately run for the kitchen. Instead, he looked from her to the nearest stone tub and back to her before muttering, "I'm getting tired of dates."

"Hayani, Raymond. Please try to remember. Hayani is There's most exotic food. Loved by all. If there is an all. By the way, did you happen to notice among all of Amarna's splendor that we didn't see anyone?"

As soon as Raymond left the room, Astrid peeled off her clothes, threw them in a tub, poured in an urn of water and sloshed them around. Less than a minute later, she herself was in a tub shivering delightedly from the room temperature water while trying to rub away dirt and sweat some of which she guessed might go all the way back to when she was pedaling up a Pennsylvania hill with Raymond riding double. It took her more than ten minutes before she was satisfied that the dust that had turned her hair from black to brown was gone. After her hair, which fell nearly to her waist, was clean, it took many more minutes to squeegee most of the water from it.

Although she was exhausted, lying on the stone bed in damp clothes prevented Astrid from falling asleep. Instead, her mind raced and spun trying to make sense of the last two days. Without ever filling in many of the details, she always had assumed that wherever it was that her mother had gone that it would be a more advanced civilization than the Chevy Impalas and RCA televisions of Onabasha, Indiana. From what she had seen so far—one small pyramid, a camel, a few fields of grain, nut and date trees, a bunch of ancient decrepit buildings, and unending miles of dust-covered dirt, There did not qualify as an advanced civilization. As each minute passed, Astrid had more questions and fewer answers. Finally, her agitation drove her off the bench, out of the room, down the hall, and into Raymond's room.

Raymond was sitting up with his legs crossed in front of him. His right hand was hovering over his lap. Astrid watched as that hand dropped to Raymond's knee. He whispered something as his left hand rose.

"Raymond, are you playing chess?"

After ten seconds of silence, Astrid repeated her question in a louder voice. Both of her partner's hands dropped to the bed as he uncrossed his legs.

"I was until you made me forget the board."

"How can you play chess with no chessboard and everything that has happened?"

"Chess calms me."

"Then, maybe I better take it up because I'm not very calm. I have way too many questions to be calm."

"What questions?'

"Why is Amarna empty? Hundreds, maybe thousands of buildings, but hardly any people. Why was there a lot of water and, then, there wasn't? How come I landed inside a pyramid and the base of every building we have seen has a base that looks like a pyramid? Do the dates and nuts and whatever the other stuff we saw growing was, emmer, just grow? Or, is someone taking care of things? If so, who? And where are they? We saw no one. Why are the ditches and the up-and-down gates more like a maze than an irrigation system? Why was Bes waiting for me? Why does Bes speak English? And why does he speak it like someone who's had about two semesters' worth of high school language courses? And why do I have the feeling that the wise ones we're going to meet in a couple of hours are going to make us feel like we are in a room with a bunch of cops? Are those enough questions, Raymond? If not, I have one more. Why was Bes so shocked we had two crystals? If he was so shocked at two, what will the Tjati think when they find out we have six?"

As Astrid had been adding to her list of questions, Raymond's hands had begun to flap. It took Astrid a moment to realize that she couldn't remember him flapping his hands since she and Bes had found him.

"Raymond, you're flapping."

With his hands pressed against the sides of his damp pants Raymond said, "Until we know more about Amarna and the Tjati, we should treat them like a chess opponent. We know the crystals are powerful. Most people want to be powerful. We should tell them we only have two crystals."

"Raymond Bierstow, are you going to tell a lie?"

"No, you are going to tell the truth. We only have two crystals."

"No, we have six."

Astrid followed Raymond as he turtle-walked out of his bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen. He emptied the urn filled with dates, added two of his crystals, reached out to Astrid's for two more crystals, dropped them in, and finished by scooping the dates back into the urn.

"Now, we only have two."

"The two smallest."

"And, since it looks like there is no electricity on There, you cannot make more crystals."

"I think we need to be very careful about what we say until we talk to my mother. I keep forgetting your mother is here, too, Raymond."

Raymond turned away from Astrid and hurried from the kitchen.

"What's wrong, Raymond?"

"I don't like my mother."

"Then, why did you come with me?"

Except for his cheeks, which became very red, Raymond didn't answer Astrid's question.

# CHAPTER FOUR

### An Angry God

The sun had just disappeared behind the mountains when a short young man with smooth skin, who said his name was Apep, came for Astrid and Raymond. However, before he would let them leave the stable to meet the Tjati, Apep fussed over their clothing and insisted that Astrid comb her hair, which was hanging in long tangled hanks. Unsatisfied with the results after Astrid had drawn her fingers through the tangles a few times, Apep produced a bone comb and, despite the girl's yelps, began working on the snarls until he was satisfied.

It took the teens a moment after they left the stable to understand that the eerie wailing they were hearing was the nightwinds rushing down the slopes of the Gabal Mountains and racing along Amarna's streets.

"That's creepy."

"Let's hope the wind is the creepiest thing we hear tonight, Raymond."

As they approached a many-columned building constructed of white stone, Apep told them that the Qaeat Kabira was the center of power in Amarna. Once inside the grand building, whose ceiling loomed high above them, Astrid counted one hundred sixteen steps and more than fifty lanterns as she walked from the ornate entrance to where four men and five women sat behind an immense stone table. The table was elevated ten feet off the ground on a squat-sided truncated pyramid. As they approached the table Astrid whispered, "Oz times nine."

"What?'

"Forget it. Just act amazed."

Astrid found that her sarcasm and tough teen girl stance, which she had intended to present to the Tjati, was the thinnest of veneers. After stating that her name was Tefnut and that she was the Elder of the Tjati, an ancient woman, with cheeks whose lines and cracks reminded Astrid of the land they had passed through, demanded, "Where is Frances?"

As soon as she heard her sister's name, Astrid burst into tears. As Astrid sobbed, a second, a third and then a fourth member of the Tjati began demanding, "Where is Frances? Where is Frances?" It was Raymond who answered, "Frances is dead. She died seven years ago. Why don't you know that?"

"Who are you?"

"Samara's son, Astrid's brother, Raymond Berenson."

The old woman squawked, "A third muta? How many lies has she told?"

Despite the shock and agitation that he knew was going on alongside him, Raymond refused to look at Astrid.

When Raymond started to say something more, the woman waggled a crippled hand to cut him off, glared at Astrid and demanded, "You, girl, why are you here?"

Despite having no idea what Raymond was doing, Astrid went along with it.

"To find our mother."

When the old woman started to say something, Raymond interrupted, "Where is our mother? Where is Samara Berenson? Why isn't she here to greet us?"

An ancient man with a nodding head, papery skin, and a quavering voice said, "Still yourself, boy."

A man, who was so short that Astrid couldn't see much more than the white strands of his hair, gray wisps of eyebrows, and small bright black eyes, raised a gnarled hand as he asked, "How did Frances die?"

Although she managed to keep her eyes steady on the eyes of the gnome-like old man, Astrid's thoughts were skittering about like drops of water on a hot griddle.

"She got polio."

"What is polio?"

"A disease where the muscles stop working. Legs and arm muscles, but also the muscles that a person needs to breathe."

"Did Frances give you a blue crystal?"

"No."

"Liar. If she didn't give you the crystal how did you get here?"

Astrid reached into her pocket, pulled out the crystal she had made and showed it to the Tjati.

The Tjati looked at one another in wonderment.

"Where did you get that?"

There were gasps when Astrid said, "I made it."

"Liar! Jail her! Jail him! Jail them!"

A tiny, bird-like woman raised a hand for silence, "Let us not talk about jail until we hear their story."

When Tefnut nodded, the rest of the Tjati grew silent.

For more than an hour, Astrid and Raymond told about growing up, their years at Peltdown, Dr. Bruer, the other students at Peltdown, why they ran away from the school, their journey, Fatman, their leap into the bubble, and their arrival. When Tefnut asked to see their crystals, Astrid and Raymond reluctantly handed them to Apep who climbed the stairs and gave them to the Tjati. After the crystals were passed back and forth, those sitting at the table huddled close to one another and began whispering.

Astrid had been standing on her feet for more than an hour when the first wave of nausea welled over her. To keep from vomiting, she switched her attention from listening to the question a sharp-nosed woman with a long narrow face was asking to taking slow, deep breaths to calm the churning in her stomach.

"Well? Why don't you answer? Where did they come from?"

A combination of anger, frustration, and a fear that she might fall over at any minute impelled the teen to go on the offensive.

"We've been standing here answering all of your questions. Before I answer any more, I want you to answer some of mine. Where is our mother? Where is Samara? When will we get to see her?"

Shocked at Astrid's behavior, the eyes of four men on one side and four women on the other turned toward Tefnut. The ancient woman glared at Astrid.

Astrid screamed, "Where is my mother?"

The Tjati studied the girl standing before her. Finally, the tiny woman who had suggested the teens tell their story said, "Prison."

Astrid was stunned. "In prison. Why? What did she do?"

Tefnut's jeweled index finger, which looked like a broken twig, shot out.

"She made you. She made him. Go. Go and wait until we decide what should be done about that."

"Give me back my crystal."

"No."

"Give it to me!"

"Unthinkable. We, the Tjati, are the keepers of the lapis. Now, go before I decide you cannot go."

When Astrid slumped, Apep, who had been standing a few steps behind the teens during their questioning took one arm. Raymond took the other. Together they helped the girl out of the building. Once they were outside and Astrid sat down on a low wall to regulate her breathing. Apep offered nuts and water to the teens.

Apep was chiding Astrid for her behavior when the bird-like woman hobbled out of the building and came up to them. With a wave of her hand she dismissed Apep. After he was gone she nodded at the teens, "You are not who we expected, but you may be what we have hoped for. I am Kiya." She turned her eyes on Astrid. "Mother of your Samara." The old woman's hand swept toward the sky. "When I birthed your Samara, I gave birth to hope." One hand reached toward the building she had just left and the other pointed to the empty street. "As you can see what we once were, as you can see what we have become, you will understand our need for hope."

Having eaten something and with the quivering in her legs gone, Astrid was emboldened to ask, "What are you hoping for?"

"Every hour the water in Iteru grows less. Every day Amarna and the lands that surround her grow drier. Every year the harvest feeds fewer. Every day the population of Amarna grows smaller. Many have starved and many more have not been born. We have tried many ways and many things to stop this slow death, but nothing has worked like what once worked and has been lost. We have not been wise enough, or insightful enough, or skilled enough to learn what we need to do to survive.

"As you can see, Amarna was once a great city, a powerful city. The land was rich. The water from the Iteru was plentiful and pure. But over time Amarna got bigger and the demands on the river and land became greater. Irrigation channels were dug. The city grew even more, but the Iteru flowed even less. To survive, it was decided to build a canal to bring water from the Balial Sea, a great inland sea, which is two days ride past the Wahih. Those whose families were responsible for expanding and maintaining the irrigation channels were commanded to dig the canal to the sea. Work on the canal went on for generations. The work was very hard. Many died. More people were sent from Amarna to replace those who died, but the replacements did not have the same knowledge or the same faith. The work became even harder, even more dangerous. Because of their fear of death, many of the workers ran away, most to the Balial Sea. Work slowed, then stopped. The Iteru grew small, then smaller. Water became scarce, then scarcer. The starvation began."

Kiya threw her arms into the air so suddenly and so fiercely that both teens jerked backwards from her violence.

"Behold Amarna. A city without a village's citizens. A city of empty rooms. Empty fields. Empty bellies. Empty urns. Empty hearts. Empty minds. For generations we have waited for a Returned who will fill our empty hearts and bowls. We have waited for Frances only to learn that she is dead. But, perhaps it is you, Astrid, whom we have awaited."

Confused at what Kiya had said, Raymond asked, "Frances was from here?"

Kiya nodded, "Of course, half from here and thought to be the most promising of many, many generations."

Shaking his head in incomprehension, Raymond asked, "Most promising what?"

"The most promising person to end our misery, to stop our destruction. The Tjati have been waiting for seventeen years for Frances to grow up, grow wise, and return here with her wisdom. She turned toward Astrid, "Now, our hopes must turn to you." She paused and, again, focused her eyes on Raymond, "Or, perhaps you. Who knows Aten's ways."

Raymond was startled, "You want me to change you?"

"Amarna must change, but my people don't know how to change. Perhaps, you do."

Kiya turned and walked back into Qaeat Kabira. Seconds later Apep came out and handed Raymond a small roll of papyrus. "Here is a map of Amarna. Tomorrow, after you have eaten and rested, and if you are not in prison or worse, Kiya wants you to use this to explore Amarna."

As soon as Apep was out of hearing, Astrid grabbed Raymond's arm and hissed, "What are you doing? What were you thinking?"

"About what?"

"Don't act stupid, Raymond. My brother? Why would you say that?"

Raymond busied himself eating almonds.

"Why, Raymond?'

"So, they would accept me."

"That doesn't make sense. Why not just tell them who your mother was? Samara. The other Samara."

In a voice so small it barely carried to Astrid's ears Raymond said, "My mother's name is Eileen."

"What?" Astrid's scream was loud enough to carry inside Qaeat Kabira. "You told me her name was Samara."

"I lied."

"Oh my God. I didn't even know you could lie. Your mother's not from here? Why would you pretend that she was? Why are you even here?"

In the same small, distant voice, Raymond said, "I wanted to be your ... friend."

Astrid said nothing. Her only response was to shake her head. Raymond's head mimicked Astrid's.

"I wanted to be with you and I didn't want to be with me, with Raymond Bierstow from Euclid, Ohio. I wanted to be someone else."

"Like who? Pinocchio. A lying wooden puppet?"

Shaking his head, Raymond said, "Raymond Bierstow, intergalactic hero ... as long as no bicycle riding, insect killing, train jumping, or climbing up or down any walls is involved. Or any kryptonite."

Stepping back two paces, Astrid studied her partner before asking, "Raymond, do you feel different?"

"Different?"

"Since you've been in Kemet, There. Here."

"What do you mean?"

"You seem a little different, Raymond. Maybe a little less clumsy. More assured. Less afraid. Maybe even a little funny. Maybe weirder, but maybe that weirdness is because you're less weird."

After pondering that question for several moments, Raymond nodded, "I did survive those hours in the desert by myself. I managed to stay on Maysa. I held you up when you started to slump in front of the Tjati. You noticed I'm doing less flapping. Somehow, I don't feel as threatened by new things. Maybe I am a little bit different. What do you think?"

"I think you act stronger and I act weaker. I think there is something about Kemet that is changing us."

"But why wouldn't we both get stronger?"

Tears began to leak from Astrid's eyes, "Maybe because I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not Tippy."

"But, I'm not supposed to be here either. When Kiya said Tippy was half, what did she mean?"

"I'm guessing she meant eggs from here and you know what on Earth."

"Know what ... oh."

"It's nice to know not everything about you has changed, Raymond."

While dabbing her eyes on a sleeve that was starting to show salt stains from all of the tears it had mopped up, Astrid asked, "What do you think we should do, Raymond?"

"I think we should think, probably a lot, before we do."

"Think about what, Raymond?"

"Everything. You. Me. Amarna. Kemet. The Balial Sea. A river that stops flowing. Wet. Dry. The Tjati. Earth. Peltdown. Fatman. All the dead people. Why these people can't save themselves."

"That's a lot to think about, but I guess from playing all that chess, you'll figure things out."

"This board has more than sixty-four squares."

"While you're thinking, maybe I can find something to do other than crying. Like go to sleep."

• • •

Astrid felt like she had only closed her eyes five minutes before when she felt Raymond shaking her shoulder.

"Astrid, wake up. We're going exploring. Bes is here and he is going to let me drive Maysa."

As she yawned, Astrid said, "Don't you mean ride?"

"No, you'll be riding. I'll be driving."

"I'm not sure that driving is the right word, Raymond, but do you know how to make her go?"

"Yes. Bes told me what to do. Just keep looking straight ahead and don't stop pedaling."

"Raymond .... "

"You're right, Astrid. Kemet is changing me. I am getting funny. How do you like it so far?"

"I'll tell you after we get back from our explorations. If we get back."

Downstairs they found Bes waiting with Maysa already saddled. On their journey from Wahih to Amarna, the teens had gotten on and off Maysa several times. Given their experience in mounting and dismounting, Bes confined his instructions to the sound he made to get Maysa to rise—chackt—and the sound for her to sit—ghit ghit—and how to use the reins to steer and stop.

"Don't use your reins if you can help it. Maysa doesn't like to be told what to do. She'd rather figure out what you want."

Raymond asked, "How does she know?"

"She just does. She feels which way you're leaning. She can tell which way you are looking. If anything scares her, just let her run awhile before slowly pulling back on one rein. Pulling on just one rein will put her into a circle and as it gets tighter, she'll slow down."

Bes handed Astrid a roughly woven bag.

"Rewards for her. Don't forget her to reward her, but don't spoil her. A spoiled camel is a ruined camel. If she starts to think she deserves something and doesn't get it, you might have to wait two days before she'll move."

Raymond eagerly took the reins when Bes offered them, but he didn't do or say anything until Maysa's owner had walked out of the stable.

"Ghit ghit."

In response to the teen's command Maysa did nothing more than turn a cocked head toward Raymond as if she were hard of hearing.

"Ghit! Ghit!"

The camel flicked her tail as if brushing away the boy's words.

"Ghit!. Ghit! Ghit!! GHIT!!!"

The camel brayed as if she had heard a lewd joke.

"Let me try, Raymond."

The boy hesitated before reluctantly handing the reins to Astrid. The girl approached the camel from its side, scratched the underside of its neck, and when the camel lowered its head, she dug her fingers into the bristly hair just behind its one ear. After a minute of scratching, in a voice that was barely audible to Raymond, Astrid said, "Ghit ghit."

Immediately Maysa dropped onto the knees of her forelegs before groaning and settling back on her haunches.

Astrid, working hard to keep a triumphant smile from her face, offered the reins to Raymond, but the boy shook his head. "No, you drive. I'll ride. That will be better because it will give me more time to think."

Both teens got their legs over the camel's hump and clambered up. When Astrid said, "Chackt," Maysa rose up on her back legs so suddenly that Raymond was thrown forward. His face bounced off Astrid's neck.

"Very romantic, Raymond. Now I'm all shivery."

"I didn't mean ....."

"Don't worry. The shivers are already fading."

Riding a camel, which the teens had already learned was as much about going sideways as going forward, meant that, until the riders had relaxed into the rhythm of yawing back and forth, they couldn't pay much attention to their surroundings. More than twenty minutes had passed before Raymond said, "Can you stop her? From the map it looks like we're getting close to something called the Mouseion."

The triangular plaza, which might have been two hundred feet on a side, was bordered by three three-storied buildings on each side. A dry moat that Raymond guessed was twenty feet across and ten feet deep ran along the perimeter of the plaza. Access to the buildings had been provided by nine arched stone bridges; however all nine bridges had a gap at the top of the arch.

"Mouseion? What do you think this place is, Raymond?"

"I don't know what it was for. We can ask Apep. But, whatever was supposed to happen here, it wasn't too successful."

"Raymond, can you imagine persisting in doing something for so long that hundreds of thousands of people shrink down to a few thousand? I can understand how some bug or bird or even all the dinosaurs can become extinct. But, people? People smart enough to build buildings like these. Smart enough to build a big irrigation system. Able to transport themselves back and forth between here and Earth? How can people that smart be so dumb that they end up with less than one percent of the population they once had?"

"Astrid, it seems obvious that it shouldn't happen, but I think it does all the time. It's almost like being smart has nothing to do with survival. Maybe the smarter you are, the more likely it is that you will go into decline or become extinct. Think about going from the Roman Empire to present-day Italy. From the British Empire to England today. From the empire of Alexander the Great to Greece. Incas, Mayas, Aztecs flourished, then pretty much disappeared."

"So, Raymond, if saving or restoring the people of Amarna is a lost cause, why should we even try to help them? Did you notice that neither Tefnut nor anyone else really answered my questions about my mother?"

"Maybe we are here because we are ... supposed ... to help?"

"I'm here, Raymond, because my mother disappeared. My father didn't want me. Dr. B was getting ready to do something bad to me. And some obese whistler was waddling after me. I came here to save myself, not to save anybody else, not even you."

Astrid loosened the reins and clucked. Maysa began walking across the smooth, worn stones of the plaza. They were several blocks into the neighborhood on the far side of the plaza, an area made up of buildings that were fronted by arcades made of black stone with high narrow arches before Raymond said, "I came here to be saved, too. But I think the best way for me to be saved may be to try to save Amarna's survivors."

"Great, Raymond. That sounds like hubris. You know what happens to people with hubris."

"No. What?"

"You better spend less time thinking about saving transported Egyptians and more time reading Greek tragedies."

"What do you mean?"

"What's next on the map, Raymond?"

"If we go off to the left, there is something called the Gem-Pa-Aten."

"I hope there's a hot dog stand there. I'm getting hungry."

Astrid flicked the reins, but Maysa didn't move.

"C'mon, Maysa. Be a good girl."

Despite the encouragement, the camel didn't budge.

"She probably heard me say the word 'hungry.' Where's her food? Maybe if we give her a snack, she won't be so stubborn."

Raymond reached into the saddle bag and withdrew the bag that Bes had given them. After opening it and looking in at a mass of a glistening nearly black substance he asked, "What is this?"

"I don't know, Raymond. Let's call it camel snacks and leave it at that. Given what we have seen so far, it is probably some kind of date."

"I've never seen a date like this."

"Nor had one, Raymond. But don't give up hope, that could change."

The bag was almost empty before Astrid was able to get Maysa moving again.

While handing the bag back to Raymond so he could put it back in the saddle bag, Astrid said, "I don't think Bes would be happy."

The plaza of the Gem-Pa-Aten was many times larger than the Mouseion plaza. However rather than a triangle, this plaza was shaped like a semi-circle. In the middle of the plaza was a twenty-foot high structure whose shape reminded Astrid of the frustum in her old back yard.

"What are we looking at, Raymond?"

"Something important. That thing in the middle could be a podium."

After looking around, Astrid asked, "Why doesn't Amarna have any grass? Why can't there be a little grass for Maysa to eat while we explore? Nothing but stone. She's not going to want to kneel down on stone."

"What do you want to do?"

"Well, if you're right and that column is a podium, I want to climb up there and yell at somebody."

"Who?"

"You tell me, Raymond. Whoever screwed everything up around here."

"What if I hold your hands and you slide down off of Maysa? You can explore and I can practice how to drive Maysa. When you're ready, I'll pull you back up."

"Do you really think that you're strong enough to pull me back up?"

"I'm stronger than I was, Astrid."

"That's not completely reassuring, Raymond."

Astrid slipped one leg over Maysa's back so she was sitting sidesaddle. As she reached out, she said, "Holding hands with Raymond. Finally, what I've dreamed of."

As soon as her feet were close to the ground, Astrid let go of Raymond's hands. The noise she made when her shoes hit the cobbled pavement startled Maysa. The camel began trotting across the plaza. Raymond, who had been leaning over the camel's side as he lowered Astrid, tried to jerk himself upright at the same time he lunged for the reins. In response to the commotion on her back, Maysa broke into a lurching canter. To keep from falling off, Raymond grabbed onto Maysa's neck and hung on as she lumbered away.

"Grab the reins, Raymond. Grab the reins!"

As she watched Maysa leave the plaza and make its way up a wide avenue, Astrid swore at Raymond.

"You may be better on Kemet than you were on Earth, but you still have a long way to go. Checkmated by a camel, you idiot."

Astrid walked over to the podium and began to climb the worn stone steps. As she climbed, she looked down the avenue to see if Raymond had managed to turn Maysa around, but the avenue was empty.

The top of the pedestal was a square of polished black stone about twenty feet on a side. In the middle of the platform was a large stone container raised above the floor by four two-foot tall truncated stone pyramids. The border of the container, which reminded Astrid of a gigantic flower box, was carved with a series of stylized figures with their arms raised above their heads. When Astrid looked into the flower box, the interior was blackened and the bottom had more than a dozen holes cut into it. The teen studied the receptacle and tried to make sense of what she was seeing. When nothing came to mind she turned back toward where Maysa had disappeared and listened for the sound of camel pads on stone. Hearing nothing, she started to descend the stairs when she noticed that the pillar itself was centered in the middle of an enormous half-circle of white-colored stone. Evenly spaced along the circumference of the circle were fourteen narrow lines of black stone that reached halfway to the building that bordered the plaza. At the end of each of the thin black rays were five even narrower lines of white stone. Between every two rays was an elongated diamond shape constructed of small pieces of what appeared to Astrid to be blue tile.

Astrid walked across to the building fronting the plaza. Once she was inside, she was surprised at what she found. From the windows outside, the building appeared to have six stories, but inside the teen found that it was just one cavernous room with six narrow galleries encircling the inside walls except where a narrow staircase rose from one story to the next. The top of the building was open. Although the room had very few windows, with the open roof, it was well illuminated. It seemed to Astrid that most of the light streaming through the windows was directed at a smaller duplicate of the design in the plaza inlaid in the floor. Astrid decided that she was in a temple of some kind.

Astrid was considering what the design was meant to represent when she heard noises. Thinking that it might be the slap of camel pads, Astrid hurried toward the stairs; however, a glance out a window brought her to a halt. Down in the plaza two wraith-like men, dressed in dusty clothes, were skulking along the edge of the plaza. As the men drew closer to the temple entrance, Astrid decided it was safer to go up rather than down the stairs.

The girl had just finished rushing up the steps to the upper-level gallery when she heard the creak of the door opening. She dropped onto her knees and backed away from the gallery railing. She listened as tentative steps crossed the floor. A moment later sounds, what she guessed were words, drifted her way. The words were followed by a shuffling sound and then silence. She knee-walked toward the railing and peeked over its edge. Sixty feet below, the two men were standing at the center of the stone rays.

The men began to sway back and forth. The low sounds they made rose to where Astrid was hiding. Suddenly, the sounds stopped. The taller of the two men spat on the floor before starting for the door. The other man, who was dressed in a long robe that reminded Astrid of a dozen dish towels sewn together, hesitated before walking toward a large bowel half-filled with what to Astrid look like some kind of bread and branches holding dates. After shoving several of the loaves inside his shirt, that man hurried toward the temple door.

The temple door clanged open and two seconds later slammed shut. After the girl watched the men mount their camels and ride away, she raced down the flights of stairs and pushed through the door. Once she was outside in the plaza she suddenly stopped as she considered her next step: Should she wait to see if Raymond returned? Should she start wandering around looking for him? Should she try to find her way back to where they had spent the night?

Without really making any decision other than not to wait for Raymond, Astrid began walking through the shadows of the buildings that lined the avenue. Walking as softly as she could, she listened for the dull beat of Maysa's pads against stone and tried to remember the route the two of them had taken from the stable.

As she walked, Astrid considered what she had seen. If she had witnessed the same acts on Earth, she told herself she would have concluded that the god the temple was dedicated to was not held in high regard by the two poorly dressed and poorly fed men she had seen. She wondered what the under-nourished, poorly dressed citizens of Amarna might do to Aten or the Tjati if the Tjati did not have their guards.

From a combination of being careful and getting lost, it was dark before Astrid found her way back to the stable. Although there were no street lights in Amarna, the stars were bright enough through the swirls and tendrils of dust that she was able to make her way through the worn stone streets, mostly without stumbling. As she got close to her destination, she saw there was a faint light spilling out of the stable's arched entrance. Hoping to find Raymond and Bes, but not sure of who or what might be waiting for her, Astrid pulled the awl from her back pocket as she crept closer to the opening. She had taken two steps inside and was reaching for a lantern hanging from a hook when the hand holding the awl was grabbed and twisted up behind her back. Another hand, smooth and smelling of something spicy, clamped itself over her mouth.

A low muffled voice ordered, "No noise."

The person holding her pushed her forward.

"Walk slowly to the last stall."

As Astrid shuffled forward, she looked toward the stall where Maysa had been stabled and saw that it was still empty.

"Keep moving."

When she was standing in the last stall, which was nearly pitch black and smelled of rotting straw and the dank, greasy smell she had come to associate with Maysa, her attacker had no trouble yanking the awl out of the hand.

"Sit. Don't make a sound. Don't turn around."

Astrid sat and steeled herself to be stabbed.

"Your mother knows you are here."

When a startled Astrid started to turn around, a hand pressed hard against her head and turned it back.

"Don't look. Listen."

"Where is she?"

"In prison."

"Can I see her?"

"That depends ... on many things."

"Why is she there? The old woman, Tefnut, said it was because of me. How can that be? What did I do?"

"Did your mother tell you anything of her life, her mission before she left?"

"No. Nothing. Just goodbye."

"And what of Frances? What do you know about Frances?"

"She got polio. She died."

"And what do you know about Kemet?"

"Nothing except that this isn't what I imagined."

"And of Amarna?"

"Nothing except what I have seen."

"Do you know Aten?"

"A little. He is a god."

"Aten is beyond any god. Aten is One who knows all."

"Then, it would be nice to meet him."

"Stop before you do yourself more harm. Do you know Egypt?"

Hearing those words brought back all the times she and Tippy sat on the couch with their mother.

"Pyramids, the Upper Nile, the Lower Nile, Thebes, pharaohs, Cleopatra, hieroglyphs, Akhenaten, Nefertiti. My mother was an archaeologist who spent a lot of time in Egypt at el-Amarna."

"Where you stand is Kemet, but Kemet also is Egypt's ancient name. It means black land. The land along the Iteru River, which now is called the Nile, was fertile when there was enough water, but sometimes there was no water. Once the land was wet, it became rich and, when the land was rich, Kemet became rich. In gratitude for the wet years and in fear for the dry years when they might lose what they once did not have, the people worshipped many gods and goddesses. In the fourth year of his reign, it was revealed to the pharaoh, the fourth Amenhotep, that there was only one god who should be worshipped, Aten. Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten, which means attentive to Aten. Akhenaten banned the worship of all the other gods. He began to build a new city, a new capitol down the river from Thebes, the old capitol, which was infested with the worshippers of false gods. That city, which was built to honor Aten, was called el-Amarna. It soon became the most beautiful and powerful city in Kemet.

"In the fourteenth year of Akhenaten's reign, the Iteru didn't flood. Crops failed. People died. The following year, too, was dry. More died. It was then that a crystal, called the Mother Lais and her Seven Daughters, was found by Nefertiti in the quarry at Gebel el Ahmar where stone had been hewn for the Great Temple. After the crystal was found the river flooded. Crops grew. El-Amarna was saved. All was well. For the believers it explained why Gebel el Ahmar had been chosen to provide the stone for the temple even though it was not the closest quarry. Aten had guided the choice. Since it was Nefertiti, who had been entrusted with the knowledge of the lapis and its power over the Iteru, Akhenaten decreed his wife to be his equal.

"Soon after Akhenaten died, the people of Kemet slunk off to where they had hidden all of their small, false gods and began to worship them again. When Akhenaten's son, Tutankhamun, came to power, he abandoned el-Amarna for Thebes. He ordered the worshippers of the false gods, especially those who worshipped Amun, to go to el-Amarna, destroy the statues honoring Aten, and carry off the stones so they could be used to build his temples. Those who kept faith with Aten were imprisoned, tortured, or killed.

"Nefertiti gathered the believers who remained in el-Amarna and explained that Aten desired them to make a Pilgrimage, to find a new, safe place to worship him. The power of the Mother Lapis was such that twelve hundred and eighteen believers passed through Aten's Door to a new Kemet. Each of those believers, whether man, woman, or child, carried a young tree, tools, bags of seed, or baby camels when it was time to leave.

"We have been in our new home for over three millennia. Where those first believers arrived is where you arrived, Wahih. After they rejoiced at their good fortune to be able to worship in peace and safety, they built a pyramid around Aten's Door in thanksgiving. When it was finished, they continued their journey until they found a river that reminded them of the Iteru. They named that river Iteru and the city they built alongside it they named Amarna. Generation after generation Amarna grew both in faith and in believers in our faith. It was not ...."

The voice stopped and a hand covered Astrid's mouth. She started to struggle until she heard what had silenced the person behind her—the dull slap of camel pads on stone.

Lips right next to her hissed, "Keep quiet now or you will be silent forever."

Astrid felt a hand on her waist before she was toppled over into the stall's dank straw. She heard the footsteps scuttling away.

Moments later when Astrid looked around the edge of the stall, she saw the shadow of a man leading the shadow of a camel. As she drew back deeper into the murk and squatted down, she felt something poke her and realized that her awl had been returned. She crouched down and listened. There was the muffled sound of the camel walking on straw and, moments later, a slight jingle, which she guessed was coming from a saddle being removed. A minute later a familiar voice said, "I usually don't like disregardant camels, Maysa, but I like you."

Astrid snuck out of the stall and edged her way to Maysa's stall.

"Raymond, ssshhh."

Before her partner could say anything, she pushed a finger against his lips and shook her head. Leaning forward so that their faces were just inches apart, the girl murmured, "Go outside and walk toward the river."

Raymond shook his head, "No, I'm too hungry."

"Find something to eat and bring something for me and meet me in the plaza. We have to talk, but where no one can hear us."

"How will I find you?"

"Whistle."

Ten minutes later Raymond emerged from the darker shadows of the buildings into the starlit plaza and made a sound that reminded Astrid of the noise her blow-up pool had made when she loosened the plug to deflate it.

A second later she was beside Raymond.

"If that was that supposed to be a whistle, Raymond, you need to take some lessons."

Grabbing a small package poorly wrapped in a piece of cloth from his hands, Astrid said, "Let me guess. A Coney Island dog and chips? No? A nice big serving of Peltdown's famous scrambled petro-chemical eggs. No?" Astrid lifted an edge of the cloth. "Oh, Raymond, you sweet, sweet boy. You've brought me dates."

"Hayani."

In between mouthfuls Astrid told Raymond about the two men in the temple and what the person in the stable had told her. Before her partner could start with what she knew would be unending questions, Astrid asked, "Where did you go?"

"Wherever Maysa wanted to go."

"Which was?"

"One place was where the river flows into a reservoir. What's left of the river, which isn't much more than a stream, is held there until it's needed for the crops. Maysa went there for the water. There was a large round fountain that had something like a sun in the middle with rays jutting out to the edge that were made of stone. At the end of each ray is a carved hand."

Astrid interrupted her friend, "That's the same symbol I saw in the plaza where Maysa took off. It's embedded in the stones in the middle of the plaza and in a building that had to be a temple. I think it's a symbol of Aten, the god I was telling you about."

Raymond nodded before continuing, "While Maysa was drinking, a man came out of a building. He was the gate keeper for the whole irrigation system. He wanted to know who I was and what I was doing. When I told him I was a Returned, he started treating me like I was the president. He took me inside and showed me the valves that open and close the sluice gates."

"How do they work? There's no electricity."

"There are underground pipes that run to the gates. The gates themselves are almost perfectly counterbalanced. When one goes down, another one goes up. It takes just a little bit of added or lowered water pressure to move them. It's pretty brilliant. The keeper said that some of the gates nearest to Amarna are over two thousand years old and still work fine. They just need to make sure that not a lot of sand or gravel gets into them. The keeper said that what Kiya said was true. Every year the flow of the river is less and less. He guessed that in ten years, maybe even less, the river would be dry."

In a tone of bitterness that surprised her, Astrid said, "So, Raymond, intergalactic hero, can you do it? Can you save Amarna?"

Even with the quiet all around them and the fact that she was only standing a step away from him, Astrid had a hard time hearing Raymond say, "Maybe."

• • •

For the first time since the night before they left Peltdown, both teens slept for eight hours. When Astrid was awakened by a nudge to her shoulder and Bes saying, "It is time," she couldn't remember where she was or what it was time for. That brief, confused, but somehow pleasant moment was soon replaced by the assumption that she and Raymond were going before the Tjati again.

Astrid's assumption, however, was wrong. Bes didn't take them to the Tjati. Instead, he led them out of the stable and turned in the opposite direction. As they walked, Astrid tried to look at Bes's hands to see if they might be the ones which had taken her awl and covered her mouth. When she couldn't decide, and as a result of that indecision, couldn't decide if he was loyal to her mother or loyal to the Tjati, she decided to say nothing about the men in the temple or the man in the stable. After walking for twenty minutes, the teens recognized where they were when they entered a triangular plaza bordered with massive three story buildings on each of the three sides.

"This is the Mouseion. It is where all of the knowledge that was brought from Old Kemet and all of the knowledge we have accumulated is stored."

Looking around the plaza at the nine buildings each with its own arched bridge with a missing section crossing over the dry moat, Raymond asked, "Why are the bridges that way?"

"What way?"

"Broken."

"They are not broken. They were built that way."

"But why?"

Before turning away from the teens he asked, "Can you find your way back to the stable?"

After looking at one another, both teens nodded.

"The Tjati will see you tonight at sunset."

After Bes turned the corner Raymond asked, "Why did he bring us here?"

"To learn something."

"But what?"

"'But why? But what?' Stop asking questions, Raymond. I don't know. But, I'm guessing whatever it is, we'll need to make a leap of faith to find out."

"What does that mean?"

Instead of answering, Astrid sprinted across the plaza toward the nearest building, raced up the bridge, jumped across the gap separating the two halves of the bridge, and disappeared into the arched entranceway of the building.

After Astrid disappeared from view, Raymond began walking along the edge of the moat. As he came to each bridge he studied the gap between the sides of the span to see if it might be narrower than any of the others. As he came back to the bridge that Astrid had crossed, he began to run, but as soon as his feet were on the bridge, they balked.

"Idiot, you can do this. You are stronger and braver on Kemet than on Earth."

Raymond walked off the bridge and ten paces beyond. He turned and stared. His hands began to flap.

"I hate bridges with gaps."

One of Raymond's flapping hands rose and slapped him in the face.

"You hate being afraid even more than you hate bridges with gaps."

The teen began to run. When his lead foot landed on the bridge, he screamed, "Jump, you idiot." Before his words had stopped echoing across the plaza, a surprised and joyous Raymond was on the far side of the bridge with his arms extended before him to keep from smashing into the building door.

Raymond found Astrid wandering on the second floor.

"What have you found?"

"What I have found is one old geezer guide who wanted to know what knowledge we sought. I told him we'd know better what to ask him after we had walked around awhile. If we do have any questions, I think we are going to get a lot more answers than we want. He acted like I was the first visitor he's had in a decade. The problem is that if we don't want to listen to him, but we want to learn something, then we'll probably have to mail away for a correspondence course unless ...."

"Unless what?"

"Unless the intergalactic hero's genius extends to reading hieroglyphics because that is where my own education has failed me. Look at this stuff, Raymond. It looks like someone, someone who would definitely fit in at Peltdown, drew a bunch of not too obvious comics and forgot to write the captions."

Astrid grabbed Raymond's arm and led him to a row of shelves holding brick-sized rocks carved with figures.

"Here you go, Raymond. Bird, cross, bird, different bird, comb, pitch-fork, jar, saw, railroad crossing, bird."

When a hysterical laugh filled the hall, Raymond jumped back in surprise.

"What's wrong with you, Raymond? That's the funniest hieroglyphic joke I've ever read. Saw, railroad crossing, bird. C'mon, Raymond, you have to admit that's hilarious."

Astrid emitted a different version of a maniacal laugh.

"That's not funny, Astrid."

"Which part, Raymond? Saw, railroad crossing, bird? Or your partner's insane laugh?"

"Both."

"Once again, we have the wisdom of Raymond, the genius. Let's get out of here and see what's in the other buildings."

In the second building a man much like the one Astrid had met in the first welcomed them and then proceeded to follow them around anticipating questions. Since the contents of that building were not all that different from the first and the old man's hovering gave them the creeps, the explorers moved to the next building. The third was very different. It was filled with models and there was no docent to enlighten them. On the first floor were models of cities and pyramids that the teens decided must be of ancient Egypt. There was one model, twenty feet long and ten feet wide, that showed the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the mouth of the Nile, and a number of cities and pyramids along the river. On the second floor there was a model they guessed was Amarna because a large canal exited from it, but stopped short of the thin strips of stone that bordered the model.

Raymond became excited when he discovered a model of the mechanics of the channel gates on the third floor. At his insistence, Astrid watched as he pushed down on one gate and pointed out how another rose.

"See. This is what I was telling you about. This is what the gatekeeper told me."

"Feast your eyes, Raymond. There's a model of the whole system over here and it looks like a chess board times four."

Raymond held his chin and made small chirping sounds as he studied a grid that was twenty blocks on a side, but with the blocks closer to Amarna being smaller than the outlying ones. The boy ran his hand over the narrow pieces of stone that represented the channel gates.

"It is like chess, but it also is like a maze, but not exactly like a maze because for every gate that goes up another one has to drop down."

When the boy pushed his finger down against a gate near Amarna one deeper in the grid rose.

"That is pretty neat."

"Fascinating, Raymond."

Astrid wandered off while Raymond continued to play with the irrigation channel model. He was still at it almost an hour later when she returned.

"I'm starving. Let's blow this joint and get ourselves a nice date-burger and fries."

Raymond looked up from the model, squeezed his eyes shut, and began to twist his lips back and forth.

"Are you having a stroke, Raymond?"

"I'm thinking."

"About what?"

"Please, be quiet."

Astrid watched her partner's face. For a few seconds his head shook back and forth as he frowned. Finally, it began to nod. His eyes opened. "You can have a date-burger, Astrid. I think I'm going to order a date-on, lettuce, and tomato sandwich."

Although she was grinning, Astrid still punched Raymond's arm.

"If this humor stuff gets out of hand, Raymond, we may have to send you back to Earth."

The partners had just finished a meal of dates, nuts, and water when Bes walked into the stable's kitchen.

"Tefnut has fallen ill. The Tjati will not meet with you tonight. Because of that inconvenience to you, she has offered you a room in the Alamin."

"What is that?"

"It is where the Returned stay when they first come back."

"Then why haven't we been staying there?'

"Because neither of you were expected and there are those on the Tjati who doubt you are what you say you are."

"Then let them keep doubting. We'll stay in the stable."

After Bes left, the teens decided to go back to their rooms to nap. Astrid was deeply asleep when a hand was clasped over her mouth and another pressed against her eyes. She started to struggle, but stopped when she recognized the spicy smell and the voice whispering, "Be still."

The hand over her mouth lifted, but a cloth was dropped over her head before the other hand was removed from her eyes.

"Don't look. You are better off not knowing. Tonight say you are tired and go to bed early. When you are sure your friend is asleep, leave the stable. Turn right, away from the Iteru, and start walking. Even when you are fearful and lose hope, keep walking. You will be met and taken to your mother who wants to see you very much. Say nothing to your friend. Now, turn your head away."

The cloth was pulled from her head. There was a whisper of bare feet on stone and, then, there was nothing but silence.

Knowing she would not be able to go back to sleep, Astrid sat up and considered what she should do. She didn't know whether to trust the person who had so easily overpowered her the night before. She thought that it would make perfect sense to use her mother as a carrot to get her away from Raymond and away from the stable. She definitely didn't like the idea of walking around Amarna at night by herself without Raymond even knowing that she was gone. But if the voice was sincere and could take her to her mother, Astrid thought she couldn't even put a name to the feeling that surged inside of her.

Astrid was sitting outside with her back against the stable wall when Raymond found her.

"You scared me. I didn't know where you were."

"Raymond, how many Amarnians have we seen?"

"The Tjati, Bes, Apep, the two you saw in the temple, the channel master I met by the reservoir, and," Raymond looked around before lowering his voice, "the one who talked to you last night. The two at the Mouseion. And I saw maybe a dozen when I was at the reservoir."

"We've been on Kemet four days and we've seen fewer than fifty people. Kiya said there are more than one thousand people living in Amarna. Where are they? Why haven't we seen more people on the streets? It's like a ghost town. It doesn't make sense."

Convinced that she had Raymond sufficiently distracted, Astrid felt it was time to ask what she really wanted to know, "Raymond, do you still have the map?"

When the boy reached into a back pocket, Astrid asked, "Let's see if we can figure out if there is some part of Amarna we haven't seen where a thousand people might be living."

As Raymond's finger traced the route they had taken to the places Apep had marked on the map, and whose hieroglyphics had been augmented with English names, Astrid feverishly scanned the rest of the map looking for a hieroglyph that might represent a prison or prisoner. After looking at dozens of symbols and trying to guess what they might mean, she had almost given up hope when Raymond moved his hand and Astrid saw what looked to be a depiction of a man kneeling or squatting with his arms behind him secured to a stake. She nearly yelped in excitement. A second later her excitement became so great her yelp couldn't be restrained.

"What?'

"Nothing, Raymond. I thought I was going to burp date on you and tried to hold it in."

Astrid looked back at the map. The prisoner figure, if that truly was what is was, looked to be less than a half-hour's walk from the stable; however as the girl's eyes studied the map, she realized that the path between the two was as much a maze as their trip across Amarna's fields. Unlike Raymond or so many of the Peltdown students, Astrid did not have a photographic memory or anything close to it. As she looked at the frequent turns, she wished she could just demand that Raymond give her the map, but she didn't want to pique his interest. Instead, she concentrated on the changes in directions and the number of blocks between turns. Before she had a chance to feel comfortable that she would be able to recall the directions, Raymond slid a hand toward the upper right corner of the map.

"Maybe there are people up here. The area we have been exploring seems to be where the government is. Over here is the Mouseion. Aten's temple is almost in the middle of the map. See this area? It's south of where the main feeder leaves the reservoir and just east of a gate that leads into the fields. Remember when you wondered who tended the crops? Maybe this is where they live."

"Maybe, Raymond. Maybe some of them, but think how far away some of the fields were. You couldn't leave Amarna, work, and get back in a day."

"Well, maybe they go in boats. If the water in the channels was running fast or the right gates were down, you could get to a lot of the fields quickly."

"But not all."

"No, not all. But, maybe there are camps where people spent days, or weeks, or a whole season like Greek shepherds."

"You know what, Raymond? I'd like to stop thinking about it. I'd like to stop thinking about if we are being lied to, or why we are being lied to. Or, if they aren't lying, then why is no one telling us much of anything. I'd like to walk around a corner, see a building with a big window, and see a bunch of hotdogs grilling in that window. Or, if Kemetian civilization hasn't advanced to the point of inventing hotdogs, then, a goat or lamb or chicken getting grilled. Something. And, when we walked in to get ourselves a luscious Coney Island goat sandwich with everything on it, forty people would look up and smile or frown or wave or ignore us. Something. Amarna is a ghost town and the ghosts are starting to bother me."

Raymond reached over and touched his partner's wrist.

"Astrid, are you becoming afraid?"

Astrid jerked her hand away.

"No, I'm becoming tired. And I'm starting to wish I had never made any crystals."

"The crystals. I forgot about them. Think how many dates we have eaten. We better find another place to hide them."

Astrid nodded her agreement as she pushed herself to her feet.

• • •

Five hours later, Astrid crept out of the stable and turned in the opposite direction of where she had been directed. As she walked her mind swung back and forth between the directions she hoped she correctly remembered and her reasoning that, given how few people lived in Amarna, there couldn't be many prisoners nor many guards at the prison.

Two wrong turns, which gave birth to several long moments of panic, meant that it was close to an hour before Astrid stood in the shadows across the street from a solid looking four-story building whose upper stories were supported by massive columns. Under the meager starlight Astrid could make out a large receptacle in front of the entrance that reminded her of the one atop the column in the plaza before Aten's temple. Running along both sides of the entrance were stone benches that the girl estimated to be more than fifty feet long. The narrow, recessed entrance of the building emitted a faint orange light. She darted across the street to the prison side before slinking from column to column toward the prison's entrance. As she moved along the bench she noticed that holes had been drilled every few feet in the seat of the stone bench. The teen only had to wonder what the holes might be for until she came to a column, which had all four sides of its base carved with stylized figures chained to benches.

Astrid was creeping toward the column nearest to the prison entrance when she thought she heard footsteps behind her. It was fear rather than courage that impelled the girl to race forward and yank open the prison's hulking door.

The glow she had seen emanating from the edges of the door was caused by two lanterns burning on either side of a narrow archway at the back of the prison's entrance hall. Reverberating around that gloomy space in a way that made it impossible for her to tell from which direction it came, Astrid heard a low, harsh voice demanding, "Who are you? Why are you here at this hour? What do you want?"

Spilling out the words that she had rehearsed in her bedroom and on the walk, words which she herself thought might have been cribbed from some movie like Ben Hur, said, "I am Astrid. Daughter of Samara. Granddaughter of Kiya. Astrid the Returned. I have come to see Samara. I am here to carry out Kiya's command."

"Step closer to the light."

Before moving forward Astrid slipped a hand into her back pocket, and palmed the awl before shoving it to her front pocket.

A short, hatchet-faced, wizened old man stepped out of the archway holding a short sword. He brandished the sword before asking, "Why have I heard nothing of this?"

"I returned to Amarna two days ago. Many of my hours have been spent with the Tjati in talks of Amarna's future. Before the Tjati finished their questions, Tefnut fell ill. Kiya instructed me to come here to speak with Samara while Tefnut recovers. Kiya said that even though Samara is in disfavor, she is not without wisdom."

Astrid spread the fingers of her left hand, then, interlaced them with her right.

"I am here to weave my knowledge with Samara's wisdom for the benefit of Amarna." When the guard didn't respond, Astrid improvised, "That we might better know Aten's will."

When the guard stepped further away from the arch, the light from the lanterns turned his eyes into orange disks. He raised his sword over his head. Astrid stepped back and reached for her pocket. The sword hovered, then, came down and tapped the floor three times. The guard turned and the word, "Come," reverberated through the lobby. He lifted a lantern from its hook and led the teen through the archway into a warren of narrow halls and small cells. Almost none of the cells had doors. The flickering light cast by the lantern showed that each cell held nothing but a long stone bench with a hole drilled in one end. As she made her way deeper into the prison, twisting first one way and then another, Astrid felt like she was traversing yet another maze.

After more than a dozen turns, the jailer stopped and barked, "Samara, wake."

Astrid looked on in horror as a small bundle of black rags began to stir in the weak light. A figure sat up on the bench. Slowly a separation appeared between the blackness of the rags and the blackness of a mane of untended hair. A thin, worn face appeared with coal black eyes as bright as Astrid remembered. The eyes turned from the jailer to the girl. First a slight nod, then a smile, and then, "Astrid, my beautiful, courageous daughter. Even if I had not been told that you had made your way to Kemet, I would know you for my own." Her smile grew. "Even were I blind, with this," Samara touched her unmanacled hand to her breast, "I would know you.'

Samara's hand reached out to Astrid.

"Eight years is many lonely days."

What welled up inside Astrid felt like a writhing of snakes. Unfathomable relief, unspeakable sadness, unquenchable rage, unforgivable betrayal, twisted and slithered inside her with each striving to be the triumphant emotion. The daughter stepped back rather than toward her mother. A hand shot down to her pocket and trembling fingers gripped the head of the awl. The hand waited for one clear direction out of a profusion of conflicting thoughts: Stab the guard. Stab her. Her hungry eyes. Her eager ears. Her twisted tongue. Her icy heart. Stab me. My eyes, ears, and heart.

Samara's hand dropped to her lap.

"Your body has come a long way, but the journey of your heart may be much longer."

Samara lifted the hand whose wrist was encircled in an iron band. "Mafdet, my hand is manacled and with you standing near, my words are, too. Please leave us so that I may speak to my daughter. Freely."

The guard took a short taper from a pocket, lighted it from his lantern, and used it to light a small oil lamp that hung outside Samara's cell.

"Speak quickly."

For a second time, the old man raised his sword over his head, then lowered it and tapped the stone floor three times.

"Quickly."

As the sounds of the jailer's steps receded, Astrid felt even more trapped in a maze with her mother just three steps away than if she were in the prison alone without light. With tears streaming down her face eroding whatever maturity she had hoped to portray, Astrid blubbered, "Why did you leave us?"

"Some only have one duty. Others have more. You, your sister, and your father commanded my heart. Tefnut, Kiya, all of those left in Amarna commanded my loyalty. Daughter, what do you know of Kemet's story?"

Through her tears Astrid recounted Akhenaten's building of Amarna, its thousand-year glory, and its quick demise. She repeated what Kiya had told her of the Pilgrimage, the building of the new Amarna, the failed canal, and the slow death of the city.

"And what do you know of my story, daughter?"

"Nothing. You were my mother and then you weren't."

"For you to understand my story, you need to know more of Amarna's.

"The first years after the Pilgrimage were very difficult. The power of the Mother Lapis and her Seven Daughters was not without limits. We were able to bring so little. Those who were willing to make the journey were those who were most devout in worshipping Aten. What else could they be if their faith triumphed over their fear? Those who came were deep in faith, but shallow in skills. Along with those few skills were brought even fewer tools. It was decided to send a group of journeyers back to gain more skills and bring back more tools. Using the lapis, they went back and forth and what they brought back allowed Amarna to flourish.

"As you will see when you walk the streets of the city, the people of Amarna became expert builders in stone. Their skills were not used to build monumental pyramids. Aten did not desire that kind of homage. We were not as successful with the soil as we were with stone. The pilgrims had brought camels, sheep, and fowl along with date, fig, lemon, almond and pistachio trees. Only the dates and almonds survived. The same was true with grain. Those first voyagers knew enough to grow emmer and barley, but over time we lost the knowledge of how to grow barley. Our artists were skilled." Samara shook her manacled wrist. "Our metal workers were not.

"All through the first millennium Amarna, a city of beautiful stone populated by faithful people, grew. The irrigation channels were constructed and, when needed, extended. The variety of food was limited but the quantity was sufficient to feed all of Amarna, which grew to nearly five hundred thousand people.

"In the second millennium, the Mother Lapis was lost on Earth. The Iteru's flow became weaker. Some said one caused the other. Others, our priests, said the cause was that Aten was displeased. The sacrifices began. Many died, but still the harvests grew ever smaller. Many people starved. Many others lost faith. In desperation, the digging of the Great Canal was ordered. Faith in that became for some greater than faith in Aten. But, that faith, too, was not enough. So many workers died, from too little food and too much punishment, that work on the canal stopped. Every year since, there has been less water and less food. More people died, then many people, then most people died. As the population became ever smaller, for a second time skills became lost. People began to lose hope in Amarna and lose faith in Aten. The Tjati ordered the most experienced camel riders to search for Wahih. Many died in the search. Wahih was not an easy place to find in the middle of an immense nothingness. No one had used the Door in more than one thousand years. But, finally, the oasis was found. The one who discovered what had been lost to memory was the camel rider, Seth. During his wanderings to find Wahih, Seth made a map. Things that you and I would never notice, some slight change in the land, Seth could see because he was a camel rider and had spent much time in the desert. When Seth returned to Amarna and told the Tjati of his success, they took his map and imprisoned him."

When Samara slid to the edge of the bench, her manacle and chain rattled. The noise drew Astrid back from her thoughts of hope and journeys. Samara reached toward the girl.

"Astrid, I know I have harmed you. I ask for your forgiveness."

Samara stretched her hand out further, but Astrid remained standing unmoved in the entrance to her mother's cell.

"Daughter, please sit by your sorrowful mother."

With as stony a stare as she could muster, the teen retained her rigid pose for more than a minute before taking the three steps necessary to put herself next to the person whom she had desperately missed for eight years. To counter the unfreezing that was occurring inside her, Astrid demanded, "Tell me about you. I don't want to know about a camel rider named Seth. I want to know why you left me."

Samara nodded her head in understanding.

"After work on the canal stopped, the Tjati made a decision that certain women would journey to Earth to have a child. They reasoned that over two millennia certain kinds of intelligence had been lost. It was thought that the loss might be due to Kemet itself. That living here on Kemet had changed us in some critical way. We were not from here. We were from Earth. It was decided to send the smartest women to Earth. They were to marry, have a child, raise it, let it be educated with Earth knowledge until it was grown, and then, the mother and child would return to Kemet. If they could return. No one knew how much power was in a lapis, or, how much power was used going to or from Earth

"You! You! You! Tell me about you!"

"I am one of those selected to go to Earth to give birth to what were called mutas, children half of Amarna and half of Earth, children who might save Amarna. My mother, Kiya, had nine daughters. Two of us, my sister Qetesh and myself, were among those who were chosen to save Amarna. We have done as we were charged by the Tjati. For hundreds of years, we have gone to Earth, beguiled a man to marry us—a rich man, a smart man, a creative man, a strong man. We have made many children, raised them until they were sixteen, and then revealed to them who we were, who they were, and what they might do. Sometimes the child would return with the mother. Sometimes they would refuse. It was their decision. They never were forced."

"When I last went to Earth, I met a man, a smart man, a gifted man, your father. We made you and Frances.

"Twins? That had never happened before. How would the Tjati accept twins? Twice after having you I returned to Kemet just long enough to make the journey from Wahih to Amarna, meet with the Tjati, and return to Wahih. Each time I intended to tell the Tjati about you, that Amarna was twice blessed. Each time my courage failed me. I spoke of Frances. I told the Tjati how promising she was, how hopeful I was, but I said nothing about you. Two was not one and one was what the Tjati expected. The Tjati have no tolerance for the unexpected.

"The summer you and Frances turned eight, I found something that I thought would ensure that the Tjati would welcome you."

Astrid nodded, "The Mother Lapis."

"Yes, the Mother Lapis, something so powerful and something so long missing. I left the lapis on Earth so it could not be taken from me when I returned to Amarna. I told the Tjati what I had discovered and I told them about you.

"And in their wisdom, they put me here."

"But, why?"

"They said because I had deceived them. In truth, it was because they feared the power I could wield with the Mother Lapis."

"You were put in prison because of me?"

"No, my child, not because of you. I am here because of them. Their fears. Their rigidity. Their selfishness."

Astrid wailed, "Eight years."

"My time here could have been much shorter. I could have been sacrificed."

"Sacrificed? What does that mean?"

When Samara's hand touched Astrid's wrist , the girl did not protest.

"What did you see as you entered the prison?"

"A lobby. Lanterns. The guard."

"No, just outside."

"Two long benches."

"And?"

"Something that looked like a planter or watering trough."

"Did you notice the benches had holes?" Samara rattled her chain, "Much like this hole and used for the same purpose. If you looked into what you are calling a watering trough, you would have seen four holes, again for the same purpose. It is not a watering trough. It is a brayzir. The legs and arms of the sacrificed are manacled. The brayzir is filled with palm wood. A fire is lighted. Aten is pleased. That is what sacrificed means in Amarna."

Astrid grabbed at her manacled wrist. "Could that happen to me? Apep said I could be imprisoned, or worse. Is that what he meant?"

"I do not know. The Tjati will decide. They must consider that Frances, in whom they placed so much hope, is no more. That you, of whom they know little and the one you brought, of whom they know even less, are here."

"Stop! Stop! The benches outside have many holes. Were all the holes used to hold prisoners or sacrifices?"

"Both. There have been times of many prisoners and few sacrifices, times with few prisoners and many sacrifices, times when there have been many of both. Now that we are so few, as you can see, there are few prisoners. Perhaps soon, the Tjati will decide that I am to be sacrificed, and, then, there will be none."

Astrid yanked her wrist free from her mother's clutch.

"Or maybe there will be two or three—you, my friend Raymond, and me."

"That must not happen. You must convince them of your worth."

Astrid stood up and dug into her pocket. She withdrew her hand, opened her fist, and displayed a blue crystal. As she leaned toward her mother, she heard footsteps.

"The Tjati don't understand how Raymond and I got here." Astrid's voice grew softer as the footsteps of what she assumed was the jailer grew louder. "I made this. I brought six of them to Kemet. The Tjati took two. I still have four that they don't know about. If I were back on Earth, I could make thousands."

When Astrid's eyes moved from the blue object gleaming in the lantern's light to her mother, Samara's head was shaking in wonderment.

Mafdet's voice growled, "Enough talk. More than enough. Come, girl. Leave the prisoner."

Despite the jailer's age and apparent frailty, he hurried along the prison's labyrinth. Astrid let herself fall behind so if Mafdet had turned his head, she would have appeared to be just another of the writhing shadows created by the guttering lantern. At each turn of the hall, the teen timed the scratch she made in the wall with her awl with the thud of the jailer's shoes upon the floor.

As soon as she stepped back into the night's cool air, Astrid felt her lungs hungrily open. Keeping her eyes averted from the brayzir, the teen turned left, walked to the end of the prisoner's bench and sat down. Once seated, her body began to tremble in relief—relief from the dark, claustrophobic hallways of the prison and relief from being so physically close to the cause of such a complex puzzle of emotions.

After several minutes of sitting, Astrid's breathing was more regular, even though her thoughts were not. Finally, unable to sit any longer, she got up from the bench and directed her thinking to solve the puzzle of how to get back to the stable rather than how to unknot the tangle of her feelings.

As Astrid turned the first corner on her way back to the stable, something black leapt out of the shadows. Something grabbed her hair. A rope spun around her neck and she was jerked against the blackness. Astrid's fingers dug at the rope that was throttling her, but it was so tight she couldn't get her fingers under it. She felt the blood trapped inside her skull become frantic as it searched for a way to escape. Letting go of the rope, she twisted and darted her hands toward her pockets. When she pulled out her right hand it held the crystal. She stretched her arm out and opened her fist so her attacker could see its faint blue glow in the starlight. As the assailant leaned forward to grab the crystal, Astrid stabbed his thigh three times with the awl. When the garrote loosened, the girl jerked free and leapt away; however, instead of continuing her escape, after two steps, enraged, she stopped, spun, and jumped back toward her assailant.

The awl missed the right eye, its intended target. When it punctured the man's nose, Astrid jerked downward. The blood bursting from the flaps of his nostril gleamed red. Two spidery hands flew to the man's face. Astrid turned and ran.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Raymond came within an instant of losing an eye when, without warning, he stepped out of a doorway and into Astrid's path. Recognizing who had surprised her, Astrid managed to change the arc of the awl's path; although in doing so she lost her balance. She stumbled and fell into Raymond's chest. As soon as she got her feet back under herself, Astrid stepped back and shot the heel of her empty hand at Raymond's chest.

"What an idiot you are, Raymond. Why do you keep jumping out of dark places? Keep it up and either I'm going to have a heart attack, or you are going to be dead."

Raymond didn't say anything. He just stared at the weapon Astrid was still brandishing.

"Is that blood?"

As Astrid nodded her head, she felt her face begin to crumble.

"Where were you? What happened?"

"There is not the vacationland we thought it would be, Raymond. I'll tell you later. Can you get us back to the stable?"

"Yes. The map is in my pocket and in my head."

"Let's go."

Astrid took one step and staggered. Her latest fright had claimed the last of her body's store of adrenaline.

"Raymond, hold my arm ... and, Raymond, don't get all squirmy."

"Pill was squirmy, not me."

"Not so far."

When they were close to the stable, Astrid turned them toward the riverfront plaza.

"Where are we going?'

"Back to the middle of the plaza where we can't be overheard."

After Astrid had told her partner about her mother, the prison, the brayzir, and the attack, Raymond asked, "Is the stable safe?"

"No, probably not."

"What should we do?"

"I don't know, Raymond, but I don't think I want to be barbequed to keep Aten happy."

"But what should we do?"

"I just said I don't know. You're the strategy guy. Maybe you can come up with a good jumping on a coal train rescue plan. You know, steal a couple of camels, ride alongside, and jump on."

"You should tell the Tjati that you can make crystals."

"We've been over that. What good would it do? I can make them on Earth, but if I have to do it here, it would have to be done without electricity and using dates and almonds as my raw ingredients. I think the fact that I can make crystals has to be kept secret. I think we need to see if the Tjati fall in love with us, or, more likely, with you. Or, maybe we can out-Oz them. Tell them a bunch of stuff about how to save Amarna with improved agricultural methods."

"Do you know anything about farming?"

"No, Raymond, I don't. I'm probably the only person ever born in Indiana who doesn't. And would it be okay for me to guess that you don't know anything about animal reproduction?"

"I could learn."

For a second time that night, Astrid hit her partner's chest. "Raymond, I'm shocked."

Raymond grinned sheepishly, "Me, too. I think it is Kemet. It's making me into someone I don't know."

"That could be useful. If the Tjati, or that horrible old woman, Tefnut, decide that we have to be put in prison like my mother or sacrificed, if we learn that ahead of time, what would we do? How would we escape?"

Raymond shook his head, "I don't know."

"Think about it. Pretend we're in a chess match. Which are stronger? Bishops, knights, or rooks?"

"Rooks."

"Then pretend we are knights or bishops. What do we do?"

Seeing that the mention of chess had put her partner in a trance, Astrid grabbed his arm, "Maybe not at this exact moment, Raymond. Let's go have a lovely date and nut late night snack."

As soon as they stepped through the stable entrance, Maysa began making her bullfrog sounds and didn't stop until Astrid went into the stall and scratched her ear and stroked her nose. The teen was still trying to calm the camel, when Raymond rushed up.

"Upstairs is a mess. All the food is on the floor in the kitchen and the stuff in our rooms has been thrown around."

Astrid whispered, "You were a real genius, seriously, a real genius, to re-hide the crystals. We better sleep down here in a stall. That way if someone comes back, Maysa will let us know."

After spreading a mound of clean emmer straw in the stall next to Maysa as a foundation, the two teens sat down on their palm leaf mats and covered their legs with their camel hide blankets. It was as Astrid was running her fingers through where her assailant has grabbed her hair that she smelled the same spicy odor that had been on the hand that had twice covered her mouth.

In a thoughtful voice Raymond said, "I hope we're not keeping warm with Maysa's cousins."

More than an hour after lying down, assuming that Raymond, despite his steady breathing, might be, like herself, having troubling falling asleep, Astrid murmured, "What are you thinking about?"

"Escaping. What about you?'

"My mother. Prison. She's been chained there for eight years."

"Should we try to rescue her?"

"That's one of the things I've been thinking about. Another is that it might be easier for her to escape from prison than for us to escape from Amarna."

Astrid was surprised when Raymond said, "I think we could do it."

"How?"

"Like we got here. Dates, water, and Maysa. I spent a long time looking at and playing with the model of the irrigation channels."

"So, did you memorize it, like a chess board?"

"Yes ... well, most of it ... a lot of it."

"But if we run away and they start raising and lowering gates, then what do we do?"

"Remember, Astrid, if one gate goes up another one has to go down. If we left just after dark, we might get through the most complicated part of the maze, the part next to Amarna, before anyone knew we were gone. They might be moving gates we were already past. That could end up holding back whoever they might send after us. I think we would have a good chance of staying ahead."

"Raymond, even if we got all the way through the maze without being captured, how do we find the oasis? I told you Samara said it was very hard to find. People have died trying to find it."

"You said someone made a map."

"Seth. He's dead."

"I know he's dead, but a copy of his map might be at the Mouseion. It had models of the channels and Amarna. There might be a model of the land from Amarna to the oasis."

"Raymond, think about what that model would look like. In all the hours before we came to the first channel, what did we see? Nothing. No trees, no rocks, no hills. Nothing. So what are our directions? Ride ten miles over a dusty plain and then turn right when it gets dustier? When Seth made his map, there must have been something more out there, something that over the centuries has been covered up or blown away."

"So you think we can't escape?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"Astrid, why don't you fall asleep and I will keep thinking. If we had a map ... and a compass ....""

"You keep thinking, Raymond, but not out loud. And while the brain of my favorite genius is quietly chunking away, I'll sleep like Sleeping Not Such a Beauty."

"Am I really your favorite genius?"

"From the few people we've met and what we've seen so far, Raymond, given that competition I can assure you that yes, Raymond, you are my favorite genius ... on Kemet."

"Then I think Kemet is not all bad."

"It's pretty bad, Raymond, and I have an idea that it might be getting worse. I'd guess there are people, probably not too far from here, spitting out date pits and shelling nuts as they think of interesting things to do to us that will make us wish we were going on a camping adventure with Fatman and his nasty, clutchy friend."

"Do you think we can wait? Shouldn't we leave right now?"

"Probably, but we don't have a plan and we don't have supplies. Remember when the only food we had when we left Peltdown was three slices of bread? We never even thought to bring food to There. If we're going to cross the Dustlands, then we'll need food and water for several days. Let's hope that Aten isn't paying attention and that Tefnut is still sick in the morning so we can get organized."

It was the sounds of Maysa's regular breathing that finally lulled both teens to sleep. It was a series of the camels' snorts that woke them just after dawn. Before they had managed to scramble up from underneath their blankets, Bes asked, "Why are you sleeping here and not in your rooms?"

Before Astrid could even begin to formulate a lie, Raymond said, "Astrid was attacked. She ...."

Astrid waved her hands at Raymond as she glanced at Bes's leg to see if there was any evidence of his thigh being wounded.

"I'll tell him. It's my story. You weren't even there, Raymond."

Bes tipped his head toward the girl.

"I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about my mother being chained. I went for a walk. Someone jumped out and grabbed my arm. I twisted free and ran away."

"Did he say anything to you?"

Astrid shook her head.

"What did he want?"

"I don't know. When I was about a block from here, Raymond ran up. He said Maysa woke him up. He went to my room, saw I was gone, and came looking for me. When we got back here, we saw someone had been in our rooms. We thought it made sense to sleep next to Maysa so she could warn us if my attacker showed up."

When Bes shook his head, Astrid didn't know if it was in disbelief in her story or disgust at Astrid's treatment. As he backed out of their stall and into Maysa's he said, "She would warn you."

"Bes, who would attack me? Who even knows I'm here? Everyone we've met except you and Apep is either an old man or old woman."

"An old camel is the quickest to bite."

Bes slipped a bridle over the camel's nose and reached for a saddle.

"Go back to the Mouseion. Learn more about why you are here."

"Will you come with us and show us what we should know?"

As Bes led Maysa from her stall, he said, "No, Maysa and I have other business."

Before they left the stable, the teens recovered most of the spilled dates and wrapped them in a piece of cloth for their breakfast and lunch.

When they got to the Mouseion, Raymond immediately leapt the gap in the bridge that fronted the building that housed the models. Astrid moved to the next building to see what it might hold.

They had eaten lunch and were going back to do more exploring when Bes rode up and told them the Tjati demanded their immediate presence. He reached down and pulled Astrid and then Raymond onto the camel. As they trotted back to the Qaeat Kabira, Astrid was relieved when she realized the rough callused hand that had just pulled her onto Maysa was very different from the smooth perfumed hand that had covered her mouth before telling her that Samara knew she was on Kemet and wanted to see her.

# CHAPTER FIVE

### An Angry Girl

As soon as Astrid followed Raymond into the Qaeat Kabira's immense hall, she knew that she would be leaving as a prisoner. In addition to the grim-faced Tjati sitting at their stone table and Apep standing below in attendance, there were four men whose white robes were cinched with camel leather belts. Girded by the belts were short, thick swords like the one that Mafdet had carried. As soon as the teens were standing in front of the altar-like table, Tefnut turned her stare to Astrid and announced, "Unwanted, you have been condemned. What do you say for yourself?"

"Condemned? What does that mean? Why? By whom?"

From behind the right side of the Tjati's dais, a man wearing a dog mask that covered the upper half of his face stepped forward. The man was tall and cadaverous, with extremely pale skin and snow-white hair. His albino-white skin was pulled tightly over a long sharp chin. Given his mask, the way his head tilted and his lips were pulled back from long, yellow teeth, the man reminded Astrid of a dog that was getting ready to attack.

"By me, Anubis. Aten's high priest. I have been watching. I have been listening. You are a blasphemer. Aten is offended. He must be appeased."

Kiya slowly, painfully, pushed herself up from the mammoth table. "Anubis, no one knows Aten's will as well as you. His whisper is like thunder in your ears. I do not doubt what you say, but I wonder how someone who knows nothing of Aten can blaspheme Him. My daughter, Samara, sits chained for eight years because she displeased Aten by giving birth to this child. Is that act not well paid for? Does Aten demand two payments for one act?"

When Anubis' head twisted on his long neck to study Kiya, Astrid half expected him to bend his knees before lunging ten feet into the air and burying his fangs in her neck.

"Aten has not decided whether He is full paid for the mother's deeds. He is sure that the sweet smell of the daughter is needed to mask the stench of her blasphemy."

The priest's arms flew up in the air.

"Let the Unwanted become Aten's incense!"

As his voice boomed out his last words, Anubis pointed a finger and stepped toward Astrid. Horrified at his words, terrified at what was to come, the teen was not so focused on her accuser's malignancy that she missed that the priest's steps were marked with a limp. As the interpreter of a god's demands moved toward her, Astrid drove a hand into her pocket. She pulled out the crystal and showed it to the Tjati.

All nine members gasped.

Astrid moved the crystal back and forth.

"You are shocked. You took lapis from me and my friend, but, somehow, now I have another. What more do I need to do to prove that I am the Returned that you have awaited?"

"Liar!"

Astrid swept the hand holding the crystal toward the priest.

"He isn't sacrificing me for Aten. He attacked me last night. He's sacrificing me for this. He wants my lapis."

"I have never met you. I want nothing but to please Aten."

Astrid held the crystal between thumb and forefinger and stretched out her arm as if offering it to her accuser. When Anubis limped forward, Astrid snapped her arm back. An instant later the crystal was in her mouth. Three seconds later it was in her stomach.

Despite the rawness in her throat, Astrid shouted, "Be pleased, Aten!"

As soon as Raymond saw the guards begin to move toward them, he pointed a finger at Astrid, bellowed, "Blasphemer!" fell to his knees, and began crawling along the floor toward the symbol of Aten. He began mumbling words that he hoped sounded like prayers.

Shocked by Raymond's actions, Astrid stood frozen as the guards neared her.

"Take her away."

Anubis' shout brought the girl back to her situation. She prepared herself to be searched and manhandled out of the hall. She was confused when the guards unsheathed their swords and formed a phalanx around her, but no one touched her. However, she was imprisoned within the tips of the four swords pointing at her. The guards began moving toward the entrance. Anubis's voice followed them.

"The sacrifice will be tomorrow night at sunset. The dark will hide the foul face of the Blasphemer from Aten's offended eye. The night winds will spread the Unwanted's incense far across Aten's domain."

After Astrid was taken from the hall, Anubis limped over and touched a sandal to Raymond's head.

The boy's words, "I don't like dirty sandals touching my hair," were drowned out by Anubis' command, "Arise, acolyte. Receive Aten's mercy."

Trying to prevent the sheepish sensation he was feeling from appearing on his face, the prostrate boy took his time pushing himself up from Aten's ray. Once the teen's body was away from the sun disk, Anubis extended an upturned hand to Raymond.

Unsure of what the gesture might mean, Raymond hesitated a moment before reaching out with his own hand as if to execute a handshake.

"The lapis."

"What?"

"Give Aten the lapis."

Raymond looked down as he shook his head, "I can't. I don't have it." Raymond pointed to the Tjati. "I only had one and they took it."

Raymond reached into his pants and turned his pockets inside out.

"Apep, search him."

"Stay, Apep."

Apep looked from Anubis to Tefnut trying to decide which order he should obey.

After Tefnut had exchanged a look with Kiya she half-rose so that she could see over the edge of the table. "Your work is done, Anubis, ... until tomorrow night. Leave us. We have much to discuss."

Hearing the words of dismissal, the priest's face became as hard and featureless as the stone he walked on as he crossed the floor and disappeared through the magnificent arched portal of the Qaeat Kabira.

"Apep, take the boy to the Alamin, feed him, instruct him in those thoughts and words which please Aten. Anubis too much loves the brayzir. I do not want to give him cause for a second sacrifice. After he is fed and instructed, provide him with those things he thinks he might need to begin his work on Kemet."

• • •

To distract herself from what was going to be done to her, Astrid forced herself to pay attention to the twists and turns the guards took from the Qaeat Kabira to the prison. Once the guards had turned her over to Mafdet and left, Astrid's fingers itched to pull out the awl and stab the old jailer before he could raise his sword. As he studied her with his rheumy eyes, she considered whether she would run from the prison after attacking him or retrace her steps from the night before and free her mother. In the end, because she didn't know where she would go if she ran and she didn't know if her mother could even walk after years of being chained, Astrid did nothing except plead.

They hadn't walked more than two minutes before the jailer said, "In here."

Astrid released the tears she had been hoarding.

"Please, please put me in a cell near my mother. It's just for one night. We've been apart for eight years and I will be ... gone ... sacrificed ... tomorrow night. Please, Mafdet, let my last hours be near Samara."

As the jailer considered her request, Astrid slipped a hand around to her back pocket. When he said, "Walk," Astrid's hand came back to her side empty.

As they moved along the low, dark passageway with Astrid ahead and the old guard following behind with his sword in his right hand and a glimmering lantern in his left, Astrid tried to peer through the wavering light for the scratch marks she had made.

While they were still a dozen cells shy of her mother's cell Astrid heard a soft voice, "I know your step, daughter. My heart swells knowing you have returned."

Waiting until she was closer, Astrid replied, "I had no choice. I'm unwanted. A prisoner. Condemned to be sacrificed tomorrow night."

"Why?"

Rather than answer, Astrid began a sobbing that continued as the jailer manacled her wrist. Mafdet left his newest prisoner, but came back a minute later with a small bag of dates and a jug of water. As he started to leave a second time, Samara asked, "Please light my lantern so that I may see my daughter."

"No. Let the dark cover both your deeds."

"Mafdet, I have asked for no favors in my years here. Today, I ask for one. After tomorrow I will have no reason to ask for another because any favor that you might be able to grant would do nothing to heal the wound my heart will be."

The jailer lighted Samara's lamp and left. As soon as he was gone, Astrid shoved her fingers down her throat until her stomach heaved. She used her shoe to push aside the crystal from the mess she had made. After cleaning it on the cuff of her jeans, Astrid shoved the lapis deep into a front pocket.

By extending their chains as far as they could and leaning out past the edge of the wall that separated them, mother and daughter could see one another's face. As soon as Astrid could no longer hear the jailer's steps, she cut off her sobs. As the girl opened her mouth to ask the first of the many questions she had, Samara shook her head and used her free hand to point to her ear.

"Daughter, your fate breaks my heart, but Aten's will must not be questioned. Be still while I pray to him to allow you to release your hold on this life quickly."

"Please mother, pray for me."

Both prisoners listened, but it was Samara's ears, attuned to the slightest noise after eight years spent mostly in the dark, which heard the slight rustle of the jailer's sandals when he finally moved away from his listening post.

Samara nodded, "He's gone. Who condemned you, Tefnut or the priest?"

"The priest. He said I had blasphemed. When I left here last night he attacked me. I think he wanted my crystal."

"How do you know it was Anubis?'

Astrid pulled her awl from her back pocket.

"When the attacker grabbed me, I used this to stab his leg and slash his nose. It's how I got away. When the priest was screaming at me today, he was limping. He wore a mask that covered his nose. I figured he was the one who had grabbed me."

"Did he get your lapis?"

"Last night? No. He wanted it today, but before he or the guards could take it, I swallowed it."

Samara shook her head in disbelief.

"Why?"

"So, he couldn't get it."

"If you are sacrificed, he can sift your ashes for it."

Astrid shook her head, "He won't find much. I made the crystal. I don't know if the same is true for the one you dropped in our back yard, but the ones I made will shatter if they get too hot. Heat will expand the liquid inside and the crystal will explode. If he wants my crystal, he either has to cut it out of me or," Astrid gave her stomach a vicious smack, "wait longer than tomorrow night."

"He can't cut it out. He is forbidden to touch you. Once you have been given to Aten for sacrifice, no one is allowed to touch you. You are Aten's. Now, only fire can touch you."

With that revelation, Astrid understood why she had not been searched, why she still had the awl, why the guards had surrounded her with their swords but had not touched her, and why her enemies' faith in Aten gave her some hope that she could avoid her sentence.

In a whisper Astrid asked, "If I escape, am I still Aten's?"

"How would you escape?"

"Would I or not? Could they touch me?'

"Some would say yes. The most fervent would say no."

"Is Anubis fervent?"

Samara considered that question before answering, "In his words."

Astrid studied her mother's face, which had aged much more than eight years. "If you could escape, would you? Do you believe in Aten? Do you believe that he wants you in this prison or burned to death because you had me?"

Samara looked down and, to Astrid, seemed to be studying the metal cuff around her wrist.

"I believe less than I once did. But, if I could, would I escape? Where would I go? To the Dustlands? Past the Dustlands to live among the Bukharians??"

"Bukharians? Who are they? I heard a word that sounded like that."

"They are the descendants of those who ran away from working on the Grand Canal."

Astrid grew excited. "What are they like? Where do they live? How many are there? Why haven't I heard about them? Are they more advanced, or kinder, or wiser than Amarnians? Or, do they live on nothing but dates and dreams?"

Samara held up her hand to stop her daughter's torrent of words.

"Is that how you see us? Dates and dreams?"

Astrid hesitated for only an instant before saying, "Yes, that is what I think. Think about it, mother. Little horrible Onabasha, Indiana has a population that is more than ten times bigger than Amarna. Onabasha has running water, electricity, radio, television, fried chicken, pigs, tomatoes, bicycles, cars, popcorn, Neccos, mattresses, flushing toilets, and a dozen different kinds of churches. What does Amarna have? Dates and a dream. Kiya, your mother, said the same thing. Amarna is empty. Empty.

"You ask if you could escape, where could you go? How about Earth? Onabasha. Back to your daughter. Back to your husband."

Samara shook her head as if emmer straw had gotten caught in the tangle of her hair.

"I put thoughts like those behind me many years ago. I think my head has grown too small to think of them again."

"No, that can't be true, mother. Close your eyes. Close them! Your manacle is gone. Rub your wrist. Stand up and step outside your cell. Reach up and take the lantern. Walk down the hallway. Mafdet is gone. Walk outside. Feel the sun."

The girl paused as she tried to think what her next words might be.

"And, then, daughter? Then, what do I do? Now, who is the dreamer?"

• • •

After Apep showed Raymond his new room in the Alamin, which was much bigger than the one in the stable and outfitted with a wooden bed frame carved with cats and topped with a mattress made of dried leaves, he took him to a small room dominated by a large stone table. On the table were a half dozen dishes and a pitcher. Raymond saw that one bowl held dates and another held almonds, but it was a large plate holding a mound of what looked like flat pieces of bread that grabbed the boy's attention. Next to the plate of bread was a shallow painted bowl holding what Raymond's nose guessed was cheese. Another bowl, smaller, held butter. The teen was surprised when the contents of the pitcher, which he had assumed would hold water, instead held something that gave off a sweet-sour pungency.

"What is this?'

"Date wine."

"I'm only sixteen."

Unable to make any sense of the Returned's comment, Apep nodded approvingly at the food.

"Eat. Eat. You are honored. This is Tjati food."

Without hesitation, Raymond devoured four loaves of bread; although he was not so intrepid with the cheese. He had despised cheese on Earth. Cheese was nothing but rotted bovine juices. But after days of nothing but dates, the newly courageous Raymond took a tentative nibble. He took a second small bite, and then he took a mouthful.

Even with his mouth full of food he burbled, "I'm eating camel milk cheese. I am changing."

Between bites of the best meal Raymond had eaten since two Coney dogs and a bag of chips in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, he asked Apep questions. He had seen a model of a tent in the Mouseion that was used as shelter by camel herders and farmers working far beyond Amarna's walls. What was it made of? What was papyrus? How was it made? Was it strong? What happened if papyrus got wet?

When he was full, the teen asked Apep if it would be possible for him to have a supply of papyrus and two dozen long, narrow pieces of palm wood, and a sharp knife. When Apep looked at him quizzically, Raymond explained that on Earth farmers sometimes used a cloth to shade certain seeds just after they had sprouted to increase their yield at harvest.

• • •

After more than two hours of leaning out of their cells to see one another, mother and daughter both felt some physical relief when the lantern's feeble light guttered out. They dropped back into the darkness to sit on their stone benches.

It took a while for Astrid to stave off the fear she felt in the prison's oppressive darkness, but, as the fear was pushed back, she found it easier to talk to her mother.

She talked about how her father had become ever more distant and unreachable and how they had moved to Ithaca and how kind the Sprigleys had been kind to her. She talked about Peltdown. She told Samara about her partner, Raymond, and how she had come to like him and how his cowardice had caused him to abandon her. She told Samara about the other dizzies, their names, and their gifts. She asked Samara if some of them were mutas, and was surprised that her mother did not know. When she asked if Dr. Bruer might be from Kemet, her mother immediately repeated that she did not know. The Tjati had revealed little of their plans or progress.

However, a moment later Samara admitted that she knew about Dr. Bruer. Yes, he was a muta. His mother was her sister Qetesh. He had refused to return to Kemet when he was sixteen, but he was fascinated with what Qetesh had told him about Amarna and its decline. After becoming a doctor he had started the Peltdown Institute so he could study gifted children who weren't mutas.

Three years before Qetesh had visited Samara in prison and told her that her son, Dr. Bruer, had a child who he thought might be capable of saving Amarna. However, he didn't think that could happen unless the Tjati were replaced.

"Replaced? What does that mean? A vote? A coup? A revolution? Assassination?"

"I do not know. Qetesh would not tell me of their plans. She said if I didn't know that would protect me and protect them."

"Your sister, Qetesh, is she like you?"

Samara shook her head. "No, Qetesh is very different from me. She thinks different thoughts than I do. She hides those thoughts better. She doesn't look like me. Her skin is very pale and her hair has always been white. She was old when she was young."

"Who was the child that Dr. Bruer said could save Amarna?"

Samara slowly shook her head back and forth a dozen times before she whispered, "A girl. A girl named Astrid."

Before she could be overwhelmed by her mother's words, Astrid forced herself to talk about what she had wanted to tell her mother from the first moment she saw her. And, because the enveloping dark was so absolute, the most difficult of words, somehow, came to be spoken.

In utter dark and utter silence, Astrid whispered, "I ... killed ... Frances."

No words, not a sound, not even the sound of a breath, came out of the darkness.

"I still don't know if I meant to or not.

"After you left she was so mean. She was angry at you. Then, she got polio and she got even angrier. You were gone and there was nothing she could do to the polio, so she took it out on me. She was crippled. Her legs had turned into bug legs, jerky, skinny, bug legs. She couldn't run. She moved with horrible crutches that fit around her wrists like manacles. She lumbered from side to side making horror story thumps and wheezing with every breath and every step. I hated those sounds. It was like they were accusing me. My older sister, my best friend, turned into a horrible creature. She hated me because I could walk and I hated her because she couldn't."

Astrid had started off talking to the dark in a low, calm whisper, but now her sentences began to break into two, three, and four parts as she choked on her sobs.

"You were gone. Dad was just as gone as you were. We were home every day that summer by ourselves, getting angrier. Fighting over anything, fighting over everything, over nothing. And, then, fighting, really fighting over something—your crystal. Both of us wanted it because it was from you. But, Tippy wasn't there when I found it, so I thought it was mine. But, she demanded that I give it to her, and I did. Then I took it back. She was so mad at me she broke all the camels you had brought back from Egypt for me. I started breaking some of her things. She tried to hit me with a crutch. I got past her and started running down stairs. She leaned over the railing and tried to hit me again with the crutch. I grabbed the tip and held on, just for a second, as I jumped down the last three steps. She fell over the railing. I ... killed ... her."

As her words died, Astrid heard broken sounds very much like the ones she had been making.

• • •

Although lying to the Tjati and Apep had been easier for Raymond than he ever would have imagined, he was having a much harder time with Bes. The camel driver's eyes had remained steady and unblinking as Raymond's eyes had darted from the old man's face to Maysa to the stable's empty stalls to nothing at all as he tried to explain the help that he needed.

"I want to show the Tjati that I come with knowledge that can help save Amarna." Raymond touched his temple. "I have knowledge in here, but that knowledge is having a very hard time getting down to my hands. I'm hoping you can help me. I'm trying to build a seed-shade. They're used a lot on Earth. If you put them low to the ground when seeds are just sprouting, it can protect them from the cold after the sun has gone down. You can tilt them up when it gets really hot to provide shade and slow down evaporation. I want to make four shades as an experiment. Can you help me build them?"

Bes's hand scraped at the hair on his chin.

"This is your first idea?"

"Only because it is something that can be done quickly. I thought, if they could be done by tomorrow, I could show them to Anubis and the Tjati before the sacrifice. For Amarna to grow, more food is needed. A seed-shade helps grow more food with the same amount of water. I'm even hoping I might be able to convince Anubis that the seed shades are Astrid's idea and that it is better for Amarna that she live."

"Anubis is more concerned with Aten than Amarna."

"Will you help me?"

Rather than answering, Bes began to unroll papyrus on the stable floor.

• • •

Astrid's mind was lost in the past, lost in the darkness, when her mother's murmur drifted around the corner of her cell.

"Frances is dead. We weep. You did not kill her. Her anger killed her. We weep.

"I do not want to weep again tomorrow at sundown. We must prevent that from happening. Anubis will come tonight. I'm sure of it. He will come to gloat. He will come with his taunts and say those taunts are Aten's words. We must convince him that the sacrifice must be delayed. We need time to plan."

"To plan what?"

"Your escape."

"Just mine? Not yours? If I escape and you don't come with me, then, won't you become the sacrifice?"

Astrid took three slow breaths before she heard her mother say, "Yes."

"Then you have to come with me."

"Again, I ask, where? Just where would I go?"

"I don't know. Somewhere that isn't a pitch-black prison or a brayzir. You must have friends, Kiya, your sisters, someone who would help you. Amarna is huge and it is empty. We can hide while we figure out a way to get to the oasis."

"To find Wahih is almost impossible, but even if we could, what then?"

"We go back to Earth. We live our lives."

"And let Amarna die?"

"Mom," Astrid paused after saying a word she had not said aloud in so long. "Am I, are you, wiser than the wise ones? From what you have told me, Amarna has been dying for centuries. Maybe Amarna has a better chance if we go to Earth and join Dr. Bruer in his plans. Maybe Amarna doesn't need to change. Maybe what needs to change is what Qetesh said, those who rule Amarna."

"I have my duty."

"Is your duty to Amarna greater than to yourself, or," Astrid wanted to keep the next words from spilling out, but she couldn't, "to me?"

Before waiting for her mother's answer, an answer she wasn't sure she wanted to hear, Astrid continued, "Wait. Wait. We'll go to Earth. I'll make a thousand crystals. Then, we come back and give them to whoever wants them. Whoever wants to can go to Earth and whoever wants to can come back with tools, seeds, fertilizer, ideas." It could be like an army of ideas invading Amarna to save it."

As the hours slowly passed in the pitch-black cells, as she and her mother went back and forth, sometimes talking and sometimes thinking about what had been said, or not said, Astrid considered what she should do if her mother was correct that the priest would come. If she could convince the priest that if he wanted her crystal he would have to wait, then, she thought it made sense to wait for another day before trying to escape. In their conversation Samara had told Astrid that even after her years in prison, she did have friends, that one friend who was allowed to visit carried messages back and forth between her and her friends. If, on the other hand, the priest indicated that she would die the next day, then, Astrid decided she would have to try to escape as soon as he left.

The previous night, as the girl had stood outside the cell, Astrid had studied her mother's manacle and chain. Kiya had said the Amarnians' skills with stone were far superior to their metal-working ones. Looking at her mother's chain and manacle, Astrid had to agree with Kiya. Her mother's chain was made of heavy beaten links of iron. The manacle itself was made from two pieces of rounded iron held together by two hinges. From where she stood, it had looked to the girl that one hinge was held together by a thin metal pin longer than the cuff was wide. The end of that pin had been hammered to form a cap on either side. Astrid assumed that the second hinge also was held together by a pin, but that pin wasn't visible. She had guessed that the pin was short so that a prisoner couldn't reach it, but that a jailer could push it in or out with some kind of narrow tool when the manacle needed to come off the prisoner.

Her observations from the previous night proved to be good ones. After Mafdet, with much effort, had managed to get the rusted manacle around her wrist and had forced the sides together, he had inserted a piece of iron that looked like a much-used finish nail into the hinge hole. Taking Astrid's wrist he had pounded the pin against the stone bed until it was flush with the cuff. Once it was flush, he took a second pin, positioned it against the first and tapped it against the stone until the first pin had disappeared into the hinge.

While studying the manacle the previous night, Astrid had been sure that it would be fairly easy to use her awl to push the short pin out. However, when she went to test that part of her theory, she found out it was wrong. The tip of the awl was small enough to go into the hinge hole, but when she pushed the pin didn't move. Whether from rust or the fact that neither hinge hole, nor pin, were straight, the pin was hung up.

Astrid's heart began a fearful sputtering. Her fingers began moving along the links of the chain trying to feel if one of the links might have a larger gap than another.

When she felt a link where the ends were not close together, she wedged the awl into the gap and began to tap it against the bed's stone.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to break a link in the chain. The teacher I told you about, Mrs. Sprigley, talked one day about how brittle iron is. I'm trying to force a piece of steel into the gap to see if I can snap it in two."

"With the awl?"

"Yes."

Returning to her work on the link, Astrid wished she hadn't dropped the chisel as she scrambled up The Fort's hill behind Raymond. After many minutes of trying, the teen gave up. The edges of the link weren't smooth. Instead of being wedged deeper into the gap between the two edges when she tapped it, the awl kept popping out.

"How long do you think it will be before the priest comes?"

"I don't know, Astrid. I've been here too long to have any sense of time. I told you when I first saw you that I knew you for my daughter. What I didn't say was how shocked and saddened I was by how you have changed. All my time in this dark, I have thought of you as you were the last time I saw you. I think my heart would have broken if I had allowed myself to think of how you were changing and I how I was missing those changes as you grew from a child into a beautiful young woman."

Not willing to respond to her mother's words, Astrid asked, "So, you have no idea of whether we might hear footsteps in two minutes or two hours?"

"None."

Astrid shifted her focus back to the hinge pin. In her previous efforts to free up the pin, she had been cautious about striking the awl so forcefully against the stone that she would break off the tip. It was the tip that made the awl a weapon. She didn't want to lose the only advantage she had. Before sliding the point back into the hole, the teen rubbed her fingers through her greasy hair then spat on her fingers. She scraped her fingers against both ends of the hinge hole before inserting the awl and twisting the tip to try to get some of the oily mixture past the ends of the pin. Removing the awl, Astrid brought the manacle to her mouth, fitted her lips as tightly as she could over the pin hole, and blew.

The girl's hopes soared when she banged the head of the awl against the stone and felt the shaft of the awl go deeper than on her previous attempts; however, despair immediately displaced hope when, despite more and harder poundings, the awl penetrated no further. She reversed the awl and tried pounding the pin from the opposite side. That accomplished nothing.

Feeling herself on the verge of rage, Astrid forced herself to stop the pounding, which had progressed from methodical to frantic. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. She pushed aside her terror of being burned alive. She drifted back to a place that was safe, a place where she had solved and had much help in solving problems. In the pitch-black cell, Astrid extended her manacled wrist to her memory of Professor Sprigley and whispered, "What do I do, Doc?"

" _What do you want to do?"_

"I want to get the pin out."

Doc shook his head, "Think again, kiddo."

"I want to get the manacle off."

" _Good girl. What holds the hinge together?"_

"The pin."

" _And what else?"_

"Just the pin."

" _Think some more."_

"The part that holds the pin."

The manacle encircling Astrid's wrist was made up, like most hinges, of two leaves. One leaf had a section of knuckle at either end. The other leaf had a section of knuckle in the middle. When the two pieces were fitted together, the three knuckles formed the barrel to hold the pin.

" _Good girl. Is it just one part?"_

"No. It's three sections, two on one side and one on the other."

" _What would happen if the middle section holding the pin broke off?"_

" .... The hinge would open."

" _Very good girl."_

As soon as the tip of the awl caught in a pit in the iron where the middle knuckle of the barrel joined the leaf, Astrid began to wriggle the awl's tip back and forth. When the pit got bigger, she began to push down and then at an angle. Her fingers were raw from the pushing and twisting the head of the awl by the time the knuckle broke free.

Astrid started to force open the rusty manacle, but after prying it open a quarter inch, she decided it would make more sense to leave it closed. The rust on the unbroken hinge would hold the manacle closed. If the priest, or Mafdet, came and looked at her wrist under lantern light, she thought it would be unlikely that they would notice that one hinge had been broken. If the priest did notice, she planned to stab him if he came close enough to investigate what she had done. To improve her chance of getting the manacle off her wrist quickly, Astrid spit on the opposing hinge and worked it back and forth a quarter inch. After she was satisfied that she could free her wrist in a second or two, she scraped the awl back and forth until its tip became sharp again.

• • •

Raymond was surprised at how helpful Bes proved to be. The teen had looked at Lawrence Harrington's kite models many times at Peltdown in the classroom they shared on the top floor, but his interest had never gone beyond a cursory one. As a result, he wasn't sure if there was some optimal ratio between kite breadth and length. He had no real idea of where the side supports were supposed to go, or, how they should be fitted together. His greatest ignorance was that he had no idea at all of how much surface would be needed to hold someone of his, or Astrid's, or Samara's weight aloft. He too easily could imagine lashing himself to a kite, leaping off a three-story building, and plummeting to the stone pavement below. Less easy to imagine, but not impossible, was the chance that the kites were too big and that he would rise higher and higher in the air without being able to bring himself back to land without crashing. The one thing that Raymond did know was that crashing onto a stone plaza or plunging back to the ground would be far quicker and much less painful than being burned to death in a brayzir.

When Raymond first told Bes what shape the seed shades needed to be, the camel herder stared at the boy before slowly nodding his head. When the boy said how strong he wanted the frames to be, the stare returned and lasted longer. That stare was of such intensity that Raymond felt compelled to explain how the seed shades would need to withstand the night winds. It wasn't until many hours later, as Raymond was cutting the last of the camel rawhide that was needed to lash the fourth seed shade together, that Bes, without looking up from where he was fitting papyrus to the frame, asked, "What are these for?"

Raymond's heart immediately began fluttering and his faced reddened. "To shade the plants."

"Did I find you in the desert when you were no more than a dot on the horizon?"

Raymond nodded.

"But, now, a camel's length away from me, you think you can confuse my eyes?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why? Do these shades have something to do with the girl?"

The movement of Raymond's head was so slight it took someone who had spent years in the dust-lands to see it.

"You do not trust me."

"I don't know who to trust ... if anyone."

"Would you trust the one who told the girl that her mother knew she had returned?"

Rather than answer the question, Raymond asked, "How did you even get into the prison?"

"Date wine. The jailer, Mafdet, is an old, lonely man. Now, what do you plan to do with these ... seed shades?"

"Fly."

"What is fly?"

"Move through the air."

"I move through the air. Maysa moves through the air. We don't need one of these."

"Move through the air above the ground. I know there haven't been any here for thousands of years, but on Earth there are creatures called birds that have arms that look like the seed shades. Their arms are much bigger than the rest of their bodies. While they are on the ground, they move their arms and they leave the ground and travel through the air like this." Raymond slalomed his hand through the air. "Some birds have to flap their arms to stay in the air. Other birds have arms so big they just soar and glide." As the boy demonstrated gliding, the camel driver looked back at the objects he had made and shook his head.

Raymond insisted, "There were birds in old Kemet. I saw their hieroglyphics in the Mouseion."

"These shades will take you and the girl in the air?"

Raymond shrugged, "They're called kites. I don't know. I hope so, but I don't really have any idea if they'll work."

"Where will you go?'

"Where you found Astrid. Wahih."

Bes laughed, "How will you find Wahih? Only a handful of those living in Amarna could find it, and, of those, I am the best. But, even being the best, I carry extra water and food in case I get lost. That's the reason there was enough food for the three of us to get back to Amarna."

"Let me show you."

Raymond walked until he was five stalls from where Maysa was lazily eating.

"Walk over and stand here and tell me what you can see of Maysa."

Standing where Raymond pointed, Bes said, "Her ear, her nose, part of her head."

Raymond hurried to the end of the room and started up the stairs. Bes followed him. When he was halfway up, Raymond asked, "Now, what do you see?"

"Her head, her neck, and part of her shoulder."

"The higher you go the more you can see. The Dustland is so flat that I won't have to be very high before I'll be able to see the trees of Wahih.'

"In the dark. The winds only blow at night."

"In the starlight."

"The seed shades go so fast you can travel in one night what took Maysa two days?"

Raymond shook his head in frustration, "I don't know. How can I know? I don't know the speed of the winds. I don't know the distance to Wahih. But, this is the only thing I could think of when Anubis condemned Astrid to be sacrificed."

"Does the girl know you are doing this? Making ... kites?"

"No. Yes. Maybe. Not making kites, but doing something to help her. I hope she knows that. I hope she knows I would never betray her."

Bes knelt down and began wrapping rawhide on the struts of the fourth kite.

"You said you didn't know who to trust. Do you not trust the girl?"

"I didn't mean Astrid. Of course, I trust her totally."

"And the girl would trust you the same way?"

Since Raymond didn't have an answer to that question, he carried the largest kite to the far end of the stable, lifted it over his head, and began to run back toward Bes.

Just as he thought he felt a slight upward tug, his performance was judged by the loudest bray he had ever heard Maysa make.

• • •

Her mother was singing a song about pretty little horses when Astrid dozed off. She was wakened by the sound of footsteps. Seconds later, the edge of her cell wall faintly glowed orange from lantern light.

Mafdet stood behind and held the lantern high as the masked priest stood in the passageway outside Astrid's open cell. As his canted head moved slowly back and forth, Astrid had the impression that he was smelling her.

With only the hem of her untucked shirt concealing the awl tucked into the waistband of her jeans, Astrid was confident that, even though she might die, she would be the first to strike. That thought gave her courage to ask, "Will the smell of my smoke please Aten?"

"I have been Aten's servant for many years. I know the first wisp of smoke carries away with it all false courage."

"You seem eager to smell that wisp."

"A day is not so long to wait."

"A day may not be so long for Aten to wait, but it may be too short for Aten's servant. Especially if the servant has thoughts of stealing what is mine and Aten's."

"A devoted servant does not steal."

"That is good because there will be nothing to steal. My lapis will disappear as surely as my smoke."

"False courage births tales."

Astrid forced herself to keep her voice low and calm. "Heating the crystal will cause it to destroy itself. You cannot destroy me by fire without destroying the crystal, too. Although I know that you are nothing but Aten's servant, a limp and a hidden nose make me think that you might want the crystal for yourself. Amarna is dying. Every year there is less water and less food. I am told the Iteru will run dry in less than ten years. Amarna will die of thirst and starvation. But Samara has told me that it has been many, many centuries since a man has gone to Earth. The Mother Lapis had seven daughters. How many remain in Amarna? Three? Two? Just one? Do you really believe that Tefnut would displease Aten by giving his high priest one so that he can escape Aten's world?" Astrid touched her stomach. "If you want a lapis, it must be mine. You can sacrifice me tomorrow and destroy my lapis or you can wait."

The priest turned his head to the jailer.

"Cut it out of her."

From the other cell, Samara spoke, "Suddenly, the devoted servant does not seem to fear the Master."

"Use your sword. Now!"

The jailer began walking away.

"I fear you, but I fear Aten more. I am old. My life is short. My afterlife is long."

"Stop! Stop!"

As the jailer continued to walk away, the hallway began to darken. The priest looked from the receding lantern to Astrid to Samara and back to the lantern that Mafdet was holding low alongside his leg.

Just before he rushed off to catch up with Mafdet, who was disappearing into the darkness, Anubis hissed, "Aten will wait, but when I burn you, I will do so slowly. You will pay an untold price for that wait."

When they were back at the prison's entrance, Anubis flung a jeweled finger at the jailer. "Appear before the Tjati at sundown tomorrow to learn your fate."

"My fate is with the Sungod."

The jailer punctuated his defiance by striking the floor three times with his sword.

• • •

Raymond was wakened by Apep standing next to the bed holding a platter of bread and camel cheese. As the boy struggled to sit up, he caught the attendant staring at his chest. As the teen was tearing off pieces of bread and wrapping chunks of cheese in them, the servant hovered over him and, then, suddenly sat down on the end of the bed.

"There is amazing news."

Raymond's, "What?" was both muffled and garbled by the food filling his mouth.

"Merciful Aten has delayed the sacrifice so the Unwanted can spend more time with her mother."

It was only the food that prevented Raymond from sighing in relief. He had spent most of the night thinking of all the possibilities of helping Astrid escape from a guarded prison in daylight. Bes had said that it wouldn't be as difficult as it seemed because there was only one guard and he was old, but Raymond had had a hard time imagining he himself being able to pull off any of the schemes he had conjured up during the night. Now, even though he had no more skills, or courage, he told himself that, at least, he had more time.

"Apep, I'm working on an idea of how to grow more food with less water for Amarna. If I needed to go into the fields and orchards for three days to study them, would you be able to provide me with enough food and water?"

"You would need food and water for two."

"Why two?"

"You would want to talk with those who work in the field, but the workers do not know your language. You would need someone to translate. I will ask Tefnut if I can go. I haven't been outside the walls in many years." The attendant began flapping his hands in excitement.

A puzzled Raymond asked, "Everyone I've met so far has spoken English, but you say the workers don't. Why is that?"

"It is a rule that those who serve Aten and the Tjati learn the language of the Returneds. Others do not. There is no need."

"All of the Returned speak English?"

"They do now. In older days they spoke Italiano and Deutsch, but no more."

"Why were the Returneds from Italy and Germany, but now they're not?"

As he had been answering Raymond's questions, Apep had been flitting around the room folding Raymond's clothes and straightening things on the dining table. "In the beginning, the Returneds came from Old Kemet; however, in their wisdom the Tjati soon realized that Old Kemet, too, was in decline and had nothing to offer Amarna. They decreed a change in the day and time to leave from Khiui. With the change, the Door took them to where the people spoke Italiano. Samaras went from here to there for more than two hundred years. The Tjati and others learned Italiano. Many, almost all of those mutas did not return. Some did not want to come. Others, many painters or sculptors, were considered to be of no use to Amarna. Rather than bring them back and feed them, but gain nothing, they were left on Earth. Again, the days and times to use the Door were changed. These mutas spoke Deutsch. In that land, the Samaras gave birth to mutas who tended to be musicians or those who told stories with numbers. Again, the Tjati learned Deutsch, but, once again, they found little opportunity to use their new language as they could find no use for most of the Deutsch speakers. They were left on Earth. The days and times were changed again to the land where your language is spoken."

"Where the Door leaves you is determined by a calendar?"

"Of course. The Khiui intersects with the same spot on Earth every fifty-two Earth days. If you leave every fifty-two days at the same time, you will arrive at the same spot on Earth. The same is true for returning. If you don't leave at the same time you will arrive somewhere other than Khiui, as I am told you yourself found out."

After sending Apep off to collect food, Raymond walked over to the stable to see if he could find Bes. During his walk, which took less than ten minutes, he studied the buildings along the way looking to find one that might serve as a place to launch the kites. He arrived at the stable without seeing anything that looked promising.

Maysa was in her stall, but the camel rider wasn't around. Rather than waiting to see if he would show up, Raymond decided to continue his search by walking toward Amarna's eastern wall. A half hour later, the disappointed teen stood at the base of the wall. Almost every building he had seen had a pitched roof. He couldn't imagine running down a steeply pitched roof and, then, somehow flying upward. Looking up, he contemplated using the top of the wall itself as a launching site, but, as he looked down both sides of where he was standing, he didn't see any stairs. He wondered if the only place where there was access to the ramparts was at the gates themselves. He tried to remember if he had seen stairs as they had passed through those gates, but he had no image of that as he had been focused on what lay ahead as they entered Amarna. Raymond stood paralyzed under the hulking wall as the idea that he and Astrid and her mother might not be able to use the kites overwhelmed him.

As his retraced his steps, the teen's eyes rarely glanced up. When the dejected boy walked into the cool of the stable, he saw that Bes was on one knee doing something with the underside of the largest kite.

"Come see, boy, what I've done."

As Raymond walked toward the corner where the kites had been stored, the camel rider flipped the kite up over his head, slipped his arms into a camel skin harness, and slipped two thick pieces of hide between his legs before cinching their ends tightly around his waist.

Half of the rider's tan, lined face twitched upward in what Raymond guessed might be a smile, "A seed shade saddle."

Raymond first nodded approval at Bes's work, but then shook his head.

"I don't think we can use them."

"Why not?"

"I've been walking around looking for a building we can leap from, but I haven't found anything that looks like it could work. I even walked over to the wall thinking we could jump from there, but I didn't see any way to get to the top. Are the only steps to the rampart at the gates?"

Bes was so involved with his thoughts that he barely nodded his head in answer to the boy's question.

"You have to be high up for the wind to make them ... fly?"

"The wind has to get under the kite. On Earth they make small ones and children tie long strings to them, hold them like this," Raymond demonstrated, "And they run as fast as they can to get them flying. That's not going to work with these."

"You're the Returned. You'll think of something. I went to see the jailer and left him a bottle of wine. He thanked me, but he said he wouldn't have much time to drink it. He has been ordered by Anubis to appear before the Tjati before sunset."

"If he's gone that would be a good time to rescue Astrid and Samara."

"It could be too late. The old man, is weak, slow, and, often, not on his guard. Whoever takes his place will be none of those things."

"Should I go now?"

Bes studied Raymond, "What would you do?"

"I could take a weapon, even a stone, knock him out, take his keys, and get Astrid."

"The prisons on Earth must be very different. Amarna's prison is large. When Aten was very angry it held hundreds of sacrifices. Like the gates and channels, it is a maze. An unlighted maze except for the jailer's lantern. You might be able to knock out the jailer and take his lantern, but how will you know where to go?"

After a minute's thought Raymond asked, "Where is the knife you used to cut the camel skin for the kites? I can use that to force him to take me to Astrid and her mother."

"A knife against a sword?"

"You said he is old."

"And you are young."

When Raymond's only answer was a shrug, Bes mimicked his gesture as he walked toward Maysa's stall. He dug through his saddle bag for the knife. As he handed it to the boy, he asked, "Do you still have your map?"

"I do."

"Show me."

After Raymond pulled it from his pocket, Bes unfolded the papyrus.

"Here is the prison. If for some unknown reason Aten favors you, then bring Samara and the girl here."

When Raymond looked, he realized that the camel rider had his finger on a spot near where Maysa had run away with him.

Bes's callused finger tapped the map, "Go to the door of this building, the second one back from this corner. Go to the second floor and watch for danger and wait for me."

"In the daylight?"

"Would you rather battle a sword in an old hand or in a young one?'

Raymond wrapped the knife blade in a scrap of hide and stuck it into the waist of his pants. The boy had gone only two blocks from the stable on his way to the prison when he altered his path. He thought Bes was wrong. If he was able to overpower the guard and rescue Astrid it would still be hours before sundown. Unless he killed the jailer, which he couldn't fathom doing, or locked him in a cell, the Tjati would know that the three of them were trying to get away. The alarm would be sounded and the gates would be guarded.

Though he had not come up with an alternative plan to the kites other than the equally hopeless one of stealing Maysa, racing through the gate, getting through the maze of channels, and, somehow, making their way to Wahih, even that ridiculous plan depended upon the gate being unguarded. In Raymond's latest thinking, the shorter the time between rescuing Astrid and galloping Maysa past the wall, the better chance they had to make it through. Raymond thought how in chess it was a fatal flaw to reveal a strategy too soon.

Instead of going back to the Alamin, where Apep might behave in the same way that already had made the teen nervous, Raymond walked to the Mouseion. As he passed through Amarna's deserted streets, empty of everything except for heat, harsh light, and abandoned buildings, the boy hoped that he would find something in the Mouseion, a map or a model, that would provide some clue of how to find Wahih.

It took more than three hours, but Raymond finally did find a camel hide map that showed Amarna and what he took to be Wahih; however the map didn't indicate distance. It only indicated that the oasis was to the southeast of Amarna. Further to the east, right at the edge of the map, was an irregular line that Raymond guessed might be the Balial Sea. The teen took his time studying the map and wondering just what the possibility was that the distance on the map corresponded to the relative distances between what he was trying to escape and where he wanted to go.

Seeing that the sun was beginning its plummet toward the top of the mountains, the boy hurried as he made his way back to the stable. When he arrived, the stable was empty. After looking around, he went outside and made his way toward the prison. It wasn't until Raymond was almost at the prison that he realized that he hadn't noticed the kites when he had peered into the stable. He wondered if Apep had come looking for him, seen the seed shades, and had decided to take them to the Qaeat Kabira to show the Tjati.

When Raymond arrived at the prison entrance, there was no one on guard. His first thought was that the jailer must be somewhere inside the prison, perhaps feeding Astrid and her mother. His second thought was that the guard had run away rather than waiting around to find out if he was to be sacrificed. His third thought was that Anubis had anticipated that the old man might try to escape and had sent the guards to get him. Any opportunity to conjure up a fourth possibility was cut short when Raymond heard mumbling. Lifting the lantern from its hook, the boy eased himself toward an arched opening that he assumed led deeper into the prison and peeked around its edge. An old man was sitting on the floor with his back leaning against the corridor's dark stone wall. Nestled between his legs was a fat-bellied jug. The sweet sour smell of date wine curled into Raymond's nose.

Ten minutes later, after having used the same technique that Astrid had told him she had used successfully—an imperious demand that a Returned be allowed to carry out the Tjatis' bidding—Raymond was using one hand to lean Mafdet against the wall opposite Astrid's cell and the index finger of his other hand, which was holding the lantern, to tap his lips to caution her to silence. For a split second Raymond thought that the touch of his finger to his lips would be insufficient to restrain the anger that Astrid's face was making obvious was ready to burst from her.

With his back to the jailer, Raymond lifted the edge of his shirt to display the handle of Bes's knife to his partner.

"The Tjati await you."

"I was told I was to have another day with my mother."

Using his finger to indicate Mafdet, Raymond said, "Things change. People change. Trying Aten's patience could be dangerous."

Even as she nodded that she understood, Astrid removed her awl and pointed it toward her manacle. Raymond hung the lantern on a hook and stepped in front of Mafdet to block his view. Although she had tried to lubricate the manacle's remaining hinge, when she tried, her fingers weren't strong enough to force it open more than a quarter inch. Not knowing how much time they had, and agitated at the complicated feelings she was having since Raymond had appeared, Astrid began smacking the edge of the manacle against the edge of her bed.

With the third clang of metal against stone, the jailer's mumbling resolved itself into speech.

"What's that? What goes on?"

From Samara's cell came the same clang of metal against stone.

"Mafdet, you hear the sound as my heart counts the seconds before I lose my daughter a second time."

A moment later a high-pitched lamentation kept time with the rhythmic beat of Samara's manacle against her bed. In her cell the daughter synchronized her strike with her mother's. In less than a minute, the manacle had been forced open enough that Astrid could free her wrist.

As they had navigated the twists and turns of the prison's ancient passageways to reach Astrid and her mother, Raymond had gone ahead holding the lantern, and Mafdet had come staggering behind mumbling directions and using his unsheathed sword as a cane. While he had been resting against the wall, the jailer had continued to maintain his balance by leaning on the sword's hilt.

Using his hand and eyes Raymond signaled Astrid that she should try to grab the jailer's left arm and he would grab the right, which held the sword. Astrid raised an eyebrow as she slightly waggled the awl. Raymond shook his head.

When Raymond nodded, Astrid leapt from her bed and clutched at the guard's free arm. Simultaneously, Raymond spun around and grabbed Mafdet's sword arm. Even though the boy managed to get both of his hands around the guard's wrist, the guard was able to lift his sword enough that he drove the point into the top of Raymond's shoe.

Raymond yelped. The yelp triggered Astrid's rage. Two seconds later the guard was hunched over trying to curl himself around the pain from being stabbed three times.

"Get the sword."

Raymond didn't need to obey that command as Mafdet let his weapon drop.

Astrid barked, "Put him in my cell."

"Wait. How do we get out of here without him?"

"Forget thinking, Raymond. Just do it."

The teens dragged the jailer into the cell and laid him on his back. Astrid darted into the next cell to free her mother. Because the manacle on Samara's wrist had been opened and closed many times over the years as she had been taken before the Tjati, it was much easier to open than Astrid's had been. As soon as her mother's wrist was free, Astrid grabbed her fleshless hand, "Come on. We have to go. Hurry!"

Pulling her mother to her feet, the girl said, "Get the lantern, Raymond. And the sword."

After Samara took a tentative first step from her cell, she looked into Astrid's cell to see a slight trickle of blood seeping out from underneath the hand the moaning jailer was pressing against his stomach.

Samara managed two words, "We can't ..." before Astrid jerked her arm, "We can and we are. Go, Raymond, I'll tell you which way to turn."

"How do you know which way to go?"

"Because I'm a genius, too, Raymond."

As they got to the first turn, Astrid felt her mother slow. When she turned around to see what the problem might be, her mother had her head turned back toward the darkness they had just left.

"There's nothing to see, mom, and nothing to do."

"He wasn't unkind to me."

"Yes, I can tell. C'mon, hurry, before another guard decides to treat you even less kindly than that one."

The trio had made three turns when, suddenly, wraithlike shadows rose and shrank on the passageway's walls and ceiling.

"What's going on, Raymond?"

Just as suddenly, before Raymond could utter a word, there were no shadows, only an impenetrable black.

"Good job, Raymond."

"I didn't do anything. I think the lantern ran out of oil."

"Not like my patience. Don't move."

Holding Samara's hand, Astrid took a step forward; however, before she took a second step she paused.

"Raymond, if it's not too difficult, point the sharp part of the sword down at the ground."

Moving forward with an outstretched arm before her, Astrid shuffled forward until she ran into Raymond.

"Give me the sword. Here, take my mom's hand. I'm going to lead. Now, give me your hand."

Astrid took Raymond's hand and slipped it under her belt at the back of her pants.

"What's that?"

"My belt."

"Your ...."

"Yes, Raymond, your fingers are under my belt, and now, under Amarna's laws, you either have to marry me or cut that hand off. Take your time figuring out what's worse."

After Astrid slid the sword under the front of her belt, she stretched her arms out until her fingers touched each side of the passage.

The first five times Astrid came to an opening in the passageway, her fingers were able to feel the scratch marks she had made with the awl. At the sixth opening, Astrid slid her hands up and down both sides, but she was unable to feel her mark.

"What's wrong?"

"Shut up, Raymond, so I can concentrate."

Astrid, with Samara and Raymond in tow, shuffled forward until she could bring both hands to examine the wall to her right. She repeated her exploration on the opposite side. Feeling nothing, she fought off the panic that was swelling inside of her at the idea of being lost in the maze ... or, worse, being found.

Hearing Astrid's irregular gulps of air, Samara said, "Let me try, daughter."

Astrid whispered, "Don't anybody let go," as she inched past the break in the wall.

Seconds later Samara murmured, "Give me your hand. Is this it?" She lightly moved Astrid's fingers against the stone.

As her mother drew her fingers back and forth, Astrid didn't know if she felt a slight mark because it really was there or because her mother thought it was there.

"Okay. We'll turn."

The girl had no trouble deciding the next two turns; however, for the one after that she again needed Samara's fingers, which had spent eight years in the prison's murk. Three turns later, the girl was so focused on the diffused light outlining the final archway that her right foot smashed into the jailer's jug of palm wine. Astrid's scream lasted longer than the noise of the jug skittering along the passageway. Even as her sides were hurting from the huge gulps of stale air she was swallowing after scaring herself, she pulled the sword from her waist, loosened Raymond's hand from her belt, and crept forward.

Astrid's breathing slowed as soon as she saw the lobby of the prison was empty.

Despite the sun being low in the sky, all three escapees had to walk with their eyes squinted half-shut and with a raised forearm to shade their eyes from the glare. Each teen had a hand on Samara's elbow as she seemed too weak to walk on her own.

• • •

Bes let the trio pass the narrow lane where he was sitting atop the uncharacteristically quiet Maysa before he touched a fingertip to the camel's neck. At the first hushed sound of Maysa's foot pad moving on stone, Astrid yelled, "Run!"

Before he took a step, Raymond turned his head toward the threat.

"No. It's Bes."

As the camel approached the three startled people before her, she bobbled her head back and forth as if unsure which escapee she should greet first.

When Samara murmured, "Maysa," the camel made up its mind. She took a step forward, stretched out her neck and nuzzled her nose against Samara's neck.

Bes nodded, "You both have long memories." He reached down, "You're too weak to walk. Ride with me." Once she was seated behind him, Bes dipped his head toward Raymond, "You listen, but you do not hear. Now, for once, you must do both. I will carry Samara to where we were to meet. You must follow as quickly as you can. If you do not, you will die.

"Hold on to me, Samara."

After Samara wrapped her arms around the camel rider's waist, Bes clasped a hand over hers. A moment later a finger touched Maysa's neck and she was off at a quick trot.

"Where are we going, Raymond?"

"The temple."

"That's a long way. We better go."

After running less than a block, Raymond complained, "My foot hurts."

Panting alongside Raymond, Astrid said, "Be sure to tell Anubis to be careful with your foot boo-boo when he's burning you up. How come there's no blood?"

"The sword banged on top of my foot. It didn't go into my foot."

"So, you have a bruised foot just like I got from kicking that jug."

Raymond hesitated before agreeing, "I guess so."

"That's great, Raymond. One more thing we have in common. Along with we're both geniuses. We both have mothers named Samara except yours is named Eileen. We both like Coney dogs. We both hate dates. And now we both have a bruised foot. How much closer could a teen boy and girl be?"

Several blocks passed before Raymond said, "We have to stop at the Alamin. Apep has food for us."

"No way, Raymond. Look at the sky. The Tjati guards will be looking for Mafdet in minutes, if they're not already there. We have to keep moving, but what's the plan? Does Bes have camels for us at the temple? Which gate are we going to use?"

Deciding that it was better to put off making Astrid even angrier than she already was, and encouraged that his recent turn to lying had been mostly successful, Raymond's only response was, "I'm not sure."

When Astrid started to ask another question, Raymond yelled, "I don't like to talk when I'm panting and running."

"What you are doing isn't quite running, Raymond." Despite the pain from the pounding of her foot against the stone pavement, Astrid forced herself to break into a sprint. "This is running."

As soon as she turned a corner and was out of Raymond's sight, Astrid slowed her pace and held her hands against the stitches in her sides. She waited for Raymond to come limping around the corner, but when she waited fifteen seconds and he didn't, the girl decided to leave her partner and the map behind to try to find the temple on her own.

When the pain in her foot and sides finally forced her to slow to a walk, Astrid guessed that she must be getting close to Gem-Pa-Aten, but nothing looked familiar. While hugging the building fronts she walked past two intersections, doubted herself, and retraced her steps. On her way back she realized just how dark it had become. To the west above the mountains the sky was blue-black except for a smudge of dark red. Where she was walking the world was turning into myriad shades of gray and black. Regretting that she had abandoned Raymond and feeling the waves of panic she had fought against in her cell and in the prison's passageway welling up again, Astrid stood stock still and silently begged for her mother to come to her rescue.

Astrid wasn't sure how long she had stood in the deepening shadows of a crumbling building, but when help came, it was from Bes and not her mother. One moment, she was alone and overwhelmed. The next moment Bes had a light hold on her arms and was whispering, "Come, girl."

Minutes later, as she and Bes entered Gem-Pa-Aten's immense plaza, Astrid could just make out that Samara was standing at the bottom of the frustum that dominated the center of the plaza. A few feet away a hulking shadow resolved itself into Maysa. Seeing no other camel shadows in the twilight, the hope that had returned to Astrid when Bes had found her began to drain away. With the knowledge she had gained over the last few days, the girl now understood that the structure she was walking toward was a sacrificial altar and not a lavish podium for speeches as she first had assumed. When she looked up Astrid was confused by a complicated shadow next to the brayzir.

"What is that?'

"The boy and his seed shade."

"What's a seed shade?"

"Ask your friend."

After touching her mother's arm, Astrid climbed to the top of the altar and, despite her embarrassment at abandoning her partner, asked, "What's going on, Raymond?"

Raymond didn't look up at Astrid, but kept working on what to the girl looked like a giant primitive kite.

"Raymond, what are you doing?"

The boy kept his head down and his hands busy as he muttered, "Ignoring you."

"What are these ... things ... seed shades? They look like caveman kites. Are we supposed to fly away on them? Just fly over the wall and zip off to Wahih? Is that the plan, Raymond? Maybe take a few minutes to stop and get a bite to eat somewhere."

Raymond reached into his pocket and withdrew his crystal and showed it to Astrid.

"I gave the other two to Bes and your mother. You have your own. Do whatever you want. But, as soon as the night winds come, I'm leaving. I'm going to Wahih. And, then I'm going home."

Astrid's words were so loud they reverberated around the plaza, "You're an idiot, Raymond Bierstow. Is there even a name in chess for a move this stupid?"

As Astrid climbed back down the altar's steps, she thought just how wonderful it would be if she could get on a magic carpet, a magic kite, and go where she wanted to go. She approached her mother, "Is Bes taking you to Wahih?"

"If I choose."

"And if you choose, do I get to go, too?'

"Why don't you go with your friend?"

"Because he's not my friend. I'm his babysitter."

"And who got the babysitter out of her cell?"

"I did. I already had the manacle open. And I had my marks to follow."

"Yes, those that you found. But, would you have known when to leave?"

"He's an idiot. Look what he's trying to do. Fly a kite across the Dustlands."

"Fools can be wise and the wise foolish."

"Maybe, but mostly idiots do idiotic things."

Bes appeared next to Samara.

"It's time to go. We need to leave. It won't be easy. We will be chased."

Astrid started to walk toward Maysa, but Bes shook his head.

"Maysa is still worn from bringing you and the boy from Wahih. If I try to take you and Samara, Maysa will fail and we will be caught. I took the biggest shade, the one the boy has now, to Iteru plaza last night. Even on the ground, even without running, I could feel the shade want to lift me."

Bes's words acted as a catalyst on Astrid. She released a torrent of tears of exhaustion and frustration. "No! No! Look at how flimsy this thing is. Think how far it has to go." Astrid's arm shot toward her mother. "Leave her. Take me. She loves Amarna. She left me on earth because she's so much in love with this." The girl's arm jerked in all directions. "All this death and decay and deceptions and delusions. She loves the lies and the sacrifices and the empty streets and crumbling buildings and all the ancient memories of how great Amarna was. I hate everything I have seen here. I thought I hated where I was, but that was nothing compared to how much I hate this."

As she was speaking, Astrid's voice had been rising higher and higher until her last words ended in a shriek, "Take me! Take me! I want to go home!"

As the last of her shriek echoed off the plaza's buildings, Samara tensed, "Listen!"

Astrid couldn't hear anything but her raggedy breathing.

Bes hissed at Maysa. As the camel reluctantly began folding her forelegs onto the stone pavement, the camel rider grabbed Samara's arm and quickly led her toward the camel. He yelled up to Raymond, "Go, boy." Turning back to Astrid he said, "You've got one chance, girl. Take it. Go with your friend. Do what he says."

Bes mounted Maysa and pulled Samara up behind him. Seconds later, Maysa's feet were pounding across the plaza toward Amarna's eastern gate.

Stunned at Bes's betrayal, Astrid stood paralyzed until Raymond called down, "Astrid, hurry, you don't want to die here."

"We're going to die anyway."

"Maybe. But, if we do, it's better to do it trying to escape than to be burned alive. Come up here. Now!"

Disbelieving that she was obeying a command from Raymond Bierstow, Astrid began climbing the stairs. As she neared the top she could hear the shouts and yells that Samara, with her prison hearing, had been the first to hear.

Raymond jerked Astrid's arm. "Come here." He lifted a kite. "Step into the harness. Hold the frame here." As he cinched the rawhide straps tight around her waist, he explained how he thought the kite should be handled. "Keep the front up by pushing up on the frame here. Raise one shoulder or the other to turn. Do it slowly or you'll start to dive. Do everything slowly. Lower the front when you want to land. Start your legs running before you touch ground. You go first. I'll follow and then try to get ahead of you because I kind of know where we're going. Bes pointed out a star to use as a guide."

Raymond pointed, "There. See the two large stars close together and then a third one just off to the right. Use the third one as a guide. If we get separated, fly higher and look for the shadows of the trees at Wahih. They will be to the southeast. If you can't see Wahih, but you see the sun start to come up, fly lower and fly as long as you can, but get ready to land. Remember how fast the nightwinds come up and how fast they die."

Although Astrid had been trying to listen to Raymond's instructions, she was distracted by the sounds of yelling that were getting louder.

"Where's the wind?"

"It will come. It has to come. Just be patient. Stand by the brayzir. When I yell, 'Go,' run as fast as you can and leap up."

"And crash and die. Is that why I'm going first, Raymond?"

Ignoring Astrid, Raymond went to the far side of the altar, took the sword he had taken from the jailer and stuck it under his belt, lifted his kite, stepped into the harness, and cinched himself in. As he turned to face east, he felt the back of the kite waver as a gust of wind passed under it.

"Now, Raymond?"

"No. Not yet."

"They're getting close."

"Not yet. It's too fluttery."

As the teens waited for the wind to steady and strengthen, they listened. The crowd's roar began to break apart into individual voices. Astrid yelled back to Raymond, "How lucky. We were welcomed to Amarna by just a handful of people, but all of Amarna is coming to say goodbye. Where were all of these people hiding? Where are they coming from?"

Looking down the avenue Astrid saw that the inky blue of twilight was starting to be broken up by shafts of torch light. Like hungry dogs, the weak beams bounded back and forth over the cobbles and jumped up the sides of buildings.

"Raymond, they're two blocks away. We have to go."

"We can't. Not yet. We have to wait."

The boy could feel the wind growing stronger, but it was far from blowing steadily.

Seeing the frenzied lights from the torches and standing alongside the brayzir those torches were meant to light made Astrid's whole body vibrate. Her hands were shaking so much that the kite's papyrus rattled. Her knees were quivering so badly that she wasn't sure she could run when the time came. She wasn't breathing. Instead, she was panting and panting so rapidly that she began to feel faint.

Moments after the crowd surged around the corner and came into view, there was enough torchlight that Astrid was sure the masked, limping figure at the front of the parade was Anubis. Marching behind the priest was the same formation of guards with drawn swords that had delivered her to prison. A small hunched-over figure was imprisoned inside the cordon.

"Raymond, it's the jailer. They're not coming here because they know we're here. They're coming to burn Mafdet."

"We're close. Get ready. Remember to leap as high as you can and keep the front of the kite up whatever you do."

"I can't do this, Raymond. I know I can't."

Anubis, at the head of the death parade, which Astrid saw was made up of hundreds of raggedly dressed, emaciated, screaming marchers, was no more than a dozen steps shy of entering the plaza. Suddenly, her body stopped vibrating. She felt like she was made of stone, that regardless of what her brain or her fear might tell her to do, her limbs were too heavy to move.

"Go."

"I can't."

"Sure you can. Remember the secret. Just look straight ahead and keep pedaling. Go, Astrid. Go! We're going home!"

Unfrozen by Raymond's words, Astrid took a deep breath, sprinted four steps, leapt upward, and hurtled off the altar.

# CHAPTER SIX

### Flight and Fright

The movement above them caught the attention of those at the front of the mob. As the thing plummeted toward them, someone screamed, "Nekhbet!" Anubis swung his head around to see who had dared say aloud the forbidden name of the ancient goddess of vultures.

"Seize the blasphemer!"

When he turned back to face Aten's altar, Anubis felt the vulture creature's wings pass just over his head before climbing into the twilight. As the newly remembered vulture goddess passed over those in the mob, the wraithlike workers screamed for yet another death offering of one of their own to placate the ever-angry, never-satisfied god, Aten.

Raymond was sure that Astrid was plunging to her death when the nose of the kite dipped as soon as she leapt off the altar. When it looked like the kite jerked upward, he wasn't sure whether it was a trick of the torchlight or if his partner was gaining control.

As Raymond himself hurtled off the altar, he, too, dropped down. He instantly realized that the altar was blocking the wind. As soon as he lowered a shoulder and drifted to the right the nightwinds surged under the kite and lifted him twenty feet into the air. As he flew past Anubis and the guards surrounding Samara's jailer, he screamed, "Hear me. Free Mafdet. Burn Anubis the blasphemer. Do my will."

After Raymond flew past the last of the mob, he made small adjustments to his body—shoulders, arms, head, and legs—to see how the kite would respond. As he approached Amarna's wall, he lifted his head and raised his arms. He soared over the wall with twenty feet to spare. Immediately, his spirits rose as he left the barrenness of Amarna for the barrenness beyond.

Looking off toward the horizon for the polestar to guide him toward Wahih, Raymond yelled, "Keep pedaling, you genius! Keep pedaling!"

Raymond's exhilaration at all that he had accomplished since arriving on Kemet—surviving the Dustlands, exploring Amarna, designing the kites, eating camel cheese, riding a camel, and rescuing Astrid— quickly drained away as he scanned the darkness before him and saw nothing flying under the stars' meager light. Questions of where Astrid might be tumbled round in his brain. Almost none of those thoughts were reassuring. Had she crashed within Amarna's walls? Had she landed in a channel? Had she veered north or south rather than flying east after cresting the wall? The sudden slap of palm leaves against his ankles reminded the boy of just how easy it was for something to go wrong if a kite rider wasn't paying constant attention to flying. Raymond jerked his legs upward, pushed the kite nose higher, and seconds later was flying twice as high as the tallest date palm tree. From that height Raymond thought that the channels and gates resembled some of the hieroglyphs he had seen in the Mouseion. He wondered whether the designers of the irrigation system had intended that resemblance, or if he was imposing an order that wasn't there.

As he flew east, the boy continued to experiment with the kite. He found that the higher he went the stronger and steadier the winds became and the less dust there was in the air. At an altitude that he guessed to be more than five times a tall tree, he could see ahead for miles, but when he looked down most of what he could see was distorted or hidden by rivers and streams of dust.

Raymond thought he must have been flying for more than two hours using the star Bes had indicated as a polestar when his shoulders and arms began to throb. That pain supported Bes's judgment that Samara would never have been strong enough to stay in the air for the time it would take to get to Wahih. Now, Raymond wondered if the same would be true for him.

To distract himself from the burning in his muscles and the doubt growing in his mind, the boy began to solve the problem of when he would get to Wahih by attaching values to the variables that made up the problem of his journey. He started by estimating the number of hours it had taken Maysa carrying the three of them to cross the Dustlands and to arrive at Amarna. He guessed the camel's speed. He reviewed what it had been like crossing the channels so that he could subtract the difference in distance between the staggered route they had taken on camel back with the straight route the kite was taking. He put a number on the speed of the wind. The last variable and, in many ways, the most important one, was calculating the number of hours the nightwinds would blow.

When Raymond's first solution left him hours short of his destination, the boy changed the values. The wind was faster. The distance was shorter. Maysa's pace had been faster.

It took a third iteration before Raymond could get the number to work so that he arrived at Wahih before the winds died. It took some mental effort for the teen to convince himself that he wasn't deluding himself. However, the knowledge that he was going to make it to the oasis helped lessen the pain he was feeling.

As Raymond alternated lifting one shoulder and then the other to give himself some relief, the kite jibed back and forth in a way that reminded him of many boring days before he had discovered chess when he would be taken to Euclid's city park. Despite the monotonic encouragement of a dull-witted teenage babysitter named Brenda Slovaek, he would not swing on the swings and neither teeter nor totter on the teeter-totter. He would refuse to climb the stairs of the slide and balk at tightening his hands around the rings or pipes of the monkey bar. If he were persistent enough his caregiver would give up on making him have fun. While Brenda sat on a splintery bench and smoked cigarettes, Raymond would wander over to the outfield of the baseball field where little kids and their parents or older kids by themselves flew kites.

As a five-year-old, Raymond had been amazed at how fast a kite flew with the right winds and a good handler, but he had been equally amazed how quickly a kite could go out of control. The wrong twitch of the string and a kite would make two or three fast loops before hurtling to the ground and smashing apart. Now, as he tried to ease his body's pain, the kite was slipping back and forth and he was feeling he was on the verge of making three loops, loops that he imagined would look like the loops he had been forced to practice when learning cursive writing, before crashing.

Caught between the possibility of enduring what felt like unendurable pain or smashing onto the Dustlands, the teen considered whether he should try to land. If he could land successfully, he could rest his muscles and give his body some relief. However, he didn't have a lot of confidence that he could land without destroying the kite. An equally large doubt was whether he would be able to launch himself back into the air if he did manage to land safely.

It had been more than an hour since Raymond had flown over an irrigation ditch. Within ten minutes of flying past that milestone, the river of dust below him had thickened. Now, looking down, all he could see was an unending cloud of dust. Despite the throbbing of his shoulders and the knowledge that he was probably too far away to be able to see anything, the boy nosed the kite higher and looked for a deeper darkness on the horizon that would be Wahih.

After his eyes confirmed what his mind already knew, the teen pointed the nose of the kite down; however, in his frustration, he adjusted the kite too quickly. The kite slalomed left. He overcompensated. The kite sheared off to the right. A second panicky overcorrection put the kite into a spin. A river of dust came rushing up. Like the chess player he was, Raymond decided that it was better to sacrifice his body rather than chance destroying the kite. He pushed up on the kite's struts and began running as fast as he could while he was still in the air. A moment later when his feet struck the ground, clouds of dust exploded. He felt a popping in his right knee. He screamed, "I hate pain!" as he scuttled across the land. As he was slowing down, he gradually let the back of the kite drop toward the ground so that the wind couldn't get underneath it. As soon as he was stopped, the boy climbed out of the harness and, while favoring his leg, flipped the kite over so that the wind couldn't lift it.

Turning his back to the nightwinds and dust, Raymond alternated among opening and closing his blistered hands, massaging his upper arms and shoulders, and rubbing his knee where he had strained it. After his aches had lessened, he walked back to the kite and tipped it up. He reached down to the strut to remove the leather bag of food and water that Bes had brought along with the kites. He ate a handful of dates, which tasted like dust, and three swallows of musty water.

Despite knowing that every minute he rested decreased the probability that he would make it to the oasis, Raymond continued to rub muscles that no longer ached and to eat dates for which he had no hunger. By delaying trying to get the kite back in the air, he delayed finding out if relaunching it from the ground was impossible.

• • •

As he approached the plaza, which once had served as a market-place, Bes looked across its expanse to the eastern gate. He studied the shadows on either side of the archway to see if there were more than the two guards who normally were stationed there. Half turning in his saddle he whispered, "Are you strong enough to hang on if Maysa gallops?"

"You're not going to stop?"

"I think we have a better chance if we race through."

"If I reach around your waist, could you wrap your reins around my hands?"

"That bad?"

"My long, good friend, I'm not as young or as strong as I was the last time we rode together."

"I regret that ride."

"You didn't know what Tefnut and the others had planned for me."

"If I had let my eyes be as sharp in Amarna as they are in the Dustlands, I would have known not to bring you back here."

In a voice that was meant more for her own ears than for Bes's, Samara asked, "Where else could I have gone? What else would I have done?"

"Returned to Earth. Raised your children."

"And if you had helped me to escape and return to Khiui, what would have happened to you?"

"I am more at home in the Dustlands than in Amarna."

"Where would you have lived?"

"Wahih.

"And if they had followed you back to Wahih, what then?"

"There is more to the Dustlands than dust. Especially in the lands to the south and east of Wahih. In some places lands that once were only dust are turning green."

"Bukhara. You would have gone to the Amun worshippers?"

"Enough talk of times long gone, Samara. Prepare yourself."

Bes reached into his saddle bag and withdrew the knife he had retrieved from Raymond.

"If they try to stop us, draw your legs up as high as you can."

With the reins in his left hand and the hilt of the knife in his right, Bes whispered something to Maysa that caused her to accelerate into a gallop.

When the camel's gait increased from a trot to a gallop, the change in sound drew the attention of the guards. They bolted out of the wall alcove where they had just put away their dice as the sky had grown too dark to continue their play. The guards drew their swords as they took up positions to block the arch.

Bes had planned to race Maysa between the guards, but when he saw that they were standing in the middle of the arch, he steered Maysa to the left side so that he was challenged by only one sword rather than two. Drawing his right leg up high on Maysa's side, he slashed at the nearer man just as that guard swung his sword. The much heavier sword repulsed the knife, but the knife slowed the sword enough that Bes took advantage of his momentum and his position high on Maysa's back. His kick, which struck the nearer guard's shoulder, drove him back into his comrade. Both guards lost their balance and fell as Maysa and her passengers passed beyond the dangers of Amarna.

"Are you okay?"

"My heart is pounding."

"Yours joins mine and Maysa's."

"They'll come after us."

"It will take them time."

"They will know where we are going."

"If we decide to go there, we can be gone before they arrive. If we decide not to go ...."

"Where else could we go?"

"The boy and girl will cross the Dustlands above the ground. We might go below."

"There are caves or tunnels?"

"You will see if it becomes necessary."

Bes carefully loosened the reins from Samara's wrists.

"You are free."

"I was in prison for far too long to ever be free again."

Samara wrapped her hands around Bes's waist and laid a cheek against his shoulder.

"How many times have we made this journey?"

"Many."

Lost in their thoughts. neither rider spoke until they had passed beyond the third channel.

"What do you think of your daughter?"

"She confuses me. She is different from the daughter I left behind. She is fierce. She is fragile. Rage, a venom that I never knew in her, has her in its grasp. Anger, fear's first child, spews from her mouth. Tears spout from her eyes. She gives orders to the boy as she demands directions from me. She is a victim who has blood on her hands. She was never meant to be here. Yet, she is here. She calls up more questions than she answers. She confuses me. What do you see?"

Bes shook his head, "What I see, I do not say. When a story is long it can go in many directions."

"And the boy, Bes? What of him?"

"The boy shows promise."

"In what way?"

"In the ways we have hoped. He thinks differently and, when we were first together, he was excited to be here."

"Not like some of the Returneds."

"Not like many."

"The task has never been easy, Bes. It is very difficult to judge which ones show promise and which do not, which ones would thrive here and which ones would not. In many ways Earth has had far more success with the mutas we have left behind than we have had with those who have returned to us.

Bes considered Samara's words before asking, "The ones that were left behind, who were they? What were their gifts? How did Earth benefit? Why did they choose to stay on Earth, or were chosen not to return to Amarna?"

"As you know, in the beginning, we made mutas in Old Kemet, but Old Kemet was not what it had been. After Akhenaten's reign Kemet had rejected Aten and he, in turn, rejected them. Old Kemet became a place of lost knowledge and lost glories. Most of the mutas we grew in Old Kemet, we left. Of those who returned, none proved to be very useful. The wisdom of Old Kemet had dried up and blown away just like its soil.

"The Tjati decided to move the Door. The mutas we gave birth to in Italy were gifted, but they had gifts for which Amarna had little use. Two of ours, Michelangelo di Lodovico and Leonardo da Vinci, both artists, are still held in the highest regard on Earth. One became a renowned sculptor and architect. The other was a painter, but also a scientist and mathematician. Lodovico was left behind because Amarna did not need more artists, especially artists in stone, or designers of buildings. Amarna already was a city of empty buildings. We left Da Vinci behind because, even though he was a scientist, his interest was geology and not chemistry. At that time the Tjati thought that it might be possible to make lapis. Chemistry was needed for that.

"The Door again was moved. This time to a place called England. There was an English muta, Isaac Newton. He was a brilliant boy, a boy who was interested in everything. It seemed that Aten finally had forgiven us. As he approached fourteen and it was time for him to be Returned, Tefnut refused. She insisted that he be left behind because he too much loved an Earth god. Anubis supported Tefnut. The rest of the Tjati reluctantly went along. The other Tjati growled, but they did not bite those two. I thought that Tefnut and Anubis did not want Newton to come to Amarna because they thought he would not follow their orders to worship Aten.

"Amarna continued to decline. Once again, the Door was moved. This time back to the east, to Germany. Again, some of our eggs, when merged with the seed of Earth, produced the exceptional. Except in Germany, many of the exceptional were musicians, not artists. The Tjati found no use for music. They thought it would distract our attention from our problems. I agreed with their decision about a muta named Mozart. He was lost to everything but music before he was seven. But, to me, another boy, a boy named Ludwig van Beethoven, showed promise as an engineer. It took years for me to convince the Tjati to have him Returned, but by then he was past thirty and going deaf. We didn't think that we would be able to communicate with him. He, too, was left behind.

"For two more centuries Amarna continued to die. Finally, panic set in. The Tjati's thinking began to change. That opened the door just a little to new ideas. I thought that when the Tjati decided that Tesla and Einstein could be brought here together that Amarna would be saved, but you know how long they stayed. The Tjati said they wanted new ideas, but they wanted those ideas to be docilely given. Neither Einstein nor Tesla were good at being docile. After he had traveled here and returned to Earth, Einstein had a new way to think about time and travel. His ideas shocked Earth, but they were willing to be shocked. We in Amarna are not."

Bes slowly shook his head, "I remember Tesla. His head did not stop moving, nor did his mouth. He saw what was there in the Dustlands and, even more clearly, he saw what could be there. At night, when we rested, he drew his ideas in the dust and laughed when the nightwinds blew them away. He said that there never would be a wind strong enough to blow away all of his ideas."

"Keeping his gifts and Einstein's from blooming in Amarna wounds me still. If they and their ideas had been allowed to take hold here as they have on Earth, the Tjati would not have so many lives and deaths on their hands. Those in the fields, those who maintain the channels, the hewers of stones, and those who dry our dates, would be free to do something else than work and starve.

"Bes, my hope, like a candle, gutters. I sometimes think the Tjati won't be satisfied until all are dead but themselves."

Bes knew Samara was weeping from the heaving of her meager chest against his back.

• • •

Even trapped under the kite's papyrus canopy, Astrid heard a noise like a jump rope whirling through the air.

"Raymond! Raymond!"

An instant later the sound was gone.

Although she was in the shadow of a building that shaded the starlight and made it too dark to see, Astrid could feel a rill of blood running from her elbow down the back of her forearm. She could smell the wet iron smell of that blood. She wasn't sure whether that rusty stench came from her arm or if she was confusing that smell with the taste of blood where her teeth had punctured her lower lip. When she tried to unknot the rawhide cinch that held her in the kite's harness, she realized how badly her hands were trembling. As she struggled to free herself, she worked just as hard to slow her panicky breathing from knowing that she had failed.

She wasn't sure what she had done that had caused the kite suddenly to veer into the face of a building. One second she had been looking down the avenue at the wall, which appeared to be less than three blocks ahead. She had felt a moment's relief that she was flying high enough that she would clear its top. She was happy that the avenue wasn't one that led to the east gateway with its armed guards. A moment later the edge of the kite's right wing hit the building and she and the kite scraped their way down the face of the building to the ground.

Once she managed to get herself out of the harness and out from under the kite's wings, she could hear the roar of the mob. That crazed sound drew her attention away from her injuries. She stood the kite on end and tried to inspect it. As far as she could tell in the dim light, it was not damaged. Trying to ignore her right ankle and her bruised foot, both of which were throbbing, Astrid stepped deeper into the shadows as she tried to figure out how to stay alive.

• • •

Raymond stood still for many minutes waiting to see if the wind might strengthen; however, despite his patience, the wind remained constant. What was not constant was the weight of the kite that he was holding over his head. With each minute that passed the kite felt heavier and he felt weaker. The boy thought that whether the wind became stronger or not would soon become irrelevant if he were to become too exhausted to run before it at full speed. As he waited, Raymond argued with himself whether he should try to launch as he had before, with the front of the kite elevated, or whether it would be better to tilt it downward so that more of the wind would get under the wings. He knew that if he did run with the kite nose down that he would need to adjust it upward as soon as his feet lifted off the ground. If he failed to make that critical adjustment in time, there was a very high probability that he would destroy the front of the kite and his chances to make it to Wahih.

"You can do this, idiot. You can do this."

Raymond dipped the kite's nose down and began lumbering across the Dustlands. With the kite's nose dropped down, the boy couldn't see where he was going, but he told himself that it didn't matter. In the Dustlands at night, there was nothing to see.

"Faster, you fool!"

The boy imagined that he was Maysa. He stretched out his neck and lengthened his stride. With the kite's tail elevated, the nightwinds rushed under the papyrus and thrust upward. When the winds upward thrust removed some of the kite's weight from his shoulders, Raymond ran even faster.

"Go, you cretin!"

The boy pushed off as hard as he could with his right foot. When he followed with his left foot, he discovered there was nothing to push against. Trying to contain his excitement at being back in the air, Raymond gingerly elevated the kite's front. The kite wobbled. Raymond held his breath and willed the kite to rise. The craft steadied. He eased the nose up more and felt the kite surge upward. After fighting off the sudden violent dips that the teen attributed to breaks in the steadiness of the winds, Raymond pushed the kite higher until he guessed that he was more than one hundred feet above land. As soon as his fear diminished that the kite was on the verge of doing something erratic, Raymond looked to the horizon to pick out his guide star. He focused on that beacon and pushed away thoughts of what he would do when dawn came, the nightwinds faded, and he was miles short of his destination.

• • •

"I had forgotten how even emptiness is beautiful under starlight."

"You have lived with much darkness."

"I had memories."

"Were they enough?"

"Not always. There were times entrapped in that darkness when I broke the smothering silence with the rattle of metal as I wrapped my chain around my neck. I would feel my blood push back against its imprisonment. I would wonder if Aten saw me and, if He did, what his thoughts or wishes might be."

"His thoughts are unknowable. His wishes seem to mirror Anubis' wants."

"God of gods on Kemet. Forgotten on Earth. All-powerful here. Unknown there. What kind of god is that?"

To move from questions that were without answers, Bes asked, "How do you feel? Should we rest?"

"My enemies will not rest. I must get to Wahih to join my daughter."

"If she goes to Earth, will you go with her? And, if you go, will you ever return?"

"My future is dark. Too many days of living in dark has destroyed my ability to see beyond the moment. My moment now is with my old fine friend and his fine camel, and a sky jeweled with starlight."

"You must remember that as soon as we get past the fields, the dust will rise and there will be few stars to be seen."

"But, this moment there are stars to be seen. This moment, this now, is my future."

Moments later, when he felt Samara slump against his back, Bes clasped a hand over her loosening grip to keep safe the one he had loved for so many centuries.

• • •

Raymond was close to conceding that the chess match he was playing with the ghost of the fatman would be a draw when he realized that he was having a harder time keeping track of his pole star. As he scanned the horizon he realized the sky was turning from black to the blackest of blues. The sun would rise soon and, when it did, the nightwinds would die ... and so might he. In a decision that surprised his cautious nature, the boy pushed up on the kite's nose and rode it even higher in the air. As he climbed, he twice hit pockets of turbulence. Each time as the kite began to buck, Raymond managed to smooth out its flight. When he guessed that he must be more than two hundred feet in the air, he slowly and very methodically studied the land to the east and southeast looking for the night shadows of Wahih's trees. One moment he saw things but, immediately he told himself that what he was seeing was probably more a wish than a reality. The next moment he warned himself that he might be staring right at the oasis, but be incapable of perceiving it.

When a thread of dark orange unspooled along the horizon, the Earth-born Raymond insisted that the nose of the kite must be pushed down immediately before it fell from the sky. The Kemet-altered Raymond refused. That more daring Raymond argued that in just another minute or two the sun would rise enough that it would backlight the trees of the oasis. If that happened, the Kemet Raymond told himself that he would have a better idea of whether it made more sense to hunker down as the day grew hot or to press on.

"You idiot. Land! Now! Before we die."

"Shut up! You're distracting me, cretin. I know what I'm doing."

"You don't. You're not a kite expert. You're not brave. You think you're a hero, but really you're just stupid. An idiot. Land!"

"Coward!"

"Idiot!"

"Hang on tight, coward!"

The kite rose higher. The line of color on the horizon thickened to a shoe string and morphed from orange toward yellow. The stars just above the horizon winked out. The nightwinds pulsed. The kite bucked.

"There! Right there, idiot! There it is! Now land before the winds die and we fall."

Raymond stared at the jagged tree line of the oasis emerging from the murk and tried to gauge how many degree it was south of where the sun was rising before pointing the kite's nose down.

"Hold on! Hold on!"

The land came up fast. Too fast. When the kite hit a pocket of calm it jerked sideways. With its nose ninety degrees to the direction of the wind, the windward wing rose. The kite started to flip over. A desperate Raymond shifted his shoulders to try to hold the wing's edge down as he flailed his legs to jerk the kite back in line with the direction of the wind. The boy thought that his acrobatics were going to be all for naught when a strong gust caused the kite to roll up on its edge and begin slicing toward the ground. However, a pocket of calm twenty feet above the Dustlands allowed the edge to come back down so that the kite's wings were parallel to the ground.

Raymond dipped the kite's nose and seconds later, he and the kite were safely on the ground. After getting himself out of the harness, he aimed the nose of the kite in the direction of where he had seen the oasis. Next, he unstrapped his watch from his wrist and used the edge of Mafdet's sword to crack the crystal. He removed the pieces of glass and carefully removed the second hand from the watch. He opened his water-skin, poured water into his palm and re-stoppered the skin. He put the water-skin on the ground and, with his free hand, made a depression in it. He poured the water from his hand into the depression. He reached deep into his pocket and dug out the pawn that had been there since he and Astrid had left The Fort. He swiped the second hand against the magnetized bottom of the pawn a dozen times before gently laying it on top of the pool of water. Raymond held his breath as the needle slowly began to move in the water. When the needle stopped moving, Raymond aligned the face of his watch so that the twelve on the dial lined up with the tip of the floating second hand. He used the sword to scratch a mark on the case in the direction where the sun was rising. He made a second mark that was aligned with where the kite was pointing toward Wahih. Once the marks were made, Raymond carefully snapped the hand back onto its axle, and, bending over carefully to avoid raising a cloud of dust, slurped the water from his makeshift compass.

Feeling very good that he had anticipated the need for a compass and had devised one, and feeling triumphant that he had risked flying higher as the sky lightened to locate Wahih, Raymond felt confident that despite the heat he already was beginning to feel, he would be able to walk what he estimated might be ten miles to the oasis.

After collecting his food, water, and sword the teen started on his journey. He had walked only for a few minutes before he turned back. When he reached the kite he had left behind, he removed the papyrus from one side, rolled it up, and tied it with a sinew from the wing. He loosened the sinews from the center strut. Once that main strut was free to move, he oriented the nose in the direction he intended to walk and worked the center strut support into the ground enough that it caused the kite to jut higher than Raymond's head above the barren land.

Satisfied that he had done as much as he could to show the others where he had been and in what direction he had headed, Raymond restarted his trek to the oasis.

Within a hour, the boy was panting. His cheeks and neck were sunburned. His feet were scuffling so that each step kicked up another plume of dust. His mouth was dry. His nose was plugged with dust. His eyes itched. His mind, like a vulture gliding above its prey, circled around thoughts of how heavy his water-skin was, how dry his throat was, how far he had come, how much farther he had to go.

When he had stumbled and fallen to one knee twice in the space of a few minutes, Raymond stopped. Being careful to disturb as little dust as possible, he eased himself down. Kemet Raymond cautioned only to take three small swallows of water. Earth Raymond ignored that advice and gulped two more.

"You idiot. You're going to regret doing that."

"I don't care. Besides, you're the cretin. They're going to find you dead in the Dustlands with your water-bag half full."

"You should have stayed on Earth, moron. You're not smart enough to be here."

"Says the cretin genius who has us wandering around in the middle of the desert, which isn't even one of those deserts that have cactus you can cut open, drink juice from and not die. Idiot!"

"Unroll the papyrus and make a choice. Use it like an umbrella as protection from the sun and start walking, or use it like a tent to hide from the sun until it gets dark and cools off."

"More moronic idiocy from the cretin. If we wait until it gets dark, the night winds will start and, instead of flying above them with the kite, we'll be wandering through a dust storm with no idea whether we're going in the right direction. We could walk past the oasis and not even know it."

"Bes kept going at night."

"You're not Bes."

"But somehow he knew which way to go. There is a way to keep going in the right direction even in a dust storm."

"Of course, there is. You ride behind Bes on Maysa."

"If we're walking, let's walk."

"Shut up."

"Stop wasting energy. Walk."

The teen pushed himself up onto his feet. After looking backward to see the direction of his tracks, he oriented himself as best he could with the sun and featureless land, arranged the papyrus around him like a stiff robe, and began to walk.

• • •

"Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Do you want to get off Maysa to rest for a little while?"

When Samara didn't answer but continued to lean heavily against his back, Bes turned his head and found his passenger with her eyes closed and her mouth gaping open.

A light touch to her shoulder and Maysa stopped. Seconds later the camel was sitting in the dust. Bes reached his arm around to support Samara before carefully dismounting with her on his back. When Bes made a short sharp sound like a baby's rattle, a groaning but obedient Maysa rolled onto her side. Grunting from his burden, the old man backed up until the backs of his thighs were pressed against the camel's spine before gently lowering Samara onto Maysa's broad flank.

Samara's chest heaved up and down, but Bes saw that movement only reflected the camel's breathing. He put two fingers under Samara's nose. Feeling no breath against those leathery sensors, he leaned forward until he could put an ear to her chest. Even in the stillness of the Dustlands, a silence broken only by Maysa's breathing, it took all of Bes's concentration before he heard a slight irregular beat.

With hands that had begun to tremble from fatigue, Bes removed water and date wine-skins from his saddle bag. He poured some of each into an ancient intricately decorated cup. He lifted Samara's head and dribbled the liquid into her slack mouth. His efforts caused the small body to shudder twice before returning to its previous stillness. Bes slid his hand from Samara's neck down along her spine and lifted her into a sitting position. He brought the wine-skin to her mouth and trickled date wine into the slight gap between her lips. The equivalent of several mouthfuls had gone down her throat before her breathing deepened and, finally, her eyes opened.

In a voice that Bes was able to hear only because his head was nearly touching her, Samara murmured, "Beyond is dark and quiet. I will be as I have been. Alone."

As Bes handed a date to Samara, he said, "That may be. A home that is not a home may be the end for all of us. But, that time is not now. Eat this. Eat more. Drink more. Regain your will. The girl needs you."

"She does not need me now. When she needed me, I left her."

"You try to fool yourself, Samara. Another date and another drink and we must go."

"I remember when it was I who gave the orders."

"And you will again. Take hold of my hands."

Once Samara's feet were on the ground, Maysa rolled into a sitting position and allowed her riders to mount. Once the camel began moving, Samara murmured, "Our beliefs imprison us as surely as a prison's manacles."

• • •

Astrid's first inclination was to take the kite and make her way along Amarna's darkened streets away from the noise of the crowd. She deliberated whether she should go back to the river plaza to see if the nightwinds were stronger coming off the river, strong enough to launch her into the air from the ground. If all of Amarna was busy burning Mafdet, she guessed there would a low probability of running into someone as she made her way to the plaza; however the plaza was a long way away. An alternative thought was to abandon the kite, circle around Gem-Pa-Aten and make her way north and west until she found the building Raymond had described where the gates to the channels were controlled. She thought there was a good chance that the gatekeeper would have joined everyone else to participate in the jailer's torture. If, indeed, the gatekeeper was gone, then she might be able to get into the building and learn which gates were raised. With that knowledge she could work her way to the northeast portal, steal a camel from the worker stables, and escape the city.

Even as she was thinking her way through the second option, a part of her brain told her that she was dreaming. There were too many ifs to the plan and, even if all of the ifs worked in her favor, as soon as it was known that someone had stolen a camel, the arrangement of the gates would be changed and the guards would be after her.

Accepting that her only option was to make for the river plaza, Astrid hoisted the kite onto her shoulder and began skulking south. She had not gone a block before she realized just how much heavier the kite felt when there was no wind beneath it. She had not walked three blocks before she began shifting the kite's weight back and forth to give one shoulder or another a moment's relief. As soon as she turned to the west, Astrid's problems were compounded. By turning west, she was walking directly into the nightwinds and that wind was fighting her with every step she took. When she tried dropping the kite's nose, wind pushed against the increased surface area and made it feel like she was trying to open a door that someone was leaning against. When she raised the front end, the wind tried to rip the kite from her grasp.

Astrid took her first opportunity to turn back south. A dozen steps past that intersection she leaned the kite against a building and worked to catch her breath. As her breathing quieted, she heard the yelling of the crowd. It became louder, more frenzied, more triumphant, until, abruptly, the crowing stopped and Astrid's ears heard nothing but the hiss of the nightwinds racing through the city's street. It seemed to the girl that the wind itself was as desperate to escape Amarna's cruelty as she was. Moments later the shouts and shrieks began again and seemed to be closer.

Astrid hefted the kite onto her shoulder and moved further down the block until she came to a narrow gap between two buildings. She backed her way into the confining shadows and wrestled the kite in after her. She tensed as guttural shouts, raucous laughter, high-pitched yelps, whistles, and claps echoed down the street and sidled into her hidey hole as the crowd dispersed back to their faith-fueled lives of power or poverty.

After twenty minutes of silence Astrid emerged from her hiding place, and, like any alert prey, stayed in the shadows as she snuck along the streets and avenues back to Gem-Pa-Aten plaza.

As she entered the plaza, the girl saw wisps of smoke from the brayzir rising a murky gray against the pinpricks of starlight. The plaza was empty except for what the mob had left behind—sticks, burnt out torches, thousands of date pits, scraps of rag. The air had a heavy odor Astrid had never smelled before. As she climbed the pyramid's steps, the smell grew stronger. Once she was on top wraiths of smoke curled around her head and, clung like spider webs to her eyes and nose.

Coughing, crying, and shaking, horrified and loath that in some twisted way she felt she was part of what had happened, Astrid clambered into the kite's harness, cinched the sinews, backed to the windward edge of the altar, wiped her eyes, sucked in a gasp of the poisoned air, raced past a fate that had been meant for her, and hurtled into the air.

With renewed strength from her anger and a competence born of desperation, Astrid shoved up on the kite's struts, rose, angled toward the avenue, rose higher, and, less than two minutes later, cleared Amarna's wall with fifty feet to spare.

Looking down she could see her star shadow, a smudge as dark as a bat on a moonless night, flit over the top of the layer of dust that the winds had stirred. Looking ahead she saw what she expected—nothing. Raymond had, at least, a three-hour head start. Looking to the horizon Astrid saw a half-dozen stars bright enough that any one of them could be the pole star that Raymond had told her to follow. She wished that she hadn't been so enraged and had listened better when Raymond had told her which star to use. Rather than making a decision as to which should be her guide, the girl took a minute to concentrate on the liberating feeling of having her waist long hair flowing out behind her. After that small pleasure, she scoured the dust-shrouded land below her hoping to see a camel with two riders. She told herself to take her time to look closely, but she saw nothing but a thin layer of swirling dust and the darker lines of dry channels. She reassured herself that she should expect to see nothing of Bes and her mother. After all, she was flying in a straight line while they were traveling through a maze. She told herself that it was very possible that even before she had been five minutes outside Amarna, she already had gone beyond them.

While Raymond had tried to distract himself from the pain of flying the kite by playing chess with himself, Astrid spent her time trying to make sense of the last days. Despite the ageless look of her mother's eyes, she knew that her mother was old, and not old in decades, but rather in centuries. Despite all that had been done to her, it seemed her mother still worshipped Aten. Despite what appeared to be the death throes of her civilization and a nearly lifeless planet, Samara seemed to prefer Amarna and Kemet to Earth. Despite all the evidence that Aten either was not powerful or despised the inhabitants of Amarna, his hold on the Amarnians was so great that they followed the ravings of a mad priest.

As she flew east, Astrid veered from using one star to another as her guide and, as the kite swung from one course to another, her thoughts, too, changed directions. She wondered how many Amarnians, other than the Tjati, enjoyed decent food. What did the workers eat? She had seen almost none of them until the sacrifice. She knew almost nothing about them except that they dressed in rags, seemed to have little to eat and, yet, when they were summoned they came willingly to witness the murder of Mafdet. Was their belief in Aten so deep that they did not begrudge the Tjatis their luxuries? Or did they not know how the Tjatis lived? Or rather than from a sustaining, accepting faith, were they docile and obedient because of fear of being manacled to a brayzir and ridiculed as they died? Who were the people her mother had spoken of, the Bukharians, those who were meant to dig the big canal, but instead ran away? How many were they? How did they live? What did they believe? Who or what did they worship? Did they go back and forth to Earth? And if they did, was Fatman from that civilization?

Astrid had many questions, but for none of her questions did she have clear answers. She wished she was not harnessed to a kite flying through darkness. Instead, she wished she was riding on Maysa with her mother's frail body kept safe between Bes's and her own. She wished she could lean close to her mother's ear, whisper questions, and listen to her mother's soft words before the nightwinds whipped them away.

A crack in the sky, orange and glowing like lava, spread across the horizon. Stars died. The river of dust below began to twist and eddy. The kite began to luff. As she aimed the kite toward land, Astrid's eyes darted back and forth, like a crow's, looking for any sign of Raymond or Wahih, but the land remained as featureless in dawn's light as it had been during the night.

After she landed, and as soon as the wind died and the dust settled, the girl scraped an area free of dust, made a low-lying shelter with the kite, ate a handful of dates, drank dank water, crawled under the kite, made a pillow from her water-skin, and slid down into a broken sleep.

Throughout the day, as the unrelenting sun beat down on it, the kite's spars and papyrus creaked and popped. Those noises, as well as the myriad noises in her dreams, would startle Astrid awake inside her oven-like cocoon. Twice she was snapped awake by the nearly empty, but surreal, dreams she had experienced so often when she had rheumatic fever. Other times during the endless day she awoke to find one cheek hot, dry, and dusty and the other, the one which had been lying against the water-skin, soaked in sweat. She awoke to find that while she had slept, dust had found its way into her ears, the creases of her eyelids, down her shirt, under the waistband of her jeans. Toward the end of the afternoon, she woke to find her whole body itching. Although a higher level of her mind knew that it was only dust that was causing the itch, a more primitive part knew that her body was crawling with something live—lice, gnats, ticks, spiders. Overwhelmed with the feeling, a panicky Astrid thrashed under the kite, scratched at the itches, and slapped at their causes. She shrieked, cried, and, finally, scrabbled out from underneath her shelter, stripped off most of her clothes, and used them to flail her body.

She begged something, something named with a lower or an upper-case g, she didn't care, some god that had an Egyptian name or not, just something that would lift her up and instantly transport her to the moat of clear water that surrounded the Khiui. If she received that something's grace, she would dive under the water and rinse all of the itches from her body. She would drink until her thirst was gone. She would swim stroke after stroke until her limbs were exhausted and her mad thoughts were swept away.

Astrid twitched and fidgeted while she waited for the sun to fall and the nightwinds to rise. As she waited, she remembered how as a child in Onabasha her mosquito-bitten or chicken-poxed skin would quiver in anticipation of being scratched.

When she had gotten chicken pox, her mother, her father, and her sister, who was still Frances and not yet Tippy, had told her over and over that each pox scab she picked would leave a scar. That if she picked at her sores, her skin would end up with spots like a leopard. But, those scabs had been loud in their demands to be scratched. Her fingers had tingled in anticipation of slipping a fingernail under the crust of the small brown scabs. It had taken all of her small child discipline to send her mind to a place where she couldn't hear what her scabs were saying. Now, as the sun snail-walked its way down the sky, leaving a shiny trail of pink behind, Astrid found that spot left behind in childhood where her mind cut its cable with her body.

After dusk, when the winds rose and clouds of dust roiled ten, twenty, thirty feet up into the rapidly cooling air, Astrid raced and leapt, raced and leapt, and raced and leapt across the arid land. Like a frog, she would be airborne for a second or two before being pulled back to land. After a half dozen failures, the girl's chest was heaving from a combination of exertion and sobbing. She tried to stand still to catch her breath, but the wind pushing against the kite shoved her along in a way that reminded her of her seventh grade cafeteria line. The nightwind was insisting that she move, but it wouldn't let her fly.

Astrid knew about bullies, especially after Tippy had gotten polio. She knew how a bully would goad and goad until the victim did something stupid—tried to escape or tried to fight. Once the stupidity had been committed, the bully tended to lose interest, at least, until the next time.

The wind shoved Astrid along for five feet, then stopped, then shoved her three more feet, then ten more. Pushing her. Taunting her.

Enraged, Astrid screamed, "Stop it! Stop pushing!"

The nightwind shoved her so hard Astrid barely kept her footing. She dug in her heels, leaned back against the winds' force, reached out with one hand, unhooked the leather bag that held her food, and jettisoned it. She started to do the same with her canteen, but lost her courage.

Despite Astrid's capitulation, the wind kept shoving her. In desperation, she pried off her shoes. Again, she ran. She felt the heat of the day through her socks. She leapt up and fell back, leapt again and stayed airborne for several seconds before touching back on the ground.

Screaming her hate at the wind's unrelenting bullying and fickle help, Astrid sprinted across the Dustland and, finally, rose into the air and stayed there.

• • •

When Raymond first saw the snake slither toward him he didn't hesitate. He just kept walking. He knew from his ride on Maysa, _had that only been a week ago?,_ that the Dustland was lifeless. What he was seeing was a mirage. Mirages were what happened to people in the movies who wandered around deserts. Or maybe it was a fever dream. It wasn't until the snake stopped moving and raised its hooded head a foot off the ground that Raymond began to think it might be real. Like the snake itself, he stopped and stared. Like someone in the presence of another person yawning, when the snake opened its jaw and flicked its tongue, Raymond felt compelled to do the same thing. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was too dry. When the snake inched forward and swept its head back and forth, Raymond's head moved back and forth, too, as he took a step backward. When the snake, which Raymond realized resembled the carvings of snakes he had seen in the Mouseion, slithered forward so quickly that it cut the distance between the two of them in half in less than a second, Raymond jumped backward. Raymond's retreat led the snake to dart even closer. This time, however, when Raymond jumped backward, he caught the heel of his shoe. He tumbled backward and ended up sitting in the cloud of dust his clumsiness had caused. He heard a slight sound as if someone were pulling a length of ribbon off a spool. As the dust settled, Raymond saw the triangular, gray-green head with flat pitch-black eyes weaving back and forth just beyond his shoe.

Raymond's hand slowly moved from the ground where it had landed when he had tried to break his fall toward the hilt of the short sword that was shoved under his belt. The asp's head stopped weaving from side to side. Instead, it leaned forward as if trying to determine what danger the boy's hand might represent. When the teen's hand stopped, the snake's head remained frozen, but as Raymond's fingers began to slowly crawl up his pant leg toward the sword, the head reared back. To divert it, Raymond began to move his shoe in imitation of the head weaving the snake was doing. The snake's head inched forward and stared at Raymond's slowly moving sneaker. It seemed perplexed. Was this interloper an enemy, prey, or a possible mate?

"Keep looking, you idiot. Duel the pawn. Ignore the knight."

The snake's head began to weave in rhythm with Raymond's shoe. The boy's hand wrapped itself around the sword's hilt. The noise the sword made as it was being withdrawn from the boy's belt broke the spell. For a second time the wedge-like head drew back, the brown forked tongue flicked out, then, disappeared in a way that reminded Raymond of heat lightning. As much to relieve the tensions that were flooding his body as to protect himself, Raymond ripped the sword free with one hand while he used his other hand and both feet to thrust himself backward.

The asp's head shot forward and it buried its fangs in the boy's shoe. In the moment that the fangs were held by the shoe sole's heat-softened rubber, Raymond leaned forward and stabbed the snake. The boy's blow struck more than a foot behind the reptile's head. Far from killing the snake, the wound infuriated it. Its head snapped back and struck the boy's shoe three times so hard that it felt like someone was hammering it, and so fast that Raymond didn't have time to be terrified. He snapped his leg back as he shoved down on the sword. With adrenaline-fueled strength he pushed the sword through the snake's four-inch-thick body and wedged it into the ground. The snake's body coiled itself around the sword blade. The head snapped back and forth as if it were convulsing, as it looked for the cause of its pain and a target for its rage. Its fangs struck the earth where Raymond's foot had been. It twisted around on itself and struck the blade of the sword. Although it would have been an impossibility for the snake to lift its head far enough to reach Raymond's hand, instinct overcame reason and the boy let go of the sword.

Raymond stood horrified as he watched the snake twist and coil as it tried to get free of its pain. There was something about the coiling and uncoiling of the smooth body that made the boy think of a set of intestines getting ready to explode. Afraid of what could happen if he were to try to pull the sword free and unable to think of what else he might do to kill the snake, but unwilling to leave his sword behind, the boy stood transfixed.

The writhing continued. At times it seemed as if the snake was trying to strangle itself. Raymond was paralyzed when he saw a second snake, smaller, shinier, wetter and bloody, emerging from between the edges of the sword and the edges of the wound. When several feet of the snake's intestines suddenly burst from the wound, Raymond's eyes fluttered before he sank to the ground.

When the boy regained consciousness the asp was gone. A bizarre trail of bloody curves and straight slices had been carved into the dust by the snake, its guts, and the sword that it had dragged along in its retreat.

Although the Dustlands seemed barren in every direction, Raymond could not shake the feeling that something was going to jump out at him at any moment as he followed the snake's path. Several hundred feet from where it had begun, the trail ended. From a distance Raymond could see the dull glint of the sword. As he drew closer, he saw that the upper portion of the snake had disappeared down a hole, but the sword had acted as a bar to prevent the rest of it from following. Keeping his eyes focused on the hole, Raymond grabbed the sword's hilt, hurriedly planted a foot on the blood and dust-coated body, yanked the sword free, and jumped back before the snake's weakened tail could wrap itself around his ankle. He watched in abhorrence as the asp, more than half as long again as he was tall, slowly slithered from view.

Despite the intense, torpid heat, despite his physical exhaustion, and despite the quivers, shakes and wobbles in his knees and ankles as his body metabolized the excess adrenaline that had saturated it, Raymond ran from the snake and toward Wahih until his body quit and he fell onto his knees before slumping forward onto his blistered face.

• • •

It was only by snapping his arm back, a sudden movement that left his shoulder feeling like it was dislocated, that Bes managed to keep Samara from falling off Maysa.

The four plumes of dust that he had noticed three hours before had kept Bes from caring for Samara as he would have liked. Now, because the plumes appeared to be getting closer, he did nothing more than stop Maysa, dismount, remount with Samara in front of him rather than behind, wrap his uninjured arm around her waist, and put the camel back into a fast trot.

Samara's head rested just below the camel rider's chin. He could smell not only dust and sweat, but, in what Bes thought could only be a vestige of old memories, balm in her hair.

When she began mumbling, Bes reached under her shawl to touch Samara's forehead, which was hotter than just from the sun. Names and half names spilled from her lips. Some, her children from fifty, one hundred, two hundred years before, Bes recognized either because she had told him about them as they journeyed back and forth from Amarna and Wahih, or because he himself had ferried those mutas from Wahih upon their returns. Other names were new to him and he wondered whether they, too, were mutas, or ones who had returned in the times before he had been ordered to carry riders to and from Wahih. Or, he thought, they could be those who had not returned. Or, and the thought itself caused acid to drip into his stomach, they could be the names of the Earth fathers of her children. Many times before the camel rider had agonized over what memories might remain in Samara's mind of the Earth men who had fathered her mutas and had died hundreds of years before.

Bes remembered the first time he had journeyed to Wahih. After his trial and sentence, he had been given an ancient camel, a bag of dates, three skins of water, a faded papyrus map, and orders to ride to Wahih—if he could—and count the courses of stone in Khiui, the pyramid he would find there. He was to sleep for one night, refill his water-skins, return to Amarna and prove that he had made the journey by telling the Tjati the correct number of courses. If he didn't return, then he was the wrong camel rider for the task. If he did return, but got the number of courses wrong, he would be sacrificed for his lies.

Even though the map he had been given had been inaccurate, whether on purpose or not Bes never discovered, he had managed to find Wahih, return, make a better map, and be sent a second time. After that success, he became the camel rider who took the Samaras and their mutas to and from the Door.

Bes's bittersweet memories segued to guilt and remorse as he thought of how he had done so little after Samara had been imprisoned. He had convinced himself that all he could do was occasionally bribe his way into the prison with jugs of date wine and bring Samara something to eat or something to wear. For eight years he had reassured himself that he was doing all that he could. He had told himself that Samara was not asking him for anything. She had seemed willing to be manacled to atone for her disobedience and to appease Aten. When infrequent thoughts had risen that he should help her, he had argued that if he were to help her escape, Samara, he himself, and all of Amarna would pay a price for defying Aten.

While Maysa plodded across the Dustlands, Bes fumbled with his failings as if they were beads on a necklace, fondling one and then another and then back to the first. Occasionally he looked backward to see if the four spires of dust behind him were getting closer.

Hours later, as blue sky muted to gray and shadows lengthened, Maysa began to falter. Her driver knew that soon she would need to stop, but before he could let her rest, he knew that he had to take action to keep Samara safe. As daylight faded, he slowed the camel's pace so that those following him would think they were closing in on their quarry. Once night fell the dust that rose from Maysa's hooves would blend with the clouds of dust rising from the nightwinds. The wind would blow away their tracks. Under the protection of the dark and dust, he could veer off the path to Wahih and travel more to the south. Once he felt they were safe, he could rest Maysa and tend to Samara. They could make a camp. Hours before first light, he would canter a rested Maysa to the series of long, low hills that ran to the south and east of Wahih.

Even as he developed his plan, Bes knew that its success hinged on his enemies not imagining that he would ride past his destination. If the plan worked, he could make a camp for Samara and, after she was settled and safe, he could move back to the north and west to scout Wahih. He tried to imagine how long the guards might stand watch at the oasis. How many days food had they brought? If their plan had been to travel fast, then they would be traveling light. They might not be able to stay at Wahih for more than a day or two. Did they fear that if they returned to Amarna without Samara that Anubis would have them sacrificed? And if they did fear that punishment, then, as their supplies dwindled, would they consider riding south and east to the Balial Sea and the people who lived there?

Bes's head was so filled with thoughts of safety and escape that he didn't immediately notice when the nightwinds began pushing at his back. When he did become aware, he patted Maysa before turning her to the south. Knowing that her job had just became more difficult, Maysa made a plaintive groan. Before the direction change, the wind had been almost directly behind them and the camel's head had been protected from the full brunt of the dust by her big rump. By turning, the dust-filled wind was surging against one side of the animal's head. In some ways, Samara was paying the same price as the camel. With the wind behind them, Bes's body had protected his passenger. Once they went off, the nightwinds whipped against Samara's head cloth and worked its way under to slash against her cheek. Despite the viciousness of the winds' assault, the old woman didn't resist. Her body lay limp against Bes's chest. He dropped the reins and used the palm of his newly freed hand to hold the cloth so that it would better protect his rider's face.

Bes steered Maysa on the new course for more than two hours before he brought the camel to a halt. After her riders were dismounted, Maysa turned her back to the wind before sitting down. Bes laid Samara down so that the camel's broad body partially protected her. He offered Samara dates and wine, but she had no interest in food. She was feeding on her memories.

• • •

Being ever more concerned for Samara's health and anxious that he get to the rolling hills southeast of Wahih before the sun rose, Bes woke Samara less than four hours after she had fallen asleep. Hoping that he would be able to canter Maysa for at least part of the time, while the dark would hide their passage, Bes doubled the thickness of the hide under Samara to ease the jolting of the faster pace. After she ignored his insistence that she must eat and drink something, Bes got them mounted and gave Maysa a caring pat before putting her into a canter.

The sun had risen before Bes allowed the wheezing, stumbling camel to stop. In the race to safety, he had whipped Maysa with the reins. The shocked noise the camel made after having something done to her that had never been done before was like a punch in Bes's guts.

After they had crossed the first slight rise southeast of Wahih and dropped into the shallow valley beyond, Bes had turned back to see if the dust swirling up from Maysa's feet was rising above the crest of the hill. Although he couldn't be sure, he thought there was a good chance that if the guards chasing them happened to look in their direction their view would be blocked by Wahih's trees to the west.

Bes made camp at the base of a rise on the eastern side of a narrow valley. He chose the spot because the hill would provide some hours of shade from the sun. He guessed that he was less than a two hour walk back to the edge of Wahih. His plan was to reconnoiter the oasis and be back by the early afternoon. If the guards were at the oasis, he would move Samara and Maysa into the shade on the valley's western side and be prepared to wait until dark. If he saw no guards, they would mount Maysa and be in Wahih with its shade and water in less than an hour.

"Here is your water-skin and half of the dates. You must remember to drink. Try to eat. Try to sleep. Conserve your strength. If all goes well by nightfall you will be on Earth... somewhere on Earth."

"And you, my constant friend, where will you be?"

Bes folded a skin to make a pillow for Samara before answering, "I'll be where I'm most needed."

"And my daughter and the boy, where will they be?"

"I go to find an answer to your question. Rest."

"Ah, rest. Welcome rest. An old woman's dream."

Assuming that he would be able to refill his water-skin at the oasis, Bes emptied what remained in his into a bowl for Maysa. After rubbing the dust from the inside of the camel's ear, he started across the valley and toward whatever dangers there might be at Wahih.

• • •

Raymond was awakened by a loud noise that was part angry growl and part a plaintive whine. He forced his eyelids, which were crusted in dust to open, but there was nothing to see except swirls of dust. The boy reached out and, after a moment's floundering, he managed to lay a hand on the blade of his sword. He wanted to stand to defend himself from whatever had made the noise that had wakened him, but his legs seemed little interested in moving from where they were.

It was not until he started to yell, "Move, idiots," that Raymond realized that the growl he had heard probably had been made by him. His lips were parched. His tongue was so swollen that it extended past his lips as if he were taunting someone. His mouth was so dry that the dust that caked it had remained dust rather than being turned to mud by saliva.

Raymond's command to his legs had been nothing more than a pained noise. For a moment the boy was sure that he was going to cry. He was alone. He was alone in a desert on an unknown planet. Astrid was gone. He was dying of thirst. If what had happened earlier with the snake was not unique, then there were things beyond the land itself that could, would, kill him. In the dusk of dust and night there could be a snake weaving back and forth a foot from his face and he wouldn't know it.

Raymond's legs finally moved, but not to stand. Rather, they bent so that they could be closer to the rest of his body.

The teen was on the edge of tears when the thought came to him that if he were to start, his cries might soon turn to sobs. He imagined how those sobs would vacuum the dust that filled his mouth down into his lungs and asphyxiate him. After that thought, his lizard brain aborted his feeling of being overwhelmed. Instead, that primitive organ shouted orders for glucose and adrenaline and called up television and storybook memories of persistence and triumph. That simpler organ thrust aside fear and self-pity and deluged Raymond's higher brain with a tidal wave of anger. As the boy's anger, like a demented machine gunner, blasted away at myriad ill-defined targets, his legs regained their mobility.

The boy rose to his feet and using his sword as a cane, the night wind on his cheek as a compass, and his rage at all that he had suffered as a goad, he began walking.

Raymond himself had no idea how long he walked. His mind was far too busy counting injustices to count steps. When the land began to rise, then fall away, he remained unaware of those changes. When the layer of dust beneath his feet began to thin, he remained oblivious. It was not until a branch of a sapling slapped his face, like a panicky parent trying to restore a child to consciousness, that he became aware that there was anything in his world, but dust, dark, and one more step through both.

Joy at knowing that his journey across the Dustlands was close to ending caused Raymond to suffer several face slaps, nearly have an eye poked out by an unseen twig, and to trip and fall twice over dark hidden roots before caution replaced joy.

Moving slowly, shuffling his feet, waving his arms before his face, the boy moved deeper into the salvation of Wahih.

• • •

As Astrid flew through the night, she thought of the song that had been on television on Sunday night about wishing upon a star. She wanted to wish upon a moon. There were so many bright stars spread across the horizon that she found it difficult to keep track of the one Raymond had pointed out to her to use as her guide. She thought of how much easier it would be to find Wahih if Kemet had had a moon.

Astrid's attention drifted away from where she was going. Instead, it drifted back to where she had been, back to all of the sadness she had lived with. Tippy dead. No contact with her father. Living at the Peltdown Institute, rather than in a home. A missing mother. No friends except for Raymond, who was as much an irritating responsibility as he was a friend. The Tjati and Anubis intent upon sacrificing her.

Astrid had no doubt that if she wanted to remain alive, she had to go back to Earth. But the problem remained of what kind of life she would have on Earth.

In the hours she had spent manacled in the prison cell, Astrid had told her mother about Dr. Bruer, Peltdown, and the fatman who had followed her to Onabasha. The daughter was surprised that her mother really knew almost nothing about Peltdown, or the fatman. However what Samar said about her sister Qetesh and her plans with Dr. Bruer suggested that he might not be an enemy.

Astrid remembered their conversation.

"Dad must have known. Why would he have sent me to Peltdown if he didn't know it was run by a muta?"

"My daughter, he didn't know you were a muta."

After that astounding revelation, Astrid had felt the cell's darkness, which enveloped her, grow even darker. The dark, dank air became almost too thick to breathe.

"He thought you were from Earth?"

"He thought I was from Egypt. And, he was right. My family was from Egypt ...three thousand years ago."

"But, how did you explain that you would be leaving? Where did you say you were going?"

The other cell was quiet for so long that Astrid thought her mother had not heard her question.

"I told him nothing. I left him a letter that said that I was unhappy in our marriage and needed to get away for a few days. l wrote that page of lies and left thinking that I would be back within a week and make it up to him."

It had been Astrid's turn to be silent.

"And what were you going to do later? Just say, "Goodbye sweetie. I'm taking the girls on a big adventure ... to a horrible, cruel, evil, dying civilization."

"We are not cruel, nor are we evil, daughter. We are desperate."

Occasionally, as the hours passed, Astrid would pull herself away from her troubling thoughts to realign herself with a star. Each time that she forced her mind to focus on her immediate task, she wavered over which star was her guide. However, despite her efforts to concentrate on the direction of her flight, her thoughts kept getting drawn back to Peltdown.

If her father had not known she was a muta, then how had he known to send her to Peltdown? Was her mother right that, even though Dr. Bruer had refused to be returned to Amarna, he wanted to save it? Had she ... and had Raymond ... been part of his solution from the day of their arrival?

None of it made any sense. She had been absolutely sure Dr. Bruer had intended to harm her. Fatman had come after her. Tefnut and Anubis wanted her dead. And her father didn't want her at all.

Why was she such a threat to everyone? Was Raymond right that her ability to grow lapis threatened some and enticed others?

When a rope of bright yellow light uncoiled along the horizon to the sky, Astrid scoured the land looking for some evidence of Wahih. As the sun crept higher and the nightwinds began to falter, Astrid's eyes latched onto a patch of shadow that seemed more substantial than other shadows. She dipped a shoulder to align the kite with what held her eye.

As she flew closer, vertical splashes of black began to take on the shape of trees. The nightwinds became more erratic and the kite followed the wind's errant path. After a sudden drop as the wind fell out from underneath the papyrus, Astrid studied the ground before her for the best place to land. However, a second later she realized that the land beneath her was so barren that the question was not where to land but whether she could land.

As gently as she could, the teen lowered the nose of the kite toward the ground. For several seconds the kite glided smoothly down; however, without warning a final gust of nightwind raced under the back of the kite and thrust it upward. The kite's nose pitched down and Astrid screamed as the kite dove toward the ground. In a reflex, the girl threw her legs up as she pulled down with her hands. The rear of the kite was pushed up and then over. Even as the now upside-down kite plummeted down, Astrid noticed far to the southeast that the flatness of the Dustlands began to evolve into low hills and valleys. For a split second she was sure that she saw treetops in one of the more distant valleys. A moment later all of Astrid's attention was directed to surviving the kite's imminent crash.

Like a scalpel, the kite's main spar tore through the layer of dust and smashed into the ground. Even after the main spar snapped, the kite continued to grind through the dust. Fortunately, the spar had broken two thirds of the way down its length, and did no more harm to the girl than a gash on her calf just below her knee. If it had broken closer to the middle Astrid was sure she would have been skewered.

After the kite stopped moving, Astrid, her limbs flailing like an upside-down beetle, struggled to free herself from the kite's harness.

Once she was untangled from the kite's broken skeleton, and once she had taken a moment to regret jettisoning her food and shoes, the girl grabbed the water-skin and began walking.

# CHAPTER SEVEN

### Fight and Flight

Despite making frequent stops to listen for voices, human or camel, as he made his way through Wahih's trees and underbrush, Bes heard nothing that indicated that the guards had arrived before him. However, even though he heard and saw nothing, he stayed on guard. Unless something unusual had happened, the guards should have arrived before him. Even as he had approached the oasis from the southeast, he wished that he had the time to walk its perimeter to look for pad or footprints. It would have been the wise thing to do, but the need to get back to Samara left him little time for wise acts. He consoled himself by thinking that, if the guards had arrived earlier, then their tracks easily could have been wiped away by the nightwinds.

Venturing deeper into the woods and moving closer to Khiui, the camel rider moved even more slowly. Since he was approaching the meadow from the southeast, he could not see Khiui's entrance. To get a better vantage point, Bes began creeping sideways through the trees. Once he could see the face of the pyramid, he sidled closer to the edge of the woods. He studied the pyramid, the water in the pool, the meadow, and the edge of the woods, but he saw nothing.

Bes decided that the guards were not well-trained enough to be able to remain both immobile and silent for the length of time he had been watching. Since they should have been at the oasis hours before and were not, he concluded something must have happened to them. Although the Dustlands were barren of plants and trees, rivers and streams, people and animals, they were rich in danger. The guards could have gotten lost before they were close enough to see the trees of the oasis rise above the land. They could have been undisciplined and run out of water or food. They could have gone mad from the heat or the bleakness. They could have exhausted their camels. There could have been a mutiny or a fight.

Obviously, something had happened to the guards, and, because it had, Bes had the opportunity to hurry back to Samara and bring her back safely. He would bring her here, quench her thirst with fresh, cool water, and let her regain her strength in Khiui's shade. He would use the bridge both to cross the moat and, then, as a ladder to climb to the pyramid's entrance. He would figure out a way to lower Samara inside the pyramid. Once they were inside they might find evidence that Samara's daughter and the boy had gone ahead to Earth. Or, if they found no evidence, then they could wait through the night to see if they arrived. In the morning if neither had come, then Samara could go to Earth and he could make the biggest decision of his life: to go with Samara to Earth, to return to Amarna to face his death, or to strike out to the southeast toward the Balial Sea, toward the apostates who worshipped Amun and hated Aten and Amarna.

Bes was preparing to slip out of the woods to fill his water-skin at the pool when he heard a slight sound. He slid behind the nearest tree and slowly bent his knees until he was crouching on the ground. If it had been dawn, the sound he had heard could have been the rustle of a doddering nightwind moving through leaves, but a slight stirring during the day was something else.

Even after the whisper of something brushing against leaves had stopped for five minutes and then ten, Bes remained still. However, his mind was racing with ideas of who was hiding in the woods and how each minute that passed in hiding was another minute away from Samara. When the primitive camp he had made for her passed from shade to sun, what would she do? What could she do?

She was so weak. Was there enough strength left in her, enough will to live remaining, for her to cross the valley to find shelter from the sun?

Wrapping his hands around the trunk of the tree, Bes slowly pulled himself to his feet. His eyes scanned back and forth across the perimeter of the woods. He wished he had the power of Aten to see all that could be seen. He prayed to Aten to be shown what needed to be seen. Finally, he decided that whether his water-skin was empty or not, he could not wait any longer to start back to where he had left Samara.

A moment later, the camel rider's prayer seemed to be answered. Less than two hundred feet away a branch swayed. Speckles of sunlight touched the reddened face of the girl as she stepped closer to the edge of the woods. A moment later, Bes watched as she took a step into the clearing.

Bes waited until Astrid had moved a dozen paces into the meadow before making the clucking sound that would raise Maysa onto her legs.

The girl whirled back toward the woods, froze, then murmured, "Maysa? Bes?"

Before stepping from his hiding place the old man whispered back, "Did you see anyone? Any tracks? Samara and I were followed."

The girl shook her head as she walked toward Bes's voice. As soon as the camel rider stepped out from the woods, she asked, "Where is my mother?"

"She's safe. She's resting. The ride has been hard on her."

"And Raymond?'

It was Bes's turn to shake his head.

Astrid pivoted toward the pyramid.

"He should be here. He left before me, and then I had trouble. He should have been here hours ago."

"I have seen nothing. Whether by camel or by kite, the journey is not an easy one."

The teen closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and took a deep breath.

"I wrecked my kite. Maybe he did, too, and he'll be here soon."

"It could be. Did you see any rising dust as you made your way here?'

"No, but I wasn't looking at anything but the oasis, or thinking about anything but shade." Astrid lifted a leg to show Bes her foot. "My feet were burning." Suddenly, the girl's face lighted up, "Maybe he's already in Khiui waiting for us."

"And not let us know he was there?"

"If he's inside, he couldn't hear us. We've been whispering."

"We can look, but I must hurry. I have to get back to Samara."

When Astrid started toward the pyramid, she was surprised to see Bes moving along the edge of the woods.

"Where are you going?"

"To get the bridge."

"That will take time. I'll swim across. It will feel good to get rid of some of this dust."

Again, Astrid started for the pyramid.

"Wait."

Bes stepped into the woods. A moment later Astrid heard a large crack. When the old man reappeared, he was holding a stout branch, nearly as big around as the teen's wrist and longer than she was tall.

"For your protection while I'm gone."

As they walked toward the water surrounding Khiui, the old man took out his knife and began whittling a point at the smaller end of the branch.

"If the boy is there, don't be so relieved that you forget to remain alert. If the guards appear they will not know how to swim. In a world without water, there is no need for one to learn. They will try to cross using the bridge. Use this to knock them off. I will be back with Samara before night falls."

When Astrid reached for the weapon, Bes shook his head, "I will throw it to you when you are across."

Astrid studied the old man as he knelt and filled the empty water-skin that had been slung over one shoulder. Kneeling alongside him, she refilled her own canteen and offered it to the old man.

"For my mother."

Bes nodded.

Astrid laughed when she first entered the water and the dirt in her hair tried to weigh her down. She treaded water as she rocked her head back and forth. Currents of muddy water spread out across the moat. Even after her hair was clean, the water felt to good she took her time swimming across the moat. When she finally climbed out, she found her weapon was sticking in the ground, a small bag of hayani was nearby, and Bes was gone.

"Raymond! Raymond! Are you here?"

Using her awl as a spike, Astrid scaled the face of the pyramid. When she got to the entrance there was enough light to see that the portal was empty. She slid back down, stripped off her clothes, jumped into the water, and began to slowly swim around the moat. As she swam, she thought about her mother. Bes had said Samara was close. Soon, she would arrive. Bes had said she was weak, but, between the two of them, she was sure they would be able to get her safely across the moat and into the Khiui. They would return to Earth. They would be together. They would start a new life—someplace with no history, no memories. She would help her mother grow strong. Wounds would heal. Missing pieces would be found. Astrid was reveling in those thoughts when a chill ran through her. Bes had said they had been followed. While she was splashing around, thinking comforting thoughts, there could be Tjati guards watching her from the edge of the meadow. In a second, Astrid's legs were churning and her hands were digging deep into the water as made her way back to shore, to her clothes, and to her weapon.

• • •

Bes was staggering from the heat and exhaustion as he crested the hill and made his way into the valley. Ignoring his exhaustion, he stumbled farther toward where he had left Maysa and Samara. The old man could see that Maysa was gone, but a pitifully small bundle of cloth indicated that Samara had not moved. Halfway across the valley's floor Bes thought the bundle stirred, but a moment later he decided that heat ripples in the air and the glare of the sun were deceiving his eyes.

When he reached Samara, while being careful to raise as little dust as possible, the camel driver lowered himself to his knees and eased back the cloth that covered her head. Her eyes and lips were closed. Her cheeks were smooth. She could have been asleep, but he knew she was not. Or, he thought, she was in a sleep from which she could not be waked.

The old man slid his arms under Samara and lifted her from the dust. He was shocked at how little she weighed. Yet, when he tried to stand, he could not. He realized that he was not far from joining his friend. Looking around, he saw where Maysa's feet had climbed the valley's eastern hill. Still holding Samara, Bes clucked and chirruped in the hope that, when the sun had passed its zenith, Maysa had walked to the opposite side of the hill to take advantage of the shade that she would find there. After more clucks and no response, Bes began to call her by name. The longer he called, the harder it was to hold Samara above the dust. Finally, he laid his burden down. He brushed dust from a space big enough to hold Samara's body. He laid her on her back on the makeshift bier. As he was arranging her hands in the traditional pose with the right hand clasped over the left, he found her right hand held the lapis the boy had given them before they left the Gem-Pa-Aten plaza.

Bes stared at the serene figure. Disregarding the impossibility of what he was thinking, Bes imagined finding Maysa, lifting Samara atop the camel, riding to the oasis, somehow carrying her inside Khiui, placing her lifeless body on the portal stone, and helping her to escape the people and beliefs that had killed her.

When he came to the end of those thoughts he cupped his hands, scooped dust, and began to bury Samara.

Holding the lapis he had taken from Samara's hand, Bes retreated to the shade on the western side of the valley, cleaned a space no different from the one he had just made for the woman he had loved for so many centuries, lay himself down, and fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

Hours later the nightwinds woke Bes as they pushed a stream of dust over the crest of the hill and down onto him as if the winds intended to bury the old man as he had buried Samara. The camel rider remained still and allowed the dust to pile up on his back and calves as he contemplated what he should do.

Was he done? Was his work done?

He wished it was. He welcomed drifting into darkness or, if Aten was as he had been told and if Aten did as he was said to do, to be guided on his journey to the Field of Reeds. He had failed Samara. If he had been less cautious and gone straight to Wahih instead of circling around to the southeast to a supposedly safer place, she would be alive. She would be alive and on Earth with her daughter.

The memory of his words to Astrid moved the old man's thoughts in a different direction.

What did he owe the girl? When he thought of her as a girl, as someone who had no reason and no right to have come to Kemet, the answer was that he had no duty. When he thought of her as Samara's daughter, the answer became less clear.

More minutes passed before Bes pushed himself to his knees and shook off the layer of dust that had been intent on burying him, and struggled to his feet.

Even knowing that his weakness and thirst made it unlikely that that he would make it all the way back to the oasis, Bes began to walk. He walked with his face covered and his eyes shut to protect them from the river of dust blowing past him. He made a partial fist with his right hand and used the sound of the nightwinds whistling through that small tunnel to guide his steps in the dark. Because his tongue was so swollen, the camel rider could not close his mouth and, despite continuous adjustments to the cloth covering his face, dust worked its way under the cloth, past his lips, and began to cake the back of his throat. When the feeling of suffocating began to overwhelm him, Bes turned his back to the wind, uncovered his face, pushed his index finger past his tongue, and used its nail to scoop out the dirt that had lodged there.

As the old man plodded on, pushing as hard against the thoughts that told him to stop as he pushed against the unrelenting nightwinds, Bes began to feel some essential part of him begin to untangle and separate itself from his body. He could tell that it wasn't his mind because what was going on inside his mind was nothing more than the unending repetition of a demand that his feet take another step. He guessed that what was leaving was his ka. The ka had had enough of the failings and weaknesses of the khat. It was leaving. His soul was abandoning its body.

Panic struck Bes that if his ka abandoned him, his body would not be able to find his way to the Field of Reeds.

The old man stopped. He begged the words inside his head to stop. He turned so the wind was at his back. He uncovered his face. He opened his eyes so that he could see. He pried the dirt from his nostrils so that he could smell. Pinching fingers reached out into the darkness as if to capture his ka and bring it back to him. The soul-less man saw nothing but darkness, smelled nothing but unending dust, heard nothing but the unbroken hiss of the nightwinds, and touched nothing, nothing at all.

When the thought came to him that his ka would first journey to Samara, Bes began to retrace his steps.

While the old man had been walking into the wind, its force had supported him; however, within minutes of turning back to where he had left Samara, the bullying wind shoved the old man to the ground. When he got back on his feet, the wind let him stagger for no more than a dozen steps before it knocked him down again. After the third blow, Bes crawled a few feet before giving up.

• • •

As the noises grew louder and closer, Astrid slid down from Khiui's entrance, picked up her weapon, and made her way to the back side of the pyramid.

After swimming to shore and quickly dressing in her wet, tattered clothes, Astrid had climbed back up to the sill of Khiui's entrance and scoured the sky just above the tree-line looking for a plume of dust. Seeing nothing but Kemet's endless blue sky, she had slid back down, eaten a handful of dates, lay on the grass on the shady side of the pyramid and, unexpectedly, napped. When she woke up, Astrid climbed back to her observation post. Because it was so faint, the girl had scanned the same part of the sky to the north and east several times before she noticed a slight eddy of dust.

Ignoring the fact that the dust, if what she was seeing really was dust, was miles away, Astrid yelled, "C'mon, Raymond! You can do it."

Astrid had stayed at her post monitoring her friend's progress while the sun began its exit. As it fell, its rays turned pink. That solar effect made it easier for Astrid to see the plume. As she continued to watch, she realized that she was seeing was more than one plume. After studying the dust for many minutes, she decided she was looking at the dust being made by three, and possibly four, riders.

At the time of her discovery the girl wasn't particularly worried about the arrival of the guards. Bes had told her that he would be back before nightfall and nightfall was fast approaching. She wished that the three of them could wait, at least until morning, to see if Raymond would appear, but if it became necessary, then she and her mother, and, if he made that decision, Bes could be on Earth before the guards could do them any harm. Even if her mother was too weak to use the Door, Bes had said the guards would not know how to swim. If they tried to cross the moat using the bridge, they would have to come across single file. Astrid was sure that she and Bes together would be able to repel the guards one at a time.

Now, it was hours later. Bes and her mother had not arrived. The voices of the guards and groans of their camels grew louder as they thrashed their way through the woods. Without Bes by her side the girl was much less sure that she, just by herself, could keep the guards from crossing the moat. When she first had heard the muffled noises of her enemies approaching, she had decided to climb inside the pyramid and return to Earth before the guards even knew that she had been there. But, with more consideration, she realized that if she were to return to Earth in the next few minutes and her mother were to arrive an hour later and use the portal, Samara would arrive in a very different place than where she, Astrid, would have arrived. They had not thought to make a plan of where to rendezvous. Just like when she and Raymond had left Peltdown, a lack of thinking things through would have big consequences. Astrid knew that once she and her mother were separated on Earth, they might never find one another again. She had lost her mother once. She couldn't allow that to happen again.

Astrid tightened her grip on her spear, leaned her back against Khiui's smooth stone, and waited.

• • •

Knowing that the pool around Khiui must be close by, Raymond willed himself to keep walking.

A part of his brain kept insisting that he push back a branch, take a step, push back another branch, and take another step.

When the boy first smelled the water, he had commanded himself to not start crashing through the woods. But minutes later when he heard the water, a low burbling sound, his discipline broke down. He knew he was saved. He began to thrash through the darkness. As he flailed his way through the dark, he covered his face with his hands. Even as his hands were being scratched and punctured, he thought the price in pain he was paying for getting to the water sooner was well worth it. When he thought he heard Maysa bellowing, the relief from that knowledge caused the muscles in his body to go slack. Raymond toppled to the ground, forced the words, "Over here!" through his swollen tongue and blistered lips. Sobbing so violently that he was afraid his ribs would crack, he crawled forward. In a small break between the wrenching sobs, Raymond was sure he heard the sound of branches moving as his friends rushed to rescue him.

• • •

When Maysa found her master, he was nearly buried in dust. At first, she nuzzled him with her nose, but when he didn't move, she moved her head back and forth on her long neck like a broom and swept the dust from his body. When nothing happened, she wriggled her nose under his shoulder and rolled him over.

Bes's ka rejoined his khat when the camel's enormously long tongue slopped itself over his face. He forced himself to sit up. He slowly brushed dust from his arms and legs as Maysa continued to minister to him with face licks and nudges. After the camel rider wrapped an arm around her neck, Maysa lifted him to his feet. As soon as he was upright, the camel knelt. Moments later, Maysa was lumbering toward Wahih.

Trying to summon the will to stay atop the camel, Bes's febrile mind imagined jumping into the water in the moat and drinking until the water came no higher than his chest.

• • •

From her vantage point where she was hiding at the far corner of Khiui's base, Astrid watched four starlight speckled shadows carrying other shadows ride across the meadow. When they got close to the moat, a series of clicks demanded that the camels sit. The wraith-like guards dismounted and began to pound the dust from their robes. One of the men reached into his saddle bag and withdrew a water-skin.

Another one said, "No need for that. Drink from the pool."

"Is it safe?"

The shadow who had first spoken got on his belly, stretched out his arm, and using his palm as a cup began to drink the star-sequined water.

"Just be sure you don't fall in. It would sadden Anubis to learn that you died from water rather than from the fire he will have planned for us when he discovers we have failed. Drink while you can."

A moment later all four guards were on their bellies sloshing the pool's cool water into their mouths.

"All right. Don't draw it out. The bridge is supposed to be just back from the edge of the woods. You two, look over there. When you find it, bring it here. I'm sure we're too late. Getting lost in the dust storm doomed us. We'll sleep by Khiui tonight. At first light, you two who plan to return in failure to Anubis' mercy can count the stone courses of Khiui and be on your way. Urhur and I will seek mercy elsewhere."

Through the gloom Astrid watched one of the guards unsaddle the camels before allowing them to drink. The noises the camels made as they slurped water into their mouths were so ridiculous that Astrid had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. The camels were still standing at the pool, although they were starting to play as much as drink, when the guards returned carrying the bridge.

"That's it? That's not a bridge. It's barely a ladder. So be it. Slide it across."

As Astrid watched the bridge, which was little more than two long slender saplings with branches lashed across them for steps, being pushed across the water by all four guards, she considered whether she should slip into the pool on Khiui's back side, swim across, and hide in the woods until daylight. The guards had indicated that they weren't expecting anyone and that they would be leaving at dawn, which she guessed was less than four hours away. That plan seemed to be less dangerous and make more sense than trying to defend the island. Unless ... unless they heard her as she swam across and captured her as she climbed out. Unless ... she swam across the moat safely, but they heard her escaping into the woods. If that happened, then one guard could watch over Khiui while the other three searched for her. Or all four of the guards could just wait until hunger and thirst drove her out of the woods and back to them. Unless ... Bes and her mother arrived and the guards heard them. Bes had said that he thought the guards had gotten lost. With a weakened Samara in his care, would he be as careful and quiet as he had been that morning? Unless ... by some miracle, Raymond found his way to Wahih, and, in desperation for water, came stumbling out of the woods.

After thinking through her options, Astrid concluded that because the guards would be forced to cross the bridge single file, she had a reasonable chance to defend Khiui if she stayed where she was. If she left the island and ended up fighting all four of them in the meadow or the woods, she was sure she would have little or no chance of success.

As she waited for the bridge to span the moat, Astrid warned herself that her biggest vulnerability was if a guard was able to grab her spear and yank it from her grasp. If that happened, her only option would be to climb Khiui, descend the canted interior without being able to see the handholds, and return to Earth alone to an unknown destination.

Astrid thought about how traveling to an unknown destination was nothing new.

"You go first. Draw your sword."

"You said no one is there."

"Draw your sword. Go!"

"But my balance."

"Draw your sword, Babi, before I draw mine."

Astrid heard more than saw the sword being unsheathed.

"And if I fall ....?

"Don't. Go."

The bridge groaned when the guard stepped up on it. Astrid watched the shadow sway back and forth as it slowly moved forward. When the shadow was halfway across, she dropped onto her belly and slithered toward the bridge.

The guard's attention was focused solely on maintaining his balance as he made his way over the bridge. His colleagues had their eyes riveted on their comrade's progress. No one noticed a shadow sliding its way toward the moat.

Astrid timed her progress so that she arrived at the end of the bridge while the guard was still several steps away. He was looking toward the safety that was so close when he noticed Astrid as she rose up onto her knees. In that instant, he only had time to say, "What the ...." before the girl jerked up on the bridge's closest rung. The guard flung his sword toward Astrid even as he fought to keep his balance. His efforts to harm Astrid or save himself were futile. His arms were still whirling like a windmill when he toppled into the water.

Astrid listened to a terrified scream, shouting from the shore, the splashes of flailing arms, a sound that was half scream and half gurgle, more desperate shouts, more frantic thrashing in the water, and, then, nothing but the hiss of bubbles.

Astrid grabbed the guard's sword which had landed just a few feet from her and slithered off to the side.

"Babi. Babi! What is happening? Babi?"

"Silence, you fools!"

The shouting stopped and what Astrid was sure was the guard captain's voice began to whisper. The girl smiled when she realized that because Amarna was so dry, its people had no experience with how well sound traveled over water.

The second guard came across the bridge on his hands and knees. While holding tight to the saplings meant that he didn't have to rely on his balance, it also meant that his sword was sheathed.

As soon as the guard touched the end of the bridge, an enraged Astrid leapt up from where she had been hiding in the grass ten feet away, rushed forward, and jabbed the drowned guard's sword down into the second guard's back. The sudden jolt, when the sword hit bone rather than organs, nearly dislocated the teen's shoulder. The guard jerked back in pain. The sword twisted free from Astrid's grip. As the guard tried to push himself to his feet, the sword's hilt moved beyond the girl's grip. She dropped back a step as her fingers desperately sought where she had left her spear.

Rising up on one knee, the soldier reached for his sword. His bellow—so loud, so close, and so enraged—frightened Astrid more than the gleam of the blade in the man's hand. As the man rose onto both knees, the sword that was stuck in his back broke free. The sound of the metal hitting wood, followed by a splash as the sword dropped into the water, caused the guard to twist his head to see if he was being attacked from two sides. That slight distraction gave Astrid enough time to swing her spear at the man's head. A violent shiver, almost like being shocked, ran up Astrid's arm. A sound, much like the thonk she remembered from when her father would rap his knuckles against a watermelon, although much louder, filled her ears. A second of silence passed, and then there was a loud splash.

Looking across the pool, Astrid saw that the two shadows that had been standing at the end of the bridge were gone. She could see some movement off to her right, but she realized those shadows were caused by the elegant swaying of the camels' heads.

Minutes later, when Astrid heard Maysa's far-off braying, she knew she had to warn Bes of his danger. Keeping a low profile, she slipped around to the backside of the pyramid and quietly lowered herself into the water. She rolled onto her back. With her spear in her left hand and her right hand underwater she sculled toward shore. A few minutes later, a soaking wet Astrid, shivering violently from the night's cold wind, was creeping through the woods.

When the guards' camels first heard Maysa they lifted their heads toward the sound, but for a moment remained silent. It wasn't until Maysa trumpeted her excitement at the smell of water, that the other camels bellowed back a welcome. Immediately the night air was filled with an ungulate call and response. Astrid was happy that the camel's sounds masked the noise she was making as she forced her way into the woods, but she was fearful that if the guards were nearby, either looking for her or preparing to ambush Bes and her mother, that any sounds they might be making would be drowned out, too.

The darkness of the night, the close-set trees and islands of underbrush, and the pain that underbrush caused her bare feet dictated the girl's slow pace. What were barriers for Astrid, however, seemed to mean nothing for Maysa. Her honking grew louder as did the sounds of her massive body thrashing its way past, or through, anything that might slow her way to water. Astrid worried that the camel's desperate pace would endanger Bes and, much more likely, her mother. She could imagine the riders being knocked unconscious by an overhanging branch or being ripped from their perch by lassoes of vines.

It wasn't until the teen stopped to catch her breath and untangle herself from a puzzle of vine that she thought to wonder why Bes would allow Maysa to forge ahead when he couldn't help but hear a cacophony that could only be being made by the guards' mounts. Realizing the implication of her thought Astrid sagged within the rat's nest of vines that held her. She fought accepting the knowledge that she had been right when, hours before, after the night had fallen and Bes and her mother had not arrived, she had guessed something tragic had occurred. She berated herself for talking herself out of what was so obvious a conclusion. If she had acted at nightfall, rather than deluding herself, then she would be on Earth and not staggering around in a nearly pitch-black woods. She wouldn't be wondering at just what moment two sword-wielding men would be leaping at her. She wouldn't be fighting to push against the enormous crushing knowledge that she had just killed two people. Using her spear as a crutch rather than a weapon, Astrid lowered herself deeper into the mangle of vines and weeds and began to sob.

From what she guessed must be several hundred feet away, making a sound that reminded her of a whimpering baby, a very large baby, Astrid heard Maysa crashing through the forest. Less than a minute later, her ears were filled with a jumble of camels thundering and men shouting. The guards' shouting quickly subsided, but the camels continued to keep up their conversation.

Astrid let her mind drift; however, that attempt to escape her situation soon ended. She was shivering from the nightwinds tugging at her wet clothes. Her joints—knees, elbows, and hips—ached. Her teeth were chattering. When she clenched her jaw to stop the chattering and the noise it was making, she thought that she heard something moving nearby. She held her breath as she moved her head back and forth trying to locate the sound.

The gap between one noise and the next was so drawn out that the girl was forced to release the residue of air she had been holding inside her.

Finally, she heard a slight scraping sound. A few seconds later she thought she heard a cough. Reaching down into the darkness she began to free her legs from the mazy vines.

More scraping and, then, a groan.

Astrid considered what the chances were that one of the guards might have injured himself floundering around in the woods. After using her spear to push herself upright, the teen carefully lifted one foot and then the other to be sure that they were free. Shoving aside her caution she whispered, "Bes?" Hearing nothing, she whispered louder, "Bes?"

This time her question was answered with a groan.

"Hold on."

After making her way through a labyrinth of underbrush, Astrid murmured, "Make a noise so I can find you."

A groan came from off to her left. After crawling through a tangle of vines, Astrid found Bes by stumbling over his leg. Since it was so dark that she could barely see, the teen used her other senses to determine the camel rider's condition. What her hearing and touch discovered appalled her.

Even with her ear just inches from his lips, Astrid had to strain to hear the old man's breathing. When she touched his cheek, there were so many blisters it didn't feel like skin. More light touches told her that his lips were blistered, but it was his tongue, which was so swollen and so dry that she could imagine that he had swallowed a shoe, that horrified her.

Astrid peeled off her shirt and began twisting it. Once it began to tighten, she rested the heel of her hand as lightly as she could on the camel rider's chin and began to trickle water into a small gap she had found at the side of his mouth.

Long after the teen's arms began to ache and burn, she continued to try to extract more water from her shirt. When she finally gave up, she doubted that more than a couple of ounces had dribbled into the old man's mouth.

"Are you better?'

"Samara's gone. To the Field of Reeds."

"Not now. Don't move. I'll be back."

After putting her shirt back on, Astrid used the sounds of the camels, quieter and calmer now that the novelty of Maysa's appearance had worn off, to guide her back to the meadow. When she reached the edge of the woods, the camels' murmurs told her where to look; however, it took some time for her to pick out the five lumps that were a slight shade lighter than the night. She continued to stare, but she wasn't able to see two smaller shapes among the larger ones. Astrid hoped that after losing their comrades, the remaining two guards were hiding among the trees.

Confident that the westerly winds would prevent the camels from smelling her, Astrid crept out of the woods and scuttled across the meadow. When she reached the pool, she slid back into the water and quietly swam around to the front side of the pyramid. When she came to the bridge, she stopped and slowly raised her head. The camels were less than fifty feet past the far side of the water. Between the pool and the animals, the girl could make out a small irregular shadow that she guessed might be the saddles and supplies the guards had thrown down when they first arrived.

Astrid closed her eyes and tried to recall the exact details of her fight with the second guard. She moved several feet past the bridge, expelled all of the air in her lungs, and allowed herself to sink into the inky water. Her heart was pounding from fear rather than from a lack of oxygen by the time her feet touched bottom. Standing on one foot and fluttering her arms to keep her balance, the teen swept her other foot back and forth. Finding nothing, she took another step and continued her search. After a third luckless effort, the teen's lungs demanded that she surface. Despite the burning in her chest, Astrid forced herself to breath slowly and quietly. As soon as her breathing returned to normal, she exhaled and drifted back below the surface. On the second sweep of her foot she felt something solid. She reached down and nearly drowned herself when she opened her mouth to scream when her fingers touched teeth and rubbery lips. She forced herself to slide her hand across the bristly chin and neck of the guard and onto his right shoulder. Her hand slid down the dead man's arm, but when it got to his hand she didn't find the sword she expected him to be holding. Crouching down, Astrid explored the rocky bottom of the moat with both hands in a desperate search for the sword. Seconds before lack of oxygen would have forced her to quit, her right hand touched metal. Disregarding any risk that the blade might be sharp enough to cut her, she leaned forward to retrieve it. Shifting her weight caused her to lose her balance. To keep from toppling all the way over, she threw out her free hand. That hand landed on the chest of the guard and its weight was enough to cause a cache of oxygen trapped in his lungs to be freed. The fear caused by the rush of bubbles and the gurgling noise as they shot upward propelled Astrid to the surface. The splash she made as her body exploded out of the water startled the camels. Braying wildly, they clambered to their feet and began to mill about as they waited for one of them to make a decision about what to do.

Knowing that she had little time to find food and water for Bes before the guards steeled themselves to learn what had spooked the animals, Astrid switched the sword to her left hand and began swimming. Although fear of what the guards would do to her provided plenty of motivation to swim as fast as her exhaustion and the weight of the sword would allow, it was the idea of the guard she had touched, the guard who could not possibly be alive, coming after her, burbling his rage, that impelled her legs to kick beyond their strength and her free arm to stretch out and grab the water and yank it toward her as if it were a safety line.

Reaching shore, Astrid stabbed the sword into the ground and pulled herself out of the water. Her sudden appearance threw the camels from a panic into hysterics. The girl peered across the meadow toward the tree-line but saw nothing moving. Dripping water, she hurried over to the supplies. Her fingers tore through saddle bags feeling for food and water-skins. She felt a sticky cloth wrapped around a dense cube of what she was sure was dates. Seconds later she touched what seemed to be a nearly full water-skin. As she started to pull it free she felt a second bloated skin. Holding tight to her booty, she stood up. The camels were braying and banging against one another. To the left of the milling camels, maybe twenty feet out from the edge of the woods, Astrid caught a faint glint of starlight on metal. The girl slipped sideways along the edge of the moat until she was directly behind the nearest camel. She sprinted forward and slapped the camel's hindquarters with the flat of the sword as she shrieked a banshee call.

All five camels galloped toward the woods. The two guards, who were in-between the camels and the woods, lunged to get out of their way. In the pandemonium, Astrid dashed across the meadow in what she hoped was the right direction to find Bes.

By the time she reached the woods, Astrid could hear the plaintive demands of the guards for the camels to stop their flight. She smiled as she imagined the terrorized animals fighting their way all the way through the woods and racing out across the Dustlands with the desperate guards running behind begging them to stop.

"Go, Maysa."

The tops of the trees were beginning to be infused with dawn's myriad grays before Astrid managed to find Bes. Afraid of what she would learn, the girl didn't even try to see if the old man was breathing. Instead, she sat down in a lotus position and lifted his head until it was leaning on her chest. When the teen removed the stopper from the first skin she was surprised to find that it held date wine rather than water. After re-stoppering the wine, she opened the second skin and was relieved that it held water.

Astrid cupped Bes's chin with four fingers of her left hand and used her thumb to push aside his tongue. With her right hand she dribbled water into his mouth. She had half-expected the old man to begin choking; however even though his eyes remained closed, his cheeks were still, and his tongue and lips weren't moving, she could feel his Adam's apple going up and down underneath her fingers.

After long minutes of trickling water down his throat, with no response other than swallowing, Astrid decided to change tactics. She corked the water-skin, leaned forward until her lips nearly brushed Bes's festering ears, and murmured, "Bes, you're too weak to eat so I'm going to give you some wine to drink. Try to swallow. I'll go slow."

As she sat back up to un-stopper the wine-skin, Astrid thought she heard Bes say something. She leaned back down and asked, "What? What did you say?"

With the syllables so drawn out they were more like percussion notes than words, Bes said, "Why go slow?"

Since one hand was holding the old man's chin and the other was busy guiding the trickle of wine, Astrid had to use the shoulder of her shirt to wipe away her tears.

The sun was up, the nightwinds had died, and Astrid was in a near trance at the beauty of the sunlight sneaking through tree leaves. She thought back to summer days in Onabasha lying on her back in her little pool and watching the sun's rays bend and twist as the wind opened and closed the elm trees' leafy gateways. Kemet was so dry, so brown, and so absent anything green that in just a few days she had forgotten how beautiful a world with abundant water could be.

The old man's head remained in her lap. He was sleeping. His breathing was still weak, but it had strengthened enough that she had no trouble hearing it. His sunburned, bubbled face looked like something from a horror movie, but his tongue had shrunk enough that it could fit inside his mouth. The water-skin was empty and more than half the wine was gone, but the old man had not been able to eat a single date. Astrid wondered if all of the guards' supplies were as she had left them and if they might have some food that wasn't a date. She considered what the guards would have done if they had had to choose between food and water or their camels. Immediately, she realized that they might not have had to make that choice. They could have split up with one guard going after the camels and the other going back to the meadow to safeguard their supplies. A moment later Astrid realized just how dreamy she had become while resting in the woods. She asked herself whether the most likely outcome was that the camels had allowed themselves to be caught, and the guards had returned to their supplies—and they either were still waiting for her to appear or they had begun their journey home.

Astrid gently tapped the old man's head.

"Bes, it's time to go. We need to know if the guards are gone. Can you walk?"

Bes said nothing, but he nodded his head. Despite that affirmation it was several minutes before Astrid had the camel rider up on his feet, the water and wine-skins slung over her shoulder, the sword tucked under her belt, and the sticky package of dates uncomfortably stuffed between her belly and her shirt. She handed Bes the spear he had made for her the day before.

"Lean on this and lean on me. We're pretty deep in the woods. I hope you're strong enough to make it close to the meadow so we can see if the guards are gone. We'll take it slow ... real slow ... not like with the wine."

The first couple of times that Bes stumbled, Astrid thought that it was because of his weakness, but after she became aware of just how firm his grip was on her shoulder, she concluded that the stumbling was because of all the wine he had drunk.

Astrid broke into laughter at the idea that the old man had gone from nearly dead to drunk.

"We're not in Kansas anymore."

Peering through the ten feet of foliage that remained between where they stood and the edge of the trees, the meadow appeared to be empty. After several minutes of seeing and hearing nothing, Astrid tugged on Bes's arm and started toward the meadow. She had taken only two steps when she felt resistance. Glancing over she saw that Bes had an arm wrapped around a tree.

"It's okay. They're gone."

Bes shook his head before croaking, "Sun."

Looking at the destruction of his face, Astrid understood his reluctance.

"We'll go fast. We'll be inside Khiui in a couple of minutes."

The old man didn't let go of the tree.

"Sun."

"Listen, Bes. I have to go and you have to come with me."

"Sun."

"As soon as we are inside Khiui you can have the rest of the wine."

It took nearly a minute for the camel rider to make his decision, but, finally, slowly, he let go of the tree.

"Let's go."

With her hand gripping the underside of Bes's arm just above his elbow, Astrid began steering him across the meadow. When they reached the bridge, Astrid slipped off the water-skins and dates before she commanded Bes, "Give me the spear. Hold my shoulder. It's a little bouncy, but you'll be fine. We'll pretend we're riding Maysa."

The strange noise the camel rider made caused Astrid to turn from the bridge to look at him. Bes's chin was quivering.

"Let's get across first, then, you can cry about Maysa, okay? Hold on. Tight."

Using the spear as a balance bar, Astrid started across the rickety bridge. Once they were on the other side she said, "I helped you, now you have to help me. We need to pull the bridge over here so we can use it for a ladder to get up there."

"Not yet. Too tired."

Astrid pointed, "Go sit in the shade. I'll get our gear."

As she approached the pile of supplies, the girl realized that someone had come back and taken some of the supplies. She guessed the things that remained, which were strewn around the grass were possessions of the dead guards that the survivors decided they had no use for. She was surprised to find Bes's saddlebag, which was empty except for a set of reins, a set of hobbles, his drinking cup, and a small piece of cloth that could have been used for anything from wrapping dates to screening skin from the sun. Astrid took the bag with its contents, added two more cups, an empty jug, and a short-bladed knife from the guards' abandoned gear, and re-crossed the bridge.

"Forget the ladder. I have another idea. Keep resting."

While her hands undid the reins and hobbles and spliced them together, the girl considered what they were about to do. Finally, unable to shove aside her doubts, Astrid asked, "Bes, I know where you arrive on Earth has to do with when you leave from here. Do you have any idea of where we might land?""

"No."

"No idea?"

"No."

"It might be hard for you to imagine, Bes, but three quarters of the Earth is covered with water. Very deep water. Water hundreds of times deeper than the column in Gem-Pa-Aten is high."

Bes's head shook in incredulity at what Astrid was saying.

"Earth is very dangerous."

"No, Bes. Earth is very, very wet, and very, very safe. Kemet is very dangerous. Even though Earth has been dangerous for me, dangerous enough I thought it would be better to be here, I know it's very safe because its population is in the billions and keeps getting bigger. Earth is the opposite of Kemet. But, for us to be safe, it would be better if we didn't land in water that was two miles deep. Think. You have been to Wahih many times. Were there times of the year that no one came? When you were here, were there times of the day when the portal didn't get used?"

"The times of the year when Samaras went and the Returned came changed over time."

"Gradually changed or abruptly?"

"Abruptly."

"That makes some sense, I guess. My mother...." Saying those two words tickled the back of Astrid's throat in a way that she thought probably mimicked what had happened to Bes when she had said Maysa's name. Her mother was gone. She bowed her head and took a slow, deep breath before continuing. ".... she said that when the mutas born in one area weren't useful for Amarna, they would move to another area.

"But after those abrupt changes, what happened?"

"The Samaras and mutas would leave and arrive at the same times of the year."

"That makes sense. Kemet and Earth are aligned in some way. When a person leaves Kemet determines where they arrive on Earth, but, for some reason, from what my mother told me, it seems like the passage of time causes a bigger change in the latitude than in the longitude of where they land."

"I don't understand."

"You do, you just don't know the words I'm using. But, if what I think is true really is true, then, as long as we can avoid landing in something called the Great Lakes, we should be okay."

"We?"

"Yes, Bes, we. You're going with me to Earth. You have to. You have a lapis and you have to use it. Maysa is gone. Samara is gone. Anubis wants to burn you. You have to come with me.

"Here, look."

Astrid showed the old man what she had made.

"I'm going to climb up to the entrance and use my awl to secure this. You can put your foot in a loop and reach up to another loop and pull yourself up. I'll be behind you to steady you, or give you a boost if you need it."

Using the awl as a pick, Astrid climbed Khiui's smooth surface, wrapped the end of her makeshift ladder around the awl and wedged its point into the backside of the sill. Once she was back down, she walked over to the edge of the pool and looked down. Her idea was to retrieve the sword of the first guard, but even though where the sword had landed was easy to see through the clear water, it was equally easy to see the two bodies. The girl walked away, gathered up the wine-skin, the second guard's sword, her spear, and Bes's saddle bag, climbed back up the leather ladder, and dropped their supplies inside.

She climbed down, walked over to the old man, and extended her hand.

"C'mon, Bes. Time for another adventure."

Bes's climb up the face of Khiui wasn't graceful, but with no more than an occasional push from Astrid, he made it to the entrance and, after Astrid climbed up next to him and reversed the awl so that it was wedged into the outside edge of the sill, he slid down inside.

Once both of them were inside Khiui, Astrid began dividing the gear into two piles.

"Because we don't know exactly where we will land or what we will need, we'll take everything. Wherever you land, don't move. I should be close by and I'll find you. If something does go wrong and we miss each other, make your way to a place called Hanna Park in Onabasha, Indiana in America and wait for me."

"Why there?'

"That's close to where the Mother Lapis is."

The old man studied the Door before returning his worried gaze to Astrid.

"You promised me more wine."

"I did, didn't I? You've got a good memory for details."

Astrid reached into the saddle bag and handed Bes the wine-skin. He tipped it to his mouth, took a drink, paused, then, kept drinking. Astrid watched the skin deflate.

"Wait. Whoa! My turn."

Bes reluctantly lowered the skin.

"You drink?'

"I'm too young to drink on Earth." Astrid's eyes became shimmery. "But, I guess, if I'm old enough to have killed people on two planets, I'm old enough to drink on Kemet." She brought the camel skin to her lips.

"To Samara and to Raymond. To Maysa and to you, Bes. To Tippy ... and to Earth."

She took a large gulp, winced as she swallowed, and took another. She handed the dregs of the wine-skin back to Bes.

"Hold your lapis in your right hand and your saddle bag in your left."

Astrid picked up the sword and shoved it under her belt before she grabbed the spear.

"On Earth as I leapt from the portal I thought of where I wanted to be. None of it has worked out the way I wanted, so maybe it's not important what you think as you leave."

Astrid tipped her spear toward the old man. She started to say something, but she was distracted by what she saw. Wherever the portal would take them, Bes would arrive with filthy billowing clothes, a blistered face and drunk. Except for being drunk, whoever on earth might see him would think he was a Bedouin who had lost his camel. That thought stopped Astrid dead as she realized that was exactly who Bes was. She herself would arrive blistered, and barefoot and, now that she thought about it, not drunk enough.

Astrid shook her head to dismiss her thoughts.

"It's time, Bes."

In the dim light inside the pyramid, Astrid could barely make out the old man's nod. He stepped onto the Door. A faint glow, like heat lightning, skittered around Khiui's walls, and he was gone.

Astrid took a step forward, whispered, "Goodbye, Mom," stepped onto the stone, and was gone.

# CHAPTER EIGHT

### Welcome

Through his damaged lips and distended tongue, Raymond tried to say, "Water." But even he couldn't understand what he said. Although he couldn't pronounce the word for what he so desperately wanted, he could smell it. He had never smelled anything so sweet in his life. Exhausted though he was, his brain lit up with watery images—sucking cool water from the end of a garden hose, inhaling a thin arc of lukewarm water from an elementary school fountain, licking beads of condensation trickling down the outside of a glass of lemonade, catching snowflakes on his tongue.

As the water smell grew stronger, the boy squeezed and stretched his eyelids to break whatever had sealed them shut; however, despite his efforts, they remained glued together.

Blindly, the boy continued crawling toward the intoxicating smell. After plodding forward another minute, exhaustion forced him to a stop. As he was resting, he thought he heard something. Concentrating, he decided that it was the sound of trickling water. After he adjusted the sword that had been dragging on the ground and impeding his progress he continued his crawl.

The next time Raymond stopped the sound of water was louder, a burbling noise that reminded him of a water fountain, but it seemed to him to be joined by another sound, a thrumming sound, a familiar sound, but a sound he couldn't quite identify.

The unidentified noise motivated him. His fingers dug at his eyelids, but the pain of trying to separate skin from crust was too painful to continue.

Afraid of what might be making the noise, but desperate for water, Raymond crept forward. The next time he stopped the thrumming sound was gone. Instead, another sound, a rustling sound as if something was moving through the underbrush took its place. After his encounter with the asp, Raymond's ears were more attuned to the rustle than the sound of water.

Slowly, he sat back on his haunches and cocked his ears. He heard nothing, but, without warning, something brushed against his arm. Raymond smacked his head against a tree trunk when he recoiled.

In a panic, the boy clawed at the crust of mucous and dust that sealed his eyes. His frantic efforts triggered a high-pitched wail by whatever was in Wahih with him.

The boy's scream, triggered by both fear of what was making the sounds and the pain in his eyes as his fingers gouged at them, was followed by silence. Seconds later Raymond managed to open his eyes. As they adapted to the dark of the woods, he saw a pair of close-set yellow eyes staring at him.

Kneeling stock still, Raymond waited impatiently for his eyes to adjust so he could see better. After a near unendurable minute, he could make out a small sleek head that was topped with large, pointed, sail-shaped ears. The longer he stared, the more Raymond thought he had seen a stone carving in the Mouseion that resembled the animal that was staring back at him.

In a voice that reminded him of concrete sliding down a metal trough Raymond said, "Kitty?"

As soon as the boy started to use the tree he had banged into as a crutch to pull himself upright, the cat slunk away. Raymond tottered from tree to tree toward the burbling sound. Two minutes later, he was slurping water and sloshing his face in a small spring-fed pond. It wasn't until his thirst was completely relieved and his blistered face had been cleaned and cooled by the water that he came to the realization that where he was seemed very different from how Astrid had described Wahih.

Where was the meadow? Where was the pond? Where was Khiui?

Where was he?

• • •

"Excusez, madamoiselle, est-ce ca va?"

Astrid raised her head from an oily sidewalk.

"What? Where am I?"

"Parlez-vous francais?"

Astrid took a second before she groaned, "Not yet."

"Laissez-moi vous aider."

The woman crouched down and took hold of Astrid's hand with one hand and began lifting the girl's shoulder with the other. As Astrid got to her knees and began to stand up, the sweet, thick smell of date wine and revelation of the sword stuck under her belt caused her benefactress to let go and quickly walk away.

Weak from her adventures and her travel, Astrid wobbled back and forth on the sidewalk on her bare feet trying to find her balance. The girl looked from the stream of people giving her a wide berth as they passed by to the nearest storefronts, which had overhead signs that began with Le, La, Un, Une, and Des.

As disoriented as she felt, Astrid could easily imagine how much worse it would be for Bes. After angling her sword so that it rode close to her leg, Astrid picked up her spear and padded off to find Bes, her best friend on Earth.

####

Glossary

**Alamin** —the guest quarters for newly returned mutas.

**Amarna** —the city the followers of Aten built on Kemet, a duplicate of el-Amarna, the city Akhenaten built in honor of Aten.

**Amarnian names**. As a gesture of loyalty to Aten and disdain for the myriad lesser gods of ancient Egypt, many of the residents of Amarna took names that once had been reserved for the gods.

**Amenhotep IV** , pharaoh (1353-1336 BC) of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who took the name Akhenaten after raising Aten to the Supreme God. Husband of Nefertiti and father of Tutankhamun.

**Amun** —King of the Gods, god of the Winds.

**Anubis** —Aten's high priest in Amarna; also, a jackal-headed god, god of the dead.

**Apep** —a major domo for the Tjati.

**Aten** —the supreme God worshipped by Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) and the people of el-Amarna. The supreme god, which replaced Amun during Akhenaten's reign.

**Babi** —a Tjati guard; also, the god of baboons.

**Bes** —a camel rider, rescuer of Astrid and Raymond; also, a dwarf god who protected pregnant women and children.

**Brayzir** —a large stone container used to make human sacrifices to Aten.

**Chackt** —a command for a camel to get on its feet.

**el-Amarna** —the city Akhenaten had built on the east side of the Nile to honor Aten.

**Emmer** —an ancient variety of wheat.

**Gabal Mountains** —the mountains that rise west of Amarna. The source of the Iteru River.

**Gem-Pa-Aten** —the temple and plaza in Amarna where Aten was worshipped and apostates and criminals were sacrificed; also, the Great Temple of Aten located in el-Amarna.

**Ghit ghit** —a command for a camel to sit.

**Hayani** —red dates.

**Iteru** —the river that flows through Amarna and its channels; also, the Ancient Egyptian name for the Nile River.

**Ka** —the vital spark. One of the five parts of the soul, along with Ren, Ba, Sheut, and Ib. The spiritual part of a being that lives within the body and survives after the body's death.

**Khat** —the physical form of the body. That part of a being that could decay and, thus, needed to be mummified.

**Khiui** —the name of the portal pyramid found in the oasis at Wahih.

**Lapis** —the crystals that allow passage back and forth from Earth to Kemet.

**Mafdet** —a jailer; also, the god of justice and the executioner of criminals.

**Maysa** —Bes's camel.

**Mouseion** —the museum/center for preserved knowledge in Amarna; also, the Greek word for museum.

**Muta** —derived from the Arabic _mutafayil,_ which means hopeful. A child born from an Amarnian mother and an earth father.

**Nefertiti** —wife of Akhenaten. Also called Neferneferuaten after she became pharaoh after the death of her husband.

**Qarat Kabila** —the building where the Tjati meet and govern.

**Qetesh** —Samara's sister; also, a goddess of fertility.

**Seth** —an ancient Amarnian who re-discovered Wahih and Khiui; also, the god of chaos, deserts, storms.

**Tefnut** —the head of the Tjati; also, goddess of water and fertility.

**Tjati** —the council that rules Amarna; also, in Ancient Egypt, a vizier, the highest official under the pharaoh.

**Wahih** —the oasis where the Khiui portal is located.

