by Rajnar Vajra

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Illustrated by Mark Evans

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Extraordinary events can happen in very ordinary places....

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Let me hand you the whole picture. I’m in trouble, real trouble, and can’t do a blessed thing about it. And I’m hurting and tired and cold, and God knows I’m scared. So the game’s name for me right now is SURVIVAL, which means I’ve got to invent distractions and more distractions to fight this urge I’m getting to—to just give up.

Yesterday, I think it was yesterday, I reviewed the high spots of my life—more hills than mountains, sad to say—then told myself every joke I could remember. None of that pleased me much, but at least it killed a few hours. Then I decided to indulge in acting out the fantasy that’s molded my daydreams for the last two years. Don’t laugh. The idea is that I’m at the bookstore where I work, during a weekly session of our writer’s club, the Literary Lions. But instead of being a salesperson cum barista cum waitress merely serving the wordsmiths, I’m one of them, reading her latest baby out loud. Don’t you think that would be so satisfying, sharing something you’ve created with a group that can appreciate and intelligently critique your art?

That may not be your fantasy, but it’s mine, and I tried to really get into it, imagining I was ensconced in one of the big circles of dusty armchairs, sitting with a writer’s typical bad posture: shoulders rounded, head jutting forward, back slumped. But when I started my tale, just making stuff up impromptu, the love was missing. Took me a while to figure out why.

What I crave is the feeling of doing an official reading—or what I imagine that’s like. And that’s something I can’t get here without having a story, actually created by me, memorized well enough to get a sense that I’m reading it as I recite it. Crazy? I know, but I’ve never had more time or reason to pamper myself. Ever notice how you can’t do a blessed thing until you do something else first?

So I started gluing a plot together in my head and ran headlong into another snag. I guess my . . . situation has squashed my creativity along with other things. Pure fiction was out. What I finally came up with is basically a glorified report on some stuff that’s actually happened. And though I said the writing itself wasn’t my goal, it’s been more involving than I expected. Be interesting to try this for real if I ever get out of here.

Anyway, I’ve completed my masterpiece and gone over it a dozen times and had a long if not good nap. Now I’m ready to give my fantasy a second try. A word of warning: real life doesn’t always have much of a plot or character development or even conflict—all the stuff the Lions blab about every week. So I guess what you’ll hear isn’t a good story, but I’ve tried to make it interesting despite that. You can tell me how well I’ve succeeded.

Which brings me to why I’ve invented you. I can visualize a circle of people just fine, but only as . . . placeholders. I don’t think my brain is firing well enough right now to summon up more than one imaginary person to interact with. But you’ll do fine as someone to listen and keep me company. Just don’t interrupt. That’s a joke.

And here’s an idea! Let’s add a game into the mix. I’ll mostly be telling it like it was except I’ll add a wee exaggeration or an outright fib now and then. I’ll stop the “reading” a few times and you can guess which parts that you just heard weren’t true. It won’t be easy because weird things were happening even before I wound up in this mess, so you’d best listen with both ears.

Ready? ]]

* * * *

Five years ago, in 2013, during my junior year at UC Santa Cruz, I wrote an essay titled “An Endangered Business List” for the only economics class I’ve ever taken.

That title seemed clever to me back then but sly because the paper was really about types of small American businesses vanishing beneath the waves of insolvency. Right after the section concerning ma-and-pa grocery stores, I’d described the fate of ma-and-pa bookstores. Had no idea at the time that last problem would soon get right in my face; but it sure has, because with three great white sharks gobbling up all lesser fish, small fry such as The Page Turner, where I’ve worked for four years now, have practically become extinct. And the Sharks keep circling.

[[ Yeah, now that I’m actually reciting this, I can see that the beginning sucks, so don’t bother pointing it out. No doubt real authors would say there’s too much info coming too fast, and the intro is too cutesy. But I don’t have the oomph to start this from scratch. Besides, that essay got an A. ]]

Our store is situated very near the Pacific somewhere between San Diego and Seattle, but it isn’t really named The Page Turner. Sorry to come on evasive, but some of the secrets I plan to share aren’t mine, so I’m squirting a little obscuring ink in the waters to protect the innocent.

[[ Evasive. Ha! If this story were truly meant for publication, I’d have to ink out the bulk of it. In other news, you think maybe I’m going a bit heavy-handed on the oceanic theme? ]]

One innocent is my boss, and I’m going to claim her name is also Page Turner because I believe in overdoing a good thing. If you’d like an honest description, you’re out of luck and not only because I’m hiding her identity but because she changes so much from moment to moment. I’ll happen to glance her way and be stunned at how beautiful she is, then she’ll turn slightly or catch the light a different way and poof—she’s almost a hag. I can tell you her hair is dark and long, and let’s just call her eyes gray and leave them be. She always wears blue or green. Always.

As for me, I’m easy and I don’t mean sexually. I’ve got a nose that’s tragically short, too many freckles, and hair that’s either obnoxiously red or just red enough depending on your tastes. I suppose my basic proportions will do, but I’m about five pounds pleasantly plump plus another ten that’s trickier to justify. And I appear heavier than I am because, frankly, I’m in sad shape for a woman still in her twenties. George W. Bush—remember him?—had a better attitude toward his critics than I do toward exercise. Well, now you can guess where I stand politically, but I don’t mind spilling my own secrets, some of them. I’ve got a Celtic knot tattoo on my butt, an IQ comfortably north of 150, and I’m a monster at chess—almost good enough to be known outside of chess circles where I’m ranked pretty darn high. I’ll even confess that I’m somewhat bisexual, although I prefer men. And I’m fully bilingual: English and Gaelic, which I get to use at Christmas and on the phone with my mum. But I won’t spill my real name.

We’ll just call me Amy because Amy was my best friend at UCSC. And she died in an idiotic car accident that wasn’t her fault.

[[ Two facts that I’ll give you for free: my name is actually Caitlin, Caitlin Mackenzie Shroeder if you must know, Mackenzie being my mum’s maiden surname; but my friend who died in the accident was truly named Amy and for obvious reasons I’m feeling . . . close to her right now. ]]

I’ll explain our setup. With a New Borders within a quarter mile and a Barnes & Noble just down the street, not to mention a next gen Amazon megastore already on the drawing board, coming to a neighborhood near YOU, Page has had to be damn shrewd to keep us afloat. She’s taken a multitasking sort of approach to keep business flowing in. Here’s an example:

Few consumables earn money in this city as well as gourmet coffee, but New Borders is pushing “Alexandria Café,” which Page thinks is a redux of a discontinued blend from Starbucks and not half bad, while B&N offers Starbucks under its own name. So Page got hold of a friend who got hold of a friend who ships her the really good stuff. Illy is our caféordinaire, a terrific espresso-style brewed in an ordinary coffeemaker, and although it’s pricey, we undercut Starbucks on price per cup. But for a few dimes more, we offer authentic Jamaican Blue Mountain.

[[ Now there’s a bit I’d definitely redact if I ever wrote this down and submitted it to a magazine. Anyone who read it and is familiar with the store or who merely stumbled in and took one look at the chalkboard would go “Ah ha!” and start looking around for me. I’d hate that kind of attention. Likewise, I’d think twice before bragging about our homemade pecan cheesecake and the best Napoleons ever. But I might be willing to include other things we offer since pretty much every baby bookstore still limping along has to do similar stuff. Care to guess what I mean? You’re too late. ]]

Page also uses what she calls her “social hooks” to bump business. We do an art show every month, have live music every Friday night, and sometimes offer stand-up comedy. In addition, we have three semiformal bookish clubs infesting our couches and chairs on designated evenings: the Fantasy Guild, a short chapter of the Baker Street Irregulars, and finally a writer’s group, the Literary Lions, which has two honest-to-God published authors.

[[ I guess the “Lions”—actually named the “Bookworms,” I’m bummed to admit—infected me with the writing bug, bless their squinty bloodshot eyes, and I didn’t even know it until now. We used to host my chess club, the Rooks, but it wound up doing too little business to make it worth staying open late; we board heads know how to concentrate. That’s why Rooks meet mostly at my house. Or did. Looks like we’ll need a new venue. ]]

Then there’s something of an informal club. Every morning from around nine to noon, we’ve got the Regulars. Sure, swarms of irregulars—not the Baker Street kind—show up during those hours, and a few such even appear consistently for a week or two, then vanish as if responding to some invisible slow tide. Our five solid citizens, on the other hand, practically homestead their couches during the early shift. They all walk to the store rather than drive, arrive usually within fifteen minutes of each other, and they never begin the day’s discussion until all five are seated and equipped with java and goodies. I understand they got to know each other through the Page Turner, but they’ve coalesced into a sort of clique, an unusually accepting one that grants temporary visas to anyone wishing to join the morning blab session. Still, full membership is subtly reserved for the core group, Page and I being honorary members in those moments when we’re not too busy.

One thing that keeps Paul, Page’s part-timer, and me hopping is that our Regulars are bean fiends; most gulp down a cup or two of our best brew per hour. You heard right. Professor J, for example, inhales five cups before lunch every blessed day we’re open—that’s six days a week—which I always figured accounts for his over-the-top energy and twisted sense of humor. Around eleven you’ll hear my boss muttering, “Amy, we’ve got to cut them off.”

Even when I can’t participate in discussions, they’re worth eavesdropping on. Maybe it’s all that caffeine whipping their brains cells to a frenzy, but our five “clients,” as Paul puts it, are some of the brightest people I’ve ever met—with some of the nuttiest notions.

Maybe it’s time to introduce you around, and sorry about the bogus names.

Tara always settles in the green couch, probably to match her eyes. She’s very blond, somewhere in her forties I suppose, big enough to make me look skinny, and has lovely and delicate features. If she dropped fifty pounds, she could be—no, don’t want to go there. I refuse to be one of those chubby girls who look at other overweight people with narrowed eyes. Anyway, she’s got a sexy voice with a Scottish accent that reminds me of my mum’s, only mum sounds more like Shrek. Tara totes crutches around, but uses them sparingly. She’s a professor of marine biology on a sabbatical.

Serge—Sir-gay—has to be on the far side of fifty. He’s got a lean but not hungry look and seems taller than he is. Very polite and always calm, decades of gentle smiles have engraved his face with gentle wrinkles. Gray hair, but plenty of it. Retired librarian, which is more impressive than you might think since his particular library has the words “of Congress” tacked on.

Professor J is Serge ten years younger, facially speaking, but shorter and infinitely less serene. Don’t think I’ve met anyone else with such electric blue eyes. Semi-retired, but only from the teaching aspect of his life. J also shows up for Lion get-togethers. He’s the other white meat: the less published of our literary giants and his work is strictly nonfiction. Archeology tomes.

Dusty is the club’s toddler, and I’ve never learned why she doesn’t have to be somewhere else every morning. I’d say she’s not quite thirty and would describe her as hemi-goth, although I suppose most people have forgotten what “goth” used to mean in a fashion sense. Anyway, hair dyed carbon-black, black eyeliner and fingernails. Eyes so dark you can’t see any pupils and lashes so long and with so much mascara, you barely see her eyes. But she dresses mostly in blazing colors and tends to show a lot of high-quality tanned leg. She’s the kind of person Page describes as “entitled.”

Finally, there’s good old Doc Abraham. Sixty, plus or minus five years, tall enough to play pro basketball, gray kinky hair, skin almost light enough to pass for Caucasian. Extra large eyes, usually all lit up with enthusiasm. Of the Regulars, he emits the most words per minute by a wide margin. Doctorate in physics and a spare one in computer science, a genuine nerd’s nerd gainfully employed in research. Just not before noon most days. British, veddy.

If I sound especially fond of Abe and talk about him more than the others, it’s because he’s the only Regular I have a connection with outside the store. He’s a Rook, a fellow chess nut, and we frequently have private matches, just the two of us. He’s good, so good that I actually have to sweat a little to checkmate him, and I must admit that he’s even taken a few when I was daydreaming. That’s three losses for me out of one hundred ninety matches so far, so you can see who pwns who.

[[ Neat, huh. “Pwn” does suggest “pawn.” Or is that one of those too-clever word games? ]]

Five months ago, Abe raved ecstatic about a piece of equipment his lab had just slapped together. Sometimes he called it a GHD, other times a “field portable gravitational harmonic detector.” For weeks, he blathered about it incessantly during the morning sessions and our late-night matches, but he might as well have been spouting Urdu for all I got out of it. I mean he made nice clear statements such as, “the GHD uses the polarization of microwave beams to modulate a laser inferometer.” See what I mean? I finally asked what the thing was for and he goggled at me, startled that anyone could miss the obvious, and sputtered, “Why, detecting the highly elusive; everything from spacetime distortions to De Broglie waves generated by objects many magnitudes larger than the subatomic.” At this point his eyes took on a gleam any fanatic might envy. “In one lightweight unit, Amy, we now have a device for measuring gravitational waves with capabilities far beyond LIGO 3, and which can also pinpoint oscillations, or rather the consequences of oscillations hitherto too minute to be more than theoretical!”

Seems ridiculous to end a sentence as geeky as that last one with an exclamation point, but it was right there in his voice.

Anyhow, I couldn’t summon the courage to ask him to translate all that into English but was nervy enough to ask about practical applications. I got a lovely lecture about pure scientific exploration before he went on to admit, reluctantly, that he supposed the machine could waste its time accomplishing various tasks beyond its intended purpose such as sniffing out deeply buried radioactive materials, or warning of incipient earthquakes by measuring subterranean pressures. He went on to add, in a fit of British whimsy, that the GHD could even locate a kitty that had fallen down the backyard well, so long as it kept treading water. Apparently some feline motion would be necessary to isolate the kitty’s vibration from the general vibration of the well.

Okay, that’s all five Regulars. And the cuckoo-clock widget on my screen just roared so I’m putting this and myself to bed for the night. Got an extra long day coming up. The Literary Lions and their hope-to-be-maned followers will be extending our hours. And while the writer’s group isn’t nearly as sneaky or crazed as the Fantasy Guild, I’ll want to be sharp for smuggled-in booze, which we could get busted for. So I need my less-than-beauty sleep. Goodnight, sweet whatever.

[[ See what I did there with the widget? I just gave the “reader” a clue that the story is really some kind of e-diary I’m writing on a computer. I wish. And if only I could go to bed. I’ll probably conk out soon anyway. That’s been happening more lately. A bad sign, I’m sure. ]]

Bummer. The Lions kept me up past midnight and today I’m burned out.

[[ Got a hunch I really was up past midnight, but since it’s pitch black and I can’t see my watch or move the arm it’s on, or even touch its light button with my free arm, who knows?

FYI, I’m not loving the transition at this point in the story. And I’m beginning to see why a lot of writers are so down on first person narratives; it’s easy to overdose on commentary. Maybe I should’ve gone third person or spiced up the remarks by using blog format. Mood: moody. Nah. Ten to one, editors are flooded with bloggy tales and I wouldn’t want—hey! Why am I talking like an editor would ever be involved? I think my mind is starting to strip gears. We won’t talk about that. Okay, the next part really happened but hardly last night. Nothing good happened last night, if it was night. ]]

Near the meeting’s final yawn, one of the wannabe authors asked Gerald, the most opinionated and famous Lion, to detail the worst kinds of writing blunders. At first I only listened with an earlobe because Gerald rehashed the boo-boos we hear about every few weeks, the ones so standard they’ve been named. Such as “I’ve suffered for my art and now it’s your turn,” which means dumping irrelevant junk into the storyline simply because you’ve gone through the bother of doing some research and want to show off.

But then Gerald jumped the tracks and started in with his own pet peeves. The one that caught my whole ear he called “HGTV syndrome,” although he claimed he could’ve picked on any number of informational-type cable channels just as easily. Definition: trying too hard or too cutely to match narrative with subject through imagery or puns. Seemed abstract to me until he rattled off examples:

“Watch any HGTV program where, say, a doctor is attempting to buy a house, and you’ll hear lines such as ‘Will the doctor give this home a clean bill of health?’ and ‘Now all he has to do is cough up the down payment.’”

[[ Come to think of it, those oceanic references in the beginning would have to go if I were seriously working on this. I wanted them for the—now I’m showing off—adumbration, but being clever isn’t always smart. Still, the sea is a big part of the picture I plan to paint, so I’ll try not to throw the baby out with the you know what.

Gerald says you should open every story with a “hook,” usually some kind of action or quick-setting mystery to get the reader involved. So maybe I should’ve started this yarn more like: When Page arrived to open her bookstore Tuesday morning, she found a large fish flopping around on the front step.

Oh dear, we have another loser. Doesn’t exactly make you smell the weirdness, and besides, it’s wrong. Dusty was the one who found it and it wasn’t on the step until we’d been open for some time and it wasn’t that large. Maybe it’s not even so dramatic, although I suppose it’s a bit freaky to run into a fish out for a morning swim on concrete. We’re near the ocean, not on top of it. Oh heck, I hadn’t planned to change the story during the reading, but why not throw that intro in right now with a few changes? ]]

Two hours after the Page Turner opened last Tuesday morning, Dusty, the last of the Regulars to arrive, found a large fish flopping around on the front step.

Naturally, she was more concerned about the inconvenience of having to step over the thing than how it had wound up in her way. And naturally, she complained about it in her usual pre-coffee whine the instant she stepped through the door. Tara, our guru on matters aquatic who’d been sitting in a pile of herself on the couch, has sharp ears. She hove up and went to investigate, leaving her crutches to hold her place on the furniture. Page and I followed.

Tara’s limberness surprised me as she squatted down to take a close look at our finny visitor, which was about a foot and a half long, wide and flat. “Limanda aspera,” she murmured. “Yellowfin sole. Strange...”

“You bet,” I offered helpfully. “Usually we only get hammerheads coming in for the morning croissant.”

“What’s strange?” Page asked, blinking rapidly as we both turned to stare at her. “I mean about the species, damn it.” I wasn’t used to my boss losing her cool and wondered what was bugging her.

Tara aimed a thumb in the general direction of the ocean. “There’s a stretch of Pacific dead-zone running along our shores for kilometers. Not enough oxygen in those waters to support any kind of rockfish. And that’s why”—she turned those emerald eyes on me—”I’m taking your report of pastry-seeking sharks with, let’s say, a wee drop of salinity.” We both smiled.

[[ Well, that’s what Tara should have said. What she really said was “Sharks prefer meat, dear.” Do tell. Rats, I just remembered a pearl of wisdom Gerald dropped way back when. He said fish or birds appearing in unexpected places have become almost inevitable in humorous SF or fantasy. But I don’t mean for my story to be funny, and besides, I’m stuck with Joe “Fins” Piscine because that part’s true although Joe showed up DOA.

Which reminds me: catch me in any big lies yet? You’re right, so far I’ve only lightly varnished the facts, although in real life, Tara suggested that the sole fell out of a delivery truck restocking the nearby Whole Foods and some doggy grabbed it and redirected the delivery. But where’s the magic in that? Back to the fictional fiction! ]]

The door opened and Abraham stepped out, took one look at the now barely flopping creature, and paled so much he could pass for a white man who should really get out in the sun more.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked in a choked voice.

“I’d go with fish,” I suggested.

“I meant a—a non-local flounder. Tara?”

“You’ve been hanging around Yanks too long, Abe. ‘Tis a sole, but definitely non-local.”

“Could someone have dropped it here? By accident?”

We all glanced up and down the street, perhaps looking for a fisherman searching his creel because it felt too light. “Not too likely,” I said.

Abe wrung his hands, which I’d read about but never seen anyone do in real life. What was the big deal? First Page freaked and now Abe. Never seen him rattled before either, but he’d been acting funny lately, excited all last week over something he wouldn’t talk about, and since Monday he’d been looking bummed. But not this bummed.

“Damn,” he whispered after chewing his lower lip pretty good. “This might mean—never mind.”

As he moseyed back into the store, Tara placed her delicate hand under the flatfish, which had ceased even twitching, and scooped it up, very casually. “I’ll see if Whole Foods will bestow some wrapping paper. I’ve a friend in the seafood department. Page, would you have sufficient room in your fridge for this if I promise to make the wrapping airtight?”

“For you, sure.”

“I’ll fetch your crutches,” I offered, unsure if she could manage them and still tote the fish.

“Don’t bother dear, I can hobble the three blocks. But thank you. Thank you both. And I’ll be wanting fresh coffee on my return.”

Mr. Fins tucked under one arm, she walked off with that weird limp of hers, as though different things were wrong with each leg. I almost ran after her to help out, but Page gave me the look and we both returned to work. I tooled over to see if any Regulars were falling behind in their daily caffeine overdose.

Got four orders of the respective usuals and got some of the usual treatment. Dusty raised a dyed eyebrow at me; Serge smiled warmly and returned to fiddling with the GPS menu on his iPhone G6. But then Professor J failed to make his usual odd joke and asked about the “commotion” instead, complaining that he couldn’t get word one out of Abraham, who was still looking worried and upset.

“Live fish on the stoop,” I said. “Dead now, I guess. Don’t think it was trying to bother anyone.”

“It bothered me,” Dusty muttered. “Gross.”

Now it was J’s turn to look worried. “Live, you say?”

“Until a few minutes ago. Apparently from pretty far away.”

“Oh, Christ.” His expression changed. The worry stayed, but he also looked angry. Was there some national I Hate Gills Day I didn’t know about?

I tried to raise one eyebrow the way Dusty can, but of course they both lifted. “What makes that your problem, Professor?” Which sounds rude, but I didn’t ask it rudely.

“There’s a, um, possibility a practical joke was involved. At my expense.” Was the man actually blushing?

“Why play jokes aimed at you on our front step?”

His blush deepened. “You wouldn’t believe me. Hell, sometimes I don’t believe me.”

I opened my mouth to answer but got distracted. Abraham had done something unheard of for a Regular. He’d up and left the store, abandoning his steaming large-java-extra-cream on the table. I stared at the slowly closing door, the full mug, then looked down again at the professor. “Try me,” I suggested.

He glanced over at Dusty, who seemed uninterested in anything outside herself, which I’d learned could be an optical illusion. “All right,” he sighed. “It’d be a relief to tell someone. Amy, do you believe in leprechauns?”

He didn’t notice, but that got Dusty’s gothy attention. Serge, far as I could tell, remained wrapped up in his new toy. I squinted into J’s blue, blue eyes looking for a sign the man was “winding me up,” as Abraham might put it, but all I saw was blue sincerity.

“Can’t say as I do.”

“Nor do I. Not as most people think of them. Did you know I was once a field archeologist?”

I gave my forehead two I-have-brains taps. “I figured as much since that’s what you used to teach and what you write all those books about. You saying you dug up some leprechaun fossils?”

He dug up a mini-smile. “Hardly fossils; I’m no paleontologist. But I am an amateur entomologist.”

“That’s news to me,” I admitted, looking around to make sure no one desired my services; Page was manning the register, and no customers were shooting up flares. “But I don’t get the connection.”

“How could you? Perhaps I’ve said too much already.”

“Care for triple sugar in your coffee from now on if you clam up?”

[[ HGTV syndrome strikes again, right? Clam up! ]]

He sighed. “An effective threat. Very well. Twenty years ago, a former student living in Ireland wrote me about finding some old oak piles and sticks half buried in a dried-up lakebed. He’d thought he’d found the ruins of a crannog, a sort of artificial island used as a dwelling.”

“Built by Picts; I know about crannogs. My mom’s so Scottish I’m surprised she doesn’t wear kilts.”

My wit went right under his head. “Splendid,” he said. “A fellow gravedigger and I rounded up a herd of undergraduates and went on a teaching dig in Eire.” He licked his lips and then continued.

“At the site, which certainly did suggest Pictish ruins, I noticed holes tunneled into the loam, too small for rodents but a bit oversize for your average Irish earthworm. I was curious. So as my team did some preliminary excavating, I concentrated my shovel-work on exploring one of the tunnels.”

“And you found?”

He winced. “Nothing I could’ve expected. Five feet down, my tunnel leveled off and veered into a spot where dozens of other tunnels converged. And that’s where I found it.”

“I’ll bite. You found what?”

“Something akin to a European beehive, but larger and coated with wax. I’d never seen or heard of such a thing and should have brought it, intact, to a laboratory for careful study. Instead, I made the mistake of cutting it open.”

“And little guys dressed in green popped out?” I grinned.

“Hardly. Huge green fuzzy insects, rather beelike, flew out. At least five hundred of them.”

“Whoa.”

“They buzzed me and my students and I was sure they intended to attack. Instead they all landed on their hive, dug their feet into the waxy coating, and flew away with it. But I did get a glimpse of what was inside, thanks to my, um, premature dissection.”

“What?”

“Well, honey, for one thing. The stuff kept dripping out. But the main feature that caught my interest,” he paused to wet his lips again, “was tiny little . . . furniture.”

I didn’t know whether to gasp or laugh. “Professor, are you trying to tell me leprechauns are bugs?”

“I didn’t put it together until later. Consider the folktales about the little people. Dressed in green? Check. Pot of gold? Check, if you take gold as a metaphor for honey. Small? Check. Clever? Double check. Their furniture was peculiar but marvelously crafted. Elaborate. And then there’s the matter of pranks. They flew off, but it turned out they didn’t forget me. Or forgive.”

“How do you know?”

“I didn’t at first. But little things kept going wrong. My car keys would vanish and show up days later embedded in an ice cube in my freezer. Thought some students were playing games. Then one day I opened a banana and it was filled with Solenopsis. I mean the fruit was gone, and the peel stuffed solid with live red ants. After I dealt with the escapees and a few bites, I examined the peel through a low-power microscope. Can you guess what I found?”

“A Chiquita label?”

“Very, very small stitches.”

“Huh.” I looked at him hard, but he seemed perfectly serious. “So what’d you do about all this?”

He glanced around the room, maybe to certify that no one but me was listening. He finally noticed Dusty was on board, but he only shrugged and spoke in a lowered voice. “My former student got me some names of Irish old-timers who reputedly were experts in, er, folk remedies. I hoped they’d know a cure for my situation. If there was a cure, I assumed Ireland would be the logical place to look for it.”

“I suppose.”

“Three of the herbalists just laughed me out the door, but the fourth was something else. All tattooed like a Pict himself. He gave me a—an amulet to wear.” Professor J yanked on a silver chain around his neck and out popped a copper cage barely big enough to contain a dime. But rather than spare change, it held two green shells, or perhaps one broken shell. He hurriedly stuffed the cage back into his shirt.

Dusty leaned closer to him. “What kind of shells were those?” she demanded.

“I suspect they’re carapaces, if you must know. From a Queen leprechaun. It’s been two decades now and the practical jokes haven’t stopped and have even followed me to two other continents and back. But ever since I’ve worn this, the pranks have, um, kept their distance.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “So that’s why you thought the fish had something to do with you.”

“Yes, indeed. Look, I know how mental all this sounds, but have you any idea how many species coexist with us on Earth that remain undiscovered?”

“How could I?”

“Exactly.” He took a long final sip of coffee, set the mug down, and walked out of the store without another word.

I watched him through the big front window until he’d passed beyond my view, trying to convince myself he’d been pulling my leg big-time. And then it was probably just the power of suggestion, but I could’ve sworn I saw a green blur flying past the glass, headed in his direction.

This was turning out to be an unusual day.

[[ Now that I’ve heard myself say it out loud, I realize that last line was a clunker. So sue me. But tell me, have I lied about what the Professor said?

Wrong! I reported exactly what he told me, almost word for word. But remember that Professor J is the one with the freaky sense of humor and I suspect he was leg-pulling especially hard that day. But yeah, I did see a green blur after he took off. Shows you how gullible I am. Got to rest for a minute. ]]

[[ I’m so thirsty. The thought of food makes me queasy now, but I’d kill for a sip of water. I’m at a real bad point in my numb-pain cycle and the concrete under me keeps getting damper. Feels like my leg bones are ready to snap from all the weight on them—can’t afford to think about it. Thank God my head and chest are free. Maybe if I focus harder on the reading I’ll forget this nightmare, at least for a while. Okay, I’m summoning up my audience again. ]]

Next morning, we opened the store as usual, but when Tara showed up twenty minutes later, she found two fish on the front step—another sole and something a bit larger she called a “rainbow runner.” Tara said the runner must’ve come from waters way farther south than our latitude. Page looked sick when she heard about it.

I had a hunch the Regulars would be short two members this morning—Abraham and Professor J—and I was almost right. Both came to the party after all, but only stayed long enough to hear about the latest finny delivery. J muttered something about “not a coincidence” along with a flashflood of swears. He was gone before you could say “lucky charms.” And for the first time ever, he took off in a car.

Abe pretty much flipped and practically ran from the store. Page, bless her heart, asked me to chase him down and find out what was wrong—a genuine sacrifice for her because the store was busy at the time and she needed all hands on deck.

[[ Gad, I really overdid the nautical bit. ]]

I’m no sprinter, so it took me four blocks to catch up to him. By catch up, I mean using what little breath I had left to yell, “Hold up, doctor, please!” from nearly a block away. Abe stopped, whirled around, and frowned at me as I waddled up to him.

“Thanks,” I panted, “for waiting.”

“What is it, Amy?” He sounded annoyed.

“Page and I—” gasp, wheeze “—sorry, my lungs are such wimps. Page and I are worried about you. What’s got you in such a rush to castle?”

For a moment I thought he would take off again. “My dear, just being near me may be more dangerous than you could imagine. So I thank you for your concern, but you must scurry off. Now.”

“Why?” Were the Bee Folk after him, too? “Don’t see anything scary.” Unless free fish deliveries turn scientists into axe murderers. “And I wouldn’t feel right about taking off if you aren’t safe.” Oh, I’m glib with the paler lies.

He bared his teeth and it was no smile. “I can outrun you despite my age.”

“Yeah, but I know where you live.” We’d had chess matches at his house.

His eyes darted around. “Touché. Let’s strike a bargain. Will you promise to keep a secret?”

“Absolutely.” I put on my trustworthy face.

“Very well. If I explicate the menace then you’ll leave?”

“If there’s nothing I can do to help.”

“There isn’t. And truth to tell, I really should inform someone outside my, ah, inner circle about this, in the event that the consequences are more . . . widespread than I’ve envisioned. The problem has arisen due to my work.”

I told you he’s a talker. “Never realized theoretical physics was so risky.”

One side of his mouth twisted. “Our project has advanced far beyond the purely conjectural. We recently assembled a construct, a device if you will, that appears to confirm our latest theories.”

“What theories?”

Despite whatever spooked him, he got more animated as he burrowed into the topic. “Our starting point was to reject the Big Bang hypothesis for the creation or recreation of our universe. We found an alternative in the logical ramifications of the accepted astronomical observation that celestial entities, such as stars and galaxies, appear to be traveling faster the farther they are from our telescopes, and receding. Assuming sufficient space, we posited a mass-to-energy conversion as these entities approach light-speed, thus creating a de facto spherical border to our space-time. While it is possible that the cosmos will terminate in a permanent useless state, we found the idea inelegant. So we further posited that the border’s converted energy returns to the universe as a whole where it condenses into free matter.”

“You’re talking Steady State?”

“Quite, but not as Gold, Bondi, Hoyle, or Fagerquist envisioned it. I’m pleased you’re familiar with the term, although I prefer ‘continuous creation.’”

“So what kind of machine could—”

“Kindly attend. Next, we asked ourselves how the energy might return. After considerable thought and calculation, I proposed that at the transformation border, the cataclysm is so intense that it opens a rift into an extraneous set of dimensions and forces the converted matter into that extra-universal space. I further suggested that an alien plenum would be unable to interact properly with this energy and the resulting stresses would gradually, ah, rematerialize the energy. Assuming the extra dimensions could not retain matter whose structure reflects our reality, the condensate would fall back into our space. I named this cycle the TavProcess.”

Grab your buckets, girls, it’s raining matter. “That’s a pretty neat concept, Doctor. But where’s the danger?”

He flashed me a stern look. “Patience. If the Tav Process is valid, we must consider how the returning matter would be distributed.”

“If we must.”

“Then let us reason. If the material simply returned to its exit point, our universe would eventually become nothing but a vast hollow sphere with something of an oscillating skin; thus violating our continuous creation hypothesis. Should the material reenter at only one point, it would surely become a black hole of cosmic proportions, once again violating our central concept.”

“I get you, but wouldn’t that be a cool way of getting everything together for the next Big Bang?”

For a second, he looked startled but approving. “A worthy notion; as I have often remarked, you may not be exercising your full potential in your current vocation. Nevertheless, we do not abandon a traditional theory to explore alternatives only to scamper back to it at the first hint of a new wrinkle. Besides which, what would induce your cosmic black hole to ‘bang’?

“So we presume the two realities are aligned, or misaligned, such that the returning matter has a widespread distribution, thus suggesting a possible means of testing the entire model.”

“This, I gotta hear.”

“So you shall. If the Tav Process has been occurring eternally, or even for a few paltry quadrillion millennia, every particle in our universe must, perforce, have gone through our theoretical hyperspace many times.”

“Wow. Talk about your big picture, but I can see that.”

“Then wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect the particles to show a cumulative effect from so many passages?”

I shrugged. “How should I—oh, heck, grind me a pound of that one too.”

He looked baffled for a moment, then continued. “And given sufficient time, Amy, wouldn’t every particle extant have also repeatedly been encapsulated within black holes, and freed once those black holes have reached the transformation barrier?”

His perspective was dizzying, but I just nodded.

He leaned closer to me. “Finally, consider entanglement. Do you know what I mean by ‘entanglement’?”

“Sure, I’ve taken physics courses.” Yeah, Physics One in high school and Physics for Liberal Arts Ignoramuses in college. “That’s when two subatomic doodads can affect each other even when they’re in different time zones.”

He snorted. “Amusing, but sufficiently near the mark. I’ve a colleague who specializes in entanglement, and she believes that conditions within a black hole generate a prodigious number of entangled entities—your doodads. She suggested that such entities might remain entangled throughout the Tav Process. And furthermore, that the connection between doodads is and has always been within the hyper-universe.”

“Hold on.” I stared at him until I sorted things out a bit. “Are you saying every particle in our universe is . . . attached somehow to this other dimension?”

He mimed applauding. “And attached, however tenuously, with every other particle via the second universe! Now you have all the elements of our working theory.” His big eyes were aimed at my face but seemed focused elsewhere. “We constructed a fresh model of a pristine carbon atom based entirely on mathematics rather than observation and compared that model to an actual carbon atom. Assuming the subtle variations were created by vast numbers of Tav cycles, we subtracted the perturbations and came up with a number, the Tav Frequency, which we hoped related to an essential quality of the hyper-universe.”

“I’m still with you so far.” Sort of.

He started talking faster. “Next, we sent a beam of coherent light through a lens containing a supercooled Bose-Einstein condensate, slowing the light to a slug’s pace and providing time for the photonic waves to interact with a magnetic field we set to oscillate at the Tav Frequency. Once through the lens, the light struck our target: a disk of charged cesium. By repeating the experiment with a separate disk while omitting the oscillation, we hoped to observe a distinction between the excitation state of our two targets, presumably because some photonic energy bled off into the hyperdimensions.”

I got about a third of that. “So what happened?”

“The unexpected, to put it mildly. We set up various ultrasensitive detectors for measuring energy fluctuations, including a photo-multiplier-array infrared sensor and our recently developed GHD—have you heard me mention that device before? I’m rather proud of it.”

Only about a thousand times. “Sure, your gravity sniffer and moggy-in-the-well locator.”

He didn’t even begin to smile. “Just so. But when we ran the initial test with our Tav generator, the target simply vanished.”

“Really? You mean it . . . disintegrated?”

“Not as I understand that word. If it had been reduced to molecules or even atoms, we would have detected them. Instead, it left no traces behind whatsoever. Apparently, we’d dug a wormhole into the other universe.”

“Huh. But I thought you said our matter couldn’t hang out there.”

For the first time since he’d started explaining, he looked haunted again and shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Indeed.”

“So the disk just popped back into your lab at some point?”

“Hardly. We couldn’t even guess where it ‘popped’ out, but assumed that the uneven vectors of its countless entanglements determined the location. It might’ve reappeared virtually anywhere in space and, for all we knew, anywhere in time.”

By now, so much anxiety radiated from him that I decided not to bug the man for any clarification. “That’s absolutely fascinating, Abe. So you never tracked down your disk?”

“Which is why we used the same procedure with a different target: a shielded GPS transceiver. A waterproof one in the event our target landed on Earth, which we deemed unlikely, but in some body of water.”

“Clever. Any luck?”

“To our astonishment, the GPS unit did indeed reappear on Earth, some fifty kilometers east of Montevideo and most certainly in the brine. We deduced from this that particles with the greatest degree of entanglement tend to, ah, bind to the same general region of space-time.”

“Way cool! I can smell the Nobel Prize from here. Didn’t you just invent the world’s first teleporter?”

“Unwittingly,” he muttered. “Still, you’ve expressed my exact sentiments as of last week.” Tiny droplets of sweat made his forehead glisten. What, I asked myself, could any of this physics stuff have to do with the price of chum?

“You mean your teleporter stopped porting?”

“Not at all. In fact, we gradually calibrated the effect by adding and varying secondary pulses through our Tav generator, dispatching new GPS units, and tracking where each reappeared. After two hundred fifty-six trials, we can now transmit a target from our lab to a place of our choosing with an error of less than a centimeter.”

“Wow.”

“During the trials we found, again through serendipity, that we could reverse the process in a sense. I can see you are puzzled and frankly, so are we, although we strongly suspect this result is another artifact of entanglement. In any case, it developed that if the . . . teleported object arrived in a location already occupied by matter of more than gaseous density, a quantity of that matter matching the mass of the target would arrive back in the lab. Something of an even exchange.”

“How about that? So you can even teleport distant objects with a little fussing! As my mum would say, losh! Why aren’t you dancing in the street?”

He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “My raptures ended Saturday afternoon. I’d been at home, ensconced on my rear deck, celebrating the sunset and happily planning this week’s trials. That’s when Sheri Sabine called to inform me that Ben Holtzkocker, a key member of my project, had gone missing. Sheri is Ben’s assistant.”

“Missing?”

“Quite. He didn’t show for his scheduled weekend shift and wasn’t responding to phone calls, mobile or otherwise, although we’ve all promised to remain constantly accessible since we are charting new territory. And when Sheri, who has a copy of Ben’s house-key, drove to his residence to check up on him, his Honda was present, but he wasn’t.

“I was concerned but not alarmed until Sheri called again an hour later. Checking on the other members of our team, she discovered two more unexplained absences: Ali Kingsley’s puppy and far more significantly, at least to me, Meiling Chu, our chief engineer.”

“Do you—”

He held up a finger. “I noted a disturbing pattern. Only two people had been in close proximity to the generator during most of the experiments, Ben and Meiling. And Ali had been the next most frequent participant.”

“Huh. Any news since Saturday?”

He sure looked grim. “My associates haven’t come to the lab this week and are officially ‘missing persons’ now, according to the police. Even the dog remains lost. Furthermore, I’ve received troubling reports from several colleagues about unexpected objects appearing near them or in places they frequently haunt. And this morning Ali called to tell me she’d actually seen her favorite vase disappear. Does that give you an inkling of the danger?”

“Not really.” Actually, I was totally creeped out. “If you have your experiments to thank for all these magic tricks, what do you think is going on?”

“I see two possibilities.” He paused and we both stepped aside to let some pedestrians pass. He didn’t speak again until they were well past snooping range. “The more likely is that we’ve engendered a sort of, ah, serial displacement effect through the hyperdimensions by exposing not only our targets but our own bodies to the Tav Frequency. Something akin to the audible quantum oscillation that can occur when you force part of a superfluid through a sufficiently small aperture.”

“You’ve lost me there. But that ‘displacement effect’ business makes me think of trying to get an air bubble out of poorly hung wallpaper. I mean you push the bubble in at one spot and it pops out—”

“I grasp your analogy and it will serve. The crucial point is that people and perhaps objects subjected to intense Tav Frequency exposure may become loci for connections between ordinarily separated points in our space-time. And at times we can’t yet predict, matter seems to, ah, jump the gap.”

I finally got it, but didn’t like it much. “So, suddenly that patch of sidewalk right next to you might turn into a doorway to Tasmania?”

“Or Singapore, or the moon, or a thousand kilometers below Seattle. And the ‘patch’ might appear directly under your feet.”

I instinctively took a step back and glanced downward. “That’s not so good. Okay, you said this was the more likely explanation for the magic show. What’s the other one?”

His expression turned really strange. “That the hyper-universe is inhabited and something in it, disturbed by our experiments, is . . . fishing.”

When I didn’t say anything he went on in a thoughtful voice. “Quite tricky, I imagine, attempting to interact with an alien set of dimensions. Imagine, say, sewing a button on while peering at your work in a mirror, through a kaleidoscope, while hanging upside down. Doubtless the challenge is immensely greater.” He smiled sourly. “Are you ready to toddle off now?”

“Yeah. Guess I’m due back at the store.” I didn’t pressure him to join me.

[[ I know what you’re thinking. If I were serious about doing this story right, I’d have to make Abe’s explanation way shorter. Just between us, I didn’t mean to make it so talky. But when I was composing this part, the strongest feeling came over me that I was leaving out something important. So I let it ramble on, hoping that the missing bit would surface. It didn’t and still hasn’t. Anyhow, now’s the time for you to guess what parts of all that, if any, weren’t purest gospel.

Ha, knew I’d fool you again! The teleportation thingy is a hundred percent true, and I repeated the explanation he gave me for how it works verbatim, or darn near. I even told the truth about Abe ditching his fresh java and running out of the store.

But I lied about his reason. That was after my big whopper: the second fish delivery scared no one because it never happened. Abe took off so fast because he’d been zapped with a new idea for a Tav Frequency experiment and wanted to hurry home, snag his car, and burn rubber all the way to his lab. Page let me go after him because we were both curious about why he’d abandoned a pricey brew. The conversation that followed was nearly how I reported it except he wasn’t nervous, just impatient. Oh, and he did bring up the Case of the Disappearing Scientists, who really had gone AWOL, but only as an excuse for why he couldn’t call Ben Holtzkocker and have him try the new experiment. Abe figured that Meiling and Ben had a good reason for being elsewhere, and it turned out that they’d eloped, which is certainly a reason, good or not. No missing puppy and I also invented the stuff about doorways to anywhere popping open and, duh, the bit about trans-cosmic fisher-beings.

Better luck next time. Try to listen harder. ]]

* * * *

Okay, I was shaken, not stirred. That part about his missing fellow nerds sure frightened me, but I wasn’t swallowing his theory about their absence whole. I’m no physicist, but it seemed to me Abe was jumping to conclusions and jumping with stilts on. Still, I kept fighting the temptation to turn around and look behind me. Wasn’t that hard to fight because if he was gone or something strange was suddenly keeping him company, I didn’t care to know.

At the store, Page and Paul were knee-deep in customers, and I had to do some quick bailing before I could talk to Page. When the afternoon lull finally lowered the tide, I gave my boss something closer to a skimmy than the skinny. Partly I was honoring Abe’s request for secrecy, but also I didn’t want to think too much about what he’d told me. So naturally that’s all I thought about.

The ranks of the Regulars were thinned, but those who remained showed rare staying power. Tara lounged in her usual spot like a big sleek cat, listening to Serge and Dusty bouncing notions concerning the mystery fish off each other’s foreheads. Serge had torn himself away from his eyestrain-inducing toy and gotten interested in current events. Dusty was letting her brains show by quoting entire pages from old books written by some dude named Charles Fort. She proposed that a “rain of frogs” sort of thing accounted for our gilled visitors, so I guess she didn’t embrace J’s bug-leprechaun explanation.

For an ex-librarian, Serge had some wild ideas. I doubt he took any of them seriously, but he “proved” each one with a series of virtual bullet points, ticking off each point with a little flick of his forefinger. You can prove or disprove anything that way, from Paul McCartney being dead, to the moon landings being faked, or even to leprechauns being bugs, and too often you’d need some actual education or information to see the bogusness.

Serge’s most fanciful offering: Page was secretly a demigoddess, daughter of Poseidon, with appropriate tribute due from her subjects. The fish in question had swum from distant waters and then crawled or flopped on their stubby little fins to her front door, driven beyond fishy limitations by sheer religious fervor.

Dusty summoned up one of her rare smiles for this yarn. I commented that the sole, with both eyes on one side of its body and both pointed upwards while lying flat, would probably get lost on an overland route, but that didn’t tarnish the twinkle in his eyes one bit. And Serge’s bullet points were ingenious:

* Why does Page’s appearance change so often?

I wasn’t sure anyone but me had noticed that.

* Why does she wear blue or green exclusively?

* Why was the Page Turner the only successful minor league bookstore within ten miles?

* Why had Page been so disturbed when the fish appeared? Because they were blowing her cover?

That one surprised me. I hadn’t thought he’d been paying attention to anything not made by Apple.

* Why was our Mythology section larger than the one at B&N or New Borders?

* Why was Page so focused on selling high-quality—dramatic pause—liquids?

By which, I supposed, he meant our coffee.

There were more where those came from, and they did produce the illusion of a heavy weight of evidence. But except for one question, the whole thing was just a silly, fun mental exercise. What was bothering Page about those fish?

So I asked her when I finally got a chance, which took more courage than you might think. She’s a nice person and a great boss, but very private. In the four years I’d worked for her she hadn’t said word one about her personal life and had sidestepped even the most innocent questions.

So I was gobsmacked when she glanced around, saw that the fires of customer needs were well banked, and told Paul that we were taking a minute and he should grab the reins until we returned. Then she took my hand, another first, and practically dragged me into the storage room we call the “pantry.”

“Amy, I don’t want you sharing this with another soul, but I think you’d better know in case things get ugly. Should’ve told you already, but I didn’t want you worrying.”

She plunked herself down on a stool and I leaned more than sat on an empty shelf. “What are you talking about?”

“Listen, dear. Long ago, starting in 1989, I worked in an abortion clinic as a counselor. I’m not ashamed of it; I think I saved a lot of lives including the lives of many fetuses whose mothers thought their only choice was a MVA.”

“You know I’m a pro-choice sort of girl. Or maybe you don’t.”

“I wouldn’t judge you either way; it’s not a simple issue although polarized minds can filter out the complexities. But a group—hell, a coven—of heavy-duty Right-to-Lifers didn’t feel that way and went after me full time.”

“Real fanatics, huh?”

“I’d say these were nut jobs rejected by the fanatics as too extreme. They snapped pictures of me at home and leaving work and published them on the Internet, doctored to make me look hideous, and threw in a lot of personal info about me. They practically came out and ordered people to do me harm.”

“That must’ve been awful. I’m so sorry.”

“You haven’t heard everything. After a few months of this, they took to smearing my car with feces and leaving bakery buns covered with fake blood on my front porch daily. Phoned me dozens of times a night. And when I stopped answering, they left obscene harangues on the machine. I got stubborn, as you know I can, and kept my job. Then they started following me everywhere—grocery store, gas station, you name it. And yes, I reported all this to the police and they couldn’t do a thing. This group had a whole network going, and I couldn’t give the cops a single name for serving a restraining order.”

“What’d you do?”

“I’d jump through hoops to lose them, Amy, and whenever I succeeded, I tried to stay incognito as long as possible. Got in the crazy habit of constantly changing my appearance whenever I was in public. I’d reverse the reversible clothing I started wearing, altered my makeup if nobody happened to be watching me. Sunglasses and hats. And I’d make faces, but not in an obvious way. Jut my jaw out, suck my cheeks in, raise my eyebrows slightly, anything I could think of. I still do most of that out of habit.”

I felt my own jaw drop. Never occurred to me she could be changing her appearance deliberately.

“Ever noticed,” she said, “that everything in life has a . . . grain? Sometimes it’s worth bucking it, but usually it makes more sense to work with it. And here’s a case where defying the assholes just made them more convinced they were right. Finally, I just couldn’t hack it. God, how I hated to let them win, but in ‘94 when some nut job named Salvi started shooting abortion workers back East, that was that. Took the money I’d inherited from the grandparents and all my savings, moved here, and opened the store.”

I jumped up, steaming. “Hold on! You saying that after more than two decades, they’re starting to hassle you here?”

“Got a call last month. Said hi and someone started swearing at me over the phone, saying they hadn’t forgotten my sins and I’d burn in Hell forever.”

“Losh! But Page, that doesn’t mean these fruitcakes are the ones donating sea life. Both the Professor and Abe claim the jokes were on them. Admittedly for some pretty out-there reasons.”

“No, I’m the target. I hoped that when I quit they’d leave me be, but I suppose people this bent can carry a grudge forever.”

“But why fish?”

“Remember the buns? Loaves and fishes. Jesus doesn’t love me, they’re saying.”

“And I say screw ‘em.” For me, that was an extreme statement. I prefer going extra light on the vulgarities. Better vibes. I looked down at my hands and realized they’d become fists.

* * * *

That night I couldn’t sleep. Page’s revelation had knocked me over and made my half-Highland blood boil. Finally, in the wee hours, I had to admit there’d be no rest for Amy and decided to vent steam by walking the mile or so to the store. Opening time was still a goodly way off, but I thought if I showed up real early, hid myself on the other side of the street, and did an amateur stakeout, I might catch the culprits wet handed. I had no idea what I’d do after that, but that didn’t stop me from making a thermos of hot cocoa, dressing warmly in dark clothes, and stepping out into foggy darkness.

I’d only walked to the store a few times before, and never in this kind of pea soup. So after a few nervous steps, I decided on a route where I couldn’t possibly go astray: straight down to the beach, turn left, and keep going until I reached the big parking lot. After another left and three blocks, I’d reach the Page Turner. Didn’t know how I could spot any fish-dispensing fanatics in this weather unless I stubbed a toe on them, but I refused to give up.

It seemed to take forever to reach the ocean, but to my surprise the fog thinned out near our boardwalk and I could actually see a hundred yards ahead. Which is why I soon spotted two long and slender objects leaning against the railing intended to stop toddlers and drunks from tumbling over the cliff onto the rocky skirt below. When I got closer I realized that the mystery objects were Tara’s crutches.

Had she tripped and fallen over the low railing? Had she committed suicide?

Alarmed, I practically galloped down the nearest staircase to the beach, one I usually avoid because it winds back and forth along the cliff and ends in a flight of rickety wooden stairs. A full moon was up, but fog kept it from silvering the foam and crests of breakers. Instead, the mist diffused the light into a pewter glow more revealing than I expected—perhaps the sun lent a predawn assist.

I stopped halfway down the wooden stairs and just watched.

Nine large gray shapes floated in the shallows, bobbing up and down, periodically deluged by shoreline wavelets. I thought they were dolphins until I noticed they lacked dorsal fins.

Tara stood on the beach, dressed crazy light for the damp chill in a silk teddy, and talking out loud even though no one else seemed to be around. Heavier clothes lay on the sand beside her and as I stared, she peeled herself out of her teddy. She had nicer boobs than me, but was covered in short gray fur from just below them to the middle of her calves. And her feet were terribly deformed, curled inwards from the sides.

Four of the gray shapes swam forward. Two were harbor seals, both gripping live fish in their mouths. The other pair stood up as they reached the shoreline, and I realized that these were men: fat but sleek-looking and furred just like Tara. And their feet were wide flippers that furled themselves into an imitation of feet as they stepped onto the sand.

The seals hunched themselves forward and dropped their fish in front of Tara. The men waddled up to her and gave her something of a group hug, and began to talk in low voices.

What on Earth was happening here, I asked myself? Could Tara be working with Navy SEALs and genuine seals to—is this is some kind of crazy genetic experiment that

[[ Sorry, didn’t mean to conk out like that, but I’m awake again. Strange. I remember just where we were in the story, so very close to the end that I should probably buckle down and finish up. But I . . . don’t feel like it. Right now, I can’t stop thinking about Abe’s breakthrough and another thing I’ll tell you about if you promise to stay calm: something feels horribly wrong. Can’t seem to breathe—I mean even more than usual. Do you suppose the air is going bad?

What a lovely thought. I figured fresh oh two was getting to me somehow, but maybe I’ve just been living off air trapped in the basement. And when it runs out, that’s that. But don’t bother nagging me to go all proactive. What do you expect me to do with this big beam or whatever lying across my legs and right arm? It hurts to even think about moving.

Maybe I’m lucky. Not quite as lucky as my housemates, Sue and Roy, having a glorious time in Puerto Vallarta right now and, according to the postcard, wishing I was there. But if I hadn’t been in the basement doing laundry when the quake struck, I might’ve been squished dead. I’m guessing the washing machine or the dryer or both saved me when the ceiling fell in, catching most of the

Uh-oh. Must’ve passed out again. Got a hunch one of these times, very soon, I won’t be coming back. But, tell me this, my shadow pal: I’ve tried yelling and praying and being patient—wouldn’t you think someone would’ve rescued me by now? Does that mean the whole house collapsed and everyone assumes I’m done? Or maybe the quake was so big that lots of people got buried, and there aren’t enough rescuers to go around. But if most folks got through this okay, wouldn’t you think the idea I’m trapped down here would cross someone’s mind? Like my boss or Paul or Abe or...

Abe. Abe! Helpmaboab, as my mum would say—which means something like “Goodness gracious,” but with more juice. I know I’m babbling; that, my friend, is from excitement!

How could I have been so close to it for so long but missed it until now? Evidently, Dr. Freud had a bonny notion about there being a subconscious, but I’ve a bone to pick with mine. I mean, look what I did: cobbled together a story of sorts out of some of my recent experiences, and most everything in it was relevant to the tale. With one exception. Do you know which thing I mean? Abe’s gravitational detector! I’d no good reason to even mention it but brought it up repeatedly. Then, later, didn’t I just blather on about the Tav experiments and couldn’t stop thinking about them. Get it now? In its own clumsy way, my subconscious kept trying to tell me something but just wasn’t loud enough. You see? I’m the kitty down the well! And just maybe Abe can get me out of here.

Yeah, I know the odds are a wee long. Like me beating Kasparov or Capablanca in their primes. And with Fool’s Mate. But humor me. Let’s just suppose that Abe figures I’m down here, but for some reason no one can get to me. If so—hear me out—just maybe Abe’s teleporter can save me if his gravity sniffer can determine exactly where I am. Don’t you look at me like that. Isn’t it worth a try? Do you remember what the detector needs in order to spot our wet cat? Movement.

Don’t laugh, I can move. Just my left arm, sure, but maybe that’ll be enough to wiggle my entire body, at least a little. A kitty down a well wouldn’t be moving much either, right? Oh yeah, this is bound to hurt . . . a lot. If you’ve got a better idea, now’s the time to step forward. Nothing? Then we do it my way. Please forgive the screaming.

Oh, God, it’s even worse than I thought. I can’t do this much lon ]]

* * * *

[[ Hey there, shadow pal, Nurse Ratched—honest, that’s her name, which luckily she doesn’t live down to—has flipped the lights off and wished me lovely dreams. But I’m not sleepy, so it seems a bonny time to revive you maybe for the last time.

It’s not that I feel any big urge to wrap things up right now, although that’s part of it. The main thing is that I need a sounding board to help me get my thoughts lined up before I stop putting Abe off and try to tell him what it’s like to get pulled though another reality. Do you realize that I’m the first human being ever to get that kind of ride? Abe’s team took quite a chance with my life, but decided it was the only chance for me under the circumstances, so to speak. As I’d feared, the rescue team couldn’t dig me out without using a crane to pull some big beams out of the way, and every crane was assisting rescuers in our downtown area. Seems construction in this town couldn’t handle a mere 7.6-scale earthquake.

Oh, you want to know how it feels to be teleported. I’ll tell you this much straightaway: it was downright mystical. You heard me.

Not that I’m ordinarily keen on matters numinous. Still, my mum maintains that I’m a direct descendent of Coinneach Odhar, the Brahan Seer, and that the women in our family are invariably blessed with great psychic powers. Truly, I’ve never noticed anyone in our branch of the Clan Mackenzie emit the faintest whiff of arcane talents, although I do have a cousin who bent a spoon—when she sat on it. And on my father’s side, the Shroeders have fewer spiritual gifts than warm sauerkraut. But I’m now claiming a touch of Scottish clairvoyance that came through in an emergency, because about when I’d figured that Abe might rescue me, that’s exactly what he was attempting. And as I’d hoped, he only needed the smallest motion on my part—of my parts, that is—to locate me precisely. Of course I should write this off to pure coincidence or my subconscious grabbing sensory cues too subtle for me to notice, but why not don a mantle of glory when it’s hanging right in my closet?

In fact, the scene as I’d envisioned it, with a frantic Abe running his lost feline detector and then arranging for me to be picked up and deposited elsewhere was smack dab on the money. Being unsure of my exact mass, my nerd heroes running the Tav taxi in the lab estimated beyond morbid obesity to stay on the safe side and wound up ferrying not only me, but a goodly hunk of concrete floor that had been my bed in the basement. I don’t think the fellow renting out the house will complain.

I suppose you’ve noticed that I’m blathering to postpone trying to describe the indescribable. Fine, so here goes.

Abe says my little trip was “instantaneous,” but he’s wrong, or at least that wasn’t my experience. No way. If I got pulled through another dimension, I sure didn’t see it; but I did see our universe in a new way. For one long crazy moment, everything . . . turned inside out. There I was, looking inwards at the countless galaxies and the space between them, as if I were gazing at the fanciest and most beautiful jewel that could ever be. Kind of a Buddha’s-eye view, I suppose. The universe didn’t seem any particular size or shape; certainly it didn’t appear large or small. But it was all . . . perfect, every atom and every electron exactly where it was supposed to be.

And so utterly, utterly peaceful. My mind sort of sighed and settled down completely. Never felt so calm. Never knew that calmness itself could be so beautiful, and I could’ve stayed in that place forever. You know, part of me may still be there....

I know what you’re thinking. Abe’s hardly going to be satisfied with that kind of report, but even after talking to you, I don’t see how to make it more scientific.

Besides, that’s all I remember. They tell me I was unconscious when they zapped me into the lab. Next thing I knew, I woke up in this hospital bed, fed and watered through a vein. Got a broken leg and a really bruised arm and four cracked ribs, but the painkillers they’ve got me on are heavy duty, and I’m not feeling too bad. Worst part is my tongue, which is swollen and cracked after almost three days without water. Sucking ice helps. I’ve read that a few people have survived after more than a week without H2O. Can’t imagine how they did it.

My docs, if you’re interested, have two main concerns. First, I might have some brain damage from bonks on the head although that part looks okay so far, knock on wood. Second, the snapped leg bone is already halfway set at the wrong angle. So it’s under the scalpel for me and loads more excitement to look forward to. But it’ll beat the alternative.

No, I haven’t been lonely. Page has come to see me already, twice, and Paul and Abe thrice. Page, the best boss ever, promised to fork over the deductible I’ll need for Kaiser. Abe, when he wasn’t squeezing me for details, mentioned that the other Regulars don’t yet know my body’s been recovered with me still in it because the store’s closed for repairs. I can’t wait to get out of here and restart my life, but the quake’s messed up almost everybody and everything along this stretch of coast, and no one’s life will be returning to normal quite yet.

So I guess we’re done. You know I couldn’t, in good conscience, write up much of that story I was telling you, particularly not Page’s part, which was unvarnished fact. What? You want to know if all that stuff about Tara and Selkies and Navy Seals had any truth to it?

Be serious.