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  "We need a guide," Jalil said. He looked at me and scowled.

  "Well, we do."

  "Uh-huh," April said skeptically.

  Idalia put her tiny hand on Jalil's chest. "In gratitude for your heroism in saving me, I will be . . ."

  She fell silent. The seductive, playful smile was gone. "Where is your heart?"

  Jalil seemed stumped. Then he snapped, realized what she was saying. "Oh. Nidhoggr, this big dragon. He has it."

  Idalia nodded, showing no more surprise or Skepticism than if Jalil had told her his car was in the shop. Then she smiled again, tilted her head back to gaze up at Jalil with a politician's wife's adoring gaze. "When you have your heart again, maybe you will let Idalia borrow it? At least . . . for a night?"

  Christopher laughed out loud. "Yeah, April she's lost and scared and alone. You want to protect someone, take care of poor Jalil."

  Chapter

  VI

  "Do you know the way to Fairy Land?" Christopher sang.

  "Christopher, you have more useless old crap stuffed in your brain," Jalil complained. "What is that, like, some Glen Campbell?

  Some John Denver?"

  "I don't even know," Christopher admitted. Do you know the way to Fairy Land? La la lala la lala la. I think I may have heard the Muppets singing it. How about, 'It's not that easy being green?'

  Idalia. Do you know Kermit?"

  We were walking along under a gradually lightening sky. It was an easy walk. There wasn't a trail, but no trail was necessary.

  The trees were spaced just far enough apart to allow their outer branches to meet without entwining. There were few bushes, no thorns, no obstacles but an occasional stream requiring nothing more strenuous than a hop. And the great thing was, we now had water.

  Finally we'd had enough to drink. We were still hungry but not faint, not weak from it. And we were putting miles between us and Hel, between us and the Midgard Serpent also known as Jormungand, and between us and Nidhoggr.

  We were less than six days away from bursting into flames but even that fact seemed less than horrifying as we followed Idalia through country-side that only became more peaceful and un-threatening as the sun rose.

  Of course, following Idalia wasn't quite what it sounded like.

  The nymph seemed incapable a moving at the cowlike pace of we humans. She would flit away, be gone for an hour, then come zipping back, a green blur, to stop, flirt with Jalil, make sure we were going the right way, and then disappear again.

  "Idalia? Kermit? Kermit no-last-name. About well, smaller than you, made out of a green towel and Ping-Pong balls for eyes? Does that ring a bell?”

  Idalia flitted away.

  "The Flash," Christopher said. "The girl is fast Jalil, man, looks like you could get lucky there. Could be the greatest two and a half seconds of your life."

  I tried not to smile. Then I saw April smothering a laugh.

  "Shut up, Christopher," Jalil muttered.

  But of course Christopher had hold of Jalil new and wasn't going to let go. "I worry about your kids, you know? It's hard growing up torn between two cultures, not knowing if you're African-American or, you know, green."

  "Too bad she doesn't seem attracted to you, Christopher," Jalil shot back. "Your kids would have had the perfect melding of her tiny body and your tiny brain."

  "Oooh. Ouch! That hurts, Jalil, but I don't take it personally. I know you're just worried. Worried about that big moment: 'Mom, Dad, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend. Yes, Mom, she is green! Yes, Dad, I know she's only four feet tall! Why can't you two ever just be nice to my girlfriends? Why are you always so critical?'"

  "David, I need to borrow the sword for a minute."

  "Married life? A breeze. She'll clean house in under five seconds."

  "You're such a sexist," April said. "What makes you think Idalia is going to be staying home and cleaning house? Maybe she'll have a job. Work outside the home."

  "Maybe she can type. Maybe fifty, sixty thousand words per minute," Christopher suggested.

  "Retail. She's a natural for Talbot's. Or any petites department."

  "Now I'll need to borrow the sword for two minutes," Jalil said.

  I said, "Tell you one thing: All joking aside, I'm glad to be dealing with people smaller than we are. Nymphs and leprechauns, that's gotta be better than big honking Lokis and Huitzilopoctlis and Fenrirs and Hels and Nidhoggrs."

  "Don't be too certain of that," Senna said.

  Once more I'd gotten used to the idea that she was silent. I'd almost managed to put her out of my mind.

  "You have something to say. Senna?" Jalil asked in tense, measured tones.

  "Do you know something about these fairies?" I asked her. "If you do, you need to let us all in on it."

  For a few more steps she said nothing. Then, "Everworld is a dangerous place, David. How do little people, fairies and leprechauns, how do they survive here in a place filled with giant gods and giant monsters?"

  I missed a step. Caught up. Noticed that Christopher and April and Jalil had stopped their teasing.

  "How do the weak ever stand up to the strong?" Senna asked.

  I shrugged. "By, I don't know. By, I guess by standing together, staying united."

  Senna didn't exactly roll her eyes. There was just a passing, cynical twist of her lips. "How many Idalias would have to unite to defeat one Hel? How many fairies to scare off Nidhoggr?"

  "A lot," I admitted. "Too many. There couldn't be that many leprechauns."

  I waited, we all waited, but Senna of ered nothing more. Idalia flitted back, and left, and returned again. And as we walked through golden woods and across flower-strewn meadows, I wondered and worried.

  Maybe Nidhoggr could fly. Maybe Nidhoggr could go after the leprechauns himself. Maybe Nidhoggr was scared.

  What could possibly scare Nidhoggr?

  That grim thought was pushed aside by a realization that I was hearing the sound of hooves. I spun, sword drawn.

  Sandy's lower half ran by.

  Chapter

  VII

  We made camp as the sun came up full and strong above a meadow of wildflowers. Was it the most beautiful place I'd ever been? Or was it so beautiful because it pushed aside memories of Hel's evil face?

  Either way it was beautiful. And it felt safe. It was hard to imagine an evil that could exist in a place so full of tall, waving lavender and sprinkles of brilliant yellows and reds.

  "We need some sleep," I said.

  "I'm for that," Jalil agreed.

  The bottom half of the satyr had crossed our path again. It slammed into a tree, fell down, then climbed up again.

  "That's not too weird," Jalil said.

  "I'll take first watch," I said.

  We dropped where we were. Dropped down into the ankle-high grass in the shade of a small, isolated grove of peach trees beside a winding brook.

  We yanked down as many peaches as we could easily reach.

  They were pink, ripe, sweet. Perfect.

  "This place is a postcard," April said. "Organic peaches on top of everything."

  "It's about time we caught some kind of break," Christopher said. "I mean, I'd still rather have a . . . fresh sheets . . . maybe a . . ."

  He was asleep before he could finish the thought. Asleep with a bite of peach still caught in his teeth. I fought an urgent need to yawn. How long had it been since we'd slept? How long? Days?

  How could I even be sure when we'd been underground so long?

  It didn't matter anyway. We'd sleep here.

  One by one they began to breathe more slowly, regularly.

  Some snored. Senna lay peacefully on her side, eyes closed. It was a relief to know that she did sleep. She was human, after all.

  There was a beam of sunlight on her pale skin. She frowned and rolled over, leaving me only the back of her head.

  I wanted to talk to her. Wanted to ask her so many things.

  Wanted to hear her answers. Or maybe jus
t wanted to hear the answers I wanted to hear.

  Long ago, back before all this had begun, or maybe not that long ago at all, anyway, back then I'd thought I was in love with Senna Wales. Back then she'd ridden in my car, talked with me, laughed with me. Kissed me. Lit a fire and sent it raging through me. Back then she was a girl unlike any I'd met, different, but in a way I couldn't name or explain. Just different. Back then I'd wanted her. For what? For her legs, her breasts, her lips? For the way I never seemed to impress her, for the way she never minded that I was me? For the way she made me imagine a world that would be profoundly different because of her presence in my life?

  Why not?

  Now all my feelings about her were suspect. Senna wasn't a girl anymore. She was an object wanted by so many, none of whom wanted her love. She was a secret. A danger. A power.

  And she could make me want her, make me need her, make me believe her, buy my loyalty with that basic currency of Everworld: magic.

  How was I supposed to know what was real now? How was I supposed to know my own truth when she could, with a touch, reach down inside me and twist me around?

  Maybe it would have been a good thing to ask her all that.

  Maybe. But her back was to me, and Jalil and April and Christopher and a green creature out of a mythology book were all in the way.

  We had little time to travel to a place we'd never been, recover Nidhoggr's loot, and get back to him with it. Maybe we could push the leprechauns around, get what we wanted. Maybe not.

  We had a sword. A small knife. And a witch. I wondered, when the tune came, whether Senna would be a weapon I could use.

  "They have crossed into another world," Idalia said as she zipped back. She seemed surprised, perplexed.

  "Yeah. That happens to us. We don't know why. For some reason whenever we fall asleep here we rejoin our lives in the real world. There's another me over there, too. Doing whatever I'd be doing. School, work, hanging out. When I go to sleep later I'll go there, too."

  Where did Senna go when she slept? Did she cross back over into the real world?

  The nymph laughed and her laughter woke Christopher just enough to cause him to spit out the peach. That was a relief. I would have had to pick it out of his mouth so he didn't choke.

  "You call it the real world?" Idalia asked. "Is this not real as well?"

  I shrugged. It was disturbing talking to Idalia. A little like going to a nude beach and trying to talk football with the first beach burmy you find. I wasn't attracted to Idalia. More like I was embarrassed.

  "I guess Everworld is as real as our own world. But they all feel more like they belong over there."

  "My Jalil,too?"

  I noted the "my." Decided to let it go. Idalia was doing the smart thing: making sure that she had at least one of us on her side. She couldn't know whether to trust us. If she wanted to tease and enthrall Jalil, fine.

  Part of me was resentfully glad to see it. Suddenly I wasn't the only one to be considered suspect for having a relationship.

  I glanced at Senna's back. A relationship? Is that what I had with Senna? The word seemed ridiculous.

  "Yeah," I answered belatedly. "I think Jalil feels more like the real . . . the Old World is his world."

  "But not you?"

  I shrugged. "I cope with what is. I try and deal with reality, you know, take it as it comes."

  Again Idalia laughed. "Poor mortal."

  And then she was gone in a green blur. So fast that the grass had not sprung up from beneath her footsteps by the time she was out of my sight.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The nymph was an unknown. I didn't need unknowns right now. The known was enough trouble.

  I pressed my palm down on my heart. No beat. Nothing. I took my pulse at my wrist. There the familiar rhythm still fluttered.

  Touched my neck. Blood still pumped through the arteries.

  I touched my heart again. Nothing. Silence.

  So weird. No man, no woman felt that absence and lived. So strange.

  So . . .

  I was in my car. Top up. It was raining. It was pouring, like someone was hitting my windshield with a fire hose. On the cracked, white leather seat beside me was the small paper bag that held the vacuum cleaner belt and two packs of bags. The radio was playing mostly static.

  "No!"

  I swerved. Caught myself. Avoided oncoming traffic. Sheridan Road was two lanes, oncoming traffic around every hairpin turn.

  "Damn it," I cursed again and slammed the steering wheel with both hands. I had fallen asleep. I'd fallen asleep without waking anyone to take over my watch. We were lying there asleep, the five of us, without a guard.

  Anything could simply walk up on us. Anything. And in Everworld the possibilities were endless.

  Asleep on sentry duty. In a war they could execute you for that.

  I felt the now-familiar disturbance as the two halves of me melded into a single me. Jalil had dubbed the experience "CNN

  — Breaking News."

  That's what it was, a sudden flash of news as I, the me of the real world, the me driving the car and going to buy a vacuum belt for my mom, suddenly learned all that had happened to that other me. And vice versa.

  It had been a long time since the last update. Memories burst unfiltered into my brain. Memories of Hel's face, her half-dead, maggot-eaten face, the squirming, abject terror. And the uncontrolled passion, need, desire whenever she turned her other face to us.

  Images of men buried. Images of men lying in an eternal non-death beneath flagstones, buried alive, buried alive forever.

  Images of —

  I yanked the car off the road. No room for it, not on Sheridan, so I ran the old Buick up some rich guy's driveway. I stopped.

  Gripped the wheel. Hands shaking. All of me shaking.

  Had to throw up. I pushed the door, leaned out, just in time, just barely missed destroying my car. I vomited onto the driveway, rain pouring down on the back of my head, neck, shoulders. Rain diluting, washing away the mess.

  I sat up. Used both hands to squeegee the water out of my hair.

  And there, holding a purple umbrella, was a woman.

  Middle-aged. Chunky, squat. Dark eyes in a hard face. Graying hair pulled back.

  She was the maid from the big house at the end of the driveway. Had to be. People who lived in five-mil ion-dol ar lakefront mansions didn't dress like this or look like this.

  "Sorry," I said.

  "Come." She had an accent. What type I couldn't tell. With her free hand she indicated the house. "Come. Inside."

  I shook my head. "I'm fine. Must be something I ate."

  She stared at me, wouldn't look away, wouldn't release me.

  "You bring message."

  "No, no, ma'am, you must be expecting someone else. I'm not the messenger. I just happened to be driving by and felt sick, and you know how the driving is on Sheridan, it's not like you can pull off onto the shoulder."

  She moved closer. I wanted to close the door, the rain was running off the roof onto my carpet, and the carpet, what was left of it, didn't need any more mildew. But now she was blocking the door.

  Suddenly she reached for me. She laid her hand over mine, warm and dry over the cold wet hand that rested on my partly raised window.

  She maintained contact and what could I do? I'd just thrown up in her driveway, I wasn't in a position to tell her to leave me alone.

  Her black eyes closed. Then opened wide, very wide. Surprise.

  Fear. But in the end her expression settled into concern. Maybe pity. "The dark ones are close," she said.

  I felt a chill creep up my spine. The dark ones. Nonsense.

  Coincidence. She was some superstitious old Mexican lady or Polish lady or whatever. Rich men's maids were all Mexican or Polish around here.

  Coincidence. Then she said, "Has the gateway been opened?"

  I froze.

  "The what?"

  "Must close," she said. "Must close gateway
."

  She turned and waddled back toward the house. The rain came down with renewed vigor and she disappeared from view.

  I backed down the driveway. Through the gate.

  I laughed in nervous relief. Gate. Gateway. Of course. There was a gate and it was open That's all she meant. The gate to the estate was open. Nothing to do with Senna.

  "It's getting to you, man. You're starting to get freaked."

  Chapter

  VIII

  I was asleep over there, over in Everworld. I had fallen asleep and there was nothing I could do to wake myself — my other self

  — up. All I could do was go along through my day. Go through the usual motions like my head wasn't full of memories of a life I didn't really live.

  All I could do was wait for the next update. That's all I could do, this me, real-world David. Wait and see what happened when the other guy woke up, lived out his day, and fell asleep again.

  If he woke. If he lived.

  I'd let everyone down. Failed. Fallen asleep on duty and now maybe everyone would die because of me. Would I ever even know? What would happen to me if the other David died? What would happen to him if I died? If I drove my car into an oncoming truck would Everworld David die, or would Everworld David go on living and, when he fell asleep, simply dream dreams?

  I drove home. Got soaked running into the house to give my mom the vacuum bags and belt. She made me put on the belt. I did it as fast as I could; I had to get out of there, had to get going.

  Nowhere to go but I had to go anyway. Had to find the others.

  I called April. Not home. Called Jalil. Not home. It was a Saturday afternoon, big surprise, they were out. Called Christopher. His mom said he was grounded. He'd missed curfew the night before. Maybe I had something to do with it, she said, in which case maybe next time I was out late with him I should remind Christopher that he was to be home by midnight. Not ten after, not twelve-thirty, and definitely not one-fifteen A.M., by which time his father had been calling the hospitals looking for him.

  I put on my solemn voice and assured her that no, I hadn't been with Christopher. Must have been some other friend of his.

  But could I talk to him for just a minute? I needed to know when the chemistry paper was due.