“I don’t want to get Uncle Slick in trouble,” Esta said.
“You have it backwards,” Colene told her. “He’s getting you out of trouble.”
They arrived at the hotel. “But you know, this is only for one night here,” Colene said to Slick. “Tomorrow I have to see the professor, and you—”
“I will get tickets to far away,” Slick said. “We’ll go right after you have your information.” Then he thought of something. “My sister—”
“She doesn’t want to know. You can send her an anonymous note or something, saying Esta’s all right. Which she will be now. Believe me, your sister can’t protect her, and Esta can’t go back there.”
He nodded, appreciating the cruel logic.
They got out and unloaded the bicycle and suitcase. Colene held up the room key so that he could see the number, then realized that it didn’t match the room. Hotels did that to protect their guests from getting robbed if they lost their keys. So she told him the number. “Come see us as soon as you’re ready. Esta needs you. Don’t go near that house. When the cops investigate the disappearance, chances are they’ll catch on to what was going on. Then they’ll be on your side, in a way. They’ll make him pay.”
He nodded. He got back in the car and moved out.
They went into the hotel and up to the room. The door opened as they approached it; Provos had remembered their arrival.
“This is Provos, my companion,” Colene said. “She’s a little strange, but she’s a good person. She—”
But Provos was already embracing the girl, who looked startled but not alarmed. Then the woman led Esta to the bathroom, where new gauze was laid out. Any explanations would have to wait until later, when the woman did not remember the girl.
Colene got on the phone and ordered a good meal for three. She wanted to eat early, in case things got complicated later. She had proceeded as if Esta’s presence were routine, but knew that she was technically guilty of abduction. She didn’t think that Esta’s family would be able to locate her within a day, but it was best not to gamble.
Room Service delivered the meal. The three of them were completing it when Slick returned. He had two airplane tickets to Mexico City. No doubt he had contacts there, and it would be almost impossible to trace his route thereafter. He also had a small collection of comic books. “I thought—I didn’t know what you might like, honey,” he said to Esta, pushing them at her.
The girl gazed up at him. “Are you really going to take me away?”
“I have to, honey. If you stay anywhere near here, they’ll find you and make you go back. I’m breaking the law just being with you now.”
“But you live here! You’ll lose your job!”
He shook his head, smiling grimly. “Honey, I didn’t really like my job anyway. Maybe I can get a better one, and just take care of you, and we’ll never speak of the past. Would you like that?”
She stood. “Oh, Uncle Slick, just hold me.”
They embraced, somewhat awkwardly. Esta was nervous about being close to a man, even this friend of her childhood, and Slick did not know how to hold a girl who was a relative. But Colene knew they would work it out. Each of them was the one good thing in the other’s life. Each could have a better life with the other.
Then Esta looked at one of the books he had brought. She smiled, accepting it. Colene saw the title: Morning Becalms Electro. That was probably humor. Better that than horror.
“I have to call my folks,” Colene said. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell them where I am.”
She went to the phone. Provos wheeled the dishes out to the hall, remembering how it would be done in the morning. Provos’ lack of concern was a good sign; it meant that there would be no trouble in the night. Slick and Esta shared the couch and talked, seeming happy to get better acquainted.
Colene’s father answered the phone. That was probably best, because it meant he was home, rather than out with a woman. “Dad, I won’t be home tonight,” Colene said. “Something came up. But I’m okay, and I’ll be back there probably tomorrow afternoon.”
“Back to stay,” he said.
The guilt welled up again. “Dad, I can’t stay. I have commitments. This is just a visit.”
He was persistent. “Where do you have to go that’s more important than your family?”
“You wouldn’t believe it, Dad.”
“Try me.”
Why try to lie, when the truth would not be believed? “I have to go on the Virtual Mode. That’s like a path across realities, and every few steps I cross into a new reality, until I get to another anchor site. I have—I have a man from one of those other worlds, and a telepathic horse. Provos is from one of those realities. But there’s trouble, and our friends are caught in a reality where we don’t want to stay. So I had to come back here to—to get something. To help them get back on the Virtual Mode. And I’m going back. You and Mom are better off without me anyway. Just forget me.”
“How do you get on this path?”
Was he actually believing her, or just humoring her? Did it matter? “My anchor is in Dogwood Bumshed; that’s where I step through. That’s where I got on the Virtual Mode, and where I came back here. It’s my connection.”
“You just go in your shed and disappear?”
“I guess I do, really, the way it must look from here. Because I step into the next reality. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s the way it works. The next reality looks the same as this one, but the people are different, I think. Some of the other realities are really weird, and some are dangerous. Magic works in some of them. But I don’t expect you to believe any of this, Dad. Just take my word that I have somewhere to go, and I can’t stay here.”
“I understand. We’ll see you here tomorrow, then.”
Colene laughed. “Yes. I have to go there, to get to my anchor. Bye for now, Dad.”
“Goodbye, honey.”
She hung up, struck by the similarity between the way her father addressed her and the way Slick spoke to Esta. A girl one cared for was “honey.” It meant so little, and yet so much. Why did it make her feel so horribly guilty?
Her father had taken it surprisingly well. He had really seemed to believe her, or at least to accept it for now. He hadn’t tried to argue. Yet he had seemed to care. Maybe he figured that he would be able to talk her into staying when she showed up there.
She looked up. The others were watching her. They had overheard her description of the Virtual Mode. Maybe they thought she was crazy. Except for Provos, of course.
“I guess you’d have to be there,” she said. “I know it sounds crazy. My father must think I’ve gone over the edge.”
“You’re like me,” Esta said. “Nobody knows what’s in your mind.”
“Close enough,” Colene agreed.
Slick stood. “I have things to do,” he said. “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
“Remember, no—” Colene started.
“I have to arrange for funds to be where we’re going. And to put my house on the market. You have changed my life, little girl.” He left.
“Which one of us did he mean?” Esta asked.
Colene considered. “Both of us. But mostly you. I think you may be doing as much good for him as he’s doing for you.”
Esta laughed, unable to believe that. But Colene suspected it was true. She remembered her brief dialogue with Slick on the notion of being like a father. Now it was happening, and she knew he wasn’t faking his desire for it. There had been truth in him as he spoke. Unless she was fooling herself about her ability to read minds, a little, here in this reality.
There were two beds in the suite. Provos had taken one, so Colene decided to share the other with Esta.
They slept, but in the night Colene dreamed. A balding man was approaching her, taking her onto his lap, telling her to “open up” her legs, and she was terrified of what was coming but unable to resist. Suddenly her chest was bare. Then she saw the burning cigarette. She tried to scream, but couldn’t open her mouth. The pain started.