Karen’s heart pulses against her ribs. That’s crazy, she thinks, what ocean, there’s no ocean, we live in Pittsburgh. In Pennsylvania. She retains a vivid memory of her school geography. The only bodies of water around Pittsburgh are the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, mingling to create the mighty Ohio. She has taken a boat ride; she remembers the old steel-girder bridges and the awe they inspired in her. There is no ocean here.
But they turn a comer and follow this cobbled street, which she does not recognize, and she smells a salt tang in the air, something bitter, ozone, and there are faint cries which might be nesting gulls.
The street itself is so strange she feels she must remember it. The buildings are odd, three- and four-story structures with the crosshatched look of the fairy-tale houses in her Golden Books, their brick chimneys gap-toothed against the cloudy sky. (But hadn’t there been stars?) The wind is cool, worse than cool, cold, and she’s dressed only in her nightie. Her bare heel skids against a residue of fish scale down among the dark cobbles and she clutches Laura’s arm.
They ascend a hill.
The city is spread out suddenly before them. Karen’s confusion becomes totaclass="underline" this is not Pittsburgh.
Not Pittsburgh, but a very large city nevertheless. Much of it is this same kind of gingerbread architecture, winding narrow roads punctuated by factories and mills that are the only illuminated buildings, their high wired windows spilling red and yellow furnace light. Farther off, where the land rises, the city seems more modern; she can see tall buildings like the buildings downtown—in Pittsburgh—but these are cheerless black obsidian slabs or squat, chalky structures. Atop one of them, a dirigible is moored.
But more marvelous than this is the sea.
From where they stand the road runs down to the docks. There are rows and rows of wooden warehouses. Inside their cavernous frames Karen sees people moving. It’s reassuring, in a way, seeing people here. It suggests some sort of normalcy. If she cried out for help, someone might hear. Beyond the warehouses, a long lighted pier runs out across the oily water. A few ships are docked; some have high wooden masts, some do not. One is immense, as big as an oil tanker.
The strangeness of the scene begins to affect her. She has the feeling of having come, somehow, very far from home. She’s lost—they’re all lost. She thinks of the arch Timmy drew in the dark air of the ravine, their only door… can they find it again? Or has it vanished?
“All right,” she says. “We’ve seen it. There it is. Now we have to go home.”
“She’s afraid,” Timmy says to Laura. “I told you.”
But Laura looks at her sympathetically. “No… Karen’s right. We should get back.” She shivers. “It’s cold.”
“It’s always cold here.”
Karen doesn’t stop to wonder what he means. “Let’s go,” she says.
Timmy sighs elaborately but cooperates, outvoted. They turn back. The narrow street, from this direction, seems completely new. Inside Karen the spring of panic has coiled tighter… what if they are lost?
But no, she thinks, that’s the alley there. She pulls Laura tighter so as not to lose her. She grabs for Timmy’s hand. He resists a moment, then relents.
Daddy’s faith was not misplaced. She can protect them.
But as they approach the mouth of the alley, a man steps out from the shadows.
He is looking directly at them. He is tall and dressed in a gray suit and hat. He looks ordinary, like the men she has seen riding the trolleys to work. But there is something in the intensity of his gaze, in the way he smiles, that amplifies her fear. A gust of wind plucks at his overcoat; a few flakes of snow swirl past.
“Hi,” he says. “Hello there.”
They stand still, transfixed. The man’s voice echoes down the empty street.
Still smiling, he takes a few sauntering steps closer. It occurs to Karen that there is something familiar about his face, the lines of it, the wide eyes… something she cannot place.
“We have to go back,” Timmy says—for the first time, a note of uncertainty in his voice.
The man nods agreeably. “I know. Everybody has to go home sometime, right? But look! I have presents for you.”
He reaches into his overcoat. Timmy waits, studious but unafraid. Karen thinks, He knows this man. He’s been here before.
The man produces from the depths of his coat a glass paperweight—the kind you shake and it snows inside. He hands this to Tim.
Tim stares, transfixed.
“The kingdoms of the Earth,” the man says.
Tim takes the gift, holds it solemnly.
The overcoat is magic, fathomless. The grinning man reaches in once more and produces—“Presto!” he says—a small pink plastic hand mirror, the cheap kind you can buy at the five-and-dime. He extends the mirror to Laura.
“Go on,” he says gently. “A getting-to-know-you present.”
A part of Karen wants to shout no. But Laura, frowning, takes the gift and regards it.
“Fairest in the land,” the man says, smiling.
And Karen cowers, knowing she is next.
The man looks directly at her. He is like the men on TV shows, like Eliot Ness in “The Untouchables”: ruggedly handsome. The smile is very convincing. But his mild gray eyes are as cold as the snow and as empty as the street.
He reaches into his coat again.
This time: a baby doll.
A naked plastic baby doll about the size of her thumb. It’s not much. But, curiously, she’s drawn to it. The expression on its crudely formed face attracts her. It seems to be asking for help.
Overcome, she snatches the doll and pockets it.
“Your firstborn child,” the man says softly.
The words set off silent alarms inside her. It’s like waking up from a dream. “Come on,” she says, taking charge at last. She tightens her grip on Timmy and Laura, their small, fleshy arms. “Now,” she cries. “Run! Come on!”
They duck around the gray man into the alley.
The darkness obscures the doorway. She hunts it out with some sixth sense. Beyond it, she can smell the wet night warmth of the ravine.
She steps through, pushing Tim and Laura ahead of her. The sky on this side is beginning to show dawn. “We have to hurry,” she says. “Up the hill! GO!”
There is no longer any question of disobeying. Daylight priorities have begun to assert themselves. The two smaller children scurry ahead.
Karen pauses a second to look back.
The door—Tim’s door—has begun to disappear. It fades; the borders become indistinct. But for a lingering moment she can see through to the other side, to that cold fish-smelling wharf city, the alley mouth, the gray man gazing at her. He makes no move to follow. He smiles blandly.
The image shivers.
He raises his hand and waves.
The doorway bursts like a bubble, and Karen flees toward the house.
The dream ended there. She woke from it shivering and reached for the bedside clock.
12:45, the bright digital readout announced.
Third night in a row now. The dream had never come so often or so intensely. That must mean something, she thought; but what?
No. Dreams don’t mean anything.
She scooted over to Gavin’s side of the bed, her arm extended toward him. But the bed, of course, was empty.
It had been empty for almost a month now.
She felt stupid and ashamed of herself, ashamed of the transient wish her body had betrayed. It was a rough time, she thought, yeah, but things were holding together, this was no time to freak out. Silently, she recited the litany she had invented for herself: