“If,” Saul said, interrupting. “You have a knack of developing dangerous projects, lad.”
“Dangerous? Me, A.B.D. in comparative literature? How dangerous can poetry be?”
“Plenty, in a universe in which magic works by rhyme, and literary criticism is equivalent to theoretical physics. What bomb are you planning to explode this time?”
“Hey, if I could travel here, I should be able to travel back, shouldn’t I?”
“Forgive him, St. Moncaire,” Saul called toward the heavens.
“Wouldn’t the saint want me to pay attention to my mother and father? I mean, Saul, five years! Five years since they heard anything from me! They’ll be frantic!” This time conscience stabbed, and deeply.
“Not so long as that,” Saul reminded him. “Remember, you’d only been gone a few days when I started hunting you, but it was two years here.”
“Time moves faster in this universe, huh? But that means it’s been a week there!”
“Yeah, a week, and you a hundred miles away in college! Tell me they’re worried sick.”
“Yeah, there is that.” Matt turned to watch Alisande again, calming a little. “Probably not worried at all.”
“Didn’t sound like it, when I talked to them. Your mother just told me to look for you on campus. Hey, you never told me she was an immigrant.”
“Yeah, came from Cuba when Castro… ” Matt’s head snapped up. “You talked to her!”
“I wouldn’t say that. My Spanish is only a little worse than her English, and… “
“You phoned them!”
“Sure.” Saul frowned. “You’d disappeared without leaving any word. Of course I thought of trying you at home!”
“But you got them worried! Now they know I’m missing!”
“Hey, I just asked for you,” Saul protested. “I didn’t say where I was calling from… and I sure didn’t tell them you’d gone missing!”
“You don’t know my mother! If some people have worry warts, she’s got an anxiety aneurysm! She’ll start wondering, she’ll call the college and check!”
“Hey, man, don’t freak out on me! How’s she gonna check up if she can’t speak English?”
“She’ll pester them until they find somebody who speaks Spanish! That woman is smart!”
Saul lifted his head. “Dr. Korbinsky!”
“Right! She speaks Spanish… and she’s on my doctoral committee! All I need is to have two overprotective mothers putting their heads together and working up a panic! Saul, I’ve got to get home!”
“Right, sure, I gotcha, man.” Saul was actually trying to sound soothing. “But where’s the bus?”
“I’ll ask the Spider King! He’ll know!”
“Sure.” Saul’s lip twisted. “All you have to do is find him.”
“Oh, I have a notion he’s keeping an eye on me… on all of us, now that you mention it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’s thorough… attention to detail and all that.”
“Oh, and I’m a detail, am I?”
“Saul.” Matt put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “In the cosmic scheme of things …”
“… we’re all details, yeah, sure! What do you think, all you have to do is tell the nearest spider, ‘Connect me to the Big Boy’?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised.” Matt frowned, looking directly into Saul’s eyes. “You do understand how this is really important, don’t you?”
“Why ask me?” Saul jerked his head toward Alisande. “She’s your sovereign.”
Matt asked his sovereign that evening. His sovereign said yes. His wife went all teary and told him he was a heartless beast for ignoring his mother for so long. He reassured her that only a week had passed for his mother, which mollified her somewhat… but she still thought he was a stony, calloused monster not to have thought of them sooner.
Privately, Matt agreed.
The next morning, he dug out the clothes he’d worn when he arrived in Merovence. He’d gone back to rescue them from the ruins of Sayeesa’s castle when some hint of pack-rat caution had made him feel he might need them again, though Heaven knew why. He checked the pockets to make sure his wallet, key, and pocket change were all there, then put on the white shirt, dress slacks, loafers, and sport coat. It was amazing that Saul had ever been willing to talk to him… Saul, for whom the height of fashion had always been a chambray shirt, blue jeans, and boots. Of course, Saul had always paid more attention to what people held inside their heads than to what they wore on their bodies, and although the inner fashions usually went with the outer, occasionlly he found, and respected, the individual who didn’t really pay much attention to either. Matt had always been a lousy dresser.
He went out while the dew still lingered on the spider silk, found the biggest web in the garden, and told the resident arachnid, “I’d like to talk to the Spider King, if he’s free. It’s about going home to visit… my original home, that is.”
A sunbeam struck the dewdrops, glittering, making the whole web a spangled wonder; it caught Matt’s attention, fascinating him, seeming to expand to surround him. The sunlight winked and dazzled and shot rays from each drop. Matt found himself overwhelmed by the beauty of it, reeled at the spectacle, felt his breath pressed from him by the impact of such glory.
Then the moment passed, the web seemed to dwindle again, and the spider still sat in the center, oblivious of it all. With a sigh of regret, Matt straightened, lifting his gaze…
And stared.
He froze in shock. The corner store looked the same as it always had. Whenever he had come home to visit, it had always looked the same, only the brands on the shelves changing the styles of their labels.
Home to visit? Yes, he was, wasn’t he? The Spider King, whose web of forces and personas stretched across the dimensions to catch all the Earths in all the alternate universes, had acted with amazing speed.
Matt couldn’t help feeling that it had been too easy, much too easy, especially considering how much effort he had expended for weeks, even months, before he’d finally been able to make sense of the arcane verse he’d found, and been transported to Merovence. Suddenly, Matt began to feel an old and highly unpleasant sensation, as if there were invisible strings tied to his ankles, wrists, and temples. He was being manipulated again. He began to wonder if it was really Saul who had put the idea of going home into his mind.
Something roared behind him. Matt whirled, adrenaline pumping. What kind of supernatural monster… ?
The Route 34 bus pulled up to the curb.
Matt stared. He was so used to seeing dragons and manticores that the bus did seem supernatural… and the stink of exhaust, which he’d scarcely noticed before, was a veritable stench. He’d been spoiled by clean air.
The doors folded open, and the driver said, “You gettin’ on, mac, or just lookin’?”
Matt couldn’t help the foolish grin that spread over his face. “Just saying hello, Mr. Joe.”
The driver stared, then grinned. “Hey, it’s you, Matt! Day off from school, huh?”
Matt gave a half shrug and a sheepish grin.
“Day off, but they didn’t know about it.” Joe chuckled. “Well, good to see you, boy. Take care.”
“You, too, Mr. Joe.” Matt raised a hand.
“Just ‘Joe’ now, Matt,” the driver said. “You’re old enough, and I been telling you that for eight years. So long, now!”
The doors closed, and the bus rumbled away, turning the corner. Matt followed it with his gaze, taking in the rest of the intersection. The apartment building on the northwest corner still looked the same, except that the landlord had finally had the stoop fixed. The little meat market across the street still looked as busy as ever. As he watched, Mrs. Picorelli bustled up to put some more cans on the shelf, then bustled away back out of the light… seventy-five, and still going strong. He hoped her husband was still okay… at eighty, he should have been taking his ease in a rocking chair, not still cutting meat. But who was going to make him retire? He owned the store.