Chapter 5

  Kate

  They stumbled out of the wreckage, arms around each other’s shoulders, coughing and waving away the dust that clouded the air. Charlie (eagle form!) transported them the final distance over the field of rubble.

  Kate dropped the bass on the pavement and then sprawled out next to it. A wind blew half of her hair across her face and into her mouth; she spent a few seconds trying to spit it out before giving up. Isaac sat down next to her.

  “I didn’t know you could crash a cathedral,” he said.

  “Y-y-you c-crashed it!” She held her head up enough to look at the monstrous enormity of the exterior of the thoroughly crashed cathedral. “W-where did you learn to d-d-to drive?”

  “Hey,” said Isaac, speaking out of the side of his mouth in an exaggerated Texan drawl, “you got a license fer that there church? Ya done crashed it right into…” He twisted to look at the massive bluish object of unknown function in which the cathedral had smashed. It was like a mountain, but made of perfect cylinders. “…ma residency .”

  They laughed. The drive had been a little scary, and more than a little strange, and the crash had been jarring, but now it all just seemed funny.

  “Not only that,” said Isaac back in his normal voice, “but I think I parked incorrectly.”

  Kate propped herself up on her elbows and nodded. “T-taking up t-t-too many spa-spaces,” she said. “It’ll p-probably g-get towed.”

  They both cracked up again at the thought of the building being towed.

  Kate leaned back down and looked at the sky overhead, happy and content with the simple fact that a sky was, indeed, overhead. Such was not always guaranteed in this place. And what a sky! Brilliant deep blue! On Earth the sky often became hazy and washed-out, either from inclement weather conditions, or pollution, or sometimes fires. But here its color was pure and solid.

  And the clouds!

  “What is it?” asked Isaac.

  “Isaac!” She reached an arm over and blindly seized hold of him. “W-w-what’s lighting the c- the clouds, Isaac? W-w-where’s the light c-coming from!?”

  “K-k-kate!” he said. “Y-you’re in sh-sh-shock! Ya just- y-ya j-just gotta ch-ch-chill out!” He rhythmized the stuttering, making it sound like beat-boxing.

  Kate turned to Isaac just in time to see his smile fade, replaced by horror at having just unthinkingly made fun of her stutter. But she laughed, as much because of his expression as because of how refreshing it was to have her stutter made fun of. Even Eric hadn’t done it, and Eric was kind of a jerk sometimes! It was the exact opposite of how her aunt treated her.

  “D-d-don’t worry,” she told him. “As l-long as y-you d-don’t say my st-tutter is adorable like m-my aunt then you’re g-good!”

  “Hmm.” Isaac gazed critically into the middle distance. “Have you tried getting rid of it?”

  “W-w-wow! G-good idea, Isaac! I d-di-d-I never thought of that! I’ll j-just d-do that now.”

  Isaac, undeterred, continued, “Well, what about vocal exercises? Or tongue twisters?”

  “T-t-tongue t-twisters? I c-can’t even say n-normal sentences!” She paused. “Why, d-do you know any?”

  Isaac thought for a moment. “Top chopstick shops stock top chopsticks.” He said it slowly, carefully.

  “Pff! Y-y-yeah right! L-let me t-try!”

  Kate wound up exploding into giggles when she couldn’t even make it past the second word. Isaac had another one that was even worse, and he even had to write it down and show her because he could hardly say it: “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.”

  They watched the clouds after. A pure white bird cruised overhead, now in the shape of an albatross (Phoebastria albatrus, she was pretty sure).

  Navi fluttered along and came to rest on one lens of Kate’s glasses. A butterfly eyepatch! She reached up a hand and tried to mentally persuade Navi to fly to it. She did so, perching upon Kate’s index finger. Navi flexed her wings. “Y-you’re b-beautiful, Navi,” she informed the butterfly. “D-d-don’t let them t-tell you anything else!”

  She sat up. “Let’s k-keep going!” She stood, brushed off the remaining dust from the wreckage of the cathedral, and made sure she was all in order. Angel? Scarf? Lab coat? Bass? Sandals? Check to all.

  “Right-o!” said Isaac. He made a huge big show of getting to his feet in the most awkward, roundabout way possible. Another one of his jokes? Was he trying to make her laugh? She got the impression that he did this sort of thing mostly for his own amusement, and would have done it even had no one been around. She saw him check and double-check to make sure he had that big ridiculous horsehair hat. It looked like a brown straw hat with a broad, flat brim. According to Isaac, it smelled like horses when it got wet. Kate had been on the lookout for any sources of water ever since the Dark Man had given it to him. Besides the hat, he wore a blue jacket, jeans, and battered old tennis shoes.

  Kate didn’t know where he’d gotten the hat, or why he checked twice to make sure he still had it, even though it was already on his head and he could literally see it in his upper field of vision. She asked, “W-where d-did you get that hat?” as she began aimlessly leading the way. She had a vague idea of what they were looking for, but no idea at all of where it might be, although she felt fairly confident that they’d find it eventually as long as they kept going. She thought that was more or less how this place worked.

  Maybe Navi would know, though! (She understood as soon as she had this thought that “Navi” was short for “navigation” or something similar, and that this must be the name of some kind of guiding character in a video game, probably a small easy-to-animate sprite that kind-of looks like a butterfly. So obvious, Isaac!)

  The crashed cathedral lay beside them, swelled to such absurd proportions that it took up nearly the entire view in that direction. Kate thought that the thing it had crashed into most closely resembled an unreasonably large and strangely shaped chunk of crumbly blue cheese. It had certainly crumbled under the impact of a two-kilometer-long cathedral. Warm concrete, like a sidewalk, spread out to the horizons beneath them. But why was the concrete warm when there was no sun? And why were they not all in shadows from the cathedral and the big cheese looming over them? Where was the light coming from?

  Of course, she knew better than to question these things too seriously here.

  Kate marched away. She raised her hand as though throwing Navi up into the air like a falconer. “N-navi!” she exclaimed, “l-lead the w-way!” She did not know if Navi would do any such thing, but it was worth a shot. If they started going in circles, then Kate would resume command.

  Navi fluttered with apparent purpose toward the largest open patch of sky visible in the distance. Charlie soon joined her (hummingbird form!). They danced in the air together as they led the way.

  “Dwayne got it for me,” said Isaac from behind her. “It was a while ago. I think my dad was involved, but I don’t really remember much.”

  Oh, the hat! Had he been thinking of an answer this whole time? “Y-y-your dad. He, uh…”

  “Yeah, he disappeared when I was a kid.” You’re still a kid, Isaac, thought Kate. We both are. But she remained silent. “I haven’t seen him in a long time,” Isaac continued. “I don’t even know if he’s…you know…still around.”

  Kate nodded. She opened her mouth to say something about her own father, but hesitated. Then she got mad at herself for hesitating. What was there to worry about? This was Isaac, for Pete’s sake! “M-m…my dad d-d-disappeared too,” she said. “Only h-he didn’t m-m-mean to.” Her voice actually quavered toward the end. She hoped Isaac hadn’t heard it. She couldn’t remember how much Isaac already knew about Nicholas Carter–missing, presumed dead.

  “I heard about that,” said Isaac. “Sorry.” His apology sounded so awkward and weird, like he was personally apologizing for doing something, that Kate bit her lip to keep from laughing. Now was not the time to be laughing!

  “What d-do you re-remember about your f-father?” she asked.

  Isaac shrugged. “Not much. I remember watching stars with him, though.”

  “Is that w-w- is that why you like st-stars so much?”

  “I guess. Maybe?”

  Kate looked up at the sky. More and more of it opened up as they crept out from under the looming cathedral. “M-my father w-was a b-bri-a brilliant scientist!” she proclaimed to the big empty space in front of her. “He wa-he was going to ch-cha-change the world!” She reached up and wiped the corners of her eyes,.

  “Well, everyone changes the world in some kind o—”

  “Okay, Isaac.”

  “I remember reading about him, though,” said Isaac, undeterred. “What about your mom?”

  “I n-never had one.”

  “I mean, you have to have had a mom at some po–”

  “I g-g-get it, Isaac.”

  “Unless maybe you were like made in a lab! Like some kind of clone or–”

  “Shut up, Isaac!” Kaitlyn Carter suddenly gained a greater understanding of Eric's and Isaac’s strange relationship. Eric Walker could be a jerk, but Isaac Milton could be a real pain in the rear. Had she just never noticed, or was it just being with him in person? People were often different in person. She knew she probably was.

  “Well sorry,” said Isaac. “I don’t remember my mom at all. She died when I was born.” Kate couldn’t see his face; she couldn’t tell how serious he was being about this. It was so hard to tell with Isaac! He sounded serious.

  “I’m actually pretty jealous, I guess, of you having grown up with a father,” he said. “Even before mine, you know, vanished away,” (he made magician-like disappearing gestures with his hands) “he was gone all the time.” Yeah, he was being serious. Kate didn’t know what to say about that, so she kept her mouth shut.

  Kate and Isaac followed their angels across the warm cement, out from under the crashed cathedral and up to the edge of a bright sunless sky. The cement ended in a smooth curve which arced back around to both the left and the right like the edge of a vast circle. A single path, a sidewalk, extended in a sinuous track deep into the sky directly ahead.

  “Hmm,” said Isaac. He walked right up to the edge and leaned over. Navi fluttered around him as though anxiously attempting to shoo him back. “I gotta say,” he said, “I’m a little lost.” He got down on his stomach, gripped the edge with his hands, and leaned over. “And I mean that, like, on multiple levels. Hey, come check this out.”

  Kate approached the edge near where the sidewalk began or ended, laid down next to Isaac and peered over with him. She saw that the cement upon which they had been walking was about ten centimeters thick, and that nothing supported it–either here, or back as far as they could see underneath, past where the cathedral had crashed. The rich azure heavens loomed below just as they did above.

  “Watch your glasses,” said Isaac when she took her first glance. This confused Kate for a moment. Watch her glasses? She was wearing them; how could she not watch them? She thought at first that perhaps this was some gag of typical Isaac-tier quality. She realized what he meant just a moment too late. Her prescription glasses, which had always had some trouble staying where they were supposed to be, fell off of her face and down into the beautiful abyss. Her vision blurred; she immediately lost track of them.

  “Charlie, I choose you!” shouted Isaac next to her. He made some kind of throwing motion with his arm. She understood at once.

  “Yeah!” she joined in. “G-go g-ge-g-get em!”

  Charlie (blurry form!) did return her glasses, undamaged. Kate and Isaac set out on a traversal of the sidewalk in the sky. Kate led the way. Isaac wondered out loud whether Kate was too hot in that lab coat and scarf. She was a bit warm, but at this point she felt like leaving them on just to show Isaac that he was wrong.

  More importantly, this place was beautiful. It gave the impression of walking on a path over a perfectly still sea that mirrored the sky overhead, but this was no reflection.

  And there were no horizons, no parts of the sky paler than others. The same deep, burning blue, everywhere. And all around hung pure white clouds, solid-looking clouds, waxy-white like the petals of lilies, not in discrete layers but stacked up and up into the vast distances. Most of them drifted far, far away. It was dizzying, like gazing deep into a void no matter where she looked.

  “It’s like sky all the way up,” said Isaac in a wondering voice when Kate stopped for a moment just to marvel at it.

  “I l-l-li- I love the sky,” Kate replied.

  “Did you know that Montana is called the Big Sky Country?”

  She shook her head.

  “Yeah, because it’s got, like, a…a big…uh, sky.”

  Kate glanced at him; he studiously gazed at anything but her.

  Kate’s phone buzzed. This reminded her that it rested in the pocket of her lab coat, which reminded her that she somehow hadn’t been able to reach Eric or Heidi. This in turn reminded her of what she had been trying not to think about: that Eric and Heidi had seen her after she fell, lying on the street, her blood everywhere, her insides perhaps spread like jelly all over the—

  Her legs gave out, and she fell to the cement of the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding a tumble right off the edge. She landed on her knees, gifting her kneecaps with bruises which would last for days. The heavy bass guitar clanged to the cement.

  Isaac shouted something; she felt his hand on her shoulder. She barely heard. She felt sick. The thought of her–herself–lying dead on the streets of Chicago…And Eric and Heidi seeing her like that and not knowing…and she herself not knowing, not for sure, whether she was going to die. That feeling came back to her as she gazed blankly into the blue and white abyss before her, that blinding dread, that numb terror.

  Pull yourself together, Kate!

  A flash of acrophobia made her recoil from the edge of the sidewalk. It shook her out of her grim memories.

  “Kate!” she heard Isaac say. “You okay? What’s wrong?”

  “I…I’m fine.” But she did not think she was very fine. This lab coat she was wearing, that she’d had so much fun making last year, was also somewhere on Earth, soaked in her blood, and Eric had seen her in it. And, oh god…what if Leah had also seen her? She strangled a sob. Leah was safe, or she should be. Alan would be there soon. And he would probably find Eric and Heidi, and then they would be okay too. Everyone would be okay. She would be okay.

  “Is it dying?” asked Isaac. “Er, having died, I mean? Is that bothering you?” He talked about it so casually.

  She drew her legs up to her chest, wincing at the fresh bruises rapidly developing on her knees, and sat there in the middle of the sidewalk. She smoothed her pink and green dress over her legs. This dress had come from her closet all the way back home. The colors had always appealed to her; she’d liked the thought of Eric and Heidi meeting her for the first time while she was wearing it. Now it seemed a little obnoxious.

  No wind, she realized suddenly. No wind here. And she had been uncomfortably warm before, but not now.

  “Hey, you’re okay now,” said Isaac in a lame but earnest attempt to comfort her.

  “B-b-but Eric and H-heidi s-sa-saw me,” she said, “after I f-f-fell. They…th-they must have bee-b-have been s-so w-w-wor-w-worried. And sad.”

  “Well hey, just think of how surprised they’ll be when they finally see you again. They’ll be like, ‘whoa, hey, it’s Kate! Like, what?’”

  His comforting skills needed some work.

  “Have you tried texting them?” he asked. “Here, in this, uh, Museum?”

  “Of course! B-but the messages won’t s-s-send. M-m-maybe we have to go through the d-doors first. I d-don’t know.”

  “Not knowing things is probably normal after you die,” said Isaac.

  “W-w-were you s-scared?” Damn it, her stutter made her sound like a blubbering child!

  “Nah,” he said without even pausing to think about it. “When I was actually dying, I mean. I was scared before I was shot, but as soon as I knew I was gonna die it was like…I was kind-of disappointed, and a little frustrated…but mostly I just thought I was going home. I was excited, actually.”

  Excited? He really did believe in Heaven. Eric was right; Isaac’s faith was no joke. “Too legit to fucking quit,” according to Eric.

  “Let’s go,” he said as he offered her a hand. “Further up, further in.” This sounded like a reference of sorts, but Kate didn’t get it.

  She accepted his hand and let him help her to her feet. He handed her guitar back to her. Charlie and Navi waited nearby on the sidewalk. Kate loved butterflies, and she already loved Navi, but right now she was jealous of Liz, who had an angel that could be hugged and cuddled with. She missed all of her stuffed animals back home! She didn’t even have Tal the Turtle anymore! Leah was probably taking good care of him.

  The bottomless void just a couple feet to either side, which had not made her nervous before, now frightened her a little. Isaac led the way.

  She walked a few steps before remembering what had brought on her brief panic. Her phone! Someone had tried to contact her! But who?

  When she saw the purple text, she first thought of Isaac. But it was not Isaac; it was Zayana, the girl she had seen before! It looked like she’d been trying to contact Kate for a while. She had left many messages.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Your phone works?” asked Isaac. “Who is it?”

  “Isaac!” she said. “Y-y-you will l-love this! It is a-an alien! And she st-st-studies the s-stars!”

  His eyes widened comically beneath his big stupid hat. “What?”

  She explained briefly about seeing this person before, here in the Museum. Then she looked past Isaac and asked, “D-di-did the sidewalk s-stop here b-be-before?”

  Isaac turned to look and stepped back in surprise. Kate was pretty sure the sidewalk had snaked off into the distance. She remembered mentally preparing herself for a very long walk. But now it stopped just beyond Isaac. Written on the last sidewalk square in blue chalk was the word JUMP! Little colored stars and clouds surrounded it. Kate wrestled with the possibility that the Dark Man, ever austere, had drawn this. She eventually decided: Nah. No way.

  But she did think they should jump. And Navi, who had been bouncing through the air ahead of them this whole way, dove and came back up, down and back up, miming a suggestion that they obey the chalk.

  Kate and Isaac leaned over the edge together, Zayana the Alien momentarily forgotten. Nothing but sky below. He looked at her. “We doing it?” Isaac appeared to understand that if the Museum told them to jump, it was probably okay. He looked to be adapting to the Museum remarkably well. At first, she’d thought that he was storing up for a freak-out later, but now she thought he was just accepting all of it as real. Good. He was a natural!

  Kate narrowed her eyes at the space below. She was not scared of heights. Not! It was flying she hated; this was just falling, and she did that perfectly well.

  She swallowed, clenched her teeth, and nodded. But she didn’t move. She couldn’t take that step forward.

  She noticed Isaac holding something out to her. No, not something—his hand. They both looked ahead into the sky, not at each other, as Kate took his hand.

  Isaac counted them off: “Uh, three…two…one.”

  They jumped out into the sky.

  They fell for only a minute, during which Kaitlyn was concerned with keeping her dress, her lab coat, and her scarf under control, while also making sure to keep her glasses on, all while maintaining a death grip on Isaac’s hand with her right hand and clinging to her bass with her left. Isaac looked at her as they tumbled through the piercing blue, one hand clamping his big goofy hat down atop his head, and he grinned at her.

  But things calmed down after the first minute. A sensation of weightlessness gradually superseded the experience of falling. Another minute, and they felt no wind, and the clouds in the distance no longer passed them by as they fell. Agoraphobia replaced acrophobia, and Kaitlyn became keenly aware of an incredible sense of space. No horizons here, no outer limits, and nothing but distant clouds by which to mark their surroundings.

  “So the astronomer alien,” Isaac prompted.

  She looked at him. They were still holding hands–probably a good idea if they didn’t want to drift apart here. But it still felt a little awkward. His hand was a little sweaty.

  Kate removed the colorful red-purple-pink snowflake scarf from around her neck and handed one end of it to Isaac. She demonstrated what it was for by wordlessly tying her end of it to her hand, letting go of his.

  Kate’s interests were conflicted: texting an astronomer alien was cool, but so was weightlessness. Isaac seemed unimpressed by the weightlessness, maybe because he knew all about astronauts in space? But he was right: Zayana first.

  Kate checked her phone.

  ZA: Kaitlyn Carter?

  ZA: Are you receiving this?

  ZA: I was woken up from the dream last week. What were you saying about doors?

  ZA: Please respond when you are able

  Kate began reading this to Isaac, but he became impatient with her stutter and demanded that he be the one to read them out loud. She reluctantly turned over her phone.

  In normal circumstances, Kate’s phone would group together messages sent within a certain period of time. It would differentiate these periods by providing information about when the next message or cluster of messages had been sent. But the time function was all corrupted here in the Museum, leaving only garbled gibberish where a time and date usually went. Kate could only tell that Zayana had sent a number of clusters of messages.

  ZA: Kaitlyn Carter?

  ZA: Still not here?

  ZA: That is too bad. I have many questions.

  ZA: Don’t we all.

  ZA: Kaitlyn Carter?

  ZA: Perhaps our interaction was a one-time event.

  ZA: Nevertheless you are the only individual with whom I have spoken in this place.

  ZA: Our interaction, brief though it was, was certainly more pleasant than most of those I have with my compatriots in the waking world.

  ZA: And it gets lonely here.

  ZA: This place is so empty.

  ZA: Its size and variety appear to be limitless. Yet it stands apparently devoid of any inhabitants.

  ZA: If we meet again

  ZA: If it is not too forward

  ZA: I think I would like to hear your Song.

  ZA: Kaitlyn Carter.

  ZA: You were real, weren’t you?

  ZA: Maybe your reality too was a one-time event.

  ZA: Such things seem possible here.

  ZA: If you are receiving this, please respond.

  ZA: There is someone else here. He is not a daimon like us. He is something else. I think he belongs here.

  ZA: He has been following me. I hear footsteps.

  ZA: I hope I am not falling to paranoia.

  ZA: Kaitlyn Carter.

  ZA: Last week I checked for that name on all the databases I could find.

  ZA: Those that remain.

  ZA: Your name was not there, of course.

  ZA: I suspected as much. Carter is a strange second name. I would have been interested to hear how you earned it, if not for my conviction that it is a cover.

  ZA: I understand. I have had to use cover names in the past.

  ZA: I still believe you were real, however. Maybe I believe it only to reassure myself that I am not talking to a figment of my imagination.

  ZA: I still feel the presence of the strange man now and then. I now believe that he is in some way a custodian of this place. Although he makes me uneasy, I do not believe he means me any harm.

  ZA: Things are getting bad out there, Kaitlyn Carter. If you are real, and if you are somehow reading this, I hope you are safe.

  ZA: Some say safety lies in the stars. Most of my friends disagree. They are correct. Nowhere is safe.

  ZA: Have you been to the far reaches of this place, Kaitlyn Carter? Have you seen the visions out there?

  ZA: They portray the future. Possibilities.

  ZA: There may be a way out.

  ZA: There is a way out, Kaitlyn Carter.

  ZA: I still think you were real, incidentally.

  ZA: I hope you are safe. I hope you see this.

  ZA: Probably the Darkness has taken you.

  ZA: If you are reading this, and if it is not too late, please try to find me. I am princess Zayana of Meszria. Perhaps you already knew that.

  ZA: I tried asking the custodian here about you. He is tight-lipped. Perhaps you knew that as well.

  ZA: Something of great import will soon take place.

  ZA: I mean beyond that which is ending the world as I dream here.

  ZA: The things I have seen here on the far horizons of this place–the Museum, as you called it–have led me to believe that there is a way out. A way to escape the end of the world, and perhaps fix it.

  ZA: There is little time, but I will try to come here once more before it happens.

  ZA: Kaitlyn Carter.

  ZA: Is it strange that I feel such kinship for you when we spoke only once, briefly, months ago?

  ZA: It will happen very soon.

  ZA: We are going to end the world prematurely in an attempt to save it.

  ZA: This event has been named a “Cascade,” although my choleric associate prefers the term “Kaleidoscope.”

  ZA: Regardless, I have been found by a creature which, I believe, will permanently take me to this place. All of us, I hope.

  ZA: Well.

  ZA: I imagine we will never speak again.

  ZA: I am only trying to comfort myself.

  ZA: I am afraid.

  ZA: Goodbye, Kaitlyn Carter.

  Isaac stopped for questions frequently as he read; Kate shushed him every time, telling him to hold all questions until the end. When he finished reading, they pondered in silence for a moment. Isaac had drifted upside-down and turned partway around in relation to Kate.

  “So when exactly did you first talk to this person? This, uh, princess?” He made no attempt to hide the skepticism in his voice. He knew she liked fairy tales and princesses and there was nothing wrong with that!

  “I s-saw her t-to-today! On the p-plane.”

  “Hmm,” said Isaac. “Well I guess time is weird here. Like Narnia.”

  Kate nodded.

  “Now, Meszria…that sounds familiar,” said Isaac.

  This brought Kate to full attention. “G-g-go on,” she said. But he shook his head; no luck in the memory department.

  “I think I read it in a book or something? Dunno.”

  “Hmm,” said Kate.

  “Wait,” said Isaac, “you saw her?”

  She nodded. “Y-yeah! Sh-she was v-very pretty.” She told Isaac about the alien, how she’d had violet jewels on her hair and face, how she’d been roughly humanoid in shape and form, though with grayish skin, how she had looked feminine although she had no breasts–perhaps because her species didn’t lactate or because she was not yet a mature adult.

  Isaac was fascinated, as well as embarrassed about the part with the breasts, which was funny, but Kate soon ran out of details to give. She’d only got a glimpse!

  A thought suddenly occurred to her, making her gasp. She reeled Isaac in by the scarf, seized his jacket, and shook him. “Isaac!” she exclaimed. “How is she t-te-texting if she’s b-bl-b-if she’s blind, Isaac?!”

  Unfazed by her assault, Isaac rubbed his beardless chin in speculation. “Perhaps she meant it metaphorically.” He said this in a vaguely silly voice (posh and refined) that made her think he was making fun of her somehow. She released him and he at once began to drift around in a tight rotation. “Or maybe she’s just using a speech-to-text program,” he said, his back now facing her. “You know, she sounded kind of like Liz.”

  “I h-ho- I hope she’s okay,” said Kate. Navi appeared in front of her. Kate couldn’t tell whether she teleported there or just emerged from behind a white cloud. Navi and Charlie had excellent camouflage here.

  “She didn’t sound okay. Or did you mean Liz?” said Isaac. “She’s got Callie, right?”

  “B-b-but you had Ch-Charlie,” said Kate.

  “Yeah, I was wondering about that,” said Isaac. “Not much help when I was getting shot, were you?” He jabbed a finger at something behind Kate. “And not only that, but how can you even fly here? In no-gravity? And that goes for you, too.” He swiveled to Navi, who indeed appeared to encounter no difficulty in flitting about even in zero-G.

  “I w-wo- I wonder w-what Eric’s angel is!” said Kate. “A-and Heidi’s. I n-ne-never saw theirs.”

  “Never saw?” Isaac looked speculative now.

  Kate nodded. No point in keeping it a secret anymore. “There are p-places here w-where you can c-ca-catch glimpses. You can see the f-fu- the possibilities. It’s full of w-wha-what-ifs, and maybes.”

  “What-ifs and maybes,” said Isaac. “What else should I know about this place? The Museum.”

  “It’s full of d-doors. All kinds! Y-you just need the r-ri- the right key.”

  “Such as, for instance, the angels,” said Isaac. She watched him processing it; making connections.

  “I see,” he said after a moment. “So it’s like Sigil.”

  “L-like what?”

  “Sigil, the City of Doors! From Planescape, remember? You said you played at least a little bit, right?”

  Oh yeah! She had. She remembered vaguely now. Sigil had been a weird place that was full of portals to other planes of existence. It checked out. She nodded at Isaac.

  “Do you know where we need to go next?” he asked.

  She nodded again. “W-we need to f-fi-find our doors! There w-will be six doors, in a he-hexagon.”

  Isaac, now upside-down in relation to Kate, looked surprised. “Like what Jim was talking about that one time during our game?”

  Boy, he sure was sharp. It was easy to forget that.

  He didn’t wait for a response. Instead, he whistled. Charlie (meadowlark form!) appeared between him and Kate in a flash of white. “Charlie!” he called out in a grandiose wizardly voice. “Take us to the six-fold doors!”

  Kate laughed and began to say that she thought they’d have to find their own way, but Charlie flapped his wings before she could finish. He just flapped his wings, that was all, but his pure-white wings swept over her vision, blinding her to all else. When they passed, not a second later, gravity reasserted itself. She fell a couple feet onto a carpeted floor. The impact knocked the breath from her, and her bass guitar landed nearby with a heavy thud.

  Charlie had taken them to the part that actually resembled an ornate museum barren of displays, or perhaps an upscale hotel barren of people. Overhead, Navi fluttered around a golden chandelier which hung from an arched-marble dome.

  She stood. Potted plants and tapestries, Japanese-style folding doors with abstract patterns inked on them, park benches against one wall, a film of water flowing silently down an incline of black granite on the other. The smell of a greenhouse. The water ran into a wide trough that rippled with the current.

  Isaac sat at her feet, gazing about with childlike curiosity. She snatched the hat off his head and threw it Frisbee-style into the elegant waterfall against the wall. “Hi-yaa!!” It cut through the air in a graceful upward swoop, looped back around, and then dove directly into the flowing film of water.

  “Hey!” said Isaac, although he continued to just sit there without doing anything.

  The hat slid down into the trough of water. It floated there, partially submerged. Kate fished it out and returned to Isaac with it up against her face. She inhaled deeply. Yes . It did smell like horses! The sweet, musky scent brought back memories. “W-we used t-to have horses,” she told him. “Aunt Becky knew h-how to sh-shoe them and take ca-c- take care of them.” Aunt Becky sold them after Kate’s dad had vanished. Nobody liked the horses more than Nicholas Carter, and Aunt Becky didn’t want to be reminded of her half-brother’s absence.

  Isaac snatched the hat back and plopped it, dripping wet, onto his head–but not before taking a deep smell of his own. “Reminds me of the 4 th of July rodeo back home,” he said.

  Kate offered him the end of her bass to help him to his feet. She strummed a few open fifths on it, just to reassure herself that it still functioned. It did, even without an amp or power supply. As always, the Museum subtly responded. Did the plants nearby perk up a bit? Did the steady light from the golden chandelier flicker, just a little? Did the patterns of ink on the folding doors shift? Maybe. Maybe.

  Charlie (heron form!) perched on the edge of the water, watching the ripples. Navi flitted up and alighted gracefully on the end of his long beak. The eyeless white heron gracefully turned its head this way and that in an attempt to get a better look at whatever had landed on his beak.

  Isaac handed her back her scarf. The room was too warm to allow for wearing it, so she bunched it up and stuffed it into a pocket of her lab coat.

  They left through the only exit, a black marble arch that opened into a short hallway lined with doors. Each of these doors, maybe a dozen, displayed a different color, and were carved with different abstract patterns. It was almost certain that these doors were locked, and if she and Isaac tried to get them open anyway, then the Dark Man might show up, and he might possibly even be a bit cross.

  That was all right, though. The door they wanted stood at the far end. It did not look at all out of place in the Museum, except for the symbol of the hexagon painted on it, divided into six equal parts.

  “That’s the one?” asked Isaac.

  Kate nodded as they approached. Their angels flew before them and settled on either side of the door like unusual sentinels. Charlie looked at the door expectantly. Navi might have been doing the same; it was hard to tell with butterflies.

  Kate had known this moment would come, or had hoped for it, for a while now. But here it was. She knew only a little about what was on the other side of this door, and what it meant. A lot of the things she knew were not good. They made her afraid. But something exciting waited too, something like beautiful music in a cold, dark place. She shivered with excitement.

  She grasped the shiny golden doorknob and entered. Six plain grey walls made a hexagon of the small room within. Lines on the grey stone floor divided the room into six equilateral triangles about ten feet to a side. Equilateral triangles could tessellate forever; so could regular hexagons.

  Six triangles, six symbols, six doors. Kate knew hers right away: the snowflake. She knew Isaac’s too. Charlie stalked gracefully, still in heron form, to the door corresponding to the cube, Isaac’s symbol. Isaac had the weirdest door of them all! It was just a silvery arch with buttons and screens and stuff on the sides like some science-fiction portal. “Whoa!” he said when he saw it. He practically ran over to the door to make a closer inspection.

  Spiraling filaments of gold and silver traced the brightly colored glass on Kate's own door, all within a frame of burnished bronze and lacquered pink wood. She couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t know what lay on the other side, but she sure was excited to find out!

  Electronic sounds and flashing lights behind her indicated that Isaac had done something with his door. He began to say something, but a gust of air that blew Kate’s hair around her face interrupted him, followed by a hiss of pressurization.

  Kate spun around and was not surprised to see Isaac and his angel gone. Lights blinked on his metallic arch of a door and tendrils of steam crawled along the floor where he had stood.

  Kate took a deep breath. Her turn.

  She reached out for the fancifully curved doorknob and rested a hand upon it. With her other hand, she raised the bass before her. Navi came and landed upon the neck. Kate smiled at her and imagined Navi smiling back in encouragement.

  She closed her eyes, opened her door, and stepped through.