"Trust me," said Kevin, "none of it is supposed to be here."
They climbed down the not-quite-straight stairs, opened the not-quite-rectangular door to the garage, and stepped in.
The garage had taken on the same dreamlike quality as the rest of the house. The ceiling seemed to disappear into darkness; the cinder-block walls were damp and covered with mildew. The air was stagnant, like the inside of a tomb, and in the corner, the boiler had begun to take the shape of a face, with the fiery mouth of an iron monster.
The glasses sparked once, and whack! a door that had never been there before appeared against the far wall.
"What's on the other side of the door?" asked Josh.
"Disneyland," said Kevin with a sigh.
No one felt like checking.
"Drain the glasses, Kevin," said Teri. "Do it now."
With the simplest thought, Kevin snuffed out the gas fire beneath the boiler, and blew out the single light bulb against the wall. Weeds sprouted up, blocking out the light pouring in around the big garage door. They sat down in a tight circle in the middle of the room.
"Mom will be home soon," said Teri.
"Shh," said Kevin. "This won't take very long." The temperature in the room was already dropping. The glasses still sparked every few seconds, like a slow strobe light, and in the darkness around them objects splat and clanged and fluttered by with each spark. No one moved. No one wanted to know what miscreations—animal, mineral, or vegetable—haunted the house around them.
"Know any good ghost stories?" said Teri.
"Don't even . . ." warned Kevin.
Fifteen minutes later the room was in a deep freeze. Kevin could hear Josh and Teri's teeth chattering along with his own—but it was working. Now the glasses sparked only once or twice a minute.
Kevin's arms and legs felt lifeless, as if they were nothing more than bones with a faint memory of muscle. His joints ached, his head throbbed, and he wondered if he'd have to feel this way forever just to keep the world safe and sane. How long would he last? He wished he could see a future for himself, in a time long after he had escaped from this trap, but he couldn't see any future for himself at all.
A spark lit Josh's face. His skin seemed almost purple in that unearthly light, and Kevin began to wonder if he had, in fact, turned Josh purple. He felt fairly certain that he hadn't.
Josh spoke and when he did, his voice surprised everyone. It seemed hollow and airy, as if they were in an immense cavern, rather than a two-car garage.
"You know how we sometimes sit and talk about time travel and spaceships and the universe and stuff?" said Josh.
Kevin remembered those talks well. Every once in a while, when the mood was right, they would sit in Kevin's darkened room and freak each other out with really Big thoughts—all those wild impossibilities that came teasingly close to making sense.
"You mean you two actually talk about something other than girls and baseball cards?" said Teri.
"Sometimes," said Kevin, his voice weak and wispy.
Josh explained. "Like, what if the whole universe is actually a single atom in someone's fingernail, in another really gigantic universe? And, when you beam up to the Starship Enterprise, what happens to your soul and stuff? And, what if, when you die, you live your life all over again, only backwards?"
"Wow, really deep," said Teri. "I think you guys are retarded."
"Remember this one, Kev?" said Josh. "What if the whole universe is like just a single thought in God's mind?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Well," said Josh, "I think maybe you stole his thought . . . maybe now we're all inside your head instead."
The glasses had stopped sparking now. Kevin's strength was completely gone.
"I'm not God," croaked Kevin.
"No," said Josh, "you're not."
The glasses never did run down enough to stop working entirely. Perhaps they drew on radio waves and microwaves and who knew what other forms of energy that zipped invisibly through the air. The glasses were, however, too weak to spark those orphaned thoughts out of Kevin's mind.
With what little energy remained in the glasses, Kevin imagined a barge out in the middle of the ocean; then he imagined all the things he had created onto the barge. Finally, he imagined the barge torpedoed and sinking to the bottom of the sea. When the waves in his mind were clear of debris, he knew it had been done. All of the objects he had dreamt up were gone from the house—but he couldn't change everything. The mysterious doors were still there. The listing walls and crooked ceilings had not returned to normal.
In his bedroom, feeling like death's poorer cousin, Kevin curled up tight beneath his blanket. Josh kept him company. "You know, Josh, the worst part is that I don't even get into trouble for it," he croaked. "At least I could get grounded, or suspended or anything . . . but no one knows what awful things I've done."
"I know," whispered Josh.
Downstairs, the garage door ground into action as Kevin's mom returned home from work. His father would be home soon, too, but Kevin would be in a deep sleep that would, if he were lucky, take him to the far ends of the universe and let him stay there a long while.
Teri would cover for him, making up some completely reasonable story to explain why her brother was sleeping at five in the afternoon. His parents would believe it, or at least accept it—in any case, they wouldn't challenge it. His mom would feel his forehead and worry about the flu season. His father would promise to talk to Kevin about his strange sleeping habits, but by the morning, assuming Kevin acted halfway normal, his father would forget.
They don't ask because they 're afraid of the answer.
Kevin felt the icy talons of sleep drag him down into a numb, dreamless slumber.
Josh got barely a moment's rest that night. He had no way of knowing whether Kevin's glasses would begin to spark again. If they did, not even Josh's bedroom would be safe from Kevin's creations. The rules had changed; the only limit to what could happen was the limit of Kevin Midas's overactive imagination. Anyone could be a victim now.
Before they had climbed the mountain, Josh had always prided himself on never giving in to fear— but now it seemed-he was afraid of everything; shadows, noises—and worst of all, he was afraid of that awful feeling he would have when he woke up, of not really waking up at all—of waking up in what Mr. Kirkpatrick called "The Dream Time."
He had, once more, the urge to smash his fist against the wall, just so that he could feel real, normal pain in his knuckles. But now he was terrified to do even that . . . because what if he hit the wall and it turned out to be made of green cheese instead of plaster? Anything was possible as long as Kevin was stuck to those glasses, anything—from Santa Claus coming down the chimney to a child- eating monster hiding in his bedroom closet. How could he sleep? How could he ever close his eyes again?
"You're losing it, Bro," Josh told himself. "This must be what it feels like to go completely psycho."
Josh kept his vigil until the first rays of dawn, when he finally gave in to sleep.
CHAPTER 14
The Chariot of Helios
Kevin was hauled out of sleep by his alarm clock at seven in the morning. Even before opening his eyes, he knew that the glasses had begun to charge. They were feeding on the sunlight that was shining through his window and hitting his face. The crippling weakness he felt the night before was already gone, and when he opened his eyes, all seemed right with the world.
The crack on the left lens was actually healing itself. It was only half its original length, and from what Kevin could tell, it had stopped sparking.
He timidly swung out of bed and dressed, every moment expecting sparks to fly from the lens, but they did not come. By the time he went downstairs, he was actually beginning to believe that the worst could be over.
His father, already back from his morning run, was cooking breakfast today, which must havemeant he was celebrating the most recent pound he lost.
"I had a craving fo
r waffles and whipped cream," he said.
"Lucky us," said Kevin's mom.
Teri had already scarfed her first one down and was waiting for a second. The moment Kevin came into the room, she eyed him like a hawk.
"Feeling okay, Kev?" she asked.
"Couldn't be better."
"Early to bed and early to rise," said Mr. Midas. "A good night's sleep never hurt anyone." He dropped a waffle on Kevin's plate and squirted it full of whipped cream. "You must have been wiped out."
"You could say that," said Kevin.
"I like your glasses," commented Kevin's mom. "They're very sharp."
"I can't stand them," mumbled Teri. "I wish they would shrivel up and die."
"Teri," said Mrs. Midas, "if you don't have anything nice to say, then stuff your face." She plopped the remainder of her waffle on Teri's empty plate, then got up to clean the eggshell-and- Bisquick mess Mr. Midas had artfully created. She turned on the radio above the sink, and revolting Musak filled the room. Mrs. Midas claimed that this sort of music helped her window-box cuttings grow.
Currently it was winding down an unnatural violin version of "No Money Down, Deadman," one of Teri's favorite heavy-metal songs.
"I'm going to be sick," commented Teri, as she did every time her mother turned the station on.
For a moment, Kevin was able to forget his troubles, and he smiled a big whipped cream grin. These dumb family mornings were something he had never appreciated before.
"It's good to be back to normal," said Kevin.
On the radio, the song changed to a flowery choral version of "Sunrise, Sunset." Mom sang along, and that was always bad news, because Mom never remembered the words quite right.
" 'Sunrise, sunset,' " mumbled Mom. " 'Sunrise, sunset, quickly, day by day . . .' "
"Normal? There's nothing normal about this family," remarked Teri. "With or without your glasses, this place is a nuthouse."
Mr. Midas sat down with an oversized waffle and made it disappear beneath a mountain of whipped cream, while Mom continued to sing.
" 'One season da-de-da de dum-dum, lifetimes of happiness, my dear . . .' "
And then the morning was shattered by a single thought—one spark that sprang from the hairline fracture in Kevin's glasses.
Teri saw the spark and put her fork down.
"Kevin?"
Kevin sat, frozen, the color slipping from his face. "Oh no."
" 'Sunrise, sunset . . .' " their mother continued to hum.
"What did you do, Kevin? What were you thinking about?"
Kevin swallowed. "The song," he said. "I was thinking about the song."
"No! You didn't! Tell me that you didn't, Kevin! Tell me!"
Mr. Midas looked up from his plate. "Something wrong?"
That's when all hell broke loose. The glasses, which had been gradually building up energy all morning, had finally begun to spark once more, with wild and random bursts.
"Kevin, your eyes!" shouted his mother.
His father reached up and tried to pull the glasses off, only to find that they were no longer a fashion accessory. They were a part of his son.
"Kevin!" He screamed, terrified, and light-years away from understanding. "Kevin, what have you done to yourself?"
"No!" Kevin covered his eyes, and felt the sparks numbing his palms and twisting the world around him. With a spark, their radio was gone, thought out of existence as if it had been nothing more than a daydream. Another spark, and the radio station itself could not be found on any radio dial. Anywhere.
Kevin bolted for the stairs.
"Kevin!" His parents followed.
Teri stayed. She stood slowly and peered out the window, the chorus of the old tune still playing in her head. The sun hung just above the electrical tower on the hill, and it was slowly, slowly sinking into the eastern sky.
What was wrong with that? thought Teri. Was there something unusual about the sun setting at seven-thirty in the morning? Was there? Had it ever been any different? And Teri began to cry because she could not remember.
Kevin had scrambled upstairs with his panicking parents behind him. He raced down the abnormally long hall.
At the top of the stairs Mr. Midas paused for a split second. The doors, said a thought far in the back of his mind. Since when did this hallway have so many doors? He hesitated just long enough for Kevin to get to the bathroom and lock himself in.
In an instant, Kevin imagined the bathroom sealed off from the rest of the world as best he could. The window was blocked in with bricks and thick mortar, the bathroom door was welded to the frame in a searing flash of orange light. The vanity lights around the mirror blew out one by one, leaving the small room in darkness.
Kevin didn't have a plan yet, but he knew instinctively what he had to do. Weakening the glasses was not enough. He had to starve them. Starve them until they crumbled and faded out of existence.
"Call a doctor—the police—the fire department," raved his mother.
Kevin's father pounded on the door, begging to be let in.
"Whatever it is, Kevin, we'll help you! Please, son, talk to me!"
Talk to him? What was there to talk about now? Kevin felt a hot and heavy fury that flew out in all directions. Where had his dad been for the past two weeks? Where had he been for the past two years? How could he hope to instantly bridge a gap that had been growing this long?
All the pounding and whining at the door was too little too late—another one of his father's favorite expressions.
A thick tongue of electricity licked out from the outlet across the room and into the glasses. "No!" screamed Kevin, and the force from that single thought fought the electricity back, sending a surge through the wires that melted the circuit breakers and blew out the power throughout the house.
"My God, he's being electrocuted," cried his mom, sounding so helpless that Kevin could almost laugh.
"That's it, I'm breaking down the door!" Mr. Midas began to ram his shoulder against the door as hard as he could.
"Dad, don't!"
He rammed the door again. It bowed inward, but didn't give.
"Dad, please!"
He rammed the door again and again. Kevin cringed in the corner, putting his hands over his ears, and screamed.
"Stop it! Just leave me alone! Go away!"
The ramming stopped, and so did the yelling.
The silence that fell was so unnatural Kevin thought he had somehow wished away his sense of hearing. Then, in a moment, when his ears adjusted, he heard the ticking of the clock way downstairs.
"Mom? Dad?" No answer. The boulder Kevin had been feeling in the pit of his stomach rose until he could feel it in his throat.
Away.
He had sent them away. Not to Siberia, not to a barge in the ocean, not to any place they could ever return from. Just . . . away.
"Mom? Dad? . . . Teri? But his only answer was the ticking of the clock.
When Josh awoke, it was still dawn . . . and yet the clock read 8:00. He had been asleep for two hours, but the sun seemed no higher in the sky. He knew he was awake but kept having to slap his face to get rid of that god-awful dreamy feeling . . . and why was the sky so dark?
Downstairs his mother was cooking.
"You slept late today," she said as he stepped into the kitchen. "Wash up, dinner's almost ready."
At first he thought he hadn't heard her right— but he had.
The scene in the kitchen was too bizarre for words. It was eight in the morning, and his mother, only half dressed for work, was broiling lamb chops.
Then, as if that didn't beat all, Josh's father,'who had left for his office over an hour ago, returned home.
"How was your day?" asked Josh's mom.
"Short," said his dad. "Real short."
Josh just watched with a sort of mummified amazement. His mother took off her heels, probably not even realizing that she hadn't been in to work yet, and Josh looked outside again, noticing that the morning had go
tten even darker.
The sun's moving backwards! thought Josh. Not just that, but people have-suddenly decided that it's evening instead of morning. He could picture people turning around on their way to work or school and returning home, not even batting an eye.
But it couldn't be! The sun can't just change directions—the Earth can't just start spinning the other way. Such a change would cause earthquakes and mass destruction.
But those were the old rules, weren't they—and the old rules didn't count anymore. The world might as well be flat, and the sun might as well be on the back of a chariot that pulled it across the sky . . . because it was eight in the morning, and the sun was setting in the east.
Josh skipped his early dinner and paid an emergency call on Kevin Midas.
CHAPTER 15
The Keeper of Dreams
It was already dark when Josh reached Kevin's house, and no lights were on. He rang the bell but didn't hear it ring. He knocked but no one answered.
There's no reason to panic, Josh said to himself, not believing it in the least.
He climbed in through an open window and quickly discovered that the house had no electricity.
"Kevin? . . . Teri? . . . Mr. and Mrs. Midas? No answer. The close-cut curls on his head seemed to clench tighter.
He followed the smell of smoke to the kitchen, where a waffle iron was burning over a full gas flame. Josh turned off the burner.
"Kevin, where are you?"
He listened, and after a few moments he thought he heard a weak voice. "Kevin, is that you?"
"I'm up here, Josh," whispered the voice.
Josh climbed the stairs into darkness.
At the top of the stairs Josh saw, at the end of the dimly lit upstairs hallway, the bathroom door.
At first Josh couldn't tell what was wrong with it, but as he drew closer, he could see that a sheet of frost had gathered at the bottom of the door. He could hear something dragging itself across the floor on the other side.
"Kevin, are you in there?"