“So you don’t know what I like to do?” Leven challenged, panting with exertion.
“Of course I do, don’t get me started,” Clover said. “Do you think these stairs are getting steeper?”
“Name one thing I like to do,” Leven smiled, not letting it drop. “Here, I’ll help. Antsel liked to read the stars, and I like to . . .”
“Make little shadow puppets with my hands,” Clover said.
“I do?” Leven asked, confused.
“Oh, you? I get it now. I thought you meant me. Here, try again.”
Leven laughed, and as he did so his eyes flared just a bit, lighting the cavern and showing off details. The stairs looked like they went on forever, and there were dark markings on the cavern walls. None of them made any sense to Leven.
“Okay,” Leven said. “I like to . . .”
“Sing?”
“Have you ever heard me sing before?”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy it.”
“Try again.”
“Eat things?” Clover guessed.
“I like to eat things?”
“Well, don’t you?” Clover asked, shifting down onto Leven’s right shoulder. “Let’s say you stopped eating. That’d be awful.”
“Eating doesn’t count,” Leven said. “I like . . .”
“Bathroom products?”
“Bathroom products?” Leven laughed. “What does that mean?”
“Well, I don’t know everything,” Clover admitted. “And I’ve always respected your privacy. So maybe you use a lot of shampoo and gel in the bathroom.”
“Amazing,” Leven said. “You’ve watched me for all these years and you still have no idea what I like.”
“It’s not easy,” Clover said. “You try doing me.”
“What do you like?” Leven asked. “That’s easy. Twigs, toothpaste, anything that shines, food that is served in the shape of another food, your reflection, trap doors, misshapen dice, banana flavoring but not actual bananas, pants that have lots of pockets, friendly looking stuffed animals . . . should I go on?”
“I didn’t know we were talking about general stuff.”
“Should I get more specific?” Leven asked. “How about Lilly?
Clover shook and then disappeared. “How do you know about Lilly?” he asked five stairs later.
“You’ve only mentioned her about two hundred times,” Leven huffed. “Whenever you make up a story, the female is always named Lilly. You talk about your favorite flower being a lily. You say ’lilly-nilly’ instead of ’willy-nilly,’ which is probably why you even use that expression at all, because nobody else does anymore. And you wrote ’I love Lilly’ across the bottom of my bed back in Reality.”
“You knew about that?” Clover asked.
“I saw it when I was looking for my missing shirt.”
“The world is one amazing circle,” Clover said reflectively.
“I didn’t figure out that you wrote it until later when you showed yourself and started talking about Lilly.”
“She was in one of my classes,” Clover admitted.
“How sweet,” Leven said, tired from moving up so many stairs. “What happened with her?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Clover said sadly. “I’ve been hoping that now that I’m back, things will sort of pick up.”
“Keep hoping,” Leven huffed. “Now, about the Want?”
“I really don’t know much about him,” Clover said. “He sees and controls the feel of Foo.”
Leven stopped to catch his breath.
“I’d carry you if I could,” Clover said casually.
“I’m sure you would.”
They sat silently for a moment.
“I just want to know what I’m heading into,” Leven said, beginning to climb again. “I hope Geth is right about this.”
“I guess you’ll find out either way.”
“Comforting,” Leven said, pushing up the steps.
The stone stairs turned and leveled out a little.
“Maybe we’re getting close to the top,” Clover said hopefully.
Leven began to move faster, the thought of reaching the end incredibly exhilarating. The steps became smaller and smaller and some source of light could be seen in the distance. Twelve steps later the stairs ran out, and Leven and Clover were standing in a long, empty tunnel. Leven moved through the tunnel heading toward the light—the soft sound of a fire humming in the distance.
“Do you think it’s safe?” Clover whispered from Leven’s right shoulder.
“I don’t care,” Leven said. “As long as it’s not stairs.”
Leven stepped through the end of the tunnel and into a round, tubelike room that went straight up hundreds of feet. There were lit torches tied to the walls about every fifty feet up and a wooden staircase that appeared to circle endlessly up the walls. The bottom of the stairs didn’t reach to the ground; there was only a worn rope that hung from a dusty railing.
Leven moaned.
“Fate’s not always kind,” Clover said. “But I suppose this is funny on some level.”
“Maybe the level at the top,” Leven said, his sweaty hair sticking to his forehead.
“I’m sure we’ll look back at this and laugh.”
The torches hummed in harmony.
“There has to be another way,” Leven complained, ignoring Clover.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Clover tried to comfort. “We can take as many breaks as you need. But I think we need to go as fast as we can between those breaks.”
Leven walked to the hanging rope and pulled on it. The bottom of the stairs lowered and came to rest right in front of him. He looked up and tried to count the torches.
“It probably won’t get any shorter by our waiting,” Clover said sympathetically while patting Leven on the head.
Leven took the steps two at a time.
Chapter Twelve
Big Bold Words at the Beginning of a Chapter
Some days are better than others. True, most consist of twenty-four hours; or one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes; or eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds, and on an average day the sun rises, crests, and then dips back down in an effort to give the moon some “me time.” But sometimes the things that happen during those eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds are significantly better than what occurs during the typical day.
Perhaps you win an award one day. Maybe you get your hair cut by someone who finally does a decent job. Or what if you’re not one of those people who takes cars for granted, and one day you finally get a new one.
That’s not a bad day.
Better yet, one day you get a job you love, or you find the world’s biggest diamond in your sock drawer, or you uncover a completely intact skeleton from a new species of dinosaur in your backyard while weeding.
Nice day indeed.
Or maybe, just maybe, you find that one person who makes all other people seem dull and lifeless and uninteresting—and that one person actually loves you back.
If so, congratulations.
Tim had one of those days years ago when he met his wife, Wendy, at a public library. She had been looking for a book about Charles de Gaulle, and Tim had wanted to brush up on what he knew about the life of Leonardo da Vinci.
Their hands brushed as they were both reaching for the dead stars.
Tim said, “Excuse me.”
Wendy said, “You’re excused.”
Three months later they were married in a small church on a tall hill with a few close friends on hand. Tim had loved Wendy from the start. Now, however, he couldn’t even remember her. His life was a confusing and dark fog, made even more complicated by the maniac who bossed him around and the angry toothpick that wouldn’t leave him alone.
“What’s that smell?” Ezra complained.
“Again with the smell,” Dennis barked. “It’s hot tar.”
“Well, it’s offensive.”
Tim smoothed the tar dow
n on the bottom of the box. It was hot and sticky and reminded him of Sabine as he had oozed back into Dennis after he had rained on the telt.
The incident had changed Tim.
It had pushed him from confused dolt to semiactive participant. It had sufficiently smothered his brain that he now thought only of the cause at hand. Not to mention the fact that he had enjoyed the powerful feeling of pulling Sabine from the clouds. Tim now spent a lot of time staring at his arm and wondering what else he was capable of.
He had forgotten about Wendy.
He had forgotten about Winter, and he had forgotten about his two sons. To him, Rochester and Darcy were simply characters from a novel he had once read.
Tim was no longer Tim.
“This will take us to Foo?” Tim asked, motioning to the box he was working on.
“Yes,” Dennis replied. “To Foo and back many times.”
“Because?” Tim asked honestly.
Dennis breathed in slowly, as if he were trying to calm himself. “Because it will give us the full power of Foo here in Reality,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not just avalands and telts. The full power—all gifts and all possibilities.”
“And me?” Tim asked meekly.
Dennis looked at him and smiled, a black line of Sabine circling around his bald head.
“You?” Dennis asked.
Tim nodded.
“Well, you will stand by my side and experience the kind of power and respect you never thought possible.”
Tim smiled.
“And Ezra?” he asked.
Dennis looked over at Ezra, who was busy swearing at a bird that wouldn’t stop singing.
“Ezra has a place,” Dennis whispered harshly. “There is someone he needs to . . . connect with.”
“Leven?” Tim asked, sounding like a child who wasn’t quite sure he knew the answer.
Dennis’s ears became dark black and then faded. A patch of rot ran up and down each of his arms.
“Not Leven!” Dennis said. “The work you are doing now is the result of Leven treading where he had no right to tread. He has purposefully postponed the most triumphant thing that will ever happen to mankind, and he will regret every move he has made.”
Tim smiled as if he were supposed to.
Dennis put his hand on Tim’s shoulder. The attention lit Tim up. He looked liked he had just won something of great value.
Dennis squeezed Tim’s shoulder until Tim hoarsely cried out in pain.
“Build faster,” Dennis demanded. “No more questions. Understand?”
Dennis let go and looked at Tim like he was ashamed of him. Tim rubbed his shoulder and pushed out some more hot tar across the base of the new gateway. His brain was no longer his own, but in that moment he remembered a secret.
Tim remembered that he hated Dennis.
He also knew he needed to keep that secret from certain parts of his own brain until just the right time arrived.
Chapter Thirteen
Bruised
When Leven was only ten years old, his life was less than shining, unless you are referencing a shining bruise. His home life was miserable and as boring as an invisible parade marching down a dry, barren road on a Sunday.
His mother’s half sister, Addy, and her husband, Terry, were in charge of Leven, but, as they had said often, they would have much preferred not having him around. Terry would chastise and chase Leven out of the house whenever he was home and Addy would constantly complain about the doltlike burden her half sister had put on her overworked and underappreciated shoulders. If Leven wasn’t being scolded or doing chores he was out on his bed on the back porch, alone with his thoughts and dreaming of being someone other than who he was.
School wasn’t any better.
His teachers at Franklin M. Pinchworthy Elementary were so overworked, they never had the time to even learn their students’ names. School at Pinchworthy was all about taking tests: tests to see how well you did at math, how much you knew about science, how many words you could read while standing, how many countries you could paint, how many pencils you could sharpen while blindfolded.
Always tests.
The teachers would then take the tests to the Powers That Be to show them how smart the children they didn’t have time to teach really were. Leven had tried to do well, but it was hard to stand out in a school where no one really had a name—where everyone was just a number on the top of another ridiculous test.
Leven was number 1313.
During Leven’s sixth year at Pinchworthy there had been so many tests that the teachers didn’t have time to keep track of anyone’s grades. So they were forced to base each student’s entire grade on one final exam. Well, thanks to all the tests they had taken during the year, they were completely out of paper. So the teachers met and decided to put on a learning long jump. The wisdom, or lack thereof, was that the student’s final grade would come from how far he or she could jump.
Leven was a great jumper, but, just to be sure, he practiced and practiced out in the field behind his house the entire afternoon before. When the next day rolled around and he took his turn in front of everyone, he beat the record by two full inches. But instead of congratulating and celebrating him, the teachers figured he must have cheated and gave Leven a D. Even though he had made the jump in front of everyone and it was clear what he had done, he received a D for cheating.
“I didn’t cheat,” Leven pointed out.
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” the teacher said unnecessarily, her gray hair and tired eyes making that point perfectly clear.
Leven had taken the D home and showed it to Addy. Terry in turn had given him a licking for being such a failure, and Leven had spent the evening out on the porch lying on his small bed with his hopes and soul dying just a bit more, and his legs burning in pain from all the practice he had put in the day before.
Leven half wished he was back on that porch feeling awful and suffering from the way his legs had burned then. Because now, after the hundreds and hundreds of stairs he had been climbing, his legs felt like they were going to spontaneously combust and turn into a pile of smoldering ash. His chest heaved, and each breath he sucked in felt like he was swallowing a wad of thick, dry clay.
Leven stopped, desperately trying to catch his breath.
“You’ll sleep well tonight,” Clover observed, appearing on Leven’s left shoulder.
Clover was eating something.
“I . . .” Leven couldn’t finish.
“We have to be getting closer,” Clover said, looking down the stairs they had already climbed. He then looked up and moaned. “Well, maybe not.”
“This . . . is ridiculous,” Leven growled, sitting down on the stairs. “I can’t go any farther.”
“You know your limits,” Clover said, chewing.
“Don’t you have anything in that void to drink?” Leven said, gasping for air. “My lungs . . . are burning.”
Clover fished around in his void. “I’m not sure I do. Oh yeah, I forgot I had this.” He pulled out a small, bladder-shaped canteen.
Leven grabbed it and lifted it to his lips. Then he paused, lowering the bladder. “I don’t know,” he said skeptically. “Maybe I should wait. What is this stuff?”
“Don’t worry. There’s nothing fun about that,” Clover complained. “It’s just water.”
“Water that does what?”
“Quenches your thirst?”
“That’s it?”
Clover nodded as he chewed.
Leven took a sip and tasted it. He looked at his arms and legs to see if there were any changes.
Everything was normal.
Leven shrugged his shoulders and downed the entire bladder. Not only was it water, but it was the best water he had ever tasted. It was so cool and ran down his burning throat like ice cream. He could feel it hydrating his entire body. He squeezed every last drop out of the canteen and then reluctantly handed the empty container back to Clover.
 
; “Thanks,” Leven said with great sincerity. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted better water.”
“No problem,” Clover said. “I could tell you needed it.”
“Now,” Leven said, “we need . . . wait, what were we doing?”
Clover just sat there trying to look innocent.
“Weren’t we going up?” Leven asked.
“Wow, it’s working fast on you,” Clover said.
“What?” Leven asked, confused.
“The water,” Clover explained. “You’re already forgetting.”
“What are you taking about?”
“That water’s from the Veil Sea. It’ll make you forget things. You know, give you kind of a spotty memory for a few minutes.”
Leven’s face grew angry. “I think I remember you saying it wouldn’t do anything,” he said, blinking.
“That’s true,” Clover said, taking the last bite of what he was eating and dusting his palms together. “And normally I don’t like to lie, but I could tell you were thirsty. Plus, I knew that after you drank it you would eventually forget what I told you.”
Leven didn’t seem to understand what Clover was saying. He blinked his eyes and looked up the stairs.
“Are we headed up or down?” Leven asked.
Clover smiled. “Up.”
“My legs hurt,” Leven complained.
“Do they?” Clover said. “Odd. Maybe they’ll feel better if you climb a bit.”
That seemed to make sense to Leven. He stood and looked up. “Are we in a hurry?” he asked, still disoriented.
Clover nodded, “A great hurry.”
Leven began running up the stairs, unable to remember clearly why his legs were burning so horribly.
ii
Geth felt a bit hopeless, and he hated the feeling. It tore at his body like an angry cat and irritated his soul as if it were a sweater made out of barbed wire.
Lithens were nothing without hope.
But a bit of bleakness had settled into his heart, and he was fighting himself to shake it off.
His current situation wasn’t helping.
At the moment Winter and Geth were tied to the mast of a small ship that was making its way across the Veil Sea, weaving in and out through a maze of thick fog. Both of their heads were covered with dark cloth sacks. They had been tied up on their knees with their ankles and wrists bound to the mast behind them. Winter was still unconscious. Azure had cruelly shoved pitch reed up their noses, knowing it would knock them out for a couple of hours.