"Front to back. We need to all hold hands to make sure Eleni doesn't get left behind. My, what big teeth that dog has."
I could leave Eleni behind? Thank you for that information, Larry. After all, it was for her own good.
I had to turn around to face the gate. It looked just the same as ever, appearing to lead through to nothing more interesting than the neighbor's hydrangea bush, but I stepped toward it, trusting it would bring me to Kazaran Dahaani.
"My," Larry said, "what long legs that dog has."
"Larry," I couldn't help delaying to point out, "you're sounding like Little Red Riding Hood."
"No," Larry said, "I mean: What long legs he has."
The hysterical twang of his voice made me glance over my shoulder just as the dog cleared the fence.
Eleni squealed in terror as the animal charged us.
I couldn't leave her behind with that vicious dog.
I grabbed her hand.
Larry caught hold of my hair.
And we all fell through the gate together.
18. Of Course More Complications
I ran smack into something.
Escaping through the archway, my only concern had been to avoid becoming kibble specially formulated for ... well, whatever comes after large dogs. Humongous, snarling, slobbering, can-eat-small-children-in-a-single-bite dogs? Whatever. I'd been concentrating on not becoming any creature's lunch. With one hand, I was holding the lens to my eye so I could see; with the other, I was pulling my grandmother along behind me; and all the while I could still hear the furious barking. And I was hoping that was some sort of acoustical illusion of passing between worlds—because the quality of the light had changed, and I knew I had crossed over to Kazaran Dahaani. As all of this was going on— pow!—something and I collided.
Because of my panic, the image of what I'd run into didn't immediately make it from my retina to that part of my brain that makes sense of visual input. I had an impression of pale limbs, sparkles, and a flash of red before I went sprawling onto the ground, landing on someone, still dragging Eleni with me.
In Kazaran Dahaani, I didn't need glasses to see, which was good because I'd dropped the lens upon impact. From my position on the ground, I could clearly make out the fur on the rump of the dog as it leaped overhead to avoid the obstacle formed by Eleni and me and whoever we'd mowed down. I was aware of the dog skidding to a dusty stop on the path beyond us, then doing an about-face, and curling its doggy lips into a snarl directed—I was certain—at my throat. And I could hear a girl's high-pitched, hysterical screaming. Wasn't me, wasn't Eleni, wasn't the person with whom we'd collided.
Oh. That was okay then; it was just Larry. He was hovering in the air out of dog-jaw reach, his hands fluttering almost as fast as his iridescent wings. All of that registered before I caught sight of the strappy sandal of the person I'd run down. Then I saw the sparkly skirt. Then the red spaghetti-strap top, revealing more of a bony, age-spotted chest than anyone should ever have to see.
I'd run into Tiffanie Mills.
As her brain suddenly caught up with her retinas and she recognized me, her eyes widened, sending a whole mass of wrinkles up into her hairline—because here in Kazaran Dahaani, Tiffanie was in Ugly Mode.
I was tempted to scream right along with Larry, though the good news was that it didn't really make any difference what evil Tiffanie had planned for me: We had three sets of arms and legs entangled on the ground, and there was no way we could sort them all out before the dog would be feasting on our entrails. In fact, even as I thought that, the dog leaped at us.
"Stop!" Tiffanie commanded, managing to get her arm free and her hand held up like a traffic cop.
The dog stopped.
Midair.
Frozen, like a life-sized photo of an action shot, drops of spittle not attached to anything but suspended in the sunlight.
Larry, unwilling to witness our death-by-canine destruction, had fled somewhere between the time the dog's paws left the ground and before its movement—and its barking—had been magically stilled.
In the sudden silence, Tiffanie said, "Don't you give me any of that 'Just protecting myself' nonsense," which seemed an incredibly odd thing to say, until I noticed her shaking her finger at the dog, like a stern kindergarten teacher. "I'm guessing you've been bullied yourself, but that doesn't give you the right to bully others. I'm going to let you down now, but you behave yourself."
The dog lowered to the ground, like a helicopter landing, which apparently unfroze him. He gave a menacing growl, and Tiffanie said, "Don't you take that tone with me. Just tell me what happened."
The dog barked, but though it went on and on, it wasn't that deep-throated I'm-about-to-eat-you sound.
While Tiffanie listened, I pulled my left arm out from under her and my right leg out from under Eleni.
Eleni, I was amazed to see, was looking as though she'd just opened a door to find the Land of Oz on the other side. Which, I guess, she sort of had—a demented, cutthroat, Stephen King version of Oz. I motioned for her to pull her dress back down over her knees, even though it wasn't anywhere near as high up the leg as Tiffanie's. I guess I'd already spent too much time in the 1950s.
"Yes," Tiffanie was saying to the dog, and "Go on," still giving that impression of a firm but kindly primary schoolteacher—or a psychotherapist—and "How do you think that made them feel?"
The dog hung its head in shame.
"Exactly," Tiffanie said. "Making others feel small and frightened doesn't do anything to make you feel better about yourself."
The dog gave a doggy whine.
"I understand," Tiffanie said, "but that only makes you just like the dogs that picked on you when you were small. Is that what you want to be?"
More barking, whining, and growling, and Tiffanie nodded. "Yes," she said. "I think that's a much better idea. Now please excuse me a minute." Still sitting on the ground, she turned and faced me, her skinny, age-spotted hand on her hip. All sympathetic gentleness was gone. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.
Despite all the time I'd had to come up with a reasonable explanation in case she asked this most obvious of questions, all I could come up with was "Ahmm..."
Eleni extended her hand for a handshake and said, "You must be Tiffanie. Hi, my name is Eleni." How could anyone resist that smile?
Tiffanie glowered at her, then demanded of me, "What have you gone and done?"
"I haven't done anything," I protested.
"Where did you get those glasses you had back there, and what have you done with them, and why are you following me?"
"Ahmm...," I said again, but I was glancing around on the ground, trying to find that dropped lens.
I spotted it a second after Eleni did.
Tiffanie spotted it a second after I did.
Just as Eleni leaned forward and picked it up, Tiffanie caught hold of her wrist.
"Don't you hurt my—" I don't know if it would have made any difference if my grandmother learned about how many years separated us, but I couldn't bring myself to call someone who looked only a year or so older than me "grandmother," so I finished with "ancestor."
I could tell from the look Eleni gave me that she didn't much appreciate my word choice. She said to Tiffanie, sounding more intent on making a point to me than to Tiffanie, "Yeah, and don't you hurt my descendant."
But Tiffanie didn't let herself get distracted. She shook Eleni's wrist, and my grandmother's grip jostled loose. Tiffanie snatched the lens up and demanded, "Where's the other one?"
I figured the truth couldn't get me into any more trouble. "Road debris back in 1950-something-or-other."
"Three," Eleni said.
Tiffanie examined the lens, which was scratched from its adventures and had a chip out of the upper corner where the frame had broken away. She looked at the two of us again, and must have decided to believe us. Or maybe she just decided it was time to move on to the next question. "Where did you get the glasses?"<
br />
"Isn't it your turn to answer one of our questions?" I asked.
"Probably," Tiffanie said. "My turn again: Where did you get the glasses?"
"I found them," I said, then got in a question of my own: "What are you doing going to James Fenimore Cooper High, pretending to be just one of the kids?"
Tiffanie ignored that. She said, "'I found them' is hardly a complete answer."
"I found them in my front yard yesterday evening," I snapped. "I don't know where they came from or how they got there."
"Liar," Tiffanie snarled.
Eleni jumped in to defend me. "Jeannette isn't a liar."
"Jeannette?" Tiffanie repeated with a smirk.
I figured my credibility was too badly damaged for her to believe Eleni had given me that name, so I didn't even bother.
Tiffanie asked, "So why are you and Jeannette following me?"
"We weren't following you," Eleni said. Her voice was calm and quiet, evidence of a reasonable demeanor, a frame of mind both Tiffanie and I were having trouble maintaining. "We all came through the gate just a few seconds after you, but we came from a different starting point." She indicated herself in her gauzy-but-still-covering-everything-up 1950s summer dress, then gestured to Tiffanie in her skimpy, leave-little-to-the-imagination outfit. In fact, it left even less than usual to the imagination, being all askew from our collision. Eleni added, "If we had been following you, you certainly would have heard us, especially the dog."
This made so much sense, Tiffanie couldn't ignore it.
Even the dog gave a short yip to signify agreement.
Tiffanie snorted, then asked, "So why are you here?"
"No," Eleni said in that cool, poised voice of hers, "it's definitely your turn now. Answer Jeannette's question about why you're going to her school."
How did she manage that tone? I needed to practice that. All I could do was nod for emphasis—very like a three-year-old.
Tiffanie snapped, "Well, I'm certainly not jeopardizing two distinct worlds."
"Could you please be more specific?" Eleni asked.
"To have fun," Tiffanie said. "To look good and be popular. For a change."
"Oh," I said, feeling small. Doesn't matter what world you come from: Ugly is ugly, and Tiffanie must have had a difficult time with her real appearance.
Eleni nudged me with her elbow. "You see?" she said, oozing self-satisfaction.
I threw one of her own sayings back at my grandmother, which she had used on me when I was ten and she'd caught me gloating about something or other: "Nice people don't say, 'I told you so.'"
Eleni raised her eyebrows, perhaps surprised to hear me use one of her pet phrases that, as far as she knew, she'd never used in front of me.
Or, more likely, I realized with sudden horror, she herself had never yet spoken this sentiment but was thinking it was a great one to adopt. Had my saying it to her just now been the reason she'd say it to me later in her life but earlier in mine?
That kind of thinking was bound to give me a headache.
Tiffanie asked, emphasizing every single word: "So ... what ... are ... you ... doing ... in ... my... world?"
"We're here to rescue Julian," Eleni said.
Tiffanie's voice dripped skepticism. "From what?"
"Bear..." I rummaged around in my brain for the name Larry had used for Julian's abductor. "Bear Tooth? Bare Naked?..."
While Eleni winced at my language, Tiffanie asked in a voice of horror, "Berrech?"
"Something like that," I agreed.
Tiffanie repeated, to make sure she had it right: "Berrech has captured Julian?"
"Yeah, Berrech and four other guys. Elves."
"How long ago?"
I glanced at my wristwatch. "Almost two hours."
"Don't mess with me," Tiffanie warned. "We were in school two hours ago."
"Time flies when you're having fun." I held out my wrist for her to see my watch, which indicated it was getting close to five. My mother would definitely be at the nursing home by now, and wondering where I was.
Tiffanie made an impatient brushing-away gesture. "Not how long has it been since you saw him," she said. "How long has it been here?"
I gave the only appropriate response: "Huh?"
Eleni caught on faster. "Time didn't move here in Kazaran Dahaani while Jeannette was with me?"
Tiffanie said, "Well, obviously time doesn't stop here while you personally are not paying attention, but no matter how much time you spend away, you always come back to the same time you left from. How long has it been here?"
"Fifteen minutes?" I guessed.
Had it really been only fifteen minutes? I'd assumed that—while I'd been back in the 1950s, semi-successfully dodging cars and totally unsuccessfully dodging Eleni's questions—Berrech and his bully elves had had more than enough time to do whatever they wanted to Julian. I'd been sure it was too late to help him, anyway. I wouldn't have been so intent on leaving Eleni behind and losing Larry if I'd realized how little time had actually passed.
Of course, that was easy to say now that I had people with expectations of me—and no way to get out without proving to them and to myself that I was a cowardly weasel.
Tiffanie got to her feet, looking ready to do the hundred-yard dash.
"Excuse me," Eleni said, "but shouldn't we have a plan?"
19. History and Bribes
"No time!" Tiffanie said. "Which way did they take him?"
Eleni knocked my hand down as I pointed, and said, "First we need to—" but it was too late. Tiffanie was on her feet and running down the path.
The dog, after hesitating a moment, followed.
"Stop her," Eleni commanded me. "I can't run in these heels."
"Yeah, but...," I started to say, thinking, Tiffanie has everything under control. We can go home.
"Stop her!" Eleni gave me a shove even as she slipped off her high heels, and started running, too.
I could abandon Tiffanie; I could abandon Julian; but—even if we hadn't been related—I couldn't abandon Eleni. She kept expecting the best of me, and I kept thinking it would be nice to be the person she thought I was.
I quickly passed her and started closing in on Tiffanie. Tiffanie sure was fast for an old crone who jiggled and bounced so much I was sure she was going to hurt herself. "Tiffanie!" I called. "You can't do this all alone!"
The dog yipped, evidently pointing out she wasn't all alone.
Tiffanie stopped, panting hard and pressing her hand to her side. She pulled the hem of her skimpy top down to cover her old-lady belly button.
Eleni caught up. "Can you do that thing you do?" she asked. "To those elves? Like you did with the dog?"
"No," Tiffanie had to admit. "Maybe one, but certainly not all at once—elves are hard to bespell." Looking like it hurt her to accept our help, she asked, "All right—what's your plan?"
"Gosh, I don't have a plan," Eleni admitted. "I don't know enough about the situation."
Tiffanie growled in frustration but didn't start running again, which probably had more to do with her age than Eleni's persuasive abilities.
"Who are these other elves?" Eleni asked. "Why have they taken Julian?"
"All right," Tiffanie said, still breathing heavily, "the history lesson in brief: Julian's father is Nivyn the king. Berrech is the son of King Nivyn's brother, Vediss. Vediss was the elder, but when the old king, their father, was dying, he knew Vediss did not have the disposition to be a wise ruler, and he named Nivyn his successor."
We were already beyond my idea of brief.
Tiffanie continued, "It's hard to tell if Vediss was as comfortable with that decision as he seemed, but for certain Berrech feels an injustice was done. Whatever King Nivyn says, Berrech will argue for the opposite."
"That's a lot of names to keep straight," I complained when she stopped for a breath.
"Don't talk to me about names," she snapped, and I considered myself lucky that she didn't take the opportunity t
o call me "Wendy."
"Where this affects you two, Eleni and Jeannette, is in the king's policy toward humans. The old king had declared humans too volatile a species and he closed the gates his father's father had built when humans and elves shared each other's worlds. Kazaran Dahaani was cut off from Earth for many generations of humankind."
I wanted to ask her about the generations of elfkind, but she didn't give me a chance.
"King Nivyn believes humans are a worthwhile species, and that elves and humans have much to offer one another despite their differences, and so he has reopened the gates, and has even sent his son into the human world to learn more of it. Being opposed to all the king stands for, Berrech, therefore, believes humans are worse than dangerous: They are careless of their own world, and Berrech feels that with their advancing technology they will destroy both their world and ours. He wants to rid Earth of humans. Do you see why this is serious?"
It would be hard not to.
Eleni asked, "Where do these glasses Jeannette found come in?"
Tiffanie opened her hand. She was still holding the one remaining lens. "I don't know what this is. I've never seen anything like it: something that strips away the supernatural. I can sense magic in it—but I can't detect any spell."
"Who could have made them?" Eleni pressed. "And why?"
"I have no idea who," Tiffanie said. "Why would seem to be to allow someone to find those of us from Kazaran Dahaani who have gone to Earth, to see beyond the glamours we have cast to pass unnoticed among you."
"And who would that benefit?" Eleni asked, though she could guess as well as I could.
"Berrech," Tiffanie said. "Berrech could use that to track us down. To find Julian, certainly, before you led the poor boy right into his hands."
How was I to know?
She gave me a hard look. "He was just trying to talk to you," she said in an accusing tone. "When neither of you came out of that nursing home, I went in and found you'd caused an uproar running all over the garden and then disappearing. I figured you must have gone through the gate." She shook her head at my foolishness.
"I didn't know he wasn't going to hurt me," I protested.