The Traveler

50

Gabriel had crossed over, his Light passing through the four barriers. Opening his eyes, he found himself standing at the top of a staircase in an old house. He was alone. The house was quiet. A faint gray light bled through a narrow window.

An old-fashioned parlor table was on the landing behind him. A vase with a silk rose was on the table, and Gabriel touched the stiff, smooth petals. The rose and the vase and the room that surrounded him were as false as the objects in his own world. Only the Light was permanent and real. His body and his clothes were ghost images that had followed him to this place. Gabriel pulled the jade sword a few inches out of the scabbard and its steel blade gleamed with a silver energy.

He pushed back the lace curtains and peered out the window. It was early in the evening, just after sunset. He was in a city with sidewalks and shade trees. A line of row houses was on the other side of the street and the area reminded him of the brownstone neighborhoods in New York City or Baltimore. Lights were on in a few of the apartments, and the window shades had a soft yellow color, like pieces of old parchment.

Gabriel rearranged the sword so that the strap was over one shoulder, the scabbard touching his back. As quietly as possible, he climbed down the staircase to the third floor. He pushed open one of the doors, expecting to be attacked, and discovered an empty bedroom. All the furniture was heavy and dark: a large dresser with brass fittings and a bed with a carved wooden frame. The room had an old-fashioned look that reminded him of movies set in the 1920s. He couldn’t find a clock radio or a television set, nothing new and bright and gleaming. On the second floor, he heard the sound of a piano coming from below. The music was slow and sad: a simple melody repeated with slight variations.

Gabriel tried not to make the stairs creak as he climbed down the last flight. On the ground floor an open doorway led into a dining room with a long table and six high-backed chairs. Wax fruit was in a bowl on the sideboard. Crossing the hallway, he passed through a study with leather club chairs and one solitary reading lamp, then entered the rear parlor.

A woman sat with her back to the doorway, playing an upright piano. She had gray hair and wore a long black skirt and a lavender blouse with puffy sleeves. When Gabriel stepped toward the woman, the floor creaked and she glanced over her shoulder. Her face startled him. It was emaciated and pale, as if she’d been locked up in the house and left to starve. Only her eyes were alive; bright and intense, they stared at him. She was surprised but not frightened that a stranger had appeared in the room.

“Who are you?” the woman asked. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“My name is Gabriel. Could you tell me the name of this place?”

Her black skirt made a rustling sound as she approached him. “You look different, Gabriel. You must be new.”

“Yes. I guess that’s right.” He stepped back from the woman, but she followed him. “I’m sorry to be in your house.”

“Oh, you mustn’t be sorry at all.” Before he could stop her, the woman grabbed his right hand. A look of wonder appeared on her face. “Your skin is warm. How is that possible?” Gabriel tried to pull away, but the woman held him with a strength that didn’t seem to match her frail body. Trembling slightly, she leaned down and kissed the back of his hand. Gabriel felt cold lips touch his skin, and then a sharp pain. He yanked his hand back and saw that it was bleeding.

A small drop of blood-his blood-was on the corner of the woman’s mouth. She touched the blood with her forefinger, studied the bright red color, and then placed the finger in her mouth. Ecstatic, possessed by pleasure, she shivered and closed her eyes. Gabriel hurried out of the room and down the hallway to the front door. He fumbled with the latch and then was outside on the sidewalk.

Before he could find someplace to hide, a black automobile cruised slowly down the street. The car resembled a four-door sedan from the 1920s, but there was a vagueness about the design. It looked like the idea of a car, a gesture, instead of a real piece of machinery built in a factory. The driver was an old man with a pinched, shriveled appearance. He stared at Gabriel as he passed.

No other cars appeared as Gabriel wandered the dark streets. He came to a city square surrounding a little park with benches, an outdoor bandstand, and a few shade trees. Shops with window displays were on the street level of the three-story buildings. Lights glowed through the windows of upstairs rooms. About a dozen people drifted around the square. They wore the same formal, old-fashioned clothing as the woman who played the piano: dark suits, long skirts, hats, and overcoats that concealed thin bodies.

Gabriel felt conspicuous wearing his blue jeans and sweatshirt. He tried to remain in the shadows of the buildings. The shop windows had the kind of thick glass and steel frames that protected displays of jewelry. Each store had one window and each window had one object, illuminated with lights. He passed a skinny, bald man with a twitching face. The man was staring at an antique gold watch in the window. He looked dazed, almost hypnotized, by the object. Two doors down was an antique store with a white marble statue of a naked boy in the window. A woman with dark red lipstick stood very close to the window and gazed at the statue. As Gabriel passed, she leaned forward and kissed the plate glass.

A grocery store was at the end of the block. It wasn’t a modern establishment with wide aisles and glass-door freezer cases, but everything looked clean and well organized. Customers carrying red wire shopping baskets walked between shelves of merchandise. A young woman wearing a white smock stood behind a cash register.

The clerk stared at Gabriel when he entered the store, and he went down an aisle to avoid her curiosity. The shelves held boxes and jars without any words printed on them. Instead, the different containers had colorful drawings of the products hidden inside. Cartoon children and their parents smiled cheerfully as they consumed breakfast cereal and tomato soup.

Gabriel picked up a box of crackers; it weighed almost nothing. He picked up another box, ripped open the top, and discovered that it was empty inside. Checking other boxes and jars, he went over to the next aisle and found a little man kneeling on the floor as he restocked the shelves. His starched white shopkeeper’s apron and red bow tie made him look neat and organized. The man worked with great precision, making sure that the display side of each box was facing out.

“What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked. “Everything is empty.”

The little man stood up and looked intently at Gabriel. “You must be new here.”

“How can you sell empty boxes?”

“Because they want what’s inside them. We all do.”

The man was drawn to the warmth of Gabriel’s body. Eagerly, he stepped forward, but Gabriel pushed him away. Trying not to panic, he left the store and returned to the square. His heart was beating quickly and a cold wave of fear rushed through his body. Sophia Briggs had told him about this place. He was in the Second Realm of the hungry ghosts. They were lost spirits, fragments of Light that were constantly searching for something to fill their painful emptiness. He would stay here forever unless he could find the passageway out.

He hurried down the street and was surprised to find a butcher shop. Lamb chops, pork roasts, and sides of beef were lying on metal trays inside the brightly lit store. A heavyset butcher with blond hair stood behind the case with his assistant, a young man in his twenties. A boy wearing a man’s apron was carefully sweeping the white tile floor. The food was real. The two men and the boy looked healthy. Gabriel’s hand touched the brass doorknob. He hesitated, then went inside.

“You must be a new arrival,” the butcher said with a cheerful smile. “I know just about everyone around here and I’ve never seen you before.”

“Is there something to eat?” Gabriel asked. “What about these hams?”

He pointed to three smoked hams hanging from hooks over the display counter. The butcher looked amused and the assistant sneered. Without asking permission, Gabriel reached up and touched one of the hams. It felt wrong. Something was wrong. He pulled it off the hook, dropped it on the floor, and watched the ceramic object shatter into pieces. Everything in the store was false: imaginary food displayed like the real thing.

He heard a sharp click and spun around. The boy had locked the door latch. Turning again, Gabriel saw the butcher and his assistant come from behind the display case. The assistant pulled an eight-inch knife from the leather holder that hung from his belt. The owner held a large cleaver. Gabriel drew his sword and stepped back so he was near the wall. The boy set aside the broom and pulled out a thin, curved knife-the sort of thing that was used to cut fillets off a bone.

Smiling, the assistant raised his arm and threw his weapon. Gabriel jerked to the left as the blade buried itself in the wood paneling. Now the butcher came forward, swinging and twirling the heavy cleaver. Gabriel faked a cut to the head, then came down low and slashed the butcher’s arm. The ghost grinned and displayed the wound: cut skin, muscle, and bone, but no blood at all.

Gabriel attacked; the cleaver came up and blocked his sword. Two blades rubbed against each other, the steel screeching like a caught bird. Gabriel jumped to one side, got behind the butcher, and swung low, cutting off the ghost’s left leg below the knee. The butcher fell forward and hit the tile floor. He lay on his stomach, groaning and reaching out his arms as if he were trying to swim on dry land.

The assistant grabbed a knife off the chopping board and Gabriel got ready to defend himself. Instead, the assistant knelt beside the butcher and stabbed him in the back. He cut deeply, pulling the blade down through the muscle to the hips. The boy ran over and joined this attack, cutting off pieces of dry flesh and stuffing them in his mouth.

Gabriel unlocked the door and ran outside. He crossed the street to the little park at the center of the square and realized that people were coming out of the buildings. He recognized the woman who had been playing the piano and the little clerk with the bow tie. The ghosts knew that he was in their city. They were searching for him, hoping that he could fill their emptiness.

Gabriel stood alone beside the bandstand. Should he run away from them? Was there a way to escape? He heard a car engine, spun around, and saw headlights coming down one of the side streets. As the car got closer, he saw that it was an old-fashioned taxicab with a glowing yellow light on the roof. Someone began honking the taxi’s horn over and over again, then the vehicle pulled up to the curb. The driver rolled down the side window and grinned; it was Michael.

“Jump in!” he shouted.

Gabriel scrambled into the car and his brother circled the square, honking the horn and steering around the ghosts. He turned down a side street and went a little faster. “I was up on the roof of this building and then I looked down and saw you in the square.”

“How’d you get the cab?”

“I ran down to the street and this cabdriver showed up. He was a skinny old guy who kept asking if I was ‘new’-whatever that means. So I yanked him out of the cab, punched him in the face, and drove away.” Michael laughed loudly. “I don’t know where we are, but I doubt if I’ll be arrested for car theft.”

“We’re in the Second Realm of the hungry ghosts.”

“That sounds right. I stepped into a diner and there were four people sitting in the booths. No food anywhere. Just empty plates.”

Michael jerked the steering wheel hard and turned the cab into an alleyway. “Hurry up,” he said. “We’ve got to get into this building before anyone sees us.”

The brothers got out of the cab. Michael was holding a sword with a gold triangle embedded in the handle.

“Where’d you get that?” Gabriel asked.

“Friends.”

“It’s a talisman.”

“I know. It’s good to have a weapon in a place like this.”

The Corrigan brothers left the alleyway and hurried down the sidewalk to a four-story building with a granite façade. The large entrance door was made of dark metal and it was divided into squares with bas-relief sculptures of wheat, apples, and other kinds of food. Michael pulled the door open and the brothers slipped inside. They were in a long windowless hallway with a black-and-white checkerboard floor and lamps hanging from brass chains. Michael jogged down the hallway and stopped at a door marked LIBRARY. “Here we are. Safest place in town.”

Gabriel followed his brother into a two-story room with a stained-glass window at one end. All the walls were lined with oak shelves crammed with books. There were ladders on wall tracks running the length of the room and a catwalk fifteen feet up that gave access to another set of shelves. Heavy wooden chairs and reading tables covered with a green leather surface were in the middle of the room. Lamps made of dark green glass illuminated the tables. The library made Gabriel think of history and tradition. Any book of wisdom could be found in this place.

Michael strolled around as if he were the librarian. “Nice, huh?”

“And no one will come here?”

“Of course not. Why would they do that?”

“To read a book.”

“No chance of that.” Michael picked up a thick book with a black leather binding and tossed it to his brother. “See for yourself.”

Gabriel opened the book and found nothing but blank pages. He dropped it on a table and pulled another book from the shelves. Blank pages. Michael laughed.

“I looked in the Bible and the dictionary. Everything’s blank. The people who live here can’t eat, drink, or read. I bet they can’t have sex or go to sleep. If this is a dream, then it’s definitely a nightmare.”

“It’s not a dream. We’re both here.”

“That’s right. We’re Travelers.” Michael nodded and touched his brother’s arm. “I was worried about you, Gabe. I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Father’s alive.”

“How do you know that?”

“I went to a place called New Harmony in southern Arizona. Eight years ago, Father met some people and inspired them to start a community living free of the Grid. He could be in our world-this world-anywhere.”

Michael paced back and forth between the reading tables. He picked up a book as if it could give him an answer, then tossed it away. “All right,” he said. “Dad’s alive. That’s an interesting fact, but it’s not relevant. We’ve got to focus on our current problem.”

“And what’s that?”

“At this moment, my body is lying on a table at a research center near New York City. Where are you, Gabe?”

“I’m at a deserted church camp in the Malibu hills.”

“Are you surrounded by guards?”

“Of course not.”

“When I return to the normal world, I’ll tell them where you are-”

“Are you crazy?” Gabriel stepped closer to his brother. “You were captured by the Tabula. They’re the same people who attacked our house and burned it down.”

“I know all about it, Gabe. A man named Kennard Nash explained everything. But that was in the past. Now they need a Traveler. They’re in contact with an advanced civilization.”

“What difference does that make? They want to destroy any kind of personal freedom.”

“That’s the plan for the ordinary people, but not for us. There’s no right or wrong about this. It’s going to happen. You can’t stop it. The Brethren are already putting the system into place.”

“Our parents didn’t see the world that way.”

“And what the hell did that get us? We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have any friends. We couldn’t even use our real names and we spent our entire lives running. You can’t avoid the Grid. So why not join the people in control?”

“The Tabula have brainwashed you.”

“No, Gabe. It’s the other way around. I’m the only one in the family who ever saw things clearly.”

“Not this time.”

Michael placed his hand on the handle of the gold sword. The two Travelers looked in each other’s eyes. “I protected you when we were growing up,” Michael said. “Guess I have to do it again.” He turned on his heels and hurried from the room.

Gabriel stood between the tables. “Come back here!” he shouted. “Michael!” He waited for a few seconds, and then ran out into the hallway. Empty. No one there. The door squeaked faintly as it closed behind him.