The evening chill had deserted them. It was downright hot there by the pond at the edge of the world. Despite all her denials she seemed to have considerable strength in those slim arms. Enough to pull him down toward her. Or maybe he bent. He was never sure.
The heat that seared him as they kissed awoke feelings and sensations dormant for twenty years. He found himself kissing back, unwilling to break the contact even though another part of him screamed for him to stop. She wouldn’t let him back away and, he had to admit, he didn’t struggle very hard.
When she finally pulled away, his whole body was on fire. She still wore that strange enigmatic smile as her hands slid away from his neck and the back of his head.
“Look,” he told her, having to fight to find his voice, “I’ve never cheated on Alicia. Well, once, but that was a long time ago.”
“Life is short,” she whispered.
“Not according to you it ain’t. Of course, that was just a gag. Nothing lives that long. Maybe stars and sequoias and stuff. But not people.” The fire was beginning to fade. He wanted it to linger and to leave. It had been much more than a natural kiss, much more. The brief, complete merging of two disparate individuals, a physical excuse for contact on a much deeper level.
“What did you do to me?”
“I kissed you.”
“No. You did something else, something more.”
“Only a kiss. Anything else you felt lay within you all the time. All I did was help you to unlock yourself. I am a key. I knew it would be worth it.
“The beautiful, the handsome people who bestride your world in awe of their own genetic good fortune are often dull and passionless, while those who do not match the artificial cultural ideal, who may be heavy or short, thin or dark, too light or too tall or too something, may have all manner of wondrous feelings bottled up inside them. Often they refuse to acknowledge their own potential. They are unable to recognize their true selves.”
He was shaking his head. “That couldn’t have been my true self. Not good ol’ Frank Percival Sonderberg.”
“Why do you deny yourself? Why do you think you’ve been so successful at what you’ve tried?” She was chiding him the way she would a child. “You have achieved great things. There is greatness in all accomplishment. It’s not necessary to write great music or draw beautiful pictures, to discover new medicines or plumb ocean depths to achieve, to accomplish. You have overcome your own limitations and have excelled. Only the direction you’ve chosen is different. That does not reduce you in stature. Visibility and popularity are not signs of greatness as often as they are of simply being loud. They are more often the signature of vulgarity rather than achievement. It is what we do with ourselves that makes us great, not the value others place on those doings.
“You possess hidden resources, Frank. Most people do, but yours run deeper than most. I had to find out what kind of man you are.”
“And did I pass the test, teacher?” Despite his flippancy he was intensely interested in her reply.
She hesitated, thinking. Then the most marvelous expression came over her face, as though her entire body was smiling. It lit up the night and spilled over into the great abyss.
“You’ll do.”
He swallowed, then stepped past her, suddenly wanting to be away from the edge of the world. When he stopped and turned, the void had disappeared. There was only the moonlight shafting down between the trees and the distant shadowy ramparts of the mountains. He wondered if the void would reappear if he retraced his steps.
“I don’t know what I’ll do for,” he said apologetically, “but while a lot of me screams to do otherwise, I’m afraid I won’t do for you. See, I love Alicia. She’s not as pretty as some and she’s not as bright as some and she’s probably not several other things as much as some, but then neither am I. So we make a pretty good match. We’re comfortable with each other.
“You talked about merging. Maybe it’s not the same kind of merging we just did, but Alicia and I merge on a lot of other levels. Pretty tight. So I’m sorry. If it’s comfort you’re looking for, why don’t you try Burnfingers Begay? I’m sure he’d be happy to oblige.”
She shook her head slowly. “I could never make love to a crazy man.”
“You believe he’s nuts?”
“He admits to it. Who am I to argue with him? Burnfingers Begay is a wondrous person I have yet to figure out. He is too much of a mystery for me to be intimate with. I prefer my love predictable.”
She came toward him and he nearly panicked and ran. Because he knew that in spite of everything he’d said, if she kissed him like that a second time he wouldn’t be able to resist, wouldn’t want to resist.
“Burnfingers’s spirit is pure and unencumbered by guilt. It’s amazing to encounter someone like that in your corrupted world. I think maybe he’s a yeibichai.”
“A what?” They were making their way back through the trees, following the cheerful creek toward the motel.
“A Navajo spirit. What kind, I don’t know.”
“Come on. I mean, I know I just stepped over the edge of the world, but a spirit? Begay’s about the solidest-looking spirit I ever saw.”
“You may be right. Perhaps he is only a man. A smart crazy man can fool people into thinking peculiar things. I am perceptive, but not perfect.” She put her hand back on his arm, circling it through the crook of his elbow. “You cannot fly home to your Los Angeles, Frank.”
“Don’t tell me stuff like that. Please. I’ve just about reached my limit.”
“Your limit is greater than you know. I’m sure of that now. I can only tell you no matter how painful you may find the hearing of it that if you try to leave me now you’ll never see your home, your reality, again. You’ve come too far. Now I am your only link to that reality. You cannot abandon me any more than I can go on without you. I cannot prevent you from so doing, however.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He sighed heavily. “I guess I’m stuck with you. Got no choice, right? It’s like Russian roulette. I can go ahead and pull the trigger, but if I guess wrong I don’t get a second try.”
“I’m afraid so. If you leave me and try to drive or fly home you might just make it. Or you might slip onto another thread of reality. Then I would never be able to find you again. You and your lovely Alicia would be lost forever.”
“From here on it’s all or nothing, is that it?”
She nodded. “You’ve crossed too many boundaries, jumped too many lines. There’s no going back now until we reach the Vanishing Point.”
“Which is somewhere between here and Wyoming, right?”
“As you would define it, yes. You’re going to have to take me all the way.”
“Just so long as you don’t expect me to go all the way.”
She smiled up at him. “You see? Only a truly brave man would be able to joke about something so serious.”
“Yeah. Or else I’m crazier than Burnfingers Begay. Knowing you’re in deep shit doesn’t make you brave. Just realistic.”
“I know it pleases you to demean yourself because you think of yourself as unattractive and not as intelligent as some. You do yourself repeated injustices, Frank.” She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed tightly. “You must take me all the way to the Vanishing Point.”
“What about my wife and kids? They ain’t ‘truly brave,’ or whatever it is you’re convinced I am.”
“For that, I sorrow. I wish it were otherwise because of the great danger. I know how concern for their welfare preys upon your thoughts. Sadly, we have come this far together and so must continue to the end together. Console yourself in the knowledge that when the Spinner is soothed, reality will stabilize and you will be returned to a world no longer in danger of coming apart around you.”
“Good thing I’m not paranoid or I wouldn’t be able to handle any of this.” She freed his hands. They burned from the contact, as his lips still burned. “When we get to this Spinner I’m gonna have some choice words for it. What business does it have screwing up reality, anyway?”
“It is not a purposeful thing. Not even the Spinner is immune to illness and unhappiness.”
“I hope we hit it off well. What’s it like, anyway? I know quite a bit about spinning. My stores only stock top-quality stuff. Jogging suits, sweat socks, uniforms, like that. Is the fabric of reality natural like cotton, or artificial like polyester?”
That made her laugh softly, as it was intended she should. It faded rapidly. When she spoke again it was in deadly earnest.
“The Anarchis will stop at nothing to prevent me from soothing the Spinner and realigning the fabric of existence. By now all the evil on every reality line will be watching and waiting, hoping to be the one that interrupts our journey. Evil thrives where Chaos reigns, remember, and nothing could do more to stimulate its expansion than the unraveling of order. Goodness requires the presence of stability, logic, and reason to do its work.”
Frank considered thoughtfully. “You think maybe our little detours have been less than accidental?”
“It’s difficult to say. My being marooned in the desert for so long before you stopped to pick me up was an unlikely happenstance, as was your subsequent shunting to Hell. As for our detour to Pass Regulus, only Burnfingers Begay’s driving helped us escape from there.”
