Frank looked back at him, Alicia under one arm and his daughter beneath the other. “This isn’t exactly a mountain cabin. What would I be doing with an ax?”
“Thought you might have a fireplace.”
“Two of ’em, but we have wood delivered in the wintertime. We don’t cut it ourselves.” He remembered something else. “Hang on. There are garden shears in the garage. I mean, we have gardening service but we do keep a few tools and—”
Burnfingers was gone already, racing for the garage. Alicia peered up at her husband. “If we have a minute or two, would you like some coffee, dear?”
“God, I’d love some. If it runs normal and doesn’t bite.”
Mouse greeted him when he entered the kitchen. He waved or said something meaningless—he wasn’t sure. Everyone sat down at the dinette and stared at the green carnage taking place in their yard. The double-paned glass kept the rampaging plants away from them but not from each other.
Decorative bushes ripped and tore at each other in eerie silence, the only noise the sound of breaking wood and leaves being shredded. Even the big elm by the back wall had gone mad, flailing away at its smaller neighbors until it found itself locked in a wrestling match with the eucalyptus nearby. Meanwhile, smaller branches and vines flailed wildly at the roof and walls of the house.
The smell of fresh-brewed coffee was a physical presence in the kitchen, its taste wonderfully invigorating. A few things hadn’t changed. His family was still human, his house still a sanctuary in a world gone mad.
Certainly Mouse’s presence helped. She was leaning against a counter, sipping tea.
“It is getting out of hand. The condition is becoming chronic.”
“Now there’s a news bulletin,” Frank muttered. The coffee was balm to his throat, his stomach, his soul. “The whole city’s gone.”
“Gone?” Wendy stared at him, eyes wide. “You mean, like, everything?”
“Like everything, kiddo. The sea’s come up a hundred feet. Catalina’s not there anymore. First the people went nutso, then the machines, and now the land itself. It’s all underwater. You didn’t see any of it?” His gaze flicked to his wife, who shook her head negatively.
“We haven’t been outside since Burnfingers and Niccolo went looking for you. They told us to stay in and keep the doors bolted.”
Frank grunted. “Sound advice.”
“What’s going to happen now, sweetheart?” She was playing at drinking her own coffee, but her hand was shaking so badly she had to set the mug down until the trembling subsided. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“I dunno. Our reality’s shot regardless.”
“Perhaps not,” Mouse said calmly.
He stared sharply at her. “Don’t you of all people go trying to make me feel better. I’ve been through hell the last hour and I’m in no mood to be patronized. I know my own reality when I see it. This is my house. I was in my own office, among my own people, until it all turned into something out of a real bad horror movie. Whatever happens now, nothing can change that. Our world is gone.”
“Are you so absolutely sure this is your world, then? Your reality? There are millions of reality lines, Frank Sonderberg. The slightest of differences would be sufficient to distinguish yours from one very much like it.”
He put the coffee down. “So how do we know if this one is ours?”
“Once the Spinner has been soothed and the fabric of reality made whole again you will return to your one true reality. Only then will you know if this line is yours—or another.”
“And if this one isn’t ours, where are the local equivalents of us?”
“In Las Vegas, enjoying your vacation, I should imagine. Provided Las Vegas still exists on this line.”
“You mean, if this ain’t our reality and we hang around here long enough we might run into ourselves?”
“Nothing is impossible when reality lines cross.”
“That’s enough!” Wendy rose from the table, screaming and clutching her head. “That’s enough, that’s enough, that’s enough! I can’t understand any more!”
Frank rose to grab her, pull her close. She kept raving. What was he supposed to do, slap her until she quieted? That was what they did in the movies, but this wasn’t a movie. This was his daughter who’d suffered too much he was holding in his arms. He couldn’t hit her to help her.
So he just rocked her gently and kept telling her everything was going to be all right and, as it developed, that was exactly what was required.
A clattering sounded in the hallway and everyone turned sharply, but it was only Burnfingers Begay returning from his foray to the garage. His hands held the garden shears Frank had remembered seeing hanging on a wall hook. Also two small tree saws and a pair of hand clippers.
“No chainsaw, but these will help. We should take all the big knives, too.” He looked over their heads. “Where is Flucca?”
Frank turned a circle. He didn’t remember when the dwarf had disappeared. His return coincided with Burnfingers’s own.
“We’re all here, then.” Burnfingers nodded to himself. “We will fight our way out together, as we have done since the beginning. I am glad I will be with white-eyes who have learned how to fight.”
“Fight? Our way out?” Alicia sounded despondent. “Frank, we’re not leaving again, are we? Not from here, not from our house.”
“It may not be our house,” he told her grimly. “Burnfingers is right. We can’t stay here. We have to go on until there’s an end to all this, no matter who wins. And if this does turn out to be our reality, I don’t want to stay here anyway. Not with the whole damn city drowned. At this rate the rest of California’s going to go, too. Maybe the whole planet.” He looked over at Mouse. “I wish to hell I’d never set eyes on you.”
“I’m sorry, Frank Sonderberg. Right now I’m the only reality you have left.”
“Yeah, I guessed.” At that instant he understood everything better than at any moment since they’d left Barstow. Small comfort at best. “Let’s go.”
“No, Daddy.” Wendy took a step away from him.
“Honey, we have to. We’ve come too far to stop here. Don’t you see? We don’t have any choice in the matter. Probably haven’t had for some time. Besides,” he finished quietly, “if we don’t go with Mouse I have this powerful feeling we’ll never have a chance of seeing your brother again.”
“What makes you think we have any chance anyway?” she replied bitterly.
“Because I believe we do. I believe it because I have to.”
Mouse was smiling that thin, enigmatic smile he found so maddening. “I knew you were the right one when you stopped for me, Frank Sonderberg.”
He whirled to face her. “How about you shut up for a while?” His anger surprised him. Since he had the strength in him, he took the opportunity to rail at God, the fates, and whatever other agency might have played a part in the disintegration of his pleasant, contented life. What he really wanted to do was fight back, but in this war there was nothing to strike out against except the shapeless, ill-defined nemesis Mouse called the Anarchis.
That didn’t prevent him from cursing the Cosmos, which he proceeded to do loudly and fluently. When he was finished he gave his wife a hand up from the table.
“We’re stuck, sweetheart. We can’t go back and we can’t stay here, so we have to go on. So we might as well give it our best shot. Whaddaya say?”
Her smile was full of love. “That’s how we’ve always lived, Frank. I guess I’m too set in my ways to change now even if I want to.”
“That’s my gal.” He kissed her lightly, then turned to Burnfingers. “I think we’re ready.”
“I know it is so, my friend. Now, everyone grab something useful. Knives, cleavers, food, bottled water, juice—anything we might need.”
They loaded themselves down, filling pockets with food and medicine, arming themselves with makeshift weapons. Mouse carried more than her share, but she was so full of surprises Frank didn’t even blink at the size of the sack she slung over her shoulder.
As they assembled supplies in the front hall, preparatory to making a dash for the motor home, Frank saw Burnfingers emerge from the garage carrying a double armful of unexpected devices. He nodded in their direction as the Indian began shoving them in an empty suitcase.
