4
   HE WALKED SLOWLY DOWN the dim, wood-panelled corridor, sweating lightly. He walked past classroom doors he would have felt compelled to open if not for the clear glass windows set in each one. He looked into Mr. Bissette's French II class and Mr. Knopf's Introduction to Geometry class. In both rooms the pupils sat with pencils in hand and heads bowed over open blue-books. He looked into Mr. Harley's Spoken Arts class and saw Stan Dorfman—one of those acquaintances who were not quite friends—beginning his Final Speech. Stan looked scared to death, but Jake could have told Stan he didn't have the slightest idea what fear— real fear—was all about..
   I died.
   No. I didn't.
   Did too.
   Did not.
   Did.
   Didn't.
   He came to a door marked GIRLS. He pushed it open, expecting to see a bright desert sky and a blue haze of mountains on the horizon. Instead he saw Belinda Stevens standing at one of the sinks, looking into the mirror above the basin and squeezing a pimple on her forehead.
   "Jesus Christ, do you mind?" she asked.
   "Sorry. Wrong door. I thought it was the desert."
   "What?"
   But he had already let the door go and it was swinging shut on its pneumatic elbow. He passed the drinking fountain and opened the door marked BOYS. This was it, he knew it, was sure of it, this was the door which would take him back—
   Three urinals gleamed spotlessly under the fluorescent lights. A tap dripped solemnly into a sink. That was all.
   Jake let the door close. He walked on down the hall, his heels making firm little clicks on the tiles. He glanced into the office before passing it and saw only Ms. Franks. She was talking on the telephone, swinging back and forth in her swivel chair and playing with a lock of her hair. The silver-plated bell stood on the desk beside her. Jake waited until she swivelled away from the door and then hurried past. Thirty seconds later he was emerging into the bright sunshine of a morning in late May.
   I've gone truant, he thought. Even his distraction did not keep him from being amazed at this unexpected development. When I don't come back from the bathroom in five minutes or so, Ms. Avery will send somebody to check... and then they'll know. They'll all know that I've left school, gone truant.
   He thought of the folder lying on his desk.
   They'll read it and they'll think I'm crazy. Fou. Sure they will. Of course. Because I am.
   Then another voice spoke. It was, he thought, the voice of the man with the bombardier's eyes, the man who wore the two big guns slung low on his hips. The voice was cold... but not without comfort.
   No, Jake, Roland said. You're not crazy. You're lost and scared, but you're not crazy and need fear neither your shadow in the morning striding behind you nor your shadow at evening rising to meet you. Yow have to find your way back home, that's all.
   "But where do I go?" Jake whispered. He stood on the sidewalk of Fifty-sixth Street between Park and Madison, watching the traffic bolt past. A city bus snored by, laying a thin trail of acrid blue diesel smoke. "Where do I go? Where's the fucking door?"
   But the voice of the gunslinger had fallen silent.
   Jake turned left, in the direction of the East River, and began to walk blindly forward. He had no idea where he was going—no idea at all. He could only hope his feet would carry him to the right place... as they had carried him to the wrong one not long ago.

5
   IT HAD HAPPENED THREE weeks earlier.
   One could not say It all began three weeks earlier, because that gave the impression that there had been some sort of progression, and that wasn't right. There had been a progression to the voices, to the violence with which each insisted on its own particular version of reality, but the rest of it had happened all at once.
   He left home at eight o'clock to walk to school—he always walked when the weather was good, and the weather this May had been abso­lutely fine. His father had left for the Network, his mother was still in bed, and Mrs. Greta Shaw was in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading her New York Post.
   "Goodbye, Greta," he said. "I'm going to school now."
   She raised a hand to him without looking up from the paper. "Have a good day, Johnny."
   All according to routine. Just another day in the life.
   And so it had been for the next fifteen hundred seconds. Then everything had changed forever.
   He idled along, bookbag in one hand, lunch sack in the other, looking in the windows. Seven hundred and twenty seconds from the end of his life as he had always known it, he paused to look in the window of Brendio's, where mannequins dressed in fur coats and Edwardian suits stood in stiff poses of conversation. He was thinking only of going bowling that afternoon after school. His average was 158, great for a kid who was only eleven. His ambition was to some day be a bowler on the pro tour (and if his father had known this little factoid, he also would have hit the roof).
   Closing in now—closing in on the moment when his sanity would be suddenly eclipsed.
   He crossed Thirty-ninth and there were four hundred seconds left. Had to wait for the WALK light at Forty-first and there were two hundred and seventy. Paused to look in the novelty shop on the corner of Fifth and Forty-second and there were a hundred and ninety. And now, with just over three minutes left in his ordinary life, Jake Cham­bers walked beneath the unseen umbrella of that force which Roland called ka-tet.
   An odd, uneasy feeling began to creep over him. At first he thought it was a feeling of being watched, and then he realized it wasn't that at all … or not precisely that. He felt that he had been here before; that he was reliving a dream he had mostly forgotten. He waited for the feeling to pass, but it didn't. It grew stronger, and now began to mix with a sensation he reluctantly recognized as terror.
   Up ahead, on the near corner of Fifth and Forty-third, a black man in a Panama hat was setting up a pretzel-and-soda cart.
   He's the one that yells "Oh my God, he's kilt!" Jake thought.
   Approaching the far corner was a fat lady with a Bloomingdale's bag in her hand.
   She'll drop the bag. Drop the bag and put her hands to her mouth and scream. The bag will split open. There's a doll inside the bag. It's wrapped in a red towel. I'll see this from the street. From where I'll be lying in the street with my blood soaking into my pants and spreading around me in a pool.
   Behind the fat woman was a tall man in a gray nailhead worsted suit. He was carrying a briefcase.
   He's the one who vomits on his shoes. He's the one who drops his briefcase and throws up on his shoes. What's happening to me?
   Yet his feet carried him numbly forward toward the intersection, where people were crossing in a brisk, steady stream. Somewhere behind him, closing in, was a killer priest. He knew this, just as he knew that the priest's hands would in a moment be outstretched to push... but he could not look around. It was like being locked in a nightmare where things simply had to take their course.
   Fifty-three seconds left now. Ahead of him, the pretzel vendor was opening a hatch in the side of his cart.
   He's going to take out a bottle of Yoo-Hoo, Jake thought. Not a can but a bottle. He'll shake it up and drink it all at once.
   The pretzel vendor brought out a bottle of Yoo-Hoo, shook it vigor­ously, and spun off the cap.
   Forty seconds left.
   Now the light will change.
   White WALK went out. Red DONT WALK began to flash rapidly on and off. And somewhere, less than half a block away, a big blue Cadillac was now rolling toward the intersection of Fifth and Forty-third. Jake knew this, just as he knew the driver was a fat man wearing a hat almost the exact same blue shade as his car.
   I'm going to die!
   He wanted to scream this aloud to the people walking heedlessly all around him, but his jaws were locked shut. His feet swept him serenely onward toward the intersection. The DONT WALK sign stopped flashing and shone out its solid red warning. The pretzel vendor tossed his empty Yoo-Hoo bottle into the wire trash basket on the corner. The fat lady stood on the corner across the street from Jake, holding her shopping bag by the handles. The man in the nailhead suit was directly behind her. Now there were eighteen seconds left.
   Time for the toy truck to go by, Jake thought.
   Ahead of him a van with a picture of a happy jumping-jack and the words TOOKER'S WHOLESALE TOYS printed on the side swept through the intersection, jolting up and down in the potholes. Behind him, Jake knew, the man in the black robe was beginning to move faster, closing the gap, now reaching out with his long hands. Yet he could not look around, as you couldn't look around in dreams when something awful was gaining on you.
   Run! And if you can't run, sit down and grab hold of a No Parking sign! Don't just let it happen!
   But he was powerless to stop it from happening. Ahead, on the edge of the curb, was a young woman in a white sweater and a black skirt. To her left was a young Chicano guy with a boombox. A Donna Summer disco tune was just ending. The next song, Jake knew, would be "Dr. Love," by Kiss.
   They're going to move apart—
   Even as the thought came, the woman moved a step to her right. The Chicano guy moved a step to his left, creating a gap between them. Jake's traitor feet swept him into the gap. Nine seconds now.
   Down the street, bright May sunshine twinkled on a Cadillac hood ornament. It was, Jake knew, a 1976 Sedan de Ville. Six seconds. The Caddy was speeding up. The light was getting ready to change and the man driving the de Ville, the fat man in the blue hat with the feather stuck jauntily in the brim, meant to scat through the intersection before it could. Three seconds. Behind Jake, the man in black was lunging forward. On the young man's boombox, "Love to Love You, Baby" ended and "Dr. Love" began.
   Two.
   The Cadillac changed to the lane nearest Jake's side of the street and charged down on the intersection, its killer grille snarling.
   One.
   Jake's breath stopped in his throat.
   None.
   "Uh!" Jake cried as the hands struck him firmly in the back, pushing him, pushing him into the street, pushing him out of his life—
   Except there were no hands.
   He reeled forward nevertheless, hands flailing at the air, his mouth a dark O of dismay. The Chicano guy with the boombox reached out, grabbed Jake's arm, and hauled him backward. "Look out, little hero," he said. "That traffic turn you into bratwurst."
   The Cadillac floated by. Jake caught a glimpse of the fat man in the blue hat peering out through the windshield, and then it was gone.
   That was when it happened; that was when he split down the middle and became two boys. One lay dying in the street. The other stood here on the corner, watching in dumb, stricken amazement as DONT WALK turned to WALK again and people began to cross around him just as if nothing had happened … as, indeed, nothing had.
   I'm alive! half of his mind rejoiced, screaming with relief.
   Dead! the other half screamed back. Dead in the street! They're all gathering around me, and the man in black who pushed me is saying, "I am a priest. Let me through."
   Waves of faintness rushed through him and turned his thoughts to billowing parachute silk. He saw the fat lady approaching, and as she passed, Jake looked into her bag. He saw the bright blue eyes of a doll peeping above the edge of a red towel, just as he had known he would. Then she was gone. The pretzel vendor was not yelling Oh my God, he's kilt; he was continuing to set up for the day's business while he whistled the Donna Summer tune that had been playing on the Chicano guy's radio.
   Jake turned around, looking wildly for the priest who was not a priest. He wasn't there.
   Jake moaned.
   Snap out of it! What's wrong with you?
   He didn't know. He only knew he was supposed to be lying in the street right now, getting ready to die while the fat woman screamed and the guy in the nailhead worsted suit threw up and the man in black pushed through the gathering crowd.
   And in part of his mind, that did seem to be happening.
   The faintness began to return. Jake suddenly dropped his lunch sack to the pavement and slapped himself across the face as hard as he could. A woman on her way to work gave him a queer look. Jake ignored her. He left his lunch lying on the sidewalk and plunged into the intersection, also ignoring the red DONT WALK light, which had begun to stutter on and off again. It didn't matter now. Death had approached... and then passed by without a second glance. It hadn't been meant to happen that way, and on the deepest level of his exis­tence he knew that, but it had.
   Maybe now he would live forever.
   The thought made him feel like screaming all over again.

6
   HIS HEAD HAD CLEARED a little by the time he got to school, and his mind had gone to work trying to convince him that nothing was wrong, really nothing at all. Maybe something a little weird had happened, some sort of psychic flash, a momentary peek into one possible future, but so what? No big deal, right? The idea was actually sort of cool—the kind of thing they were always printing in the weird supermarket newspapers Greta Shaw liked to read when she was sure Jake's mother wasn't around—papers like the National Enquirer and Inside View. Except, of course, in those papers the psychic flash was always a kind of tactical nuclear strike—a woman who dreamed of a plane crash and changed her reservations, or a guy who dreamed his brother was being held prisoner in a Chinese fortune cookie factory and it turned out to be true. When your psychic flash consisted of knowing that a Kiss song was going to play next on the radio, that a fat lady had a doll wrapped in a red towel in her Bloomingdale's bag, and that a pretzel vendor was going to drink a bottle of Yoo-Hoo instead of a can, how big a deal could it be?
   Forget it, he advised himself. It's over.
   A great idea, except by period three he knew it wasn't over; it was just beginning. He sat in pre-algebra, watching Mr. Knopf solving simple equations on the board, and realized with dawning horror that a whole new set of memories was surfacing in his mind. It was like watching strange objects float slowly toward the surface of a muddy lake.
   I'm in a place I don't know, he thought. I mean, I will know it—or would have known it if the Cadillac had hit me. It's the way station—but the part of me that's there doesn't know that yet. That part only knows it's in the desert someplace, and there are no people. I've been crying, because I'm scared. I'm scared that this might be hell.
   By three o'clock, when he arrived at Mid-Town Lanes, he knew he had found the pump in the stables and had gotten a drink of water. The water was very cold and tasted strongly of minerals. Soon he would go inside and find a small supply of dried beef in a room which had once been a kitchen. He knew this as clearly and surely as he'd known the pretzel vendor would select a bottle of Yoo-Hoo, and that the doll peek­ing out of the Bloomingdale's bag had blue eyes.
   It was like being able to remember forward in time.
   He bowled only two strings—the first a 96, the second an 87. Timmy looked at his sheet when he turned it in at the counter and shook his head. "You're having an off-day today, champ," he said.
   "You don't know the half of it," Jake said.
   Timmy took a closer look. "You okay? You look really pale."
   "I think I might be coming down with a bug." This didn't feel like a lie, either. He was sure as hell coming down with something.
   "Go home and go to bed," Timmy advised. "Drink lots of clear liquids—gin, vodka, stuff like that."
   Jake smiled dutifully. "Maybe I will."
   He walked slowly home. All of New York was spread out around him, New York at its most seductive—a late-afternoon street serenade with a musician on every corner, all the trees in bloom, and everyone apparently in a good mood. Jake saw all this, but he also saw behind it: saw himself cowering in the shadows of the kitchen as the man in black drank like a grinning dog from the stable pump, saw himself sobbing with relief as he—or it—moved on without discovering him, saw himself falling deeply asleep as the sun went down and the stars began to come out like chips of ice in the harsh purple desert sky.
   He let himself into the duplex apartment with his key and walked into the kitchen to get something to eat. He wasn't hungry, but it was, habit. He was headed for the refrigerator when his eye happened on the pantry door and he stopped. He realized suddenly that the way station— and all the rest of that strange other world where he now belonged— was behind that door. All he had to do was push through it and rejoin the Jake that already existed there. The queer doubling in his mind would end; the voices, endlessly arguing the question of whether or not he had been dead since 8:25 that morning, would fall silent.
   Jake pushed open the pantry door with both hands, his face already breaking into a sunny, relieved smile... and then froze as Mrs. Shaw, who was standing on a step-stool at the back of the pantry, screamed. The can of tomato paste she had been holding dropped out of her hand and fell to the floor. She tottered on the stool and Jake rushed forward to steady her before she could join the tomato paste.
   "Moses in the bullrushes!" she gasped, fluttering a hand rapidly against the front of her housedress. "You scared the bejabbers out of me, Johnny!"
   "I'm sorry," he said. He really was, but he was also bitterly disap­pointed. It had only been the pantry, after all. He had been so sure—
   "What are you doing, creeping around here, anyway? This is your bowling day! I didn't expect you for at least another hour! I haven't even made your snack yet, so don't be expecting it."
   "That's okay. I'm not very hungry, anyway." He bent down and picked up the can she had dropped.
   "Wouldn't know it from the way you came bustin in here," she grumbled.
   "I thought I heard a mouse or something. I guess it was just you."
   "I guess it was." She descended the step-stool and took the can from him. "You look like you're comin down with the flu or something, Johnny." She pressed her hand against his forehead. "You don't feel hot, but that doesn't always mean much."
   "I think I'm just tired," Jake said, and thought: If only that was all it was. "Maybe I'll just have a soda and watch TV for a while."
   She grunted. "You got any papers you want to show me? If you do, make it fast. I'm behind on supper."
   "Nothing today," he said. He left the pantry, got a soda, then went into the living room. He turned on Hollywood Squares and watched vacantly as the voices argued and the new memories of that dusty other world continued to surface.

7
   HIS MOTHER AND FATHER didn't notice anything was wrong with him— his father didn't even get in until 9:30 —and that was fine by Jake. He went to bed at ten and lay awake in the darkness, listening to the city outside his window: brakes, horns, wailing sirens.
   You died.
   I didn't, though. I'm right here, safe in my own bed.
   That doesn't matter. You died, and you know it.
   The hell of it was, he knew both things.
   I don't know which voice is true, but I know I can't go on like this. So just quit it, both of you. Stop arguing and leave me alone. Okay? Please?
   But they wouldn't. Couldn't, apparently. And it came to Jake that he ought to get up—right now—and open the door to the bathroom. The other world would be there. The way station would be there and the rest of him would be there, too, huddled under an ancient blanket in the stable, trying to sleep and wondering what in hell had happened.
   I can tell him, Jake thought excitedly. He threw back the covers, suddenly knowing that the door beside his bookcase no longer led into the bathroom but to a world that smelled of heat and purple sage and fear in a handful of dust, a world that now lay under the shadowing wing of night. I can tell him, but I won't have to... because I'll be IN him... I'll BE him!
   He raced across his darkened room, almost laughing with relief, and shoved open the door. And—
   And it was his bathroom. Just his bathroom, with the framed Marvin Gaye poster on the wall and the shapes of the Venetian blinds lying on the tiled floor in bars of light and shadow.
   He stood there for a long time, trying to swallow his disappointment. It wouldn't go. And it was bitter.
   Bitter.

8
   THE THREE WEEKS BETWEEN then and now stretched like a grim, blighted terrain in Jake's memory—a nightmare wasteland where there had been no peace, no rest, no respite from pain. He had watched, like a helpless prisoner watching the sack of a city he had once ruled, as his mind buckled under the steadily increasing pressure of the phantom voices and memories. He had hoped the memories would stop when he reached the point in them where the man named Roland had allowed him to drop into the chasm under the mountains, but they didn't. Instead they simply recycled and began to play themselves over again, like a tape set to repeat and repeat until it either breaks or someone comes along, and shuts it off.
   His perceptions of his more-or-less real life as a boy in New York City grew increasingly spotty as this terrible schism grew deeper. He could remember going to school, and to the movies on the weekend, and out to Sunday brunch with his parents a week ago (or had it been two?), but he remembered these things the way a man who has suffered malaria may remember the deepest, darkest phase of his illness: people became shadows, voices seemed to echo and overlap each other, and even such a simple act as eating a sandwich or obtaining a Coke from the machine in the gymnasium became a struggle. Jake had pushed through those days in a fugue of yelling voices and doubled memories. His obsession with doors—all kinds of doors—deepened; his hope that the gunslinger’s world might lie behind one of them never quite died. Nor was that so strange, since it was the only hope he had.
   But as of today the game was over. He'd never had a chance of winning anyway, not really. He had given up. He had gone truant. Jake walked blindly east along the gridwork of streets, head down, with no idea of where he was going or what he would do when he got there.

9
   AFTER WALKING FOR A while, he began to come out of this unhappy daze and take some notice of his surroundings. He was standing on the corner of Lexington Avenue and. Fifty-fourth Street with no memory at all of how he had come to be there. He noticed for the first time that it was an absolutely gorgeous morning. May 9th, the day this madness had started, had been pretty, but today was ten times better—that day, perhaps, when spring looks around herself and sees summer standing nearby, strong and handsome and with a cocky grin on his tanned face. The sun shone brightly off the glass walls of the midtown buildings; the shadow of each pedestrian was black and crisp. The sky overhead was a clear and blameless blue, dotted here and there with plump foul-weather clouds.
   Down the street, two businessmen in expensive, well-cut suits were standing at a board wall which had been erected around a construction site. They were laughing and passing something back and forth. Jake walked in their direction, curious, and as he drew closer he saw that the two businessmen were playing tic-tac-toe on the wall, using an expensive Mark Cross pen to draw the grids and make the X's and O's. Jake thought this was a complete gas. As he approached, one of them made an O in the upper right-hand corner of the grid and then slashed a diagonal line through the middle.
   "Skunked again!" his friend said. Then this man, who looked like a high-powered executive or lawyer or big-time stockbroker, took the Mark Cross pen and drew another grid.
   The first businessman, the winner, glanced to his left and saw Jake. He smiled. "Some day, huh, kid?"
   "It sure is," Jake said, delighted to find he meant every word.
   "Too nice for school, huh?"
   This time Jake actually laughed. Piper School, where you had Outs instead of lunch and where you sometimes stepped out but never had to take a crap, suddenly seemed far away and not at all important. "You know it."
   "You want a game? Billy here couldn't beat me at this when we were in the fifth grade, and he still can't.'
   "Leave the kid alone," the second businessman said, holding out the Mark Cross pen. "This time you're history." He winked at Jake, and Jake amazed himself by winking back. He walked on, leaving the men to their game. The sense that something totally wonderful was going to happen— had perhaps already begun to happen—continued to grow, and his feet no longer seemed to be quite touching the pavement.
   The WALK light on the corner came on, and he began to cross Lexington Avenue . He stopped in the middle of the street so suddenly that a messenger-boy on a ten-speed bike almost ran him down. It was a beautiful spring day—agreed. But that wasn't why he felt so good, so suddenly aware of everything that was going on around him, so sure that some great thing was about to occur.
   The voices had stopped.
   They weren't gone for good—he somehow knew this—but for the time being they had stopped. Why?
   Jake suddenly thought of two men arguing in a room. They sit facing each other over a table, jawing at each other with increasing bitterness. After a while they begin to lean toward each other, thrusting their faces pugnaciously forward, bathing each other with a fine mist of outraged spittle. Soon they will come to blows. But before that can happen, they hear a steady thumping noise—the sound of a bass drum—and then a jaunty flourish of brass. The two men stop arguing and look at each other, puzzled.
   What's that? one asks.
   Dunno, the other replies. Sounds like a parade.
   They rush to the window and it is a parade—a uniformed band marching in lock-step with the sun blazing off their horns, pretty majo­rettes twirling batons and strutting their long, tanned legs, convertibles decked with flowers and filled with waving celebrities.
   The two men stare out the window, their quarrel forgotten. They will undoubtedly return to it, but for the time being they stand together like the best of friends, shoulder to shoulder, watching as the parade goes by—

10
   A HORN BLARED, STARTLING Jake out of this story, which was as vivid as a powerful dream. He realized he was still standing in the middle of Lexington, and the light had changed. He looked around wildly, expecting to see the blue Cadillac bearing down on him, but the guy who had tooted his horn was sitting behind the wheel of a yellow Mustang convert­ible and grinning at him. It was as if everyone in New York had gotten a whiff of happy-gas today.
   Jake waved at the guy and sprinted to the other side of the street. The guy in the Mustang twirled a finger around his ear to indicate that Jake was crazy, then waved back and drove on.
   For a moment Jake simply stood on the far corner, face turned up to the May sunshine, smiling, digging the day. He supposed prisoners condemned to die in the electric chair must feel this way when they learn they have been granted a temporary reprieve.
   The voices were still.
   The question was, what was the parade which had temporarily diverted their attention? Was it just the uncommon beauty of this spring morning?
   Jake didn't think that was all. He didn't think so because that sensa­tion of knowing was creeping over him and through him again, the one which had taken possession of him three weeks ago, as he approached the corner of Fifth and Forty-sixth. But on May 9th, it had been a feeling of impending doom. Today it was a feeling of radiance, a sense of goodness and anticipation. It was as if … as if …
   White. This was the word that came to him, and it clanged in his mind with clear and unquestionable lightness.
   "It's the White!" he exclaimed aloud. "The coming of the White!"
   He walked on down Fifty-fourth Street, and as he reached the cor­ner of Second and Fifty-fourth, he once more passed under the umbrella of ka-tet.

11
   HE TURNED RIGHT, THEN stopped, turned, and retraced his steps to the corner. He needed to walk down Second Avenue now, yes, that was unquestionably correct, but this was the wrong side again. When the light changed, he hurried across the street and turned right again. That feeling, that sense of
   (Whiteness)
   rightness, grew steadily stronger. He felt half-mad with joy and relief. He was going to be okay. This time there was no mistake. He felt sure that he would soon begin to see people he recognized, as he had recognized the fat lady and the pretzel vendor, and they would be doing things he remembered in advance.
   Instead, he came to the bookstore.

12
   THE MANHATTAN RESTAURANT OF THE MIND, the sign painted in the window read. Jake went to the d(x>r. There was a chalkboard hung there; it looked like the kind you saw on the wall in diners and lunchrooms.
   TODAY'S SPECIALS
   From Florida ! Fresh-Broiled John D. MacDonald Hardcovers 3 for $2.50 Paperbacks 9 for $5.00
   From Mississippi ! Pan-Fried William Faulkner Hardcovers Market Price Vintage Library Paperbacks 75$ each
   From California ! Hard-Boiled Raymond Chandler Hardcovers Market Price Paperbacks 7 for $5.00
   FEED YOUR NEED TO READ
   Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side. A bell jingled overhead. The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home.
   The restaurant motif continued inside. Although the walls were lined with shelves of books, a fountain-style counter bisected the room. On Jake's side of the counter were a number of small tables with wire-backed Malt Shoppe chairs. Each table had been arranged to display the day's specials: Travis McGee novels by John D. Mac-Donald, Philip Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler, Snopes novels by William Faulkner. A small sign on the Faulkner table said: Some rare 1st eds available—pls ask. Another sign, this one on the counter, read simply: BROWSE! A couple of customers were doing just that. They sat at the counter, drinking coffee and reading. Jake thought this was without a doubt the best bookstore he'd ever been in.
   The question was, why was he here? Was it luck, or was it part of that soft, insistent feeling that he was following a trail—a land of force-beam—that had been left for him to find?
   He glanced at the display on a small table to his left and knew the answer.

13
   IT WAS A DISPLAY of children's books. There wasn't much room on the table, so there were only about a dozen of them— Alice 's Adventures in Wonderland, The Hobbit, Tom Sawyer, things like that. Jake had been attracted by a storybook obviously meant for very young children. On the bright green cover was an anthropomorphic locomotive puffing its way up a hill. Its cowcatcher (which was bright pink) wore a happy grin and its headlight was a cheerful eye which seemed to invite Jake Cham­bers to come inside and read all about it. Charlie the Choo-Choo, the title proclaimed, Story and Pictures by Beryl Evans. Jake's mind flashed back to his Final Essay, with the picture of the Amtrak train on the title-page and the words choo-choo written over and over again inside.
   He grabbed the book and clutched it tightly, as if it might fly away if he relaxed his grip. And as he looked down at the cover, Jake found that he did not trust the smile on Charlie the Choo-Choo's face. YOM look happy, but I think that's just the mask you wear, he thought. I don't think you're happy at all. And I don't think Charlie's your real name, either.
   These were crazy thoughts to be having, undoubtedly crazy, but they did not feel crazy. They felt sane. They felt true.
   Standing next to the place where Charlie the Choo-Choo had been was a tattered paperback. The cover was quite badly torn and had been mended with Scotch tape now yellow with age. The picture showed a puzzled-looking boy and girl with a forest of question-marks over their heads. The title of this book was Riddle-De-Dum! Brain-Twisters and Puzzles for Everyone! No author was credited.
   Jake tucked Charlie the Choo-Choo under his arm and picked up the riddle book. He opened it at random and saw this:
   When is a door not a door?
   "When it's a jar," Jake muttered. He could feel sweat popping out on his forehead... his arms … all over his body.
   "When it's ajar!"
   "Find something, son?" a mild voice inquired.
   Jake turned around and saw a fat guy in an open-throated white shirt standing at the end of the counter. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his old gabardine slacks. A pair of half-glasses were pushed up on the bright dome of his bald head.
   "Yes," Jake said feverishly. "These two. Are they for sale?"
   "Everything you see is for sale," the fat guy said. "The building itself would be for sale, if I owned it. Alas, I only lease." He held out his hand for the books and for a moment Jake balked. Then, reluctantly, he handed them over. Part of him expected the fat guy to flee with them, and if he did—if he gave the slightest indication ol trying it— Jake meant to tackle him, rip the books out of his hands, and boogie. He needed those books.
   "Okay, let's see what yon got," the fat man said. "By the way, I'm Tower. Calvin Tower ." He stuck out his hand.
   Jake's eyes widened, and he took an involuntary step backward. "What?"
   The fat guy looked at him with some interest. " Calvin Tower . Which word is profanity in your language, O Hyperborean Wanderer?"
   "Huh?"
   "I just mean you look like someone goosed you, kid."
   "Oh. Sorry." He clasped Mr. Tower's large, soft hand, hoping the man wouldn't pursue it. The name had given him a jump, but he didn't know why. "I'm Jake Chambers."
   Calvin Tower shook his hand. "Good handle, pard. Sounds like the footloose hero in a Western novel—the guy who blows into Black Fork, Arizona, cleans up the town, and then travels on. Something by Wayne D. Overholser, maybe. Except you don't look footloose, Jake. You look like you decided the day was a little too nice to spend in school."
   "Oh … no. We finished up last Friday."
   Tower grinned. "Uh-huh. I bet. And you've gotta have these two items, huh? It's sort of funny, what people have to have. Now you—I would have pegged you as a Robert Howard land of kid from the jump, looking for a good deal on one of those nice old Donald M. Grant editions—the ones with the Roy Krenkel paintings. Dripping swords, mighty thews, and Conan the Barbarian hacking his way through the Stygian hordes."
   "That sounds pretty good, actually. These are for... uh, for my little brother. It's his birthday next week."
   Calvin Tower used his thumb to flip his glasses down onto his nose and had a closer look at Jake. "Really? You look like an only child to me. An only child if I ever saw one, enjoying a day of French leave as Mistress May trembles in her green gown just outside the bosky dell of June."
   "Come again?"
   "Never mind. Spring always puts me in a William Cowper-ish mood. People are weird but interesting, Tex —am I right?"
   "I guess so," Jake said cautiously. He couldn't decide if he liked this odd man or not.
   One of the counter-browsers spun on his stool. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a bartered paperback copy of The Plague in the other. "Quit pulling the kid's chain and sell him the books, Cal," he said. "We've still got time to finish this game of chess before the end of the world, if you hurry up."
   "Hurry is antithetical to my nature," Cal said, hut he opened Charlie the Choo-Choo and peered at the price pencilled on the flyleaf. "A fairly common book, but this copy's in unusually fine condition. Little kids usually rack the hell out of the ones they like. I should get twelve dollars for it—"
   "Goddam thief," the man who was reading The Plague said, and the other browser laughed. Calvin Tower paid no notice.
   "—but I can't bear to dock you that much on a day like this. Seven bucks and it's yours. Plus tax, of course. The riddle book you can have for free. Consider it my gift to a boy wise enough to saddle up and light out for the territories on the last real day of spring."
   Jake dug out his wallet and opened it anxiously, afraid he had left the house with only three or four dollars. He was in luck, however. He had a five and three ones. He held the money out to Tower, who folded the bills casually into one pocket and made change out of the other.
   "Don't hurry off, Jake. Now that you're here, come on over to the counter and have a cup of coffee. Your eyes will widen with amazement as I cut Aaron Deepneau's spavined old Kiev Defense to ribbons."
   "Don't you wish," said the man who was reading The Plague—Aaron Deepneau, presumably.
   "I'd like to, but I can't. I … there's someplace I have to be."
   "Okay. As long as it's not back to school."
   Jake grinned. "No—not school. That way lies madness."
   Tower laughed out loud and flipped his glasses up to the top of his head again. "Not bad! Not bad at all! Maybe the younger generation isn't going to hell after all, Aaron—what do you think?"
   "Oh, they're going to hell, all right," Aaron said. "This boy's just an exception to the rule. Maybe."
   "Don't mind that cynical old fart," Calvin Tower said. "Motor on, O Hyperborean Wanderer. I wish I were ten or eleven again, with a beautiful day like this ahead of me."
   "Thanks for the books," Jake said.
   "No problem. That's what we're here for. Come on back sometime."
   "I'd like to."
   "Well, you know where we are."
   Yes, Jake thought. Now if I only knew where I am.