The Accidental Keyhand (5 page)

He got no farther, for at that moment a figure staggered upward into view on the other side of the table, his long hair a wild cloud of tangles, and the remnants of a dirty and torn cloak hanging askew off his cadaverous body. His chin glistened with wetness and gelatinous globs.

Screaming, Dorrie and Marcus reeled backward to the accompanying sound of thick paper tearing. The gargoyle of a face across from them broke into its own piercing cry, its scarecrow arms flying upward, releasing a fusillade of oranges. Dorrie felt herself pelted with them as she crashed backward into the iron barred door. The figure flung his upper body across the table, arms outstretched.

Tripping and sliding on the oranges, Dorrie and Marcus streaked for the nearest doors and exploded through them. On the other side, they pounded down a long, carpeted corridor papered in violently fuchsia bouquets, which became a curving stone stairway that wound upward in dizzying circles. It ended in another corridor, this one tiled in green and white diamonds. Hearing a crash from down in the stairwell, Dorrie grabbed Marcus's arm and they fled to the left, passing closed curtain after curtain.

Suddenly, whizzing past a curtainless stone archway, Dorrie glimpsed a heavy man in a brown robe hunched over a desk, a short fringe of hair hanging low on his otherwise bald head. Fear stabbed through her as she imagined him leaping off his stool to join the chase. Dorrie and Marcus ducked through an open door farther on and scurried past racks of what looked like half-used rolls of paper towels. Another door let them into a bright, bare corridor—this one grandly floored in polished marble.

Exhausted, Dorrie wrenched open a plain-looking wooden door and slipped through it with Marcus right behind. They pushed it softly closed behind them and slumped down, their backs against it.

“Now that was a research emergency!” panted Marcus.

Dorrie slowly took in the room. A cheery fire burned in a little brick fireplace, lighting up a collection of old-fashioned-looking couches and chairs. Glass-fronted bookcases lined the room on three sides. A marble mantel hung over the fireplace, and upon that stood two carved busts, one of a man's head and one of a woman's. In front of the fireplace, plates of steaming food sat alongside a pitcher on a low table. Dorrie was about to peer beneath the table to make sure no one was lurking when she caught sight of something white and floppy in Marcus's hand.

She felt the blood run out of her face. “That's not from the—”

“Book?” Marcus finished, shaking the hair out of his eyes. “More or less.”

“You ripped a page out of the book!”

“Not on purpose!”

Marcus collapsed in a sprawl on the floor, the page crumpling beneath him. “I need a nap,” he groaned. “A year-long nap.”

“Don't squash it!” hissed Dorrie, expecting to be discovered any moment. “Roll it up, at least, or something!”

Marcus heaved himself off the page as though it cost him all the energy he had left. Slowly he began to roll the page up.

Another wave of the sleepiness she'd felt in the pool hit Dorrie. With it came a madly intense urge to orient herself, to see the streets of Passaic, to know exactly how far they'd traveled from beneath the Passaic Public Library. She staggered clumsily to her feet and, pulling Marcus reluctantly along with her, tottered toward a window that stood between two bookcases. She tore aside the silky green curtains and gave a little cry.

“This is impossible,” whispered Dorrie hoarsely.

Marcus swayed beside her. “This is definitely not Passaic.”

PETRARCH'S LIBRARY

The panic that Dorrie had been staving off now exploded within her, electrifying her fingers. She clung to the window's sill, anchoring herself to its solidness. Nothing was as it should be. Instead of looking down on one of Passaic's worn and potholed streets lined with its familiar saggy-stooped duplexes and corner convenience stores, Dorrie saw spread below her a vast patchwork of rooftops. Slate tiles and wooden shingles and straw thatch and blued copper lay against roofs of every pitch and style.

The buildings they sheltered connected to one another in a vast jigsaw puzzle that included open fields, pebbled courtyards, and gardens with tinkling fountains. A stone tower seamlessly gave way to a wooden farmhouse, which farther on became a timber and stucco hall, which fit snugly against an immense sort of palace heavy with stone carvings and glistening windows. Stone gave way to bamboo. Stucco gave way to mud bricks. At a great distance, beyond a band of gnarled trees and rough rock outcrops, Dorrie saw what looked like a sun-scaled sea.

Voices in the hallway made her ragged breath catch, and she and Marcus turned frightened eyes on each other. The voices came closer; the knob on the door they'd used began to turn. In a blur, Marcus shoved the roll of paper he held down a thin brass tube with a flared opening that rose out of the floor nearby.

“Can't have a mission meeting without proper nourishment,” said a big-boned man with an extra wobbling chin as he came through the door carrying a laden tray. Curly puffs of reddish hair grew with a great amount of spirit from either side of his head, as if trying to make up for the fact that not a hair grew from the top. Two girls about Dorrie's age trailed him, each holding their own trays.

Seeing Dorrie and Marcus, they both stopped dead. The first girl wore an expression of great wonder and a yellow hair band that held back an abundance of dreds. The second stared at them with narrowed, suspicious eyes from beneath dark bangs, the rest of her hair having been cropped at the ears. Having lifted a sardine from one of the plates he carried, the man was in the process of dropping it in his mouth with great relish when the first girl nudged him.

Catching sight of Dorrie and Marcus, he lowered the sardine. “Well, who in the name of Seshat are you?”

His words rattled and buzzed in Dorrie's ears.

“Han…” slurred Marcus.

Dorrie, who felt as though her brain had begun to spin inside her skull like a globe, gave Marcus points for quick thinking.

“Solo,” added Marcus. He pointed at Dorrie. “Chewbacca.”

Dorrie took some of the points she'd awarded Marcus back. Then, though she had never before fainted, Dorrie had a strong feeling, as her knees turned jellyish, that she was about to do just that.

The man dropped the tray on the table with a crash and hurried forward, catching Dorrie just before she slumped to the ground. As he carried her to a couch, a young woman with the longest hair Dorrie had ever seen appeared in the doorway, a bouquet of flowers in her hand.

“These zinnias will cheer up—” Catching sight of Marcus slipping to the floor, his eyes closed, she abandoned her thought and, tossing the flowers aside, hurried toward him, though not in time to keep him from landing with a heavy thud.

“Slip shock, Egeria, I think,” said the man as the woman stooped over Marcus, feeling his hands.

“Slip shock?” exclaimed the short-haired girl. “But there are not supposed to be any new archways opening for years and years.”

“They're soaking wet,” the man said as he gently laid Dorrie down. “They need warmth and cloversweet.”

The short-haired girl spoke again. “But they might be enemies! Maybe even Foundation.”

Dorrie's heart began to thump wildly. She felt as though her blood was turning to ice water.

“Manners, Millie,” said the man. “They could also be friends.” He held out his hand to Dorrie. “Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim.”

With great effort, Dorrie managed to get her hand into his.

“I get called Paracelsus sometimes too, but Phillip does for most people.”

“I'll go get Mr. Gormly!” said Millie sprinting for the door.

“Never mind Mr. Gormly,” said Phillip, sounding irritated. “Go get some dry clothes from the circulation desk, and Ebba, you'd better fetch Ursula. Tell her, ‘Slip shock.'” Both girls vanished through the door.

“Slip shock has a way of sneaking up on a person after a trip in,” said Phillip, his thick eyebrows waggling. They sat over a pair of kindly eyes. “You'll be right as rain soon enough. In the meantime, you may feel confused, deathly tired, and as though your arms and legs had been run over by mill wheels.”

Dorrie thought he sounded quite cheerful about the whole situation.

Together, Phillip and Egeria half walked, half carried Marcus toward another couch. As disoriented as she was, Dorrie couldn't help noticing that Marcus was making their job a lot harder than it had to be by giggling, trying to stroke Egeria's hair as if she were a cat, and gazing into her face as though he'd lost something in it.

“Also, your brain may feel a bit overworked,” said Phillip, his voice still buoyant. “As if you're listening to a foreign language and instantly translating it into your own. Which, of course, you are. Assuming your mother tongue isn't Latin.” He looked at Dorrie thoughtfully as he helped lower Marcus onto the other couch. “You do bear a vague resemblance to a milkmaid I met in Umbria once.”

Curling up in a ball on the couch, Marcus closed his eyes, sighing and mumbling. Dorrie didn't know what to make of Phillip's words, but it had occurred to her that the shapes his mouth made as he spoke didn't match up with the words she was hearing.

“I'll go tell Mistress Wu what's happened,” said Egeria, striding out of the room. She almost collided with a stout woman with black corkscrew curls who was carrying a basket in each hand, Ebba trailing after her. The woman set down the baskets. Giving Dorrie an efficient smile, she pulled a blanket out of one of the baskets and laid it on top of her.

With quick movements, she dug in the second basket until she'd unearthed a lidded jar and a goblet. She poured out an amber liquid. “I'm Ursula,” she said, handing Dorrie the full goblet. “Drink this. It'll help you recover.”

Dorrie touched the rim of the goblet to her parched lips tentatively. If Passaic could disappear, what would happen to her if she took a sip? Would she turn into a toad or vanish in a puff of lavender smoke? Would she be Ursula's prisoner for life? She hesitated and then, desperately thirsty, she drank, half waiting for webbing to grow between her toes. The cool liquid tasted of summer grass and the sweetness of flowers.

Marcus stirred. Phillip hurried over to him with another blanket, while Ebba, looking shyly at Dorrie, began to tug on one of Dorrie's wet boots.

As Phillip spread the blanket over Marcus, a grin that Dorrie thought looked appallingly idiotic spread slowly over her brother's face. He reached out his arms toward Phillip, his lips rummaging around in a kissy sort of way. Opening his eyes, he froze for a moment and then snatched back his arms, closing his mouth with a snap. “Dude, you are not the person I was dreaming about.”

“My apologies,” said Phillip.

“She was about seven feet tall,” Marcus said with soggy admiration. “With chocolate cherry, mermaid-forever hair and purple eyes.”

“That would be our Egeria, though I'd have to say her eyes are more of a blue.” Phillip wiggled his bushy eyebrows at Ursula. “Might want to pour him a double dose.”

As Dorrie sipped from the goblet, she saw for the first time that Ursula's left eye nested in a birthmark that flowed like a spill of red wine across her eyelid and temple to disappear into her hairline. Dorrie automatically looked away.

“It's a birthmark,” Ursula said matter-of-factly, clock-spring curls bouncing around her pale face. “You can look if you'd like. Some people have noted it bears a startling resemblance to a sleeping cat.”

Phillip snorted. “Yes, right before those charming commentators tried to set you on fire.”

“Set you on fire!” repeated Dorrie, shocked.

Phillip peered over Ursula's shoulder at Dorrie. “Curiosity almost killed our lovely Ursula cat.”

“More like a lack of curiosity,” sniffed Ursula.

Dorrie decided they must be sharing a private joke.

Marcus worked himself more deeply into the cushions. “Maybe her eyes were more of a violet than a purple.”

“There's a
hole
in the ceiling over the baths!” announced Millie, tearing back into the room, her eyes ablaze. “There's a room on the other side but it doesn't look like a proper archway at all!”

Phillip and Ursula stared at each other for a long moment, and Ebba's eyes grew round.

Millie tossed the clothing she held on a chair. “Oh, and there's some weasel thing in the water swimming round in circles!”

“Really?” said Ebba, letting go of Dorrie's boot and clapping her hands together, her face bright. “A weasel? Are you sure?”

“I don't know,” said Millie, supremely indifferent. “It's long and wet, and it's showing its teeth a lot.”

“It could also be a stoat or a marten,” said Ebba. “Did its tail have a black tip? A stoat almost always has one, and a weasel hardly—”

“It's a mongoose,” interrupted Dorrie, feeling more clearheaded.

Everyone but Marcus stared at her for a moment.

“Right,” said Phillip finally, turning to Ebba and Millie. “Well, go fish it out!”

Ebba and Millie dashed away again. A hope crept through Dorrie. If the hole was still there, then no matter what she had seen through the window, perhaps Passaic was still on the other side of it. Poor, horrible Moe. She'd forgotten all about him.

“Where are we exactly?” Dorrie forced herself to ask.

Ursula gave Dorrie a keen, penetrating look as she poured a second goblet-full of liquid from the jar. “You don't know?”

Dorrie shook her head.

Ursula looked intently at her a moment longer, then at Phillip, who nodded slightly as she handed him the goblet. “You are in Petrarch's Library. I'm Ursula, director of the repair and preservation department here.”

“The one for humans,” said Phillip, winking at Dorrie as he carried the goblet over to Marcus. “You wouldn't want Master Al-Rahmi mucking about in your health with his whiffy glues and inks.”

“Who's Master Al-Rahmi?” asked Dorrie, feeling that she was navigating a maze.

Ursula screwed the lid back on the jar. “Director of Petrarch's Library's
other
repair and preservation department. The one for books and scrolls and tablets, that sort of thing.”

Dorrie set her goblet down. “But what
is
Petrarch's Library?”

Before Ursula could answer, Marcus sat bolt upright as though he'd just that moment solved the mystery of the universe's existence. “Maybe she just smelled like purple.”

Dorrie rounded on him. “That's all you're wondering about?”

“Aren't you?”

“What? No, you idiot!” She seemed to finally have his attention. “We fell through a floor into a swimming pool, and if you didn't notice, that's not Passaic outside that window!”

He blinked at her. “Why can't
our
library have a pool?” He sank back into the cushions. “And a girl with mermaid-forever hair.”

“The Romans, bless them,” said Phillip. “Sheer genius mixing libraries and swimming pools.”

“The Romans?” said Dorrie, feeling utterly frustrated. “What do the Romans have to do with anything? I just want to know where we are and—”

“Oh my,” said a voice from the doorway.

Dorrie turned to see a solid, broad-shouldered woman in a long, red silk tunic leaning on the doorframe and breathing like a spent racehorse, an enormous pillow of black hair atop her head.

“Unexpected guests, I think, Mistress Wu,” said Phillip pleasantly.

“Oh dear,” said Mistress Wu, mopping at her face with a handkerchief. “I came as soon as I could. Egeria's moved the mission meeting into the Serapeum, so we shouldn't be bothered here. What a simply terrible fall it must have been for them. Are they quite all ri—” She stopped mopping and talking, a look of pure horror on her face. “Oh, how awful of me,” she said, looking first at Marcus and then Dorrie. “How terrible to be spoken of as though one isn't in the room. Do forgive me!”

“I'm sure they're over it already,” said Phillip. He turned to Dorrie, his eyebrows dancing. “Mistress Wu is the assistant to Hypatia, our director of administration, who is away in…on a trip at the moment.”

A crooked cushion on a chair seemed to seize Mistress Wu's full attention. Her hands had reached out to straighten it when Phillip cleared his throat. “They're just wondering where they are at the moment.”