“Get shot if you use a flashlight.”
Flashlights. Getting shot. Emma felt that queer mental jolt. That’s exactly what I was thinking earlier. What does that mean? That we’re really all linked because of Lizzie?
“Yeah, tunnel rats,” Eric said. “I read about you guys.”
“That’s us. Dropping into a black echo’s the only way to kill Charlie before he kills us.” Bode’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Look, for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Well, why can’t that book be from one of those … those universe things? Like it came here to us? Know what I’m saying?”
“Well—” Emma began, and stopped. That all these books existed in an alternative timeline had never occurred to her.
“Ah. Ah.” With a wiggle of his eyebrows, Bode used a thumbnail to scratch a flame from another match. “See? Gotcha.”
“It’s not a contest,” she said, although she felt as if she’d lost a point. Why hadn’t she considered that? Bode was absolutely …
“He’s right.” When she turned to look, Eric shrugged. “Well, he is. Why can’t someone have written about us in one timeline and painted us onto canvases in another, or … I don’t know … made us into toys, or something? I can buy multiverses. The theory’s there. I’ve read enough science fiction. For all we know, this could be a simulation, too, right? Like The Matrix?”
Yet one more echo, but Eric, she almost understood. Didn’t like that she did either. “Yes, but …”
“So leaving aside the how of getting here for a second, Lizzie finds and then brings us”—Eric looked over to Lizzie—“through these, ah, Dark Passages?”
“No, Eric, I told you,” Lizzie said. “Except for Emma, you guys came from book-worlds. The Dark Passages are what’s between the Nows.”
“See?” Bode threw up his hands. “This is exactly what I’m saying. The Dark Passages are between Nows, and what’s between Nows are the Dark Passages … That’s like saying something’s a cat because it’s a cat, but it doesn’t tell you anything about what a cat really is.”
“Tautology,” Eric said, then waved that away. To Emma: “My point is that there are a lot of possibilities, but let’s just go with what you’re proposing, okay? In that case, what Bode said could be true. Why couldn’t we be ideas in one alternative universe or timeline and real people in another?”
“Like the soldiers in one of Tony’s comics.” At Eric’s puzzled look, Casey said, “They were in his car. There was this Twisted Tales about soldiers fighting giant rats. The soldiers turn out to be toys, but they think they’re real.” When Bode opened his mouth, Case said, “Yes, I know. You’re real. I got that, but get this. The comic was new, like he’d just pulled it off the rack, only the date was April. Last time I looked, it was December.”
“So? Big deal.” Bode blew a raspberry. “It’s a real nice drugstore. They take good care of their merchandise. April was only a couple months ago.”
“Only if this is 1983. I read the date.” Casey frowned. “Come to think of it, Tony’s car was really old, and he played cassette tapes, not CDs.”
“CDs?” Bode asked.
“A compact disc, for digital data … You can put music … Never mind.” Emma waved the explanation away. “It’s not important. What he’s saying is, Tony was from the past.” She paused. “Well, okay, our past, same as you.”
“Or you’re all from my future.”
“Whatever. I’m not sold we’re in a specific time,” Eric said.
“He’s right. You’re not.” Lizzie laid her cheek on her knees with a sigh. “You’re outside of a regular Now. You know, where there are things you guys call today and tomorrow and next week.” It might have been the dance of shadow from the fire, but for a brief moment, the little girl’s eyes did their odd glimmering shift again. Emma couldn’t tell if Lizzie was only tired, or depressed. Or—here was a crazy thought—bored and a little exasperated, as if she’d seen this play a thousand times before and was simply waiting for the characters of this particular drama to get it out of their systems, think it through, and catch up already.
“There’s just this special forever-Now,” Lizzie said. “And it’s like this big house, with a lot of rooms and no hallways in between.”
“Separate … rooms?” Rima said. “You mean, where things happen depending on who’s there?”
Lizzie nodded. “That’s the way it is here because of all the thought-magic. And it’s always night and really cold.”
“Hell is cold,” Eric muttered, and when Bode gave him a look, he added: “Dante. We read Inferno in school. The ninth circle of hell is a frozen lake.”
“I remember that,” Emma said. “Lucifer’s trapped in ice up to his waist.”
“And shrouded in a thick fog.” After a pause, Rima continued, faintly, “We read it, too.”
“Dad liked that book,” Lizzie said. “Not the God stuff, but he and Mom said the ice was close to what it was like in a Peculiar: really, really, really cold.”
“Yeah, that explains a lot.” Grunting, Bode scraped another match to life. “Thought-magic.”
“Bode, all she’s talking about is energy,” Eric said. “You took high school science, right? Heat is energy. Those matches? Friction on red phosphorus is enough to turn it, chemically, into white phosphorus, which ignites in air and releases heat. Take away heat, you bleed energy, which means that things cool down. You ever seen ice?”
“Of course. So?”
“Ice is solid because it’s been cooled,” Casey said. “Energy’s been taken away. Add energy, heat, the molecules speed up and ice melts. It becomes liquid. Heat it enough, it turns to steam. It just depends on how much energy you add. If I know that much science, Bode, so do you. I think what Lizzie’s saying is that the inside of a … a Peculiar? This kind of special container? It’s cold for a reason.”
“That’s right. All the thought-magic slows down. It still does things, but it can’t get out.” Lizzie looked at Rima. “Like what happened to you guys. I know that was really bad, but not as terrible as it could’ve been. In a Peculiar, the thought-magic’s not as strong.”