Between

Four


Vivian scrubbed her hands at the sink, lingering, extending the ritual longer than necessary to buy herself a moment of time. Although she’d managed to catch a few hours of sleep after her walk to the bookstore, she’d wakened feeling like someone had pounded every inch of her body with a baseball bat. Questions to which there were no answers swirled in her head.

Work was a welcome relief, normal, something that helped her focus on reality.

Normal, but far from easy. On the examining table behind her, a woman was slowly suffocating from the secretions in her own lungs, cumulative damage of thirty years of tobacco. She’d never taken a puff in her life—all of the smoking had been done by the man who sat in the chair beside her, holding her hand, looking a good ten years younger than his age and in perfect health.

No rhyme nor reason to anything in this world.

“Dr. Maylor—”

Roxie stood in the doorway, lower lip trapped between her teeth. Vivian jerked paper towels out of the holder and used them to turn off the faucet. “What is it?”

“We’ve got a bit of a situation; you’d better come out, if you can.”

A bit of a situation could mean anything from a difficult patient to a staff dispute about what toppings should go on a pizza. Not an emergency per se. Although if it was the question of pizza, that sometimes came damned close.

“One minute,” Vivian said. She turned back to the couple behind her. “Now, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, you both understand there must be absolutely no more smoke in the house, yes?”

“I’ll quit,” Carl said. “It’s time.”

Alexis patted his hand. She pulled aside the oxygen mask to speak, but before she could get a word out a paroxysm of coughing shook her. Carl supported her thin shoulders, his face marked with helplessness and the sure and certain knowledge of loss.

“I’d like to admit you to the unit,” Vivian said, when the coughing had eased. “We can treat the pneumonia better here—”

The woman shook her head, looking to her husband to speak for her.

“Stubborn. Says she’s spent enough time in the hospital and she’s not staying,” Carl said. “There’s no point wasting your breath.”

No one spoke for a minute, the significance of the cliché punctuated by the labored breathing of the woman on the bed.

“Keep the oxygen on,” Vivian said, finally. “Use the inhalers the way I showed you. A nurse will be coming out to check on you and give you IV antibiotics. I’ll send a referral to hospice.”

She slipped out of the room, away from the love and loss and guilt that filled it so thickly it stifled her own breath. Staff had gathered in a little clump behind the desk, their voices subdued for confidentiality, but hands were emphatically waving and nobody looked happy.

Not a pizza problem this time.

“What’s up?”

They turned to face her, all of them, huddled into a flock. Max licked his lips, his eyes feverish. “Brett’s in six,” he said.

Vivian stared at them, absorbing.

Six was a code of sorts. It was the bay at the end of the hall, the place they put patients who might disturb the rest of the public. Psychiatric emergencies, the loud and intoxicated.

“Brett who?”

They stared back, eyes wide, faces tense and pale.

“Flynne.” Shelly looked ready to cry. Her hands trembled visibly and Vivian understood. Deputy Brett Flynne, who was on duty the night Arden died. Who had been investigating things down at the Finger. He’d been a deputy when most of the staff were still in high school. Dependable, reliable, a community fixture. And now they’d put him in six.

“What’s going on?”

“Raving,” Roxie said. “And cold. Brody’s in there with him.”

“Explain.”

“Hypothermic. Temp is ninety-five. And—he’s talking about penguins. I already put warm blankets on him and ordered the IV warmer from central.”

Vivian bit back a surge of panic. Her job, somehow, to calm and organize, to appear sane and together even when she felt like she was flying apart. “Look, guys—something caused this, something will fix it. We deal with it like we always do. Follow the protocols. The second the warmer gets here, start a bag of normal saline. Shelly, call the lab and get them to draw blood stat. Max, get Mrs. Anderson discharged, will you? She doesn’t need to be here for this.”

Everybody scattered to assigned tasks, and Vivian let her feet carry her down the hall. Squeak, squeak. Damn it, she’d totally forgotten to get different shoes. She paused for a moment outside the door, half-expecting another dream fragment.

But there was no flash of dream, no déjà vu. When she entered, Brett was huddled under a pile of blankets, shivering hard enough to shake the examination table. The skin of his hands and face looked dead white; his lips, blue tinged, moved in an endless recitation she couldn’t quite hear.

Deputy Brody stood at a small distance, eyes averted, face flushed, shoulders rounded with embarrassment. His hands made a gesture of invocation when he saw her, then returned to the security of his belt and the array of defensive tools he carried. Pepper spray, Taser, sidearm, handcuffs.

Brett didn’t react to her entrance; his eyes remained focused on a far corner of the room.

“What happened?” She crossed the room, put her hand on his forehead. So cold. She picked up one of his hands and pressed the nail bed, checking for circulation. Not good. Respirations shallow and slow.

“We were down at the Finger—he wanted to go over the evidence for the murders again. So he’s over there by the stone looking at bloodstains, and all of a sudden he shouts, ‘Look out! Penguins!’ And then he starts shaking like he’s got the plague. That’s not it, is it? The plague? Some sort of chemical weapon or whatever?”

“I very much doubt that, but we can check you over if you want.”

Brett’s hand clenched hers, squeezing her fingers to the point of pain. His eyes focused on hers, staring, intent. “The penguins are coming,” he whispered, as though it were the most important message in the world.

She kept her voice low, as calm as she could make it. “I don’t understand, Brett. We’re not seeing any penguins, Brody and I.”

He released her, his hands fumbling aimlessly at his breast. His muttering grew louder; she could understand the words, meaningless. “The penguins are coming, full of grease. Lord, deliver us from ice. The penguins are coming, full of grease, Lord deliver us from ice. The penguins are coming…”

She couldn’t find a pulse in his wrist. Placing the stethoscope on his chest she heard his heart, slow and weak. An oral temperature read ninety-three degrees. Roxie’s initial reading had been ninety-five. He was getting colder.

Hypothermia.

It made no sense. At today’s temperature you’d have to be outside for hours without a coat to get this cold. Still searching for the rational explanation, she asked Brody, “Was he wearing a coat? How did he get so cold?”

“Regular uniform, same as me. There was a wind off the river, but nothing extreme, you know? Sun was shining. He was fine, and then he wasn’t. That’s all I can tell you.”

Goddamn it. She’d had one patient burn up on her table. She wasn’t about to let another one freeze to death. Hypothermia should be easy enough to treat, but he was getting worse, not better, and she had absolutely no idea what was causing the problem. This time she wasn’t going to mess around. She’d get him stabilized as much as possible and airlift him to Spokane. Maybe the doctors at Sacred Heart could see what she was missing.

Roxie half-ran through the door with an IV, the warmer, and another armful of warm blankets. Working together without a word, they laid him back and wrapped the warmed blankets around him. Brett lay as they’d placed him, drowsy now, his eyes closed, fingers twitching. His lips still moved, fitfully, but Vivian couldn’t make out any words.

“Max called for airlift,” Roxie said. She’d managed, somehow, to find a vein, and was filling tubes for the lab before hooking up the warmed IV. Vivian moved the blankets long enough to slap pads on his chest and hook up the EKG, wrapping him up again at once.

Vivian looked up at Brody. “You could track down his wife and ask her some questions—any history of mental illness? Any drug use? That sort of thing.”

“Look, I’ve been his partner for five years. If you’re suggesting—”

“I’m not suggesting anything. We just don’t want to neglect any possible leads. Okay?”

“All right. It’s just—”

Vivian gentled her voice. “I know. We’re doing everything we can for him. Okay?”

Brody nodded and stalked out. She’d given him something comprehensible to do and hoped it would help him. There wasn’t much chance he would turn up anything of use.

At least Brett’s temperature had stopped dropping, but he wasn’t warming. And he should be. He was a healthy man with no history of serious disease. Frankly, she couldn’t think of a disease or a drug that would cause what she was seeing here.

Which forced her, at last, to confront what she’d been avoiding. Arden, and the way her dreams lingered long after waking. The strange conversation she’d had today with a man she had dreamed before she met him.

Her hand went to the pendant, seeking comfort from the cool stone that had been with her for years. She had almost managed to erase her memory of the day it was given to her, could go days and months with it buried deep in her subconscious. It was a day that didn’t fit with the rest of her life, didn’t fit with anything. She had almost persuaded herself over the years that the events of that day never really happened, were only dream.

But there was the pendant, and she had no other story to explain its existence.

She’d been seven years old that summer. Old enough to begin to question Isobel’s version of reality and struggle with her own. Other kids were amazingly casual about dreams. Sometimes they were frightened by nightmares, but they laughed away their fear. Their dreams seemed to fit in the same category as Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, beings Vivian had always known did not exist.

They talked about all of these things in a casual banter that astonished Vivian, whose experience was so far different, and so she kept her own vivid dreams to herself.

As she did her home life.

Her classmates, for the most part, had two parents, brothers and sisters, maybe even aunts and uncles and grandparents. Sometimes they all lived together; sometimes they didn’t. They talked about these people in terms that had no connection to anything Vivian knew. Parents cooked, cleaned, and bought groceries. Had jobs. Watched over homework. Read bedtime stories.

Vivian’s mother did none of these things. She had no father. She’d asked about him once.

“He’s a prince,” Isobel said, her voice far away and her eyes looking into Dreamworld.

“That’s not true,” Vivian said, bossy. “I’m too old for fairy stories.”

“Who says fairy stories aren’t true? We fell in love long, long ago—”

Vivian knew all about where babies came from and was having none of this. “Isobel. I am seven. If you were with some fairy-tale prince that many years ago, then where did I come from?”

Her mother’s eyes focused, just for a minute, and Vivian shivered a little with happiness and a touch of fear, to have her mother look at her and really see her. “I found him in a dream. At least I think it was a dream. So real, darling.” All at once Isobel began to weep, wrenching sobs that frightened Vivian more than the cutting and the blood. She knew what to do about blood; tears were something else altogether. You couldn’t call an ambulance for tears.

Almost two years before, when she was five, a neighbor showed her how to dial 911. Gave her instructions for when it was okay to call: If your mother isn’t talking or eating and can’t get out of bed. If she has an accident with something sharp and is bleeding. If she takes too many pills. There were no instructions about tears.

Knives and scissors were a problem. And razor blades. Vivian did her best to keep them away from her mother, but she was little and had to go to school. Things happened. Sometimes this meant trips to the emergency room and stitches. Sometimes it meant the 911 number and an ambulance, all sirens and flashing lights.

Once, her mother stayed at some mysterious hospital for days, and then weeks. Vivian was not allowed to visit and was made to stay with an aunt and uncle in a house full of stray kids. Only they weren’t her aunt and uncle—they knew it and she knew it—but they made her play that strange game of pretend.

Ever since Isobel had come home, a social worker, Beth, came in regularly to check on things. She was easily lied to. Isobel hated the hospital; Vivian hated the uncle and aunt. Together they colluded to pretend things were okay.

Mostly, they managed.

On this particular morning, Vivian had fixed herself cereal and was eating it alone at the table when Isobel entered the kitchen. She was dressed to go out, in a fitted black suit jacket and skirt. Her lips were red and she smelled of perfume and hair spray.

“Get dressed,” she said.

“I am dressed.”

“Something nicer.”

Vivian shook her head. Dresses hindered her, kept her from climbing trees and rolling in the grass. They were also hard to wash. Recently she had learned to operate the washing machine and did both her own laundry and her mother’s when Isobel was too busy with imaginary friends.

“I suppose I’ll have to take you like that. Put your shoes on.”

“Where are we going?”

“To visit your grandfather.”

“I have a grandfather? Where does he live? How come I haven’t met him?”

The rest of her questions were met with silence. By the time she located her sneakers and buckled herself into the car, Isobel was off in a world of her own.

Isobel Maylor often talked to herself. Today was no exception, and the words spilled out rapid-fire as she drove, her hands waving a graceful and expressive counterpoint. Vivian guessed that this grandfather might be one of her mother’s imaginary friends and began watching for a phone booth from which she might dial the magical 911 if they happened to get lost or stranded.

Several hours later, the car stopped in a patch of gravel at the end of a tree-lined lane. A wizened old man popped out onto the porch before the dust had time to settle.

Vivian stared at him. He was real, all right, even though he did look like a gnome out of a picture book. He stood there, the door open behind him, while Isobel stepped out of the car, her shiny black heels sinking into the dust. Vivian followed.

“Isobel,” the old man said. He stood perfectly still. “And Vivian. At last. It’s about time we met.”

Isobel walked past him without a hug or even a touch on the arm, into an open area with a kitchen and sitting room, Vivian trailing behind. “Go in the other room and stay until I call you,” Isobel ordered, gesturing toward a closed door.

Vivian’s eyes turned to the old man, and he nodded. “Do as your mother says, child. Only the next room, mind. Do not go through the green door.”

She complied at once, more than happy to escape; the tension between the two sizzled and popped with a complex vibration that trembled her insides.

An ordinary wooden door opened to her shove, admitting her to a small room with a couch and a stack of books piled unevenly on a rickety coffee table. At the far side of this room was the forbidden green door. Vivian, having been warned about the door, found herself immediately drawn to it, but she only gave it a long look before plunking down on the couch. She sorted through the pile of books and picked up a fat paperback. The cover attracted her, a picture of a knight on horseback, waving a bright sword. But flipping through the pages she found only unfamiliar words, without even a sprinkling of was, and, or the. She was proud of her newfound ability to read, and angry that this book shut her out.

The voices from the other room grew loud and distracting.

“Take me back,” her mother said.

And her grandfather’s voice, sad now, she thought. “No, Izzie, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can! You took me away, all those long years ago, and everything’s been wrong since then.”

“You don’t understand the danger, child.”

“Give me the globes then, and I’ll find my own way. You said they would be mine, and then you took them away, too.”

“I had to. I regret it deeply. They gave you the dream sickness, Isobel. It isn’t safe.”

“If you loved me at all, you would give them back to me!” Vivian knew all too well the rising of her mother’s voice. It meant blood. There would be another trip to the mysterious hospital for Isobel, and the aunts and uncles for Vivian. Whatever it was her mother wanted, Vivian wished the grandfather would just give it to her.

Her eyes kept turning to the green door, only a few steps away from where she sat. On the other side of the door she wouldn’t be able to hear them shouting.

Her grandfather had told her not to.

Loud sobs decided her. She hated listening to her mother cry.

Still, one hand on the doorknob, she paused, knowing disobedience had consequences.

Her grandfather’s voice again. “The reason I did what I did is because I love you, Izzie. You must understand. I was wrong to go against the rules—”

“I hate you! My life is a gaping hole, and it’s your fault. I loved him, and you dragged me away. You gave me the globes, and then you took them from me. Let me go back. I was whole there…”

Vivian slid through the green door and shut out the voices behind her.

Standing with her back to the closed door, she looked around the room. An odd assortment of objects spilled off shelves and onto the floor. Kind of like the Goodwill store, but not as neat.

A gray cat emerged from behind a shelf and wound around her ankles. Squatting on the floor, she rubbed its soft fur and it purred, butting its head against her hands. When the cat got up and stalked off with its tail in the air, she followed. Down a narrow aisle, careful not to touch anything. Past shelves full of books with cracked leather bindings. They smelled old and interesting, and she felt that they wanted her to open them. It frightened her to think that the books might want something, and she left them very much alone.

Farther in, she found a whirling creation of balls and wire that stood as tall as she. Here she stopped, mesmerized. Watching carefully, for a long time, she thought she could see how to move things to change the pattern. But once again, she moved on without touching.

She found weird cuckoo clocks and other things that ticked and whirred; sand glasses with different colors of sand streaming at varying speeds through the glass; a collection of carved wooden masks. She walked by all of them, stopping to look but not ever truly tempted to touch, still following the cat.

And then, at the far end of the room, sitting alone on a rough wooden shelf beneath the only window, she found the wooden box. It glowed in a ray of sunlight, satin smooth, worn with age. There were carvings on the lid—two dragons, their necks intertwined, wings widespread.

Vivian instantly coveted the box. It was made for secrets: small enough for her hands to carry, big enough to hold treasures. A tiny brass key was set in the lock.

Her mother’s voice was louder now, shrieking, the words muffled by walls.

One quick peek inside the box. Nobody would ever know.

The cat sat down by her feet and licked a paw as her fingers turned the key and opened the lid.

Little balls of clear glass nestled into a crimson velvet lining, all different sizes, like marbles but without the swirl of color at the center. Vivian ran her fingers through them, watching reflected colors shift and change, feeling the energy around her shift as well. A chiming sound, like a bell only different, filled the air. She paused, alarmed, certain the adults would come running, both of them angry, but their voices continued in the other room.

Picking up one of the little balls between thumb and forefinger, she held it up to the light. Suspended in the center was a tiny, perfect tree; a tire swing dangled from a long branch.

Such a peaceful world, so quiet, so safe.

A breeze brushed against her cheek, and she looked up, startled, to find herself standing in a field of grass and flowers, wind blowing her hair into her eyes. She pushed the bothersome strands behind her ears and saw the tree towering above her, with the tire swing turning gently, invitingly, in front of her. No sign of a house or people anywhere. Nothing but the tree and this wide, green field all dotted with yellow and blue, stretching away as far as she could see.

At first, it was sheer delight—her favorite daydream come true. Sunlight warmed her hair, the wind sang to her, and the marble clasped in her hand sang with it. Nobody came by with sharp words to call her inside and lecture her about bugged telephones and listening ears. No razors and blood and ambulance sirens.

But by the time the sun hung like a ball of fire on the western horizon she shivered in an unrelenting breeze, her belly tight with hunger. The swinging had long since lost its charm and she sat with her back to the trunk of the tree, knees drawn up against her body for comfort and warmth.

Her grandfather was still a long way off when she saw him coming through the field toward her, looking more like a gnome than ever, his wizened face sharp in the waning light.

“Well,” he said, sinking down into the grass beside her. “I suppose they were meant for you. But not yet, child, not yet.”

“The box wanted to be opened,” she said.

“There were other things that wanted you—why this one?”

She met his eyes then, so dangerously bright and blue, and said, “Because I wanted to.”

“You were fortunate, child. If I had not come for you, you would have been lost here, forever; do you understand?”

She shook her head, defiant. “I would have walked somewhere. I would have telephoned for help. Somebody would have found me.”

“Now you are being foolish. This is an entire reality—you must understand that. There is nobody else in this world but you and me.”

Nobody else. The words rang true. She held up the marble in her hand, studying the tiny tree, the swing. A tricksy wish, like all storybook magic turned out to be. Fairy wishes always turned into a curse of some kind, no matter how hard someone tried to get it right.

“I see you believe me. So I will also tell you this. The globes can take you to many wonderful places, but many dark and dangerous places as well. You were lucky.”

She was fascinated now. “What kind of places?”

“All are within the Dreamworld. Each of those globes contains somebody’s dream.”

Confused, and remembering some of her own dreams, she felt her stomach clench with sudden fear. “But I’m awake. How can we be in a dream if I’m awake?”

“Because you are who you are.”

“And I can be awake in someone else’s dream?”

“Yes. And some of them are beautiful and peaceful, like this one. But some are full of monsters and evil things.”

“Dragons,” she whispered.

“Yes, dragons.”

She squeezed her hands together until the bones hurt, pressed them between her knees.

A warm arm wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her against him so that her cheek rested on his chest. A steady heartbeat, even breath. His lack of fear comforted her, and in a moment she was able to whisper, “The dragons. I think they’re looking for me.”

A moment of silence, long enough for her to wonder whether he was going to lie to her. She’d learned that grown-ups often lied. The social worker, the aunt and uncle, her teacher at school. She pulled away and looked for the this-is-for-your-own-good expression on his face. Instead, his blue eyes looked straight into hers, and he half smiled.

“I imagine they are.”

She hadn’t expected that.

“They scare me.”

“As they should.”

He fell silent and stared at the sinking sun. The look on his face reminded her of Isobel’s when she was in one of her moods, and she shook his arm to bring him back to her.

“So what do I do? About the dragons?”

“Oh, that’s easy, for now. Stay out of the Between. Later—well, there’s time enough to talk about later.”

“What’s Between?” She waited, her lip caught between her teeth, scarcely daring to breathe.

“Listen carefully. This is important.”

She nodded. If he was going to tell her how to be safe from the dragons, she didn’t plan to miss a word.

“There’s Dreamworld, right? Your dreams and everybody else’s. This, for example, is somebody else’s dream, but it’s still a dream.”

“Okay.” This was good. Confirmation of what she’d already known.

“And there’s Wakeworld. Where all the stuff the idiots call reality happens. Like school, and chores, and spinach for dinner.”

“And Isobel.”

A deep sigh at that. “Well—your mother kind of breaks the rules. Part of her is in Wakeworld. But mostly she’s stuck in the Between.” He brushed his fingers across the back of her hand. “You know when you’re not really awake and not really asleep? That place?”

She did. Everything was all mixed up there—you couldn’t tell what was Dreamworld and what was Wakeworld.

“Well, that’s where the dragons lurk. And other things, too. Stay out of the Between and you’ll be all right.”

“But I can’t—I have to go through it when I go to sleep.”

“Yes, and when you wake up.”

“So, what then?”

“Be quick about falling asleep and waking.”

“Are we stuck here then, in this dream place?”

“No. You’re never stuck anywhere unless you want to be.”

“That doesn’t make sense!”

“True, nonetheless. Look—if you wish it strongly enough, there will always be a door to take you home. This doesn’t work for everybody, mind. You have certain—gifts.”

Vivian sat still and thought about things. About Dreamworld and Wakeworld and the hunting dragons. About her mother and that lost look in her eyes, the look of the Between.

“How did you get here?” she demanded in a sudden flurry of temper. “There’s a trick. You’re not telling me.”

He smiled. “You’re smart, that’s a good thing. Look—there are the globes, that’s one door. But for those who have the touch and know where to look, the doors are everywhere.”

“For me?”

“Not yet—but maybe someday.”

“What about Isobel?”

“Ah, yes.” His eyes were sad. “Your mother has just enough ability with doors to get herself stuck.”

“Can’t you get her out?”

He shook his head. “Not until she wants to come. She’s trying to get somewhere else.”

“But won’t the dragons get her?”

“Not the dragons, no—those are for you to worry about. We’ve left her alone long enough, though—are you ready to go home?”

Vivian nodded. “Can I come back here?”

He shook his head. “Not soon. All of the dreamspheres will be yours someday.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.” He pulled a chain from his pocket and hung it around her neck. A strange pendant hung from it, and she lifted it with both hands to see better.

A circle, with a web woven into the center out of some iridescent string. A stone creature at the center, wearing a tiny brass key around its neck on a collar. Vivian squealed—the creature was a penguin, and she adored penguins. She wanted to keep looking, to take it off and play with it, but her grandfather’s voice stopped her.

“Wear this always. Never take it off—water won’t hurt it; neither will the sun. It will help keep the dragons away. Can you keep it secret from your mother?”

“Of course.” Keeping real things secret from Isobel was easy. She wrinkled her nose. “The chain isn’t very pretty.”

“No, but it’s strong.”

“Silver is prettier.”

“Hmm. Trust me on this—silver isn’t for you.”

She shrugged. The pendant was perfect, and a shiny chain would just draw attention to something she wanted to hide. Just to be sure, she tucked the pendant under her shirt.

Grandfather nodded approvingly. “There you go. Are you ready now?”

“Yes. Let’s go home,” she said.

“See if you can make the door.”

She closed her eyes and thought hard about her room at home—the bed with the blue blanket, the bookshelf with the books she was just learning to read, the stuffed penguin that slept beside her at night. She thought about school and chocolate and ice cream. She thought about her mother and how she needed to be taken care of.

“Open your eyes,” her grandfather said.

There, right in front of them, a door hung in the air. For a long minute she sat and stared at it, frightened. But Grandfather was not alarmed at all. He gave her that half smile again, but she thought he looked tired all at once.

“Well, open it, then.”

She did so.

Behind her were the big tree and the wide green field; through the door, her grandfather’s strange room with the window and the shelf where the marble box had stood.

The shelf was empty now, a dark rectangle marking the spot in the surrounding dust. Her grandfather stood beside her, and she only now noticed that he held the box in his hands. Isobel, still in Grandfather’s room, half ran toward them. The sense of strangeness grew, Vivian on one side of this door, her mother on the other.

As hard as she tried, Isobel could not come through that opening between the Wakeworld and Dreamworld.

“Give them to me,” she said.

Grandfather’s face looked more wizard than gnome, Vivian thought. Stern, that was the word. “Go home, Isobel. I won’t let you touch them.” It was not the sort of voice one dared to disobey, but Isobel did, still trying to reach through the door, her hands bouncing back from an invisible barrier.

“Give them to me. They should be mine.” Tears tracked mascara down both cheeks.

“Put the marble in the box, please, Vivian,” Grandfather said, and she placed it carefully with the others. He smiled at her, then turned to Isobel again.

“Go home. Take the child with you. She’s created enough mischief for one day.”

Vivian opened her mouth to object, but he winked at her and nodded, and she smiled back, a little warm glow at her heart. Through the door with a skip and a jump, she tugged at Isobel’s hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

For a brief instant hazel eyes looked at her and the penciled eyebrows rose.

“Take her home, Isobel,” Grandfather said. “Don’t bring her here again.”

One more smile for Vivian, to show that he wasn’t angry, and then he closed the door.

It vanished in the blink of an eye, and she stood beside Isobel, staring at a wall where only a moment ago there had been a door.

“Vivian!”

She startled, guilty. “What, Rox?”

“Helicopter’s landing—”

A huge breath of relief escaped her. They’d managed to keep Brett stable—he wasn’t warming up at all, but his heart was still beating, he was breathing, his urine output was adequate. In Spokane they could warm his blood on a dialysis machine, maybe figure out what it was that she was missing.

Unless what she was missing had something to do with Dreamworld and the Between, in which case there wasn’t anything the medical profession could do to make things right.

But maybe her grandfather could. First thing when she got home, she was going to track him down. The old man had some explaining to do.