sed to start

ands resting on the steering wheel for a few seco

A normal

ngine remained comp

tory. It worked less well than I would have liked. The night was still too close. My skin had long since cooled, the pendant rested quietly beneath my

t from fate. At least a mechanical failure obeyed

hin inches of one another while barely registering anyone else's existence. Someone was running down the stairs, a woman had one hand hooked into

reass

time, and decided that if everything w

rrived almo

engers. I was about to step inside when the

t n

osed aroun

world

sappeare

n me and everything around me. The woman near the doors continued speaking to the child beside her, the man in headphon

vement

oved slowly, heavily, wrong. Beyond the train window, someone lifted a

nly one sta

imbed the columns, and drained the color from plastic panels and advertising screens. The electric l

began to emerge t

s dark columns rose through metal, glass, and concrete. One passed directly through the train and climbed upward until the station ceiling dissolved into a deep night sky. Behind an adv

miliar objects. The other opened through it-vast, dark, extending far beyond the limits of the station. A hall, perhaps, or a great s

my heartbeat, and with every b

en I notice

arent among the moving crowd of the subway. I might have dismissed them as another dis

eside him t

anoth

hrough the ancient ha

topped a

d more

ng and old, men and women-none of them alike, and neither were their reactions

om somewhere de

Moo

though the man who said it wa

repeated it wit

as ret

pread between

n has re

y palm, the surface in my own world was smooth and cold, while th

are

a whether an

d standing but bowed his head slowly. The others simply watched me as tho

ere farther back,

ue

me more than

N

because I knew who I was. Quite the opposite. I knew only

ndant

racks, branching between the columns, weaving themselves into an enormous glowin

e surpri

ispers

ared at the far

ld, as though making room for him was something they had done many times before. His dark clothes looked almost black beneath the sil

not what I

rs earlier, the way his gaze had lowered to my mouth, and the

woman standing in a subway station whi

but I had already learned to notice the smaller changes in his face. His attention

li

rably before someone produces an

silver lines spreading a

ch stronger. It should not h

ther know is where I am right

. "Physically, you're s

at him. "That would be more convincing if I couldn't see you, this ha

ly your outline and the light around yo

the situation made

, somehow seeing your world, w

ppening. The connection has n

he people who were

ey kno

ey recognize

hey're callin

es

Que

alone I knew this was one of the rare occasions

story. I'll tell

d answer in my life now requires

es, but he immediately looked past me

w much longer this connection will hold. Some t

fficult to

I want everything that

ll ha

the whisper

Moo

r lines b

an t

's en

t raise h

e hall we

t him more

o a question I h

here ob

urned ba

do an-ything deliberately. If you see the light again, don'

s for this morning invo

s considera

fore the s

le appeared

ace around

, the rumble of the train, footsteps, the screech of whe

, people were movi

d into concrete; the silver pattern sank be-neath the white tiles; arches faded into advertisi

isappear

ined in front of me, superimposed

was go

rm with one hand pres

d, and a moment later

derf

my own voice was une

e chose not to violate its own laws again before lunch,

happened, that fel

nt was st

g else, and saw an ordinary reflection: coat, bag, slightly disheveled ha

anding behind

ned s

th

back at t

still

of watching strangers. Only his figu

ime, I was

eally had moved

t me. Then he slowly raised one hand and pl

nd sus-pended inches from my face, the heat my skin

ted by nothing more than a transparent surface-and an entire world. The pendant warmed against my chest in response, an

real was no longer the question. A few moments earlier, dozens of strangers had looked at me and recog

needed t