Part 4 (2/2)

”Either we make all the right moves, or we drown.”

Russ shook his head quickly, nervously. ”No. No. We've just got to stop this.”

Maggie ignored him and turned to me. ”Who was that girl on the killer pig? You talked to her like you knew her.”

”You know her too. She ran the ball-toss booth. She was the one who gave us the invitation.”

”Gave you the invitation,” Russ said. ”I wasn't invited. I should get to go home.”

”You heard what that guy at the entrance said,” Maggie reminded him. ”We can't get out until we ride seven rides.”

Russ started pacing in circles like a gorilla in a cage. ”I don't get this ride, anyway. I mean, what's with these weird animals?”

”I don't think you're supposed to get it,” I told him. ”I think ...” I hesitated. ”I think it's for me. You're just along for the ride.”

”What? How could they make an entire ride just for you?” Maggie asked.

”Not they-her. Ca.s.sandra.” The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that she was at the bottom of it all. ”It's like she gets inside your head somehow. She takes what she finds there and whips it up into this.”

The thought stopped Russ in midpace. ”Well, dude, maybe I don't want some witch-chick picking the corners of my brain.”

I forced a smirk. ”Why? Y'think she'll find something there besides toe-jam?”

”Hey, you've got rides you'd rather skip, and so do I.” He looked up to the red sky as if some rescue might come by helicopter. ”We'll find her, and we'll bargain our way out. That's what we'll do.”

But I already knew what I had to do. ”No. We go on to the next ride.”

”You've picked a h.e.l.l of a time to grow some guts,” he said. ”Do us all a favor and go back to being a coward.”

I could have hit him for that. I could have hit him and hurt him; and although he was stronger than me back home, I knew things were different here. This place was different. Here, it seemed muscle wasn't made of flesh and blood; it was made of will and anger. And at that moment I had enough strength to hurl him into the eclipsed sun.

Maggie came between us like a referee. ”You know,” she said, ”maybe I'm crazy, but I sort of liked the ride.”

Russ just looked at her. ”Liked it?”

”It's an amus.e.m.e.nt park, right? Maybe we should try to enjoy it.”

Russ strode over to a slim boulder about as tall as he was. ”Really? Why don't you ask this guy if he's enjoying it?”

”What do you mean?” Then, as I looked at the boulder, I understood. It wasn't exactly in the form of a person, but the boulder did seem to have sagging shoulders and smooth indentations that could have been eyes and a mouth, if the light hit it just right. In fact, all the boulders around gave us the uncanny impression of human figures hunched by the weight of the granite.

”Somehow,” I told my friends, ”I don't think any of this is for our amus.e.m.e.nt.”

”All the more reason to cut a deal with the Queen of Mean and get out,” Russ said.

”You do what you want, but I'm finding Quinn.”

Russ threw up his hands. ”What is it with you that you've got to save his b.u.t.t before your own?”

”He's my brother.”

Then Maggie looked at me. ”I think it's more than that, isn't it?”

I hesitated for a moment. Was it more than that? The thing is, I was the one who had pushed Quinn over the edge. I'd called him a human accident, knowing how much it would hurt him. If I hadn't said it, would he have come here? Maybe, maybe not. But I couldn't live with that, and I also knew I didn't want to live without him-not as long as I could do something about it.

I looked at the back of my hand, recalling how the symbol had glowed as it got close to that first turnstile. Then I stretched out my arm and spun in a slow circle, turning myself into a human compa.s.s. I stopped turning when the symbol began to glow just the tiniest bit brighter. ”The next ride's this way.”

I climbed out of the gully, and Maggie was quick to follow.

”Are you coming or not?” I asked Russ, and he reluctantly came along. For once I was the one pus.h.i.+ng us full tilt toward the next ride.

6.

Road Rage We followed the growing glow on the backs of our hands until we came to a s.h.i.+ny black pond. Only it wasn't a pond. In fact, the surface was like smooth black gla.s.s. Objects moved across the obsidian face like huge, scurrying beetles-four feet long and waist high-but it was difficult to get a bead on what they were, because they weren't exactly . . . there. They kept s.h.i.+fting in and out of phase, appearing and disappearing, as if moving in and out of holes in some Swiss cheese dimension. It was Maggie who realized what they were.

”b.u.mper cars,” she said.

As she said it I could swear I heard my brother's maniacal laugh amid the squeal of spinning tires.

Two b.u.mper cars, one forest green, the other navy blue, appeared at the edge of our vision, and when we turned our focus toward them, they didn't dart off into oblivion. Instead, they remained empty and still. They were waiting for us.

”Only two?” said Maggie.

”Hey, you and me are a team,” said Russ.

Maggie darted me a glance, but I looked away.

”I drive,” Maggie said.

Russ guffawed, like it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. ”Not in this universe. I'll have you know I am the b.u.mper car king.”

”I'm still driving.”

Russ grabbed her around the waist in his boyfriendly way. ”Never mess with a guy and his wheels.”

My ears flushed as I watched them. Maybe I was still mad at Russ from before. Maybe it was something new. Or maybe it was something that had always been there, filed neatly away. Well, it was time to do some refiling.

”I'll let you drive, Maggie. You can come with me,” I said.

Russ was so surprised that he loosened his grip, and she eased out of it. He looked at me-not angry, but confused. ”Why would she ride with you?” he asked.

”Because I'm not you,” I told him. ”Because I don't always have to drive.”

<script>