11

Falkirk and company had left disarray behind them. In an hour and a half, the Coltranes, father and daughter, restored order to their little world.

Beyond the windows, sunshine flaring off their windshields, racing black Suburbans returned from the wilds, carrying luckless vagrants as passengers. They were possibly bound for facilities established to serve the homeless, although more likely they would wind up at a ghastly, isolated warehouse on the edge of the Mojave where tough interrogations could be carried out in an atmosphere such that the words "I have a right to an attorney" would elicit only their jailers' amusement.

Catercorner to each other at the kitchen table were Amity with a morning orange juice and Jeffy with black coffee so strong that its smell alone was sufficient to wake anyone in a coma.

Perched on Amity's right shoulder, Snowball nibbled on a kernel of cheese popcorn that appeared enormous in his tiny pink paws.

On the table lay the key to everything.

Jeffy didn't know what hell the device might be capable of bringing down on them. He was pretty sure, however, that the wise thing to do was purchase a barrel, mix a few batches of cement before lunch, and forget about waiting a year.

Never open the box, Jeffrey. Keep your promise. The thing in that box can bring you only misery.

As the clatter of helicopters faded and a fragile sense of normalcy settled on the canyon, Amity said, "Looks like a phone."

"If you study it closely, it's not a phone. No switches on the sides. No charging port, so then maybe no battery. No camera."

"It's got a home circle you can touch at the bottom of the screen."

"That's not enough to make it a phone."

She reached for the device, and Jeffy lightly slapped her fingers. "Don't touch."

"You touched it."

"Very carefully. Holding it by the sides with thumb and forefinger. Anyway, I'm the adult in the room. Adults make the rules. It's been that way since time immemorial."

"Is that why the world is in such deep poop?"

"Maybe."

After a slug of orange juice, she said, "All those SUVs and helicopters and tough guys ... I guess the stupid thing probably did cost seventy-six billion."

"Government research money," Jeffy agreed.

Attracted by the silvery glimmer of the mysterious object, Snowball dropped the popcorn, raced down Amity's arm, scurried across the table, from which he was usually banished, and sat on what seemed to be the screen of the device.

The girl gasped, and both she and Jeffy shot up from their chairs, reacting as though Edwin Harkenbach hadn't entrusted them with any kind of key, but instead with a compact nuclear bomb.

Snowball peered at the dark mirrored surface under him, in which he could see his murky reflection.

After a few seconds, a soft gray light filled the previously glossy black screen.

Jeffy held his breath, and Amity coaxed the mouse to come to her. "Here, boy, come to Mommy. Come to Mommy, Snowball."

Something appeared on the screen under the mouse. Jeffy could see two large buttons—one blue, the other red—that contained white lettering half obscured by the rodent.

Simultaneously, Jeffy and Amity reached for Snowball. Her hand grasped the mouse, and her father's hand seized hers—

—and the kitchen vanished, leaving them in an all-encompassing whiteness. A nearly blinding blizzard showered down. They could see only themselves and each other—and the mouse. The glittering flakes were not cold; they passed through Jeffy, through Amity.

Particles of light,he thought, and was chilled by the sheer strangeness of the experience.

He also thought of the lines of verse quoted by Ed just before the old man walked away into the night, something about a pale door and a hideous throng rushing out through it. The key to everything had opened a door, this pale door of light, and although they were not at once swept up in a hideous throng, Jeffy felt great peril coming, sensed that they were now known and being sought by someone, something.