The walls closed around her. She walked slowly, placing her footsteps with exaggerated care as if measuring distance, alert to whatever sensations she might feel. Aside from the sound of her own footsteps pinging off the high sandstone walls, there was nothing. She had reached the straight track and was a fair way into the gorge when it occurred to her that when she had been here the first time she had been chasing Friday, trying to catch him. So she picked up her pace. A cool breeze gusted down from the stony heights of the undulating walls. She stepped up her pace still more.
From somewhere high on the canyon rim above her, Cass heard a sound like that of a hawk-a keening, whine-like whistle-and felt a spatter of rain strike the back of her hand. She glanced up and got another raindrop smack on her brow. A low mist cloud hung over the gap between the narrow rock walls. She kept moving, noting the sudden change in the weather as gusting wind whipped around her legs, blowing loose sand and dry yucca leaves down the path ahead of her. The mist descended, enveloping her, slicking her face with moisture. In the same moment, a queasy sensation squirmed through her, and her step faltered-as if the surface beneath her feet had dropped half a step lower. She saw light ahead where the sun was burning through the all-enveloping fog and moved towards it, emerging to find herself on a vast plain stretching away in every direction to a horizon of black hills far away.
She had arrived in the Ghost World.
The travel sickness hit her all at once, slamming into her even as she stood looking at the emptiness opening around her. She doubled over and retched into the dust at her feet; hands on knees, she stood for a moment, breathing through her nose until the dizziness passed. She dabbed her lips and rinsed her mouth with a swig from her water bottle, thankful that this time there was no headache. She swallowed some more water and then, raising her camera, began photographing the bleak, monochrome landscape in a wide panoramic sweep to take in the open, empty, bone-dry, flat-as-an-iron volcanic pan around her. The sun stood low in the western sky, almost touching the tops of the far distant hills, illuminating the lines that covered the cinder plain stretched away arrow- straight across a totally featureless wastelandno cacti, no boulders, no rocks larger than any other, nothing in any direction as far as the eye could see… except the mysterious lines. Some of the lines were arrow straight; others curved into immense spirals splayed across acres of empty landscape.
Lowering her camera, Cass squatted down to take a few pictures of the path on which she stood, then put down a hand to feel the gritty texture of the pumice and discovered that the layer beneath was lighter than that which was above.
“Oxidation,” she breathed to herself. “So that’s how they’re made.”
It was simplicity itself: by moving the surface layer off to either side to expose the lighter material beneath, a stripe of light-coloured stone was created. She remembered pictures of chalk drawings presented in prehistoric anthropology lectures at university where, to create a drawing on a hillside, primitive people simply removed the turf to expose the white chalk just below the surface-a technique requiring few tools, but lots of manpower. The principle here was the same.
Cass stepped off the line and took a photo of the trail from another angle. The light dimmed somewhat; the sun was beginning its descent behind the hills. Cass decided that, having done what she intended, she should go back while the Coyote Bridge between the worlds was still open. She stepped onto the track once more and started back the way she had come, walking with quick purpose.
Almost at once, the wind sprang up. It howled around her in whirling dust devils, raising clouds of fine volcanic dust. Cass shut her eyes tight against the blowing grit, and in a moment felt the sheen of moisture on her face. She continued a few more paces, and the wind died away with a last trailing shriek; she was back in the canyon, in the shadowed cool of early morning, the tall stone walls rising sheer on either hand.
She managed a few more steps before the incipient motion sickness caught up with her. It was dry heaves this time, and she put a hand to the nearest wall to steady herself, drawing deep breaths through her nose until the queasiness passed-to be replaced by a surge of joy at having successfully navigated the Coyote Bridge between worlds without a guide, and without a hitch. Wait until Dad hears about this! she thought. He’ll be so amazed. Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she moved on.
Her moment of blissful triumph ended abruptly as she stepped from the mouth of the canyon and was met by the sight of a wide green valley with a broad river flowing through it in graceful arcs beneath a sky dappled with small, white powder-puff clouds. A line of stately poplar trees rose above the rich brown earth of newly ploughed fields on the hills either side of the river. The gentle rural scene met her astonished gaze, and her heart clenched in her chest.
Wherever she was, it was definitely not Arizona. Her brain thrummed with a single thought: Now what? Now what? Now what?
Cass’s first inclination was to promptly sit down, hug her knees to her chest, close her eyes against the sight, and wish it all away-as one would with an ordinary nightmare. Her second thought was to calmly, carefully enumerate and categorise her options. She did neither of those things. Instead, she gave in to a far more instinctual urge and simply turned and fled the way she had come, darting back into the canyon once more. She raced along the sandstone walls, her heart in her mouth, hoping against hope that the Coyote Bridge was still accessible.
Before she had taken a dozen flying steps, her vision grew misty and a blast of hot wind swept down upon her, driving her forward. The ground gave way beneath her and she lurched a falling half step, stumbled, and pitched forward. Her camera banged into her forehead, causing her eyes to water; all knees and elbows, she landed in a heap, raising a cloud of dust.
As before, the light filtering down from on high was dim, the air cool on her skin, and she sighed with relief at the sight of the Secret Canyon’s familiar sandstone walls. But as her eyes adjusted to the faint light and she looked around, the walls turned out to be whitewashed plaster and the path was a cobbled stone alley. Just ahead, a low and narrow archway opened onto a brighter, sunlit way beyond.
“Oh great,” she muttered between gritted teeth. “ Now where am I?”
Determined this time not to give in to panic, but to approach this admitted setback in a calm, rational, scientific way, Cass dragged herself to her feet, swatted the dust from her clothes, and moved towards the archway. With a calming breath, she stepped through. A white sun blazed in a cloudless sky of intense blue, beating down upon a street lined with ruined columns and bounded by tiny shops sporting colourful striped awnings and, directly before her, a cobbled thoroughfare straight as a plumb line and squeezed to near impassibility by a formidable gauntlet of street merchants selling from carts and stalls and barrows.
She stood at the entrance to the alleyway and gazed down along the avenue. Clutches of people moved among the vendors, examining the merchandise, bargaining, buying, and bearing away their purchases. All were dressed in billowy garments: long head-to-heel robes of black, brown, or blue-and-white-stripes for the women; and for the men, baggy striped trousers-ballooned around the legs and tight at the ankles-with floppy white shirts and truncated waistcoats in yellow, green, or blue. Every head was covered: the women wore scarves or veils of netted lace; the men wore hats in brick tones or blood red.
Cass took one look at the fez-topped heads and came to the conclusion that she had arrived in Turkey- Istanbul, maybe? In any case it was a city she had never visited before and had no wish to be in right now. Glancing quickly right and left to make sure no one was watching, she ducked into the alley from which she had just emerged and strode back the way she had come. Passages opened on either hand, but she continued straight on until reaching a blank wall. The old track had once passed through the wall; she could see the outline of an arch framed in stone, but the opening had been bricked up some time in the past.
She spun on her heel and headed back the opposite way, moving with the same swift, purposeful steps that had brought her this far; this time, however, they did not produce the desired result. The air remained still, the alleyway did not grow misty, there was no sudden gust of wind or rain or mist, no momentary lurch into another world. She paused, drew a deep breath, and repeated the attempt… with no better result.
Cold sweat beaded between her shoulder blades. “No,” she whispered under her breath. “Fear will get you nowhere. Turn around, and let’s try this again.”
After one more effort, Cass concluded that she was stuck-at least until sunset or, failing that, early the next morning. In the meantime, she would find somewhere to hide and lie low until nightfall. That would keep her out of sight and out of trouble. Looking around, she decided to hunker down in one of the little passageways branching off the alley; it was shady and cool, and though other doors opened onto it, there was no one around. Slipping off her backpack, she sat down on the ground and settled in to wait.
An hour or so passed, during which she grew bored, and she was rethinking her strategy when a pack of dogs
