Passage

She stopped at a stoplight, waiting for it to turn green. What color had the book been? Red? No, blue. Blue with gold letters. Or purple. Purple and gold. You’re confabulating, she thought. It wasn’t purple. It was blue, with —

The car behind her honked, and she looked up, startled. The light had turned green. She stepped on the gas, stalled the car, and fumbled to get it into gear. The car behind her honked again. You’re not only confabulating, you aren’t paying attention to what you’re doing, she thought, turning the key in the ignition. The car finally started, though not before the car behind her had roared around her, dangerously close, the driver shaking his fist. And not, Joanna hoped, a loaded gun.

Stay alert to your surroundings, she thought, and tried to concentrate on her driving, but the picture of Mr. Briarley, sitting on the corner of his desk, kept intruding. He was holding the book up. It was blue, with gold letters, and there was a picture of a ship on the cover, its bow cutting sharply through the water, throwing up spray. She could see it clearly. And how did she know that wasn’t a confabulation? Or maybe it was the other way around, and she’d confabulated the Titanic from the ship on the cover of her textbook.

But it wasn’t that kind of ship. It was a sailing ship, with billowing white sails. Mr. Briarley had shut the book with a clap, as if he’d finished reading something aloud. And if it was from a story or a poem, it wouldn’t matter that Mr. Briarley had no memory of it. She could simply find it in the book. If she could find the book.

They wouldn’t still be teaching from it. It had been out of date when she’d had it, and, as Mr. Briarley said, they taught a whole new curriculum now, but Mr. Briarley might have a teacher’s edition. From the looks of those overflowing bookshelves, he hadn’t ever thrown a book away. But he wouldn’t remember where it was.

Kit might, though, or might be able to look through the bookshelves and find it, if Joanna told her what it looked like. I know it had a sailing ship on a blue background, she thought, and it was called… She squinted, trying to see the gilt letters, and found herself sitting at another green light, staring at the 7-Eleven across the street. “Marlboros,” the sign read. “$19.58 a carton.”

Luckily, there was no one behind her this time, or coming across, because she managed to stall the car again halfway through the intersection. This is a good way to get yourself killed, she told herself, starting it and pulling through the intersection, and then you won’t have to wonder what Greg Menotti was trying to tell you and why you saw the Titanic. You’ll be able to find out firsthand.

She forced herself to focus on the road, the lights, the traffic, the rest of the way home. She turned onto her street, past the local Burger King. “X-Men Action Figures,” the marquee read. “Collect All 58.” Could he have been trying to tell her a page number? She could see Mr. Briarley, picking up the blue book, opening it. “All right, class, open your textbooks to page fifty-eight.”

Stop it, Joanna told herself, pulling into her parking space and getting out of the car. Richard’s right. You are turning into Bridey Murphy. Or Mr. Mandrake. You need to go upstairs, take a bath, watch the news, and let your right temporal lobe cool down, because that’s what this obsession with Tales and Travels, or whatever it’s called, is, a symptom of temporal-lobe stimulation.

She opened the door and flicked on the lights. And if you did call and get her to find Verses and Victorians, it wouldn’t solve anything. Because even if there were a story about the Titanic’s engines stopping on page fifty-eight, the feeling of significance would just transfer itself to something else.

Besides, it’s too late to call. You’d upset Mr. Briarley, and Kit has enough to deal with already. And the person you need to call is Vielle. You need to thank her for letting you borrow her car and apologize for taking so long to bring it back and ask her what she wants you to rent for Dish Night on Friday. And not The Sixth Sense.

Joanna picked up the phone and punched in the number. “Hello, Kit, this is Joanna Lander,” she said when Kit answered. “Does your uncle still have the textbooks he used when he taught?”

23

“Nothing in the world can endure forever.”

—Words found scratched on a wall at Pompeii

Joanna called Kerri Jakes and then went straight to see Maisie as soon as she got to the hospital the next morning. She’d told her ten, but she didn’t want to get sidetracked and forget again, and she also wanted to get there before Maisie’s mother did.

And Kit said she’d call as soon as she found the textbook, Joanna thought, crossing the walkway and taking the stairs up to Peds, and I might have to go get it. Or go see someone who had English second period. She’d had to leave a message for Kerri—mornings were outpatient surgery’s busiest times—and she hadn’t wanted to play telephone tag, so she’d asked her about second period and the book, hoping she remembered the title. She hoped that when she got back from seeing Maisie, Kerri or Kit would have called. Although I don’t know how Kit could be expected to find it with the pathetic description I gave her, Joanna thought.

But Kit had acted like her calling was the most normal thing in the world (and maybe it was, considering what she must be living with) and had immediately asked what year Joanna had been a senior, how big the book was, how thick. “And you think the title is Something and Something,” she’d said. “Beginning with a V.”

“I think so,” Joanna had said. “I’m sorry I’m giving you so little to go on.”

“Are you kidding?” Kit had said. “I’m an expert at figuring out things people can’t remember. This may take a while. Uncle Pat’s got a lot of books. They used to be organized, but—”

“You’re sure you don’t mind doing this?” Joanna had asked.

“I’m delighted I can help,” Kit had said and actually sounded like she was.

“Is that Kevin on the phone?” Mr. Briarley’s voice said in the background. “Tell him I’m delighted. And congratulations.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Kit said.

Joanna wasn’t sure it would be that soon, considering how many books were in that house and how many of them were blue. If it was blue. This morning she wasn’t so sure. It seemed like the book Candy “Rapunzel” Simons had propped her hair-combing mirror against had been red. You’re confabulating, she told herself sternly, and ran up the stairs to Peds. The breakfast cart was still in the hall, and a skinny black orderly was loading empty trays onto it. Joanna waved at him and went in to see Maisie.

Her breakfast tray of scrambled eggs and toast and a glass of juice was still on the bed table pulled across her lap. “Hi, kiddo,” Joanna said, coming in. “What’s up?”

“I’m eating breakfast,” Maisie said, which was an exaggeration. Two mouselike bites had been nibbled out of the piece of toast she was holding, and the eggs and juice looked untouched.

“I see,” Joanna said, pulling a chair over to the bed and sitting down. “So, tell me all about Pompeii.”

“Well,” Maisie said, putting down her toast, “the people tried to run away from the volcano, and some of them almost made it. There was this one mother who had two little girls and a baby that made it almost all the way to the gate. It’s in my big blue book.”

Joanna obediently went over to the closet and got Catastrophes and Calamities out of the Barbie duffel bag. She handed it to Maisie, who pushed the bed table away and opened the book. “Here it is,” she said, turning to a page with a garish painting of a volcano spewing red and black on one page and a black- and-white photo on the other. Maisie put her finger on the photo and pushed it over toward Joanna.

It wasn’t a black-and-white photo. It only looked that way because it was a group of plaster casts that looked as though they were made out of the gray ash themselves. They lay where they had fallen, the mother still clutching the baby in her arms, the two girls still clutching her hem.

“This is the servant,” Maisie said, pointing to a curled-up figure lying near them. “He was trying to help them get out.” She took the book back. “Lots of little kids got trampled,” she said, flipping through the pages. “There was this one—” She looked up sharply, clapped the book shut, and shoved it under the covers. She was just pulling the