The Talisman

“Hold on, hold on there, Morgan, I have a lot of ideas that apparently have yet to occur to you.”

“I’m always ready for new ideas,” Morgan said, and his voice was smoky again.

“Okay. I think we have to be careful about what we do over there, partner. I think anything major—any real changes we bring about—just might turn around and bite our asses back here. Everything has consequences, and some of those consequences might be on the uncomfortable side.”

“Like what?” Uncle Morgan asked.

“Like war.”

“That’s nuts, Phil. We’ve never seen anything . . . unless you mean Bledsoe. . . .”

“I do mean Bledsoe. Was that a coincidence?”

Bledsoe? Jack wondered. He had heard the name before; but it was vague.

“Well, that’s a long way from war, to put it mildly, and I don’t concede the connection anyhow.”

“All right. Do you remember hearing about how a Stranger assassinated the old King over there—a long time ago? You ever hear about that?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Uncle Morgan said, and Jack heard again the falseness in his voice.

His father’s chair squeaked—he was taking his feet off his desk, leaning forward. “The assassination touched off a minor war over there. The followers of the old King had to put down a rebellion led by a couple of disgruntled nobles. These guys saw their chance to take over and run things—seize lands, impound property, throw their enemies in jail, make themselves rich.”

“Hey, be fair,” Morgan broke in. “I heard about this stuff, too. They also wanted to bring some kind of political order to a crazy inefficient system—sometimes you have to be tough, starting out. I can see that.”

“And it’s not for us to make judgments about their politics, I agree. But here’s my point. That little war over there lasted about three weeks. When it was over, maybe a hundred people had been killed. Fewer, probably. Did anyone ever tell you when that war began? What year it was? What day?”

“No,” Uncle Morgan muttered in a sulky voice.

“It was the first of September, 1939. Over here, it was the day Germany invaded Poland.” His father stopped talking, and Jacky, clutching his black toy taxi behind the couch, yawned silently but hugely.

“That’s screwball,” Uncle Morgan finally said. “Their war started ours? Do you really believe that?”

“I do believe that,” Jack’s father said. “I believe a three-week squabble over there in some way sparked off a war here that lasted six years and killed millions of people. Yes.”

“Well . . .” Uncle Morgan said, and Jack could see him beginning to huff and blow.

“There’s more. I’ve talked to lots of people over there about this, and the feeling I get is that the stranger who assassinated the King was a real Stranger, if you see what I mean. Those who saw him got the feeling that he was uncomfortable with Territories clothes. He acted like he was unsure of local customs— he didn’t understand the money right away.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. If they hadn’t torn him to pieces right after he stuck a knife into the King, we could be sure about this, but I’m sure anyhow that he was—”

“Like us.”

“Like us. That’s right. A visitor. Morgan, I don’t think we can mess around too much over there. Because we simply don’t know what the effects will be. To tell you the truth, I think we’re affected all the time by things that go on in the Territories. And should I tell you another crazy thing?”

“Why not?” Sloat answered.

“That’s not the only other world out there.”

3

“Bullshit,” Sloat said.

“I mean it. I’ve had the feeling, once or twice when I was there, that I was near to somewhere else—the Territories’ Territories.”

Yes, Jack thought, that’s right, it has to be, the Daydreams’ Daydreams, someplace even more beautiful, and on the other side of that is the Daydreams’ Daydreams’ Daydreams, and on the other side of that is another place, another world nicer still. . . . He realized for the first time that he had become very sleepy.

The Daydreams’ Daydreams

And then he was almost immediately asleep, the heavy little taxi in his lap, his whole body simultaneously weighty with sleep, anchored to the strip of wooden floor, and so blissfully light.

The conversation must have continued—there must have been much that Jacky missed. He rose and fell, heavy and light, through the second whole side of Daddy Plays the Horn, and during that time Morgan Sloat must at first have argued—gently, but with what squeezings of his fists, what contortions of his forehead!—for his plan; then he must have allowed himself to seem persuadable, then finally persuaded by his partner’s doubts. At the end of this conversation, which returned to the twelve-year-old Jacky Sawyer in the dangerous borderland between Oatley, New York, and a nameless Territories village, Morgan Sloat had allowed himself to seem not only persuaded but positively grateful for the lessons. When Jack woke up, the first thing he heard was his father asking, “Hey, did Jack disappear or something?” and the second thing was Uncle Morgan saying, “Hell, I guess you’re right, Phil. You have a way of seeing right to the heart of things, you’re great the way you do that.”

“Where the hell is Jack?” his father said, and Jack stirred behind the couch, really waking up now. The black taxi thudded to the floor.