Tyler was still waiting for Steve, who had slowed to a sluglike pace. “Okay, Mr. Tinker, sir, here’s another question. There’s only two places to get into the Fault Line, right?”
Octavio paused also. “That’s my working hypothesis. But since one of them’s at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, I’ll likely never have a chance to test it.”
“Indian Ocean?” Tyler had no idea what he meant.
“Yes, south of Madagascar. It’s the opposite side of the earth from this Fault Line opening here-the other pole, as it were. The fifth-dimensional energy, you see, is drawn in there and erupts here. Of course, over the eons there may have been polar shifts… ” Octavio broke off to take a pad and ballpoint pen from his pocket and scribble some notes. Tyler held his flashlight close to make it easier, but could make no sense out of the old man’s strange symbols. “See? Polar shifts,” Octavio said with satisfaction, closing his notebook.
Somewhere behind them Steve Carrillo groaned for water.
“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” said Tyler. “I mean, the two places to get into the Fault Line from here. There’s the Fault Line itself, of course, but also that washstand mirror in the library.” He wondered how much he could get away with. “Maybe Grace went in through that instead.”
Octavio gave him a baffled look. “The what?”
“In the library-the big library on the farm. There’s a little room with a bed in it, and a sink.”
The old man nodded. “A retiring room, we’d call it. I sometimes have a bit of a nap there if I’m in the middle of some research. But there’s no washstand mirror in there, just a little low table with a bowl on it.” He frowned, thinking. “No, no mirror. No mirror at all.” He looked at Tyler quizzically. “What makes you think there’s an entrance to the Breach in the library’s retiring room? No offense, young fellow, but I’m sure I would have noticed… ”
“Can you please slow down?” called Steve Carrillo from a dozen or so yards behind.
Tyler was stunned-how could Octavio not know about the washstand mirror?-but before he could ask any more questions the old man suddenly stopped in the middle of the low tunnel and raised a bony hand.
“Ah! There-can you feel it?”
Tyler felt a strange tingle on his skin, the softest impression of fresh air on his face. “I think so.”
“Feel what?” said Steve, trudging up behind them. “Can we take a break? Are we… are we nearly at the Fault Line?”
“It feels like it,” Tyler said.
“I’m glad you think so, because I can’t feel anything,” said Steve, fumbling out his canteen. “Except pain. And hunger.”
Gideon clapped Tyler on the shoulder. “Oh, yes, that’s it. You’re Tinker bone and blood, lad, there’s no doubt about it!”
“Me, I’m regular-person bone and blood,” said Steve, wiping his mouth. “And I’m glad you guys are having a good time with your Tinkerpalooza thing, but me, I’d like to get out of here.”
“And I suddenly realize that you must be Ignacio’s grandson or great-grandson-my neighbor from next door,” Octavio said with a whiskery smile. “You have his eyes. His mouth, too. A friendly fellow, if a little too fond of talking when other people are trying to concentrate… ” He pointed. “It’s close by now. Follow me, lads.”
He plunged forward, walking like a younger man, as if the nearness of the Fault Line gave him energy. He led them into a larger space, a natural cavern where the tunnel they had been following became a sort of T, but instead of turning down one of the new directions Octavio Tinker only pointed at the featureless stone wall. “Do you feel it?”
Tyler nodded. In fact the new sensation was making him feel a bit dizzy-as though he stood swaying on the edge of a very high cliff with nothing beneath him but air. “I feel… something.”
“Umm, no offense,” Steve began, “but what the heck are you two talking about? Because that’s, like, solid stone.”
“Here.” Octavio pointed. “Touch it.”
Steve took a few steps forward and extended his hand. It passed through the stone as though nothing real was there. “Dude! That’s amazing!” He plunged his hand in and pulled it back over and over. “That’s so spooky!”
“Precisely!” Octavio Tinker laughed, sounding far younger than his age, and Tyler wished he could have got to know the old man in real life instead of in this timeless netherworld. How different from Gideon, with his moping and his suspicions! “But I’m afraid it’s time now for us to go our separate ways… or rather, our separate whens.”
“Maybe we could… go with you,” Tyler said. “Help you find Grace.”
“No way!” Steve sounded horrified. “My folks are already going to be seriously pissed at me. How are they going to take it if they find out I went into the past? Not good, that’s how.”
The old man shook his white head. “No, no, no. Your friend is right-it’s not a good idea at all, lad. You have your future and I have mine-even if it is your past. I feel sure it’s only in places like this that we can even dare to mix them for a short while.”
“Really?” He was disappointed, although he wasn’t certain why.
“Yes, really. And one of these days, if we meet again in some not-place, I’ll explain it to you. But for now I have a granddaughter to find, and you have whatever lies before you… ” He extended his hand. “By the way-what is your name, young man?”
“Tyler.” He reached out and allowed the old man to take his hand. He couldn’t have imagined this moment in a million years.
Octavio gave it a firm shake. “A pleasure,” he said. “I wish you well, whatever your future endeavors may be.” For a moment a puzzled look crept onto his face. “I never asked you what you were doing down here, did I? Ah, probably just as well, just as well… ” The old man made a stiff little bow, then stepped back toward the stone and vanished.
“Dude, we did not see that,” Steve said. “He really was a ghost. He really was!”
“No, he just went back into the Fault Line.” Tyler felt strange and empty. He missed the old man already. “And now we have to do it, too.”
“But we’re not going to the past! He told you not to!”
“No, and we’re not going to,” Tyler said. “But we’re not really in our time either right now. I can just tell.” And he could. As Octavio Tinker had said, they were in some kind of when that didn’t belong to any of them-a not- place in not-time. “So if you want to get back to where we were, we’re going to have to step through too.” He reached out his hand. Steve looked at it with mistrust. “It’s nothing weird. You have to be touching me.” Again, he didn’t know how he knew it, he just knew it.
“It’s not that, man,” said Steve. “It’s just… you promise, no raggedy ghost things?”
“I’m not promising anything. I hardly know what’s going on myself. You should know that by now.”
Steve swallowed, then stretched out his hand and squeezed Tyler’s in his damp fingers. “If you get us killed, Jenkins, I’ll totally kill you back… ”
And then Tyler took a step toward the stone and darkness swallowed them, and they fell out of the damp tunnels into a hot, crackling void.
Chapter 31
Lucinda knew she had been in less comfortable places than in the back seat of Edward Stillman’s expensive car, wedged between him and the large, frowning man named Deuce, but off the top of her head she couldn’t think of any that didn’t include live dragons.
As they slid onto Springs Road in the growing rainstorm, Stillman broke the long silence. “You know, I’m not as bad as Gideon makes me out to be,” he said. “ He’s the interloper, after all. And now that I think about it, if you’re related to Octavio then you’re far more closely related to me than you are to Gideon Goldring.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Lucinda didn’t really want to talk. Her stomach was so nervous and jumpy that she was afraid she might throw up at any moment.
