By the light of the moon

situation more fully. He reached farther
through the gateway, extending his hand in there to the wrist, and
although he winced at the bitter cold, was nearly overwhelmed by
revulsion at the hideous crawly sensation, he reached in still
farther, all the way to his elbow, and then, of course, as instinct
might have warned him if he had been listening, the tunnel took him.

24
    Dylan didn't walk the length of the tunnel, didn't
run, didn't tumble, didn't fly through it, had no sense of being in
transit, but went from the motel bathroom to Shep's side in an
instant. He felt his shoes slip off the vinyl tiles and
simultaneously bite into soft earth, and when he looked down, he
discovered that he was standing in knee-high grass.
    His abrupt arrival stirred scores of tiny midges into spiraling
flight from the golden-brown grass, which appeared crisp from
months of summer heat. A few startled grasshoppers leaped for
safety.
    Upon touchdown, Dylan explosively spoke his brother's name
– 'Shep!' – but Shepherd didn't acknowledge his
arrival.
    Even as Dylan registered that he stood upon a hilltop, under a
blue sky, on a warm day, in a mild breeze, he turned from the vista
that fascinated Shepherd and looked back where he expected the
tunnel to be. Instead, he found a six-foot-diameter view of Jillian
Jackson standing in the motel bathroom, not at the end of the red
passageway, but immediately in front of him, as though she were a
foot from him, as though he were looking at her through a round
window that had no frame.
    From the bathroom, Shepherd had appeared to be standing far
away, a fragile silhouette against blue light. Viewed from this
end, however, Jilly loomed life-size. Yet Dylan knew at once that
from where she stood, the woman perceived him as a tiny figure at
Shep's side, for she leaned toward the tunnel entrance where he
himself had so recently stood, and she squinted worriedly at him,
straining to see his distant face.
    Her mouth opened, her lips moved. Perhaps she called his name,
but though she appeared to be only inches from him, Dylan couldn't
hear her, not even faintly.
    The view of the bathroom, floating like a huge bubble here on
the hilltop, disoriented him. He grew lightheaded. The land seemed
to slide under him as though it were a sea, and he felt that he had
been shanghaied by a dream.
    He wanted to step at once out of the dry grass and back into the
motel, for in spite of the fact that he had arrived on this hilltop
physically intact, he feared that he must nevertheless have left
some vital part of himself back there, some essential thread of
mind or spirit, without which he'd soon unravel.
    Instead, propelled by curiosity, he moved around the gateway,
wondering what side view it presented. He discovered that the
portal wasn't in the least similar either to a window or a bubble,
but more resembled a giant coin balanced on edge. From the side, it
had the narrow profile of a dime, though it lacked the serrations
to be found on the milled edges of most coins. The thin silvery
line, arcing out of the sun-browned grass and all but vanishing
against the backdrop of bright blue sky, might in fact have been
narrower than the edge of a dime, hardly more than a filament, as
though this gate were but a disc as translucent and thin as the
membrane of a fly's wing.
    Dylan waded through grass all the way around to the back of the
portal, out of sight of his brother.
    Viewed from a point 180 degrees opposite his first position, the
gateway offered the identical sight as from the front. The shabby
motel bathroom. Jilly anxiously leaning forward – squinting,
worried.
    Not being within sight of Shep made Dylan nervous. He quickly
continued around the gate to the point at his brother's side from
which he had begun this inspection.
    Shep stood as Dylan had left him: arms hanging slackly at his
sides, head cocked to the right, gazing west and down upon a
familiar vista. His wistful smile expressed both melancholy and
pleasure.
    Rolling hills mantled in golden grass lay to the north and
south, here and there graced by widely separated California live
oaks that cast long morning shadows, and this particular hill
rolled down to a long meadow. West of the meadow stood a Victorian
house with an expansive back porch. Beyond the house: more lush
meadows, a gravel driveway leading to a highway that followed the
coastline. A quarter of a mile to the west of those blacktop lanes,
the Pacific Ocean, a vast mirror, took the color