By the light of the moon

with which he stared at his Rockports
wasn't difficult to read. He didn't appear to be terrified anymore
– anxious, yes, but at least not electrified with fright.
Instead he seemed to be startled, as though surprised that anything
could scare his big brother.
    Dylan peered past Shepherd to the magical round gateway, at the
motel bathroom for which he would never have imagined that he could
feel a nostalgic yearning as intense as what swelled in his heart
at this moment.
    One hand visored over her eyes, squinting the length of the red
tunnel, clearer to Dylan than he must be to her, Jilly looked
terrified. He hoped that she remained more frightened of reaching
into the tunnel than of being left behind and alone, because her
arrival here on the hilltop could only complicate matters.
    He poured out further effusive apologies to Shepherd, until he
realized that too many mea culpas could be worse than none at all.
He was salving his own conscience at the cost of making his brother
nervous, essentially poking at Shep in his shell. The kid shifted
more agitatedly from one foot to the other.
    'Anyway,' Dylan said, 'the stupid thing is, I shouted at you
because I wanted you to tell me how you got here – but I
already knew somehow you must have done it yourself, some new wild
talent of your own. I don't understand the mechanics of what you've
done. Even you probably don't grasp the mechanics of it any more
than I understand how I feel a psychic trace on a door handle, how
I read the spoor. But I knew the rest of what must've happened
before I asked.'
    With an effort, Dylan silenced himself. The surest way to calm
Shepherd was to stop jabbering at him, stop overloading him with
sensory input, grant him a little quiet.
    In the barest breath of ocean-scented breeze, the grass stirred
as languidly as seaweed in deep watery gardens. Gnats nearly as
tiny as dust motes circled lazily through the air.
    High in the summer sky, a hawk glided on thermal currents, in
search of field mice three hundred feet below.
    At a distance, traffic on the coast highway raised a susurration
so faint that even the feeble breeze sometimes erased the sound.
When the growl of a single engine rose out of the background
murmur, Dylan shifted his attention from the hunting hawk to the
graveled driveway and saw a motorcycle approaching his house.
    The Harley belonged to Vonetta Beesley, the housekeeper who came
once a week, whether Dylan and Shep were in residence or not.
During inclement weather, she drove a supercharged Ford pickup
perched high on fifty-four-inch-diameter tires and painted like a
crimson dragon.
    Vonetta was a fortyish woman with the winning personality and
the recreational interests of many a Southern good old boy. A
superb housekeeper and a first-rate cook, she had the strength and
the guts – and would most likely be delighted – to
serve as a bodyguard in a pinch.
    The hilltop lay so far behind and above the house that Vonetta
would not be able to identify Dylan and Shep at this distance. If
she noticed them, however, and if she found them to be suspicious,
she might take the Harley off-trail and come up here for a closer
look. Concern for her own safety would not be an issue, and she
would be motivated both by a sense of duty and a taste for
adventure.
    Maybe Dylan could concoct a half-assed story to explain what he
and his brother were doing here when they were supposed to be on
the road in New Mexico, but he didn't have the talent for deception
or the time to craft a story to explain the gateway, the motel
bathroom here on the hill, and Jilly peering cluelessly out at them
as though she were Alice unsuccessfully attempting to scope the
nature of the enchanted realm on the far side of the looking
glass.
    He turned to his little brother, prepared to risk agitating the
kid anew by suggesting that the time had come to return to
Holbrook, Arizona.
    Before Dylan could speak, Shepherd said, 'Here, there.'
    Dylan was reminded of the men's restroom at the restaurant in
Safford, the previous evening. Here had referred to stall
number one. There had referred to stall number four. Shep's
first jaunt had been short, toilet to toilet.
    Dylan recalled no eerie red radiance on that occasion. Perhaps
because Shep had closed the gateway behind him as soon as he'd
passed through it.
    'Here, there,' Shep repeated.
    Head lowered, Shep looked up from under his brow, not at Dylan
but at the house below the hill, beyond the meadow, and at Vonetta
on