One Door From Heaven

in the dog's dreams. But even a mere mortal, having been granted intelligence and consciousness, possesses the power to affect the form and function of matter by a sheer act of will. This isn't the great world-making, galaxy-creating power of the playful Presence, but a humble power with which we can achieve only limited effects.
        Even on this world, at its current early stage of development, scientists specializing in quantum mechanics are aware that at the subatomic level, the universe seems to be more like thought than like matter. They also know that their expectations, their thoughts, can affect the outcome of some experiments with elemental particles like electrons and photons. They understand that the universe is not as mechanistic as they once believed, and they have begun to suspect that it exists as an act of will, that this willpower-the awesomely creative consciousness of the playful Presence-is the organizing force within the physical universe, and that this power is reflected in the freedom that each mortal possesses to shape his or her destiny through the exercise of free will.
        Curtis is already hip to all this.
        Nevertheless, he remains afraid.
        Fear is an unavoidable element of the mortal condition. Creation in all its ravishing beauty, with its infinite baroque embellishments and subtle charms, with all the wonders that it offers from both the Maker and the made, with all its velvet mystery and with all the joy we receive from those we love here, so enchants us that we lack the imagination, less than the faith, to envision an even more dazzling world beyond, and therefore even if we believe, we cling tenaciously to this existence, to sweet familiarity, fearful that all conceivable paradises will prove wanting by comparison.
        Locked. The back door of the crossroads store is locked.
        Then it isn't.
        Beyond lies a small storeroom, revealed not by the single bare bulb dangling on a cord at ceiling center, but only by the light that sifts in from another room, around an inner door standing ajar, and dusts this chamber as if with a fine-ground fluorescent powder.
        Curtis steps inside. He quietly closes the outer door behind him to prevent the breeze from shutting it with a bang.
        Some silences soothe, but this one unnerves. This is the cold steel silence of the guillotine blade poised at the top of its track, with the target neck already inserted through the lunette below, the harvesting basket waiting for the head.
        Ever hopeful even in his fear, Curtis eases toward the door that stands two inches ajar.
        IN THE BEDROOM of the motor home, Polly grabbed the pump-action, pistol-grip, 12 -gauge shotgun from the mounting brackets at the back of the closet, where it was stored behind the hanging clothes.
        The dog watched.
        Polly yanked open a dresser drawer and seized a box of shells. She inserted one in the breech, three more in the tube-type magazine.
        The dog lost interest in weaponry and began to sniff curiously at the shoes on the closet floor.
        In the interest of a snug fit that was flattering to the figure, her white toreador pants had no pockets. Polly tucked three spare shells into her halter top, between her breasts, grateful that nature had given her sufficient cleavage to serve as an ammunition depot.
        The dog followed from the bedroom, through the bath, into the kitchen, but then was distracted by a whiff of some tasty treat in the food cupboard.
        As Old Yeller sniffed inquisitively at the narrow gap between the cabinet doors, Polly stepped into the lounge and stared down at the laptop computer on the floor. On her return from the bedroom, she'd been half convinced that she'd imagined the business with the dog and the computer; but the proof remained before her, glowing on the screen.
        The laptop had been stored on a shelf in the entertainment center, under the TV. After the trick with the cards, the dog had stood on her hind feet, pawing at the shelf, until Polly moved the laptop to the floor, opened it, and switched it on.
        Bewildered but game, her sense of wonder surprisingly intact after three years in the wonder-crushing upper echelons of the film industry, Polly had quickly set up the computer, while the dog had raced into the bathroom. Following a clatter, the pooch had returned with Cass’s toothbrush. Using the brush as a stylus, Old