The Talisman

the one he wanted, and turned it in a padlock. He pulled the lock out of the hasp, clicked it shut, and dropped it into one of his breast pockets. Then he shoved the entire wall back on its track. Gorgeously bright sunlight poured in, making Jack narrow his eyes. Water ripples danced benignly across the ceiling. They were looking at the magnificent sea-view the riders of the Arcadia Funworld Carousel got each time Silver Lady and Midnight and Scout carried them past the east side of the round carousel building. A light sea-breeze pushed Jack’s hair back from his forehead.
    ‘Best to have sunlight if we’re gonna talk about this,’ Speedy said. ‘Come over here, travellin Jack, and I’ll tell you what I can . . . which ain’t all I know. God forbid you should ever have to get all of that.’
    3
    Speedy talked in his soft voice – it was as mellow and soothing to Jack as leather that has been well broken in. Jack listened, sometimes frowning, sometimes gaping.
    ‘You know those things you call the Daydreams?’
    Jack nodded.
    ‘Those things ain’t dreams, travellin Jack. Not daydreams, not nightdreams, either. That place is a real place. Real enough, anyway. It’s a lot different from here, but it’s real.’
    ‘Speedy, my mom says—’
    ‘Never mind that right now. She don’t know about the Territories . . . but, in a way, she do know about them. Because your Daddy, he knew. And this other man—’
    ‘Morgan Sloat?’
    ‘Yeah, I reckon. He knows too.’ Then, cryptically, Speedy added, ‘I know who he is over there, too. Don’t I? Whooo!’
    ‘The picture in your office . . . not Africa?’
    ‘Not Africa.’
    ‘Not a trick?’
    ‘Not a trick.’
    ‘And my father went to this place?’ he asked, but his heart already knew the answer – it was an answer that clarified too many things not to be true. But, true or not, Jack wasn’t sure how much of it he wanted to believe . Magic lands? Sick queens? It made him uneasy. It made him uneasy about his mind. Hadn’t his mother told him over and over again when he was small that he shouldn’t confuse his Daydreaming with what was really real? She had been very stern about that, and she had frightened Jack a little. Perhaps, he thought now, she had been frightened herself. Could she have lived with Jack’s father for so long and not known something ? Jack didn’t think so. Maybe , he thought, she didn’t know very much . . . just enough to scare her .
    Going nuts . That’s what she was talking about. People who couldn’t tell the difference between real things and make-believe were going nuts.
    But his father had known a different truth, hadn’t he? Yes. He and Morgan Sloat.
    They have magic like we have physics, right?
    ‘Your father went often, yes. And this other man, Groat—’
    ‘Sloat.’
    ‘Yeah-bob! Him. He went, too. Only your dad, Jacky, he went to see and learn. The other fella, he just went to plunder him out a fortune.’
    ‘Did Morgan Sloat kill my Uncle Tommy?’ Jack asked.
    ‘Don’t know nuthin bout that. You just listen to me, Travellin Jack. Because time is short. If you really think this fellow Sloat is gonna turn up here –’
    ‘He sounded awful mad,’ Jack said. Just thinking about Uncle Morgan showing up in Arcadia Beach made him feel nervous.
    ‘– then time is shorter than ever. Because maybe he wouldn’t mind so bad if your mother died. And his Twinner is sure hopin that Queen Laura dies.’
    ‘Twinner?’
    ‘There’s people in this world have got Twinners in the Territories,’ Speedy said. ‘Not many, because there’s a lot less people over there – maybe only one for every hundred thousand over here. But Twinners can go back and forth the easiest.’
    ‘This Queen . . . she’s my mother’s . . . her Twinner?’
    ‘Yeah, seems like she is.’
    ‘But my mother never—?’
    ‘No. She never has. No reason.’
    ‘My father had a . . . a Twinner?’
    ‘Yes indeed he did. A fine man.’
    Jack wet his lips – what a crazy conversation this was! Twinners and Territories! ‘When my father died over here, did his Twinner die over there?’
    ‘Yeah. Not zackly the same time, but almost.’
    ‘Speedy?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Have I got a Twinner? In the Territories?’
    And Speedy looked at him so seriously that Jack felt a deep chill go up his back. ‘Not you, son. There’s only one of you. You special. And this fella Smoot –’
    ‘Sloat,’ Jack said, smiling a little.
    ‘– yeah,