The Accidental Keyhand by Jen Swann Downey Read Free Book Online Page B

up, at least, or something!”
    Marcus heaved himself off the page as though it cost him all the energy he had left. Slowly he began to roll the page up.
    Another wave of the sleepiness she’d felt in the pool hit Dorrie. With it came a madly intense urge to orient herself, to see the streets of Passaic, to know exactly how far they’d traveled from beneath the Passaic Public Library. She staggered clumsily to her feet and, pulling Marcus reluctantly along with her, tottered toward a window that stood between two bookcases. She tore aside the silky green curtains and gave a little cry.
    â€œThis is impossible,” whispered Dorrie hoarsely.
    Marcus swayed beside her. “This is definitely not Passaic.”

CHAPTER 5
    PETRARCH’S LIBRARY

    The panic that Dorrie had been staving off now exploded within her, electrifying her fingers. She clung to the window’s sill, anchoring herself to its solidness. Nothing was as it should be. Instead of looking down on one of Passaic’s worn and potholed streets lined with its familiar saggy-stooped duplexes and corner convenience stores, Dorrie saw spread below her a vast patchwork of rooftops. Slate tiles and wooden shingles and straw thatch and blued copper lay against roofs of every pitch and style.
    The buildings they sheltered connected to one another in a vast jigsaw puzzle that included open fields, pebbled courtyards, and gardens with tinkling fountains. A stone tower seamlessly gave way to a wooden farmhouse, which farther on became a timber and stucco hall, which fit snugly against an immense sort of palace heavy with stone carvings and glistening windows. Stone gave way to bamboo. Stucco gave way to mud bricks. At a great distance, beyond a band of gnarled trees and rough rock outcrops, Dorrie saw what looked like a sun-scaled sea.
    Voices in the hallway made her ragged breath catch, and she and Marcus turned frightened eyes on each other. The voices came closer; the knob on the door they’d used began to turn. In a blur, Marcus shoved the roll of paper he held down a thin brass tube with a flared opening that rose out of the floor nearby.
    â€œCan’t have a mission meeting without proper nourishment,” said a big-boned man with an extra wobbling chin as he came through the door carrying a laden tray. Curly puffs of reddish hair grew with a great amount of spirit from either side of his head, as if trying to make up for the fact that not a hair grew from the top. Two girls about Dorrie’s age trailed him, each holding their own trays.
    Seeing Dorrie and Marcus, they both stopped dead. The first girl wore an expression of great wonder and a yellow hair band that held back an abundance of dreds. The second stared at them with narrowed, suspicious eyes from beneath dark bangs, the rest of her hair having been cropped at the ears. Having lifted a sardine from one of the plates he carried, the man was in the process of dropping it in his mouth with great relish when the first girl nudged him.
    Catching sight of Dorrie and Marcus, he lowered the sardine. “Well, who in the name of Seshat are you?”
    His words rattled and buzzed in Dorrie’s ears.
    â€œHan…” slurred Marcus.
    Dorrie, who felt as though her brain had begun to spin inside her skull like a globe, gave Marcus points for quick thinking.
    â€œSolo,” added Marcus. He pointed at Dorrie. “Chewbacca.”
    Dorrie took some of the points she’d awarded Marcus back. Then, though she had never before fainted, Dorrie had a strong feeling, as her knees turned jellyish, that she was about to do just that.
    The man dropped the tray on the table with a crash and hurried forward, catching Dorrie just before she slumped to the ground. As he carried her to a couch, a young woman with the longest hair Dorrie had ever seen appeared in the doorway, a bouquet of flowers in her hand.
    â€œThese zinnias will cheer up—” Catching sight of Marcus