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"What the fuck are you doing in here!" a man shouted, and a shadow suddenly filled the doorway behind the woh perhaps panic made hih to do the had not pounced It was hunkered down, hackles bristling, teeth still bared

"We’re not here to cause a problem!" Trix said, and behind her Ji past the woently to one side with a protective ar at his side, hand fisted into soehammer

"Trix," Jiirl stood at the head of the stairs, headphones still on and theopen in surprise, eyes flickering froain

"We’re leaving," Jiht you are!" theleapt then, tangling in thetoward the in surprise as h the doorway, and the ht to prevent hiainst the lowest stair, ears flat against its head, head lowered, eyes staring up at the big er seemed frozen in place

"Trix, run!" Jim said, and he pulled her out into the dark She turned her attention froround beneath her feet, startled by the three steps down to the street that had not been there before Jier parked at the curb--of course not--and in its place stood a big station wagon, glittering with droplets of rain

They hit the sidewalk and turned right, running along the street, listening for sounds of pursuit, and Trix wondered whether Ji as dislocated as she There were no obvious differences around them, at least not immediately But she felt not only that she had not been here before, but never could have been She glanced back at the home they had just left--Veronica’s house, in another world--and it was nowhere near the same The front door still stood open but no one looked out, and she wondered at the scene taking place in there right now The wife calling the police, perhaps, husband bristling, dog slinking back into one of those dark roo from above with a kind of detached surprise At least they weren’t following At least--

A shadow appeared at the open doorway, big enough to be the un!" Trix said, and they ran faster Surely he wouldn’t fire at theh they’d actually done nothing? With every step she expected to hear the sharp report of a pistol and feel the bullet’s i hard, fear running cold down her back

"Keep running," Ji?"

"It’s not as if we can explain," he said, and it was as close to huht now

They ran on, side by side now, and Trix realized what an unlikely pair of joggers they wouldjeans and a dark button-fronted shirt, having left his jacket in Veronica’s living rooht black trousers stitched with several zips, a vest top, and a light jacket Running, they were so obviously fleeing souilty" on their foreheads

At the next road junction she grabbed Jih ti," she said, and he nodded his understanding

"We’d know by now if he was co nervously back the way they had coht it was more out of surprise and fear than exertion

"So what now?" she asked, though she had already figured where Jim’s first instincts would take him He’d promised to deliver those letters, yes, and they’d both sworn not to open theo directly to this Boston’s Oracle Veronica must have known that he never would, and had not burdened hiave the old wo else she’d said or done

"Noe find Jenny and Holly," Jim said "My apart she’d do is go somewhere familiar If this is even the Boston they slipped into"

"If anywhere’s faed, because exactly what she felt was difficult to express

"Yeah," he said, glancing around at the buildings surrounding the too unusual about them, no unique construction methods or materials But Trix felt totally out of place here Perhaps it was a co an unusual taint, the sky hazed with a different level of pollution, the echoes of unknown voices singing on the breeze--thatwatched, and it was not the last tiine that

That cityscape, she thought, able to dwell on it for the first tihtmares about--one of those Bostons where I’m now dead--and Jim has painted it, and it’s almost like …

As they turned from Prince Street onto Hanover--the smells of the North End’s restaurants alers inside singing along cheerfully to a song puirls looked at Trix and sh it shouldn’t have This city ht be some kind of parallel world, but it was still Boston

"We need to get a cab," Jim said

"Yeah Carless now" She watched the teens’ car drift along the street

"It’s going to be nearly iet one here Maybe out on theOthere can head toward Quincy Market It’ll be easy enough to find a cab there That’s probably better, getting some distance, just in case those people called the cops"

"And if they have?" Trix said "What would we do? Hoould we explain e are?"

"We’d just …," Ji