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“Haven’t been up here for a while,” U away “Closer than you think!”

Janet’s shoulders sank Dauy forever and never catch hi the top, was totally undaunted Without breaking stride—in fact she picked up speed—she ran straight at the portal, planted her hands on the sill, did a handstand, let the gravity flip as she broke the plane, and landed on her feet on the grass, upside-doith respect to Janet and facing her

Ither And she wasn’t even pregnant

“Cohtly

She spun around to face the receding rahtliness He startled like a unshot

“Good-bye!” He called, and He was off like a greyhound, and the portal winked out

Janet took a half step toward it, too late

“Just like a fucking god,” she said

She was still standing there, ar up the top step like he was trying to get hi pool

“I auy’s nutcastle,” he croaked

She brought hiod, his absent wife, etc He seemed oddly unperturbed

“By the way, your wife is pretty impressive I think I underestimated her So kudos on that”

“Thanks, Janet” Josh was pleased As he should be “I never thought I’d hear you say the word kudos”

“Doesn’t count cause we’re underwater”

“So he did a portal, huh,” Josh said “Did you get a good look?”

“Hills,” Janet said “Grass Sky”

Josh nodded, saying nothing, but his eyes were busy He sketched rapidly in the air with his thick fingers, invisible diagrails

“East coast Northeast”

“What are you doing? Oh” She forgot Josh knew like three times as much as anybody else about portals

He was already lost to concentration and his i, which he accoive hi, he really understood the hell out of it

“Pfft,” he said “You gotta be kidding me”

He got up and began pacing around the roo a mosquito nobody else could see

“I figured Heon sorid that us mere mortals are locked out of, by virtue of our fallen ht? But not even! So where exactly was He standing when He threw this thing open?”

Janet gestured vaguely

“Show me,” Josh said “I need to see it or it doesn’t work”

Janet sighed

“If you look atPoppy”

She got down on all fours, Uravely, staring at her ass

Then he walked over to the here the portal had been and pressed his pallass in slow circles, and it was like he was doing a grave rubbing: wherever his hands went, a ghostly, silvery afterih the portal: a range of low hills, but oddly regular Each hill was perfectly sht as the others, and they were arranged in perfect straight rows On top of each hill was a single tree, an oak tree by the look of them

“Where the hell is that?” Josh said

“Chankly Bore,” Janet said It had to be Nowhere else like it “Up north next to Broken Bay”

“Weird” Josh leaned in to study it, put his nose against the glass “Chankly Bore Is ‘chankly’ an adjective? Modifying ‘bore’?”

“Soet us there?”

“Can I?” He snapped his fingers, once, twice “Ale burst into full color, hi-def, strea live “There you are, my queen”

—

Janet wound up inching herself across the losill feet first, on her burip on her feet and drag them doard to where Josh could reach up to receive theravitational sheer was just not soet hera bit like Winnie-the-Pooh stuck halfway in and halfway out of Rabbit’s burrow In the end he had to yank her bodily through

Then she was standing on Fillorian soil again, less than four hours after she had boldly set forth in search of the rogue god Uain, on the eternal return, the widening gyre, that seeovern human history There is a tide in the affairs ofseaweed and deposits the the corpse of a rat on your doorstep Then it slinks back in search of more

They’d been so close They could have solved everything And now they wouldn’t He’d gotten away

At any rate the Chankly Bore was a ht in person The hills ran on into the distance in their rows, not perfectly regular, she sa, but almost, like the rubber die Each one had its own tree at the summit, like a candle on top of a cupcake, and each tree was different In places the flanks of the hills had been bleached a tawny golden yellow by the endless unyielding iron summer

There was Poppy, waiting for them, a quarter-mile off She pointed—wait a , He was standing right there, looking at them, at the summit of one of the hills—one row in, three over He wasn’t even ! They could see Him totally plainly!

She started toward Him

“Don’t run!” she shouted, pleaded even, as if the sound of her voice could keep Him there “Don’t run away! Please! Just stay there!”

Umber didn’t run He waited for them