VirtualHeaven (25 page)

“I don’t know what you’re thinking. Why don’t you tell me?”
Maggie was amazed at the calm sound of her voice.

“No. You tell me. Start with the night of the fire.”

“What fire?” Maggie found her gaze drifting to the place
where her shop ought to be.

“You know what fire I mean.” Gwen jerked her thumb over her
shoulder toward the missing jewelry shop. “Lightning hit your shop, remember?
My shop filled with smoke in a flash. I passed out trying to save your butt, so
you’d better explain. Where in hell have you been?” Gwen’s voice rose to a
shout.

Maggie leaped off her stool and embraced her friend’s rigid
body. “Forgive me, Gwen. Forgive me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I was gone.
Just gone.”

Gwen tore herself out of Maggie’s arms and gripped her
shoulders. “Gone? Where? The rescue squad looked everywhere for you! We thought
you’d collapsed somewhere from smoke inhalation, had staggered the wrong way,
fell in the ocean, drowned, for God’s sake!”

Maggie had nothing to say. She imagined the anguish of her
friend and parents. She’d thought of her mom and dad often in Tolemac, but had
put those thoughts aside.

The irony that she’d been practicing the fourth level of
awareness control without even realizing it made her smile. She had put
thoughts of home aside until it was time to deal with them.

It was not yet time. There were other priorities.

Maggie met her friend’s eyes. “If I tell you what happened
to me, do you promise not to tell anyone?” They’d shared much in their
friendship. Successes, heartaches, bereavements, secrets.

Gwen sighed as if someone had let the air out of her. She
dashed tears from her eyes. “Tell me anything, Maggie. Just explain where
you’ve been.”

Maggie stepped past her friend. She lifted her hem and
sheathed the now-cold dagger as she stared up at the poster, locked her eyes on
the hypnotic lure of Kered’s gaze, steadying herself for what she was going to
say. She did not wish to confront the disbelief in Gwen’s eyes. “I guess if my
store’s gone, my house is gone, too, isn’t it?” she stalled.

“No,” Gwen said. “Your Gran wouldn’t believe you were dead.
She’s been paying the mortgage since the fire.”

“Good for her,” Maggie said to the poster. “Good for her.”

“Yeah. Your Gran swore she felt your spirit in your house.
Your folks went nuts about it. You know how they are. They couldn’t say you
were dead, couldn’t quite accept you were gone, but they felt it was just plain
foolishness to be paying the mortgage for a ghost. Your Gran couldn’t handle
the shop rent on top of the house, and your parents couldn’t either, so I took
over your space. It was nothing but a burned-out shell anyway.”

Maggie did not flinch at the angry sarcasm in Gwen’s voice.
Grief had always made Gwen angry. Eyes locked on Kered’s, Maggie took a chance.
“Do you believe in other worlds?’’

“Yeah, Captain Kirk convinced me years ago.”

“Unfair,” Maggie said, turning and facing her friend. “You
asked me to explain. So shut up and listen.” And Maggie needed to test how Gwen
would cope with her resurrection. After all, if she wanted Gwen to turn on the
game again, make it work so she could return to Tolemac, Gwen must believe.

“Sorry. Go on.” Gwen’s voice was low and soft, barely
audible.

Maggie tried again. “I’ve been in Tolemac. Trapped there,
actually. Somehow, this equipment in here,” she patted the wall of the game
booth, “can send you into the game.”

Silence fell between them. The soft murmur of thunder
sounded very far off and weak. Maggie felt a quiver of urgency—the storm was
moving away. A glance at the window showed her that the wind and rain had
subsided.

She raised a hand in the Girl Scout salute. “I swear. Look
at me. I’m the Shadow Woman.”

She read the disbelief on Gwen’s face. She also read wary
speculation. When Gwen nodded and murmured, “Sure,” Maggie knew that she’d
gambled and lost. Whatever Gwen would say, it would be an attempt to “handle”
the situation until some authority could step in—or some doctor.

A thought made Maggie’s stomach clench.
Maybe I am mad.
Maybe I hit my head in the fire and have been wandering in madness for almost a
year
. “Could you turn on the game? I can prove it to you! Just turn it on.”

Gwen nodded slowly. “Uh. Sure. But—”

Maggie took an urgent step forward. Gwen backed up, hands
raised as if to ward off a blow. Maggie froze. She forced herself to turn away
and pick up the game magazine and idly flip through it as if playing the game
was not particularly important. She resisted the urge to drag Gwen to the game
booth and twist her arm until she turned on the game. “But what, Gwen?”

“Well,” Gwen flicked out a hand in the direction of the game
booth, “it takes forever to warm up.”

Maggie noted how Gwen’s eyes no longer met hers.
Unfortunately, Maggie did not know enough about virtual reality games to know
how long they took to start. “How long?” she asked.

“Uh, oh, maybe, that is, a couple hours. It’s been off for a
few days, you know.” Gwen bit her lip, still not meeting Maggie’s eyes.

How could Maggie accuse her friend of lying? She had to
accept whatever Gwen said. And why was Gwen lying? Another, equally painful,
thought flitted through Maggie’s mind. Gwen was humoring her the way one
humored an unreasonable child.

Gwen cleared her throat and shoved her hands into the baggy
pockets of her robe. “I’m only open on weekends now. The game’s off during the
week. That’s why I came down here. I was just going to bed when I heard the
game come on. I thought maybe my weekend clerk had come over to play. He does
that sometimes.” Gwen’s laughter sounded strained. “I was going to chew him out
for scaring me. What a shock, seeing you at the controls.”

Maggie’s shoulders sagged. Gwen might turn on the game, but
Maggie wasn’t going to get to play. She could tell. Gwen was stalling, trying
to decide how to lace the straightjacket.

“You’re sure dressed to play the game,” Gwen continued.

“Yes, I am,” Maggie said softly, stroking her fingers over
the glossy surface of the magazine cover.

“I know what…I’ll start the game, and while it’s warming up,
we can go over to your house and get you something else to wear. Then we can
call your folks.” Gwen’s eyes gleamed with tears. “They’ll want to know.
Especially your Gran. She’s waited so long.”

Maggie nodded and followed Gwen into the game booth. She
watched intently as Gwen touched a few keys and the equipment hummed to life.
Maggie stood by passively. She’d do anything to get the game turned on. And the
storm was moving off even as they spoke. Her time was limited.

“Let’s go,” Gwen said. “The game won’t warm up any faster
with us watching it.”

Gwen unlocked the rear door of the shop and stood waiting
while Maggie kneaded and twisted the magazine in her hands. Should she go?
Should she insist they stay?

Cold, tidal-scented air swirled through the shop.

Impulsively, Maggie dashed back into the game booth. She
snatched up the game gun and tucked it into her belt. It was another link to Kered—however
tenuous.

They both ignored the light rain that still fell. How
incongruous a pair they made, Maggie thought, Gwen in her robe and sneakers and
Maggie in her long, flowing gown, as they walked the short block to Maggie’s
house. It stood dark and small between two tall duplexes—summer rental
properties whose windows were as blank looking as Maggie’s.

Gwen fished the key from under an empty flowerpot. The air
inside the house was stale and cold, colder than the stormy atmosphere outside.

Maggie rubbed her arms and from long habit, turned the
thermostat up, hearing the familiar click of the gas heater as it responded. It
was as if she’d just opened the door and come home from work. She sank into a
well-worn maple rocker.

Gwen paced. “Maybe we should call your folks now. It’s only
eleven here. It’s not that late out in New Mexico, is it? Three hours earlier?
Or is it two?”

Maggie looked up at the battery-powered clock. Its hands had
stopped at half-past six. Probably months ago. “Two.” She picked up the phone
on the small table by her side. At least she knew what she would
not
say
to her mom and dad. She would not mention Tolemac, that was for sure.

The phone was dead. She raised an eyebrow in Gwen’s
direction. “Nothing.”

“Oh. I guess your Gran didn’t keep the phone going. Look.
I’ll just zip back to my place and make that call for you.”

And tell my parents to bring a straightjacket with them
when they come.

Maggie nodded and remained where she was, slowly rocking,
hugging her magazine. Gwen pointed a finger at her and smiled. It was a smile
one offered to small children right before telling a lie. “Now don’t go
anywhere! Sit right there and wait for me. I’ll just be a moment. I’ll check
and see if the game’s warmed up for you.”

Gwen backed out of the door. Maggie counted to ten, then
shot from the chair and flew up the narrow staircase to her bedroom. She
skidded to a halt before her closet, flung open the door, and yanked down a
duffel bag. In moments, she had stuffed it with whatever came to hand.

Maggie ripped her gown over her head and shoved it into the
bag along with the game gun. She placed Kered’s dagger and the magazine on top
of the gown. Hunting in a drawer, she grabbed a set of underwear, wasting a
moment moaning over the feel of fresh, clean clothing. Next, she jerked on
black jeans and a black silk shirt. Her fingers fumbled over the familiar task
of lacing up an old pair of paddock boots.

Her good leather shoulder bag was just where she always
draped it, over the linen closet doorknob at the top of the stairs. She hooked
it off on the way down, taking the stairs two at a time.

In the kitchen, Maggie thanked God for her Gran, who’d left
things just as they’d been. She reached into a coffee can and extracted the
plastic bag of bills she’d stashed there so long ago, too lazy to make a
deposit of store receipts more than once a week.

Finally, with her purse over one shoulder and her duffel bag
over the other, she hesitated. Would she be better off waiting for Gwen’s
return and trying again to explain?

A murmur of voices, one Gwen’s, one male, came to her from
outside. Maggie eased the back door open. She slipped into the night just as
footsteps sounded on the front porch.

Maggie spent most of the next day in a Spartan room at the
Seaview Motel just outside Ocean City. The taxi driver she’d flagged down at
the Chatterbox Restaurant on Ocean City’s main street hadn’t cared if Maggie
was a runaway from a virtual reality game. The driver had only cared about
getting paid.

Likewise, the motel clerk had yawned through Maggie’s
explanations about car trouble and flooding as he’d slapped her key on the
counter. In truth, no one seemed to care who she was or what she was doing.

Almost involuntarily, she picked up the phone and punched in
her grandmother’s familiar number. Her heart throbbed uncomfortably in her
throat. But before her Gran could answer, she dropped the receiver back into
its cradle.

“I’m not ready,” she said to herself. Instead, she pulled a
pen and a small tablet from her purse. Although it took three long hours, she
composed a letter that reassured her family of her love, offered plausible
reasons for her year-long absence, and yet explained her need to stay away in
terms her Gran would understand and convey to her parents.

How could she “come back to life” when her quest was not yet
finished? And as the hours passed, she felt more and more as if she was on a
quest—a quest to find a way back to Kered and Tolemac. Just as Kered had said
his quest was not over until he said it was over, so she must see this task
through as her warrior lover might.

Her Gran would understand.

If only she understood herself.

Maggie paced her small motel room, tapping the letter in the
palm of her hand. Her gaze fell on the game magazine. The picture of Kered
stared up at her, drawing her, torturing her with what could have been.

“Courage,” she said to herself. She slipped the letter into
her purse for later mailing and drew out her credit card, which luckily would
not expire for another month. In the next few moments, she charged a plethora
of phone calls and a round-trip ticket to Colorado Springs, the home of
Townsend Creations.

Unfortunately, she had no luck learning the identity of the
model for the Tolemac warrior. The fact that the cover model would probably
have little influence in determining the game’s fate didn’t discourage Maggie
from starting her search with him.

The burden of saving the game loomed like a dark specter
over her shoulder. What would happen if Townsend Creations stopped the game?
She couldn’t bear what her imagination conjured up—a Tolemac running with blood
as red as the ugly Tolemac sun, the children starving along with their Selaw
brethren.

The way to Kered gone forever.

She propped the phone between her ear and shoulder. Her pen
circled a line in the
Video Game
article. The story contained a wealth
of information about an upheaval among the board members of Townsend Creations,
a hostile takeover bid by a Thomas Rawlins that had failed, and wary
stockholders, but not one word of the man who was the personification of the
Tolemac warrior.

The reclusive creator of the game, D. W. Townsend, couldn’t
be reached for comment. All she could glean about the man were quotes from a
previous issue in which the game’s creator had lamented the lack of respect he
and other cover artists received for their work in the romance field.

A truck rumbled past outside, grinding its gears as it
slowed for a turn into the motel. The semi idled right outside Maggie’s window,
filling the small room with the thick scent of diesel exhaust.

Maggie waited with nervous impatience. She’d been shuffled
from one secretary to another in search of the cover model. He was as elusive
as a bath among the Tolemac beggars. Mr. Townsend, the artist, was her best and
last hope.

On the fifth ring, a brusque female voice answered. “Mr.
Townsend’s office.”

Maggie sat upright, fumbling her pen. “Hello, my name is
Maggie O’Brien. I’m trying to track down the model for the Tolemac warrior.”
She wished she could think of some creative story. As it was, she felt like a
groupie hunting her hero.

“I’m sorry, miss, but the model wishes to remain anonymous.
He is available for neither interviews nor photographs. He does not make
personal appearances or attend conventions or signings.”

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up! I didn’t realize he’d be so
inaccessible. Is it possible to talk to Mr. Townsend?’’

“Honey, we’d all like to talk to Mr. Townsend.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t much like to chat. Now, what’s this about? We’re quite
busy, you know.”

“Of course. Forgive me for taking up your time. You see,
I-I’m writing an article and would like to interview the model, but perhaps Mr.
Townsend would consent to an interview instead?” Maggie frantically searched
the magazine article for inspiration.

“I’ll give you Mr. Townsend’s personal assistant. Just a
moment.”

Maggie leaned back, suddenly weary, and waited to be
connected. She doodled swords and knives on the margins of the article. She
embellished Kered’s photo with hearts.

“This is Ms. Whitcomb, Mr. Townsend’s personal assistant.
How may I help you?’’

“I’d like to know if it’s possible to set up an interview
with Mr. Townsend on his latest project—’’ Maggie began.

“You mean the covers for the
Apache Bride
series or
are you talking about
Tolemac Wars
? He’s not doing anything on
Tolemac
Wars,
you know. No interviews. He’s not seeking any further publicity for
that project.” Ms. Whitcomb’s clipped tones discouraged any further discussion.

Maggie prayed for inspiration. “No, no, I don’t want to talk
about the game.”
Not much
. “I want to ask him about a quote in
Video
Game
magazine in which he said illustrators of romance novels don’t get the
respect that other illustrators do.”

“Well now, honey, that happens to be a topic near and dear
to Mr. Townsend’s heart. Fax me your credentials and I’ll see what I can do.
Mr. Townsend is rather capricious, sets his own schedule, you know.” Ms.
Whitcomb rapped out a fax number, which Maggie scrambled to write down. She
never got to say thank you before the phone went dead.

Maggie gently replaced the receiver and fell on her back
against the pillows. “Oh, God,” she said to the empty room. “I have no
credentials. And what good is it to interview this artist?’’ She crumpled the
fax number and pitched it away, tears welling up again.

She curled up on the bed in the fetal position and willed
herself to sleep. Perhaps rest would help her think of another way to get to
see Mr. Townsend. Once she met him, she’d tell him all the reasons why he had
to keep the game going—Kered and Vad, Tolem’s beggars, the starving Selaw
children.

And she needed to worm the cover model’s name and address
out of the man.

The only alternative was to find another
Tolemac Wars
game booth, wait for a storm, and then play until her money ran out or she was
sent back into the game. The thought of never seeing Kered again, never
touching him, never lying in his arms, made the tears run down her cheeks and a
stone-like lump form in her throat. She fell into a restless sleep.

Maggie woke hours later, feeling no more refreshed than when
she’d fallen asleep. She washed her face and stared into the bathroom mirror.
Sun streamed between the limp brown drapes in the bedroom behind her. The
nor’easter had passed. She leaned on the sink and hung her head. Had all hope
of returning to Tolemac passed with the storm? She thought of her life with
Kered, the violence of their last few days together. She thought of Vad and
hoped he had not suffered in any way trying to retrieve her pendant.

Maggie stroked her fingers down an imagined pendant.
Navajo
silversmithing
. Suddenly, she knew what credentials she would present to
Mr. Townsend’s assistant.

Half an hour later, Maggie was filling in a fax sheet at the
desk of her motel. It seemed even cheap motels had moved into the technological
world.

With a large dollop of exaggeration, Maggie presented
herself to Mr. Townsend’s assistant as a woman who wrote freelance articles,
her latest one on Navajo silversmithing techniques. She did not mention that
the Navajo article was all she’d ever written, or that she’d written it in
college, for an obscure metalsmith journal.

With a flourish, she gave the phone number of her hotel in
Colorado Springs. She’d be there by the next day. After all, there was no storm
to hold her in New Jersey.

Maggie put her new tote bag on the floor beneath her
airplane seat. Inside it, a stenographer’s notepad and a small tape recorder
bought at the Philadelphia International Airport nestled between three game
magazines. During the flight she would read up on Townsend Creations. She would
go through the farce of pretending she was a freelance writer. Somehow she must
trick the poster model’s name out of poor Mr. Townsend and convince him to save
the game. She looked out of the window at the distant horizon.

Fighting dragons and decapitating evil councilors had made
her merciless when she thought of this artist and his refusal to talk about
Tolemac
Wars
. She pictured him at his easel, a Norman Rockwell sort of man.

He hadn’t a chance.

The pain in Maggie’s heart grew and mutated like a cancer
with each passing hour. Doing the interview would be like an analgesic. It
might not cure the disease, but at least she would be doing something concrete
to help assuage the mental agony of being apart from Kered. If she never saw
him again but saved the game, she’d know he was alive and safe.

Outside the window, her plane floated in the azure sky. Who
in the nineteenth century would have believed man would routinely travel above
the clouds? How could she convince people that Tolemac existed?

Desperation accompanied her everywhere. Her hopes and dreams
all hinged on this one interview. Her sanity depended on this one small
meeting.

She slipped her hand into her tote bag. The airport security
had accepted her excuse for carrying a knife. Just an example of her work,
she’d said. She needed the knife with her. Kered’s knife. The knife represented
tangible evidence that Kered and Tolemac existed. The knife sheath, a finely
wrought piece of hand-stitched and oiled leather, was comforting to her hand.
Her fingers stroked along the engraved and jeweled hilt. With her eyes closed,
she could picture it in Kered’s hand, see him slide it into his boot. She
didn’t need to close her eyes to remember the feel of his hands as he had
strapped the sheath to her thigh beneath her dress.

No, the touch of his hands was memorized forever.

“Good morning.” The heavyset woman stood blocking the door
of Mr. Townsend’s house. Her broad features and impassive expression
immediately reminded Maggie of her Gran. Behind the woman, Mr. Townsend’s home
looked inviting and warm in the glow of sunshine. On either side of the house,
aspen trees shivered their bare arms in the autumn wind.

Her fear made her stammer. “Good-good morning. I’ve come
from New Jersey to interview Mr. Townsend. His personal assistant gave me his
address and set up this appointment.”

“Ah, Maggie O’Brien?” The woman smiled warmly.

“Yes.” Relief swept in. She wouldn’t be turned away.

“Come in. I’m Consuela, Mr. Townsend’s housekeeper.” The
woman led the way down a glazed tile hallway with whitewashed walls. There were
no paintings about. The walls held excellent examples of Navajo rugs of various
sizes, but no canvases by Mr. Townsend. Maggie recognized the fine artistry of
the rugs; some she could tell were old, woven by hand from naturally dyed
yarns. The hallway floor gleamed with the soft peach of old terra-cotta. It led
past a large, airy living room of muted colors.

The woman did not pause, but opened a door and led the way
through a large arch. Maggie had a brief glimpse of a kitchen outfitted with
gleaming white appliances, scented with cinnamon and cloves and baking bread,
before she was directed to a doorway. For the first time in days, she felt
hungry. Much to her shame, her stomach growled.

“Mr. Townsend said you were to wait in his studio.” Maggie’s
guide threw open the door and gestured Maggie in.

For a moment, Maggie thought she had stepped outside. A wall
of glass gave her a soaring sensation of open space. As her eyes adjusted to
the dazzling light, she realized she now faced the mountains, with Pike’s Peak
dominating the landscape. The room tilted, then righted itself as she
recognized the view from Hart Fell, the opening sequence to
Tolemac Wars
.
But the colors were all wrong.

She barely registered the housekeeper’s words. “Mr.
Townsend, he often forgets the time. He’s out hiking.”

Maggie nodded, looking quickly away from an array of
canvases to her right as she removed her jacket and draped it over a chair. She
still wore her black jeans and black shirt. She’d packed her duffel bag with
nightgowns and an unfortunate jumble of the clothing she wore when making her
jewelry. She could no more do an interview in a flannel nightgown than she
could in overalls with holes.

She smoothed her French braid and adjusted the cuffs of her
shirt, then examined the room. A deck beyond the windows, cantilevered over
open space, gave the impression that you could step off into air. A vapor trail
cut the stark blue sky and reminded her that somewhere in the distance, the Air
Force Academy was nestled at the foot of the mountains.

“Wait here. I’ll bring Mr. Townsend as soon as he gets
back.” The housekeeper went off in the direction of the kitchen.

Maggie wrung her hands. Mr. Townsend was her last hope. His
return might mean the end of her love, the end of something precious, something
she needed as desperately as her lungs needed air. She had to shake off this
fear.