The photographers swarmed the area behind the velvet ropes the same way flies used to buzz at the screen of the porch door in mid-August, when Barbara Gracie was young. They teemed over each other, fighting for position. A noisy, disgusting mess of life, bouncing futilely off of a barrier for so long they had forgotten that they once wanted to get out.

She struggled not to squint at the flashbulbs and to keep an even pace despite the partial blindness. Barbara had lots of practice from those days at the courthouse. Just like then, she refused to let these parasites see any effect on her face—they and their actions were as inconsequential as house flies.

The photographers had been there every day of the trial, as though they expected her to undergo some metamorphosis and emerge a different woman. But she never changed. Even her access to wardrobe had been limited by the state, giving little variation to her appearance. The papers could have used the photos from the first day over and over and achieved the same result with a lot less effort. But despite the monotony, the paparazzi's enthusiasm never waned.

They were just as enthusiastic tonight, even though they were firing off their camera's blind to the identity of their target. The cameramen were merely hedging their bets that the woman in the immaculate black dress with her hair done up in a diamond clasp might prove to be someone famous.

The tract of plush carpeting led from the busy vaulted corridor of the mega-casino into Devastation.

Devastation was the place to be seen until the next trend setting restaurant opened in Vegas and made it passé. When that day came, the celebrities and the wealthy would abandon it and leave it to the tourist like picked over carrion.

The hostess at the door was dressed in veils held in place by golden chains as though she had just stepped out of some garish production of Salomé. Her face was made up like a runway model. The bright lipstick, thick eyeshadow, and outlandish fake eyelashes were almost certainly intended to be seductive, but it ended up looking clownish. When Barbara gave her name, the girl in her harem clothes curtsied and told her that her date was already seated.

There was a moment of disorientation as two turbaned footmen held open a pair of massive golden doors, revealing a wasteland. Sand swept across the floor and piled up like dunes against ruined buildings, crumbling columns, and grotesque statues. Barbara was taken along a torch lit path lined with carved figures of ancient gods that never were. There was the fanged skeleton with four arms and a set of wings; the woman with six breasts, goat legs, and a lizard head; the robed man with a sword in his talons and a head that resembled a starfish; and on and on they went, each one the product of a deranged imagination.

Beyond the statues a show was taking place in a ring skirted by tables. Brightly dressed acrobats danced and jumped frantically to the relentless beating of a kettle drum. But the diners seemed oblivious to their antics as they slurped oysters and poured drinks from frost covered bottles of vodka. 

Instead of taking Barbara to one of the tables by the performance, the hostess led her up a staircase built into the side of a collapsed pyramid. At the top there was a platform with square desert tents looking down on the festivities below. She was directed to one, which had red and white vertical stripes like a circus big top. With three sides draped in fabric, it was completely private from the rest of the restaurant.

Inside, Walt sat there on the silk cushions stroking his blond beard like a sultan. "Ah my dear, you look lovely." After greeting Barbara, he turned his smile to the hostess and inspected her like a hungry wolf gazing at a jackrabbit. His eyes seemed to peel back her barely-there outfit and she shrank under the gaze. With her eyes cast down, it was as though the illusion of her slave-girl costume had been made real.

"We're ready for  the Bollinger.   Have it sent over," he ordered.

"Of course, sir." She bowed and disappeared.

It took a minute for Barbara to figure out how to nest into the couch heaped with pillows. While she was fidgeting with her dress and tossing satin cushions under the table to create space, the acrobats cleared the floor and were replaced by a troop of fire jugglers. In their center was a nearly naked man with a horsehead mask. He leaned back and breathed a plume of fire into the air.

"It has been far too long, my dear. I have missed you something horribly." His hand grazed her bare shoulder. Fingers pet her skin like they were stroking the nape of a cat.

Barbara picked up the vodka and ice from in front of him and downed it. She said, "I hate this place."

"As do I." Walt leaned toward her, so he could speak without raising his voice. "I knew I could never find a place we would both love, so I chose one we could hate together." He swept his hand out across the devastated valley filled with chic diners. "Isn't it marvelous? So disgustingly fake. Fake ruins in a fake desert, in a fake city, in a fake country. Perfection, is it not?"

Barbara let a grunt indicate how underwhelmed she was.

A waiter scurried in with a heavy bottle of wine. He held it out so Walt could see the label, but the tall Norwegian snatched it from him and waved him off.

"You Americans do not know how to open Champagne properly. I'll handle it myself. Leave us."

He tore of the foil and began working on the cork. "You are in for a treat," he told Barbara. "This is a spectacular vintage."

"What's the occasion?"

Walt twisted the cork with a tight grip and the bottled opened with a gasp of released gas rather than a pop.

"Any night with you is reason to celebrate."

"I thought it might be because you finally got the government to do your dirty work for you."

He filled her glass and tutted. "You ruined my little surprise."

"Aren't you going to ask how I knew?"

"My dear, if you were not so resourceful, I wouldn't find you so deliciously intriguing." He held up his glass to her.

Barbara lifted her crystal flute and regarded the liquid fizzing delicately inside. "Pink Champagne doesn't seem like your style."

"It is in honor of you. I wanted something whose beauty would be a match to your own."

"You know, I don't believe a word of your flattery."

Walt just widened his smile showing his large teeth. They were white boulders, sitting on top of a cliff, glistening in the sun, poised to come down and crush a village.

"And isn't it a bit early to celebrate? Amy is just one of them. When were you going to tell me about the others?"

"One thing at a time, my dear Barbara. The miserable vargynja is almost dead—the battle won. We will rejoice tonight and worry about the rest of the war tomorrow.

When Barbara didn't move to meet his glass, he reached a bit further and clinked his against hers. "Here's to saving the world, my dear."

Staring into each other's eyes, they drank. 

Barbara hated to admit it, but it was delicious.

***

Books formed doorways into other worlds in a way that the images on the video screen never did. Paper and ink vanished and awareness drifted into a realm formed only in part by the words on the page. At some point, the mind took over and created a new dimension—a new facet of the multiverse. The new reality hovered there like a perfect soap bubble, only to pop when concentration failed or the chapter ended.

Amy put her book down and got up off the bed. The clock's hands almost met at a few minutes to ten. The overhead lights were off for the night and only the small bedside lamp signaled that the dull Saturday wasn't quite over.

Weekends were spent tediously trying to keep herself occupied. The bunker was often desolate, since many of her family took the opportunity to abandon her and live their other lives—their lives away from here.

Usually she spent a lot of the time with R.J., but today he had only given her an excuse over the intercom. He made a stammering apology about having urgent business and that he'd see her soon, and then he was gone. And Amy had to find some way to make the time pass with only her own company.

She ran herself out, hitting the treadmill three times over the course of the day. In the end, she clocked over eighteen miles and quit, because eventually even running became boring. Her body could have still gone on. Unlike Katie, Amy had yet to find her limit. Afterward, she watched two movies and had dinner. Now she was reading with Colin.

He was on duty in the OC for the night. If she thought of the people in The Music Box as a family, he was a second cousin by marriage. From the rare times he had spoken to her, Amy knew he liked reading fantasy novels to stave off the loneliness when he was on watch. They wouldn't talk this night, but it made her feel closer to him knowing they were reading at the same time.

Amy stretched and went over to the dresser. In the drawer, under her gym clothes was a half bag of red licorish. Emily had smuggled it in and Amy treated each stick like gold. She pulled one out and the bag crackled as though anxious to give away her crime. Amy allowed herself one wonderfully sweet bite to savor before returning to the bed and her book.

Harry Potter was just about to ride a thestral to the Ministry of Magic. From the two other times she had read it, Amy knew he was walking into a trap, but was no less anxious to find out what would happen.

The bed was still a couple of steps away when two pages of the book fluttered and turned by themselves. She froze and glanced around the room. There was no breeze. There was never a breeze in there.

Had someone turned up the ventilation? It was getting cooler. She strained to detect the temperature change and it suddenly seemed to plummet. Her breath spilled out of her gaping mouth in white vapor.

Amy was about to call out to Colin, when a solitary snowflake drifted down in front of her. Her eyes followed its trajectory back up to the ceiling but above her was only sky.

A cold black sky—vast and empty. She strained to pick out a few points of stars. Then she saw it: the bloated moon, full and bright, low on the horizon. Its light gilded the leaves of the trees in silver and made the gravestones around her look white like bones.

Somewhere in the cemetery, a woman spoke in a hushed voice. "No. No. I can't be back here."

"Who's there?" Amy whispered.

A figure stepped out, from behind a monument topped with a marble angel.

The statue had been modeled off of a young girl. Her hair and dress were forever frozen, as though she were walking into a strong wind.

The person moved trance-like with clockwork steps. The moonlight, made her hair resemble the white marble except it flowed freely in the night air. Her hand reached to her chin in a gesture of uncertainty.

"No. I got out. I was free. Or was it all a dream?"

"Who's there? Who are you?" Amy called out, louder this time.

The woman turned and faced her. A sharp gasp punctured the night. Amy was unable to tell which of them had made the noise. Mutual shock held them there, less than twenty feet apart staring at each other, until the stillness was broken by a man screaming somewhere in the distance.

"Ylva? Ylva? Where did you go?"

The cold swirling around Amy seeped into her marrow.

Ylva began rushing toward her. "I have to remember the words," she said more to herself than to Amy. The small jacket she wore was unbuttoned and flapped out behind her revealing a heavy knit sweater. "There's not much time.  The change is coming.  Do exactly as I say: when the alarm sounds, get low."

"I don't understand. Where have you been?"

The phantom got closer, but the moon at her back kept her features in silhouette. "If you want to be free, you have to get low. Pretend to trip and scurry for the door."

"What door?" The words seemed to break the spell and Amy found herself back in her room with a death grip on the strand of liquorish. She desperately wanted to call out to see if Ylva was still around. But she sensed that the presence was gone and she didn't dare say that name out loud.

No one could know she was seeing Ylva again. No one could ever know.

Ylva always brought death with her.