was not sure where she was going next. She had not, for a couple of minutes, been sure where she was right at this moment. She recognized it now. It was Portland airport, of course. She’d been here several times in the past, most recently when they went to visit Mom’s mom down in Florida in the spring. Madison could remember browsing around the little Powell’s bookstore, and drinking a juice at the café where you could watch planes landing and taking off. Mom had been nervous about flying and Dad had joked and made her feel better about it. There had been more joking in those days. A lot more.
But today? Madison remembered early talk of a trip up to the grocery store in Cannon Beach that morning, discussion that hadn’t come to anything. Then a little time on the beach. It had been cold and windy. There had been no walk. A quiet and threadbare lunch, in the cottage. Mom stayed indoors afterwards, so Madison went back out to hang on the beach by herself.
After that … there was this gap. Like when she’d woke last night and couldn’t remember the time on the beach. It was like there was a cloud in the way.
Mom wasn’t here at the airport with her, that was clear. Mom wouldn’t have walked off and left her by herself. Madison was wearing her new coat too, she realized. That was also strange. She wouldn’t have gone out to the beach in her new coat. She would have worn her old coat, because it didn’t matter if that got sand on it. So she must have gone into the cottage after the beach, to change, and snuck back out.
Then what? How had she gotten from there to Portland? Maddy knew the word her Uncle Brian would use for this: perplexing. In every other way she felt fine. Just like normal. So what was the deal with the blank spot? And what was she supposed to do now?
She realized the hand in her pocket was holding something. She pulled it out. A notebook. It was small, bound in stained brown leather, and looked old. She opened it. The pages were covered in handwriting. The first line said:
In the beginning there was Death.
It was written in a pen that smudged occasionally, in an ink that was a kind of red-brown. There were drawings in the book, too, maps and diagrams, lists of names. One of the diagrams looked exactly like the drawing on the back of the business card she also had in her possession, the interlinked nines. Even the handwriting looked the same. Slipped in the front of the notebook was a long piece of paper. It was a United Airlines ticket.
Wow – how had she bought that?
These questions didn’t make her feel scared. Not quite. For the time being there was something dreamlike about her situation. Maybe all that mattered was going where she needed to go, and she could worry about everything else later. Yes. That sounded good. Easier.
Madison blinked, and by the time her eyelids had flipped back up she had largely stopped worrying about trivia like how she had travelled the fifty miles from Cannon Beach to Portland airport, or purchased an airline ticket costing over a hundred dollars, or why she was alone.
Instead she turned to look at the departures information, to find out where it was she needed to go.
As far as Jim Morgan was concerned there was a simple secret to life, and it was something he’d learned from his Uncle Clive. His father’s cadaverous brother spent his entire working days in security at the Ready Ship despatch warehouse over in Tigart. Checked trucks as they came in, checked them as they went out. He’d done this five days a week for over thirty years. Jim’s dad never hid the fact that as a (junior) executive in a bank he considered himself many steps up the ladder compared with his older sibling – but the curious thing was that while his father spent his life moaning and feeling put-upon, Uncle Clive seemed utterly content with his lot.
One evening when Jim was thirteen his uncle had spent an entire Sunday dinner talking about his job. This was not the first time – and Jim’s father and mother were not subtle about rolling their eyes – but on this occasion their son listened. He listened to information about schedules and shipping targets. He listened to discussion of procedures. He came to understand that every day, between the hours of eight and four, getting in and out of the Ready Ship warehouse was like shoving a fat camel through the eye of a needle. Uncle Clive was that needle. Didn’t matter who you were or what you were carrying, how late or urgent your shipment or how many times he’d seen your face before. You showed your badge or pass or letter. You were polite. You dealt with Uncle Clive in the proper manner. Otherwise you didn’t get past – or at least not without a protracted exchange involving two-way radios and head-shaking, from which you would limp away feeling like an ass. Which you were. The rules were simple. You showed your pass. It was the law. You couldn’t get this through your head, it wasn’t Uncle Clive’s fault.
Fifteen years later Jim had taken this to heart. You could do things the hard way or the right way, and it was always someone’s god- or government-given job to make sure you did like you’d been told. There was something else to be learned from this, a way of living your life. You took your pleasures where you could, and you made sure you were king of your own domain. Amen.
Jim’s domain was the Portland airport security line. He ran a tight ship. People stood where and how they were supposed to stand, or they faced Jim’s wrath – he had no problem with stopping the checking process and walking slowly down the line of fretful travellers to tell the assholes at the back to keep the line straight. Jim had a system at the front too. The person he was dealing with was allowed to approach. All others (including that person’s spouse, business partner, mother or spirit guide) stood the hell back at the yellow line and waited their turn. Failure to comply would cause Jim to again stop what he was doing and step forward to explain it at uncomfortable length. He actually did have all day to spend on the matter, or at least a set of three two hour shifts. The people in line weren’t on the side of the troublemaker at the front. They wanted to get on with their journey, buy a magazine, take a dump. Anyone obstructing these goals became an enemy of the people. Jim’s philosophy was ‘divide and rule’, or it would have been if he’d ever thought to articulate it. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t his job to explain things. His way was just the way that it was.
At 16:48 all was well in Jim’s world. He had his line moving in a well-ordered manner. It was neither too long (making Jim look inefficient) nor too short (suggesting he was insufficiently thorough, which would be far worse), and it was very straight. Jim nodded curtly at an octogenarian from Nebraska who – he was now confident – was unlikely to be carrying a cigarette lighter, hand gun or atomic weapon, and waved her on to the X-ray machine. Then he took his own good time about turning back to the line.
A little girl was standing there. About nine, ten maybe, long hair. She seemed to be alone.
Jim cupped his hand, indicated she should come forward. She did so. He raised his head, the signal for ‘turn over your documentation and make sure it’s in the right (though unspecified) order, or I’m going to make you feel a dork in front of everyone.’
‘Hello,’ she said, smiling up at him. It was a nice smile, the kind that secured second or third visits to toy shops, the smile of a little girl who had always been pretty good at getting people to do what she wanted.
Jim did not return it. Security was not a smiling matter. ‘Ticket.’
She handed it to him promptly. He looked it over for his standard period, three times longer than was necessary. With his eyes firmly on the self-explanatory piece of paper, he demanded: ‘Accompanying adult?’
‘Excuse me?’
He looked up slowly. ‘Where is she? Or he?’
‘What?’ she said. She looked confused.
Jim
