SATURDAY, 1:32 A.M.
As soon as Xander and his father crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut. Xander’s face was pressed into his father’s chest. Dad’s arms around him had never felt so good. Xander opened one eye. He saw the bench and shelf in the small room. David stood a few feet away. He was shaking and sniffing. His eyes were puffy and red, still leaking. He had been crying, hard and long. Xander tried to smile at him. He squeezed even closer to his father, trying, for just a moment, to get lost in the man’s warmth and smell, his very being. He hitched in a stuttering breath. Then he wept. It started gently, then grew into ragged sobs. Too many emotions to hold in. Relief swirled with the residue of intense fear. His soul felt abused and tired.
A month before school had let out, Mitch Dawson had been goofing off in his new ride, a ’74 Firebird Formula. He had been ripping donuts in the school parking lot. Mitch had lost control, nailed a car, then a light pole. The Firebird had jumped the curb and rolled down the concrete embankment of a runoff canal. The whole school had run out to see. When Xander got there, Mitch was bawling like a baby. Everyone had assumed he was grieving for his totaled car, but later he had confessed to Xander that as the car was rolling, he had been completely and utterly convinced he was going to die. Through an embarrassed smile, he had said, “I stared death in the face and got another chance.” Xander had nodded, but had not truly understood. Now he did.
Dad let him cry it out. He stroked Xander’s hair and whispered over and over, “You’re here now.”
When the worst of it was over, he felt David hug him from behind. The boy slid around to include their father in the embrace.
They stayed like that a long while. When Xander raised his head, David released them and Xander took a step back. He wiped at his cheeks and ran the underside of his nose over his forearm. He sniffed back what hadn’t already come out. He said, “I’m sorry.”
Dad squeezed his shoulder. “I am so glad you’re here.”
Xander glanced at David, back to Dad. “But how . . .”
“Your brother came and got me.” He offered David a tight, I’m-proud-of-you smile.
Xander turned to David. He couldn’t help it. He had to hug him.
David returned the squeeze, but said, “Are we a bunch of girls or what?”
“Shut up.”
When Xander released him, David didn’t let go. “Man, I thought you were gone forever.”
“So did I. I couldn’t find the . . . Dad, how did you follow me?” Then he noticed the animal pelt tied around his father’s waist over his pajama bottoms. The sword Dae had been holding was in the scabbard, slung around Dad’s neck, hanging under his arm. Xander had a faint memory of feeling it as he embraced his father, but he had been too lost in his emotions to care what it was.
“I couldn’t get the door open,” David explained. “It locked me out. Dad put those things on and opened it.”
Xander said, “How did you know to do that?”
“David told me how the door opened after you put on the chain mail and helmet.” He shrugged. “Not difficult to figure out.”
“But why didn’t you end up where I did, in the middle of the arena?”
Dad’s eyebrows went up. “You can add that to my long list of questions, Xander.”
“Where did you appear?”
“In the bleachers, on the other side of where I got you.
I went through, and suddenly I was standing in the middle of a crowd that was chanting for someone’s death. I almost croaked myself when I saw it was you.”
Xander squinted at him. “They were chanting sign-something. You know it?”
“Sine missione. It means ‘to the death.’ Romans used to say it to encourage the winning gladiators to take down their opponents.”
“Dad, we were in the Colosseum!”
“I recognized it.”
“Like in Rome?” David said, catching the excitement.
“But it was new,” Xander told his father. “Like it was twenty centuries ago.”
“History is my subject, Son. Good thing I studied the Colosseum. I knew there were tunnels under the arena. When I saw where you were heading, I used them to reach the door closest to you.”
“Just in time,” Xander said and felt his eyes tear up again.
“Just in time?” David said. “What happened?”
Xander opened his mouth to answer but simply couldn’t.
He didn’t know where to start, how much to say . . . “Was that real?” he asked his father.
“Felt real to me. And . . .” Dad poked Xander’s arm.
Xander flinched away. “Ahhh.”
A long swath of skin had been flayed from his bicep. It was glistening red. Blood had trickled down to his elbow.
“Ow!” David said for him.
Dad said, “Talk about a close call. You almost lost your arm.” “Arms,” Xander corrected. “And legs and head.”
“What?” David squealed. “How? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later, okay?”
David had moved beyond the terrible panic he must have felt at Xander’s disappearance. Now he was fired up. But out of respect for his brother’s condition, he nodded. He could wait . . . barely.
Dad untied the pelt and hung it from a hook. He slipped the sword and scabbard off his shoulder, hung it on the next hook. “These things,” he said. “I’m not sure how, but I think they helped us get back.” He studied them, hanging on the hooks, swinging gently back and forth. “When I got to your side of the Colosseum, they got . . . I don’t know, heavier. I realized they hadn’t gained pounds, but they were pulling away from me, like they were trying to go somewhere. When I grabbed you, I kind of went with them, let them tug me where they wanted to.”
“Tug?” David said. “That pelt and sword were tugging you?” Dad nodded. “That’s what it was, a tug. When I gave into it, we fell back and landed here.”
“So the items are what get you there and bring you back?” Xander said.
“I don’t know if they bring you back or simply show you the way. Maybe we were close to the portal anyway, and they led us to it.” He eyed Xander funny. “David said you had chain mail.”
“And a helmet,” Xander said. “I left them back in the arena. Now that you say it, the chain mail did get heavy; that’s why I dropped it. Maybe it was tugging me toward the portal.” His face paled. “If I needed them to get back . . . and I lost them . . . I could have been stuck there.”
His eyes welled with tears again. “If you hadn’t come for me . . .”
Dad gripped his shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re here now, that’s all that matters.”
“Except for not helping me get back,” Xander said, “is it bad I lost them? Nothing bad will happen because I didn’t bring them back, will it?”
Dad shook his head. “No more questions, Xander.” He lifted his foot onto the bench, leaned an arm over his knee.
“I have a question for the two of you, though.”
Here it comes, Xander thought. The lecture, the scolding. He and David exchanged a look.
Their dad said, “Chocolate or vanilla?”
If he had suddenly slapped David, he could not have elicited a more stunned expression on the boy’s face.
Xander stumbled over his words. “But . . . what . . . uh . . .
Don’t you want to talk to us about . . . all of this?” He swept his hands in a wide arc trying to encompass this room, all the rooms, the hidden stairway and corridor.
Dad scrunched his brow. “We’ll get to that. But let’s get some sleep first. And, of course, ice cream.”
“Since you put it that way,” Xander said, “chocolate.”