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3

Renewed vigor all through my system. My body felt refreshed. Recharged. Awake.

Not just awake. Ready to take on the world. The blanket around my shoulders wasn’t giving me critical warmth. It was a cape, and I was a superhero.

The May sun on my skin felt good now. Less important-to-stay-alive and more good-to-be-alive, if you see the distinction.

I wanted more sun. Whipped off the makeshift cape and gathered it in a quick twirl of my hands.

The fresh grass smell of the park blended well with the clean smells off the river, making me stand even straighter.

The taste of key lime still in my mouth, and my stomach pleasantly full, as though I’d eaten actual pie at the end of a good dinner.

I didn’t feel like a man who’d played a half-hour-plus of intense basketball before diving into the Willamette River to save a talking otter’s life. I felt more like a man who’d just woken up from a sweet dream, preceded by a good workout and an even better meal.

If it weren’t for the fact that I was still sopping wet, I might have questioned my sanity as much as Officer Martinez had.

Fortunately the noontime sunshine was warm enough that even my soaked shirt, shorts and shoes would dry out before too long.

And right now, the only possible source of answers was an old homeless man with a beagle. Both of them walking away from me across the broad grassy middle of Riverfront Park.

The crowds of the park seemed to part around the old man and his dog.

The two walked straight through what looked to be a combined birthday party for three little kids. Banners, streamers, scores of running, screaming children and maybe a dozen harried adults trying to keep up.

Oh, and cakes. Three huge, half-eaten sheet cakes in different colors.

Probably the reason the kids were so manic.

And yet, the old man and his dog strode right through the center of the party, and no one even seemed to notice them.

Me, I had to take the long way around the party at a quick jog. Couldn’t risk running over a tot in my haste.

I did cut through a game of fetch involving a golden retriever and an Australian shepherd, competing for the same tennis ball and having the time of their lives.

By the time I caught up with the old man and his beagle, the two of them were strolling along the sidewalk between the park grass and Naito Parkway. Bicyclists seemed to slip around them without paying them any mind.

“Good,” the old man said. “I was afraid you’d decided not to join us.”

“You still have my keys,” I said, and the word “keys” made the old man chuckle again.

He shook his head. “Do I? Well, the physical ones, I suppose. If I give them back to you now, will you still walk with me? We have much to talk about.”

“What’s going—”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the old man said, handing me back my keys. The beagle barked happily, as though this were some important part of his day, and he was so glad it finally arrived.

All the while the old man was setting his wicked pace along the sidewalk, and I was hustling to keep up.

I slid my keys back into my shorts pocket.

“So,” I started, but the old man stopped walking next to a Portland Loo.

Portland couldn’t just settle for concrete public restrooms like most parks I’d been to. No. Not Portland. They had to have these things.

The “loos” were made from … aluminum, I thought. Maybe a dull, brushed steel. Made for one person, but wide and deep enough for wheelchair access. Indoor hand sanitizer. Outdoor hand wash, with soap, above a grate.

The inside looked like someone had pulled a toilet stall out of the Death Star and dropped it in there.

Cleaner than most? Yes. Nice to look at? Certainly. Still smelled pretty much like a public restroom.

“Now,” the old man said. “In here.”

My hands came up like he’d pulled a gun.

“Whoa,” I said. “I’m grateful and all, but—”

“Don’t be a child,” he said, not looking at me. Then he mumbled something.

Odd, the words he spoke then. Didn’t sound like English to me. Didn’t sound like any language I’d ever heard spoken, either. I wasn’t exactly a world-traveler, but I could recognize most of the Romance languages, plus German, Russian, and I could tell Chinese from Japanese.

For an American, I was practically a polyglot.

But the words that old man mumbled, they didn’t make any sense to me.

Making even less sense was the way the world went still again. Just the way it had when I heard the otter call for help.

So still I even had a moment to realize how bizarre that thought was.

And yet, the air again stopped moving. The cars on Naito. The joggers. The bicyclists. Even the young gay couple holding hands as they passed us. The beagle’s tail.

No movement. Just a kind of silent pressure to the air.

Then my heart beat again.

The world leapt back to life. Movement. Sound. All as though nothing had happened.

I tried to ask what just happened, but the question died on my lips.

The old man opened the door to the Portland Loo. Greenish light blazed out of it.

Inside, now, was not a toilet, but a hallway. White marble floor. Tan stucco walls and ceiling. A light trim of red flowered wallpaper at waist height. The soft strains of Mozart leaked out, along with the smell of roses.

“Come along now,” the old man said. “Your answers are this way.”

He turned and walked through the doorway. The old man who had still not given me his name.

The beagle cocked his head at me. Barked three short yaps, then turned and followed his master, nails clicking on the marble.

The hallway stood before me, its green glow now only just edging onto the sidewalk.

My heart pounded with shock greater than watching an otter speak English.

This was it. Right here. I could feel it.

Right now, I could turn away, if I wanted to. Forget about the English-speaking otter. The strange fish monster. Forget even that the nameless old man had somehow made a Portland Loo open up into a marble freaking hallway.

Walking away would be the smart choice. The sane choice. I knew that. I could feel it in my guts.

But I’d done the smart thing all my life. The safe thing. The sane thing. Even running away to Portland I only did because I had enough in the “wedding fund” to cover me while I got my life together.

But where had safe and sane gotten me?

Dumped by the love of my life. Looked down on by my friends. Desperate enough for change to just pick up my life and move it hundreds of miles north.

On the other hand, just today I’d met a talking otter. Saved it from a fish monster.

And now, I was staring at real, honest-to-God magic.

I stepped into that hallway and closed the door behind me.

#

It was real. It was all real.

I have to admit, when I stepped through the door of that Portland Loo, I half expected to find myself inside, well, a Portland Loo. A space that would have felt altogether cramped with me, the old man, and his dog.

Yes, I knew what it had looked like. Yes, I was ready to believe it was magic. But being ready to believe and getting confirmation, those were two different things.

But the moment I stepped through that green, glowing doorway, I was surrounded by the light fragrance of roses. I closed the door and the strains of a Mozart sonata replaced the raucous noises of Riverfront Park and Naito Parkway.

And I was standing on a white marble floor. Cool to the touch. I know that, because I bent right down and touched it with my fingers.

The marble was wide enough I could have lain down on it without my head or feet touching the walls, but not by much.

I didn’t do that though.

I did run my fingers over the tan stucco walls and the narrow strip of rose-covered wallpaper that ran along the walls at waist height.

I looked up at more brown stucco. A ceiling no more than ten feet up. Low enough I could jump up and touch it if I wanted.

So I did that too.

I started laughing. I don’t even know why. Maybe it was just all too much too fast. I just know that I stood there, one step inside that thick, brown oak door — not the metal door I’d felt my hand close, by the way — and started laughing like a little kid who woke up to discover it was Christmas morning.

“Come along,” the old man called from further down the hallway. “You have a lot more to see.”

His beagle came trotting back to me, nails clicking eagerly along the marble floor.

He stopped in front of me. Tail going like mad.

“It’s real,” I said, crouching down and scritching him between the ears while he pressed his head against my fingers. “It’s all real.”

The beagle barked his confirmation. Or maybe he was calling me a jackass. Tough to say. Either way, he seemed happy about it.

“Come on,” the old man called from down the hall.

Still laughing, I trotted to meet him. Thrilling in the way my legs responded. Not at all tired from all that basketball or my impromptu dip in the Willamette. No, that little key lime gumball had done its work well.

Just more magic on a day that was looking up.

I caught up to the old man maybe fifty yards down the hallway, which wasn’t even close to half its length. He was still walking at a brisk pace, even with that heavy duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

He accepted back his blanket when I offered it, and stuffed it in the duffel without looking.

“I’m Vasco,” the old man said, smiling at me with both his eyes and his lips. “And you’ve already met Magellan.”

The beagle, Magellan I presumed, barked a greeting.

That made me laugh again. Everything was making me laugh now. To that point that it almost worried me, but even worrying made me laugh.

“That’ll pass,” Vasco said. “The laughing. You’re adjusting.”

“To” — chuckle — “what?”

“The energies.” Vasco gestured around himself. “You used a portal for the first time. That’s a heady experience. And you did it soon after taking a restorer, and that was possibly too soon after your experience in the river.”

Magellan barked.

“I said it was possibly too soon,” Vasco said, sounding a little irritated. “Magellan thinks you’d have done better with a ham sandwich than a restorer. But I wanted to make sure you were up to accompanying us without getting sick. You wouldn’t want to go through a portal with a head cold. Especially not your first time.”

I imagined laughing and sneezing at the same time, and that just got me laughing hard enough I had to stop and put my hands on my knees.

Magellan ran back and forth between Vasco and me, barking.

“Oh,” Vasco said, addressing the beagle, “so now you want me to do something about his condition. You’re the one who thought the restorer might be too much for him.”

Magellan yipped back a five-sequence that somehow sounded both displeased and superior.

“Honestly,” Vasco said to me. “He learns a few things about alchemy and thinks he knows better than I do.”

That just got me laughing again.

“Fine,” Vasco said. He stepped right up to me. “Look at me.”

I had to stand up straight. First time I noticed that Vasco was almost as tall as I was. I also noticed then that he only had one flannel shirt on after all, the red, and it wasn’t ratty in the least.

“Scott. Angus. Eagleson.”

It was just my name, but something in the way Vasco said it made the three parts of my name resonate right through my whole system.

The vibrations seemed to work their way right into my spine. Up past my head, then down past my feet, then up again to somewhere around my solar plexus. When the vibrations got there, they seemed to explode in all directions at once.

I shook myself. Wide awake and sober as a nun.

“What did you do?”

“Cheated,” Vasco said with a mysterious smile. “Maybe I’ll show you how someday.”

Vasco turned and started walking back down the hall. I had to hurry to catch up with him.

“How did you know my middle name?”

“I’d tell you,” Vasco said, his voice as teasing as his eyes, “but that would be cheating.”

Finally we reached the end of that long, long hallway.

The hall ended not in another doorway, but the hall itself tapered at the top to form an archway, trimmed in black marble shot through with gold.

I couldn’t see through the archway. It seemed nothing but an area of blackness. Like a whole and I frowned at that, but decided I wasn’t going to bother asking. Vasco had made it more than clear that he didn’t intend to answer any questions until we got wherever it was he was taking me.

So instead I drew a deep breath, let it out, and turned an expectant look on Vasco.

Vasco gave me a smile full of mischief. Magellan barked an excited triplet.

Vasco swept his arm out wide toward the blackness of the archway.

“After you.”

---

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