Still, Eddie gave the object another small squeeze. It didn't feel like a stone, exactly. But Callahan was probably right. They had enough mysteries on their hands already. This one was for another day.
When Eddie slid the ghostwood box out of the bag, a sick dread invaded both his head and his heart. "I hate this thing. I keep feeling like it's going to turn on me and eat me like a... a taco-chip."
"It probably could," Callahan said. "If you feel something really bad happening, Eddie, shut the damn thing."
"Your ass would be stuck on the other side if I did."
"It's not as though I'm a stranger there," Callahan said, eyeing the unfound door. Eddie heard his brother; Callahan heard his mother, endlessly hectoring, calling him Donnie. He'd always hated being called Donnie. "I'll just wait for it to open again."
Eddie stuffed the bullets into his ears.
"Why are you letting him do that, Donnie?" Callahan's mother moaned from the darkness. "Bullets in your ears, that's dangerous!"
"Go on," Eddie said. "Get it done." He opened the box. The chimes attacked Callahan's ears. And his heart. The door to everywhere clicked open.
TWO
He went through thinking about two things: the year 1977 and the men's room on the main floor of the New York Public Library. He stepped into a bathroom stall with graffiti on the walls (BANGO SKANK had been there) and the sound of a flushing urinal somewhere to his left. He waited for whoever it was to leave, then stepped out of the stall.
It took him only ten minutes to find what he needed. When he stepped back through the door into the cave, he was holding a book under his arm. He asked Eddie to step outside with him, and didn't have to ask twice. In the fresh air and breezy sunshine (the previous night's clouds had blown away), Eddie took the bullets from his ears and examined the book. It was called Yankee Highways .
"The Father's a library thief," Eddie remarked. "You're exactly the sort of person who makes the fees go up."
"I'll return it someday," Callahan said. He meant it. "The important thing is I got lucky on my second try. Check page one-nineteen."
Eddie did. The photograph showed a stark white church sitting on a hill above a dirt road. East Stoneham Methodist Meeting Hall , the caption said. Built 1819 . Eddie thought: Add em, come out with nineteen. Of course .
He mentioned this to Callahan, who smiled and nodded. "Notice anything else?"
Of course he did. "It looks like the Calla Gathering Hall."
"So it does. Its twin, almost." Callahan took a deep breath. "Are you ready for round two?"
"I guess so."
"This one's apt to be longer, but you should be able to pass the time. There's plenty of reading matter."
"I don't think I could read," Eddie said. "I'm too f**king nervous, pardon my French. Maybe I'll see what's in the lining of the bag."
But Eddie forgot about the object in the lining of the pink bag; it was Susannah who eventually found that, and when she did, she was no longer herself.
THREE
Thinking 1977 and holding the book open to the picture of the Methodist Meeting Hall in East Stoneham, Callahan stepped through the unfound door for the second time. He came out on a brilliantly sunny New England morning. The church was there, but it had been painted since its picture had been taken for Yankee Highways , and the road had been paved. Sitting nearby was a building that hadn't been in the photo: the East Stoneham General Store. Good.
He walked down there, followed by the floating doorway, reminding himself not to spend one of the quarters, which had come from his own little stash, unless he absolutely had to. The one from Jake was dated 1969, which was okay. His, however, was from 1981, and that wasn't. As he walked past the Mobil gas pumps (where regular was selling for forty-nine cents a gallon), he transferred it to his back pocket.
When he entered the store - which smelled almost exactly like Took's - a bell jingled. To the left was a stack of Portland Press-Heralds , and the date gave him a nasty little shock. When he'd taken the book from the New York Public Library, not half an hour ago by his body's clock, it had been June 26th. The date on these papers was the 27th.
He took one, reading the headlines (a flood in New Orleans, the usual unrest among the homicidal idiots of the mideast) and noting the price: a dime. Good. He'd get change back from his '69 quarter. Maybe buy a piece of good old Made in the U.S.A. salami. The clerk looked him over with a cheerful eye as he approached the counter.
"That do it?" he asked.
"Well, I tell you what," Callahan said. "I could use a point toward the post office, if that does ya."
The clerk raised an eyebrow and smiled. "You sound like you're from these parts."
"Do you say so, then?" Callahan asked, also smiling.
"Ayuh. Anyway, post office is easy. Ain't but a mile down this road, on your left." He pronounced road rud , exactly as Jamie Jaffords might have done.
"Good enough. And do you sell salami by the slice?"