The facility included more aisles of books than some libraries offered these days, as well as a computer alcove with four public-access workstations. The place was not as brightly lighted as the library in the Suavidad Beach from which Jeffy and Amity had come. Pale dust bunnies gathered in some corners, and a thin film of dust dulled the computer. The faintest scent of mildew ebbed and flowed in the still air, as if essential maintenance had been deferred in chambers adjacent to this one.

Jeffy and Amity seemed to be the only patrons at the moment. They sat side by side at a computer and googled Edwin Harkenbach, whose middle name proved to be Marsten.

In the internet sea, data relating to Ed didn’t amount to a mere island; it was a small continent. Bow-tied Dr. Harkenbach, sixty-four, was a theoretical physicist with three PhDs. He had written twenty-six books and over five hundred articles, had delivered almost four hundred major speeches, and received scores of awards for teaching, writing, and research.

Bewildered by the volume of material on his subject, Jeffy resorted to Wikipedia for a thumbnail biography, where he discovered that the prolific Harkenbach, always highly visible in the field of physics and in academia, had abruptly lowered his public profile four years earlier. No new books or articles had appeared since then, and he had made only a few appearances at conferences.

“I bet that’s when he started work on the project,” Amity whispered as she took Snowball from a jacket pocket and cupped him in her hands.

“What project?”

“The key to everything project.”

Jeffy nodded. “About that time, he must’ve gotten busy spending all those billions.”

The mouse’s head popped up between Amity’s crossed thumbs. He looked left and right, nose twitching, intrigued by the library.

According to Wikipedia, Harkenbach’s wife, Rina, died of cancer when they were both thirty-five, and he never married again. He and Rina had no children, and work evidently became everything to him.

Reading along with her father, Amity said, “He’s not really Mr. Spooky. He’s more like Mr. Sad.”

A megabillion-dollar research project involving an epic quest as exotic as the search for parallel universes would have been a black-budget operation carried out with great secrecy. It wasn’t likely that Ed had given a speech or written an article about it.

However, the government would have chosen Ed to lead such an undertaking only if he was profoundly interested in the multiverse theory long before seventy-six billion was dropped on him. He might have written extensively on the subject years before he was given the opportunity to seek a way to access the infinite continuum of worlds.

As Jeffy jumped out of Wikipedia and found a reliable list of Ed Harkenbach’s book-length publications at another site, he became aware of movement at the periphery of his vision. He looked up to see another patron, maybe forty feet away, settling in a chair at a long reading table flanked by eight-foot-high rows of bookshelves. Dressed in soft black fatigues, wearing a black knitted cap, the man had taken a newspaper from a nearby rack.

As Amity returned Snowball to a pocket of her denim jacket, she whispered, “That weirdo guy was watching us for like maybe a minute before he sat down. I got a bad feeling about him.”

“He’s just some harmless kookster,” Jeffy said, an expression of hope rather than fact. “We have them back home, too, except they dress different.”

Scanning the list of books by Ed Harkenbach, he settled on one published eight years earlier—Infinite Worlds: Parallel Universes and Quantum Reality.

Reading a brief synopsis of it, Jeffy said, “This is it. This is what we need. I wonder if they have a copy of it here.”

As he was about to drop off the internet, Amity said, “Wait! One more thing, Dad. Before we figure out what the three buttons mean, the buttons on the key to everything, before we leave this place and go home . . . if we can go home . . . I want to google her.”

“Who?” he asked, but he knew. He knew, and the prospect of such a search both charmed and unnerved him.

Amity’s face was as smooth and expressionless as that of a bisque doll, but her blue eyes were pools of longing when she said, “Michelle Melinda Jamison.”

“Honey, we’re in deep trouble here.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m scared.”

“I’m scared, too. Finding another version of your mother, one who would want to come with us . . . that will never be as easy as you think.”

“It might be.”

“It won’t, honey. And maybe she’s married to the me who was mowing the lawn. She’s not going to leave one me for the other.”

Amity shook her head. “There weren’t any womany things back there, in that house. It’s just you living alone there.”

“Figuring out what those three buttons mean—that’s urgent, that’s everything.”

“I know. But then . . . if she’s here and she’s alone . . .”

“Something’s wrong with this world,” he declared. “We don’t want to stay here more than we absolutely have to.”

She bit her lip and looked away from him, forlorn and full of yearning.

He loved this child desperately. He would die for her. But such intense love could inspire foolish acts as well as selfless courage.

After a hesitation, he googled Michelle Melinda Jamison.

And there she was. In this parallel reality, she resided in Suavidad Beach. It was the house on Bastoncherry Lane, where she’d lived with Jim Jamison, her dad, before she and Jeffy married.

“We’ve got to go see her. Daddy, can we go see her, please?”

He hesitated. In spite of all the imaginative fantasy stories by which she had been enthralled and entertained, Amity was too young to be able to understand the many reasons that such a meeting could go wrong or to foresee the regrets it might inspire. Unlike his daughter, Jeffy knew too well the potential heartbreak that could result from a visit to Bastoncherry Lane. However, he was nothing if not a romantic. And he had waited seven years for the miraculous return of Michelle. Although apprehension weighed so heavily on him that he couldn’t quite draw a deep breath, he said, “All right. If we can find Ed’s book, if we can figure out how to use the key, then we’ll see what her situation is.”

Her smile was all the reward he ever wanted.

His smile wasn’t as genuine as Amity’s. What he promised her was reckless, a wild-heart imprudence that simultaneously gladdened and disquieted, that was brewed in the cauldron of parental love.

“You’re the best,” she said.

He wished that he were worthy of those words.

As he and Amity went into the stacks, looking for the science section in which Ed Harkenbach’s book might be shelved, they took care not to glance at the man sitting at the table with a newspaper that he wasn’t reading.

15

The library windows were set high, above the storied stacks that lined the walls. The stillness of the day had succumbed to a light breeze. Beyond the panes, a dark gray sea of clouds washed slowly southward, and the immense fronds of a phoenix palm did not thrash but undulated as hypnotically as the numerous mouth tentacles of a sea anemone seeking sustenance.

As Jeffy and Amity hunted for the books by Edwin Harkenbach, strange currents came and went, disturbing the air between the rows of tall shelves, as if unseen presences were likewise searching the library’s collection, perhaps the restless ghosts of past patrons vainly inquiring after a self-help volume that would counsel them about how to let go of their late, lamented lives.

The romantic fragrances of yellowing paper and literary dust were pervasive. A faint, disturbing odor of mildew rose repeatedly but always faded. Twice Jeffy caught a vague scent of something burning, and though it was the merest tease of a cataclysmic smell, he looked toward the vaulted ceiling and turned his head this way and that, half expecting to see a thin haze of smoke.

“Here!” Amity breathed and slid one fingertip along the spines of several volumes.

Of the many works by Harkenbach, the library possessed only seven. Among those, however, Infinite Worlds waited. A field of stars illustrated the cover, and between the vivid red letters of the title were pale blue letters repeating those two words.

Although the book was only 312 pages and appeared to be written for curious laymen rather than for physicists, it was too long to be perused while standing in the aisle. And for reasons he could not fully grasp, he didn’t want the patron in black to see him reading.

He possessed a Suavidad Beach Library card, but intuition told him that something about it would be different from the way such a card looked in this version of the town. The wirehaired, clenched-jaw librarian would reject it and impound the book, and she would most likely do so loud enough to attract the attention of the man in black fatigues, who had already shown an unhealthy interest in Jeffy and Amity.

Jeffy handed the book to his daughter. He spoke softly. “He’s less likely to suspect you than me. Loosen your belt, tuck this in your jeans, button up your jacket.”

“We’re stealing it?” she whispered.

“No, sweetheart. It’s not stealing.”

“What is it, then?”

“Informal borrowing. We’ll return it later.”

“Cool.”

“It’s not cool. Even though it isn’t stealing, it’s still not cool. It’s a one-time thing.”

Amity concealed the book as he’d directed.

“Try not to look guilty,” he said.