Barbie punctured his tire with the knife and heard the pwoosh of air as soon as he pulled the blade free. Julia slapped the spindle into his hand as efficiently as an OR nurse. Barbie jammed it into the hole, saw the rubber grip it… and then felt a divine rush of air spurt into his sweaty face. He breathed deeply once, unable to help himself. The air was much fresher, much richer, than that pushed through the Dome by the fans. His brain seemed to wake up, and he came to an immediate decision. Instead of putting a garbage bag over their makeshift nozzle, he tore a large, ragged swatch from one of them.

“What are you doing?” Julia screamed.

There was no time to tell her she wasn’t the only one with intuitions.

He plugged the spindle with the plastic. “Trust me. Just go to the box and do what you have to do.”

She gave him a final look that seemed to be all eyes, then opened the Odyssey’s doorgate. She half fell to the ground, picked herself up, stumbled over a hummock, and went to her knees beside the flash-box. Barbie followed her with both tires. He had Sam’s knife in his pocket. He fell on his knees and offered Julia the tire with the black spindle sticking out of it.

She yanked the plug, breathed in—her cheeks hollowing with the effort—exhaled to one side, then breathed in again. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, cutting clean places there. Barbie was crying, too. It had nothing to do with emotion; it was if they had been caught out in the world’s nastiest acid rain. This was far worse than the air at the Dome.

Julia sucked in more. “Good,” she said, speaking on the exhale and almost whistling the word. “So good. Not fishy. Dusty.” She breathed in again, then tilted the tire toward him.

He shook his head and pushed it back, although his lungs were beginning to pound. He patted his chest, then pointed at her.

She took another deep breath, then sucked in one more. Barbie pushed down on top of the tire to help her along. Faintly, in some other world, he could hear Sam coughing and coughing and coughing.

He’ll rip himself apart, Barbie thought. He felt as if he might come apart himself if he didn’t breathe soon, and when Julia pushed the tire at him a second time, he bent over the makeshift straw and sucked in deeply, trying to draw the dusty, wonderful air all the way to the bottom of his lungs. There wasn’t enough, it seemed there could never be enough, and there was a moment when panic

(God I’m drowning)

almost engulfed him. The urge to bolt back to the van—never mind Julia, let Julia take care of herself—was nearly too strong to resist… but he did resist it. He closed his eyes, breathed, and tried to find the cool, calm center that had to be there someplace.

Easy. Slow. Easy.

He dragged in a third long, steady inhale from the tire, and his pounding heart began to slow a little. He watched Julia lean forward and grip the box on either side. Nothing happened, and this didn’t surprise Barbie. She had touched the box when they first came up here, and was now immune to the shock.

Then, suddenly, her back arched. She moaned. Barbie tried to offer her the spindle-straw, but she ignored it. Blood burst from her nose and began to trickle from the corner of her right eye. Red drops slid down her cheek.

“What’s happenin?” Sam called. His voice was muffled, choked.

I don’t know, Barbie thought. I don’t know what’s happening.

But he knew one thing: if she didn’t take more air soon, she’d die. He pulled the spindle out of the tire, clamped it between his teeth, and plunged Sam’s knife into the second tire. He drove the spindle into the hole and plugged it with the swatch of plastic.

Then he waited.

10

This is the time that is no time:

She’s in a vast white roofless room with an alien green sky above. It’s… what? The playroom? Yes, the playroom. Their playroom.

(No, she’s lying on the floor of the bandstand.)

She’s a woman of a certain age.

(No, she’s a little girl.)

There is no time.

(It’s 1974 and there’s all the time in the world.)

She needs to breathe from the tire.

(She doesn’t.)

Something is looking at her. Something terrible. But she is terrible to it, as well, because she’s bigger than she’s supposed to be, and she’s here. She’s not supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be in the box. Yet she is still harmless. It knows that, even though it is

(just a kid)

very young; barely out of the nursery, in fact. It speaks.

—You are make-believe.

—No, I’m real. Please, I’m real. We all are.