IF: Boundarylands by Clayton Smith

Author:Clayton Smith [Smith, Clayton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Dapper Press
Published: 2019-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7:

In Which We Examine the Possibility that Cole is Batty, Cracked, Derailed, Mental, Off His Rocker, Out of His Mind, Rabid, Raving, Screwy, Touched, and Plain Old Certifiably Insane

By the time they left Princess Lemon’s and found the next lintel a few blocks away, the sun in that particular imaginary world was beginning to fall behind the wall of skyscrapers, though Cole noted with peculiar interest that despite the amount of time that had passed since they’d arrived, and despite the lateness of the day, he didn’t feel the least bit drowsy.

Emma was still glowing. After the company meeting at Princess Lemon’s, where Emma had gone on to suggest the best type of coconut cookie (macaroon) and the best varieties (chocolate, lemon drizzle, and white chocolate with crushed macadamia nuts, in that order), the woman with the pin had bestowed on her a small plastic card that entitled her to “NEARLY-UNLIMITED* FREE LEMONADE AT ANY PRINCESS LEMON LEMONADE STAND FOR LIFE (*valid for up to eleventy zillion uses).” Despite the severe unlikelihood of ever actually coming across a Princess Lemon lemonade stand, Emma clutched the little yellow and turquoise card like it was a ten-thousand-dollar bill. It was her new favorite thing—“better than cookies, even,” according to her—at least for now, and every few minutes she either waved it in the face of one of the other children or kissed it with a loud smack.

“I think you might be in trouble for leaving us to go follow the lady with the princess pin,” Emma confided in Polly as they walked, “but I’m glad you did it.”

Willy had gotten lost six times since they left the tall glass and metal building, but at least he was always easy to find. When Polly had wandered off, it had taken a little bit of effort to track her down; it was Cole who’d finally figured out where she’d gone, remembering how she’d seemed so taken with the woman’s princess pin. But when Willy broke ranks, it was to chase after a stray cat, to stomp in a puddle, or to kick over a metal trash can. He was always easy to find; they just followed the noise.

The group turned the last corner, and the lintel was unmistakable. Even if the rubber strip itself were difficult to see in the fading light, there was just no missing the next world. This one wasn’t stored away behind a set of doors; it was out in the open, a mammoth wall of new reality with the city’s roads, sidewalks, and buildings dead-ending at its base.

The imagination on the other side of this lintel was a towering jungle in the middle of a much brighter day. They could see harsh sunlight bursting between tree leaves overhead, though none of that light actually reached the city in which they stood. The sun on their side sank lower and lower, and what sun there was on the other side cutting through the branches seemed to grow brighter and brighter.

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