which is a sort of heaven, and Hel, which is a sort of hell, and a world of primal fire and a world of primal water and a world of primal wind-but, listen. There's also a world of primal ice. It's sort of connected to Hel-and it's
also a world of shadows. It's called Niflheim, and nifl means 'dark, shadowy.'"
"Just what are you getting at?" Dee asked.
"I don't know. It's just strange, nicht wahr? God, I'm starting to think in German. But it is strange, isn't it-with him calling himself the Shadow Man? And I just remembered something else. The things that live in Niflheim are supposed to be terribly destructive, so they're under a rune of restraint to keep them from getting out of their world and into other peoples'. I don't remember which rune, though."
"You're not saying runes are real," Jenny said. "I mean, like the one Julian talked about-the one that 'pierced the veil between the worlds.' They can't really work."
"I always assumed they didn't, that it was just a silly superstition. But now ... I don't know. They work in legends all right, to let you-oh, what do they call it? Fare forth between the worlds. Or summon up things from the other ones. The way those German boys summoned the elves."
The talk was making Jenny very uncomfortable. She didn't know why, and that made her even more uncomfortable. Something to do with runes, a long time ago. After all she had seen, why should it upset her that runes might be real? That day in her grandfather's basement...
"Look," she said abruptly, "we've been standing here gabbing forever. Don't you think we'd better start looking for the next person? There is a time limit, you know."
"Right," Dee said, always ready for action. "Do you want to split up again?"
"No," Jenny said quickly. "Let's stick together." By whatever weird laws operated in this place, she'd already yielded Julian the right to touch her hand, her cheek, her hair. And he'd made it plain that he wouldn't be satisfied until he got all of her, bit by bit. It was just a question of what kind of ruse or threat he planned to try next. Jenny figured her best chance was not to be caught alone.
They found Michael on the third sweep down the hall. He was wandering back and forth in front of a door, running his hands through his rumpled dark hair and muttering. He brightened considerably at the sight of the girls. "Audrey, at last! It seems like years!" "Oh, I've been counting the seconds we've been apart," Audrey said, raising an eyebrow and dimpling at the same time.
"Me, too. I only wish I had a calculator to keep track."
And neither of them meant a word of it. Lucky for them, thought Jenny. Love for Tom was like an aching bruise in her chest. If only she could see him, just for a moment...
They explained to Michael everything that had happened to them. He told them that for him the parlor had simply disappeared while Tom was cowering from the invisible creatures. Then he'd found himself in front of this door. He'd tried the knob, but it wouldn't open. He'd been pacing the hallway ever since.
"And you never saw a staircase?" Jenny asked. "No staircase, no other doors, no nothing. No people, until you came." "And yet we've been walking this hallway for hours, and we've seen three doors, and I came up a staircase," Jenny said. "It's just one more weird thing about this place."
"Which we don't have time to discuss," Dee said. "Let's move, people. Who wants to try this door?"
"This time let's try to keep it open after we go in," Jenny said. "That is, if we don't need to slam it shut fast."
"We can't go in at all-it's locked," Michael said.
Dee flashed him a grin as she took up a heel stance, ready to do a forward kick. "Bets?"
The door opened easily when Jenny twisted the knob, and no monsters jumped out. Dee caught it as it swung and held it against the wall. Through the opening Jenny could see dimness.
"Uh, you first. I'm a registered coward," Michael said.
Jenny took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped over the threshold--into a hallway identical to the one she had left.
She looked up and down it in bewilderment.
"What's going on? This door wants to close," Dee called.
"It's-" Jenny gave up and beckoned Audrey and Michael in.
"It's the same place," Audrey said, looking around.
This