Under the Dome

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 as if they had been caught out in the worlds 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 tife 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 finid 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. J 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.

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.

The leatherhead regards her with its eyeless face. It frowns. The corners of its mouth turn down, although it has no mouth. And Julia realizes how lucky she is to have found one of them alone. There are usually more, but they have

(gone home to dinner gone home to lunch gone to bed gone to school gone on vacation, doesn't matter they're gone)

gone somewhere. If they were here together, they would drive her back. This one could drive her back alone, but she is curious.

She?

Yes.

This one is female, like her.

--Please let us go. Please let us live our little lives.

No answer. No answer. No answer. Then:

-You aren't real. You are—

What? What does she say? You are toys from the toyshop? No, but it's something like that. Julia has a flicker-memory of the ant farm her brother had when they were kids. The recollection comes and goes in less than a second. Ant farm isn't right, either, but like toys from the toyshop, it's close. It's in the ballpark, as they say.

-How can you have lives if you aren't real?

-WE ARE SO REAL! she cries, and this is the moan Barbie hears.-AS REAL AS YOU!

Silence. A thing with a shifting leather face in a vast white roofless room that is also somehow the Chester's Mill bandstand. Then:

-Prove it.

-Give me your hand.

-I have no hand. I have no body. Bodies aren't real. Bodies are dreams.

-Then give me your mind!

The leatherhead child does not. Will not.