“Who is this Dulcie person?”
“A friend. I think she’s part of your collection now. I just want her back. That’s all.”
“Very well.” Dr. X clasps his hands together. “If you can tell me one true thing you’ve learned, one thing worth living for, you may have your friend back.”
I don’t know what to say. I could say anything—fish, popcorn, unicycles. What has meaning to me might not mean a damn thing to Dr. X. I’m so tired my muscles are shaking and I feel like crying. And so I say the only thing that comes to mind, the truest thing I can think of. “To live is to love, to love is to live.”
On the screen, Dr. X blinks, thinking. And then, suddenly, the Dulcie snow globe is on the desk in the room. Her plastic fists are pressed against the glass, and her red, painted mouth is open in a scream.
“Set her free,” I say.
“Ah,” Dr. X says softly. “That I cannot do.”
“You have to turn her back!” I say.
“I could freeze you, too. Then you’d feel nothing.”
“I don’t want to feel nothing.”
“That’s wonderful,” he murmurs, and the screen goes to static.
In the room, I hear someone clapping. The Wizard of Reckoning’s moving toward me, applauding. He’s a good six feet tall, just my height. Hooked to his belt is a scabbard with a gleaming sword poking out. Those gloved hands reach up and remove his helmet.
“Hey, Cameron. Remember me?” The Wizard of Reckoning grins, and I’d know that grin anywhere. I’ve been staring at it in the mirror for the past sixteen years. “Big surprise, huh? Bet you didn’t know you had that zit on your chin.”
“This can’t be happening.”
“And yet it is. Nice cape, by the way. Though it is a little copycat.”
Off to the right is a long hallway dotted with doors. I stumble-run toward the safety of it.
“Won’t work!” the wizard calls after me as I run smack into the wall. “It’s painted. Sorry, my little roadrunner. No escaping this.”
He unzips his space-armor jacket. Underneath he’s wearing an orange tee: MY PARENTS WENT TO SHITHENGE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CRAPPY T-SHIRT.
“But we got rid of you. You can’t be here,” I say, looking for an exit.
The wizard’s smile hardens. “I’m always here, Cameron. You people, I tell ya. Always looking for signs, for meaning. This is what you keep at bay—chaos, disorder, the irrational and unexplainable, death looming on the horizon, a big dark hole sucking up everything in its path, no escape.” He takes a seat on the edge of the desk. “You always seemed to have that figured out: Why try? We’re just gonna die in the end. Sensible attitude. I liked that about you, Cameron. That’s why I’m a little surprised by this third act filled with heroics. So much effort. Really, you’re making it much harder than it needs to be.”
“Making what harder than it needs to be?” Where is the door I came in through?
“Dying, of course.”
“I’m not gonna die. Dr. X is going to cure me!” I shout.
“There is no Dr. X, sponge brain,” the wizard says. “See, this whole thing—it’s in your head. A fantasy jerry-rigged from your life’s scrap-metal heap, dude.”
“Then who’s that?” I point to Dr. X’s image on the screen.
“Why must we die when everything within us was born to live?” Dr. X says, like a loop of tape that’s gone back to the beginning. “It’s a tragedy cloaked in a comedy.”
“Some guy you saw on the Internet once.”
“That’s not true. Those United Snow Globe employees—”
The Wizard of Reckoning’s hand comes down hard, rattling the snow globes. “Do. Not. Exist. Just a figment of your spongiform mind. They’re stand-ins—the coyote on your ass.”
“No.” I look around the room frantically.
“Oh, Cameron. Don’t tell me you still don’t get it.” He knocks on my head. “Hello? Is any of this getting through?”
“Ow. Quit it.”
“Sorry. My bad.” He sighs and picks some lint off his shiny pants, and I make a vow that if I live through this, I will never wear pants like that. “Cameron. What do you think this whole trip has been about, man? Searching for a cure? Saving the universe? Dude. Please. It’s about this.”
He throws a crumpled piece of paper at my feet. I pick it up and smooth it out. It’s Junior’s message that I stuck on the Wishing Tree back in Hope with Dulcie.
