NOBODY said anything until a pair of small black and blue shoes perched on Jack's feet. They weren't Skechers, but they looked similar enough. To get the real thing, she'd have to go to the mall in Savannah, and she had to save every drop of gas or she couldn't get to work. Rose crouched and mashed the top of the shoe with her finger, looking for Jack's toes. Ample room. He grew like a weed, and she always tried to buy shoes a little bigger than he needed. "Do they feel too big?"

Jack shook his head.

"Do you like them?"

Jack nodded.

"Okay," she said, glancing at the price tag. Twenty-seven ninety-nine. She would've bought them even if it said fifty.

The boys watched her very quietly, standing in the aisle like a pair of frightened rabbit kittens. Rose sighed. "Would you like to look at toys?"

"Look" being the operative word. The boys stared at the action figures, transfixed by armor and muscles of colored plastic. Rose lingered by the end shelf. The stranger on the road kept popping back into her head. He wasn't local; she was sure of it.

The Edge was narrow here, only about twelve miles across. They didn't even have a real town, just a handful of houses randomly sprinkled on the outskirts of the Wood and grandly termed East Laporte. She knew all the local Edgers by sight, and she'd never come across anyone like the king of the road before. Those eyes weren't something she would forget.

If he wasn't from East Laporte, then he was probably from the Weird. People from the Broken favored guns, not swords.

Rose bit her lip. The Edgers like her passed freely between the worlds, but crossing from the Broken or the Weird into the Edge was a different matter for those not born to it.

First, most people from the Weird and the Broken couldn't see past their respective boundary. If someone from the Broken tried to follow her into the Edge, she would vanish from their sight when she crossed. One moment she'd be there, and then she'd be gone, and they would keep right on driving in their own world. Because they couldn't sense the boundary, for them the Edge simply wasn't there. It didn't exist, like a room behind a door that forever remained closed. On the other side, most people of the Weird couldn't sense their boundary either and missed it as well, going about their regular lives, never knowing about the odd place next door that led to an even odder world.

Of course, there were always exceptions to the rule. Some people in the Broken were born with a magic talent. It lay dormant until one day they stumbled onto an unfamiliar road and decided to take it to see where it led. Some people in the Weird managed to discover the other dimension as well. And that brought the second problem: crossing the boundaries hurt.

There was nothing to be done about that. People like her lived in the Edge, because it was the only place they could retain their magic, and they worked and studied in the Broken, because that's where they made their living. But while they experienced aches and discomfort and a brief stab of pain during the crossing, a person native to the Broken or the Edge would endure agony.

Still, a few determined enough did make it through. Caravans from the Weird stopped by East Laporte every three months or so. Like most Edgers, she sank every spare dollar into buying junk from the Broken. Pepsi. Panty hose. Fancy pens. When the caravans arrived, she would carry her loot out and sell it to the caravan master at a markup or trade for the goods from the Weird, mostly odd jewelry and exotic trinkets, and then unload those goods at a couple of dealers in the Broken. A little extra money.

The caravans didn't stay long. The worlds were greedy. Too much time in the Broken, and you'd lose your magic. Too much time in the Weird, and the magic would infect you and the Broken wouldn't let you back in. The Edgers had some immunity - they could last in either world longer than other people, but even they eventually succumbed. Peter Padrake, one of the most famous people from the Weird to have crossed into the Broken, had lost his magic years ago. He couldn't even enter the Edge anymore.

What would cause a man from the Weird to risk pain and the loss of his magic by traveling to the Edge? He didn't come with any caravan - those weren't due for another couple of weeks. It had to be some sort of emergency. Perhaps he was here for her.

That thought made her stop. No, she decided. She'd been left alone for the last three years. Most likely he hadn't come from the Weird at all. The Edge was narrow but very long, as long as the worlds themselves. It ran into the ocean in the East, but in the West it stretched for thousands of miles. True, the Wood usually kept the visitors out, but they did get travelers once in a while. They said that in the West, the Edge widened. Rumor had it that a chunk of a large Western city sat right in the Edge. Perhaps he'd come from there. Yes, that must be it.

Who cared where he'd come from anyway?

Rose sighed and picked up a big jug of bubble fluid, equipped with four wands. Georgie liked bubbles. He could keep them very still in the air for almost twenty seconds. She had already plunked down the money for the shoes. In for a penny, in for a pound. After all, Georgie hadn't done anything wrong, and Jack kind of got rewarded for ripping his new shoes. Might as well get the bubbles. It was good practice for Georgie. It would help him learn to flash . . .

It dawned on her that Jack got new shoes and Georgie would only get some lousy bubbles. It wasn't fair. No matter what she did, she just couldn't win. Gahh, what would be the right thing to do? To buy the bubbles or to buy nothing but the shoes? She wished she had a manual or something, some kind of instruction sheet that would clearly spell out what a responsible parent did in this sort of situation. Her imagination painted Georgie twenty years later, sitting in leg irons before some Broken psychiatrist. "Well, you see, it all started with bubbles . . ."

In the aisle, Georgie said something, and a deeper male voice answered. An alarm went off in her head. Rose leaned over, peeking around the bubble display. A man stood next to the boys, talking. She put down the bubbles and marched over to the newcomer.

He stood with his back to her. It was a broad, muscled back, covered with a faded green T-shirt that was tight across the shoulders and loose around his waist. The T-shirt had seen better days. His jeans fared no better: old, worn-out, gray from permanent dirt embedded in the weave. His hair was dark and worn on the longer side, not quite reaching his shoulders.

He wasn't a local Edger, and Jack would've smelled him if he was fresh from the Edge or the Weird. Magic didn't work past the boundary, but Jack's sense of smell was still keener than normal, and people with magic in their blood gave off a specific scent. She never smelled it herself, but Jack maintained they smelled like pies, whatever that meant. And he was under strict orders to tell her immediately if they encountered an unfamiliar pie-smelling person in the Broken.

As she neared them, she heard the man's voice. ". . . yeah, but his arms don't move. He's stuck like that. You can't make him fight."

He didn't sound like a child molester, but child molesters never sounded like child molesters. They sounded like your law-abiding, churchgoing, nice next-door neighbor. And they were very good with children.

Georgie saw her. "Rose, he likes the guys, too."

"I see," she said. If they were back in the Edge, and if she had the knowledge to convert her power into an environmental effect, her voice would have frozen everything in a twenty-yard radius. "And does he usually hang out in the toy aisle talking to little boys?"

The man turned. He looked to be in his late twenties. He had a handsome face with a square jaw and sculptured cheekbones. No baby fat remained on his face. His cheeks were hollowed, his nose narrow and well cut. She scrutinized his deep-set hazel eyes. The eyes reassured her: they were honest and direct. Not a child molester, she decided. Probably just a nice guy talking to the kids in the toy aisle.

He reached up and pulled a pirate figure from the top shelf. "Now this one moves. You can pose him." He handed the toy to Georgie, and the boys bent over it. "Sorry," he told her. "Didn't mean to alarm you there."

"I wasn't alarmed." She toned down the menace a little.

"My mistake." He turned back to the toys.

She stood next to him, feeling slightly awkward. "Buying for yourself or your son?" she asked, to say something.

"Myself."

"Ah. Are you a collector? One of those Never-Remove-from-the-Box types?" Oh, that's good, she thought. Instead of ending this conversation on a somewhat comfortable note, ask the stranger more questions and insult him while you're at it.

He glanced at her. "No. I take them out and I play with them. I stage huge wars. I also divide them by weight class." There was a slight note of challenge in his voice.

"Do you have many guys?" Georgie asked.

"Four boxes."

Rub it in, Rose thought with sudden venom, and immediately checked herself. He had no way of knowing that she couldn't afford to buy them toys. He was simply answering the question. She needed to end this conversation, buy the damn shoes, and go home.

"I keep waiting for them to make a good Conan figure, but they never do," the man said. "I stopped holding my breath. Was hoping for Green Arrow today, but nobody carries him."

"Which one?"

He gave her a suspicious look. "Hard Traveling Heroes."

Rose nodded. Having two little brothers made her into an action figure expert. "By DC Direct? Parallel Universe down the street has him, but it will cost you thirty bucks." She felt like slapping herself. It had just popped right out.

His eyes widened. "Can you tell me where it is?"

"We'll show you," Georgie volunteered.

She glared at him.

"We can show him the comics, right, Rose?" Jack's eyes were huge. "Please."

Rose had to concentrate to keep from gritting her teeth.

"That's okay," the man said. "I'll find it. Thanks for letting me know it's there."

He looked at her like she was some sort of maniac. "No, we'll show you," Rose found herself saying. "It's just down the street, but it's hard to explain how to get to it. Come on, boys."

Five minutes later, the four of them were walking down along the Wal-Mart sidewalk.

"Thanks again," the man said. "I'm William."

"Rose," she said and left it at that.

The boys seemed smitten with William. Jack in particular seemed fixated. It made sense - he was too young even to remember Dad, and none of their male relatives were ever around long enough to make an impression. A lonely kid abandoned by his father, who had run off after some phantom treasure, Jack was desperate for some male attention.

"I have new shoes," Jack said.

William stopped and looked at his shoes. "Cool boots."

Jack smiled. It was a tiny hesitant smile. He didn't smile very often. If Rose could've gotten ahold of Dad at this moment, she would've laid him out on the asphalt with one punch.

Georgie took a deep breath, plainly not wanting to be outdone in the coolness department. She could almost feel the wheels turning in his blond head. She should've bought him those damn bubbles so he could've at least said he had something new, too.

Georgie blinked a couple of times and finally burst out with the only bit of news he could scrounge. "I got grounded for snitching."

"Really?" William said.

Rose tensed. If he mentioned leech birds, she'd have to come up with some sort of explanation. But Georgie only nodded. "Uh-huh."

"That probably wasn't good."

"No."

William glanced at her. "Does your sister ground you often?"

"No. She mostly does this." Georgie rolled his eyes in perfect imitation of her and muttered, "Why me?"

William looked at her.

"What made you think I'm their sister?"

He shrugged. "You look too young. Besides, not many kids would call their mother 'Rose.' "

They reached the end of the sidewalk. She took the boys by the hand, and together they crossed the street and headed across the grass to a small plaza. "So you're not from around here?"

"No. Moved here a couple of weeks ago from Florida," William said. "Jobs are a bit better here."

"What do you do?"

"I lay floors."

Rose nodded. The area was booming. Every time she drove by, construction crews had cleared more of the forest to make room for new subdivisions and shopping centers. A floor installer could make some serious money here. No wonder he could afford four boxes of toys.

PARALLEL Universe sat sandwiched between a coffeehouse and a UPS shipping store. It was remarkably clean and organized as comic shops went. In his previous life, Peter Padrake was Commodore Peter Padrake, the scourge of the Blood Sea and loyal privateer of Adrianglia, a country in the Weird. A decade ago he had crossed from the Weird into the Broken to retire, somehow managed to transform his life savings into good old U.S. currency, and opened Parallel Universe. Peter ran his comic shop the way he must've run his ship: the place was pristine, the comics categorized by publisher and title, each in a clear plastic sleeve, each clearly labeled with a price sticker. The price was final. Peter detested haggling.

He greeted her with a sour look. Rose knew it wasn't personal. She was trouble, and Peter detested trouble even more than haggling.

"It's here." Georgie tugged on William's sleeve. "Over there."

William followed Georgie and Jack to the back of the store.

She smiled at Peter. He did his best to impersonate a stone idol from Easter Island. She drifted away from his stare to the back of the store, looking at the graphic novels on the wall as she passed. She loved comics. She loved books, too. They were her window into the Broken, and they let her dream.

Girl Genius . . . She often wished she could have been like Agatha, building superweapons out of a rusty fork, old bubble gum, and a piece of string. Rose picked up a graphic novel sealed in plastic. Twenty bucks . . . Not in this lifetime. She looked up and saw William listen while Georgie read out the description of the action figure from the back of the box. He wasn't a bad-looking guy, she reflected. Patient, too. Most men would've shrugged Georgie off by now. Maybe he was a child molester, after all.

Now there was a messed-up thought. Why would every man who paid a bit of attention to two boys obviously starved for male company automatically be some sort of criminal?

William smiled at her. Rose carefully smiled back at him. Something wasn't quite right about William. She couldn't put her finger on it. It was time to collect her brothers and go.

Rose skirted a small display and ran into Jack. He stood in the aisle completely still, knees slightly bent, barely breathing, his eyes focused on a rack of books, looking just like a cat fixated on its prey. She glanced in the direction of his stare and saw a brightly colored comic book. Not a regular American one but a fatter, smaller manga volume. The cover showed a teenage girl in a sailor outfit and a boy with white hair wearing a red kimono. Red letters slashed across the page: InuYasha.

Rose took the comic book off the shelf. Jack's eyes followed it. "What?" she asked.

"Kitty ears," he whispered. "He has kitty ears."

Rose examined the cover and saw furry triangular ears in the mane of the boy's white hair. She flipped the book. "It says here he is a half-man, half-dog demon. So these aren't kitty ears."

Rose could tell by the desperate look on his face that he didn't care.

She glanced at Peter. "You stock manga now?"

Peter shrugged behind the counter. "Those are used. A fellow brought them in. Selling them as a set, three for ten. If I sell them, I might order some new copies in."

"Please," Jack whispered, his eyes huge.

"Absolutely not. You got shoes. Georgie didn't even get anything."

"Can I have it then?" Georgie popped out of thin air next to her.

"No." She could swing three bucks maybe, but not ten, and she could tell by Peter's face that he wouldn't be breaking the three volumes up.

"I'll buy these for them," William offered.

"No!" She took a step back. They were poor, but they weren't beggars.

"Look, seriously, I dragged you down here and made you show me the shop. I'm getting the Green Arrow anyway; an extra ten bucks won't make any difference." He glanced at Peter. "I'll pay for those."

"Absolutely not," she said, loading her voice with steel.

"Rose, please - " Georgie began in a singsong whine.

She cut him off. "You're a Drayton. We don't beg."

He clamped his mouth shut.

"Figure it out and stop wasting my time," Peter said.

William looked at him. It was a thousand-yard stare that pinned Peter down like a dagger. It wasn't even aimed at her, but an urge to back away and leave gripped her. Peter Padrake moved his hand to the drawer where he kept his .45 and stood very still.

She picked up the books and put them on the counter. "Ten, you said?"

"Ten sixty-nine with tax," Peter said, his gaze fixed on William.

Rose smiled. She had exactly ten seventy-five in her purse. Gas money. Rose pulled out her pocketbook, extracted the soft dollar bills and three quarters, handed them to Peter, got her change, and all with the same smile on her face, she gave the books to the kids and marched out of the store, boys in tow.

"Rose, wait." William followed her.

Just keep walking . . .

"Rose!"

She turned and looked at him. "Yes?"

He closed the distance between them. "If I hadn't said something, you wouldn't have bought the books. Let me make it up to you. Go out to dinner with me tomorrow. My treat."

She blinked.

"I don't know anybody," he said. "I'm sick of eating alone. And I feel bad about the store."

Rose hesitated.

He leaned a little to look her in the eyes. "I really want to see you again. Say yes."

It had been forever since she'd been on a date. Any kind of date. Four years.

Tomorrow was Wednesday, the first day of school. The kids would want to see Grandma to tell her all about it. She could swing a dinner. But there was something about William that put her off. He was handsome, and she wanted to like him. She just didn't. The stare he'd given Peter had been almost predatory. "You're not my type."

"How do you know? We haven't said more than twenty words to each other."

That was true. She didn't know anything about him. But it was far more prudent to turn him down and go back behind her ward stones. To hide. And with that thought, something inside Rose reared up, the way it had in the beginning of fifth grade, when Sarah Walton first called her the daughter of a whore. The same Drayton stubbornness that made her grandmother famous reared its head. No, she thought. They wouldn't make her cower behind the ward stones for the rest of her goddamn life.

But they wouldn't force her to do something she didn't want to do either. That would be equally weak.

"You're a nice guy, William. But I really can't. Tomorrow is the first day of school, and I need to be home."

He looked at her for a long moment and raised his arms, palms out. "Okay. Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime." He made it sound like a promise.

"Maybe," she said.