The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality Read Online Free PDF

and grateful to have another home. I took what they gave me and thanked them for it. But I didn't know that it would have been normal and acceptable for them to use their influence to help me make my way in the world; and I never would have dreamed of asking them for anything.
    I never ever told my parents about Albert and his family. I was afraid they would think worse of me for consorting with the enemy.
    Now I recognized the northwest corner of the fieldstone wall that bordered Albert's estate, and about two miles down the road, there was the impressive fieldstone arch, two hundred years old at least, that framed the entrance road. And I was
very
surprised to see, on one side of the arch, very bright and garish and out of place, a sign that said: AUCTION TODAY.
    We started up that familiar road that wound through lovely woods that all belonged to Albert now, and my stomach began to churn with a whole ragbag of emotions: nostalgia and envy and a kind of dread at having to admit to this friend from my past that I had done nothing really worthwhile with all the years since I'd seen him last. Time had passed me by; I didn't have any answers to life's big questions or anything to show off. I'd just wandered from one thing to another and one place to another and let it all slide. I was wishing now that I'd been more creative about escaping from the Rolls and making my way back to my cottage in the boondocks. Not for the last time!
    When we arrived at the mansion, a monument of fieldstone and oak, all gables and dormers and diamond-paned windows, the grounds were so crowded with cars and trucks that several men with orange batons were busy trying to keep them organized. They waved the Rolls by, and we drove across the west lawn to the house.
    Rudy came around and opened the door for me. With my new clothes on and a couple of brandies inside me, it seemed like a long time ago that he had knocked me cold and kidnapped me; I hardly felt I could hold it against him. Maybe he had done me a favor. At this point I wasn't sure.
    One of the side doors opened, and a woman came over to the car. I guessed she was a year or two into her thirties, and her casual jeans and sweatshirt did nothing to disguise her world-class beauty.
    "Welcome, Jack," she said with a smile that brought a lump to my throat. "We're so glad you could come. I'm Jenna Yumans." She gave me a handshake that was both warm and firm. "Everything in the house is bedlam right now, but we're having something to eat in the kitchen. Won't you join us?"
    I nodded and followed her into the house. The way her dark brown hair glistened with auburn highlights in the sunshine, the graceful, alluring way she walked . . . Ah, here was trouble.
    "So," cried a familiar voice, "it's you!" Hélène Hardricourt, big-bosomed and silver-haired, made for me across the kitchen, folding me up in a hug that made me gasp for air. "Where have you been?" she wanted to know, as though I had just come back from playing outside and was half an hour late for dinner. "You had a fight with Albert, okay, these things happen. But you don't write? You don't call? You don't have anything to do with the people who love you? Oh, Jack," she cried, impatiently wiping the tears out of her eyes, "it's so good to see you, but you should be ashamed of yourself!"
    "I'm sorry, Hélène, God's truth I am. But this is America, you know? It's a big country and it's easy to get lost."
    Hélène was the Keane's cook, one of the family of servants that went with the house. She was married to Émile, the butler, who took his turn next, shaking my hand and embracing me with tears in his eyes. Then their daughter Maxine, who had been a child when I last saw her, embraced me and kissed me and introduced me to
her
daughter, who embraced me and kissed me, and then they all cried again. They are French, so they behave that way. I'm a yank, so I hide my feelings; but inside I felt very moved to see them again.
    What Hélène had said