"Pablita did always like Colette," he said. "I think she saw her as another rebel against the unfair, male-dominated system."

"And was she?"

"No, Pablita was ..."

"I don't mean Paula Angel!" I said, not quite shouting, but coming close. "I mean Colette Bogatyr, my mother."

Mikey blinked owlishly with surprise, but as he helped himself to a third piece of chicken, I don't think I had offended him.

"Colette was ... possibly a rebel, but she was also, quite honestly, less than completely sane and quite probably a parricide."

"But you," I fumbled for the right words, "or rather, her own trustees, they got her out of the insane asylum. Why would they do that if Colette was both insane and dangerous?"

"Because if they didn't, Colette would have left on her own accord. In fact, she had been doing so for years. The trustees merely put her in the position of being able to lay legal claim to Phineas House.

"I'm confused," I said, my elbows on the arms of my chair, my face in my hands.

"Well, it is easier to understand if I start at the beginning," Mikey said without reproof. "It's just that it's such a difficult beginning, and entails explaining things that have nothing to do with Colette-at least not with her personally."

He had finished the third piece of chicken, and though he looked longingly at the pasta salad, seemed prepared to make a valiant effort to resist fourths.

"I have dessert," I said, "and the silent women seem to have anticipated me and turned on the coffee. I made decaf, but I can put on caffeinated if you'd like."

"My doctor says I should cut back on caffeine and rich foods and get more exercise," Mikey replied. "Needless to say, I don't listen. However, your company is sufficiently stimulating that I can do without caffeine."

I smiled at the compliment. "The evening is lovely, and normally I'd suggest we take our dessert outside, but since I have a feeling that what you need to tell me shouldn't be overhear ... ."

"Yes, that is probably best," Mikey said. "Tell me, is Domingo Navidad still living on the property?"

"In the apartment over the carriage house. He's been a gem. Lately, he's concentrated on getting the exterior paint job done."

"I noticed it," Mikey said, with almost incredible understatement ; you'd have to be blind-and possibly deaf-not to notice that paint job.

"I won't ask if you like it," I said, grinning, "because I fear that what we're considering calling the 'Fairground Midway' style is probably an acquired taste."

Mikey rose, nicking one more pasta twist out of the salad. "It is an individual style, and says a great deal about you-more than that you are an art teacher. However, don't ask me what, because that would take us back to telling the story inside out."

"I have some suspicions," I said. "Like I said, I've been doing some research. Why don't we take the coffee and dessert tray into the living room? Then you can start telling me what you've come so far to tell."

And the silent women can get on with tidying up. I suspect they might manifest for the purpose of frowning at me if I dared clear the table with our first formal dinner guest in the House.

Once we had settled in, I tucked my feet up under me-something else Colette never would have done. She might have done a Cleopatra lounging upon her gilded divan routine for one of her lovers, but never just tucked bare feet up under the hem of a loose silk skirt.

Mikey indulged in both a brownie and a cookie, but he was more focused now than he had been before.

"You found the kaleidoscopes," he said, "and, more importantly, you somehow figured out how to use them. I know this, because you found my note. That phone number was given out in one place, in one way, precisely for that reason."

I nodded. "You said something to my Aunt May about Colette being a Queen of Mirrors, a Mistress of Thresholds. Did you do it knowing she would start researching?"

Mikey sipped his coffee, to which he'd added enough cream and sugar that it could qualify as another dessert.

"I ... suspected she would, yes. Maybelle Fenn was a remarkable woman. She was well on the way-not to finding out where Colette had vanished; that would have been unlikely even for her-but to making some inquires that could have caused difficulties."

"For you?" I asked mildly, when what I really wanted to scream was Where did Colette go! What happened to her? Is she alive?

"No, Mira, actually, the difficulties would be for you. I'm going to need to go back before Colette was born for you to understand just how difficult matters could have become. Shall we suffice to say it has to do with inheritance?"

"I can deal with that," I said. "My own research has shown me that Phineas House seems to be an important piece of property. Did you tell Uncle Stan not to sell it?"

"We did not, not precisely. We did indicate that we would assist with the long-distance administration of the property if he would agree not to sell it He was eager to cooperate, to prove he was not interested in adopting you for your inheritance."

But someone else might have been, I thought, feeling suddenly cold. That's what Mikey's hinting at. Someone or some-ones wanted Phineas House.

"Am I to understand then," Mikey went on, "that you learned what you did that enabled you to use the kaleidoscopes from Maybelle Fenn?"

"Not quite," I said. "Aunt May never told me about her research, but she left journals. Research journals, I guess you could call them, though they cover a lot more. She made sure that I would get them after she died. Her journal is where I first encountered the term 'liminal space,' and some of the theory. I put that together with some of what I'd found here at Phineas House, and decided that maybe the kaleidoscopes weren't just ornamental."

Mikey nodded approval. "You did very well. Now, though I'm risking putting you to sleep after that excellent meal, I'm going to lecture you. You see, liminal space is where all of this begins, and until you understand that, you are going to have difficulty understanding how this all applies to you."

"Is liminal space a place then?" I know I sounded puzzled. "That doesn't seem quite to fit."

"No, liminal space isn't a place. By definition, liminal space can't be a place because the tenuous virtue of betweenness is what creates liminal space. When liminal space becomes a place, it ceases to be liminal."

"I'm with you," I encouraged him when he looked at me, obviously wondering if I'd accepted this convoluted logic.

"Liminal space-for all that it is, by definition, most itself when it almost isn't," Mikey went on, "is a very potent thing. It can be channeled in a wide variety of ways, but the most obvious way to use it is for scrying, for looking into probability."

"That would be because anything that is liminal, that is on the border between two edges," I said, shaping into words ideas I'd been puzzling over, "is sort of a crossroads where various outcomes can all be seen as probable-if not equally probable."

"That's right," Mr. Hart said. "Scrying through liminal space is not easy. For one thing, it takes a while to learn how to deduce which of the various futures is most probable, but the technique does work. Trust me on this."

"Okay."

"Another possible use for liminal space is for travel."

"Travel?"

"That's right. To one who has the talent and the training, liminal space can be used to violate the charming principle that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line."

"It isn't?"

"Not when liminal space is involved. Probably everyone has used liminal space at least once. It's easiest to use it accidentally, in a familiar environment where you are, to use the modern term, 'on autopilot,' not really paying attention to what you are doing. Don't tell me that you've never been walking or driving somewhere and found yourself at your destination with no real sense of how you got there-and often with time to spare."

"More times than I can count," I laughed. "I always found it most awkward when I was going to visit someone and got there early. There were a few times when I was teaching and I'd find myself opening a multipurpose classroom and walking in before the previous class was over."

"What you did then," Mikey said seriously, "was use liminal space. You unconsciously crossed into a liminal area where various borders met and chose the route you needed. An adept in the skill can do this consciously."

"And Colette knew how to do this," I said, thinking of something Mikey had said earlier, "and that's how she'd leave the insane asylum."

"Bingo," Mikey said, but despite the flippant term, he looked a little sad. "Because she had been severed from Phineas House-I'll get back to that, I promise-she chose some very dangerous routes for her escapes. That's one of the reasons her trustees wanted her released."

"Because they thought she'd hurt herself?"

"And because of the things that might have been created by her on her journeys," Mikey said. "When you are dealing with probability, for everything you could have done right there are dozens of ways you could have done the same thing wrong. Colette would use one of these wrong ways, correct to make it right, but still, sometimes fragments of the wrongness would get out there."

"I don't understand."

"Good girl, and honest," Mikey said. "Let me tell you a bit about Phineas House. It may help."

"Go on," I said, suddenly eager, sitting very still, as if my slightest move might distract him. "I can't wait to hear."

22.

This was a land of vast spaces and long silences, a desert land of red bluffs and brilliant flowering cactus. The hot sun poured down. This land belonged to the very old Gods. They came on summer evenings, unseen, to rest their eyes and their hearts on the milky opal and smoky blue of the desert. For this was a land of enchantment, where Gods walked in the cool of the evening.

-Marian Russell,

Land of Enchantment: Memoirs of Marian Russell

Along the Santa Fe Trail

INSIDE THE LINES.

Mikey Hart stirred his coffee a couple of times, the spoon ringing against the side of the china cup like a chime. I sat in silence, willing him to start talking again. At last he did.

"Since you are willing to accept the possibility that liminal space may be more than a psychological construct, then it is not a great leap to ask you to accept the idea that those who are aware of liminal space as something that can be used, rather than merely experienced, would construct tools to enable them to better use it. Phineas House is one such tool. The kaleidoscopes and teleidoscopes you found are others. Phineas House was the brainchild of one Aldo Pincas."

I nodded to indicate that the name was familiar to me, and Mikey went on without asking any questions. I liked that he accepted I would have come across the name in my own research.

"Now, again, I need to stop and lecture," Mikey said with a rueful smile. "There are places where the use of liminal space is easier. This area-Las Vegas, New Mexico-is one. Physically it has useful qualities."

I bit down on my lower lip to keep from spouting out what Domingo and I had deduced, wanting to hear whether Mikey would confirm our guesses.

"It is an area where mountains meet the plains," Mikey said, "not gradually, with a fading into foothills, but comparatively abruptly. Another useful quality is the degree of geothermal activity simmering beneath the surface. If the pressure broke out into active eruption, it would not be as useful, but the hot springs offer a nice blend and emerge within a few yards of an icy mountain stream. The weather is also classically liminal-a temperate zone that experiences the seasonal borders, but is not defined by them. It is an area that knows both drought and flood; that is divided by a river, but not defined by that river.

"Moreover," Mikey continued, "the dry places of the earth have always been especially transitional. Living things cannot exist without water, and so deserts regularly move between the appearance of death into the vitality of life. Desert plants bloom apparently from nothing after a rain. Brown shifts into green; then, as the water is withdrawn, it shifts back into brown once more. Human occupation only intensifies the situation, for frequent rituals meant to bring rain, meant to alter one state into its opposite, create liminal states.

"In Las Vegas specifically, the coming of humans only intensified the multiplicity inherent in the natural landscape. Because of the hot springs, a wide variety of native peoples shared the area in relative peace, each bringing their own customs and traditions. When the Spanish arrived, the complexity increased. Later, Las Vegas was part of Mexico, later still part of the United States. Each change was made in a fashion that increased the complexity of the situation without wiping out previous influences."

I nodded and Mikey looked at me narrowly. "I can see from your expression that you've thought of some of these things yourself. I am impressed."

"I hoped I wasn't showing it quite so plainly," I said, "but you're right. I had wondered why Phineas House should be in Las Vegas, New Mexico, of all places. As history maps the world, Las Vegas has been passed by more than otherwise. In fact, it's almost defined by the number of times it has been passed by."

Mikey nodded. "That passing by is not accidental. Even before Aldo Pincas built the house that would evolve into this Phineas House in which we sit, the Las Vegas area was on what ... Let me start over. Are you familiar with the concept of trade winds and currents-natural phenomenon that helped define how the ocean travel evolved?"

"A little. Enough to see what you're getting at. You're saying that Las Vegas is on the liminal current."

"That's about as close an analogy as I can give you," Mikey said. "It's nothing like, of course, but helpful in what I'm trying to explain. Aldo Pincas decided that he would like to be able to use the Las Vegas current more effectively. The city of Las Vegas was young then, hardly more than a tidy collection of adobes. Aldo found it easy to acquire the precise piece of land he wanted, and he built Phineas House. The House is placed to take advantage of all sorts of things. You've heard of feng shui?"

"Chinese geomancy," I said. "It's dreadfully trendy these days."

"And most feng shui is nonsense, but like most occult sciences, it has a germ of truth to it. Aldo Pincas used feng shui-like techniques to harness the current. This didn't prevent others from using it, but did weaken it-like running a stream through a mill wheel slows it down without stopping it."

"I bet other liminal sorcerers, or whatever you want to call them, weren't crazy about that."

"They weren't, but that only touches on what I'm telling you-though we may come back to it. Let me stay with Aldo for now."

"Okay."

"What Aldo had not anticipated was that in channelling the liminal current through Phineas House, he would slow the very force from which he wanted to benefit. Once he realized this, Aldo set out to make sure the part of the environment he could influence would create more dualities-thus the checkered history of Las Vegas. I won't go into all the examples, but if you were to go and read the minutes of the meetings discussing the placement of the first rail line, you would discover Aldo's influence. Later, he would encourage the split that lead to the creation of the two towns."

I frowned thoughtfully, remembering that the Bible had listed Aldo's date of birth as 1831. He would have been a man in his prime during the events Mikey was relating. It fit.

"What about the State Hospital-the one that treats mental patients. Did Aldo have something to do with that?"

"He and his son Amerigo were influential, yes. Pincas family members helped encourage the founding of the Normal University as well. There's nothing like an institution of learning to intensify liminal space. That's one reason that, for a town so small, Las Vegas has had so many. The nice thing, from the point of view of the Pincas clan, is that unlike geographical features, educational ventures tend to encourage the creation of other, competing ventures."

For a moment I almost felt the fragmentation going on around me, as if I was a spider in the middle of a web of thin, flexible, but very strong strands. I understood why Mikey had been reluctant to use the trade winds analogy. Liminal space was more like a web spun by a host of spiders on LSD.

Mikey was studying me thoughtfully, and I suspected he had been aware of my insight, making me think what I had understood had not been intellectual, but actual perception. He did not comment, and I, eager that the tale of Aldo Pincas and Phineas House not be truncated, held my peace.

"Now, you must understand that Phineas House is not the only structure of its kind or the oldest or anything like that, but it is an important one. Aldo was a proud and arrogant man, and he was determined that his masterwork would not leave the control of his family. Therefore, he-to use another not completely accurate analogy-mixed into the very mortar of Phineas House bindings that would tie the House to one member of his family. Those bindings did not prevent others from benefiting from Phineas House, but only one person in each generation would possess the full power.

"Because this was a chancy thing to do, Aldo also made the House determined to care for and protect the person to whom it was bound. To ameliorate hurt feelings, Aldo set in place the tradition of trustees for Phineas House-and therefore of its partner. The trustees received certain benefits, and as these came to them through their fidelity to their trust, they had every reason to perpetuate the scheme."

I nodded. "I'd forgotten. I realized when I saw the names of Colette's trustees and then mine that you and I are probably related somehow."