Near sunset, they finally saw a weathered, hand-painted sign that read TAUBOLT-2 MILES. They all cheered again, and the boys leaned forward, searching for some glimpse of their long-awaited goal. Beside the road, sheep grazed in fields high with mustard flowers and wild grass already going gold. Long windbreaks of immense cypress trees marched across the landscape like bent old men leaning away from the sea. A worn but charming Victorian farmhouse went by on their right, its large yard lush with vegetable and flower gardens. They came over a low rise, past a ruined barn covered in blackberries and climbing rose, and there it was, spread atop a long headland in the distance.

Joby gasped.

Graceful stands of pine and cypress, weathered and sculpted by salt and storm, stood nearly black against the green-gold fields and the glittering sea beyond. In the bay between themselves and Taubolt, mammoth stacks of rock thrust up out of the water, their heads bent back above the mist, as if gazing at the sky in prayer. Seals basked in the last light of day on dark rock shelves, and long lines of pelicans skimmed the troughs between huge swells moving ponderously toward shore. A subtle movement in the sky drew Joby's gaze up to find some large hawk hanging nearly motionless above the river mouth, waiting for its dinner to swim by below. Rising at the center of all this was a rambling collage of old Victorian facades, steeples, water towers, and gabled roofs.

"Oh!" Miriam softly exclaimed. "It's just the way I remember!"

Joby almost blurted out, me too. He had never forgotten the view before him. It was all just as it had been in his dream, except that, where the walls and roofs and spires of Camelot should have been, stood only the rustic silhouette of Taubolt. He stared and stared, hardly able to breathe, not knowing what to think.

As the highway crossed a river running into the bay, Joby saw the broad gray beach he remembered. Well-formed waves stood up and filled with light, like walls of brilliant jade, then tumbled down in creamy gouts of pure white foam, rolling in to spread across the sand before hissing back into the bay. High atop dark cliffs over the beach, a giant old cypress spread its shadowed arms out into the air. He and Arthur had watched this very beach astride their horses from beneath that very tree.

"Hey, sport," his father said, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. "You're pretty quiet back there. Not sick again, are you?"

"Dad," Joby began, not sure what to say, "could we go out there first?" He pointed at the headlands' western edge. "I . . . I wanna see the sunset."

"The sunset!" his dad replied. "That's a great idea, Joby, but how 'bout tomorrow? We've got to find somewhere to stay right now."

"No! Dad, please! It won't be the same tomorrow. I . . . I know it won't."

"My goodness, Miriam," his father teased uncertainly. "Our son has developed quite the aesthetic streak, hasn't he? Do you remember if there's any place to stay here?"

"We stayed at an inn when my father brought us. . . . Oh! Frank, I think this is where we turn."

They left the highway, and wound toward town, passing a quaint red barn with white trim and an old-fashioned windmill pump, then found themselves headed west past a row of beautifully preserved gingerbread cottages. Lovely English gardens bloomed behind white picket fences as houses gave way to shop fronts, and they saw the inn, brightly lit and obviously open. Feeling assured of a place to stay, they acquiesced to Joby's wish, and continued west toward the headlands' far end. The street ended well before the land did, so they parked and wandered out across the grassy headland on foot.

The distant boom and sigh of surf was mixed with the musical bark of seals, the strident cry of seabirds, and, from somewhere, the measured tolling of a bell. A warm evening breeze carried scents of iodine and sea salt, wood smoke and dry wayside herbs, cedar bark and weathered stone-all just as it had been in Joby's dream.

Moments later, as they stood together on the cliff tops, gazing out to sea, Joby was barely surprised to see one small band of fog poised above the farthest horizon, its edges burning like molten gold, while elusive rays of peach and salmon, powder blue and palest yellow stretched briefly up into the lavender sky.

"Isn't it beautiful!" Miriam sighed, and Arthur's words came back to Joby's mind as suddenly and clearly as if he had just spoken them.

. . . I look most keenly for whatever beauty may be near at hand, and drink as deeply as I can. . . . Feed your heart, Joby. . . . Trust your heart.

"It had better be urgent," Lucifer warned, one hand to the obelisk in his office. Glyster, or Gizzard, or whatever his name, was suddenly silent.

"Speak up, man!" Lucifer snapped. "I've got things to attend to, and your attention should be on the boy." He had recruited this oaf to watch Joby whenever Williamson's new research took him from that task. Now Lucifer was having second thoughts about his choice of a stand-in.

"I . . . I've, um. Well," the damned soul stammered. "I seem to have lost him, Sir."

"Come again?" Lucifer was suddenly very still. "Lost who?"

"The . . . the boy, Sir." His excuses tumbled out in a desperate rush. "I was right on top of him, Sir! Right on his back! One moment he was there-or, I mean, I was there, and then, I was somewhere else, and he was gone! Just vanished right into nowhere! All of them! Even the car! Honest, Sir!"

"You're not telling me you've lost track of the boy you were sent to watch?"

Silence.

"Come to my office immediately, Glister."

"It's Glazer, Sir."

"NOW!"

Vanished, indeed! Lucifer thought, suppressing an urge to vaporize this pustule on arrival. The idiot hadn't even guts enough to admit he'd fallen asleep at his post!

The jaundiced fool popped up, clearly braced for a blow. Lucifer took another deep breath. Mustn't scare him senseless until all the important facts were harvested.

"Where did this alleged vanishing act occur, Glazer? You mentioned a car."

"Yes, Sir. They were driving up the coast on vacation. Then they all vanished, Sir. Just vanished!" He gave an annoying little shrug. "In a flash, you might say."

"You might, huh?" Lucifer mused through clenched teeth. "Where were they going on this vacation, Glazer?"

"To the beach, Sir." Despite his obvious fear, Glazer seemed to find the concept amusing somehow. "Going to see crabs, Sir, and gather shells." He performed that infuriating shrug again and added, "Someplace I never heard of. Towbolt, I think."

For a moment Lucifer simply gaped. Then, "Taubolt! They were going to Taubolt, and it just never occurred to you to inform me until now?"

"Going to the beach to pick up seashells, Sir? Why would I bother you with something like-"

"Bye now," Lucifer said, almost merrily, and Glazer was gone-in a flash, you might say. With fragile calm, Lucifer laid his hand back upon the obelisk, and said, "Williamson. Come."

The fellow was there instantly.

"Sir?"

"I've got a riddle for you, Williamson. If a damned soul screams forever in a void where there's no one to hear him, does he make a sound?"

Completely terrified, Williamson stammered, "I . . . I imagine so, Sir."

"Yes." Lucifer nodded. "I hope so too." He turned and walked away. "Here's another one. If a supposedly competent researcher, with all the resources of Hell at his disposal, is unable to find a beach town in California called Taubolt, how can a mere mortal family, with no resources to speak of, trot blithely off to vacation there?"

"Sir? . . . I . . . I don't under-"

"I just terminated your stand-in, Williamson, because he managed to lose track of Joby Peterson and his entire family on their way to vacation in-get this, Williamson-Taubolt . . . . Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if they can find Taubolt," he rounded on Williamson again and shouted, "we should be able to!" He took a deep breath, regathered his self-control, and said, "Am I missing something?"

"Sir," Williamson replied, sweating artillery shells, "I truly cannot think of any natural explanation for this."

No natural explanation. It was all Lucifer could do not to slap his own forehead. Had they actually vanished? Literally? Lucifer had assumed Grizzled was lying, or at least exaggerating, but . . . if it were true! He rather regretted incinerating the fellow before checking more carefully.

"Exactly, Williamson. No natural explanation-once again, you've confirmed my own suspicions precisely." He walked to his desk, and whipped out a pen and sheet of paper. "I have an errand for you." He scribbled a few lines on the stationery, paused to think, then scribbled a few more, signed it, sealed it with wax from the candle on his desk, and held the note out to his trembling researcher. "I want you to deliver this letter to a certain member of the enemy camp."

"To whom, Sir?" Williamson asked nervously, coming to take the letter.

"Gabriel."

"Gabriel?" Williamson choked. "The Arch-"

"Yes, you little coward, the Creator's right-hand boy," Lucifer sneered. "He's not going to bite your head off while you're about my business. Wait for an answer, and bring it to me immediately. Is that clear?"

"Yes, but, Sir. . . . I can hardly just waltz into Heaven. Where am I supposed to-"

"Just run to any trendy coffeehouse on this abysmal planet and yell his name!" Lucifer snapped irritably. "Better yet, yell 'cheat.'" He grinned. "That may bring him even faster." Lucifer turned away and said, "Why aren't you gone yet? Just because I've got forever, doesn't mean I can spend it all waiting for you."

When Williamson vanished, Lucifer closed his eyes and fortified himself for an unpleasant necessity. He had to be absolutely certain that Joby had truly vanished from the earth, and, sadly, the task was too important to delegate.

He gathered his awareness, then let it spread from the flawless order of his own domain out into the Creator's squalid slum of a planet, searching for Joby. The more deeply he was forced to delve, the more his angelic mind recoiled in rage and loathing from all the filth and imperfection it encountered. When he finally yanked his awareness back to safety, Lucifer stood gasping, as if burst from some putrid pool just shy of drowning. Nothing filled him with more rage than knowing Heaven blamed him for all of that!

Nonetheless, Joby was truly not to be found.

"Got you at last, Master!" Lucifer breathed. "Explain Your way out of this."

Benjamin woke in the blue-gray hour just before sunrise and turned to find Joby sitting by their window, staring out over Taubolt's roofs, just as he'd been doing the night before. When his parents had left them, Joby had sworn to Benjamin that this was where Arthur had taken him in his dream! Benjamin trusted Joby more than anyone except his own parents, but he still didn't know what to make of such a strange claim.

"It's not even morning yet." Benjamin yawned. "Why are you up?"

"I'm trying to figure it out. . . . In the dream, Camelot was right here, so . . . do you think this is where Camelot used to be, or where it's going to be?"

"What?"

"Remember when I asked Father Crombie if Camelot could ever be real again?"

"No. . . . Well, yeah, maybe."

"He said it could come back if people believed in it like they believe in money. Remember? Well, maybe Arthur showed me Taubolt in the dream so I would know this is where he's coming back to." Joby turned back to face the window again. "You know what I dreamed last night, Benjamin?"

Benjamin waited, wondering if Arthur had talked to Joby again.

"I dreamed I was in the dark with candles burning all around me. . . . Hundreds of them, as far as you could see. Like Father Crombie's talk. Remember? About being lights in the dark?" Joby looked back out the window. "I have that dream a lot."

Benjamin just stared at Joby, thinking he'd never seen him farther off in that world of his than he was now.

The inn clerk had told them they were in luck; spring tides were exposing even more of the sea floor than usual. They'd had to rise just after dawn to catch the ocean's lowest ebb, but for Miriam it had been worth it just to watch the tiny smile come and go on her husband's face all morning as he'd watched their son and his best friend crouch side by side among the weed-draped rocks, pointing, exclaiming, and occasionally thrusting a hand into the water after some darting creature or bit of shell.

Earlier, they'd been able to walk out to the closest rock stacks in what locals called Smuggler's Bay. Miriam had forgotten how much color the ocean hoarded. Pink, lavender, yellow, orange, brilliant red, violet, and blue flashed everywhere from beneath heavy shrouds of iridescent brown algae or bright green mermaid's hair. Glinting shards of abalone shell were wedged into every crevice. They'd found several of the sun stars Miriam remembered from her childhood visit. Kelp and porcelain crabs, like armored alien tanks; slithering brittle stars; bright red sea bats; sculpin like tiny water dragons; bright purple urchins as thick as carpet in the larger pools; huge fluorescent green anemones, and beds of smaller lavender ones. Joby seemed to know all their names, and had made it clear that seeing his library books come to life was the best birthday gift they could have given him.

Hours earlier, pale spring sunlight had gilt the town, then crested the surrounding cliff tops to cast a brilliant glamour over the glimmering liquid landscape at their feet. Breathing the salt air, listening to the swish of surf and the cry of gulls wheeling in the clear sky above her, Miriam was overwhelmed by Taubolt's loveliness and wondered why her father had ever left it.

She supposed he'd fled the isolation. Taubolt seemed even farther from the real world than mere distance accounted for. The inn didn't even accept credit cards! Fortunately, they'd brought checks. Their rooms were furnished with large, four-posted feather beds, glossy mahogany wardrobes, and end tables that looked like real antiques, making Miriam feel as if she'd stepped back in time to her own grandmother's house in Salem, Oregon. There'd been lace curtains and fresh-cut flowers in every room. Yet the prices were so reasonable. She wondered if the proprietor was aware of how much such lodging went for in the larger world these days.

The night before, after the boys had been settled into their own room, Frank had taken her for a candlelit nightcap in the richly appointed bar beneath the inn's grand old staircase. There they'd met a few of the other guests and been amazed to discover that none of them had come to Taubolt intentionally. They'd all been drawn aside by whimsy or curiosity on their way to someplace farther up or down the coast. Later, in the privacy of their room, she and Frank had shared a good laugh over the bartender's almost frightened expression when they'd told him they'd actually come looking for Taubolt. "Like he'd seen a ghost!" Frank had laughed, suggesting it might be time to get a more effective chamber of commerce.

"He didn't even have the nerve to deliver it himself," Gabe reported indignantly. "There's some terrified little functionary outside, trembling so badly that I'm tempted to take his hand and help him find his mommy."

"Stress management, Gabe. Remember?" the Creator said, still perusing Lucifer's letter. "So . . . My wayward angel thinks he's caught Me violating the terms of our wager. I guess we'd better go dash his hopes before he gets too attached to them. I've no intention of letting him win that easily."

"Or at all, I should think," Gabe said pointedly.

To the angel's discomfort, the Creator only said, "Go tell Lucifer's messenger that we'll come resolve his master's misunderstanding. Suggest that park in San Francisco. I haven't been there in ages. It should be lovely this time of year."

" . . . Happy birthday to yooooooou!"

Everyone around them clapped and cheered as the singing ended. The waitress had brought out a chocolate cake festooned with candles, and Joby was determined to eat half of it himself, despite being stuffed already. The White Tern was the most amazing restaurant he'd ever eaten at. White beets, hearts of palm, quail stuffed with saffron and chanterelle mushrooms; Joby had never heard of half the things they served here! When he'd found boar meat listed on the menu, he'd nearly flipped. Taking his first bite, thick, savory, and as tender as custard, he'd felt just like a knight of old.

"You gonna blow those candles out?" his father chided. "Or you tryin' to seal that cake in melted wax for later?"

Joby laughed as he puckered up to blow and had to take another breath.

"Don't forget to wish!" his mom warned. "And don't tell, or it won't come true."

Joby stopped to think. When I grow up, I want to live here, he thought. Then he blew as hard as he could, knowing every candle must go out if he were to get his wish.

"Just the candles on this table!" his father teased, leaning back as if against a gale.

It had been Joby's best birthday ever. They'd picnicked on the headlands by a thicket of wild lilies and bramble rose, then gone hiking beside a shallow brook through a canyon full of redwood trees. It had taken Joby a while to realized that these were the same trees he'd seen in Arthur's solemn grove, though the ones here were smaller. He'd even heard the same strange bird-song, though he'd still never seen the bird that made it.

They'd run into more animals that day than he'd seen in his entire life: deer, and herons, wood ducks, otters, a fox, and too many hawks to count. And that was just the big ones! There'd been a gazillion smaller, even more exotic creatures flitting and wriggling through the water and the undergrowth! To Joby, Taubolt seemed as good as Africa!

In the end, his father had the waitress wrap the remaining cake, not even offering her his credit card. By now it had become puzzlingly clear that no one took them here.

There really was something strange about Taubolt, and Joby didn't think credit cards were the half of it. The locals all seemed very warm and helpful, but he'd seen the knowing smiles and cryptic remarks that passed between them when they thought no one was looking. At first Joby had figured it was just because they all knew one another. But he'd been to lots of places in the city where he'd known no one but his parents, and still never felt so much like an outsider as he did here, as if there were some kind of invisible barrier-nothing unpleasant, just . . . always there.

The shops were strange too-full of shells and glass fishing floats, telescopes and teakwood chests, large colorful candles, sticks of incense and dried apple dolls. Not one thing you'd see in department stores back home. The old buildings themselves seemed magical somehow, with high, beamed ceilings, creaking staircases, dark, spiderwebbed corners, and half-open doors into shadowed rooms that customers were clearly not meant to ask about. Joby thought Taubolt would be an awesome place to Christmas shop.

During their after-dinner walk through town the streets were eerily quiet. From within the other restaurants, Joby heard the laughter of diners through amber-lit windows, the clink of glasses, silverware on china. But outside, they encountered no one at all until they neared the west edge of town, where they passed a young man sitting on a split-log bench outside a closed quilt gallery. Joby could tell he was local. He wore weathered jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt. His flaxen hair tumbled from beneath a gray baseball cap that shaded eyes bluer than the sea. A fine gold stubble glittered in the late light on his chin and upper lip. He smiled as they walked past, following them with his blue, blue eyes. Joby wanted to turn and ask him for an answer to the riddle he felt so strongly all around him, but that barrier was there-outsiderness-and Joby couldn't bring himself to cross it.

Michael watched them pass, saw Joby turn, then give up and go on in silence. The angel looked away in sadness. If only the child had asked.

The word had come that fall, on the sighing wind, in the sprouting grass, the rustle of leaves, and the splash of raindrops, to every spirit or creature that still recognized the Creator's voice. The lords of Heaven and Hell had made a wager, its fulcrum a little boy whom any serving Heaven should assist if he should ask it of them directly, but whom none serving Heaven might assist if he did not. Nothing further had been offered.

Then, just yesterday, Michael had scooped the hellish wraith from a boy's slight shoulders at Taubolt's southern border, as was his charge, being Taubolt's guardian, then followed Joby, curious to learn why such a delightful child should have borne such a loathsome burden. The gold-brown gull following high above them as they'd entered Taubolt had never drawn their notice. Nor had the tawny field mouse peering at Joby and his friend from underneath the wardrobe in their room last night, and again as they whispered together at dawn.

Only after hearing the boys' whispered confidences that morning had Michael realized who Joby must be, and been plunged into confusion.

His Lord had said the time was many years away, and that Michael would know the candidate when he came. Yet not one full year had passed, and Michael had not recognized Joby in time to let his filthy cargo enter with him as his Master had instructed. Had Michael misunderstood? . . . Had he failed?

Time after time that day he had cast these questions toward Heaven, and still there was but one answer in the rustling breeze and the whispering sea: All things happen as they must.

Anxious and confused, Michael had remained cautious until now. The seal watching from out in the swell that morning, the hawk circling high above their picnic on the headlands, the squirrel following their progress through the woods that afternoon; in all these forms, Michael had meant to elude Joby's attention. But this time . . . this last time, Michael had hoped the boy would notice, would ask the question Michael had seen burning within him throughout the day. For, in this at least, his Master's will was clear. If the boy should ask, assistance could be offered. . . . If only he had asked.

Joby eased the door carefully shut behind him, then tiptoed past his parents' room toward the stairs. He knew they'd have forbidden him to go out alone, but once they were up, there'd be no time for anything but breakfast and packing. If he wanted to see the beach again, it would have to be now. He had awakened before sunrise again, filled with an urgent need to go out and say good-bye to Taubolt. He'd thought of bringing Benjamin, but his friend had still been dead to the world, so he had let him sleep.

At the lobby, Joby abandoned any pretense of stealth, bounding through the inn's leaded-glass doors out onto the sidewalk. The air was chill for spring. Taubolt's buildings huddled in blue silhouette against the pale dawn behind them, and a single fraying shoal of fog climbed in wispy tendrils over the wooded hills flanking the river mouth. The sea smell was strong in Taubolt's empty streets, the silence thick and secretive, as if there were no one left in all the village but Joby.

He trotted past blank-eyed shop fronts, through a gate in the fence across the street, and out onto the grassy headlands still heavy with dew. Halfway to the cliff tops, Joby turned to look back at the sleeping town.

"Good-bye," he whispered.

Then he turned and ran toward the cliff-side trail that wound down to the beach. The tide was not as low as it had been before, but he ran out as far as he could without getting his shoes too wet, and gazed into the tide pools all around him, sensing the myriad creatures crawling, darting, swaying at his feet, though he could not see them.