Julia walked until she found a library. The only people who went into libraries these days were the homeless and the curious. Some people used the library as a place to hide from the real world. This has always been true, but even more so now in these lawless days.

There was law, of a sort. There were police officers, and judges, and lawyers. Not as many as there were before the disappearances, sure. And not a one of them Visitors. All Quality, or so old they weren’t really either. So the scales weren’t balanced. Not like they ever were for the weaker members of society.

Libraries were a bit like holy ground. Everybody understood deep in their bones that the libraries were safe for everybody. The really questionable people didn’t go into libraries anymore. There was no longer any electricity. That had gone out about two years after the disappearances. With no electricity, there was no reason to check out DVDs. The shaky people had to find another way to feed their addiction to unreality. Reading, even fiction, was too active a way to spend their time.

Julia walked up the sunlit marble staircase to the third floor landing. There was a long low bench there that looked perfect for a nap. No librarians were around to wake her now. The bench was wide and padded with gold velour upholstery. It was meant for either waiting on the landing to catch your breath or for waiting for other members of your party to catch up with you.

These days, Julia decided she was going to use it to catch up on sleep, or perhaps just to daydream. Sometimes her best ideas he came to her when she was “thinking sideways” as she called it. It was like the best ideas were elusive wild animals that had to be snuck up on, rather than approached straight on. She needed some of those wild animals now.

What was the connection? What was the reason for the disappearances? Why did it affect just the parents of a certain age? It just didn’t make sense. Maybe there was some connection with that and the sudden ability of the Visitors to go on their Walks. Surely that wasn’t just a nice bonus. Being able to travel like that was fun, make no mistake about it. But did it have a purpose? Was it related to the disappearances? Did the solution come with the problem?

Julia was raised to think that there was order and purpose to the ‘verse. It helped her, anchored her in a world that often seemed storm-swept. It helped her especially now, when nothing made sense at all.

Think. What are the connections? Julia always thought best when she was daydreaming or writing. The two were the same to her. One looked passive and one looked active, but deep down they were both ways to connect to the Source. She could learn more from writing in her journal than she ever could from asking someone else. That was always a waste of time. They always put their own two bits in, and often those coins were counterfeit.

She pulled out a pencil and her trusty pad of paper from her canvas messenger bag and started to write. She wrote a little bit about her day to start with. The real writing, the real knowing, would come a little later. It always does. But you can’t just jump in. You have to warm up. It had taken her years to learn this. So she started with the usual – places she’d been, Doors and Rooms she’d visited. She might want to make a map later. Not like it could be a usual flat map. Maybe if she could make one that was like a Moebius strip?

Now was the time to ask the question, when the daydreaming and creating had started. All the answers came from the questions.

“What is the connection between the disappearances?” she scribbled on the lined notebook paper. She wrote for a few paragraphs and nothing helpful came. Maybe it would make sense later. She often reread her journals months later to see if there was anything she missed. She was rarely disappointed.

Trouble is, she needed an answer now. She didn’t have time to wait months. This had already gone on too long. She started writing the words that came to her, hoping that something would jump out. Sometimes writing synonyms helped.

Connection. Fiber. Webs. String.

The image of spools of thread, huge reels of it, kept coming to her. The connection had something to do with string, with binding. This seemed too easy. The thing that tied it all together was literally something that ties stuff together?

She wrote a little more, and nothing else came to her. This had to be it. But what did it mean?

“Ha! What do we have here?”

Julia woke with a start. A beautiful man was staring at her. This wasn’t good for many reasons.

For starters, it meant that her plan to rest and then escape quietly had fallen to pieces. Secondly, any strange man was a danger. But thirdly, a beautiful man was even more dangerous.

Julia’s Gran had taught her to always look for a boyfriend who was beautiful but didn’t know it. Many guys who were beautiful knew it, and thus had a very high sense of entitlement. Little did they realize that often the only thing they had going for them was their looks. They were often incompetent in every other area because they hadn’t needed to develop any part of their inner self. The exterior was all that mattered, because it is what got them attention.

When these beautiful men started to get older their looks started to go and so did their confidence. They tended to make up for it by being complete jerks to everyone around them. They treated everyone as lesser than them.

The fact that this man was Quality made it all the worse. He had two strikes against him, although he sure didn’t think of it that way. He was dangerous and didn’t even know it.

Being able to size people up like this was critical to a Visitor. Gran had taught her well for this life, even though she never meant to. Julia had a good idea how to act around him in a way that would keep her safe. Maybe even away from the authorities too.

She could tell this man had an undeservedly high opinion of himself, and she was going to have to tread very carefully. Not like she was treading at all right now. She didn’t exactly have her back up against the wall but it was just as bad. She was still in the bed and a little entangled in the sheets. Hopefully because of this he wouldn’t see her as a threat. But more importantly, she hoped that he wouldn’t feel the need to be threatening at all. You never knew with these kinds of encounters. Julia hadn’t had a lot of them, but any unintentional run-in with Quality was one too many.

He was about average height, less than 6 feet tall. His hair was salt-and-pepper. To be honest, it was more salt than pepper. He had it pulled back into a ponytail. This let her know even more about him. Her Gran always said “Any man who thought he was something was really nothing.”

She said a quiet prayer to her Gran right now to know what to do.

She didn’t have much time to finish her prayer before the man decided for her. He grabbed her by one ankle and dragged her out of the bed.

“Get out of here! This isn’t your home! The Lady is coming home soon, you hear?”

Her breath was knocked out of her when she landed on the floor. So much for plush carpets – they didn’t soften the blow one bit. Scrambling, she grabbed the spare dress she’d taken from the last room and ran headlong out of the bedroom and downstairs. She headed for the front door rather than try to find the servant’s entrance.

It was locked. Of course. Because that would keep out Visitors. Don’t these people know anything?

Fumbling with the latch and the deadbolt, she was out, nearly tripping over the stone statue of a lion next to the immaculately trimmed shrubbery. Must be nice to have that much money and time. Oh wait – they didn’t. It was all stolen.

She tried not to be bitter about how unfair it all was. And they accused Visitors of being thieves! Time to move on. This kind of thinking would just keep her distracted, and she needed to keep her wits about her. She was in foreign territory.

Julia had time to think about that encounter on her walk away from the home. She was walking, not running. Running would call too much attention to her. She was dressed well enough, having taken some sensible shoes from the closet in the last Room. She could play the part, now she was dressed like it. Walking would clear her mind and help her blend in.

Quality walked their neighborhoods. For exercise maybe? Maybe to see their neighbors? Maybe as part of a patrol? Nobody ever knew about them. The Visitors watched and studied them like the threats they were. These people had suddenly gone up in status but not in brains. They didn’t make much sense to anybody, least of all themselves.

He’d been worried about the Lady. That was odd. Julia wondered about that. Another case where the relationship was unequal? Sometimes the couple was just posing as a couple. Sometimes they didn’t know each other well and had decided to occupy an abandoned house together, as uneasy roommates. Sometimes it worked out. Sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes the houses were big enough that they could live together there and not ever see each other. That seemed to work out well.

Julia kept walking towards the city. There’d be no opportunity to find another Door in the suburbs. It wasn’t like she could just knock on some stranger’s door and ask to use their inter-dimensional portal.

If they had one. If they knew they had one.

Come to think of it, how did that last Lady know where the Door was? Was she a Visitor, posing as Quality? Or had other Visitors come through there?

That was a question for another day.

Now, to find a municipal building or a store – some place she was allowed to walk in unquestioned. She had to get back to Rob and Mickey. There was time yet, but in this life you had to make the best use of the time you had. You never knew what was going to happen next on the Walks.