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bed. “Oh thank God, Anita!”
    The crowd from the door surged in and lined the other side of the bed, three deep, jockeying for a good view. Anita slowly opened her eyes as the intent faces watched.
    Still lying on the floor, Livvy started to reach up a hand to remove her goggles but felt someone pushing it back down.
    “Here, let me do that,” she heard SK say.
    As he lifted the goggles off her face, she blinked a few times and then quickly turned her head to gaze up at Anita, who was staring at the crowd.
    “What is everybody doing here?” Anita asked weakly.
    Dolores threw her arms around Anita’s neck and sobbed.
    Livvy propped herself up on one arm and leaned over to put space between her and Dolores’s feet.
    “I’ve got a bottle of water in my bag,” she said hoarsely to SK.
    “I’ve already got it,” he said, holding it out to her.
    She slowly sat up, took a long drink and wiped sweat from her face.
    “How you doing?” he asked, keeping a hand on her shoulder.
    “I’ll be fine,” she said, although she didn’t feel that way. The latent body heat and dehydration that came from working in the Multiverse were hitting full force. She knew it would pass but that didn’t make it any better.
    She looked back over to the bed where everybody was crying now and trying to hug Anita. They had started to spill further into the room and SK helped Livvy move out of the way and sit in the chair that Dolores had been using.
    “We thought you were dead!” someone exclaimed.
    “It’s been days since you were awake!”
    “Dolores sat here the whole time!”
    Then the kids were on the bed. The older girl buried herself in Anita’s chest and yelled “Mama!” over and over. The little one started to wail in the tumult.
    Livvy smiled. It had been a difficult healing but this was the payoff, the reason that she hadn’t given up. Although a bit shaky, she stood up to get a better look.
    Quiet descended on the room and, as one, the crowd looked at her. She had intended to step closer but stopped instead. The cry of the infant was the only sound.
    Although what she read in their faces shouldn’t have been a surprise, it was–like a quick slap. Some faces were clearly awed, others angered, some thankful, but mostly, they were afraid. The old woman with the rosary made the sign of the horns at her, a defiant look on her face, as the crowd separated from her.
    Next to Anita, the little girl peeked at Livvy but when Livvy looked, the girl shrieked and also gave the sign of the horns.
    Unable to look at their faces, Livvy looked at the floor. As her eyes misted up, she let go a shaky sigh.
    “Let’s go outside for a minute,” SK said quietly.
    Without a word, she picked up her mat, put the goggles in her bag, and followed SK out of the bedroom. The young couple that she had seen on the way in were gone.
    “Did you see the lights go out?” someone whispered behind them.
    As she approached, people looked away and took a step back if they could. Even the cute boy with the earphones stared at the wall. Outside in the hallway, doors slammed shut as people hid, until Livvy and SK were by themselves.
    “Wait right here,” he said. “There’s the little matter of a payment.”
    Livvy leaned against the wall, exhausted, but not wanting to sit because it’d be too hard to get back up. Her mind raced as it processed what she had seen in the Multiverse and what she had managed to do. She had almost lost control of the energy, even the little bit that she had called down. Then she remembered the vicious talons on her scalp and reached a hand up to her head, but there was no blood. She knew that what happened in the Multiverse shouldn’t manifest in the real world, but it had seemed real. As she lowered her hand, she realized it was shaking.
    In a couple of minutes SK was back.
    “All right,” he said. “One hand on the railing, one on me.”  

CHAPTER SIX

    BY THE TIME they reached the diner, Livvy had nearly