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apparently his bosses. I said, “What Congregation?”
    “The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.”
    “Wait—what? Are we talking about the Inquisition? As in,
nobody expects the
…”
    He made a curt motion with his hand. “Listen up! I have been fearful of this day, but now that it is here, there is no time for fear.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means you have a chore to do,” His eyes rested on mine. His tone of voice was no different than when he ordered me to do yard work or something. Just his normal voice. “Now, as of today, you are an Ostiary. You are going to help me in my duty. There are things on the far side of the door that must be kept out of our reality. If your girlfriend opens the door into twilight, the Dark Tower will know.”
    I started to open my mouth, but he cut me off.
    “Now bow your head for my blessing, and say these words.”
    He put both his hands on my head.
    The Jeep was rumbling and muttering, warm under the seat of my sweatpants, and the smell of gasoline mingled with the smell of the pre-dawn night coming from the garage door, which, groaning, had pulled itself upward and out of my way. Our front yard is a sharp slope impossible to mow with the riding mower, and the driveway dives down so sharply that riding a bicycle or sled down its length was like being dropped from a bomb bay. Every light in the house was lit, and windows splashed slanted rectangles across the lawn. Beyond, darkness.
    Something in how steeply the driveway just dove into that darkness seemed to stare at me as I spoke my father’s words:
    “At any moment I may find myself in battle. However rigorous the task that awaits me, may I fulfill my duty with courage. If death should overtake me on this field, grant that I die in the state of grace, forgive me all my sins, those I have forgotten and those I recall now: grant me the grace of perfect contrition.”
    I wanted to ask him if I was going to die, and never see him again. But I had used up my three questions.
    For those were the words of the Soldier’s Prayer, said only on the eve of engagement. There was something in those words that made it hard for me to breathe. Fear? Awe? I don’t know. What am I, a psychologist?
    So I was speeding down a deserted road that rose and fell across the hilly slopes like a rollercoaster, in a weird world of green shadows, the night-vision goggles keeping the wind out of my eyes, hair blowing, and was already a mile away from the house before I could catch my breath again, and before I realized three things.

11. Three Things
    Jeep motors are really loud, and they seem much louder when your headlights are off. The dark road sped by under my roaring wheels as I fretted.
    First, I had messed up on my first question. I should have asked him:
Am I human? What world am I from?
    On the other hand—“Ah, forget about it,” I growled to myself over the noise of the wind. “Every kid my age wants to know that answer.”
    Second, I had not had the chance to say, “But she’s not my girlfriend!”
    On the other hand—Hey, maybe if I saved her from some murky danger,
who knows?
She might be really grateful. And that thought made me stomp on the accelerator under my leather slipper flat to the metal.
    (Yes, I was in moccasins, because I live in the Amazing Uncarpeted House o’ Cold Floors, because I had not had time to put on my shoes. Different rules apply during the End of the World, you know. Different dress codes, too.)
    Third, how could the Roman Catholic Church come to know such a thing?
    I wondered how many of the old legends of witchcraft or monsters were garbled tales of travelers who had stumbled unwittingly into our world from another, perhaps a world with different technologies, techniques, or laws of nature, which here were indistinguishable from magic. The Churchmen in the old days were the only scholars, the only scientists, and the only organization with branches in every land. I could easily