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said. “The old ones get put out in the hallways and just sort of wander around until”—he shivered—“until they fall apart.”
    â€œ ’S good to see you,” Betsy said. “You had enough to eat?”
    â€œSome.”
    â€œGet more out here. Lots of lovely fruits and things. Water too, not bad. D’you think your mom and dad are here?”
    Jarvey shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know for sure, though. Look, do me a favor, and don’t go off by yourself again. I don’t like being on my own.”
    â€œMissed you too, cully,” she said with a shy grin. “But what is this place? A whole world that’s just a theater? Who are these people?”
    To answer her, Jarvey raised up on his elbow and reached into his shirt, where he had stuck the playbills along with the Grimoire. He pulled out a handful of them. “Look at these.”
    The first one, in very ornate lettering, was like all the rest except in a few details:
    Betsy leafed through the playbills, shaking her head, as Jarvey told her about seeing the crumbling creature in the corridor, the mysterious vanishing audience, and about the bizarre actor-dolls he had found in the dressing rooms. “I don’t think anyone but the family is even really alive here,” he finished. “They’ve turned this world into a theater where they’re always the stars.”
    â€œThat’s crazy,” Betsy responded. “It’s like playacting when you’re little children. If no one is real except the Midion family, if there’s no real audience, then what’s the point?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Jarvey admitted. A stray, bent stalk of wheat was tickling his neck. “Do you think we might get up now?”
    â€œWell, perhaps,” Betsy said. “They seem to have gone. Maybe we should wait a bit, though.”
    But Jarvey was tired of lying down, with the Grimoire uncomfortable against his chest. “It’s okay. Come on.” He stood up and began to dust himself off.
    And at that moment the door, not a hundred feet from him, banged open and Augustus Midion stared straight at Jarvey with angry eyes and shouted, “Father! Father! Come quickly!”

6
    Walking Shadows
    J arvey dropped to his knees, thrust the Grimoire into Betsy’s hands, and said, “He hasn’t seen you! Keep it safe!” Then he leaped up and bolted, running for the orchards at the far side of the garden.
    Jarvey sprinted full-tilt, arms pumping. He circled away so that if Augustus was pursuing him he wouldn’t notice Betsy, but after a few hundred feet he realized he wasn’t being pursued. He leaped over a winding pebble-lined brook and then risked a glance behind him. At the far end of the mile-long garden, the door stood open, but he couldn’t see anyone standing in the doorway, and no one in the garden, unless Augustus was crouching, staring at him from the wheat or the rows of beans. Betsy was nowhere to be seen, and if the coast was clear, she’d be heading for him.
    Jarvey couldn’t take the chance that Augustus wasn’t somewhere out in the garden. He ducked down and hustled, taking a zigzag course. Sweat stung his eyes, and his chest began to ache from effort. Finally, in the shade of a triple row of apple trees, he had to pause to get his breath. He ducked behind a tree, stood up, and craned cautiously to look out. Still no sign of pursuit. Had Augustus and his father trapped Betsy?
    No, Jarvey told himself, that wasn’t likely. Bets was far too experienced at evading capture. He knew how she could find cover, how she could all but make herself invisible. She didn’t share the magical abilities of her grandfather, the mysterious Zoroaster, though. Jarvey remembered vividly how Zoroaster had once briefly turned both of them invisible, and how Jarvey was blind during the spell because his invisible eyes could