“There’s a free breakfast buffet in the morning,” the woman advised them. “Muffins, scrambled eggs, that sort of thing.”

  But none of those things seemed very appealing at the moment. “What if we wanted something else?” Amelia asked. “What if we wanted… soup?”

  The waitress lady smiled and winked. “Sure. But it’ll cost a little extra.”

  The hotel room was not the kind of place the Everetts were used to staying in. No framed art prints. No minibar. Not even a TV. Just four painted cinder-block walls, and five small beds covered with drab green military blankets, tucked in so tightly it was hard to squeeze into them. The room was not meant for so many people, and the beds were pushed so close to one another there was no room in between.

  “Just like five peas in a pod,” Dad commented jokingly, but the thought made Nathan shiver.

  * * *

  That night Nathan dreamed he was drowning in an endless sea, but the ocean was thick, warm, and viscous. He tried to keep his head above the surface but couldn’t. He went under, and when he opened his mouth to scream, it instantly filled with the familiar taste of pea soup. Suddenly, instead of wanting to escape, he wanted to swallow, and swallow again. He wanted to breathe the soup into his lungs and sink as deep as he could go, until he was lost forever in it. And that desire was so terrifying, Nathan woke up screaming.

  When his eyes cleared, he could see it was already daylight. Bright daylight—not the slim rays of dawn. He was alone in the tiny motel room.

  “Mom? Dad? Anyone?”

  No one was there. He peered out through the small barred window, to see flat fields, then the highway, and more fields beyond. The farmland looked much more attractive in the daytime, but still, the desolation was unnerving.

  More unnerving was the parking lot, for as Nathan left the room and crossed the immense lot between the motel and the restaurant in search of his parents, he realized that his sister had been dead wrong. There were tow trucks in this corner of nowhere. Dozens of them. The parking lot was now half-empty as tow trucks hauled away the cars. Nathan couldn’t see their car in the lot anymore and wondered if it, too, had been towed away.

  Nathan’s walk became a run as he burst into the restaurant. He ran past the battalion of hostesses and through one dining room after another. But then he slowed, and stopped. He sniffed. The fragrant aroma of soup beckoned to him. It filled his mind now, slicing at his fear. Slow down, it seemed to tell him. Take it easy. Things aren’t as bad as they seem. That pungent smell seemed to whisper to his brain all the things that would make him stop. And eat.

  His parents were at the same table they had occupied the night before. They were wearing the same clothes they had worn last night, too, but now those clothes were barely recognizable. They were covered with layer upon layer of dense, green pea soup. It ran down their faces and speckled their hair. It puddled in their laps and dripped in thick pools on the floor. Nathan watched, speechless, as his mother lifted a bowl to her mouth and poured it down her gullet—most of it spilling down the front of what was once her favorite blouse.

  Nathan screamed. It was the only thing that got their attention.

  “It’s about time you got up, sleepyhead,” his dad gurgled. “Have some breakfast. It’s already paid for.”

  “Dad—they’re towing away the car! You have to stop them.”

  His father only laughed. “How do you think I paid for the soup?”

  Nathan saw someone enter the room. No… he felt someone enter. He turned to see who it was.

  “Is there a problem here?”

  It was the waitress. The same one who had ushered them into the restaurant the night before. The same one who had given them their room. The same one who kept bringing them bowl after bowl after bowl of the terrible, wonderful soup.

  “There’s no problem,” said Nathan’s father. “My son’s a little cranky because he hasn’t had breakfast yet.” Then he grabbed Nathan’s arm with a slimy, soup-covered hand and pulled him toward an empty seat, where a fresh bowl of steaming soup was waiting for him. And yes, Nathan was hungry—hungrier than he could ever remember being—and he couldn’t imagine eating anything else but that soup. It was as if his whole body had changed, and he could no longer digest anything else.

  “Things will be much clearer to you, Nathan, once you’ve had something to eat,” said Dad.

  “Better sit down quick,” said Amelia, “before I eat yours.”

  “Mmm,” said Katie. “More!”

  His mother wagged her finger at him. “Sit down, Nathan, and stop making a spectacle of yourself!” But her wagging fingernail was not red anymore. It was Granny Smith green. And so were her eyes. So were all of their eyes. Just as green as the waitress’s.

  Nathan turned and ran, but the waitress caught him. Her arms were much stronger than anyone’s ought to be. Her smile remained, but her eyes showed a deep-seated anger. When he looked in those eyes, it seemed as though Nathan could see deep into some awful place. Those eyes had depth that went far beyond the back of her skull.

  “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be,” she threatened. Nathan could feel her fingers digging into him with bone-crushing strength as she tried to move him back to the table. Nathan struggled. He twisted and turned. Finally he freed one arm and reached up to grab any part of her that he could. He snagged his fingers around the bun of her hair and pulled, tearing free the barrette—an iron thing with teeth like a bear trap.

  Shocked, she loosened her grip, and Nathan pulled himself free—in time to see her hair fall out of its bun. But it wasn’t just her hair. With the iron barrette taken away, her pretty, tight skin began to sag and fold. Deep creases formed around her eyes. Her cheeks slid into jowls, and the skin of her neck buckled into flaps like the neck of a chicken. Only now did Nathan realize that her hair wasn’t platinum blond, but stark white. She must have been hundreds of years old!

  Nathan raced past her and burst out of the dining room, not knowing where he was headed. All around him he saw the other hosts and hostesses, each one the same: hair and skin pulled back to make them seem young, instead of ancient. They were all staring at him.

  Nathan burst through a door onto a catwalk, and before him was perhaps the most horrible sight of all.

  He had found the kitchen.

  In the center was a pot—a cauldron—at least twenty feet wide and two stories deep. It was black and bulbous and filled with the bubbling soup. Mindless, green-eyed drones in drab gray rags stirred the mixture and added pound after pound of pureed peas, carrots, and spices, from a blender ten feet high. Nathan watched in mute horror as one of the workers lost his footing and slipped into the blender. No one cared.

  Nathan turned and ran, even more desperate than before to escape. Finally at the end of his endurance, he burst into cold daylight.

  He was in the parking lot, which was now completely empty except for a few buses—and beyond the parking lot were fields of crops. He could lose himself in those crops! He could disappear, and the old witch—or whatever she was—would never find him. He pushed himself across the empty parking lot, heading for the safety of the fields…

  … until he saw the nature of the crop… and the hunched workers who pruned, weeded, and picked. Hundreds upon hundreds of workers in the fields around him, up and down every row, lovingly tending to their precious peas.

  “Nathan,” said a gentle voice behind him.

  He turned. The witch’s face was a wrinkled mask of age—but she held out her hand, and a worker gave her a new barrette. As she clipped it to her hair, the skin of her face began pulling back until the wrinkles were gone and she was once again the image of youthful beauty. Her eyes sparkled and no longer seemed angry. Now they seemed compassionate and full of pity.

  “Why resist the one thing in the world you want more than anything else?” she appealed to him. “Why torture yourself, Nathan?” Several workers in tattered garments grabbed hold of him and pulled him closer to her. In one hand she held a thermos, and in the other, a fine china bowl.

  “Nothing in the world is as satisfying,” she said, with a musical, hypnotic cadence to her voice. “Nothing sticks to your ribs and fills you up like a nice bowl of soup.”

  She took a step closer, opened the thermos, and poured the silky liquid into the bowl. Nathan shook his head, trying to prevent the intoxicating fragrance from reaching his brain. “No!” he shouted through gritted teeth.

  “It’s all you’ll ever want. It’s all you’ll ever need. Come, be with your family,” she said. “Right now they’re boarding a bus, bound for some new farmland we’ve just acquired. Two thousand acres. We need you to help plant the crop, Nathan. Don’t you want to be with your family?”

  She held the bowl out to him, and Nathan fought his hunger with every ounce of his spirit. I can resist it. I can resist it, he told himself, but as if reading his mind, she told him:

  “No, Nathan. You can’t.”

  At last the vapors rising from the soup reached up his nostrils like two fingers, pulling him toward the bowl. He felt his face lower, closer and closer, until the tip of his nose touched the surface of the soup, and the moment it did his will imploded and he gave himself over to the hunger. He pushed his face into the soup and began to drink.

  “Very good, Nathan,” he heard her say. “Soon you will join your family in the fields.”

  Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do. He drew in another mouthful and swallowed.

  “You’ll labor day and night, planting and reaping, resting only to sleep. And at the end of each day you will be rewarded with a hot bowl of soup.”

  I’ll work all day, every day. For the soup. For the soup. The smooth liquid filled his mouth and nose. He could feel it warming his stomach. He needed it more than he needed air to breathe, and so he kept his face deep in the bowl.

  “And after a few years, if you’re a very good boy, you’ll get to work in the kitchen.”

  Yes! The kitchen! The shallow bowl had become bottomless. Nathan’s face was pressed into it all the way up to his ears, and still he felt there was farther to go.

  “And if you’re very, very good, you’ll get to hand-paint the china bowls.”

  Nathan finally drained the last of the soup, licking the bowl like a puppy, until not a drop remained.

  “And if you give your life over to your work, someday, a very long time from now, you’ll receive the highest honor of all….” Then she wiped the soup from his forehead and cheeks, and whispered into his ear, “You’ll get to be a waiter.”

  * * *

  Sometime later, a bored boy stared out the window of his parents’ car. It had been a long trip and there were many hours left to go. He watched the afternoon scenery pass by endlessly.

  “Day laborers,” explained his father as they drove past one patch of cropland after another. In each field workers swarmed over the crops like drones. “Hard work and low pay. A terrible way to treat people.”

  For a moment the boy thought he saw a kid in the crops looking at him. A boy about his age with a sad look on his face, and his lips smeared with something slimy green. But before he could get a good look, the car sped on and the laborers passed out of view.

  “Hey, how about we stop and get something to eat?” suggested the boy’s mother.

  “Good idea, Mom.” The boy glanced at a billboard looming up ahead. And he smiled. He knew just what he was in the mood for.

  Majority Rules

  What do you believe?”

  “What I believe is none of your business.”

  “Oh, but it is. It’s more my business than you could possibly know.”

  “I’m not talking to you about anything. I know my rights. I’m a minor, you can’t keep me here…. What are you laughing at?”

  “You think this is a police station? You think you’re here because you shoplifted some trinkets?”

  “Who says I did? You have no proof.”

  “Your petty thievery means nothing to me. That’s not why you’re here.”

  “Then what’s this all about?”

  “As I said, it’s about what you believe. Forget about trying to defend yourself against an insignificant crime. I don’t care what you did or didn’t steal. All I care about is the answer to my question. It’s important that you tell me… what you believe.”

  “Why does it matter to you?”

  “When you were little, did you used to go to the playground?”

  “What kind of stupid question is that?”

  “Just answer it. Eventually you’ll understand.”

  “Yeah, I went to a playground when I was a kid. So what?”

  “Did you ever go on a seesaw?”

  “Of course. Does all this have a point?”

  “Tell me what makes a seesaw work.”

  “You sit on one side, somebody sits on the other, you go up and down. Are we done yet?”

  “Did you ever sit on the other side from one of your parents?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t work; they’re too heavy. You stay up in the air.”

  “Ah, so the balance shifted entirely to the other side.”

  “I still don’t get what this has to do with me.”

  * * *

  2,400 years ago, a boy climbs a mountain. He knows he’s not supposed to, he’s been told never to climb the mountain. No one who has ever climbed the mountain has returned, and for good reason. These mountains, these jagged stone teeth thrust up through the earth, are a barrier. A barrier made by God to keep humble human beings from seeing what lies on the other side. All his life, the boy has wanted to climb the mountain, and now at fourteen he’s finally grown the nerve. Only halfway up, his sandals are worn and his bones ache, but a driving will to know pushes him forward. If it is true that this is, indeed, the edge of the earth, it will be spectacular. Not just the view, but the knowledge of the truth will be spectacular, for then it will be more than just belief—more than mere tales told by grandparents. The power of knowing that this truly is the edge, and that nothing lies beyond it but the emptiness of space, will be the greatest power the boy could know. I have been there, he could tell his friends, and someday his children. Although they may not believe him, he will know the truth of it.

  The old people all say that the earth is a flat disc. He wants to believe this, because there’s comfort in knowing that the old ones are right. But not everyone thinks as the old ones do. There is talk of a mathematician whose work proved otherwise. More and more people are coming to believe this, accepting the mathematician’s version of things as the truth.

  The boy doesn’t know what to believe, so he has to see for himself. He has to know.

  His sandals are torn to shreds by the time he nears the peak of the mountain. Hand over hand he climbs, it seems only a few feet to the top, but every few feet yields more rock above him. His fingers are worn to the bone, but he will not stop. Then at last, after hours, after days, he finally crests the top and looks into the distance to see the most awe-inspiring sight of his life:

  Nothing.

  He sees nothing beyond the mountain.

  The earth stops here. Above, the sky is still blue, but beyond the edge it fades into a darkness filled with stars that stretch to infinity. So it’s true then! This is the edge, and the world is flat!

  But then a wind blows up from the face of the mountain, kicking dust into his eyes. He turns away, he closes his eyes. All at once he feels a change—a change in balance, a change in equilibrium—as if someone far away has reached out and pulled a rug out from beneath him. He clings to the mountain to keep from falling, and he blinks to clear the dust from his eyes. When he looks out again over the edge, the sight is not quite so marvelous anymore. Suddenly, before him, where a moment ago there was star-filled space, are sunlit hills leading down into a green valley, and beyond the valley are more mountains. The earth doesn’t stop here. It goes on, and on, and on, until it comes up behind him again, almost tapping him on the back.

  He cannot explain it. He cannot understand what has happened between one moment and the next. Now his vision of the flat Earth is suddenly gone. Perhaps, he thinks, confused to the very core of his being, perhaps it was just my imagination, and perhaps the world is round after all.

  * * *

  “What if everything is like that seesaw? What if everything we know as reality is as unstable as the shifting on a balance?”

  “I think you’re crazy and I want to get out of here.”

  “In time, but first you must make a decision.”

  “If this isn’t a police station, then what is it? If I haven’t been arrested, then why am I here?”

  “Fear won’t help you now. You need a clear mind. Your decision must come from a clear mind.”

  “A decision about what?”

  “About what you believe.”

  “I believe lots of things.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe that the universe is infinite?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe there is life on other worlds?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

  “And do you believe that life on other worlds is friendly or hostile?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ah! Well, I think we’ve finally discovered why you’re here.”

  * * *

  The girl is tired of TV, and so she decides to go out in a boat. It’s her favorite thing to do. She would usually take a boat out as far as she could on the cold, deep lake, then lean back with a book, and read until the sun sank low in the sky. But today there’s something strange in the air—an eerie sense of foreboding she can feel even before she pushes the rowboat from shore. She’s about three hundred yards out when she feels the boat rock.