Free Behind the Canvas by Alexander Vance Page B

enter.
    No … she needed the people at the ticket window to think she was with an adult. She started to watch the people as they entered the museum. An older man with a handlebar mustache. A few college students. A single middle-aged woman. Some tourists speaking in another language.
    There. A couple approached the museum entrance, a baby strapped to the man in one of those baby backpacks. Claudia casually fell in line behind the couple as they entered. She glanced around, but no one seemed to pay her any attention.
    Their spot in line came closer and closer to the ticket booth, until finally the woman was at the counter, paying for the tickets. Claudia waved at the baby, making exaggerated faces as though she played with the kid all the time. The baby cooed and reached for her with sticky hands. Claudia stayed close behind as the couple walked by the ticket booth, smiling at the ticket lady as she passed. The ticket lady smiled back and looked at the next patron.
    Score a point for our team, Claudia thought as she moved through the front lobby, past the chatting patrons and the coat checks. She paused for a moment at the foot of an elegant staircase. The modern stairs marched upward, arriving proudly at a platform where they split in two separate directions. On the platform rested an ebony sculpture of a torso, lit gently by the white skylight above.
    Despite her stomach tied into knots, she couldn’t help but feel a little giddy. She was back in one of the great art museums of the world.
    Claudia grabbed a map of the museum layout and climbed the stairs toward the second floor. The landing opened up into room after room of paintings and sculptures.
    â€œWell, Pim,” she whispered. “We have plenty to choose from. How do we decide?”
    â€œTo make that decision, you need to understand a little more about this world.”
    The world behind the canvas . Claudia had spent the past weeks trying to pry information out of Pim. Now she wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted it.
    They passed a security guard speaking with another patron as they entered a large gallery. With a nervous glance over her shoulder, she surveyed the paintings on the wall as Pim spoke quietly. “Each painting that exists here in your world also exists in my world but in reverse.”
    â€œIn reverse?”
    â€œRight. Although, it’s more of a window than a painting, really. There are hundreds of thousands, even millions, of paintings in your world; there are just as many windows in mine. Each window has a specific location. If I wanted to look out of that painting there of a rainy Paris street, then I would need to leave where I am and travel—walk—to where that window resides. Does that make sense?”
    Claudia shrugged. “I guess so. You told me that last night with Granny Custos.” She motioned to the painting filled with French people in long coats with black umbrellas. “And if I enter this painting, am I going to come out behind the canvas in the middle of Paris?”
    â€œNo, no. The window-paintings are usually found in random groups, hidden in out-of-the-way places. You would come out where the window-painting is physically located. Places and things are usually located in the same region as their window-paintings, but it’s an enormous world. If you went through this painting, you would still have a long walk through my world before you came to this Parisian street.”
    â€œGot it. I think.”
    â€œGood,” Pim continued. “Nee Gezicht keeps a painting in her attic. I know where the window-painting for it is here in this world. So right now we need to find a painting that will bring you into this world at a point close to Nee Gezicht’s painting. But it also needs to be close enough to the window-painting I’m standing at now that I can travel there to meet you. Do you understand?”
    It took a moment for Pim’s words to register, and