They did, twirling the rope so fast it was almost a blur. In a world that now appeared to be going up and down on an invisible pogo-stick, he saw an old man with fly-away hair and grizzled sideburns come out on the porch like a hedgehog out of its hole, thumping along on an ironwood cane. Hello, Gran-pere, he thought, then dismissed the old man for the time being. All he wanted to do right now was keep his footing and not be the one who fucked the spin. As a little kid, he’d always loved jumping rope and always hated the idea that he had to give it over to the girls once he went to Roosevelt Elementary or be damned forever as a sissy. Later, in high school phys ed, he had briefly rediscovered the joys of jump-rope. But never had there been anything like this. It was as if he had discovered (or rediscovered) some practical magic that bound his and Susannah’s New York lives to this other life in a way that required no magic doors or magic balls, no todash state. He laughed deliriously and began to scissor his feet back and forth. A moment later Zalia Jaffords was doing the same, mimicking him step for step. It was as good as the rice-dance. Maybe better, because they were all doing it in unison.

Certainly it was magic for Susannah, and of all the wonders ahead and behind, those few moments in the Jaffordses’ dooryard always maintained their own unique luster. Not two of them jumping in tandem, not even four, but six of them, while the two great grinning idiots spun the rope as fast as their slab-like arms would allow.

Tian laughed and stomped his shor’boots and cried: “That beats the drum! Don’t it just! Yer- bugger!” And from the porch, his grandfather gave out a laugh so rusty that Susannah had to wonder how long ago he had laid that sound away in mothballs.

For another five seconds or so, the magic held. The jump-rope spun so rapidly the eye lost it and it existed as nothing but a whirring sound like a wing. The half-dozen within that whirring—from Eddie, the tallest, at Zalman’s end, to pudgy little Lyman, at Tia’s—rose and fell like pistons in a machine.

Then the rope caught on someone’s heel—Heddon’s, it looked like to Susannah, although later all would take the blame so none had to feel bad—and they sprawled in the dust, gasping and laughing. Eddie, clutching his chest, caught Susannah’s eye. “I’m havin a heart attack, sweetheart, you better call 911.”

She hoisted herself over to where he lay and put her head down so she could kiss him. “No, you’re not,” she said, “but you’re attacking my heart, Eddie Dean. I love you.”