A resounding crunch interrupted me. Laz and I turned to see Jane reaching through the smashed-in window of a 1987 AMC Eagle station wagon. She flipped the sun visor down, keys fell into her palm, and she jangled them at us. “We’ll drive.”

I gawked, then threw my hands in the air. Stealing cars, what the hell, it wasn’t my world anyway. If there was a Joanne Walker up in Seattle to get blamed for it, I would feel very bad, but if this world had a Joanne Walker, it seemed to me like she should be the one down in the Big Easy, fighting this world’s fight. For a moment I wondered if, if there had been a Jo here, what had happened to her, and then decided I really didn’t want to know and said, “I’ll drive,” instead of pursuing the thought.

I never let anybody else drive if I could help it, even if I didn’t know the territory. I’d been the best driver in my class at the police academy, and it was a point of pride. I figured I’d have to argue it, but to my astonishment, Jane handed the keys over, got in the front passenger’s seat. Laz got in behind me, and Jane played navigator all the way out of the city limits toward the rich green swamps of the bayou.

Any other time in my life and I’d have reveled in just the drive. The roads weren’t good, but I’d cut my teeth on narrow, twisting Appalachian trails, so not good was a familiar variable. And the rest of it was amazing, the rich green scent of rot from old trees and stagnant water accompanying the endless buzz of mosquitoes, loud enough to be heard over the Eagle’s engine when we paused a time or two to decide which way to go. There were alligators and snapping turtles and birds I didn’t know the names of out there, and I dearly wanted to stop the car and roll around in it all. On the other hand, I also dearly wanted to know how we’d gotten to this world, and rolling around in slimy, duckweed-coated water would not get us any answers.