But that wasn't the worst of it. They were incomplete representations of themselves into the bargain. Neither of them had mouths; the woman's face was simply a sketched outline, Mario's a drawing of an irregular lump of putty. Fleetwood stared at them; he didn't know what he had expected—perhaps that they would be transformed like himself. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place. He looked about.
The room had become a vague, unreal area in time, containing only a fireplace, a divan and two doorways. Looking on its clouded grey confines, he felt himself hovering crazily between fact and fancy. But this time he wasn't puzzled or frightened by the sensation. Turning, he forced himself to move against the room and away from it, out of the house. It was hard to make progress in a world where space and distance stretched and contracted in alternate convulsions, where substance did not exist upon which to gain a footing....
"Well for Pete's sake!" Kitty sputtered. "So you came back!"
Fleetwood glanced up and shook his head. She was gazing at him from across the counter.
"Uh-huh," he said vaguely.
"Well, you still owe me ten cents." She held out her hand. "The way you pop in and out of here like you were magic, I'm not taking any more chances. Pay up."
Fleetwood fished about in his pocket and, much to his own surprise, withdrew a coin. He held it out for Kitty's critical inspection.
"Four bits," she said. "I'll bring you your change." She went to the cash register and, after the necessary manipulations, returned with three smaller coins. "I had you figured for a deadbeat," she said. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay Kitty," Fleetwood said.